answerdotai/enwiki · Datasets at Hugging Face

id int64 39 7.13M	title stringlengths 1 182	article_text stringlengths 1 5.97M	last_updated timestamp[s]date 2025-06-20 00:00:00 2025-06-20 00:00:00
5,449	Geography of Cameroon	At 475440 km2, 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 472710 km2, with 2730 km2 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 {#natural_regions} `{{MapLibrary\|Cameroon_sat.png\|Cameroon}}`{=mediawiki} 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 10 to 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 km^2^ 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 1500 to. 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 3400 ft. 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 405 in. ## 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: 6 N 12 E region:CM_type:country Continent: Africa Area:\ total: 475,440 km2\ land: 472,710 km2\ water: 2,730 km2\ 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 `{{sfrac\|1\|10}}`{=mediawiki} 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: 12 nmi 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 km^2^ (2003) Total renewable water resources: 285.5 km^3^ (2011) Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural):\ total: 0.97 km^3^/yr (23%/10%/68%)\ per capita: 58.9 m^3^/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 {#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	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 (Peul or Peuhl; Fulɓe) (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 `{{UN_Population\|source}}`{=mediawiki} the total population was `{{UN_Population\|Cameroon}}`{=mediawiki} in `{{UN_Population\|Year}}`{=mediawiki}, 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. Total population Population aged 0--14 (%) Population aged 15--64 (%) Population aged 65+ (%) ------ ------------------ --------------------------- ---------------------------- ------------------------- 1950 4 466 000 39.6 56.9 3.5 1955 4 901 000 40.1 56.4 3.5 1960 5 409 000 40.6 55.9 3.6 1965 6 049 000 41.5 54.9 3.6 1970 6 842 000 42.4 54.0 3.6 1975 7 838 000 43.6 52.7 3.7 1980 9 110 000 44.6 51.8 3.6 1985 10 519 000 45.2 51.2 3.6 1990 12 181 000 45.2 51.3 3.6 1995 13 940 000 44.4 52.1 3.5 2000 15 678 000 42.8 53.7 3.5 2005 17 554 000 41.6 54.9 3.5 2010 19 599 000 40.6 55.9 3.5 Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (01.I.2010) (Data refer to national projections.): Age Group Male Female Total \% ----------- ----------- ----------- ------------ --------- Total 9 599 224 9 806 876 19 406 100 100 0--4 1 662 298 1 624 936 3 287 234 16.94 5--9 1 412 467 1 370 992 2 783 459 14.34 10--14 1 227 470 1 167 201 2 394 671 12.34 15--19 1 068 509 1 101 526 2 170 035 11.18 20--24 855 334 981 955 1 837 289 9.47 25--29 712 550 813 266 1 525 816 7.86 30--34 588 210 621 397 1 209 607 6.23 35--39 460 394 482 319 942 713 4.86 40--44 388 539 405 307 793 846 4.09 45--49 323 507 316 740 640 247 3.30 50--54 261 626 260 284 521 910 2.69 55--59 178 876 159 112 337 988 1.74 60--64 155 208 160 671 315 879 1.63 65--69 110 645 116 645 227 290 1.17 70--74 88 969 100 602 189 571 0.98 75--79 47 173 50 905 98 078 0.51 80--84 31 609 39 976 71 585 0.37 85--89 12 109 14 455 26 564 0.14 90--94 6 942 8 773 15 715 0.08 95+ 6 789 9 814 16 603 0.09 Age group Male Female Total Percent 0--14 4 302 235 4 163 129 8 465 364 43.62 15--64 4 992 753 5 302 577 10 295 330 53.05 65+ 304 236 341 170 645 406 3.33 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).): Age Group Male Female Total \% ----------- ------------ ------------ ------------ --------- Total 12 609 256 12 883 098 25 492 354 100 0--4 1 904 057 1 975 656 3 879 713 15.22 5--9 1 720 605 1 757 707 3 478 312 13.64 10--14 1 574 388 1 524 415 3 098 803 12.16 15--19 1 386 436 1 346 672 2 733 108 10.72 20--24 1 213 959 1 171 500 2 385 459 9.36 25--29 1 035 624 985 314 2 020 938 7.93 30--34 888 422 967 529 1 855 951 7.28 35--39 684 460 786 728 1 471 188 5.77 40--44 584 695 650 891 1 235 586 4.85 45--49 438 096 447 171 885 267 3.47 50--54 352 927 392 864 745 791 2.93 55--59 275 690 281 896 557 586 2.19 60--64 220 891 242 450 463 341 1.82 65--69 143 542 141 522 285 064 1.12 70--74 101 474 110 948 212 422 0.83 75--79 49 486 55 219 104 705 0.41 80+ 34 504 44 616 79 120 0.31 Age group Male Female Total Percent 0--14 5 199 050 5 257 778 10 456 828 41.02 15--64 7 130 686 7 273 015 14 403 701 56.50 65+ 279 520 352 305 631 825 2.48 ### Demographic and Health Surveys {#demographic_and_health_surveys} Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Year CBR (Total) TFR (Total) CBR (Urban) TFR (Urban) CBR (Rural) TFR (Rural) ------ ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- 1991 39 5.82 (5.17) 5.17 (4.52) 6.29 (5.66) 1998 37.4 5.2 (4.6) 31.5 3.9 (3.4) 40.1 5.8 (5.3) 2004 37.8 5.0 (4.5) 34.9 4.0 (3.7) 40.5 6.1 (5.6) 2011 38.1 5.1 (4.5) 34.6 4.0 41.3 6.4 2018 36.8 4.8 (4.3) 32.9 3.8 (3.4) 40.7 6.0 (5.5) Fertility data as of 2011 (DHS Program): Region Total fertility rate Percentage of women age 15--49 currently pregnant Mean number of children ever born to women age 40--49 -------------------------- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Adamaoua 5.2 8.6 6.5 Centre (except Yaoundé) 5.6 8.8 5.5 Douala 3.2 8.1 4.5 Est 5.4 12.0 5.6 Extrême-Nord 6.8 14.8 7.3 Littoral (except Douala) 4.6 8.4 5.1 Nord 6.5 12.4 7.1 Nord-Ouest 4.4 6.9 5.4 Ouest 6.0 10.1 5.8 Sud 4.6 9.6 5.2 Sud-Ouest 4.0 7.6 5.5 Yaoundé 3.5 6.5 4.4 ## Vital statistics {#vital_statistics} Registration of vital events is in Cameroon not complete. The Population Departement of the United Nations prepared the following estimates. Year Mid-year population Live births Deaths per Natural change CBR\* CDR\* NC\* IMR\* TFR\* Life expectancy (years) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------- ------------- ------------ ---------------- ------- ------- ------ ------- ------- ------------------------- 1950 4 316 000 187 000 121 000 66 000 43.2 28.1 15.2 194.2 5.54 34.46 1951 4 382 000 189 000 122 000 67 000 43.2 27.9 15.2 193.1 5.52 34.64 1952 4 450 000 192 000 123 000 68 000 43.0 27.7 15.4 190.9 5.49 35.01 1953 4 519 000 194 000 123 000 71 000 43.0 27.3 15.6 188.5 5.47 35.43 1954 4 592 000 197 000 122 000 76 000 42.9 26.5 16.5 182.7 5.47 36.42 1955 4 671 000 201 000 120 000 81 000 43.0 25.7 17.3 177.3 5.47 37.36 1956 4 754 000 205 000 119 000 86 000 43.1 25.0 18.1 172.0 5.49 38.35 1957 4 841 000 209 000 122 000 88 000 43.3 25.1 18.2 167.0 5.51 38.26 1958 4 932 000 214 000 121 000 94 000 43.5 24.5 19.0 162.4 5.55 39.10 1959 5 028 000 220 000 121 000 99 000 43.7 24.0 19.8 158.3 5.59 39.84 1960 5 118 000 226 000 147 000 80 000 44.2 28.6 15.5 154.8 5.65 34.82 1961 5 200 000 232 000 146 000 86 000 44.7 28.2 16.5 151.9 5.71 35.41 1962 5 304 000 239 000 118 000 121 000 45.1 22.3 22.8 149.6 5.77 42.52 1963 5 428 000 246 000 120 000 126 000 45.3 22.0 23.3 147.5 5.83 42.92 1964 5 556 000 252 000 121 000 131 000 45.4 21.8 23.6 145.3 5.89 43.31 1965 5 690 000 258 000 122 000 137 000 45.4 21.4 24.0 142.7 5.95 43.89 1966 5 830 000 265 000 122 000 142 000 45.4 21.0 24.4 139.6 6.00 44.44 1967 5 975 000 271 000 122 000 149 000 45.3 20.4 24.9 135.8 6.06 45.18 1968 6 127 000 277 000 121 000 156 000 45.2 19.8 25.4 131.7 6.11 45.98 1969 6 286 000 283 000 121 000 163 000 45.1 19.2 25.9 127.5 6.14 46.82 1970 6 453 000 291 000 120 000 171 000 45.1 18.6 26.5 123.4 6.20 47.58 1971 6 627 000 299 000 120 000 179 000 45.1 18.1 27.0 119.9 6.26 48.25 1972 6 809 000 306 000 120 000 186 000 45.0 17.6 27.3 117.0 6.28 48.90 1973 6 999 000 315 000 121 000 193 000 44.9 17.3 27.6 115.0 6.31 49.32 1974 7 195 000 323 000 123 000 200 000 44.9 17.1 27.7 113.8 6.34 49.57 1975 7 397 000 332 000 126 000 206 000 44.9 17.0 27.9 113.1 6.39 49.72 1976 7 598 000 344 000 129 000 215 000 45.2 16.9 28.3 112.6 6.45 49.88 1977 7 797 000 355 000 132 000 223 000 45.4 16.9 28.6 111.9 6.52 50.00 1978 8 013 000 365 000 134 000 232 000 45.6 16.7 28.9 110.9 6.56 50.28 1979 8 243 000 378 000 136 000 242 000 45.8 16.5 29.3 109.4 6.61 50.58 1980 8 520 000 390 000 137 000 253 000 45.9 16.2 29.8 107.3 6.66 51.04 1981 8 829 000 407 000 139 000 267 000 46.1 15.8 30.3 104.6 6.64 51.52 1982 9 047 000 421 000 141 000 281 000 46.2 15.4 30.8 101.6 6.62 52.09 1983 9 241 000 422 000 138 000 284 000 45.6 14.9 30.7 98.3 6.61 52.76 1984 9 509 000 431 000 138 000 293 000 45.3 14.5 30.8 95.1 6.59 53.22 1985 9 804 000 444 000 138 000 306 000 45.2 14.0 31.2 92.0 6.58 53.90 1986 10 113 000 459 000 140 000 318 000 45.3 13.9 31.5 89.6 6.59 54.04 1987 10 434 000 471 000 140 000 332 000 45.2 13.4 31.8 87.2 6.56 54.72 1988 10 760 000 482 000 142 000 340 000 44.7 13.2 31.5 85.9 6.50 54.93 1989 11 089 000 492 000 145 000 347 000 44.4 13.1 31.3 85.3 6.44 54.95 1990 11 431 000 505 000 150 000 355 000 44.1 13.1 31.0 85.5 6.39 54.87 1991 11 778 000 517 000 155 000 362 000 43.9 13.2 30.7 86.3 6.35 54.66 1992 12 129 000 528 000 160 000 368 000 43.5 13.2 30.3 87.4 6.29 54.48 1993 12 487 000 538 000 167 000 372 000 43.1 13.4 29.7 88.7 6.19 54.06 1994 12 849 000 549 000 174 000 374 000 42.7 13.6 29.1 89.9 6.08 53.53 1995 13 212 000 556 000 180 000 376 000 42.1 13.6 28.5 90.7 5.96 53.22 1996 13 575 000 564 000 187 000 377 000 41.5 13.8 27.7 91.4 5.83 52.82 1997 13 941 000 573 000 191 000 382 000 41.1 13.7 27.4 91.6 5.72 52.74 1998 14 315 000 588 000 197 000 391 000 41.1 13.7 27.3 91.5 5.67 52.58 1999 14 699 000 607 000 200 000 407 000 41.3 13.6 27.7 90.6 5.63 52.70 2000 15 092 000 620 000 203 000 417 000 41.0 13.4 27.6 89.4 5.53 52.93 2001 15 493 000 632 000 205 000 427 000 40.8 13.2 27.5 87.9 5.44 53.14 2002 15 914 000 652 000 208 000 445 000 41.0 13.0 27.9 86.1 5.46 53.42 2003 16 354 000 674 000 209 000 465 000 41.2 12.8 28.4 84.3 5.46 53.88 2004 16 809 000 694 000 211 000 483 000 41.3 12.6 28.7 82.5 5.45 54.18 2005 17 275 000 711 000 215 000 496 000 41.1 12.4 28.7 80.8 5.41 54.36 2006 17 751 000 728 000 215 000 513 000 41.0 12.1 28.9 79.1 5.35 54.86 2007 18 252 000 745 000 217 000 528 000 40.8 11.9 28.9 77.4 5.33 55.17 2008 18 777 000 762 000 218 000 544 000 40.6 11.6 29.0 75.5 5.28 55.66 2009 19 319 000 779 000 218 000 561 000 40.3 11.3 29.0 73.7 5.23 56.10 2010 19 878 000 795 000 219 000 576 000 40.0 11.0 29.0 71.4 5.16 56.58 2011 20 449 000 805 000 218 000 588 000 39.4 10.6 28.7 69.1 5.06 57.13 2012 21 033 000 815 000 215 000 600 000 38.8 10.2 28.5 66.6 4.99 57.79 2013 21 633 000 827 000 213 000 615 000 38.2 9.8 28.4 64.0 4.91 58.48 2014 22 300 000 842 000 212 000 629 000 37.8 9.5 28.3 61.6 4.86 58.94 2015 23 013 000 869 000 211 000 658 000 37.8 9.2 28.6 59.1 4.83 59.66 2016 23 712 000 895 000 211 000 684 000 37.7 8.9 28.9 56.9 4.82 60.23 2017 24 393 000 913 000 210 000 703 000 37.4 8.6 28.8 54.8 4.77 60.81 2018 25 077 000 921 000 210 000 711 000 36.7 8.4 28.3 53.0 4.69 61.18 2019 25 506 000 923 000 208 000 715 000 36.2 8.2 28.0 53.3 4.65 61.7 2020 26 211 000 929 000 212 000 716 000 35.4 8.1 27.3 51.8 4.56 61.7 2021 26 916 000 936 000 222 000 714 000 34.8 8.3 26.5 59.3 4.47 61.1 2022 27 633 000 947 000 212 000 735 000 34.3 7.7 26.6 48.8 4.40 62.4 2023 28 373 000 957 000 203 000 755 000 33.7 7.2 26.6 47.4 4.32 63.7 \* CBR = crude birth rate (per 1,000); CDR = crude death rate (per 1,000); NC = natural change (per 1,000); IMR = infant mortality rate per 1,000 births; TFR = total fertility rate (number of children per woman) ## Ethnic groups {#ethnic_groups} - Cameroon Highlanders 31% - Equatorial Bantu 19% - Kirdi 11% - Fulani 10% - Baggara Arabs (also called Arab Shuwa) - Hausa - Mafa - Kanuri - Northwestern Bantu 8% - Eastern Nigritic 7% - Other African 13% - Non-African less than 1% ## Languages Main article: Languages of Cameroon There are 24 major African language groups in Cameroon; additionally, English and French are official languages. Cameroonian Pidgin English is also widely spoken. Peoples concentrated in the Southwest and Northwest Provinces---around Buea and Bamenda---use standard English and Cameroonian Pidgin English, as well as their local languages. In the three northern provinces---Adamawa, North, and Far North---either French or Fulfulde (the language of the Fulani) is widely spoken. Elsewhere, French is the principal second language, although pidgin and some local languages such as Ewondo, the dialect of a Beti clan from the Yaoundé area, have a wide currency. In Far North Region the northernmost constituent province of Cameroon, Mafa Language Arab Shuwa (an Arab dialect) and is spoken by the Baggara Arabs (also called Arab Shuwa). 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.)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 {#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 {#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 {#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 {#political_parties_and_elections} ## Judicial branch {#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 {#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 {#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	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,452	Economy of Cameroon	The economy of Cameroon was one of the most prosperous in Africa for a quarter of a century after independence. The drop in commodity prices for its principal exports -- petroleum, cocoa, coffee, and cotton -- in the mid-1980s, combined with an overvalued currency and economic mismanagement, led to a decade-long recession. Real per capita GDP fell by more than 60% from 1986 to 1994. The current account and fiscal deficits widened, and foreign debt grew. Yet because of its oil reserves and favorable agricultural conditions, Cameroon still has one of the best-endowed primary commodity economies in sub-Saharan Africa. ## Agriculture In 2018, Cameroon produced: - 5 million tons of cassava (13th largest producer in the world); - 3.9 million tonnes of plantain (3rd largest producer in the world, only behind Congo and Ghana); - 2.6 million tons of palm oil (7th largest producer in the world); - 2.3 million tons of maize; - 1.9 million tons of taro (3rd largest producer in the world, second only to Nigeria and China); - 1.4 million tons of sorghum; - 1.2 million tons of banana; - 1.2 million tons of sugarcane; - 1 million 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 {#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). Less than 5 percent of Cameroonians have access to a bank account. While the microfinance sector is consequently becoming increasingly important, its development is hampered by a loose regulatory and supervisory framework for microfinance institutions (MFIs). The banking sector is highly concentrated and dominated by foreign commercial banks. 6 out of the 11 largest commercial banks are foreign-owned, and the three largest banks hold more than 50 percent of total financial system assets. While foreign banks generally display good solvency ratios, small domestic banks are in a much weaker position. Their capitalization is well below the average of banks in the CEMAC region and their profits are close to 2 percent, compared to 20 percent for foreign banks in the country. This is partially explained by the high levels of non-performing loans, which reached 12 percent in 2007, leading to most banks holding large amounts of excess reserves as a percentage of deposits and large levels of unutilized liquidity. 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 {#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. thumb\\|left\\|upright=1.25\\|Cameroonian exports in 2006 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](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2006/01/data/dbcselm.cfm?G=2001) by the International Monetary Fund with figures in millions of Central African CFA Francs. Year Gross Domestic Product US Dollar Exchange ------ ------------------------ -------------------- 1980 1,600,186 209.20 Francs 1985 4,355,977 471.12 Francs 1990 3,804,428 300.65 Francs 1995 4,686,286 518.62 Francs 2000 6,612,385 658.21 Francs 2005 8,959,279 527.29 Francs The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980--2022. Inflation below 5% is in green. Year GDP (in Bil. US\$PPP) GDP per capita (in US\$ PPP) GDP (in Bil. US\$nominal) GDP growth (real) Inflation rate (in Percent) Government debt (in % of GDP) ------ ----------------------- ------------------------------ --------------------------- ------------------- ----------------------------- ------------------------------- 1980 11.1 1,263 8.85 9.9% 7.7% n/a 1981 14.3 1,572 10.03 17.1% 7.5% n/a 1982 16.3 1,747 9.62 7.6% 15.3% n/a 1983 18.1 1,887 9.69 6.8% 20.5% n/a 1984 20.1 2,047 10.24 7.5% 12.1% n/a 1985 22.4 2,223 10.70 8.1% 4.2% n/a 1986 24.4 2,357 13.95 6.8% 4.3% n/a 1987 24.5 2,298 16.15 -2.2% 2.8% n/a 1988 23.4 2,129 16.40 -7.9% 1.7% n/a 1989 23.9 2,110 14.63 -1.8% 1.6% n/a 1990 23.2 1,992 14.64 -6.2% 1.5% n/a 1991 23.1 1,922 16.33 -3.8% -0.6% n/a 1992 22.9 1,850 14.96 -3.1% 1.9% n/a 1993 22.7 1,780 15.61 -3.2% -3.7% n/a 1994 22.6 1,722 10.62 -2.5% 12.7% n/a 1995 23.9 1,766 10.08 3.3% 25.8% n/a 1996 25.5 1,836 11.23 4.9% 3.9% n/a 1997 27.3 1,913 11.35 5.3% 4.8% n/a 1998 29.0 1,974 11.34 4.9% 3.2% 68% 1999 30.6 2,026 11.55 4.1% 1.8% 68% 2000 32.3 2,084 10.25 3.4% 1.2% 76% 2001 34.2 2,145 10.95 3.4% 4.5% 62% 2002 36.4 2,224 12.37 4.8% 2.8% 57% 2003 38.9 2,318 15.94 5.0% 0.6% 52% 2004 42.6 2,469 18.80 6.6% 0.3% 52% 2005 44.5 2,509 19.53 1.2% 2.0% 44% 2006 47.5 2,605 20.91 3.5% 4.9% 18% 2007 50.8 2,710 23.93 4.1% 1.1% 14% 2008 53.2 2,764 27.71 2.9% 5.3% 11% 2009 55.0 2,777 27.90 2.6% 3.0% 11% 2010 57.2 2,814 27.53 2.9% 1.3% 14% 2011 60.5 2,892 30.63 3.5% 3.0% 15% 2012 63.6 2,959 30.17 4.5% 2.4% 15% 2013 69.1 3,130 33.73 5.0% 2.1% 17% 2014 75.1 3,313 36.40 5.8% 1.9% 21% 2015 79.1 3,396 32.21 5.6% 2.7% 32% 2016 84.4 3,527 33.81 4.5% 0.9% 32% 2017 90.0 3,665 36.09 3.5% 0.6% 37% 2018 95.9 3,803 39.99 4.0% 1.1% 38% 2019 101.0 3,901 39.67 3.4% 2.5% 42% 2020 102.7 3,870 40.86 0.5% 2.5% 45% 2021 110.9 4,073 45.39 3.6% 2.3% 46% 2022 123.3 4,419 44.32 3.8% 4.6% 47% ## Mining ## Gallery <File:Douala.JPG>\\|Douala <File:Limbe1.png%7CA> 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	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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_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); - 2 AM, 9 FM, and 3 shortwave stations (2001). - Television stations: - state-owned Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV), 2 private TV broadcasters (2007); - one station (2001). BBC World Service radio is available via local relays (98.4 FM in Yaounde, the capital). 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. Approximately 375 privately owned radio stations were operating in 2012, three-fourths of them in Yaounde and Douala. The government requires nonprofit rural radio stations to submit applications to broadcast, but they were exempt from licensing fees. Commercial radio and television broadcasters must submit a licensing application and pay an application fee and thereafter pay a high annual licensing fee. Several rural community radio stations function with foreign funding. The government prohibits these stations from discussing politics. In spite of the government\'s tight control, Reporters Without Borders reported in its 2011 field survey that \"\[i\]t is clear from the diversity of the media and the outspoken reporting style that press freedom is a reality\". ## Telephones - Calling code: +237 - International call prefix: 00 - Main lines: - 737,400 lines in use, 88th in the world (2012); - 130,700 lines in use (2006). - Mobile cellular: - 13.1 million lines, 64th in the world (2012); - 4.5 million lines (2007). - Telephone system: system includes cable, microwave radio relay, and tropospheric scatter; Camtel, the monopoly provider of fixed-line service, provides connections for only about 3 per 100 persons; equipment is old and outdated, and connections with many parts of the country are unreliable; mobile-cellular usage, in part a reflection of the poor condition and general inadequacy of the fixed-line network, has increased sharply, reaching a subscribership base of 50 per 100 persons (2011). - Communications cables: South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable (SAT-3/WASC) fiber-optic cable system provides connectivity to Europe and Asia (2011); Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), cable system connecting countries along the west coast of Africa to each other and to Portugal and France, is planned. - Satellite earth stations: 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2011). ## Internet - Top-level domain: .cm - Internet users: - 1.1 million users, 113th in the world; 5.7% of the population, 184th in the world (2012). - 985,565 users (2011); - 749,600 users, 106th in the world (2009). - Fixed broadband: 1,006 subscriptions, 180th in the world; less than 0.05% of the population, 190th in the world (2012). - Wireless broadband: Unknown (2012). - Internet hosts: - 10,207 hosts, 134th in the world (2012); - 69 hosts (2008). - IPv4: 137,728 addresses allocated, less than 0.05% of the world total, 6.8 addresses per 1000 people (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 {#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.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 Main article: Rail transport in Cameroon 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 {#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 {#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 {#airports___with_unpaved_runways} \ total: 24\ 1,524 to 2,437 m: 4\ 914 to 1,523 m: 14\ under 914 m: 6 (2008)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,455	Cameroon Armed Forces	The Cameroon Armed Forces (Forces armées camerounaises (FAC)) 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 Rapid Response Brigade (Cameroon) (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 {#st_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 {#nd_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 - 21st BCS in Buéa - 21 BIM in Buéa - 22nd BIM at Mamfé - 23rd BIM at Loum - 24th BIM at Akwaya - 21st BA in Kumba - 201st Douala Air Base - 21st Air Transport Squadron - 211st Transport and Assault Transport Squadron - 212nd Transport and Assault Transport Squadron - 22nd Air Squadron - 221st Transport and Assault Transport Squadron - 222nd Reconnaissance Squadron ### Army equipment {#army_equipment} ## Cameroonian Air Force {#cameroonian_air_force} The air force has bases in Garoua, Koutaba, Yaoundé, Douala, and Bamenda. The Cameroonian Air Force was founded in 1960, the year of independence from France. There are under 400 troops in the air force. Cameroon\'s Air Force has 9 combat-capable aircraft. ## Cameroon Navy {#cameroon_navy} There are about 1,300 troops in the navy including naval infantry. ### History Around May 1999, Philip Njaru wrote a newspaper article where he alleged ill-treatment of civilians conducted by the 21st Navy Battalion based in Ekondo-Titi. In late May Njaru was approached by the local captain who asked Njaru \"to stop writing such articles and to disclose his sources\". Refusing to do this, Njaru five days later found his house encircled by armed soldiers, and escaped to Kumba. Here, he was assaulted by police in June 2001, with no particular reason stated. Njaru complained to the local authorities, but later learned that \"his complaint had not been received\". Cameroon\'s Marine Nationale République modernised and increased its capabilities during 2000 with the acquisition of a number of small Rodman patrol craft and the retirement of some small older craft. A number of small patrol boats have been acquired or ordered from France. Latest estimates indicate naval strength consists of two combat patrol vessels, three coastal patrol vessels and approximately 30 smaller inshore and river patrol craft allocated to both the navy and the local gendarmerie. These include two 135 tonne Yunnan-class landing craft, which are able to carry and launch smaller craft for troop insertions. Some effort has been made to assess equipment needs to bring L\'Audacieux P103 and Bakassi P104 to an effective combat status. This has resulted in weapons capabilities being reduced in favour of an increase in serviceability and the service is now effectively without missile attack capabilities. Bakassi (a Type P 48S missile patrol craft) completed a major refit at Lorient, France in August 1999. This included removing the Exocet missile system and EW equipment, and fitting a funnel aft of the mainmast to replace the waterline exhausts. New radars were also installed. Bakassi is now armed only with 40 mm cannon. Although the Bizerte (P48 large patrol craft) class L\'Audacieux is fitted for SS-12M missiles these are not embarked and its operational status is in some doubt, having not been reported at sea since 1995. The Quartier-Maître Alfred Moto patrol boat was listed as out of service in 1991 but has since been reactivated. ### Ships List of active ships. - 1: DIPIKAR patrol boat (former French navy \"Grèbe\", upgraded with LYNCEA PATROL CMS) (Gun) - 2: FRA P-48 (Gun) - 6: Rodman 101/46 (Gun) - 1: Quartier class (Gun) - 3: Boston Whaler patrol boats - 1: Bakassi class patrol boat (P48S type) - 1: L'Audacieux class missile FAC (P48 type) - 1: Alfred Motto class patrol craft - 20: Swiftships type river boats - 2: Yunnan landing craft utility - 8: Simoneau - 2: Aresa 2400 CPV Defender patrol boats - 1: Aresa 2300 landing craft - 6: Aresa 750 Commandos RIBs - 5: 1200 Stealth RIBs - 1: 1200 Defcon RIB - 2: P108 and P109 patrol boats ## Gendarmerie The Gendarmerie is a paramilitary force composed of about 9,000 soldiers as of 2016. It performs both law enforcement and national security responsibilities across the country. (See [Gendarmerie](https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/africa/cm-gendarmerie.htm)) ## Military education {#military_education} After an initial period of development, training requirements were formalized in an April 1967 per government decree. There was a shortage of Cameroonian instructors at that time. The two educational institutions of the nation are the following: - Combined Services Military Academy (Ecole Militaire Interarmes Camerounaises---EMIAC): It is the interforce academy for officers, being the educational center for future officers of the armed forces and the National Gendarmerie. It was established in 1959 and inaugurated on 18 January 1961. 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.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 `{{Historical populations \|title=Census population \|percentages=pagr \|1940\|181,740 \|1950\|149,984 \|1960\|199,902 \|1970\|270,999 \|1980\|295,703 \|1990\|341,491 \|2000\|431,989 \|2010\|491,875 \|2021\|491,233 \|source = <ref>{{cite web\|url=https://ine.cv/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/evolucao-da-populacao-residente-em-cabo-verde-1900-2010.pdf\|title=Evolução da população residente em Cabo Verde por Ilha Concelho\|website=ine.cv}}</ref> }}`{=mediawiki} According to `{{UN_Population\|source}}`{=mediawiki} the total population was `{{UN_Population\|Cabo Verde}}`{=mediawiki} in `{{UN_Population\|Year}}`{=mediawiki}, 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. Year Total Ages 0--14 (%) Ages 15--64 (%) Ages 65+ (%) ------ --------- ---------------- ----------------- -------------- 1950 178,000 32.6 59.8 7.6 1955 195,000 35.8 57.9 6.2 1960 211,000 42.1 53.2 4.8 1965 240,000 48.5 47.3 4.2 1970 274,000 48.2 47.8 4 1975 311,000 45.8 49.6 4.6 1980 300,000 46.0 48.7 5.3 1985 328,000 44.5 50.5 5 1990 348,000 45.4 49.8 4.8 1995 395,000 44.5 50.5 5 2000 437,000 41.7 52.9 5.3 2005 473,000 37.0 57.2 5.8 2010 496,000 31.8 62.3 5.9 : Progression of the population Age Group Male Female Total \% ----------- --------- --------- --------- --------- Total 243 403 248 280 491 683 100 0--4 25 131 25 069 50 200 10.21 5--9 25 168 25 040 50 208 10.21 10--14 27 864 27 361 55 225 11.23 15--19 29 655 29 405 59 060 12.01 20--24 27 327 25 578 52 905 10.76 25--29 23 336 21 005 44 341 9.02 30--34 18 165 16 339 34 504 7.02 35--39 14 106 13 130 27 236 5.54 40--44 12 988 13 303 26 291 5.35 45--49 11 347 12 165 23 512 4.78 50--54 8 162 9 999 18 161 3.69 55--59 4 947 7 196 12 143 2.47 60--64 2 613 3 580 6 193 1.26 65--69 2 499 3 716 6 215 1.26 70--74 3 437 5 229 8 666 1.76 75--79 2 980 4 453 7 433 1.51 80--84 2 092 3 185 5 277 1.07 85--89 827 1 358 2 185 0.44 90--94 377 696 1 073 0.22 95+ 172 325 497 0.10 Age group Male Female Total Percent 0--14 78 163 77 470 155 633 31.65 15--64 152 646 151 700 304 346 61.90 65+ 12 384 18 962 31 346 6.38 Unknown 210 148 358 0.07 Age Group Male Female Total \% ----------- --------- --------- --------- --------- Total 281 533 275 324 556 857 100 0--4 26 739 25 524 52 264 9.39 5--9 26 162 24 973 51 135 9.18 10--14 25 262 25 389 50 651 9.10 15--19 23 734 23 483 47 218 8.48 20--24 23 955 22 461 46 416 8.34 25--29 28 159 26 015 54 173 9.73 30--34 28 603 24 995 53 597 9.62 35--39 24 111 20 484 44 595 8.01 40--44 18 738 15 923 34 660 6.22 45--49 14 043 12 780 26 822 4.82 50--54 12 282 12 693 24 974 4.48 55--59 10 437 11 557 21 994 3.95 60--64 7 125 9 226 16 351 2.94 65--69 4 080 6 402 10 482 1.88 70--74 2 050 2 955 5 006 0.90 75--79 1 722 2 772 4 494 0.81 80--84 2 037 3 496 5 533 0.99 85--89 1 443 2 389 3 833 0.69 90--94 682 1 249 1 931 0.35 95+ 170 560 730 0.13 Age group Male Female Total Percent 0--14 78 163 75 886 154 049 27.66 15--64 191 186 179 615 370 801 66.59 65+ 12 184 19 823 32 007 5.75 Age Group Male Female Total \% ----------- --------- --------- --------- --------- Total 246 363 244 870 491 233 100 0--4 23 111 22 429 45 540 9.27 5--9 23 533 23 086 46 619 9.49 10--14 23 809 22 771 46 580 9.48 15--19 21 903 20 401 42 304 8.61 20--24 20 391 18 159 38 550 7.85 25--29 22 481 21 665 44 146 8.99 30--34 22 552 21 681 44 233 9.00 35--39 19 217 18 105 37 322 7.60 40--44 15 820 14 259 30 079 6.12 45--49 12 269 11 347 23 616 4.81 50--54 11 257 11 224 22 481 4.58 55--59 10 001 10 682 20 683 4.21 60--64 7 536 8 765 16 301 3.32 65--69 4 496 6 510 11 006 2.24 70--74 2 347 3 279 5 626 1.15 75--79 1 685 2 842 4 527 0.92 80--84 1 839 3 404 5 243 1.07 85--89 1 257 2 473 3 730 0.76 90--94 648 1 316 1 964 0.40 95+ 211 472 683 1.39 Age group Male Female Total Percent 0--14 70 453 68 286 138 739 28.24 15--64 163 427 156 288 319 715 65.08 65+ 12 483 20 296 32 779 6.67 ## Vital statistics {#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. Period Live births per year Deaths per year Natural change per year CBR\* CDR\* NC\* TFR\* IMR\* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------- ----------------- ------------------------- ------- ------- ------ ------- ------- 1950--1955 9 000 4 000 5 000 49.0 22.6 26.3 6.57 139 1955--1960 10 000 4 000 5 000 48.0 21.1 26.9 6.76 132 1960--1965 10 000 4 000 6 000 45.0 18.7 26.3 6.97 125 1965--1970 11 000 4 000 6 000 41.4 16.4 25.0 6.97 117 1970--1975 12 000 4 000 8 000 41.1 13.4 27.7 6.86 96 1975--1980 13 000 4 000 9 000 41.6 11.6 30.0 6.62 78 1980--1985 13 000 3 000 10 000 41.3 10.3 31.0 6.10 65 1985--1990 14 000 3 000 11 000 40.9 9.2 31.7 5.63 54 1990--1995 14 000 3 000 11 000 36.5 7.9 28.6 4.93 44 1995--2000 13 000 3 000 10 000 31.6 6.7 24.9 4.15 37 2000--2005 12 000 3 000 9 000 26.2 5.8 20.5 3.28 28 2005--2010 11 000 3 000 8 000 21.9 5.2 16.7 2.60 21 \* CBR = crude birth rate (per 1000); CDR = crude death rate (per 1000); NC = natural change (per 1000); IMR = infant mortality rate per 1000 births; TFR = total fertility rate (number of children per woman) ### Registered births and deaths {#registered_births_and_deaths} Year Population Live births Deaths Natural increase Crude birth rate Crude death rate Rate of natural increase TFR ------ ------------ ------------- -------- ------------------ ------------------ ------------------ -------------------------- ------- 1948 3,756 1949 3,904 3,641 263 1950 5,322 2,562 2,760 1951 7,367 2,377 4,990 1952 7,647 2,455 5,192 1953 7,597 2,866 4,731 1954 8,697 3,305 5,392 1955 8,547 2,220 6,327 1956 8,377 2,200 6,177 1957 8,237 2,790 5,447 1958 9,026 2,552 6,474 1959 9,609 2,382 7,227 1960 8,954 3,127 5,827 1961 8,319 2,543 5,776 1962 8,952 2,452 6,500 1963 9,671 2,996 6,675 1964 9,783 2,315 7,468 1965 9,638 2,377 7,261 1966 9,621 2,167 7,454 1967 10,190 2,593 7,597 1968 10,131 2,397 7,734 1969 9,671 3,452 6,219 1970 9,379 2,883 6,496 1971 9,493 4,147 5,346 1972 8,966 2,779 6,187 1973 8,418 3,513 4,905 1974 8,492 2,576 5,916 1975 8,210 2,796 5,414 1976 9,863 2,869 6,994 1977 9,965 2,564 7,401 1978 10,060 3,207 6,853 1979 8,289 2,469 5,820 1980 9,650 2,080 7,570 1981 8,580 1982 11,066 2,169 8,897 1983 11,438 2,649 8,789 1984 11,696 2,863 8,833 1985 11,282 2,735 8,547 1986 12,636 1987 12,771 1988 12,443 1989 1990 9,669 2,505 7,164 1991 12,289 2,616 9,673 1992 9,671 2,843 6,828 1993 2,821 1994 1995 386,813 3,520 9.1 1996 393,478 2,715 6.9 1997 406,267 3,047 7.5 1998 413,382 15,460 2,811 12,649 6.8 1999 426,061 2,812 6.6 2000 436,821 12,746 2,433 10,313 29.2 5.6 23.6 4.00 2001 445,035 12,550 2,396 10,154 28.2 5.4 22.8 2002 452,198 12,345 2,395 9,950 27.3 5.3 22.0 2003 460,837 12,120 2,600 9,520 26.3 5.6 20.7 2004 468,854 11,862 2,522 9,340 25.3 5.4 19.9 2005 478,163 11,554 2,423 9,131 24.3 5.1 19.2 2006 487,121 9,765 2,612 7,153 20.7 5.4 15.3 2.443 2007 491,419 10,421 2,484 7,937 21.8 5.2 16.6 2.575 2008 499,796 10,165 2,683 7,482 21.0 5.5 15.5 2.429 2009 485,677 9,962 2,583 7,379 20.4 5.3 15.1 2.334 2010 477,859 10,568 2,352 8,216 22.1 4.9 17.2 2.535 2011 480,577 10,777 2,488 8,289 22.4 5.2 17.2 2.589 2012 483,285 10,050 2,610 7,440 20.8 5.4 15.4 2.419 2013 485,996 9,845 2,518 7,327 20.3 5.2 15.1 2.358 2014 488,719 9,868 2,528 7,340 20.2 5.2 15.0 2.356 2015 491,436 9,794 2,761 7,033 19.9 5.6 14.3 2.330 2016 493,465 9,980 2,591 7,389 20.2 5.3 14.9 2.389 2017 495,522 9,943 2,497 7,446 20.1 5.0 15.1 2.401 2018 497,558 9,551 2,836 6,715 19.2 5.7 13.5 2.327 2019 499,609 9,284 2,771 6,513 18.6 5.5 13.1 2.286 2020 501,657 9,211 2,959 6,252 18.4 5.9 12.5 2.280 2021 504,125 8,607 3,178 5,429 17.1 6.3 10.8 2.147 2022 506,595 7,981 3,032 4,949 15.8 6.0 9.8 2.008 2023 509,078 2024 511,534 ### Demographic and Health Surveys {#demographic_and_health_surveys} Total fertility rate (TFR) (wanted fertility rate) and crude birth rate (CBR): Year CBR (Total) TFR (Total) CBR (Urban) TFR (Urban) CBR (Rural) TFR (Rural) ------ ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- 2005 22 2,9 (2,8) 23 2,7 (2,7) 22 3,1 (3,0) Fertility data from 2005 (DHS Program): Region Total fertility rate Percentage of women age 15-49 currently pregnant Mean number of children ever born to women age 40--49 ---------------- ---------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Santo Antão 2.9 3.8 6.0 São Vicente 2.0 3.4 4.0 São Nicolau 3.3 4.4 4.2 Sal 3.2 7.0 3.9 Boa Vista 2.4 10.0 4.4 Maio 2.6 1.7 4.3 Santiago 3.1 5.4 4.5 Praia Urbano 3.2 5.1 4.5 Santiago Norte 2.7 6.2 4.3 Resto Santiago 3.3 4.6 4.8 Fogo 3.1 6.3 5.6 Brava 2.8 7.0 5.0 ### Life expectancy {#life_expectancy} +------------+---------------------+ \| Period \| Life expectancy in\ \| \| \| Years \| +============+=====================+ \| 1950--1955 \| 48.08 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1955--1960 \| 48.77 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1960--1965 \| 49.45 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1965--1970 \| 52.43 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1970--1975 \| 55.25 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1975--1980 \| 60.52 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1980--1985 \| 62.37 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1985--1990 \| 64.10 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1990--1995 \| 65.73 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1995--2000 \| 67.94 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 2000--2005 \| 71.27 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 2005--2010 \| 71.77 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 2010--2015 \| 72.14 \| +------------+---------------------+ ## Ethnic groups {#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 generations being substantially more likely to speak a non-creole language. Any non-creole languages Portuguese English French Spanish Italian --------------- -------------------------- ------------ ---------- ---------- --------- --------- Total 12+ 72.8 72.2 16.5 13.5 3.0 0.9 12-14 84.8 84.7 8.5 7.0 0.0 0.1 15-24 88.6 88.1 25.0 19.5 1.2 0.3 25-44 79.8 78.8 20.5 15.8 4.3 1.6 45-64 54.6 54.4 7.2 7.8 4.6 0.6 65 + 26.4 26.3 2.6 4.5 1.8 1.1 : Percentage of population aged 12 or above by ability to speak various languages ## 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)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 {#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 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: 10\ ships by type: chemical tanker 1, trawler/cargo ship 5, passenger/cargo 5\ foreign 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 {#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 {#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 {#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 {#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 {#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 ```{=html} <!-- --> ``` - 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	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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. Those living on the islands often partook in what is called \"wrecking\". Caymanians enticed passing ships by creating objects that piqued sailors\' interests. Often these objects did not look like other vessels. Caymanians made mules or donkeys with lanterns tied to their bodies to walk along the beaches or lit a large bonfire to attract sailors. Having very little knowledge of the area, sailors often became stuck on the reefs in the process of reaching a distance to where they could communicate with those on the island. Once the ships were stuck on the reefs, islanders took canoes to plunder and salvage the ships under the false pretense of providing assistance. ## British control {#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 {#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 {#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 {#hurricane_ivan} `{{See also\|:Category:Natural disasters in the Cayman Islands\|l1=Natural disasters in the Cayman Islands}}`{=mediawiki} 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.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,470	Geography of the Cayman Islands	Pandoc failed: ``` Error at (line 289, column 29): unexpected '\|' \|-style="background: #DDD;" \| class="sortbottom" ^ ```	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 {#structure_of_the_population} Age group Male Female Total \% ----------- -------- -------- -------- ------- Total 27 106 28 585 55 691 100 0--14 4 512 4 831 9 343 16.78 15--24 2 873 2 916 5 789 10.39 25--34 4 727 5 043 9 771 17.55 35--44 5 746 5 955 11 701 21.01 45--54 4 836 5 070 9 907 17.79 55--64 2 530 2 744 5 274 9.47 65+ 1 881 2 025 3 907 7.02 Age Group Total \% ----------- -------- --------- Total 71 105 100 0--4 3 683 5.18 5--9 3 700 5.20 10--14 3 931 5.53 15--19 3 254 4.58 20--24 3 552 5.00 25--29 5 445 7.66 30--34 6 776 9.53 35--39 7 086 9.97 40--44 6 870 9.66 45--49 6 559 9.22 50--54 5 939 8.35 55--59 4 833 6.80 60--64 3 358 4.72 65+ 5 602 7.88 Age group Total Percent 0--14 11 314 15.91 15--64 53 674 75.49 65+ 5 602 7.88 unknown 515 0.72 ### District populations {#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 {#vital_statistics} Average population (x 1000) Live births Deaths Natural change Crude birth rate (per 1000) Crude death rate (per 1000) Natural change (per 1000) Infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births) ------ ----------------------------- ------------- -------- ---------------- ----------------------------- ----------------------------- --------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- 1950 6.4 198 58 140 30.9 9.0 21.8 1951 6.3 213 42 171 34.0 6.7 27.3 1952 6.2 197 46 151 31.5 7.4 24.2 1953 6.3 244 32 212 38.6 5.1 33.5 1954 6.5 237 48 189 36.6 7.4 29.2 1955 6.7 226 52 174 33.9 7.8 26.1 1956 6.9 235 62 173 34.0 9.0 25.0 1957 7.2 248 60 188 34.6 8.4 26.2 1958 7.4 207 66 141 27.9 8.9 19.0 1959 7.7 272 50 222 35.5 6.5 29.0 1960 7.9 264 54 210 33.6 6.9 26.7 1961 8.0 277 68 209 34.5 8.5 26.0 1962 8.1 290 51 239 35.6 6.3 29.4 1963 8.2 303 61 242 36.8 7.4 29.4 1964 8.3 270 73 197 32.5 8.8 23.7 1965 8.4 241 63 178 28.8 7.5 21.3 1966 8.4 267 67 200 31.6 7.9 23.7 1967 8.5 269 60 209 31.6 7.0 24.5 1968 8.6 282 54 228 32.7 6.3 26.4 1969 8.8 272 46 226 30.8 5.2 25.6 1970 9.1 313 71 242 34.2 7.8 26.5 1971 9.6 287 65 222 29.9 6.8 23.2 1972 10.1 351 68 283 34.6 6.7 27.9 1973 10.8 319 83 236 29.6 7.7 21.9 1974 11.5 281 84 197 24.4 7.3 17.1 1975 12.2 327 77 250 26.7 6.3 20.4 1976 13.3 282 81 201 21.7 6.2 15.4 1977 13.8 270 84 186 19.5 6.1 13.4 1978 14.7 273 78 195 18.6 5.3 13.3 1979 15.4 289 98 191 18.7 6.3 12.4 1980 16.2 326 105 221 20.2 6.5 13.7 1981 16.8 347 106 241 20.7 6.3 14.3 1982 17.4 339 107 232 19.5 6.2 13.4 1983 17.9 387 105 282 21.6 5.9 15.7 1984 18.5 414 114 300 22.3 6.1 16.2 1985 19.3 367 126 241 19.0 6.5 12.5 1986 20.3 360 141 219 17.8 7.0 10.8 1987 21.3 359 118 241 16.8 5.5 11.3 1988 22.5 380 124 256 16.9 5.5 11.4 1989 23.8 438 122 316 18.4 5.1 13.3 1990 25.0 490 120 370 19.6 4.8 14.8 1991 26.2 500 127 373 19.1 4.8 14.2 1992 27.4 520 128 392 19.0 4.7 14.3 1993 28.7 528 133 395 18.4 4.6 13.8 1994 30.1 531 149 382 17.7 5.0 12.7 1995 31.7 485 110 375 15.3 3.5 11.8 1996 33.5 560 125 435 16.7 3.7 13.0 1997 35.6 572 123 449 16.1 3.5 12.6 1998 37.7 545 117 428 14.4 3.1 11.3 1999 39.8 604 128 476 15.2 3.2 12.0 2000 41.7 619 137 482 14.8 3.3 11.6 2001 43.3 622 132 490 14.4 3.0 11.3 2002 44.7 583 120 463 13.0 2.7 10.3 13.7 2003 46.0 623 153 470 13.5 3.3 10.2 4.8 2004 47.3 611 165 446 12.9 3.5 9.4 6.4 2005 48.6 699 170 529 14.4 3.5 10.9 7.0 2006 52.229 710 182 528 13.4 3.4 10.0 8.7 2007 52.939 744 160 584 13.8 3.0 10.8 8.3 2008 55.448 793 166 627 14.2 3.0 11.2 2.5 2009 56.507 824 177 647 14.6 3.1 11.4 3.7 2010 55.521 821 164 657 14.8 3.0 11.8 2.5 2011 55.277 800 176 624 14.5 3.2 11.3 6.3 2012 56.124 759 172 587 13.6 3.3 10.3 4.0 2013 56.239 705 182 523 12.5 3.2 9.3 2.9 2014 56.993 711 163 548 12.5 2.9 9.6 2015 59.054 649 170 479 11.0 2.9 8.1 2016 61.331 660 193 467 10.8 3.1 7.7 2017 63.115 625 216 409 9.9 3.4 6.5 2018 64.420 640 214 426 9.9 3.3 6.6 2019 69.914 646 250 396 9.2 3.7 5.5 2020 65.786 817 215 602 12.4 3.3 9.1 2021 67.721 818 341 477 12.4 4.0 8.4 2022 78.554 798 310 488 10.2 3.9 6.3 2023 83.671 760 308 452 9.1 3.7 5.4 ## Ethnic groups {#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. Ports are closed on Sundays and Christian holidays. There are places of worship in George Town for Jehovah\'s Witnesses and followers of the Baháʼí Faith. The Cayman Islands also hosts a growing Jewish community. Year Percent of Hindus Increase ------ ------------------- ---------- 2000 0.25% 2008 1% +0.75% 2011 0.8% −0.2% 2021 2.4% +2.6% 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).	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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} 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.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,473	Economy of the Cayman Islands	The economy of the Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory located in the western Caribbean Sea, is mainly fueled by the tourism sector and by the financial services sector, together representing 50--60 percent of the country\'s gross domestic product (GDP). The Cayman Islands Investment Bureau, a government agency, has been established with the mandate of promoting investment and economic development in the territory. Because of the territory\'s strong economy and it being a popular banking destination for wealthy individuals and businesses, it is often dubbed the 'financial capital' of the Caribbean. 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 {#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 {#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 `{{as of\|lc=y\|June 2007}}`{=mediawiki}. In March 2017 there were 158 banks, 11 of which were licensed to conduct banking activities with domestic (Cayman-based) and international clients, and the remaining 147 were licensed to operate on an international basis with only limited domestic activity. 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. In June 2008, it passed 10,000 hedge fund registrations, and over the year ending June 2008 CIMA reported a net growth rate of 12% for hedge funds. 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. In 2004, under pressure from the UK, the Cayman Islands agreed in principle to implement the European Union Savings Directive (EUSD), but only after securing some important benefits for the financial services industry in the Cayman Islands. As the Cayman Islands is not subject to EU laws, the implementation of the EUSD is by way of bilateral agreements between each EU member state and the Cayman Islands. The government of the Cayman Islands agreed on a model agreement, which set out how the EUSD would be implemented with the Cayman Islands. 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 {#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 Model 1 Agreement recognizes: - 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 Great Britain and Northern Ireland provided a copy of the Letter of Entrustment which was sent to the Government of the Cayman Islands, to the Government of the United States of America \"via diplomatic note of October 16, 2013\". - The Letter of Entrustment dated 20 October 2013, The Govt of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, authorized the Govt of the Cayman Islands to sign an agreement on information exchange to facilitate the Implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act -- Page 1 -- Clause 10. On 26 March 2017, the US Treasury site disclosed that the Model 1 agreement and related agreement were \"In Force\" on 1 July 2014. #### Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act {#sanctions_and_anti_money_laundering_act} Under the UK Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2018, beneficial ownership of companies in British overseas territories such as the Cayman Islands must be publicly registered for disclosure by 31 December 2020. The Government of the Cayman Islands plans to challenge this law, arguing that it violates the Constitutional sovereignty granted to the islands. The British National Crime Agency said in September 2018 that the authorities in the Cayman Islands were not supplying information about the beneficial ownership of firms registered in the Cayman 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 {#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%.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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](http://www.digicelcayman.com) : 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.](https://lla.com/) 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: `{{usurped\|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20010301173705/http://www.cayman27.com.ky/ Cayman27]}}`{=mediawiki} ## 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](https://lla.com) - [Digicel](https://www.digicelgroup.com/ky) - [Logic](https://www.logic.ky) - Fibre based service. Founded in 2004 as WestTel when it was granted a telecommunications license. Purchased TeleCayman in 2013 - [C3](https://www.c3.ky/) Country code (Top-level domain): .ky	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 {#bilateral_relations} ### India ### United States {#united_states}	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 1640 ft 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 3750 ft. At 622984 km2, 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. ## Extreme points {#extreme_points} This is a list of the extreme points of the Central African Republic, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location. - Northernmost point - unnamed location in the Aoukal river on the border with Chad, Vakaga Prefecture - Easternmost point - unnamed location immediately East of the tripoint with South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and south of the town of Ezo in South Sudan, Haut-Mbomou Prefecture - Southernmost point - the tripoint with Cameroon and the Republic of Congo, Sangha-Mbaéré Prefecture - Westernmost point - unnamed location on the border with Cameroon west of the town of Koundé in Central African Republic near Cameroon\'s Lokoti to Garoua Boulai road, Nana-Mambéré Prefecture	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 `{{UN_Population\|source}}`{=mediawiki} the total population was `{{UN_Population\|Central African Republic}}`{=mediawiki} in `{{UN_Population\|Year}}`{=mediawiki}, 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. Year Total 0--14 (%) 15--64 (%) 65+ (%) ------ ----------- ----------- ------------ --------- 1950 1 327 000 36.2 58.7 5.1 1955 1 399 000 37.0 58.3 4.7 1960 1 504 000 38.2 57.5 4.3 1965 1 649 000 39.6 56.2 4.2 1970 1 829 000 40.6 55.3 4.1 1975 2 017 000 41.7 54.2 4.1 1980 2 274 000 42.2 53.6 4.1 1985 2 627 000 42.4 53.6 4.0 1990 2 935 000 43.2 52.8 4.0 1995 3 328 000 42.5 53.5 4.0 2000 3 702 000 42.0 54.0 3.9 2005 4 018 000 41.6 54.5 4.0 2010 4 401 000 40.4 55.6 4.0 2015 4 410 000 40.8 55.8 4.0 : Population by age group ## Vital statistics {#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. <table> <thead> <tr class="header"> <th></th> <th><p>Population<br /> (thousands)</p></th> <th style="width:80pt;"><p>Live births<br /> (thousands)</p></th> <th style="width:80pt;"><p>Deaths<br /> (thousands)</p></th> <th style="width:80pt;"><p>Natural change<br /> (thousands)</p></th> <th style="width:80pt;"><p>CBR</p></th> <th style="width:80pt;"><p>CDR</p></th> <th style="width:80pt;"><p>NC</p></th> <th style="width:80pt;"><p>TFR</p></th> <th style="width:80pt;"><p>IMR</p></th> <th style="width:80pt;"><p>Life expectancy<br /> (years)</p></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1950</p></td> <td><p>1 437</p></td> <td><p> 63</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 20</p></td> <td><p>43.6</p></td> <td><p>29.5</p></td> <td><p>14.0</p></td> <td style="color:red"><p>5.74</p></td> <td><p>190.7</p></td> <td><p>35.39</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1951</p></td> <td><p> 1 457</p></td> <td><p> 63</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 21</p></td> <td><p>43.5</p></td> <td><p>29.4</p></td> <td><p>14.1</p></td> <td><p>5.75</p></td> <td><p>189.7</p></td> <td><p>35.59</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1952</p></td> <td><p> 1 478</p></td> <td><p> 64</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 21</p></td> <td><p>43.5</p></td> <td><p>29.0</p></td> <td><p>14.5</p></td> <td><p>5.76</p></td> <td><p>187.5</p></td> <td><p>36.00</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1953</p></td> <td><p> 1 500</p></td> <td><p> 65</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 22</p></td> <td><p>43.4</p></td> <td><p>28.6</p></td> <td><p>14.8</p></td> <td><p>5.76</p></td> <td><p>185.4</p></td> <td><p>36.40</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1954</p></td> <td><p> 1 522</p></td> <td><p> 66</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 23</p></td> <td><p>43.3</p></td> <td><p>28.2</p></td> <td><p>15.2</p></td> <td><p>5.77</p></td> <td><p>183.3</p></td> <td><p>36.80</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1955</p></td> <td><p> 1 546</p></td> <td><p> 67</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 24</p></td> <td><p>43.3</p></td> <td><p>27.7</p></td> <td><p>15.6</p></td> <td><p>5.78</p></td> <td><p>181.3</p></td> <td><p>37.19</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1956</p></td> <td><p> 1 570</p></td> <td><p> 68</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 25</p></td> <td><p>43.2</p></td> <td><p>27.3</p></td> <td><p>15.9</p></td> <td><p>5.78</p></td> <td><p>179.3</p></td> <td><p>37.58</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1957</p></td> <td><p> 1 596</p></td> <td><p> 69</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 26</p></td> <td><p>43.2</p></td> <td><p>26.8</p></td> <td><p>16.4</p></td> <td><p>5.79</p></td> <td><p>177.3</p></td> <td><p>37.97</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1958</p></td> <td><p> 1 623</p></td> <td><p> 70</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 27</p></td> <td><p>43.0</p></td> <td><p>26.4</p></td> <td><p>16.7</p></td> <td><p>5.80</p></td> <td><p>175.3</p></td> <td><p>38.35</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1959</p></td> <td><p> 1 650</p></td> <td><p> 71</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 28</p></td> <td><p>43.0</p></td> <td><p>25.9</p></td> <td><p>17.0</p></td> <td><p>5.81</p></td> <td><p>173.3</p></td> <td><p>38.74</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1960</p></td> <td><p> 1 680</p></td> <td><p> 72</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 29</p></td> <td><p>42.9</p></td> <td><p>25.4</p></td> <td><p>17.5</p></td> <td><p>5.81</p></td> <td><p>170.5</p></td> <td><p>39.24</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1961</p></td> <td><p> 1 710</p></td> <td><p> 73</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 31</p></td> <td><p>42.9</p></td> <td><p>24.9</p></td> <td><p>18.0</p></td> <td><p>5.83</p></td> <td><p>167.8</p></td> <td><p>39.74</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1962</p></td> <td><p> 1 743</p></td> <td><p> 75</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 32</p></td> <td><p>43.0</p></td> <td><p>24.4</p></td> <td><p>18.6</p></td> <td><p>5.85</p></td> <td><p>164.9</p></td> <td><p>40.26</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1963</p></td> <td><p> 1 776</p></td> <td><p> 76</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 34</p></td> <td><p>43.0</p></td> <td><p>23.9</p></td> <td><p>19.1</p></td> <td><p>5.87</p></td> <td><p>162.0</p></td> <td><p>40.78</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1964</p></td> <td><p> 1 812</p></td> <td><p> 78</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 36</p></td> <td><p>43.3</p></td> <td><p>23.4</p></td> <td><p>19.9</p></td> <td><p>5.91</p></td> <td><p>158.9</p></td> <td><p>41.35</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1965</p></td> <td><p> 1 849</p></td> <td><p> 80</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 38</p></td> <td><p>43.4</p></td> <td><p>22.9</p></td> <td><p>20.6</p></td> <td><p>5.94</p></td> <td><p>155.8</p></td> <td><p>41.93</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1966</p></td> <td><p> 1 889</p></td> <td><p> 83</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 40</p></td> <td><p>43.8</p></td> <td><p>22.4</p></td> <td><p>21.4</p></td> <td><p>5.98</p></td> <td><p>152.6</p></td> <td><p>42.53</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1967</p></td> <td><p> 1 931</p></td> <td><p> 85</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p>44.0</p></td> <td><p>21.9</p></td> <td><p>22.1</p></td> <td><p>6.02</p></td> <td><p>149.4</p></td> <td><p>43.16</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1968</p></td> <td><p> 1 975</p></td> <td><p> 87</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 45</p></td> <td><p>44.3</p></td> <td><p>21.4</p></td> <td><p>22.9</p></td> <td><p>6.06</p></td> <td><p>146.2</p></td> <td><p>43.80</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1969</p></td> <td><p> 2 022</p></td> <td><p> 89</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 47</p></td> <td><p>44.1</p></td> <td><p>20.9</p></td> <td><p>23.2</p></td> <td><p>6.04</p></td> <td><p>143.2</p></td> <td><p>44.44</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1970</p></td> <td><p> 2 067</p></td> <td><p> 90</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 48</p></td> <td><p>43.7</p></td> <td><p>20.3</p></td> <td><p>23.4</p></td> <td><p>6.00</p></td> <td><p>140.3</p></td> <td><p>45.07</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1971</p></td> <td><p> 2 111</p></td> <td><p> 92</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 50</p></td> <td><p>43.5</p></td> <td><p>19.8</p></td> <td><p>23.7</p></td> <td><p>5.99</p></td> <td><p>137.6</p></td> <td><p>45.69</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1972</p></td> <td><p> 2 154</p></td> <td><p> 93</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 51</p></td> <td><p>43.1</p></td> <td><p>19.2</p></td> <td><p>23.8</p></td> <td><p>5.96</p></td> <td><p>135.1</p></td> <td><p>46.29</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1973</p></td> <td><p> 2 196</p></td> <td><p> 94</p></td> <td style="color:blue"><p>41</p></td> <td><p> 53</p></td> <td><p>42.6</p></td> <td><p>18.7</p></td> <td><p>23.9</p></td> <td><p>5.93</p></td> <td><p>132.8</p></td> <td><p>46.85</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1974</p></td> <td><p> 2 239</p></td> <td><p> 95</p></td> <td><p> 41</p></td> <td><p> 54</p></td> <td><p>42.3</p></td> <td><p>18.3</p></td> <td><p>24.0</p></td> <td><p>5.91</p></td> <td><p>130.6</p></td> <td><p>47.40</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1975</p></td> <td><p> 2 284</p></td> <td><p> 96</p></td> <td><p> 41</p></td> <td><p> 55</p></td> <td><p>41.9</p></td> <td><p>17.8</p></td> <td><p>24.1</p></td> <td><p>5.89</p></td> <td><p>128.5</p></td> <td><p>47.91</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1976</p></td> <td><p> 2 318</p></td> <td><p> 98</p></td> <td><p> 41</p></td> <td><p> 57</p></td> <td><p>42.0</p></td> <td><p>17.5</p></td> <td><p>24.5</p></td> <td><p>5.93</p></td> <td><p>126.6</p></td> <td><p>48.40</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1977</p></td> <td><p> 2 342</p></td> <td><p> 100</p></td> <td><p> 41</p></td> <td><p> 60</p></td> <td><p>42.4</p></td> <td><p>17.2</p></td> <td><p>25.2</p></td> <td><p>5.97</p></td> <td><p>124.8</p></td> <td><p>48.84</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1978</p></td> <td><p> 2 366</p></td> <td><p> 103</p></td> <td><p> 41</p></td> <td><p> 62</p></td> <td><p>43.0</p></td> <td><p>17.0</p></td> <td><p>26.0</p></td> <td><p>6.02</p></td> <td><p>123.0</p></td> <td><p>49.24</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1979</p></td> <td><p> 2 390</p></td> <td><p> 105</p></td> <td><p> 41</p></td> <td><p> 65</p></td> <td><p>43.6</p></td> <td><p>16.8</p></td> <td><p>26.8</p></td> <td><p>6.07</p></td> <td><p>121.4</p></td> <td><p>49.60</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1980</p></td> <td><p> 2 415</p></td> <td><p> 107</p></td> <td><p> 41</p></td> <td><p> 67</p></td> <td><p>44.1</p></td> <td><p>16.7</p></td> <td><p>27.4</p></td> <td><p>6.11</p></td> <td><p>120.0</p></td> <td><p>49.89</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1981</p></td> <td><p> 2 441</p></td> <td><p> 110</p></td> <td><p> 41</p></td> <td><p> 69</p></td> <td><p>44.6</p></td> <td><p>16.5</p></td> <td><p>28.1</p></td> <td><p>6.14</p></td> <td><p>118.8</p></td> <td><p>50.16</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1982</p></td> <td><p> 2 468</p></td> <td><p> 112</p></td> <td><p> 41</p></td> <td><p> 71</p></td> <td><p>44.9</p></td> <td><p>16.4</p></td> <td><p>28.5</p></td> <td style="color:blue"><p>6.14</p></td> <td><p>117.8</p></td> <td><p>50.30</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1983</p></td> <td><p> 2 495</p></td> <td><p> 114</p></td> <td><p> 41</p></td> <td><p> 73</p></td> <td><p>45.2</p></td> <td><p>16.3</p></td> <td><p>28.9</p></td> <td><p>6.12</p></td> <td><p>117.0</p></td> <td><p>50.42</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1984</p></td> <td><p> 2 524</p></td> <td><p> 116</p></td> <td><p> 41</p></td> <td><p> 75</p></td> <td><p>45.5</p></td> <td><p>16.3</p></td> <td><p>29.3</p></td> <td><p>6.11</p></td> <td><p>116.3</p></td> <td><p>50.48</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1985</p></td> <td><p> 2 553</p></td> <td><p> 118</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 77</p></td> <td><p>45.9</p></td> <td><p>16.2</p></td> <td><p>29.7</p></td> <td><p>6.11</p></td> <td><p>115.7</p></td> <td><p>50.52</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1986</p></td> <td><p> 2 584</p></td> <td><p> 120</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 78</p></td> <td><p>46.2</p></td> <td><p>16.1</p></td> <td><p>30.0</p></td> <td><p>6.09</p></td> <td><p>115.1</p></td> <td><p>50.49</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1987</p></td> <td><p> 2 616</p></td> <td><p> 123</p></td> <td><p> 42</p></td> <td><p> 80</p></td> <td><p>46.5</p></td> <td><p>16.1</p></td> <td><p>30.4</p></td> <td><p>6.10</p></td> <td><p>114.7</p></td> <td><p>50.41</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1988</p></td> <td><p> 2 657</p></td> <td><p> 124</p></td> <td><p> 43</p></td> <td><p> 81</p></td> <td><p>46.5</p></td> <td><p>16.1</p></td> <td><p>30.4</p></td> <td><p>6.08</p></td> <td><p>114.5</p></td> <td><p>50.24</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1989</p></td> <td><p> 2 724</p></td> <td><p> 127</p></td> <td><p> 44</p></td> <td><p> 83</p></td> <td><p>style="color:blue\|46.5</p></td> <td><p>16.1</p></td> <td><p>30.5</p></td> <td><p>6.06</p></td> <td><p>114.7</p></td> <td><p>49.99</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1990</p></td> <td><p> 2 809</p></td> <td><p> 130</p></td> <td><p> 45</p></td> <td><p> 85</p></td> <td><p>46.3</p></td> <td><p>16.1</p></td> <td><p>30.2</p></td> <td><p>6.05</p></td> <td><p>115.0</p></td> <td><p>49.64</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1991</p></td> <td><p> 2 898</p></td> <td><p> 133</p></td> <td><p> 47</p></td> <td><p> 86</p></td> <td><p>46.0</p></td> <td><p>16.1</p></td> <td><p>29.8</p></td> <td><p>6.03</p></td> <td><p>115.2</p></td> <td><p>49.25</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1992</p></td> <td><p> 2 992</p></td> <td><p> 136</p></td> <td><p> 48</p></td> <td><p> 87</p></td> <td><p>45.4</p></td> <td><p>16.2</p></td> <td><p>29.2</p></td> <td><p>5.98</p></td> <td><p>115.1</p></td> <td><p>48.79</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1993</p></td> <td><p> 3 089</p></td> <td><p> 139</p></td> <td><p> 50</p></td> <td><p> 88</p></td> <td><p>44.9</p></td> <td><p>16.3</p></td> <td><p>28.7</p></td> <td><p>5.94</p></td> <td><p>114.7</p></td> <td><p>48.35</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1994</p></td> <td><p> 3 188</p></td> <td><p> 142</p></td> <td><p> 52</p></td> <td><p> 90</p></td> <td><p>44.5</p></td> <td><p>16.4</p></td> <td><p>28.1</p></td> <td><p>5.93</p></td> <td><p>114.3</p></td> <td><p>47.85</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1995</p></td> <td><p> 3 277</p></td> <td><p> 146</p></td> <td><p> 54</p></td> <td><p> 92</p></td> <td><p>44.5</p></td> <td><p>16.6</p></td> <td><p>27.9</p></td> <td><p>5.97</p></td> <td><p>113.8</p></td> <td><p>47.35</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1996</p></td> <td><p> 3 364</p></td> <td><p> 149</p></td> <td><p> 56</p></td> <td><p> 92</p></td> <td><p>44.3</p></td> <td><p>16.8</p></td> <td><p>27.5</p></td> <td><p>5.99</p></td> <td><p>113.4</p></td> <td><p>46.83</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1997</p></td> <td><p> 3 458</p></td> <td><p> 151</p></td> <td><p> 59</p></td> <td><p> 93</p></td> <td><p>43.8</p></td> <td><p>17.0</p></td> <td><p>26.8</p></td> <td><p>5.96</p></td> <td><p>112.8</p></td> <td><p>46.32</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1998</p></td> <td><p> 3 555</p></td> <td><p> 155</p></td> <td><p> 61</p></td> <td><p> 94</p></td> <td><p>43.5</p></td> <td><p>17.1</p></td> <td><p>26.4</p></td> <td><p>5.93</p></td> <td><p>112.2</p></td> <td><p>46.03</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1999</p></td> <td><p> 3 655</p></td> <td><p> 159</p></td> <td><p> 63</p></td> <td><p> 96</p></td> <td><p>43.4</p></td> <td><p>17.2</p></td> <td><p>26.2</p></td> <td><p>5.93</p></td> <td><p>111.4</p></td> <td><p>45.75</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>2000</p></td> <td><p> 3 759</p></td> <td><p> 162</p></td> <td><p> 65</p></td> <td><p> 97</p></td> <td><p>43.3</p></td> <td><p>17.3</p></td> <td><p>25.9</p></td> <td><p>5.92</p></td> <td><p>111.0</p></td> <td><p>45.41</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>2001</p></td> <td><p> 3 845</p></td> <td><p> 165</p></td> <td><p> 67</p></td> <td><p> 99</p></td> <td><p>42.8</p></td> <td><p>17.2</p></td> <td><p>25.6</p></td> <td><p>5.85</p></td> <td><p>110.1</p></td> <td><p>45.39</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>2002</p></td> <td><p> 3 931</p></td> <td><p> 167</p></td> <td><p> 67</p></td> <td><p> 100</p></td> <td><p>42.6</p></td> <td><p>17.2</p></td> <td><p>25.5</p></td> <td><p>5.84</p></td> <td><p>109.1</p></td> <td><p>45.41</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>2003</p></td> <td><p> 4 027</p></td> <td><p> 173</p></td> <td><p> 68</p></td> <td><p> 104</p></td> <td><p>42.8</p></td> <td><p>16.9</p></td> <td><p>25.9</p></td> <td><p>5.85</p></td> <td><p>108.1</p></td> <td><p>45.76</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>2004</p></td> <td><p> 4 115</p></td> <td><p> 175</p></td> <td style="color:red"><p> 69</p></td> <td><p> 107</p></td> <td><p>42.5</p></td> <td><p>16.7</p></td> <td><p>25.9</p></td> <td><p>5.83</p></td> <td><p>107.2</p></td> <td><p>46.04</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>2005</p></td> <td><p> 4 209</p></td> <td><p> 180</p></td> <td><p> 69</p></td> <td><p> 111</p></td> <td><p>42.6</p></td> <td><p>16.4</p></td> <td><p>26.3</p></td> <td><p>5.85</p></td> <td><p>106.2</p></td> <td><p>46.43</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>2006</p></td> <td><p> 4 294</p></td> <td><p> 185</p></td> <td><p> 69</p></td> <td><p> 115</p></td> <td><p>42.8</p></td> <td><p>16.1</p></td> <td><p>26.7</p></td> <td><p>5.87</p></td> <td><p>104.8</p></td> <td><p>46.85</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>2007</p></td> <td><p> 4 376</p></td> <td><p> 188</p></td> <td><p> 69</p></td> <td><p> 119</p></td> <td><p>42.8</p></td> <td><p>15.7</p></td> <td><p>27.1</p></td> <td><p>5.89</p></td> <td><p>103.4</p></td> <td><p>47.43</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>2008</p></td> <td><p> 4 467</p></td> <td><p> 192</p></td> <td><p> 69</p></td> <td><p> 124</p></td> <td><p>42.9</p></td> <td><p>15.3</p></td> <td><p>27.6</p></td> <td><p>5.91</p></td> <td><p>101.7</p></td> <td><p>48.02</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>2009</p></td> <td><p> 4 565</p></td> <td><p> 197</p></td> <td><p> 68</p></td> <td><p> 129</p></td> <td><p>43.0</p></td> <td><p>14.9</p></td> <td><p>28.1</p></td> <td><p>5.92</p></td> <td><p>99.5</p></td> <td><p>48.65</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>2010</p></td> <td><p> 4 660</p></td> <td><p> 202</p></td> <td><p> 68</p></td> <td><p> 134</p></td> <td><p>43.2</p></td> <td><p>14.5</p></td> <td><p>28.7</p></td> <td><p>5.94</p></td> <td><p>97.3</p></td> <td><p>49.26</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>2011</p></td> <td><p> 4 732</p></td> <td><p> 206</p></td> <td><p> 67</p></td> <td><p> 139</p></td> <td><p>43.2</p></td> <td><p>14.1</p></td> <td><p>29.1</p></td> <td><p>5.96</p></td> <td><p>94.7</p></td> <td><p>49.95</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>2012</p></td> <td><p> 4 773</p></td> <td><p> 208</p></td> <td><p> 66</p></td> <td><p> 142</p></td> <td><p>43.0</p></td> <td><p>13.6</p></td> <td><p>29.4</p></td> <td><p>6.01</p></td> <td><p>92.1</p></td> <td><p>50.69</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>2013</p></td> <td><p> 4 802</p></td> <td><p> 206</p></td> <td><p> 65</p></td> <td><p> 141</p></td> <td><p>42.4</p></td> <td><p>13.4</p></td> <td><p>29.0</p></td> <td><p>6.02</p></td> <td><p>89.9</p></td> <td><p>50.90</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>2014</p></td> <td><p> 4 799</p></td> <td><p> 205</p></td> <td><p> 66</p></td> <td><p> 139</p></td> <td><p>41.9</p></td> <td><p>13.5</p></td> <td><p>28.4</p></td> <td><p>6.02</p></td> <td><p>89.1</p></td> <td><p>50.57</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>2015</p></td> <td><p> 4 819</p></td> <td><p> 199</p></td> <td><p> 59</p></td> <td><p> 140</p></td> <td style="color:red"><p>41.0</p></td> <td><p>12.2</p></td> <td><p>28.9</p></td> <td><p>6.04</p></td> <td><p>84.7</p></td> <td><p>52.79</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>2016</p></td> <td><p> 4 904</p></td> <td><p> 203</p></td> <td><p> 58</p></td> <td><p> 145</p></td> <td><p>41.2</p></td> <td><p>11.7</p></td> <td><p>29.5</p></td> <td><p>6.04</p></td> <td><p>81.6</p></td> <td><p>53.46</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>2017</p></td> <td><p> 4 997</p></td> <td><p> 209</p></td> <td><p> 58</p></td> <td><p> 151</p></td> <td><p>41.6</p></td> <td><p>11.5</p></td> <td><p>30.1</p></td> <td><p>6.05</p></td> <td><p>79.3</p></td> <td><p>53.72</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>2018</p></td> <td><p> 5 095</p></td> <td><p> 214</p></td> <td><p> 58</p></td> <td><p> 157</p></td> <td><p>41.8</p></td> <td><p>11.2</p></td> <td><p>30.6</p></td> <td><p>6.04</p></td> <td><p>77.4</p></td> <td><p>54.37</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>2019</p></td> <td><p> 5 209</p></td> <td><p> 219</p></td> <td><p> 57</p></td> <td><p> 162</p></td> <td><p>41.9</p></td> <td style="color:blue"><p>10.9</p></td> <td><p>31.0</p></td> <td><p>6.01</p></td> <td><p>74.6</p></td> <td><p>55.03</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>2020</p></td> <td><p> 5 343</p></td> <td><p> 226</p></td> <td><p> 59</p></td> <td><p> 167</p></td> <td><p>42.2</p></td> <td><p>11.0</p></td> <td><p>31.1</p></td> <td><p>5.99</p></td> <td><p>72.4</p></td> <td><p>54.60</p></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>2021</p></td> <td><p> 5 457</p></td> <td><p> 235</p></td> <td><p> 63</p></td> <td><p> 172</p></td> <td><p>42.7</p></td> <td><p>11.4</p></td> <td style="color:blue"><p>31.3</p></td> <td><p>5.98</p></td> <td><p>71.4</p></td> <td><p>53.90</p></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td colspan="11" style="font-size:smaller; text-align:left"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Source: UN DESA, World Population Prospects, 2022 `{{GraphChart \| width = 450 \| height = 150 \| xAxisTitle=year \| yAxisTitle= million \| yAxisMin= \| yGrid= 0,1 \| xGrid= 10 \| legend= \| type = line \| x = 1950,1951,1952,1953,1954,1955,1956,1957,1958,1959,1960,1961,1962,1963,1964,1965,1966,1967,1968,1969,1970,1971,1972,1973,1974,1975,1976,1977,1978,1979,1980,1981,1982,1983,1984,1985,1986,1987,1988,1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 \| y1= 1.44,1.46,1.48,1.5,1.52,1.55,1.57,1.6,1.62,1.65,1.68,1.71,1.74,1.78,1.81,1.85,1.89,1.93,1.98,2.02,2.07,2.11,2.15,2.2,2.24,2.28,2.32,2.34,2.37,2.39,2.42,2.44,2.47,2.5,2.52,2.55,2.58,2.62,2.66,2.72,2.81,2.9,2.99,3.09,3.19,3.28,3.36,3.46,3.56,3.66,3.76,3.85,3.93,4.03,4.12,4.21,4.29,4.38,4.47,4.57,4.66,4.73,4.77,4.8,4.8,4.82,4.9,5,5.09,5.21,5.34,5.46 \| y1Title= population (million) }}`{=mediawiki} `{{GraphChart \| width = 450 \| height = 150 \| xAxisTitle=years \| yAxisTitle= ‰ \| yAxisMin= \| yGrid= 0,1 \| xGrid= 10 \| hAnnotatonsLine= \| hAnnotatonsLabel= \| legend= \| type = line \| x = 1950,1951,1952,1953,1954,1955,1956,1957,1958,1959,1960,1961,1962,1963,1964,1965,1966,1967,1968,1969,1970,1971,1972,1973,1974,1975,1976,1977,1978,1979,1980,1981,1982,1983,1984,1985,1986,1987,1988,1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 \| y1= 14.0,14.1,14.5,14.8,15.2,15.6,15.9,16.4,16.7,17.0,17.5,18.0,18.6,19.1,19.9,20.6,21.4,22.1,22.9,23.2,23.4,23.7,23.8,23.9,24.0,24.1,24.5,25.2,26.0,26.8,27.4,28.1,28.5,28.9,29.3,29.7,30.0,30.4,30.4,30.5,30.2,29.8,29.2,28.7,28.1,27.9,27.5,26.8,26.4,26.2,25.9,25.6,25.5,25.9,25.9,26.3,26.7,27.1,27.6,28.1,28.7,29.1,29.4,29.0,28.4,28.9,29.5,30.1,30.6,31.0,31.1,31.3 \| y1Title=Natural change (per 1000) }}`{=mediawiki} `{{GraphChart \| width = 450 \| height = 150 \| xAxisTitle=years \| yAxisTitle= ‰ \| yAxisMin= \| yGrid= 0,1 \| xGrid= 10 \| hAnnotatonsLine= \| hAnnotatonsLabel= \| legend= \| type = line \| x = 1950,1951,1952,1953,1954,1955,1956,1957,1958,1959,1960,1961,1962,1963,1964,1965,1966,1967,1968,1969,1970,1971,1972,1973,1974,1975,1976,1977,1978,1979,1980,1981,1982,1983,1984,1985,1986,1987,1988,1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 \| y1= 190.7,189.7,187.5,185.4,183.3,181.3,179.3,177.3,175.3,173.3,170.5,167.8,164.9,162.0,158.9,155.8,152.6,149.4,146.2,143.2,140.3,137.6,135.1,132.8,130.6,128.5, 126.6,124.8,123.0,121.4,120.0,118.8,117.8,117.0,116.3,115.7,115.1,114.7,114.5,114.7,115.0,115.2,115.1,114.7,114.3,113.8,113.4,112.8,112.2,111.4,111.0,110.1,109.1,108.1,107.2,106.2,104.8,103.4,101.7,99.5,97.3,94.7,92.1,89.9,89.1,84.7,81.6,79.3,77.4,74.6,72.4,71.4 \| y1Title=Infant Mortality (per 1000 live births) }}`{=mediawiki} `{{GraphChart \| width = 450 \| height = 150 \| xAxisTitle=years \| yAxisTitle= TFR \| yAxisMin= \| yGrid= 0,1 \| xGrid= 10 \| hAnnotatonsLine= \| hAnnotatonsLabel= \| legend= \| type = line \| x = 1950,1951,1952,1953,1954,1955,1956,1957,1958,1959,1960,1961,1962,1963,1964,1965,1966,1967,1968,1969,1970,1971,1972,1973,1974,1975,1976,1977,1978,1979,1980,1981,1982,1983,1984,1985,1986,1987,1988,1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 \| y1= 5.74,5.75,5.76,5.76,5.77,5.78,5.78,5.79,5.80,5.81,5.81,5.83,5.85,5.87,5.91,5.94,5.98,6.02,6.06,6.04,6.00,5.99,5.96,5.93,5.91,5.89,5.93,5.97,6.02,6.07,6.11,6.14,6.14,6.12,6.11,6.11,6.09,6.10,6.08,6.06,6.05,6.03,5.98,5.94,5.93,5.97,5.99,5.96,5.93,5.93,5.92,5.85,5.84,5.85,5.83,5.85,5.87,5.89,5.91,5.92,5.94,5.96,6.01,6.02,6.02,6.04,6.04,6.05,6.04,6.01,5.99,5.98 \| y1Title=Total Fertility Rate }}`{=mediawiki} ### Demographic and Health Surveys {#demographic_and_health_surveys} Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Year CBR (Total) TFR (Total) CBR (Urban) TFR (Urban) CBR (Rural) TFR (Rural) ---------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- 1994--95 38,0 5,07 (4,7) 37,9 4,86 (4,3) 37,9 5,23 (5,0) ### Life expectancy {#life_expectancy} +------------+---------------------+ \| Period \| Life expectancy in\ \| \| \| Years \| +============+=====================+ \| 1950--1955 \| 33.44 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1955--1960 \| 35.50 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1960--1965 \| 37.57 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1965--1970 \| 40.16 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1970--1975 \| 43.90 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1975--1980 \| 47.62 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1980--1985 \| 49.56 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1985--1990 \| 49.49 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1990--1995 \| 47.65 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 1995--2000 \| 44.96 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 2000--2005 \| 43.68 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 2005--2010 \| 45.99 \| +------------+---------------------+ \| 2010--2015 \| 49.40 \| +------------+---------------------+ ## Ethnic groups {#ethnic_groups} An approximate distribution of the ethnic groups is shown in the chart below: Ethnic group Percentage Population --------------- ------------ ------------ Baggara Arabs 2.4% 107,000 Baka 0.5% 20,000 Banda 27% 1,190,700 Bayaka ? ? Fula 4.5% 250,000 Gbaya 33% 1,300,000 Kara 2.3% 100,000 Kresh ? ? Mbaka 4% 176,400 Mandja 13% 573,300 Ngbandi ? ? Sara 10% 441,000 Vidiri ? ? Wodaabe 2.3% 100,000 Yakoma 4% 176,400 Yulu ? ? Zande 1.4% 62,000 Others ? ? : Ethnic groups in Central African Republic ## Languages : Sango (lingua franca and official language), French (official), tribal languages ## Religion : Christian 89%, Muslim 9%, folk religionist 1%, unaffiliated 1% (2020 est.) : Indigenous beliefs 35%, Protestant 25%, Roman Catholic 25%, Islam 15% note: animistic beliefs and practices strongly influence the Christian majority	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 {#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 {#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 {#political_parties_and_elections} ## Judicial branch {#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 {#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 {#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	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,483	Economy of the Central African Republic	The economy of the Central African Republic is \$2.321 billion by gross domestic product as of 2019, even lower than much smaller countries such as Barbados 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. The vast bulk of the population engages in subsistence farming and 55% of the country\'s GDP derives from agriculture. Subsistence agriculture, together with forestry, remains the backbone of the economy of the Central African Republic (CAR), with more than 70% of the population living in outlying areas. 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%. Central African Republic is a least developed country according to United Nations. ## Infrastructure `{{See also\|List of power stations in the Central African Republic}}`{=mediawiki} Much of the country\'s limited electrical supply is provided by hydroelectric plants located in Boali. Fuel supplies must be barged in via the Oubangui River or trucked overland through Cameroon, resulting in frequent shortages of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The C.A.R.\'s transportation and communication network is limited. The country has only 429 kilometers of paved road, limited international, and no domestic air service, and does not possess a railroad. River traffic on the Oubangui River is impossible from April to July, and conflict in the region has sometimes prevented shipments from moving between Kinshasa and Bangui. The telephone system functions, albeit imperfectly. Four radio stations operate in the C.A.R., as well as one television station. Numerous newspapers and pamphlets are published on a regular basis, and one company provides Internet access. ## 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. According to a report from the UN Security Council, \"illegal artisanal exploitation surged in non-attributed forest areas\" under the Djotodia government, while logging trucks were \"systematically subjected to illegal tax levying\". In 2014, the same companies paid approximately €127,864 to Anti-balaka militias at road checkpoints. These illegal timber exploits continued in more recent years. The CEMAC banned raw timber exports in January 2022, but the Central African Republic failed to honor this ban. 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. ## Agriculture 74% (2013) of the population in the Central African Republic works in the agriculture industry, so Central African Republic\'s economy is dominated by the cultivation and sale of foodcrops such as yams, cassava, peanuts, maize, sorghum, millet, sesame, and plantains. The importance of foodcrops over exported cash crops is illustrated by the fact that the total production of cassava, the staple food of most Central Africans, ranges between c. 200,000 and 300,000 tons a year, while the production of cotton, the principal exported cash crop, ranges from c. 25,000 to 45,000 tons a year. Foodcrops are not exported in large quantities but they still constitute the principal cash crops of the country because Central Africans derive far more income from the periodic sale of surplus foodcrops than from exported cash crops such as cotton or coffee. Many rural and urban women also transform some foodcrops into alcoholic drinks such as sorghum beer or hard liquor and derive considerable income from the sale of these drinks. Much of the income derived from the sale of foods and alcohol is not \"on the books\" and thus is not considered in calculating per capita income, which is one reason why official figures for per capita income are not accurate in the case of the CAR. The per capita income of the CAR is often listed as being around \$400 a year, said to be one of the lowest in the world, but this figure is based mostly on reported sales of exports and largely ignores the more important but unregistered sale of foods, locally produced alcohol, diamonds, ivory, bushmeat, and traditional medicines, for example. The informal economy of the CAR is more important than the formal economy for most Central Africans. 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 {#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. In April 2022, the country announced that it will adopt the cryptocurrency bitcoin as legal tender. ## Economic aid and development {#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. Economic mismanagement, poor infrastructure, a limited tax base, scarce private investment, and adverse external conditions have led to deficits in both its budget and external trade. Its debt burden is considerable, and the country has seen a decline in per capita gross national product over the last 40 years. Important constraints to economic development include the CAR\'s landlocked position, a poor transportation system, a largely unskilled work force, and a legacy of misdirected macroeconomic policies. The 50% devaluation of the currencies of 14 Francophone African nations on 12 January 1994 had mixed effects on the CAR\'s economy. Diamond, timber, coffee, and cotton exports increased, leading an estimated rise of GDP of 7% in 1994 and nearly 5% in 1995. Military rebellions and social unrest in 1996 were accompanied by widespread destruction of property and a drop in GDP of 2%. Ongoing violence between the government and rebel military groups over pay issues, living conditions, and political representation has destroyed many businesses in the capital and reduced tax revenues for the government. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved an Extended Structure Adjustment Facility in 1998. The government has set targets of annual 5% growth and 25% inflation for 2000--2001. Structural adjustment programs with the World Bank and IMF and interest-free credits to support investments in the agriculture, livestock, and transportation sectors have had limited impact. The World Bank and IMF are now encouraging the government to concentrate exclusively on implementing much-needed economic reforms to jump-start the economy and defining its fundamental priorities with the aim of alleviating poverty. As a result, many of the state-owned business entities have been privatized and limited efforts have been made to standardize and simplify labor and investment codes and to address problems of corruption. The Central African Government is currently in the process of adopting new labor and investment codes. ## Macroeconomic The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980--2024. +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| Year \| GDP (in bil. US\$ PPP) \| GDP per capita (in US\$ PPP) \| GDP (in bil. US\$ nominal) \| GDP growth\ \| Inflation\ \| Government debt\ \| \| \| \| \| \| (real) \| (in Percent) \| (Percentage of GDP) \| +==========+========================+==============================+============================+=============+==============+=====================+ \| 1980 \| 1.14 \| 514 \| 0.71 \| \| \| \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 1985 \| 1.72 \| 680 \| 0.88 \| \| \| \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 1990 \| 2.30 \| 800 \| 1.57 \| \| \| \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 1995 \| 2.81 \| 839 \| 1.12 \| \| \| \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2000 \| 3.06 \| 797 \| 0.87 \| \| \| \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2005 \| 3.61 \| 841 \| 1.41 \| 2.9% \| 2.9% \| 103.0% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2006 \| 3.90 \| 890 \| 1.54 \| 4.8% \| 6.9% \| 46.8% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2007 \| 4.16 \| 933 \| 1.76 \| 4.0% \| 0.9% \| 47.9% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2008 \| 4.35 \| 955 \| 2.03 \| 2.6% \| 9.3% \| 35.8% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2009 \| 4.50 \| 995 \| 2.06 \| 2.8% \| 3.6% \| 20.3% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2010 \| 4.77 \| 1,062 \| 2.14 \| 4.6% \| 1.5% \| 19.9% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2011 \| 5.07 \| 1,111 \| 2.44 \| 4.2% \| 1.2% \| 19.7% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2012 \| 5.43 \| 1,177 \| 2.51 \| 5.1% \| 5.9% \| 31.5% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2013 \| 3.51 \| 756 \| 1.69 \| −36.4% \| 4.0% \| 51.8% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2014 \| 3.58 \| 773 \| 1.90 \| 0.1% \| 17.8% \| 62.2% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2015 \| 3.77 \| 813 \| 1.70 \| 4.3% \| 1.4% \| 59.8% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2016 \| 3.98 \| 845 \| 1.83 \| 4.8% \| 4.9% \| 53.9% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2017 \| 4.24 \| 884 \| 2.07 \| 4.5% \| 4.2% \| 50.3% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2018 \| 4.53 \| 929 \| 2.28 \| 3.8% \| 1.6% \| 50.0% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2019 \| 5.00 \| 1,010 \| 2.28 \| 3.0% \| 2.8% \| 48.2% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2020 \| 5.49 \| 1,093 \| 2.39 \| 1.0% \| 0.9% \| 44.4% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2021 \| 5.92 \| 1,159 \| 2.59 \| 1.0% \| 4.3% \| 48.5% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2022 \| 6.38 \| 1,251 \| 2.46 \| 0.5% \| 5.6% \| 51.0% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2023 \| 6.65 \| 1,291 \| 2.63 \| 0.7% \| 3.0% \| 57.6% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ \| 2024 \| 6.91 \| 1,296 \| 2.82 \| 1.4% \| 4.7% \| 57.4% \| +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ ## Exchange rates {#exchange_rates}	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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_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. - Radios: 283,000 (1997).`{{update after\|2014\|1\|24}}`{=mediawiki} - Television stations: Government-owned network, Télévision Centrafricaine (TCF), provides domestic TV broadcasting; licenses for 2 private TV stations were pending (2007). - Television sets: 18,000 (1997).`{{update after\|2014\|1\|24}}`{=mediawiki} In Bangui, UN-sponsored Radio Ndeke Luka (\"bird of luck\") provides balanced output, and rebroadcasts international news programming. Other radio and TV stations are run by the state-run Radiodiffusion-Television Centrafricaine and provide little coverage of the political opposition. There are about two dozen privately owned radio stations. Many, such as Radio Notre Dame, run by religious organisations. Starting 24 November 2011 La Radio et la Télévision nationale centrafricaine (TVCA) (Central African Radio (CAR) and National Television) are available via satellite. This move brought state-run national radio and television coverage to the entire country. ## Telephones - Calling code: +236 - International call prefix: 00 - Main lines: 5,600 lines in use, 209th in the world (2012). - Mobile cellular: 1.1 million lines, 157th in the world (2012). - Telephone system: The network consists principally of microwave radio relay and low-capacity, low-powered radiotelephone communication; limited telephone service with less than one fixed-line connection per 100 persons; spurred by the presence of multiple mobile-cellular service providers, cellular usage is increasing from a low base; most fixed-line and mobile-cellular telephone services are concentrated in the capital, Bangui (2011). - Satellite earth stations: 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2011). GSM coverage was for a long time limited to the capital area. But in June 2006 coverage was expanded at least to Berberati in the western part of the country. There are currently two GSM-900 mobile operators, Telecel CAR and NationLink Telecom RCA. A third network, Centrafrique Telecom Plus closed down in late 2005 after failing to attract more than 5,000 subscribers and failing to renew its license, in accordance with the then new Bozize government policies. ## Internet - Top-level domain: .cf - Internet users: - 151,716 users, 160th in the world; 3.0% of the population, 195th in the world (2012). - 22,600 users, 192nd in the world (2009). - Internet hosts: 20 hosts, 221st in the world (2012). - IPv4: 4,352 addresses allocated, less than 0.05% of the world total, 0.9 addresses per 1000 people (2012). - Internet Service Providers (ISPs): Moov, Orange, Socatel, and Telecel. ### Internet censorship and surveillance {#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.\" ## Postal system {#postal_system} L\'Office National de la Poste et de l\'Épargne (ONPE) is the government organization responsible for the postal service.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 `{{flagicon\|Cameroon}}`{=mediawiki} 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 {#ports_and_harbors} There is only one river port. It is at the city of Bangui. ## Airports `{{multiple image \| align = right \| image1 = Djemah Airfield.jpeg \| width1 = 250 \| alt1 = \| caption1 = \| image2 = Obo Mission Airfield, Central Africa Republic.JPG \| width2 = 250 \| alt2 = \| caption2 = \| footer = Dirt runways in [[Djemah]] and [[Obo]], respectively. }}`{=mediawiki} ### Airports with paved runways {#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 {#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)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,486	Central African Armed Forces	The Central African Armed Forces (Forces armées centrafricaines; 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 {#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 {#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 {#army_mutinies_of_19961997} 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. After the mutinies, President Patassé suffered from a typical \"dictator\'s paranoia\", resulting in a period of cruel terror executed by the presidential guard and various militias within the FACA loyal to the president, such as the Karako. The violence was directed against the Yakoma tribe, of which it is estimated that 20,000 persons fled during this period. The oppression also targeted other parts of the society. The president accused his former ally France of supporting his enemies and sought new international ties. When he strengthened his presidential guard (creating the FORSIDIR, see below), Libya sent him 300 additional soldiers for his own personal safety. When former President Kolingba attempted a coup d\'état in 2001 (which was, according to Patassé, supported by France), the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC) of Jean-Pierre Bemba in DR Congo came to his rescue. 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 {#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 {#militarys_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 {#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 {#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. The majority of its arsenals were plundered during the fighting by the Séléka coalition and other armed groups. Thousands of the army\'s small arms were also distributed to civilian supporters of former President Bozizé in 2013. Prior to 2014, the army\'s stocks of arms and ammunition were primarily of French, Soviet, and Chinese origin. In 2018, the army\'s equipment stockpiles were partly revitalized by a donation of 900 pistols, 5,200 rifles, and 270 unspecified rocket launchers from Russia. ### Small arms {#small_arms} +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Name \| Image \| Caliber \| Type \| Origin \| Notes \| +=========================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================+========================================================================================================================================================================================================================================+==============+=============================+==============================+=============================================================+ \| Pistols \| \| \| \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| MAC 50 \| \| 9×19mm \| Semi-automatic pistol \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Walther PP \| \| .25 ACP \| Semi-automatic pistol \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Manurhin MR 73 \| \| .357 Magnum \| Revolver \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Submachine guns \| \| \| \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Uzi \| \| 9×19mm \| Submachine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Carl Gustaf m/45 \| \| 9×19mm \| Submachine gun \| Sweden \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Sten \| \| 9×19mm \| Submachine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| MAS-38 \| \| 7.65×20mm \| Submachine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| MAT-49 \| \| 9×19mm \| Submachine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Rifles \| \| \| \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| SKS \| \| 7.62×39mm \| Semi-automatic rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| AKM \| \| 7.62×39mm \| Assault rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Zastava M70 \| \| 7.62×39mm \| Assault rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| PM md. 63 \| \| 7.62×39mm \| Assault rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Type 56 \| \| 7.62×39mm \| Assault rifle \| \| Some captured or inherited from Séléka stockpiles. \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| IMI Galil \| \| 5.56×45mm \| Assault rifle \| \| In service as of 2004; likely acquired from Zaire and Chad. \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Vektor R4 \| \| 5.56×45mm \| Assault rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| M14 \| \| 7.62×51mm \| Battle rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| M16 \| \| 5.56×45mm \| Assault rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| FAMAS \| \| 5.56×45mm \| Bullpup \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| Assault rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| FN FAL \| \| 7.62×51mm \| Battle rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Heckler & Koch G3 \| \| 7.62×51mm \| Battle rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| SIG SG 540 \| \| 7.62×51mm \| Battle rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| MAS-36{{cite web\\|title=The Central African Republic And Small Arms: A Regional Tinderbox\\|last1=Berman\\|first1=Eric\\|last2=Lombard\\|first2=Louisa\\|url=<https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/95111/Central-African-Republic-Small-Arms.pdf%7Clocation=Geneva> \| publisher=Small Arms Survey\\|date=2008\\|access-date=24 March 2017\\|archive-url=<https://web.archive.org/web/20170324194711/https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/95111/Central-African-Republic-Small-Arms.pdf%7Carchive-date=24> March 2017}} \| \| 7.5×54mm \| Bolt-action rifle \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Lee Enfield \| \| .303 British \| Bolt-action rifle \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Sniper rifles \| \| \| \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| SVD\ \| \| 7.62×54mmR \| Designated marksman rifle\ \| \ \| \| \| Type 85 \| \| \| Sniper rifle \| `{{Flag\|China}}`{=mediawiki} \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Machine guns \| \| \| \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| SG-43 Goryunov \| \| 7.62×54mmR \| Medium machine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| RP-46 \| \| 7.62×54mmR \| Light machine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| RPD \| \| 7.62×39mm \| Squad automatic weapon \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| RPK \| \| 7.62×39mm \| Squad automatic weapon \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| PKM \| \| 7.62×54mmR \| General-purpose machine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| DShK \| \| 12.7×108mm \| Heavy machine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Type 67 \| \| \\|7.62×54mmR \| General-purpose machine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| FM 24/29 \| \| 7.5×54mm \| Light machine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| AA-52 \| \| \\|7.62×54mmR \| General-purpose machine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| FN MAG \| \| 7.62×51mm \| General-purpose machine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Browning M1919 \| \| 7.62×51mm \| Medium machine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Browning M2 \| \| .50 BMG \| Heavy machine gun \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Rocket propelled grenade launchers \| \| \| \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ \| RPG-7 \| \| 40mm \| Rocket-propelled grenade \| \| \| +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ ### Anti-tank weapons {#anti_tank_weapons} +----------+--------------+------------------+--------+---------+-----------------+ \| Name \| Image \| Type \| Origin \| Caliber \| Notes \| +==========+==============+==================+========+=========+=================+ \| M40A1 \| \| Recoilless rifle \| \| 106mm \| 14 in service. \| +----------+--------------+------------------+--------+---------+-----------------+ ### Mortars +---------+-------------+---------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ \| Name \| Image \| Type \| Origin \| Quantity \| Status \| Notes \| +=========+=============+=========+========+==========+========+================+ \| PM-43 \| \| Mortar \| \| 12 \| \| In store \| +---------+-------------+---------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ \| Type 67 \| \| Mortar \| \| Unknown \| \| \| +---------+-------------+---------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ ### Vehicles #### Scout cars {#scout_cars} +----------------+-------------+------------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ \| Name \| Image \| Type \| Origin \| Quantity \| Status \| Notes \| +================+=============+==============================+========+==========+========+================+ \| BRDM-2 \| \| Amphibious armored scout car \| \| 21 \| \| \| +----------------+-------------+------------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ \| Daimler Ferret \| \| Armored car Scout car \| \| 8 \| \| \| +----------------+-------------+------------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ #### Infantry fighting vehicles {#infantry_fighting_vehicles} +----------+-------------+---------------------------+--------+----------+--------+---------------------------------+ \| Name \| Image \| Type \| Origin \| Quantity \| Status \| Notes \| +==========+=============+===========================+========+==========+========+=================================+ \| Ratel-90 \| \| Infantry fighting vehicle \| \| 2 \| \| Original order for 18 canceled. \| +----------+-------------+---------------------------+--------+----------+--------+---------------------------------+ #### Armored personnel carriers {#armored_personnel_carriers} +------------------+-------------+---------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ \| Name \| Image \| Type \| Origin \| Quantity \| Status \| Notes \| +==================+=============+===========================+========+==========+========+================+ \| ACMAT TPK 420 BL \| \| Armored personnel carrier \| \| 25 \| \| \| +------------------+-------------+---------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ \| VAB \| \| Armored personnel carrier \| \| 10 \| \| \| +------------------+-------------+---------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ #### Utility vehicles {#utility_vehicles} +--------------+-------------+-----------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ \| Name \| Image \| Type \| Origin \| Quantity \| Status \| Notes \| +==============+=============+=================+========+==========+========+================+ \| Toyota Hilux \| \| Utility vehicle \| \| 57 \| \| \| +--------------+-------------+-----------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ \| CSK-131 \| \| Utility vehicle \| \| 12 \| \| \| +--------------+-------------+-----------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ ## Foreign military presence in support of the Government {#foreign_military_presence_in_support_of_the_government} ### Peacekeeping and peace enforcing forces {#peacekeeping_and_peace_enforcing_forces} Since the mutinies, a number of peacekeeping and peace enforcing international missions have been present in Central African Republic. There has been discussion of the deployment of a regional United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force in both Chad and Central African Republic, in order to potentially shore up the ineffectual Darfur Peace Agreement. The missions deployed in the country during the last 10 years are the following: +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Mission Name \| Organisation \| Dates \| Greatest Strength \| Tasks \| +===================================================================================+===========================================================+=================================+=================================================================================================================================================================================+========================================================================================================================================================================================================================================+ \| Inter-African Mission to Monitor the Implementation of the Bangui Agreements\ \| Burkina Faso, Chad, Gabon, Mali, Senegal and Togo \| February 1997 to April 1998 \| 820 \| To monitor the fulfilling of the Bangui Agreements \| \| (Mission interafricaine de surveillance des Accords de Bangui, MISAB) \| \| \| \| \| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| UN Mission in the Central African Republic\ \| UN \| April 1998 to February 2000 \| 1,350 \| Maintain peace and security; supervise disarmament; technical assistance during 1998 elections \| \| (Mission des Nations Unies en République centrafricaine, MINURCA) \| \| \| \| \| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| United Nations Peace-building Office\ \| UN \| February 2000 to 1 January 2010 \| Five military and six civilian police advisers to follow up on security-related reforms and to assist in the implementation of the training programmes for the national police. \| Consolidate peace and national reconciliation; strengthen democratic institutions; facilitate international mobilization for national reconstruction and economic recovery. Succeeded by UN Integrated Peace-building Office (BINUCA). \| \| (Bureau politique d\'observation des Nations Unies en Centrafrique, BONUCA) \| \| \| \| \| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Community of Sahel-Saharan States\ \| CEN-SAD \| December 2001 to January 2003 \| 300 \| Enforce and restore peace \| \| (CEN-SAD) \| \| \| \| \| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Multinational Force in the Central African Republic\ \| Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) \| January 2003 to July 2008 \| 380 \| Ensure security; restructure FACA; and fight rebels in north-east. Replaced by MICOPAX. \| \| (Force multinationale en Centrafrique, FOMUC) \| \| \| \| \| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ : International Peace Supporting Missions in Central African Republic ### 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. The CEMAC Force includes 121 Chadian soldiers. ### France There has been an almost uninterrupted French military presence in Central African Republic since independence, regulated through agreements between the two Governments. French troops were allowed to be based in the country and to intervene in cases of destabilisation. This was particularly important during the cold war era, when Francophone Africa was regarded as a natural French sphere of influence. Additionally, the strategic location of the country made it a more interesting location for military bases than its neighbours, and Bouar and Bangui were hence two of the most important French bases abroad. However, in 1997, following Lionel Jospin\'s expression \"Neither interference nor indifference\", France came to adopt new strategic principles for its presence in Africa. This included a reduced permanent presence on the continent and increased support for multilateral interventions. 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 {#components_and_units} ### Air Force {#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: Aircraft Type Versions In service Notes ---------------------------------- ---------------------- -------------------- ------------ ------------------------------- Aermacchi AL-60 Utility AL-60C-5 Conestoga 6--10 Eurocopter AS 350 Ecureuil Utility helicopter AS 350B 1 Mil Mi-8 Hip Transport helicopter Mi-8 2 Unconfirmed Lockheed C-130 Hercules Transport C-130 1 Unconfirmed \[Avion chaser to entraitment L- 39 Albatros\]: 10 \- \[Avion chaser Soukhoï-25\]:8 ### Garde républicaine (GR) {#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. However, post-civil leaders have been cautious in attempting to significantly reform the Republican Guard. ### New amphibious force {#new_amphibious_force} Bozizé has created an amphibious force. It is called the Second Battalion of the Ground Forces and it patrols the Ubangi river. The staff of the sixth region in Bouali (mainly made up of members of the former president\'s lifeguard) was transferred to the city of Mongoumba, located on the river. This city had previously been plundered by forces from the MLC, that had crossed the CAR/Congo border. The riverine patrol force has approximately one hundred personnel and operates seven patrol boats. ### Veteran soldiers {#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. ### Discontinued groups and units that are no longer part of FACA {#discontinued_groups_and_units_that_are_no_longer_part_of_faca} - Séléka rebels: the French document Spécial investigation: Centrafrique, au cœur du chaos envisions Séléka rebels as mercenaries under the command of the president. In the documentary the Séléka fighters seem to use a large number of M16 rifles in their fight against the Anti-balaka forces. - 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.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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) {#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.\" The Inca Empire briefly extended their empire into what is now northern Chile, where they collected tribute from small groups of fishermen and oasis farmers but were not able to establish a strong cultural presence in the area. 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. The Chilean Patagonia located south of the Calle-Calle River in Valdivia was composed of many tribes, mainly Tehuelches, who were considered giants by Spaniards during Magellan\'s voyage of 1520. The name Patagonia comes from the word patagón 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) {#european_conquest_and_colonization_15401810} 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. thumb\\|upright=1.4\\|Picture \"The young Lautaro\" of Pedro Subercaseaux that show to genius military and hero of the Arauco war after the arrival of the Spanish to Chilean territory 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) {#independence_18101818} 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) {#republican_era_18181891} ### Constitutional organization (1818--1833) {#constitutional_organization_18181833} 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) {#conservative_era_18301861} 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) {#liberal_era_18611891} 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) {#parliamentary_era_18911925} 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. However, particularly when the authoritarian regime of Augusto Pinochet is taken into consideration, some scholars have in recent years reevaluated the Parliamentary Republic of 1891--1925. Without denying its shortcomings, they have lauded its democratic stability. They have also hailed its control of the armed forces, its respect for civil liberties, its expansion of suffrage and participation, and its gradual admission of new contenders, especially reformers, to the political arena. In particular, two young parties grew in importance -- the Democrat Party, with roots among artisans and urban workers, and the Radical Party, representing urban middle sectors and provincial elites. By the early 20th century, both parties were winning increasing numbers of seats in Congress. The more leftist members of the Democrat Party became involved in the leadership of labor unions and broke off to launch the Socialist Workers\' Party (Partido Obrero Socialista -- POS) in 1912. The founder of the POS and its best-known leader, Luis Emilio Recabarren, also founded the Communist Party of Chile (Partido Comunista de Chile -- PCCh) in 1922. ## Presidential era (1925--1973) {#presidential_era_19251973} By the 1920s, the emerging middle and working classes were powerful enough to elect a reformist president, Arturo Alessandri Palma. Alessandri appealed to those who believed the social question should be addressed, to those worried by the decline in nitrate exports during World War I, and to those weary of presidents dominated by Congress. Promising \"evolution to avoid revolution\", he pioneered a new campaign style of appealing directly to the masses with florid oratory and charisma. After winning a seat in the Senate representing the mining north in 1915, he earned the sobriquet \"Lion of Tarapacá.\" 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. Alessandri soon discovered that his efforts to lead would be blocked by the conservative Congress. Like Balmaceda, he infuriated the legislators by going over their heads to appeal to the voters in the congressional elections of 1924. His reform legislation was finally rammed through Congress under pressure from younger military officers, who were sick of the neglect of the armed forces, political infighting, social unrest, and galloping inflation, whose program was frustrated by a conservative congress. A double military coup set off a period of great political instability that lasted until 1932. First military right-wingers opposing Alessandri seized power in September 1924, and then reformers in favor of the ousted president took charge in January 1925. The Saber noise (ruido de sables) incident of September 1924, provoked by discontent of young officers, mostly lieutenants from middle and working classes, lead to the establishment of the September Junta led by General Luis Altamirano and the exile of Alessandri. However, fears of a conservative restoration in progressive sectors of the army led to another coup in January, which ended with the establishment of the January Junta as interim government while waiting for Alessandri\'s return. The latter group was led by two colonels, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo and Marmaduke Grove. They returned Alessandri to the presidency that March and enacted his promised reforms by decree. The latter re-assumed power in March, and a new Constitution encapsulating his proposed reforms was ratified in a plebiscite in September 1925. The new constitution gave increased powers to the presidency. Alessandri broke with the classical liberalism\'s policies of laissez-faire by creating a Central Bank and imposing a revenue tax. However, social discontents were also crushed, leading to the Marusia massacre in March 1925 followed by the La Coruña massacre. The longest lasting of the ten governments between 1924 and 1932 was that of General Carlos Ibáñez, who briefly held power in 1925 and then again between 1927 and 1931 in what was a de facto dictatorship. 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. The Seguro Obrero Massacre took place on September 5, 1938, in the midst of a heated three-way election campaign between the ultraconservative Gustavo Ross Santa María, the radical Popular Front\'s Pedro Aguirre Cerda, and the newly formed Popular Alliance candidate, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. The National Socialist Movement of Chile supported Ibáñez\'s candidacy, which had been announced on September 4. In order to preempt Ross\'s victory, the National Socialists mounted a coup d\'état that was intended to take down the rightwing government of Arturo Alessandri Palma and place Ibáñez in power. During the period of Radical Party dominance (1932--1952), the state increased its role in the economy. In 1952, voters returned Ibáñez to office for another 6 years. Jorge Alessandri succeeded Ibáñez in 1958. 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 accomplished many noteworthy objectives, but he had not fully achieved his party\'s ambitious goals. ### Popular Unity years {#popular_unity_years} In the 1970 presidential election, Senator Salvador Allende Gossens won a plurality of votes in a three-way contest. He was a Marxist physician and member of Chile\'s Socialist Party, who headed the \"Popular Unity\" (UP or \"Unidad Popular\") coalition of the Socialist, Communist, Radical, and Social-Democratic Parties, along with dissident Christian Democrats, the Popular Unitary Action Movement (MAPU), and the Independent Popular Action. Allende had two main competitors in the election --- Radomiro Tomic, representing the incumbent Christian Democratic party, who ran a left-wing campaign with much the same theme as Allende\'s, and the right-wing former president Jorge Alessandri. In the end, Allende received a plurality of the votes cast, getting 36% of the vote against Alessandri\'s 35% and Tomic\'s 28%. Despite pressure from the government of the United States, 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. In addition, the CIA\'s website reports that the agency aided three different Chilean opposition groups during that time period and \"sought to instigate a coup to prevent Allende from taking office\". The action plans to prevent Allende from coming to power were known as Track I and Track II. In the first year of Allende\'s term, the short-term economic results of Economics Minister Pedro Vuskovic\'s expansive monetary policy were unambiguously favorable: 12% industrial growth and an 8.6% increase in GDP, accompanied by major declines in inflation (down from 34.9% to 22.1%) and unemployment (down to 3.8%). Allende adopted measures including price freezes, wage increases, and tax reforms, which had the effect of increasing consumer spending and redistributing 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 administration\'s first year. However, these results were not sustainable and in 1972 the Chilean escudo had runaway inflation of 140%. An economic depression that had begun in 1967 peaked in 1972, exacerbated by capital flight, plummeting private investment, and withdrawal of bank deposits in response to Allende\'s socialist program. Production fell and unemployment rose. The combination of inflation and government-mandated price-fixing led to the rise of black markets in rice, beans, sugar, and flour, and a \"disappearance\" of such basic commodities from supermarket shelves. 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. For instance, in 1976, the New York Times published 66 articles on human rights abuses in Chile and only 4 on Cambodia, where the communist Khmer Rouge killed some 1.5 million people of 7.5 million people in the country. ## Military dictatorship (1973--1990) {#military_dictatorship_19731990} 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: Year 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 --------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ Inflation (%) 508.1 376.0 340.0 174.0 63.5 30.3 38.9 31.2 9.5 20.7 thumb\\|upright=1.35\\|Chilean (orange) and average Latin American (blue) rates of growth of GDP (1971--2007) 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. The central bank took over foreign debts. Critics ridiculed the economic policy of the Chicago Boys as \"Chicago way to socialism". 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. ## Transition to democracy (1990--) {#transition_to_democracy_1990} ### Aylwin, Frei, and Lagos {#aylwin_frei_and_lagos} Chileans elected a new president and the majority of members of a two-chamber congress on December 14, 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. 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 {#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 M~W~ 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 700 m 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 was elected president of Chile for a second term. He received 36% of the votes, the highest percentage among all 8 candidates. In the second round, Piñera faced Alejandro Guillier, a television news anchor who represented Bachelet\'s New Majority (Nueva Mayoría) coalition. Piñera won the elections with 54% of the votes. ### Estallido Social and Constitutional Referendum {#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- ) {#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.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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). During the period 1896--1924, Chile enjoyed continuous free and fair elections. ### Parliamentary Republic {#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 {#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 {#legislative_branch} The bicameral National Congress (Congreso Nacional) consists of the Senate (Senado) and the Chamber of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados). 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 110 km 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 {#legal_system} thumb\\|The Palacio de los Tribunales de Justicia de Santiago. 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 {#political_parties_and_elections} ## Pressure groups {#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 {#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. Other avenues of public policy advocacy include citizenship advocacy, union advocacy, and government advocacy. Unions have been especially successful at impacting public policy through strikes, collective bargaining, and legal mobilization. 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 {#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: 1. Colonial rule centralising decision-making with national government, which persisted after independence. 2. 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. 3. Lack of empowered demand for an alternative (e.g. federal) structure due to a historical lack of strong and autonomous subnational movements. 4. 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). 5. 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). 6. 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 ----------------------------------------- ----------- ------------------ Aspect Chile OECD average Local government expenditure (% of GDP) 3% 17% Total public expenditure (% of GDP) 13% 40% ----------------------------------------- ----------- ------------------ 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: 1. a presidential advisory commission for decentralisation defining a decentralisation agenda 2. 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. 3. 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: ```{=html} <!-- --> ``` 1. 1. reducing the dominance of central government and strengthening regional governance 2. 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. Recent initiatives, for example, Carolina Gainza\'s work with universities as Undersecretary of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation (2022-2024) have helped focus on equity and equality. ## International organization participation {#international_organization_participation} Chile or Chilean organizations participate in the following international organizations:	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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.) - Pre-paid: 17,283,257 - Post-paid: 6,847,497 - 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 - Domestic: extensive microwave radio relay links; domestic satellite system with 3 earth stations - international: country code - 56; submarine cables provide links to the US and to Central and South America; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2007) ## Radio - Broadcast stations: 1,490 (175 AM; 1,315 FM) (2006) ## Television - Broadcast stations: 63 (plus 121 repeaters) (1997) - Broadcast television system: NTSC - Pay television: 4,158,874 (2012) ## Internet - Internet hosts: 847,215 (2008) - Internet users: 16,822,264 (2020 est.) - Internet mobile users: 4,921,587 - Internet country code: .cl ## Other technical details {#other_technical_details} - Electricity: 220 volts AC, 50 Hz	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 {#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.)\< - Chile Freeway 6 - Chile Freeway 8 - Autopista del Sol - Autopista del Itata ### Buses Buses are now the main means of long-distance transportation in Chile, following the decline of the rail network. 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 Main article: Rail transport in Chile - Total: 6,782 km - Broad gauge: 3,743 km `{{Track gauge\|5ft6in\|lk=on}}`{=mediawiki} gauge (1,653 km electrified) - Narrow gauge: 116 km `{{track gauge\|3ft6in\|lk=on}}`{=mediawiki} gauge; 2,923 km `{{Track gauge\|1000mm\|allk=on\|engvar=en-US}}`{=mediawiki} (40 km electrified) (1995) - `{{Track gauge\|sg\|allk=on}}`{=mediawiki} 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 `{{RailGauge\|2ft6in}}`{=mediawiki} 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 {#rail_links_with_adjacent_countries} - Bolivia -- yes -- same gauge `{{RailGauge\|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki} -- from Arica to La Paz, Bolivia - Argentina -- Central Trans-Andean Railway -- abandoned 1984 -- 100 km of mountain railway of `{{RailGauge\|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki} gauge with rack railway sections -- break of gauge `{{RailGauge\|1676mm}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{RailGauge\|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki} at either end. Concession planned to re-open line. - Peru -- yes -- a single `{{RailGauge\|1435mm}}`{=mediawiki} gauge connection between the northern Chilean city of Arica and Tacna in Southern Peru. ### Cities with Metros {#cities_with_metros} - Santiago (Metro de Santiago) [website](http://www.metrosantiago.cl/) - Valparaíso (Valparaíso Metro) [website](http://www.merval.cl/) ## Ports and merchant marine {#ports_and_merchant_marine} ### Ports +-----------------+---+------------------+---+-----------------+ \| - Antofagasta \| \| - Iquique \| \| - San Vicente \| \| - Arica \| \| - Puerto Montt \| \| - Talcahuano \| \| - Chañaral \| \| - Punta Arenas \| \| - Tocopilla \| \| - Coquimbo \| \| - San Antonio \| \| - Valparaíso \| \| - Corral \| \| \| \| \| +-----------------+---+------------------+---+-----------------+ ### Merchant marine {#merchant_marine} total: 45 ships (`{{GT\|1,000\|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} or over) totaling `{{GT\|580,749}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{DWT\|860,034\|metric\|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} ships by type: (1999 est.) +----------------------------+---+------------------------+ \| - bulk carriers 11 \| \| - Passenger ships 3 \| \| - cargo ships 9 \| \| - petroleum tanker 4 \| \| - chemical tankers 8 \| \| - roll-on/roll-off 4 \| \| - container ships 2 \| \| - vehicle carrier 2 \| \| - gas carrying tankers 2 \| \| \| +----------------------------+---+------------------------+ ## Aviation ### Airports -- with paved runways {#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 {#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 {#national_airlines} - LATAM Chile - Sky Airline - JetSmart - Latin American Wings (defunct) ## Bridges ### Chacao Channel {#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 {#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	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 {#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 {#ethnic_groups} - Europeans - Cocos Malays ### Religions - Sunni Islam 80% - Other 20% ### Languages - Malay (Cocos dialect) - English	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 780000 km², 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 {#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. The Coral Sea Islands became an Australian external territory in 1969 by the Coral Sea Islands Act and extended in 1997 to include Elizabeth Reef and Middleton Reef nearly 800 km further south. The two latter reefs are much closer to Lord Howe Island, New South Wales, (about 150 km) than to the southernmost island of the rest of the territory, Cato Island. The islands, cays and reefs of the Great Barrier Reef are not part of the territory, belonging to Queensland instead. The outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef is the boundary between Queensland and the Coral Sea Islands Territory. The territory is a possession or external territory of Australia, administered from Canberra. Previously it was administered by the Attorney-General\'s Department 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 200 nmi 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 989842 km2 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 100 x and an area of 2500 km2, which compares to a combined land area of the 18 individual islets of only 0.91 km2. 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 3 km2 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 {#northwestern_group} 1. Osprey Reef (submerged atoll roughly oval in shape, measuring 25 by, covering around 195 km2, with lagoon up to 30 m deep) 2. Shark Reef (small elongated submerged reef 15 km south of Osprey Reef, with a minimum depth of 7.8 m) 3. Bougainville Reef (small submerged atoll, 2.5 by, area 8 km2 with lagoon, dries at half tide) 4. East Holmes Reef (submerged atoll, about 14 by, area 125 km2 with lagoon) 5. West Holmes Reef (submerged atoll 6 km east of East Holmes Reef, about 18 by, area 125 km2 with lagoon that is open on the West side, two small cays) 6. Flora Reef (small submerged atoll, 5 by 4 km, about 12 km2) 7. Diane Bank (sunken atoll, depths of less than 10 m over an area of 65 by 25 km, or 1300 km2, along the northern edge 3 m deep, with Sand Cay in the Northwest, 3 m high) 8. North Moore Reef (small submerged atoll, 4 by 3 km, area 8 km2 including lagoon that is open on the Northwest side) 9. South Moore Reef (small submerged reef 5 km South of North Moore Reef) 10. Willis Islets (sunken atoll, bank 45 by 19 km, bank area more than 500 km2, 3 islets on the Northwestern side: North Cay, Mid Islet almost 8 m high, South Islet or Willis Island 10 m high) 11. Magdelaine Cays & Coringa Islets (one large, partially sunken atoll structure, almost 90 by 30 km, bank area about 1500 km2), 2 islets of the Magdelaine Cays in the North: North West Islet (area approximately 0.2 km2) and South East Cay (area 0.37 km2); 2 islets of the Coringa Islets 50 to 60 km further Southwest: Southwest Islet or Coringa Islet (area 0.173 km^2^), and Chilcott Islet (area 0.163 km^2^) 12. Herald Cays, Northeast Cay (encircled by a reef of 3 by 3 km, total area 6 km^2^, land area 0.34 km^2^) 13. Herald Cays, Southwest Cay (4 km Southwest of Northeast Cay, encircled by a reef of 2 by 2 km, total area 3 km^2^, land area 0.188 km^2^) 14. Lihou Reef and Cays (largest atoll in the coral sea, with a size of 2500 km^2^, land area 0.91 km^2^) 15. Diamond Islets & Tregosse Reefs (large, partially sunken atoll, 100 by 52 km, area of the bank over 3000 km^2^, 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) 16. North Flinders Reef (large atoll, 34 by 23 km, area 600 km^2^, with 2 islets, Flinders Cay being the larger one with a length of 200 m and a height of 3 m) 17. South Flinders Reef (atoll, 15 by 5 km, 60 km^2^) 18. Herald\'s Surprise (small submerged reef North of Flinders Reefs, 3 by 2 km) 19. Dart Reef (small submerged reef Northwest of Flinders Reefs, 3 by 3 km, area 6 km^2^ including small lagoon that is open to the North) 20. Malay Reef (small submerged reef, not clearly defined, no breakers, difficult to see) 21. Abington Reef (submerged reef, nearly awash, 4 by 2.5 km, area 7 km^2^) 22. 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 km^2^ 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 km^2^, for a total of 1.24 km^2^. - Lihou Reef was declared a Nature Reserve on 16 August 1982, with an area of 8440 km^2^. 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} 1. 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 km^2^. 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 `{{ship\|\|Thames\|1805 ship\|2}}`{=mediawiki} on 5 April 1812. The `{{ship\|French aviso\|Duroc\|852\|6}}`{=mediawiki} wrecked on the reef on 16 August 1856. `{{HMS\|Herald\|1824\|6}}`{=mediawiki} erected the first beacon on the cay, using wreckage from Duroc. ### Southeasterly Group {#southeasterly_group} 1. 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 km^2^. 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. 2. Kenn Reefs, submerged atoll of about 15 by 8 km, area 40 km^2^, islet Observatory Cay in the Southeast, 2 m high 3. 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 km^2^. There are two sand cays: North East Cay and South West Cay. 4. Wreck Reefs: atoll 25 by 5 km, area 75 km^2^, open on the North. Islets found on the reefs include Bird Islet, West Islet and Porpoise Cay. 5. Cato Reef: Cato bank 21 by 13 km, area 200 km^2^ of depths less than 17 m; Cato Reef encircles an area of 3.3 by 1.8 km, area 5 km^2^ including lagoon; Cato Island, in the West of the lagoon, 650 by 300 m, area 0.15 km^2^, 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 {#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 km^2^. 1. Elizabeth Reef, atoll about 8.2 km by 5.5 km, area 51 km^2^ including lagoon, one islet: Elizabeth Island (Elizabeth Cay), no vegetation, 600 m by 400 m (area 0.2 km^2^), highest point 0.8 m. At low tides, much of the reef flat is exposed. 2. Middleton Reef, atoll about 8.9 km by 6.3 km, area 37 km^2^ including lagoon, one islet: The Sound, 100 m by 70 m (area 5,000 m^2^), 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 {#overview_of_islets_and_cays} Complex Type Islets/cays West Holmes Reef Atoll 2 Diane Bank Atoll (mostly sunken) Diane Bank Cay Willis Group Atoll (partially sunken) South Islet (Willis Island), Mid Islet, North Cay Magdelaine Cays and Coringa Islets Atoll (partially sunken) Northwest Islet, Southeast Cay, Southwest, Chilcott Islets Herald Cays (North) Reef Northwest Cay Herald Cays (South) Reef Southeast Cay Lihou Reef and Cays Atoll 18 Diamond Islands and Tregosse Reefs Atoll (partially sunken) West Diamond, Central Diamond, East Diamond, Southwest Diamond Islets Flinders Reefs (North) Atoll Flinders, Main, Victoria Cays Marion Reef Atoll Paget, Carola, Brodie Cays Mellish Reef Atoll Heralds-Beacon Islet Frederick Reefs Atoll Observatory Cay Kenn Reef Atoll Observatory Cay Saumarez Reef Atoll Northeast, Southwest Cays Wreck Reef Atoll Bird, West Islets, Porpoise Cay Cato Reef Atoll Cato Island Middleton Reef Atoll The Sound Elizabeth Reef Atoll Elizabeth Island Total number of islands/cays --------- ------ ------------- ------------------ ------- --- ------------ ----------------------- ---------------- -------------- -------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ -------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------- ------ --------------- --------------------- ------ --------------- --------------------- ------- ---- ------------------------------------ -------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ ------- ------------------------------- ------------- ------- ---------------------------- -------------- ------- ---------------------- ----------------- ------- ----------------- ----------- ------- ----------------- --------------- ------- --------------------------- ------------ ------- --------------------------------- ----------- ------- ------------- ---------------- ------- ----------- ---------------- ------- ------------------ -------------------------------- -- ## Man-made structures {#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.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 km^2^ of which 40 km^2^ 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 {#political_and_human_geography} Costa Rica shares a 313 km border with Nicaragua to the north, and a 348-km border with Panama to the south. Costa Rica claims an exclusive economic zone of 574,725 km2 with 200 nmi and a territorial sea of 12 nmi. 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 {#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 {#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 km^2^. Rivers of Costa Rica all drain into the Caribbean or the Pacific. ### Extreme points {#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 (verano), and the rainy season, known locally as winter (invierno). 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 5000 mm. Humidity is also higher on the Caribbean side than on the Pacific side. The mean annual temperature on the coastal lowlands is around 27 °C, 20 °C in the main populated areas of the Cordillera Central, and below 10 °C on the summits of the highest mountains. `{{weather box \| location = Costa Rica \| source = <ref>{{cite web \|url=http://www.costaricaguides.com/Climate.html \|title=Costa Rica Weather \|website=Costa Rica Guides}}</ref> \| metric first = yes \| single line = yes \| Jan high C = 27 \| Feb high C = 27 \| Mar high C = 28 \| Apr high C = 28 \| May high C = 27 \| Jun high C = 27 \| Jul high C = 27 \| Aug high C = 27 \| Sep high C = 26 \| Oct high C = 26 \| Nov high C = 26 \| Dec high C = 26 \| Jan low C = 17 \| Feb low C = 18 \| Mar low C = 18 \| Apr low C = 18 \| May low C = 18 \| Jun low C = 18 \| Jul low C = 18 \| Aug low C = 18 \| Sep low C = 17 \| Oct low C = 18 \| Nov low C = 18 \| Dec low C = 18 \| Jan precipitation mm = 6.3 \| Feb precipitation mm = 10.2 \| Mar precipitation mm = 13.8 \| Apr precipitation mm = 79.9 \| May precipitation mm = 267.6 \| Jun precipitation mm = 280.1 \| Jul precipitation mm = 181.5 \| Aug precipitation mm = 276.9 \| Sep precipitation mm = 355.1 \| Oct precipitation mm = 330.6 \| Nov precipitation mm = 135.5 \| Dec precipitation mm = 33.5 \| precipitation colour = green \| Jan percentsun = 40 \| Feb percentsun = 37 \| Mar percentsun = 39 \| Apr percentsun = 33 \| May percentsun = 25 \| Jun percentsun = 20 \| Jul percentsun = 21 \| Aug percentsun = 22 \| Sep percentsun = 20 \| Oct percentsun = 22 \| Nov percentsun = 25 \| Dec percentsun = 34 }}`{=mediawiki} ### Climate change {#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. 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. 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 {#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. Deforestation in Costa Rica has been reduced from some of the worst rates in the world from 1973 to 1989, to almost zero by 2005. 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. Over 840 species of birds have been identified in Costa Rica. As is the case in much of Central America, the avian species in Costa Rica are a mix of North and South American species. The country\'s abundant fruit trees, many of which bear fruit year round, are hugely important to the birds, some of whom survive on diets that consist only of one or two types of fruit. Some of the country\'s most notable avian species include the resplendent quetzal, scarlet macaw, three-wattled bellbird, bare-necked umbrellabird, and the keel-billed toucan. 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). ## 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	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 {#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 April 2018, Carlos Alvarado won the presidential election. He became the new President of Costa Rica, succeeding President Guillermo Solís. Both Solis and Alvarado represented centre-left Citizens\' Action Party. 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 {#branches_of_government} ### Executive branch {#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_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 {#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. ### Institutional oversight {#institutional_oversight} A Comptroller General, Procurator General, and an Ombudsman oversee the government and operate autonomously. These institutions have the right to scrutinize, investigate and prosecute government contracts. In addition, they may impose procedural requirements on most political and governmental agencies. The actions of politicians and political parties are frequently researched by these institutions. ## Elections On the national level, the president, two vice-presidents and a legislature are elected for a four-year term. The Legislative Assembly has 57 members, elected by proportional representation in each of the country\'s seven provinces. The electoral process is supervised by an independent Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE for its Spanish initials). The TSE is a commission of three principal magistrates and six alternates selected by the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica. All elections are conducted by a secret ballot at local polling stations. Voting is mandatory for registered citizens under Article 93 of the Constitution of Costa Rica, but this is not enforced. On election days, political parties often organize caravans and marches to get supporters to polling stations. 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. Because the day of elections is a national holiday, most people have the day off. ## Political parties {#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. Political parties in the Legislative Assembly, 2014--2018 --------------------------------------------------------------- Party name (English) National Liberation Party Citizens\' Action Party Broad Front Social Christian Unity Party Libertarian Movement Costa Rican Renewal Party National Restoration Party (Costa Rica) Accessibility without Exclusion Christian Democratic Alliance Recent non-represented and defunct political parties ---------------------------------------------------------- Party name (English) National Union Party National Rescue Party Union for Change Party Homeland First Party National Democrat Alliance Party National Integration Party ## Strength of institutions {#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. Elements such as economic development, a record of state-building, and external actors can contribute to institutional strength; understanding these factors is essential for enabling effective governance. Therefore, lawmakers and scholars must pay close watch to institutional strength when analyzing and formulating political strategies to advance stable and effective democracies that serve the interests of their citizens. ### Rule of law {#rule_of_law} The rule of law refers to the idea that all individuals and institutions, including the state, are subject to the same rules and limitations. In Costa Rica, the rule of law is generally considered robust, with a separate judiciary branch, effective law enforcement, and low indices of corruption. 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 {#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 {#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.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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: 278 km - narrow gauge: 278 km of `{{RailGauge\|3ft6in}}`{=mediawiki} gauge (260 km electrified) ## Road transportation {#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: 35330 km - Paved: 8621 km - Unpaved: 26709 km ### National road network {#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 242 km ## Ports and harbors {#ports_and_harbors} In 2016, the government pledged ₡93 million (\$166,000) for a new cruise ship terminal for Puerto Limón. ### Atlantic Ocean {#atlantic_ocean} - Port of Moín, operated by JAPDEVA. - Port of Limón, operated by JAPDEVA. - Moín Container Terminal, operated by APM Terminals. ### Pacific Ocean {#pacific_ocean} - Golfito - Puerto Quepos - Puntarenas (cruise ships only) - Caldera Port ## Merchant marine {#merchant_marine} - total: 2 ships (`{{GT\|1000\|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} or over) `{{GT\|2,308}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{DWT\|743\|metric\|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} - ships by type: - passenger/cargo ships 2 ## Airports `{{See also\|List of airports in Costa Rica}}`{=mediawiki} Total: 161 `{{As of\|2013\|alt=(2013)}}`{=mediawiki} ### Airports - with paved runways {#airports___with_paved_runways} - total: 47 `{{As of\|2013\|alt=(2013)}}`{=mediawiki} - : 2 - : 2 - : 27 - under 914 m: 16 ### Airports - with unpaved runways {#airports___with_unpaved_runways} - total: 114 `{{As of\|2013\|alt=(2013)}}`{=mediawiki} - : 18 - under 914 m: 96	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,565	Geography of Ivory Coast	`{{MapLibrary\|Côte d'Ivoire sat.png\|Côte d'Ivoire}}`{=mediawiki} 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_and_borders} Area - Total: 322463 km2 - Country rank in the world: 68th - Land: 318003 km2 - Water: 4460 km2 Area comparatives - Australia comparative: approximately `{{sfrac\|2\|5}}`{=mediawiki} larger than Victoria - Canada comparative: approximately half the size of Manitoba - United Kingdom comparative: approximately `{{sfrac\|1\|3}}`{=mediawiki} 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 778 km - Guinea to the northwest for 816 km - Mali to the north-northwest for 599 km - Burkina Faso to the north-northeast for 545 km - Ghana to the east for 720 km - Total: 3458 km Coastline - on Gulf of Guinea ## Maritime claims {#maritime_claims} Ivory Coast makes maritime claims of 200 nmi as an exclusive economic zone, 12 nmi of territorial sea, and a 200 nmi continental shelf. ## Terrain and topography {#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 500 m 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 300 km 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 1752 m 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 800 km, 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 25 and and range from 10 to. ## Natural hazards {#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} 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	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 {#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\" [1](https://web.archive.org/web/20050714110654/http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/30/cotedi10404.htm) - 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 {#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 {#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 {#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 {#political_parties_and_elections} ### Presidential elections {#presidential_elections} {{#section-h:2020 Ivorian presidential election\\|Results}} ### Parliamentary elections {#parliamentary_elections} {{#section-h:2021 Ivorian parliamentary election\\|Results}} ## Administrative divisions {#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 {#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	2025-06-20T00:00:00
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 {#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. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Railway links with adjacent countries \| Towns served by rail \| Maps \| +============================================================================================================================================+======================+=============================================================================+ \| Burkina Faso - yes - `{{RailGauge\|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki} \| Abidjan \| [UN Map](https://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/profile/cotedivoire.pdf) \| \| \| \| \| \| Ghana - no - break of gauge `{{RailGauge\|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{RailGauge\|1067mm}}`{=mediawiki} \| Agboville \| \| \| \| \| \| \| Mali - no - same gauge \| Bouaké \| \| \| \| \| \| \| Guinea - no - same gauge \| Katiola \| \| \| \| \| \| \| Liberia - no - break of gauge `{{RailGauge\|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{RailGauge\|1435mm}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{RailGauge\|1067mm}}`{=mediawiki} \| Tafire \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| Ouangolodougou \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| Ferkessédougou \| \| +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ## Road transport {#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 {#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 m^2^ area. Apart from those two major ports, there are also small ports at Sassandra, Aboisso, and Dabou. ## Air transport {#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).	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,571	Armed Forces of the Republic of Ivory Coast	The Armed Forces of Côte d\'Ivoire (Forces Armées de Cote 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. In 1950, the French government began the process of setting up a specific defence force for the colony, consisting of four infantry companies and a light armoured unit. The Ivory Coast became independent on 7 August 1960. In April 1961, the new government signed the Franco-Ivorian Technical Military Assistance Accord with France, which compelled the latter to assist with the formation of a new national military. It also authorised the continued presence of French troops based in Port-Bouët, and permitted the government to call on French military assistance in the event of external aggression or major internal unrest. 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. They were armed with old equipment donated by France, including two Max Holste Broussard monoplanes, a single Douglas DC-3 cargo aircraft, fifteen M8 Greyhound armoured cars, and even a SC-497-class submarine chaser. Conscription was instituted, although the large number of volunteers and low manpower requirements ensured it was only applied selectively. Some of the senior positions in the officer corps and Ministry of Defence continued to be held by French nationals. Since the Ivory Coast could ill afford to divert funds from its economic development programmes into the armed forces, and was already dependent on France for its external defence, the military establishment remained quite modest from 1961 to 1974. Defence spending increased between 1974 and 1987, and the armed forces increased to 14,920 men. During this period, the air force and navy embarked on a significant modernisation campaign. An international merchant marine training academy was built in Abidjan and trained personnel from several Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) governments. In 1997, a collapse in civil-military relations became evident when President Henri Konan Bédié dismissed popular general Robert Guéï on suspicion of disloyalty. 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. Guéï subsequently stood for office during a subsequent presidential election, although he attempted to annul the election results when Laurent Gbagbo secured the popular vote. This triggered a civil revolt in Abidjan and two days of street battles between Gbagbo supporters and soldiers loyal to Guéï. Most of the armed forces remained neutral until the third day, when the army\'s elite units and the gendarmerie announced they would recognise Gbagbo as president of the republic. Guéï conceded defeat, going into exile on 29 October 2000. In September 2002, the Ivory Coast endured a second army mutiny, this time by 750 Muslim soldiers who seized Bouaké, citing religious discrimination and grievances against the predominantly Christian government. 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. President Gbagbo repeatedly demanded France assist him in crushing the rebel forces. 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. In November 2004, an Ivorian pilot targeted a French base during an air strike on Bouaké, killing nine French soldiers. The French retaliated by launching a follow-up operation to destroy the Ivorian Air Force. In March 2011, a rebel coalition, the Forces Nouvelles de Côte d\'Ivoire, launched a renewed offensive on the south with French support, sparking a second civil war. The Ivorian army was quickly overwhelmed, and Gbagbo deposed by the rebels. The Forces Nouvelles established a new national military, known as the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast (FRCI). Integration problems arising from the incorporation of various rebel factions into the FRCI, as well as former Gbagbo loyalists, continue to persist. 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. A second mutiny occurred on 7 January 2017, with troops in Bouaké demanding higher salaries and improved living conditions; this resulted in a second financial settlement. ## Army ### Organization The Ivorian army had three infantry battalions, an armoured battalion, an artillery battery, and seven specialist companies in 1993. 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. It has always remained the largest branch of the armed forces. In 1987, the army was responsible for the country\'s five military regions, each of which was supervised by a colonel. The First Military Region controlled the concentration of forces in and around Abidjan, its principal units there being a rapid intervention battalion (airborne), an infantry battalion, an armored battalion, and an air defense artillery battalion. The Second Military Region was located in Daloa and comprised one infantry battalion. The Third Military Region was headquartered in Bouaké and was home to an artillery, an infantry, and an engineer battalion. The Fourth Military Region maintained only a Territorial Defense Company headquartered in Korhogo The Fifth Military Region was formerly known as the Western Operational Zone, a temporary command created to respond to the security threat caused by the First Liberian Civil War. By 2010, the system of military regions had been abolished. As of July 2011, General Soumaïla Bakayoko is the chief of staff of the army, and colonel-major Gervais Kouakou Kouassi is the Chief of the Gendarmerie. 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 -- (Bataillon Blinde), at Akouédo (new camp). The new camp at Akouedo had reportedly been almost completely destroyed. `{{Interlanguage link\|Akouedo\|fr\|vertical-align=sup}}`{=mediawiki} appears to be at 5\' 217 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 {#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. During Laurent Ghagbo\'s administration (2000--2011), large quantities of second-hand Soviet arms were acquired from Angola, Ukraine, and Belarus. ## Air Force {#air_force} After achieving independence from France in 1960, Ivory Coast maintained strong links with France through bilateral defence agreements. 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. Since then, the Air Force of Ivory Coast has been rebuilt. In 2007, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported a total of six aircraft in service: one Antonov An-32 tactical transport, one Cessna 421 Golden Eagle utility aircraft, two Eurocopter SA 365 Dauphin helicopters, one Gulfstream IV VIP aircraft, and one Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter. It is unknown whether any of these aircraft were truly operational. In addition, Deagel.com reported two Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 attack aircraft. ### Aircraft Aircraft Origin Type Variant In service Notes ----------------- --------------- ------------------ --------- ------------ ---------------------- Attack Sukhoi Su-25 Soviet Union Attack / Trainer 2 Utilised as trainers Reconnaissance King Air 90 United States Reconnaissance 90 1 Transport Antonov An-26 Soviet Union Transport 2 Beechcraft 1900 United States Utility 1 CASA C-295 Spain Transport 1 1 on order Helicopters Mil Mi-8 Soviet Union Utility 1 Mil Mi-24 Soviet Union Attack 1 UAV Delair DT26 France Surveillance 4 ## Navy Ivory Coast has a brown-water navy whose mission is coastal surveillance and security for the nation\'s 340-mile coastline. The operational capability of the navy was severely degraded due to the diversion of resources to the army and air force during the civil wars, and it remains incapable of conducting operations beyond the general vicinity of Abidjan. In 2014 they received three coastal defence vessels, and place an order for 30 inflatable boats and 10 patrol craft in 2018 from the Raidco Marine shipbuilders Vessel name Origin Builder Type In service Notes -------------- -------- ----------- --------------------------------- ------------ ------- L\'intrepide France Patra Large patrol craft 1978 L\'élephant France DCN Brest Batral-E Type LSM landing craft 1977 ### 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 {#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 (`{{Interlanguage link\|43e bataillon d'infanterie de marine\|fr\|vertical-align=sup}}`{=mediawiki}) 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 {#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. However, it may also be deployed alongside the army to quell internal unrest. For a number of decades, the size of the Ivorian National Gendarmerie remained consistent at around 4,000 to 5,000 personnel, supervised by a commandant. It underwent a massive expansion following the outbreak of the First Ivorian Civil War, increasing to about 12,000 personnel commanded by a major general. Gendarmes undergo training as cadets at a National Gendarmerie Academy. The National Gendarmerie maintains an investigative branch, the Brigades de Recherches, which has been accused of various human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and unlawful detention.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,590	Transport in Cuba	Transportation in Cuba is the system of railways, roads, airports, waterways, ports and harbours in Cuba: ## Railways - Total: 8,285 km - Standard gauge: 8,125 km `{{RailGauge\|sg}}`{=mediawiki} gauge (105 km electrified) - Narrow gauge: 160 km of `{{TrackGauge\|2ft3.5in}}`{=mediawiki} gauge. Cuba built the first railway system in the Spanish empire, before the 1848 start in the Iberian peninsula. While the rail infrastructure dates from colonial and early republican times, passenger service along the principal Havana to Santiago corridor is increasingly reliable and popular with tourists who can purchase tickets in Cuban convertible pesos. As with most public transport in Cuba, many of the vehicles used are second hand. With the order of 12 new Chinese locomotives in 2006, built specifically for Cuban Railways at China Northern Locomotives and Rolling Stock Works, services have been improving in reliability. Those benefiting the most are long-distance freight services with the French train Havana-Santiago being the only passenger train using one of the new Chinese locomotives regularly. In 2019, the Cuban railways received the first delivery of new Chinese-built coaches, and new services with these began in July 2019. Metro systems are not present in the island, although a suburban rail network exists in Havana. Urban tramways were in operation between 1858 and 1954, initially as horse-drawn systems. In the early 20th century electric trolley or storage battery powered tramways were introduced in seven cities. Of these overhead wire systems were adopted in Havana, Guanabacoa, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Camagüey and Santiago de Cuba. ## Roads The total length of Cuba\'s highways is 60,858 km, including - paved: 29,820 km (including 915 km of expressways) - unpaved: 31,038 km (1999 est.) Expressways (autopistas) include: - the Autopista Nacional (A1) from Havana to Santa Clara and Sancti Spiritus, with additional short sections near Santiago and Guantanamo - the Autopista Este-Oeste (A4) from Havana to Pinar del Río - the Autopista del Mediodia from Havana to San Antonio de los Baños - an autopista from Havana to Melena del Sur - an autopista from Havana to Mariel - the Havana ring road (links=no), which starts at a tunnel under the entrance to Havana Harbor - the section of the Via Blanca from Matanzas to Varadero (toll road) - an autopista from Nueva Gerona to Santa Fe, in the Isla de la Juventud Older roads include the Carretera Central, and the Via Blanca from Havana to Matanzas. ## Long-distance and inter-municipality buses in Cuba {#long_distance_and_inter_municipality_buses_in_cuba} There are several national bus companies in Cuba. Viazul operates a fleet of modern and comfortable coaches on longer distance routes designed principally for tourists. Schedules, prices, and ticket booking can be done online, at any of the major international airports or National Terminals across Cuba. There are also other bus lines operated by tourism companies. AstroBus, a bus service in Cuban National Pesos, designed to bring comfortable air-conditioned coaches to Cuban locals at an affordable price. The AstroBus lines operate with modern Chinese Yutong buses, and are accessible to Cuban Residents of Cuba with their ID Card, and is payable in Cuba Pesos. Routes that have benefited most so far are those from Havana to each of the 13 provincial capitals of the country. ## Urban buses {#urban_buses} In Havana, urban transportation used to be provided by a colorful selection of buses imported from the Soviet Union or Canada. Many of these vehicles were second hand, such as the 1,500 decommissioned Dutch buses that the Netherlands donated to Cuba in the mid-1990s as well as GM fishbowl buses from Montreal. Despite the United States trade embargo, American-style yellow school buses (imported second-hand from Canada) are also increasingly common sights. Since 2008, service on seven key lines in and out of the city is provided by Chinese Zhengzhou Yutong Buses. These replaced the famous camellos (\"camels\" or \"dromedaries\", after their \"humps\") trailer buses that hauled as many as two hundred passengers in a passenger-carrying trailer. After the upgrading of Seville\'s public bus fleet to CNG-powered vehicles, many of the decommissioned ones were donated to the city of Havana. These bright orange buses still display the name of Transportes Urbanos de Sevilla, S.A.M., their former owner, and Seville\'s coat of arms as a sign of gratitude. As of 2016, urban transport in Havana consists entirely of modern Yutong diesel buses. Seville and Ikarus buses are gone. ## Automobiles Since 2009, Cuba has imported sedans from Chinese automaker Geely to serve as police cars, taxis and rental vehicles. Previously, the Soviet Union supplied Volgas, Moskvichs, and Ladas, as well as heavy trucks like the ZIL and the KrAZ; and Cuba also bought cars from European and Asian companies. In 2004, it was estimated that there were some 173,000 cars in Cuba. ### Old American cars in Cuba {#old_american_cars_in_cuba} Most new vehicles came to Cuba from the United States until the 1960 United States embargo against Cuba ended importation of both cars and their parts. As many as 60,000 American vehicles are in use, nearly all in private hands. Of Cuba\'s vintage American cars, many have been modified with newer engines, disc brakes and other parts, often scavenged from Soviet cars, and most bear the marks of decades of use. Pre-1960 vehicles remain the property of their original owners and descendants, and can be sold to other Cubans providing the proper traspaso certificate is in place. However, the old American cars on the road today have \"relatively high inefficiencies\" due in large part to the lack of modern technology. This resulted in increased fuel consumption as well as adding to the economic plight of their owners. With these inefficiencies, noticeable drop in travel occurred from an \"average of nearly 3000 km/year in the mid-1980s to less than 800 km/year in 2000--2001\". As the Cuban people try to save as much money as possible, when traveling is done, the cars are usually loaded past the maximum allowable weight and travel on the decaying roads, resulting in even more abuse to the already under-maintained vehicles. ### Hitchhiking and carpooling {#hitchhiking_and_carpooling} As a result of the \"Special Period\" in 1991 (a period of food and energy shortages caused by the loss of the Soviet Union as a trading partner), hitchhiking and carpooling became important parts of Cuba\'s transportation system and society in general. In 1999, an article in Time magazine claimed \"In Cuba\[\...\] hitchhiking is custom. Hitchhiking is essential. Hitchhiking is what makes Cuba move.\" ### Changes in the 2000s {#changes_in_the_2000s} For many years, Cubans could only acquire new cars with special permission. In 2011, the Cuban government legalized the purchase and sale of used post-1959 autos. In December 2013, Cubans were allowed to buy new cars from state-run dealerships - previously this had not been permitted. In 2020, this was further extended with cars being sold in convertible currencies. ## Waterways - Cauto River - Sagua la Grande River ## Ports and harbors {#ports_and_harbors} - Cienfuegos - Havana - Manzanillo - Mariel - Matanzas - Nuevitas - Santiago de Cuba ## Merchant marine {#merchant_marine} : Total: 3 ships ### Ships by type {#ships_by_type} - Cargo ships (1) - Passenger ship (1) - Refrigerated cargo ships (1) : Registered in other countries: 5 ## Airlines Besides the state owned airline Cubana (Cubana de Aviación), only Aerogavitoa operates flights to and within Cuba. ## Airports - Total: 133 ### Airports with paved runways {#airports_with_paved_runways} - total: 64 - over 3,047 m: 7 - 2,438 to 3,047 m: 10 - 1,524 to 2,437 m: 16 - 914 to 1,523 m: 4 - under 914 m: 27 ### Airports with unpaved runways {#airports_with_unpaved_runways} - total: 69 - 914 to 1,523 m: 11 - under 914 m: 58 ## Gallery Image:DirkvdM yank tank yellow.jpg\\|1952 Chevrolet in Havana Image:DirkvdM yank tank blue-red.jpg\\|1958 Plymouth Belvedere in Havana <File:Antique> Ford Truck, Havana Jan 2014, image by Marjorie Kaufman.jpg\\|Antique Ford Truck, Jan 2014 <File:Antique> car, Havana, Jan 2014, image by Marjorie Kaufman.jpg\\|Edsel Pacer in Havana, Jan 2014 <File:Pink> Chevvy, Havana Jan 2014, image by Marjorie Kaufman.jpg\\|Pink Chevy, Jan 2014 <File:Cuba> yank tank.jpg\\|1956 Ford in Trinidad, Cuba. <File:Varadero_-_Cuba_(40276279854).jpg%7C1959> Cadillac in Varadero <File:Wołga,_Kuba.jpg%7CPurple> Volga station wagon, May 2018 <File:Skoda> Fabia Cuba 4575.JPG\\|Škoda Fabia I (left) and Moskvitch-2141 \"Aleko\" (right), Feb 2009 <File:Classic_cars_in_Cuba,_Varadero_-_Laslovarga003.JPG%7CA> Buick car in Varadero <File:Hotel_Parque_Central,_Havana.jpg>\\|Audi car in Havana, May 2018 <File:Automobile> à La Havane (14).jpg\\|Mercedes-Benz W120 in Havana, Jan 2015 <File:Alter> Opel Rekord P1 auf Cuba - Flickr - 02ide.jpg\\|Opel Rekord in Pinar de Río, Nov 2008 <File:AutoLaHabanaCuba-04678.jpg%7CSuzuki> Grand Vitara in Havana, Jan 2017 <File:Fiat> 125 - Havana.jpg\\|Fiat 125 in Havana, May 2018 <File:Lada,_Trinidad.jpg%7CLada-2103> in Trinidad <File:KrAZ_255,_Cuba.jpg%7CKrAZ-255> truck, Dec 2016 <File:ZiŁ,_Cienfuegos.jpg%7CZiL-130> water tank truck in Cienfuegos <File:B176286.jpg%7CEx-NHZ> Holland Den Oudsten bodied DAF MB230 bus in Havana <File:Transport_(3055159679).jpg>\\|GMC school bus, Oct 2008 <File:B107835.jpg%7CViazul> Yutong ZK6120A coach, Feb 2020 <File:MAZ105.jpg>\\|MAZ-105 bus in Havana <File:Havana,_Cuba_city_bus.jpg%7CYutong> ZK6180HGC articulated bus in Havana <File:Cienfuegos> train station2.jpg\\|Cienfuegos railroad station, Feb 2019 <File:Siguaney> Ferkeltaxi.jpg\\|Ex-DB VT 2.09 railcar at Sigüaney	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,600	Transport in Cyprus	Transport in Cyprus consists of transport by land, water and air. Road transport is the primary mode of transport for most Cypriot citizens, and Cyprus\'s road transport systems are well-developed and extensively used across the island. Because Cyprus no longer has a working railway system, various other methods of transport are needed to ensure the proper delivery of any cargo, be it human or freight. As the last passenger railway was dismantled in 1952, the only remaining modes of transport are by road, sea, and air. ## Roads From the 12,118 km of roads in the areas controlled by the Republic of Cyprus in 2006, 7,850 km were paved, while 4,268 km were unpaved. In 1996, the Turkish Cypriot area showed a close, but smaller ratio of paved to unpaved with about 1,370 km out of 2,350 km paved and 980 km unpaved. As a legacy of British rule, Cyprus is one of only three EU nations in which vehicles drive on the left. ### Motorways - A1 Nicosia to Limassol - A2 connects A1 near Pera Chorio with A3 by Larnaca - A3 Larnaca Airport to Agia Napa, also serves as a circular road for Larnaca. - A5 connects A1 near Kofinou with A3 by Larnaca - A6 Pafos to Limassol - A7 Paphos to Polis (final plans) - A9 Nicosia to Astromeritis - A22 Dali industrial area to Anthoupolis, Lakatamia (Nicosia 3rd ring road, final plans) ## Public Transportation {#public_transportation} Nicosia\'s residents rely on private cars to go around the city. With more than 658 automobiles per 1,000 people, Cyprus has one of the highest car ownership rates in the world and the country uses very little public transportation. Only 3% of journeys in the Greater Nicosia urban region are made by public transportation. Cycling is considerably less common at 2%. The government of Cyprus and authorities of Nicosia have developed a public transportation plan to ensure access to more areas and provide more options, apart from private cars. ### Public Transportation Companies {#public_transportation_companies} In Cyprus, public transportation by bus is run by different companies based on the district. Nicosia and Larnaca: NPT (Nicosia Public Transport) and LPT (Larnaca Public Transport), operated by Cyprus Public Transport (CPT) Limassol: EMEL (Transport Company for Limassol Commuters) Paphos: OSYPA (Paphos Transport Organisation) Famagusta: OSEA (Famagusta District Transport Organisation) INTERCITY BUSES: Services transport between all major cities ### Public Buses {#public_buses} In 2006, extensive plans were announced to improve and expand bus services and restructure public transport throughout Cyprus, with the financial backing of the European Union Development Bank. In 2010, the new revised and expanded bus network was implemented into the system. In 2020, the transport companies for the districts of Nicosia and Larnaca were changed from OSEL (Nicosia District Transport Organisation) to NPT (Nicosia Public Transport) and from ZENON Larnaca Buses to LPT (Larnaca Public Transport) respectively. In 2022, Cyprus Public Transport made new plans for Nicosia\'s Public Transport by changing route numbers, adding new bus hubs and modernising buses and the all-out feel of the transport system. The plan has been introduced in two phases and is currently completed. ### Rail Cyprus currently has no functioning railway systems. The last of the narrow gauge systems in the country closed in 1974. There had been studies and preparatory work done to establish a modern system between the major cities, motivated by worsening traffic issues. Ιn October 2024, a company in England showed their interest to construct a new railway system in Cyprus. In 2018, Nicosia municipal authorities requested an opinion on the construction of a tram network in the city to the European Investment Bank\'s JASPERS strategists, who concluded a need for a phased approach. Relevant studies were also carried out in the past, but no concrete plans has materialised. ## Licensed Vehicles {#licensed_vehicles} Road transport is the dominant form of transport on the island. Figures released by the International Road Federation in 2007 show that Cyprus holds the highest car ownership rate in the world with 742 cars per 1,000 people. Vehicle Category 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 ------------------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ---------- ---------- TOTAL OF CARS 12,643.00 13,127.00 13,135.00 15,200.00 14,500.00 14,565.00 33,795.00 2,994.00 4,369.00 : Number of licensed vehicles Public transport in Cyprus is limited to privately run bus services (except in Nicosia and Larnaca), taxis, and interurban \'shared\' taxi services (locally referred to as service taxis). Thus, private car ownership in the country is the fifth highest per capita in the world. However, in 2006 extensive plans were announced to expand and improve bus services and restructure public transport throughout Cyprus, with the financial backing of the European Union Development Bank ## Sea Harbours and Ports {#sea_harbours_and_ports} The ports of Cyprus are operated and maintained by the Cyprus Ports Authority. Major harbours of the island are Limassol Harbour, and Larnaca Harbour, which service cargo, passenger, and cruise ships. Limassol is the larger of the two, and handles a large volume of both cargo and cruise vessels. Larnaca is primarily a cargo port but played a big part in the evacuation of foreign nationals from Lebanon in 2006, and in the subsequent humanitarian aid effort. A smaller cargo dock also exists at Vasilikos, near Zygi (a small town between Larnaca and Limassol). Smaller vessels and private yachts can dock at Marinas in Cyprus. ## Public Bicycle Sharing System {#public_bicycle_sharing_system} Nextbike is the latest transportation system in Cyprus, similar to programs employed successfully in various cities around the world. Bicycles can be found at stations in Nicosia and Limassol, as well as with 1 station in Larnaca. ## Merchant Marine {#merchant_marine} : See full article on Cyprus Merchant Marine Total: 1,414 ships (with a volume of `{{GT\|1,000\|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} or over) totaling `{{GT\|23,497,776}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{DWT\|37,331,506\|metric\|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} *Ships by Type:* barge carrier 2, bulk carrier 442, cargo ship 495, chemical tanker 22, combination bulk 40, combination ore/oil 8, container ship 144, Liquified Gas Carrier 6, passenger ship 8, petroleum tanker 142, refrigerated cargo 41, roll-on/roll-off 45, short-sea passenger 13, specialized tanker 4, vehicle carrier 2 (1999 est.) ## Airports In 1999, Cyprus had 12 airports with paved runways. Of them, seven had runways of lengths between 2,438 and 3,047 metres, one had a length between 1,524 and 2,437 metres, three had lengths between 914 and 1524 metres, and one had a length less than 914 metres. Of the three airports with unpaved runways, two had lengths less than 914 metres and one had a length between 914 and 1524 metres. ### International airports {#international_airports} Larnaca International Airport is the island\'s main airport and flies to many locations worldwide. Paphos International Airport is the 2nd largest airport and mostly flies to Europe, via Ryanair; with occasional flights to other continents. Nicosia International Airport is an abandoned airport. It used to be the island\'s main airport until 1974. It remains closed to the public. Ercan International Airport is the main airport in the de facto state of Northern Cyprus. The airport\'s only destination is Turkey, serviced only by a few flight companies from Turkey. Flights to and from Ercan Airport are embargoed.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,636	Chemist	`{{TopicTOC-Chemistry}}`{=mediawiki} A chemist (from Greek chēm(ía) alchemy; replacing chymist from Medieval Latin alchemist) is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms. Chemists carefully measure substance proportions, chemical reaction rates, and other chemical properties. In Commonwealth English, pharmacists are often called chemists. Chemists use their knowledge to learn the composition and properties of unfamiliar substances, as well as to reproduce and synthesize large quantities of useful naturally occurring substances and create new artificial substances and useful processes. Chemists may specialize in any number of subdisciplines of chemistry. Materials scientists and metallurgists share much of the same education and skills with chemists. The work of chemists is often related to the work of chemical engineers, who are primarily concerned with the proper design, construction and evaluation of the most cost-effective large-scale chemical plants and work closely with industrial chemists on the development of new processes and methods for the commercial-scale manufacture of chemicals and related products. ## History of chemistry {#history_of_chemistry} The roots of chemistry can be traced to the phenomenon of burning. Fire was a mystical force that transformed one substance into another and thus was of primary interest to mankind. It was fire that led to the discovery of iron and glasses. After gold was discovered and became a precious metal, many people were interested to find a method that could convert other substances into gold. This led to the protoscience called alchemy. The word chemist is derived from the Neo-Latin noun chimista, an abbreviation of alchimista (alchemist). Alchemists discovered many chemical processes that led to the development of modern chemistry. Chemistry as we know it today, was invented by Antoine Lavoisier with his law of conservation of mass in 1783. The discoveries of the chemical elements has a long history culminating in the creation of the periodic table by Dmitri Mendeleev. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry created in 1901 gives an excellent overview of chemical discovery since the start of the 20th century. At the Washington Academy of Sciences during World War I, it was said that the side with the best chemists would win the war. ## Education ### Formal education {#formal_education} Jobs for chemists generally require at least a bachelor\'s degree in chemistry, which takes four years. However, many positions, especially those in research, require a Master of Science or a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD.). Most undergraduate programs emphasize mathematics and physics as well as chemistry, partly because chemistry is also known as \"the central science\", thus chemists ought to have a well-rounded knowledge about science. At the Master\'s level and higher, students tend to specialize in a particular field. Fields of specialization include biochemistry, nuclear chemistry, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, polymer chemistry, analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, theoretical chemistry, quantum chemistry, environmental chemistry, and thermochemistry. Postdoctoral experience may be required for certain positions. Workers whose work involves chemistry, but not at a complexity requiring an education with a chemistry degree, are commonly referred to as chemical technicians. Such technicians commonly do such work as simpler, routine analyses for quality control or in clinical laboratories, having an associate degree. A chemical technologist has more education or experience than a chemical technician but less than a chemist, often having a bachelor\'s degree in a different field of science with also an associate degree in chemistry (or many credits related to chemistry) or having the same education as a chemical technician but more experience. There are also degrees specific to become a chemical technologist, which are somewhat distinct from those required when a student is interested in becoming a professional chemist. A Chemical technologist is more involved in the management and operation of the equipment and instrumentation necessary to perform chemical analyzes than a chemical technician. They are part of the team of a chemical laboratory in which the quality of the raw material, intermediate products and finished products is analyzed. They also perform functions in the areas of environmental quality control and the operational phase of a chemical plant. ### Training In addition to all the training usually given to chemical technologists in their respective degree (or one given via an associate degree), a chemist is also trained to understand more details related to chemical phenomena so that the chemist can be capable of more planning on the steps to achieve a distinct goal via a chemistry-related endeavor. The higher the competency level achieved in the field of chemistry (as assessed via a combination of education, experience and personal achievements), the higher the responsibility given to that chemist and the more complicated the task might be. Chemistry, as a field, has so many applications that different tasks and objectives can be given to workers or scientists with these different levels of education or experience. The specific title of each job varies from position to position, depending on factors such as the kind of industry, the routine level of the task, the current needs of a particular enterprise, the size of the enterprise or hiring firm, the philosophy and management principles of the hiring firm, the visibility of the competency and individual achievements of the one seeking employment, economic factors such as recession or economic depression, among other factors, so this makes it difficult to categorize the exact roles of these chemistry-related workers as standard for that given level of education. Because of these factors affecting exact job titles with distinct responsibilities, some chemists might begin doing technician tasks while other chemists might begin doing more complicated tasks than those of a technician, such as tasks that also involve formal applied research, management, or supervision included within the responsibilities of that same job title. The level of supervision given to that chemist also varies in a similar manner, with factors similar to those that affect the tasks demanded for a particular chemist. It is important that those interested in a Chemistry degree understand the variety of roles available to them (on average), which vary depending on education and job experience. Those Chemists who hold a bachelor\'s degree are most commonly involved in positions related to either research assistance (working under the guidance of senior chemists in a research-oriented activity), or, alternatively, they may work on distinct (chemistry-related) aspects of a business, organization or enterprise including aspects that involve quality control, quality assurance, manufacturing, production, formulation, inspection, method validation, visitation for troubleshooting of chemistry-related instruments, regulatory affairs, \"on-demand\" technical services, chemical analysis for non-research purposes (e.g., as a legal request, for testing purposes, or for government or non-profit agencies); chemists may also work in environmental evaluation and assessment. Other jobs or roles may include sales and marketing of chemical products and chemistry-related instruments or technical writing. The more experience obtained, the more independence and leadership or management roles these chemists may perform in those organizations. Some chemists with relatively higher experience might change jobs or job position to become a manager of a chemistry-related enterprise, a supervisor, an entrepreneur or a chemistry consultant. Other chemists choose to combine their education and experience as a chemist with a distinct credential to provide different services (e.g., forensic chemists, chemistry-related software development, patent law specialists, environmental law firm staff, scientific news reporting staff, engineering design staff, etc.). In comparison, chemists who have obtained a Master of Science (M.S.) in chemistry or in a very related discipline may find chemist roles that allow them to enjoy more independence, leadership and responsibility earlier in their careers with less years of experience than those with a bachelor\'s degree as highest degree. Sometimes, M.S. chemists receive more complex tasks duties in comparison with the roles and positions found by chemists with a bachelor\'s degree as their highest academic degree and with the same or close-to-same years of job experience. There are positions that are open only to those that at least have a degree related to chemistry at the master\'s level. Although good chemists without a Ph.D. degree but with relatively many years of experience may be allowed some applied research positions, the general rule is that Ph.D. chemists are preferred for research positions and are typically the preferred choice for the highest administrative positions on big enterprises involved in chemistry-related duties. Some positions, especially research oriented, will only allow those chemists who are Ph.D. holders. Jobs that involve intensive research and actively seek to lead the discovery of completely new chemical compounds under specifically assigned monetary funds and resources or jobs that seek to develop new scientific theories require a Ph.D. more often than not. Chemists with a Ph.D. as the highest academic degree are found typically on the research-and-development department of an enterprise and can also hold university positions as professors. Professors for research universities or for big universities usually have a Ph.D., and some research-oriented institutions might require post-doctoral training. Some smaller colleges (including some smaller four-year colleges or smaller non-research universities for undergraduates) as well as community colleges usually hire chemists with a M.S. as professors too (and rarely, some big universities who need part-time or temporary instructors, or temporary staff), but when the positions are scarce and the applicants are many, they might prefer Ph.D. holders instead. ### Skills Skills that a chemist may need on the job include: - Knowledge of chemistry - Familiarity with product development - Using scientific rules, strategies, or concepts to solve problems - Putting together small parts using hands and fingers with dexterity ## Employment Most chemists begin their lives in research laboratories. Many chemists continue working at universities. Other chemists may start companies, teach at high schools or colleges, take samples outside (as environmental chemists), or work in medical examiner offices or police departments (as forensic chemists). Some software that chemists may find themselves using include: - ChemSW Buffer Maker - LabTrack Electronic Lab Notebook - Agilent ChemStation - Waters Empower Chromatography Data Software - Microsoft Excel Increasingly, chemists may also find themselves using artificial intelligence, such as for drug discovery. ### Subdisciplines Chemistry typically is divided into several major sub-disciplines. There are also several main cross-disciplinary and more specialized fields of chemistry. There is a great deal of overlap between different branches of chemistry, as well as with other scientific fields such as biology, medicine, physics, radiology, and several engineering disciplines. - Analytical chemistry is the analysis of material samples to gain an understanding of their chemical composition and structure. Analytical chemistry incorporates standardized experimental methods in chemistry. These methods may be used in all subdisciplines of chemistry, excluding purely theoretical chemistry. - Biochemistry is the study of the chemicals, chemical reactions and chemical interactions that take place in living organisms. Biochemistry and organic chemistry are closely related, for example, in medicinal chemistry. - Inorganic chemistry is the study of the properties and reactions of inorganic compounds. The distinction between organic and inorganic disciplines is not absolute and there is much overlap, most importantly in the sub-discipline of organometallic chemistry. The Inorganic chemistry is also the study of atomic and molecular structure and bonding. - Medicinal chemistry is the science involved with designing, synthesizing and developing pharmaceutical drugs. Medicinal chemistry involves the identification, synthesis and development of new chemical entities suitable for therapeutic use. It also includes the study of existing drugs, their biological properties, and their quantitative structure-activity relationships. - Organic chemistry is the study of the structure, properties, composition, mechanisms, and chemical reaction of carbon compounds. - Physical chemistry is the study of the physical fundamental basis of chemical systems and processes. In particular, the energetics and dynamics of such systems and processes are of interest to physical chemists. Important areas of study include chemical thermodynamics, chemical kinetics, electrochemistry, quantum chemistry, statistical mechanics, and spectroscopy. Physical chemistry has a large overlap with theoretical chemistry and molecular physics. Physical chemistry involves the use of calculus in deriving equations. - Theoretical chemistry is the study of chemistry via theoretical reasoning (usually within mathematics or physics). In particular, the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry is called quantum chemistry. Since the end of the Second World War, the development of computers has allowed a systematic development of computational chemistry, which is the art of developing and applying computer programs for solving chemical problems. Theoretical chemistry has large overlap with condensed matter physics and molecular physics. See reductionism. All the above major areas of chemistry employ chemists. Other fields where chemical degrees are useful include astrochemistry (and cosmochemistry), atmospheric chemistry, chemical engineering, chemo-informatics, electrochemistry, environmental science, forensic science, geochemistry, green chemistry, history of chemistry, materials science, medical science, molecular biology, molecular genetics, nanotechnology, nuclear chemistry, oenology, organometallic chemistry, petrochemistry, pharmacology, photochemistry, phytochemistry, polymer chemistry, supramolecular chemistry and surface chemistry. ## Professional societies {#professional_societies} Chemists may belong to professional societies specifically for professionals and researchers within the field of chemistry, such as the Royal Society of Chemistry in the United Kingdom, the American Chemical Society (ACS) in the United States, or the Institution of Chemists in India. ## Ethics The \"Global Chemists\' Code of Ethics\" suggests several ethical principles that all chemists should follow: - Promoting the general public\'s appreciation of chemistry - The importance of sustainability and protecting the environment - The importance of scientific research and publications - Respecting safety, such as by using proper personal protective equipment - Respecting chemical security throughout the chemical supply chain, especially for labs and industrial facilities This code of ethics was codified in a 2016 conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, run by the American Chemical Society. The points listed are inspired by the 2015 Hague Ethical Guidelines. ## Honors and awards {#honors_and_awards} The highest honor awarded to chemists is the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded since 1901, by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,642	Costume jewelry	thumb\\|upright=1.2\\|Swatch Bijoux Jewelry Costume or fashion jewelry includes a range of decorative items worn for personal adornment that are manufactured as less expensive ornamentation to complement a particular fashionable outfit or garment as opposed to \"real\" (fine) jewelry, which is more costly and which may be regarded primarily as collectibles, keepsakes, or investments. From the outset, costume jewelry --- also known as fashion jewelry --- paralleled the styles of its more precious fine counterparts. ## Terminology It is also known as artificial jewellery, imitation jewellery, imitated jewelry, trinkets, fashion jewelry, junk jewelry, fake jewelry, or fallalery. ## Etymology The term costume jewelry dates back to the early 20th century. It reflects the use of the word \"costume\" to refer to what is now called an \"outfit\". ## Components Originally, costume or fashion jewelry was made of inexpensive simulated gemstones, such as rhinestones or lucite, set in pewter, silver, nickel, or brass. During the depression years, some manufacturers even downgraded rhinestones to meet the cost of production. During the World War II era, sterling silver was often incorporated into costume jewelry designs primarily because: 1. The components used for base metal were needed for wartime production (i.e., military applications), and a ban was placed on their use in the private sector. 2. Base metal was originally popular because it could approximate platinum\'s color, sterling silver fulfilled the same function. This resulted in some years during which sterling silver costume jewelry was produced and some can still be found in today\'s vintage jewelry marketplace. Modern costume jewelry incorporates a wide range of materials. High-end crystals, cubic zirconia simulated diamonds, and some semi-precious stones are used in place of precious stones. Metals include gold- or silver-plated brass, and sometimes vermeil or sterling silver. Lower-priced jewelry may still use gold plating over pewter, nickel, or other metals; items made in countries outside the United States`{{Dubious\|Lead contamination\|date=December 2021}}`{=mediawiki} may contain lead. Some pieces incorporate plastic, acrylic, leather, or wood. ## Historical expression {#historical_expression} Costume jewelry can be characterized by the period in history in which it was made. ### Art Deco period (1920--1930s) {#art_deco_period_19201930s} The Art Deco movement attempted to combine the harshness of mass production with the sensitivity of art and design. The movement died with the onset of the Great Depression and the outbreak of World War II. According to Schiffer, some of the characteristics of the costume jewelry in the Art Deco period were: - Free-flowing curves were replaced with a harshly geometric and symmetrical theme - Long pendants, bangle bracelets, cocktail rings, and elaborate accessory items such as cigarette cases and holders ### Retro period (1935 to 1950) {#retro_period_1935_to_1950} In the Retro period, designers struggled with the art versus mass production dilemma. Natural materials merged with plastics. The retro period primarily included American-made jewelry with a distinctly American look. With the war in Europe, many European jewelry firms were forced to shut down. Many European designers emigrated to the U.S. since the economy was recovering. According to Schiffer, some of the characteristics of costume jewelry in the Retro period were: - Glamour, elegance, and sophistication - Flowers, bows, and sunburst designs with a Hollywood flair - Moonstones, horse motifs, military influence, and ballerinas - Bakelite and other plastic jewelry ### Art Modern period (1945 to 1960) {#art_modern_period_1945_to_1960} In the Art Modern period following World War II, jewelry designs became more traditional and understated. The big, bold styles of the Retro period went out of style and were replaced by the more tailored styles of the 1950s and 1960s. According to Schiffer, some of the characteristics of costume jewelry in the Art Modern period were: - Bold, lavish jewelry - Large, chunky bracelets, charm bracelets, Jade/opal, citrine and topaz - Poodle pins, Christmas tree pins, and other Christmas jewelry - Rhinestones With the advent of the Mod period came \"Body Jewelry\". Carl Schimel of Kim Craftsmen Jewelry was at the forefront of this style. While Kim Craftsmen closed in the early 1990s, many collectors still forage for their items at antique shows and flea markets. ## General history {#general_history} Costume jewelry has been part of the culture for almost 300 years. During the 18th century, jewelers began making pieces with inexpensive glass. In the 19th century, costume jewelry made of semi-precious material came into the market. Jewels made of semi-precious material were more affordable, allowing common people to own costume jewelry. However, the real golden era for costume jewelry began in the middle of the 20th century. The new middle class wanted beautiful, but affordable jewelry. The demand for jewelry of this type coincided with the machine age and the Industrial Revolution. The revolution made the production of carefully executed replicas of admired heirloom pieces possible. As the class structure in America changed, so did measures of real wealth. Women in all social stations, even working-class women, could own a small piece of costume jewelry. The average town and countrywoman could acquire and wear a considerable amount of this mass-produced jewelry that was both affordable and stylish. Costume jewelry was also made popular by various designers in the mid-20th century. Some of the most remembered names in costume jewelry include both the high and low priced brands: Crown Trifari, Dior, Chanel, Miriam Haskell, Sherman, Monet, Napier, Corocraft, Coventry, and Kim Craftsmen. A significant factor in the popularization of costume jewelry was Hollywood movies. The leading female stars of the 1940s and 1950s often wore and endorsed the pieces produced by various designers. If you admired a necklace worn by Bette Davis in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, you could buy a copy from Joseff of Hollywood, who made the original. Stars such as Vivien Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jane Russell appeared in adverts for the pieces and the availability of the collections in shops such as Woolworth made it possible for ordinary women to own and wear such jewelry. Coco Chanel greatly popularized the use of faux jewelry in her years as a fashion designer, bringing costume jewelry to life with gold and faux pearls. Chanel\'s designs drew from various historical styles, including Byzantine and Renaissance influences, often featuring crosses and intricate metalwork. Her collaboration with glassmakers, such as the Gripoix family, introduced richly colored glass beads and simulated gemstones, which added depth to her creations without the high cost of traditional precious stones. Kenneth Jay Lane has since the 1960s been known for creating unique pieces for Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Vreeland, and Audrey Hepburn. He is probably best known for his three-strand faux pearl necklace worn by Barbara Bush to her husband\'s inaugural ball. Celebrated names who wore Lane\'s creations include Jackie Kennedy, Babe Paley, the Duchess of Windsor, and Nancy Reagan. Elsa Schiaparelli brought surrealist influences into costume jewelry design, collaborating with artists such as Salvador Dalí. In many instances, high-end fashion jewelry has achieved a \"collectible\" status and increased value over time. Today, there is a substantial secondary market for vintage fashion jewelry. The main collecting market is for \'signed pieces\', which have the maker\'s mark, usually stamped on the reverse. Amongst the most sought after are Miriam Haskell, Sherman, Coro, Butler and Wilson, Crown Trifari, and Sphinx. However, there is also demand for good quality \'unsigned\' pieces, especially if they are of an unusual design. ## Business and industry {#business_and_industry} Costume jewelry is considered a discrete category of fashion accessory and displays many characteristics of a self-contained industry. Costume jewelry manufacturers are located throughout the world, with a particular concentration in parts of China and India, where the trade of these goods dominates entire citywide and region-wide economies. There has been considerable controversy in the United States and elsewhere about the lack of regulations in the manufacture of such jewelry---these range from human rights issues surrounding the treatment of labor, to the use of manufacturing processes in which small, but potentially harmful, amounts of toxic metals are added during production. In 2010, the Associated Press released the story that toxic levels of the metal cadmium were found in children\'s jewelry. An Associated Press investigation found some pieces contained more than 80 percent of cadmium. The broader issues surrounding imports, exports, trade laws, and globalization also apply to the costume jewelry trade. As part of the supply chain, wholesalers in the United States and other nations purchase costume jewelry from manufacturers. They typically import or export it to wholesale distributors and suppliers who deal directly with retailers. Wholesale costume jewelry merchants traditionally seek new suppliers at trade shows. The trade-show model has changed as the Internet has become increasingly important in global trade. Retailers can now select from many wholesalers with sites on the World Wide Web. The wholesalers purchase from international suppliers available on the Web from different parts of the world, like Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Thai, and Indian jewelry companies, with their wide range of products in bulk quantities. Some sites also market directly to consumers who can purchase costume jewelry at significantly reduced prices. Some websites categorize fashion jewelry separately, while others use this term instead of costume jewelry. The trend of jewelry-making at home by hobbyists for personal enjoyment or sale on sites like Etsy has resulted in the common practice of buying wholesale costume jewelry in bulk and using it for parts. There is a rise in demand for artificial or imitation jewelry by 85% due to the increase in gold prices, according to a 2011 report.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,645	Cult film	A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase, which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage in repeated viewings, dialogue-quoting, and audience participation. Inclusive definitions allow for major studio productions, especially box-office bombs, while exclusive definitions focus more on obscure, transgressive films shunned by the mainstream. The difficulty in defining the term and subjectivity of what qualifies as a cult film mirror classificatory disputes about art. The term cult film itself was first used in the 1970s to describe the culture that surrounded underground films and midnight movies, though cult was in common use in film analysis for decades prior to that. Cult films trace their origin back to controversial and suppressed films kept alive by dedicated fans. In some cases, reclaimed or rediscovered films have acquired cult followings decades after their original release, occasionally for their camp value. Other cult films have since become well-respected or reassessed as classics; there is debate as to whether these popular and accepted films are still cult films. After failing at the cinema, some cult films have become regular fixtures on cable television or profitable sellers on home video. Others have inspired their own film festivals. Cult films can both appeal to specific subcultures and form their own subcultures. Other media that reference cult films can easily identify which demographics they desire to attract and offer savvy fans an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge. Cult films frequently break cultural taboos, and many feature excessive displays of violence, gore, sexuality, profanity, or combinations thereof. This can lead to controversy, censorship, and outright bans; less transgressive films may attract similar amounts of controversy when critics call them frivolous or incompetent. Films that fail to attract requisite amounts of controversy may face resistance when labeled as cult films. Mainstream films and big budget blockbusters have attracted cult followings similar to more underground and lesser known films; fans of these films often emphasize the films\' niche appeal and reject the more popular aspects. Fans who like the films for the wrong reasons, such as perceived elements that represent mainstream appeal and marketing, will often be ostracized or ridiculed. Likewise, fans who stray from accepted subcultural scripts may experience similar rejection. Since the late 1970s, cult films have become increasingly popular. Films that once would have been limited to obscure cult followings are now capable of breaking into the mainstream, and showings of cult films have proved to be a profitable business venture. Overly broad usage of the term has resulted in controversy, as purists state it has become a meaningless descriptor applied to any film that is the slightest bit weird or unconventional; others accuse Hollywood studios of trying to artificially create cult films or use the term as a marketing tactic. Modern films are frequently stated to be an \"instant cult classic\", occasionally before they are released. Some films have acquired massive, quick cult followings, owing to advertisements and posts made by fans spreading virally through social media. Easy access to cult films via video on demand and peer-to-peer file sharing has led some critics to pronounce the death of cult films. ## Definition A cult film is any film that has a cult following, although the term is not easily defined and can be applied to a wide variety of films. Some definitions exclude films that have been released by major studios or have big budgets, that try specifically to become cult films, or become accepted by mainstream audiences and critics. Cult films are defined by audience reaction as much as by their content. This may take the form of elaborate and ritualized audience participation, film festivals, or cosplay. Over time, the definition has become more vague and inclusive as it drifts away from earlier, stricter views. Increasing use of the term by mainstream publications has resulted in controversy, as cinephiles argue that the term has become meaningless or \"elastic, a catchall for anything slightly maverick or strange\". Academic Mark Shiel has criticized the term itself as being a weak concept, reliant on subjectivity; different groups can interpret films in their own terms. According to feminist scholar Joanne Hollows, this subjectivity causes films with large female cult followings to be perceived as too mainstream and not transgressive enough to qualify as a cult film. Academic Mike Chopra‑Gant says that cult films become decontextualized when studied as a group, and Shiel criticizes this recontextualization as cultural commodification. In 2008, Cineaste asked a range of academics for their definition of a cult film. Several defined cult films primarily in terms of their opposition to mainstream films and conformism, explicitly requiring a transgressive element, though others disputed the transgressive potential, given the demographic appeal to conventional moviegoers and mainstreaming of cult films. Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock instead called them mainstream films with transgressive elements. Most definitions also required a strong community aspect, such as obsessed fans or ritualistic behavior. Citing misuse of the term, Mikel J. Koven took a self-described hard-line stance that rejected definitions that use any other criteria. Matt Hills instead stressed the need for an open-ended definition rooted in structuration, where the film and the audience reaction are interrelated and neither is prioritized. Ernest Mathijs focused on the accidental nature of cult followings, arguing that cult film fans consider themselves too savvy to be marketed to, while Jonathan Rosenbaum rejected the continued existence of cult films and called the term a marketing buzzword. Mathijs suggests that cult films help to understand ambiguity and incompleteness in life given the difficulty in even defining the term. That cult films can have opposing qualities -- such as good and bad, failure and success, innovative and retro -- helps to illustrate that art is subjective and never self-evident. This ambiguity leads critics of postmodernism to accuse cult films of being beyond criticism, as the emphasis is now on personal interpretation rather than critical analysis or metanarratives. These inherent dichotomies can lead audiences to be split between ironic and earnest fans. Writing in Defining Cult Movies, Jancovich et al. quote academic Jeffrey Sconce, who defines cult films in terms of paracinema, marginal films that exist outside critical and cultural acceptance in such varied genres as exploitation, beach party musicals, and softcore pornography. However, they reject cult films as having a single unifying feature; instead, they state that cult films are united in their \"subcultural ideology\" and opposition to mainstream tastes, itself a vague and undefinable term. Cult followings themselves can range from adoration to contempt, and they have little in common except for their celebration of nonconformity -- even the bad films ridiculed by fans are artistically nonconformist, albeit unintentionally. At the same time, they state that bourgeois, masculine tastes are frequently reinforced, which makes cult films more of an internal conflict within the bourgeoisie, rather than a rebellion against it. This results in an anti-academic bias despite the use of formal methodologies, such as defamiliarization. This contradiction exists in many subcultures, especially those dependent on defining themselves in terms of opposition to the mainstream. This nonconformity is eventually co-opted by the dominant forces, such as Hollywood, and marketed to the mainstream. Academic Xavier Mendik proposes that films can become cult by virtue of their genre or content, especially if it is transgressive. Due to their rejection of mainstream appeal, Mendik says cult films can be more creative and political; times of relative political instability produce more interesting films. ## General overview {#general_overview} Cult films have existed since the early days of cinema. Film critic Harry Alan Potamkin traces them back to 1910s France and the reception of Pearl White, William S. Hart, and Charlie Chaplin, which he described as \"a dissent from the popular ritual\". Nosferatu (1922) was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker\'s Dracula. Stoker\'s widow sued the production company, and all known copies in Germany were destroyed. Now illegal to distribute in many countries, Nosferatu became an early cult film. Academic Chuck Kleinhans identifies the Marx Brothers as making other early cult films. On their original release, some highly regarded classics from the Golden Age of Hollywood were panned by critics and audiences, relegated to cult status. The Night of the Hunter (1955) was a cult film for years, quoted often and championed by fans, before it was reassessed as an important and influential classic. During this time, American exploitation films and imported European art films were marketed similarly. Although critics Pauline Kael and Arthur Knight argued against arbitrary divisions into high and low culture, American films settled into rigid genres; European art films continued to push the boundaries of simple definitions, and these exploitative art films and artistic exploitation films influenced American cult films. Much like later cult films, these early exploitation films encouraged audience participation, influenced by live theater and vaudeville. Modern cult films grew from 1960s counterculture and underground films, popular among those who rejected mainstream Hollywood films. These underground film festivals led to the creation of midnight movies, which attracted cult followings. The term cult film itself was an outgrowth of this movement and was first used in the 1970s, though cult had been in use for decades in film analysis with both positive and negative connotations. These films were more concerned with cultural significance than the social justice sought by earlier avant-garde films. Midnight movies became more popular and mainstream by the 1970s, peaking with the release of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), which finally found its audience several years after its release. Eventually, the rise of home video marginalized midnight movies once again, after which many directors joined the burgeoning independent film scene or went back underground. Home video gave a second life to box-office flops, as positive word-of-mouth or excessive replay on cable television led these films to develop an appreciative audience, as well as obsessive replay and study. For example, The Beastmaster (1982), despite its failure at the box office, became one of the most played films on American cable television and developed into a cult film. Home video and television broadcasts of cult films were initially greeted with hostility. Joanne Hollows states that they were seen as turning cult films mainstream -- in effect, feminizing them by opening them to distracted, passive audiences. Releases from major studios, such as The Big Lebowski (1998), which was distributed by Universal Studios, can become cult films when they fail at the box office and develop a cult following through reissues, such as midnight movies, festivals, and home video. Hollywood films, due to their nature, are more likely to attract this kind of attention, which leads to a mainstreaming effect of cult culture. With major studios behind them, even financially unsuccessful films can be re-released multiple times to seek an audience. The constant use of profanity and drugs in otherwise mainstream, Hollywood films, such as The Big Lebowski, can alienate critics and audiences yet lead to a large cult following among more open-minded demographics not often associated with cult films, such as Wall Street bankers and professional soldiers. Thus, even comparatively mainstream films can satisfy the traditional demands of a cult film, perceived by fans as transgressive, niche, and uncommercial. Discussing his reputation for making cult films, Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap said, \"I didn\'t set out to make cult films. I wanted to make box-office hits.\" Academics Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton state that this acceptance of mainstream culture and commercialism is not out of character, as cult audiences have a more complex relationship to these concepts: their opposition is to mainstream values and excessive commercialism. In a global context, popularity can vary widely by territory, especially with regard to limited releases. Mad Max (1979) was an international hit, except in America where it became an obscure cult favorite, ignored by critics and available for years only in a dubbed version though it earned over \$100M internationally. Foreign cinema can put a different spin on popular genres, such as Japanese horror, which was initially a cult favorite in America. Asian imports to the West are often marketed as exotic cult films and of interchangeable national identity. Foreign influence can affect fan response, especially on genres tied to a national identity; when they become more global in scope, questions of authenticity may arise. Filmmakers and films ignored in their own country can become the objects of cult adoration in another, producing perplexed reactions in their native country. Cult films can also establish an early viability for more mainstream films, both for filmmakers and national cinema. The early cult horror films of Peter Jackson were so strongly associated with his homeland that they affected the international reputation of New Zealand and its cinema. As more artistic films emerged, New Zealand was perceived as a legitimate competitor to Hollywood, which mirrored Jackson\'s career trajectory. Heavenly Creatures (1994) acquired its own cult following, became a part of New Zealand\'s national identity, and paved the way for big-budget, Hollywood-style epics, such as Jackson\'s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Cult film fans often watch films obsessively or in idiosyncratic ways, such as speeding them up or slowing them down. Fan may watch marathons of horror films on Halloween, sentimental melodrama on Christmas, and romantic films on Valentine\'s Day. Christmas films in particular have a nostalgic factor. These films, ritually watched every season, give a sense of community and shared nostalgia. New films often have trouble making inroads against the institutions of It\'s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947). These films provide mild criticism of consumerism while encouraging family values. Halloween, on the other hand, allows for flaunting society\'s taboos and testing one\'s fears via horror films. Mathijs criticizes the commercialized nature of Halloween and horror films, which he states feels lacks community. Mathijs states that Halloween horror conventions can provide the missing community aspect. Despite their oppositional nature, cult films can produce celebrities. Like cult films themselves, authenticity is an important aspect of their popularity. Actors can become typecast as they become strongly associated with such iconic roles. Tim Curry, despite his acknowledged range as an actor, found casting difficult after he achieved fame in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Even when discussing unrelated projects, interviewers frequently bring up the role, which causes him to tire of discussing it. Mary Woronov, known for her transgressive roles in cult films, eventually transitioned to mainstream films. She was expected to recreate the transgressive elements of her cult films within the confines of mainstream cinema. Instead of the complex gender deconstructions of her Andy Warhol films, she became typecast as a lesbian or domineering woman. Sylvia Kristel, after starring in Emmanuelle (1974), found herself highly associated with the film and the sexual liberation of the 1970s. Caught between the transgressive elements of her cult film and the mainstream appeal of soft-core pornography, she was unable to work in anything but exploitation films and Emmanuelle sequels. Despite her immense popularity and cult following, she rated only a footnote in most histories of European cinema if she was even mentioned. Similarly, Chloë Sevigny has struggled with her reputation as a cult independent film star famous for her daring roles in transgressive films. Cult films can also trap directors. Leonard Kastle, who directed The Honeymoon Killers (1969), never directed another film again. Despite his cult following, which included François Truffaut, he was unable to find financing for any of his other screenplays. Qualities that bring cult films to prominence -- such as an uncompromising, unorthodox vision -- caused Alejandro Jodorowsky to languish in obscurity for years. ## Transgression and censorship {#transgression_and_censorship} Transgressive films as a distinct artistic movement began in the 1970s. Unconcerned with genre distinctions, they drew inspiration equally from the nonconformity of European art cinema and experimental film, the gritty subject matter of Italian neorealism, and the shocking images of 1960s exploitation. Some used hardcore pornography and horror, occasionally at the same time. In the 1980s, filmmaker Nick Zedd identified this movement as the Cinema of Transgression and wrote a manifesto. Popular in midnight showings, they were mainly limited to large urban areas, which led academic Joan Hawkins to label them as \"downtown culture\". These films acquired a legendary reputation as they were discussed and debated in alternative weeklies, such as The Village Voice. Home video finally allowed general audiences to see them, which gave many people their first taste of underground film. Mathijs says that cult films often disrupt viewer expectations, such as giving characters transgressive motivations or focusing attention on elements outside the film. Cult films can also transgress national stereotypes and genre conventions, such as Battle Royale (2000), which broke many rules of teenage slasher films. The reverse -- when films based on cult properties lose their transgressive edge -- can result in derision and rejection by fans. Audience participation itself can be transgressive, such as breaking long-standing taboos against talking during films and throwing things at the screen. According to Mathijs, critical reception is important to a film\'s perception as cult, through topicality and controversy. Topicality, which can be regional (such as objection to government funding of the film) or critical (such as philosophical objections to the themes), enables attention and a contextual response. Cultural topics make the film relevant and can lead to controversy, such as a moral panic, which provides opposition. Cultural values transgressed in the film, such as sexual promiscuity, can be attacked by proxy through attacks on the film. These concerns can vary from culture to culture, and they need not be at all similar. However, Mathijs says the film must invoke metacommentary for it to be more than simply culturally important. While referencing previous arguments, critics may attack its choice of genre or its very right to exist. By taking stances on these varied issues, critics assure their own relevance while helping to elevate the film to cult status. Perceived racist and reductive remarks by critics can rally fans and raise the profile of cult films, such as Rex Reed\'s comments about Korean culture in his review of Oldboy (2003). Critics can also polarize audiences and lead debates, such as how Joe Bob Briggs and Roger Ebert dueled over I Spit On Your Grave (1978). Briggs later contributed a commentary track to the DVD release in which he describes it as a feminist film. Films which do not attract enough controversy may be ridiculed and rejected when suggested as cult films. Academic Peter Hutchings, noting the many definitions of a cult film that require transgressive elements, states that cult films are known in part for their excesses. Both subject matter and its depiction are portrayed in extreme ways that break taboos of good taste and aesthetic norms. Violence, gore, sexual perversity, and even the music can be pushed to stylistic excess far beyond that allowed by mainstream cinema. Film censorship can make these films obscure and make it difficult to find common criteria used to define cult films. Despite this, these films remain well-known and prized among collectors. Fans will occasionally express frustration with dismissive critics and conventional analysis, which they believe marginalizes and misinterprets paracinema. In marketing these films, young men are predominantly targeted. Horror films in particular can draw fans who seek the most extreme films. Audiences can also ironically latch on to offensive themes, such as misogyny, using these films as catharsis for the things that they hate most in life. Exploitative, transgressive elements can be pushed to excessive extremes for both humor and satire. Frank Henenlotter faced censorship and ridicule, but he found acceptance among audiences receptive to themes that Hollywood was reluctant to touch, such as violence, drug addiction, and misogyny. Lloyd Kaufman sees his films\' political statements as more populist and authentic than the hypocrisy of mainstream films and celebrities. Despite featuring an abundance of fake blood, vomit, and diarrhea, Kaufman\'s films have attracted positive attention from critics and academics. Excess can also exist in films that highlight the excesses of 1980s fashion and commercialism. Films that are influenced by unpopular styles or genres can become cult films. Director Jean Rollin worked within cinéma fantastique, an unpopular genre in modern France. Influenced by American films and early French fantasists, he drifted between art, exploitation, and pornography. His films were reviled by critics, but he retained a cult following drawn by the nudity and eroticism. Similarly, Jess Franco chafed under fascist censorship in Spain but became influential in Spain\'s horror boom of the 1960s. These transgressive films that straddle the line between art and horror may have overlapping cult followings, each with their own interpretation and reasons for appreciating it. The films that followed Jess Franco were unique in their rejection of mainstream art. Popular among fans of European horror for their subversiveness and obscurity, these later Spanish films allowed political dissidents to criticize the fascist regime within the cloak of exploitation and horror. Unlike most exploitation directors, they were not trying to establish a reputation. They were already established in the art-house world and intentionally chose to work within paracinema as a reaction against the New Spanish Cinema, an artistic revival supported by the fascists. As late as the 1980s, critics still cited Pedro Almodóvar\'s anti-macho iconoclasm as a rebellion against fascist mores, as he grew from countercultural rebel to mainstream respectability. Transgressive elements that limit a director\'s appeal in one country can be celebrated or highlighted in another. Takashi Miike has been marketed in the West as a shocking and avant-garde filmmaker despite his many family-friendly comedies, which have not been imported. The transgressive nature of cult films can lead to their censorship. During the 1970s and early 1980s, a wave of explicit, graphic exploitation films caused controversy. Called \"video nasties\" within the UK, they ignited calls for censorship and stricter laws on home video releases, which were largely unregulated. Consequently, the British Board of Film Classification banned many popular cult films due to issues of sex, violence, and incitement to crime. Released during the cannibal boom, Cannibal Holocaust (1980) was banned in dozens of countries and caused the director to be briefly jailed over fears that it was a real snuff film. Although opposed to censorship, director Ruggero Deodato later agreed with cuts made by the BBFC that removed unsimulated animal killings, which limited the film\'s distribution. Frequently banned films may introduce questions of authenticity as fans question whether they have seen a truly uncensored cut. Cult films have been falsely claimed to have been banned to increase their transgressive reputation and explain their lack of mainstream penetration. Marketing campaigns have also used such claims to raise interest among curious audiences. Home video has allowed cult film fans to import rare or banned films, finally giving them a chance to complete their collection with imports and bootlegs. Cult films previously banned are sometimes released with much fanfare, and the fans assumed to be already familiar with the controversy. Personal responsibility is often highlighted, and a strong anti-censorship message may be present. Previously lost scenes cut by studios can be re-added and restore a director\'s original vision, which draws similar fanfare and acclaim from fans. Imports are sometimes censored to remove elements that would be controversial, such as references to Islamic spirituality in Indonesian cult films. Academics have written of how transgressive themes in cult films can be regressive. David Church and Chuck Kleinhans describe an uncritical celebration of transgressive themes in cult films, including misogyny and racism. Church has also criticized gendered descriptions of transgressive content that celebrate masculinity. Joanne Hollows further identifies a gendered component to the celebration of transgressive themes in cult films, where male terms are used to describe films outside the mainstream while female terms are used to describe mainstream, conformist cinema. Jacinda Read\'s expansion states that cult films, despite their potential for empowerment of the marginalized, are more often used by politically incorrect males. Knowledgeable about feminism and multiculturalism, they seek a refuge from the academic acceptance of these progressive ideals. Their playful and ironic acceptance of regressive lad culture invites, and even dares, condemnation from academics and the uncool. Thus, cult films become a tool to reinforce mainstream values through transgressive content; Rebecca Feasy states that cultural hierarchies can also be reaffirmed through mockery of films perceived to be lacking masculinity. However, the sexploitation films of Doris Wishman took a feminist approach which avoids and subverts the male gaze and traditional goal-oriented methods. Wishman\'s subject matter, though exploitative and transgressive, was always framed in terms of female empowerment and the feminine spectator. Her use of common cult film motifs -- female nudity and ambiguous gender -- were repurposed to comment on feminist topics. Similarly, the films of Russ Meyer were a complicated combination of transgressive, mainstream, progressive, and regressive elements. They attracted both acclaim and denouncement from critics and progressives. Transgressive films imported from cultures that are recognizably different yet still relatable can be used to progressively examine issues in another culture. ## Subcultural appeal and fandom {#subcultural_appeal_and_fandom} Cult films can be used to help define or create groups as a form of subcultural capital; knowledge of cult films proves that one is \"authentic\" or \"non-mainstream\". They can be used to provoke an outraged response from the mainstream, which further defines the subculture, as only members could possibly tolerate such deviant entertainment. More accessible films have less subcultural capital; among extremists, banned films will have the most. By referencing cult films, media can identify desired demographics, strengthen bonds with specific subcultures, and stand out among those who understand the intertextuality. Popular films from previous eras may be reclaimed by genre fans long after they have been forgotten by the original audiences. This can be done for authenticity, such as horror fans who seek out now-obscure titles from the 1950s instead of the modern, well-known remakes. Authenticity may also drive fans to deny genre categorization to films perceived as too mainstream or accessible. Authenticity in performance and expertise can drive fan acclaim. Authenticity can also drive fans to decry the mainstream in the form of hostile critics and censors. Especially when promoted by enthusiastic and knowledgeable programmers, choice of venue can be an important part of expressing individuality. Besides creating new communities, cult films can link formerly disparate groups, such as fans and critics. As these groups intermix, they can influence each other, though this may be resisted by older fans, unfamiliar with these new references. In extreme cases, cult films can lead to the creation of religions, such as Dudeism. For their avoidance of mainstream culture and audiences, enjoyment of irony, and celebration of obscure subcultures, academic Martin Roberts compares cult film fans to hipsters. A film can become the object of a cult following within a particular region or culture if it has unusual significance. For example, Norman Wisdom\'s films, friendly to Marxist interpretation, amassed a cult following in Albania, as they were among the few Western films allowed by the country\'s Communist rulers. The Wizard of Oz (1939) and its star, Judy Garland, hold special significance to American and British gay culture, although it is a widely viewed and historically important film in greater American culture. Similarly, James Dean and his brief film career have become icons of alienated youth. Cult films can have such niche appeal that they are only popular within certain subcultures, such as Reefer Madness (1936) and Hemp for Victory (1942) among the stoner subculture. Beach party musicals, popular among American surfers, failed to find an equivalent audience when imported to the United Kingdom. When films target subcultures like this, they may seem unintelligible without the proper cultural capital. Films which appeal to teenagers may offer subcultural identities that are easily recognized and differentiate various subcultural groups. Films which appeal to stereotypical male activities, such as sports, can easily gain strong male cult followings. Sports metaphors are often used in the marketing of cult films to males, such as emphasizing the \"extreme\" nature of the film, which increases the appeal to youth subcultures fond of extreme sports. Matt Hills\' concept of the \"cult blockbuster\" involves cult followings inside larger, mainstream films. Although these are big budget, mainstream films, they still attract cult followings. The cult fans differentiate themselves from ordinary fans in several ways: longstanding devotion to the film, distinctive interpretations, and fan works. Hills identifies three different cult followings for The Lord of the Rings, each with their own fandom separate from the mainstream. Academic Emma Pett identifies Back to the Future (1985) as another example of a cult blockbuster. Although the film was an instant hit when released, it has also developed a nostalgic cult following over the years. The hammy acting by Christopher Lloyd and quotable dialogue have drawn a cult following, as they mimic traditional cult films. Blockbuster science fiction films that include philosophical subtexts, such as The Matrix, allow cult film fans to enjoy them on a higher level than the mainstream. Star Wars, with its large cult following in geek subculture, has been cited as both a cult blockbuster and a cult film. Although a mainstream epic, Star Wars has provided its fans with a spirituality and culture outside of the mainstream. Fans, in response to the popularity of these blockbusters, will claim elements for themselves while rejecting others. For example, in the Star Wars film series, mainstream criticism of Jar Jar Binks focused on racial stereotyping. Although cult film fans will use that to bolster their arguments, he is rejected because he represents mainstream appeal and marketing. Also, instead of valuing textual rarity, fans of cult blockbusters will value repeat viewings. They may also engage in behaviors more traditional for fans of cult television and other serial media, as cult blockbusters are often franchised, preconceived as a film series, or both. To reduce mainstream accessibility, a film series can be self-reflexive and full of in-jokes that only longtime fans can understand. Mainstream critics may ridicule commercially successful directors of cult blockbusters, such as James Cameron, Michael Bay, and Luc Besson, whose films have been called simplistic. This critical backlash may serve to embellish the filmmakers\' reception as cult auteurs. In the same way, critics may ridicule fans of cult blockbusters as immature or shallow. Cult films can create their own subculture. Rocky Horror, originally made to exploit the popularity of glam subculture, became what academic Gina Marchetti called a \"sub-subculture\", a variant that outlived its parent subculture. Although often described as primarily composed of obsessed fans, cult film fandom can include many newer, less experienced members. Familiar with the film\'s reputation and having watched clips on online video platforms, these fans may take the next step and enter the film\'s fandom. If they are the majority, they may alter or ignore long-standing traditions, such as audience participation rituals; rituals which lack perceived authenticity may be criticized, but accepted rituals bring subcultural capital to veteran fans who introduce them to the newer members. Newer fans may cite the film itself as their reason for attending a showing, but longtime fans often cite the community. Organized fandoms may spread and become popular as a way of introducing new people to the film. Fans of cult films, as in media fandom, are frequently producers and not simple consumers. Unconcerned with traditional views on intellectual property, these fan works are often unsanctioned, transformative, and ignore fictional canon. Like cult films themselves, magazines and websites dedicated to cult films revel in their self-conscious offensiveness. They maintain a sense of exclusivity by offending mainstream audiences with misogyny, gore, and racism. Obsessive trivia can be used to bore mainstream audiences while building up subcultural capital. Specialist stores on the fringes of society (or websites which prominently partner with hardcore pornographic sites) can be used to reinforce the outsider nature of cult film fandom, especially when they use erotic or gory imagery. By assuming a preexisting knowledge of trivia, non-fans can be excluded. Previous articles and controversies can also be alluded to without explanation. Casual readers and non-fans will thus be left out of discussions and debates, as they lack enough information to meaningfully contribute. When fans like a cult film for the wrong reasons, such as casting or characters aimed at mainstream appeal, they may be ridiculed. Thus, fandom can keep the mainstream at bay while defining themselves in terms of the \"Other\", a philosophical construct divergent from social norms. Commercial aspects of fandom (such as magazines or books) can also be defined in terms of \"otherness\" and thus valid to consume: consumers purchasing independent or niche publications are discerning consumers, but the mainstream is denigrated. Irony or self-deprecating humor can also be used. In online communities, different subcultures attracted to transgressive films can clash over values and criteria for subcultural capital. Even within subcultures, fans who break subcultural scripts, such as denying the affectivity of a disturbing film, will be ridiculed for their lack of authenticity. ## Types ### \"So bad it\'s good\" {#so_bad_its_good} thumb\\|thumbtime=103\\|upright=1.5\\|`{{center\|''Plan 9 from Outer Space'', full film; runtime 01:19:03}}`{=mediawiki} The critic Michael Medved characterized examples of the \"so bad it\'s good\" class of low-budget cult film through books such as The Golden Turkey Awards. These films include financially fruitless and critically scorned films that have become inadvertent comedies to film buffs, such as Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), Mommie Dearest (1981), The Room (2003), and the Ugandan action comedy film Who Killed Captain Alex? (2010). Similarly, Paul Verhoeven\'s Showgirls (1995) bombed in theaters but developed a cult following on video. Catching on, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer capitalized on the film\'s ironic appeal and marketed it as a cult film. Sometimes, fans will impose their own interpretation of films which have attracted derision, such as reinterpreting an earnest melodrama as a comedy. `{{proper name\|Jacob deNobel}}`{=mediawiki} of the Carroll County Times states that films can be perceived as nonsensical or inept when audiences misunderstand avant-garde filmmaking or misinterpret parody. Films such as Rocky Horror can be misinterpreted as \"weird for weirdness\' sake\" by people unfamiliar with the cult films that they parody. `{{proper name\|\|deNobel}}`{=mediawiki} ultimately rejects the use of the label \"so bad it\'s good\" as mean-spirited and often misapplied. Alamo Drafthouse programmer Zack Carlson has further said that any film which succeeds in entertaining an audience is good regardless of irony. In francophone culture, \"so bad it\'s good\" films are known as `{{Interlanguage link\|nanar\|lt=nanars\|Fr\|\|WD=}}`{=mediawiki}. The rise of the Internet and on-demand films has led critics to question whether \"so bad it\'s good\" films have a future now that people have such diverse options in both availability and catalog, though fans eager to experience the worst films ever made can lead to lucrative showings for local theaters and merchandisers. ### Camp and guilty pleasures {#camp_and_guilty_pleasures} Chuck Kleinhans states that the difference between a guilty pleasure and a cult film can be as simple as the number of fans; David Church raises the question of how many people it takes to form a cult following, especially now that home video makes fans difficult to count. As these cult films become more popular, they can bring varied responses from fans that depend on different interpretations, such as camp, irony, genuine affection, or combinations thereof. Earnest fans, who recognize and accept the film\'s faults, can make minor celebrities of the film\'s cast, though the benefits are not always clear. Cult film stars known for their camp can inject subtle parody or signal when films should not be taken seriously. Campy actors can also provide comic book supervillains for serious, artistic-minded films. This can draw fan acclaim and obsession more readily than subtle, method-inspired acting. Mark Chalon Smith of the Los Angeles Times says technical faults may be forgiven if a film makes up for them in other areas, such as camp or transgressive content. Smith states that the early films of John Waters are amateurish and less influential than claimed, but Waters\' outrageous vision cements his place in cult cinema. Films such as Myra Breckinridge (1970) and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) can experience critical reappraisal later, once their camp excess and avant-garde filmmaking are better accepted, and films that are initially dismissed as frivolous are often reassessed as campy. Films that intentionally try to appeal to fans of camp may end up alienating them, as the films become perceived as trying too hard or not authentic. ### Nostalgia According to academic Brigid Cherry, nostalgia \"is a strong element of certain kinds of cult appeal.\" When Veoh added many cult films to their site, they cited nostalgia as a factor for their popularity. Academic I. Q. Hunter describes cult films as \"New Hollywood in extremis\" and a form of nostalgia for that period. Ernest Mathijs instead states that cult films use nostalgia as a form of resistance against progress and capitalistic ideas of a time-based economy. By virtue of the time travel plot, Back to the Future permits nostalgia for both the 1950s and 1980s. Many members of its nostalgic cult following are too young to have been alive during those periods, which Emma Pett interprets as fondness for retro aesthetics, nostalgia for when they saw the film rather than when it was released, and looking to the past to find a better time period. Similarly, films directed by John Hughes have taken hold in midnight movie venues, trading off of nostalgia for the 1980s and an ironic appreciation for their optimism. Mathijs and Sexton describe Grease (1978) as a film nostalgic about an imagined past that has acquired a nostalgic cult following. Other cult films, such as Streets of Fire (1984), create a new fictional world based on nostalgic views of the past. Cult films may also subvert nostalgia, such as The Big Lebowski, which introduces many nostalgic elements and then reveals them as fake and hollow. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) is another example, containing extensive nostalgia for the music and video gaming culture of the 2000s. Author China Miéville praises the use of satire in Donnie Darko for its avoidance of falling into facile and comforting nostalgia, but Nathan Lee of the New York Sun identifies the retro aesthetic and nostalgic pastiche as factors in its popularity among midnight movie crowds. ### Midnight movies {#midnight_movies} Author Tomas Crowder-Taraborrelli describes midnight movies as a reaction against the political and cultural conservatism in America, and Joan Hawkins identifies the movement as running the gamut from anarchist to libertarian, united in their anti-establishment attitude and punk aesthetic. These films are resistant to simple categorization and are defined by the fanaticism and ritualistic behaviors of their audiences. Midnight movies require a night life and an audience willing to invest themselves actively. Hawkins states that these films took a rather bleak point of view due to the living conditions of the artists and the economic prospects of the 1970s. Like the surrealists and dadaists, they not only satirically attacked society but also the very structure of film -- a counter-cinema that deconstructs narrative and traditional processes. In the late 1980s and 1990s, midnight movies transitioned from underground showings to home video viewings; eventually, a desire for community brought a resurgence, and The Big Lebowski kick-started a new generation. Demographics shifted, and more hip and mainstream audiences were drawn to them. Although studios expressed skepticism, large audiences were drawn to box-office flops, such as The Warriors (1979) gang movie from Walter Hill, Office Space (1999) and Donnie Darko (2001). Modern midnight movies retain their popularity and have been strongly diverging from mainstream films shown at midnight. Mainstream cinemas, eager to disassociate themselves from negative associations and increase profits, have begun abandoning midnight screenings. Although classic midnight movies have dropped off in popularity, they still bring reliable crowds. ### Art and exploitation {#art_and_exploitation} Although seemingly at odds with each other, art and exploitation films are frequently treated as equal and interchangeable in cult fandom, listed alongside each other and described in similar terms: their ability to provoke a response. The most exploitative aspects of art films are thus played up and their academic recognition ignored. This flattening of culture follows the popularity of post-structuralism, which rejects a hierarchy of artistic merit and equates exploitation and art. Mathijs and Sexton state that although cult films are not synonymous with exploitation, as is occasionally assumed, this is a key component; they write that exploitation, which exists on the fringes of the mainstream and deals with taboo subjects, is well-suited for cult followings. Academic David Andrews writes that cult softcore films are \"the most masculinized, youth-oriented, populist, and openly pornographic softcore area.\" The sexploitation films of Russ Meyer were among the first to abandon all hypocritical pretenses of morality and were technically proficient enough to gain a cult following. His persistent vision saw him received as an auteur worthy of academic study; director John Waters attributes this to Meyer\'s ability to create complicated, sexually charged films without resorting to explicit sex. Myrna Oliver described Doris Wishman\'s exploitation films as \"crass, coarse, and camp \... perfect fodder for a cult following.\" \"Sick films\", the most disturbing and graphically transgressive films, have their own distinct cult following; these films transcend their roots in exploitation, horror, and art films. In 1960s and 1970s America, exploitation and art films shared audiences and marketing, especially in New York City\'s grindhouse cinemas. ### B and genre films {#b_and_genre_films} Mathijs and Sexton state that genre is an important part of cult films; cult films will often mix, mock, or exaggerate the tropes associated with traditional genres. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror are known for their large and dedicated cult followings; as science fiction films become more popular, fans emphasize non-mainstream and less commercial aspects of it. B films, which are often conflated with exploitation, are as important to cult films as exploitation. Teodor Reljic of Malta Today states that cult B films are a realistic goal for Malta\'s burgeoning film industry. Genre films, B films that strictly adhere to genre limitations, can appeal to cult film fans: given their transgressive excesses, horror films are likely to become to cult films; films like Galaxy Quest (1999) highlight the importance of cult followings and fandom to science fiction; and authentic martial arts skills in Hong Kong action films can drive them to become cult favorites. Cult musicals can range from the traditional, such as Singin\' in the Rain (1952), which appeal to cult audiences through nostalgia, camp, and spectacle, to the more non-traditional, such as Cry-Baby (1990), which parodies musicals, and Rocky Horror, which uses a rock soundtrack. Romantic fairy tale The Princess Bride (1987) failed to attract audiences in its original release, as the studio did not know how to market it. The freedom and excitement associated with cars can be an important part of drawing cult film fans to genre films, and they can signify action and danger with more ambiguity than a gun. Ad Week writes that cult B films, when released on home video, market themselves and need only enough advertising to raise curiosity or nostalgia. ### Animation Animation can provide wide open vistas for stories. The French film Fantastic Planet (1973) explored ideas beyond the limits of traditional, live-action science fiction films. Ralph Bakshi\'s career has been marked with controversy: Fritz the Cat (1972), the first animated film to be rated \"X\" by the MPAA, provoked outrage for its racial caricatures and graphic depictions of sex, and Coonskin (1975) was decried as racist. Bakshi recalls that older animators had tired of \"kid stuff\" and desired edgier work, whereas younger animators hated his work for \"destroying the Disney images\". Eventually, his work was reassessed and cult followings, which include Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, developed around several of his films. Heavy Metal (1981) faced similar denunciations from critics. Donald Liebenson of the Los Angeles Times cites the violence and sexual imagery as alienating critics, who did not know what to make of the film. It became a popular midnight movie and was frequently bootlegged by fans, as licensing issues kept it from being released on video for many years. Phil Hoad of The Guardian identifies Akira (1988) as introducing violent, adult Japanese animation (known as anime) to the West and paving the way for later works. Anime, according to academic Brian Ruh, is not a cult genre, but the lack of individual fandoms inside anime fandom itself lends itself to a bleeding over of cult attention and can help spread works internationally. Anime, which is frequently presented as a series (with movies either rising from existing series, or spinning off series based on the film), provides its fans with alternative fictional canons and points of view that can drive fan activity. The Ghost in the Shell films, for example, provided Japanese fans with enough bonus material and spinoffs that it encouraged cult tendencies. Markets that did not support the sale of these materials saw less cult activity. ### Nonfiction Sensationalistic documentaries called mondo films replicate the most shocking and transgressive elements of exploitation films. They are usually modeled after \"sick films\" and cover similar subject matter. In The Cult Film Reader, academics Mathijs and Mendik write that these documentaries often present non-Western societies as \"stereotypically mysterious, seductive, immoral, deceptive, barbaric or savage\". Though they can be interpreted as racist, Mathijs and Mendik state that they also \"exhibit a liberal attitude towards the breaking of cultural taboos\". Mondo films like Faces of Death mix real and fake footage freely, and they gain their cult following through the outrage and debate over authenticity that results. Like \"so bad it\'s good\" cult films, old propaganda and government hygiene films may be enjoyed ironically by more modern audiences for the camp value of the outdated themes and outlandish claims made about perceived social threats, such as drug use. Academic Barry K. Grant states that Frank Capra\'s Why We Fight World War II propaganda films are explicitly not cult, because they are \"slickly made and have proven their ability to persuade an audience.\" The sponsored film Mr. B Natural became a cult hit when it was broadcast on the satirical television show Mystery Science Theater 3000; cast member Trace Beaulieu cited these educational shorts as his favorite to mock on the show. Mark Jancovich states that cult audiences are drawn to these films because of their \"very banality or incoherence of their political positions\", unlike traditional cult films, which achieve popularity through auteurist radicalism. ## Mainstream popularity {#mainstream_popularity} Mark Shiel explains the rising popularity of cult films as an attempt by cinephiles and scholars to escape the oppressive conformity and mainstream appeal of even independent film, as well as a lack of condescension in both critics and the films; Academic Donna de Ville says it is a chance to subvert the dominance of academics and cinephiles. According to Xavier Mendik, \"academics have been really interested in cult movies for quite a while now.\" Mendik has sought to bring together academic interest and fandom through Cine-Excess, a film festival. I. Q. Hunter states that \"it\'s much easier to be a cultist now, but it is also rather more inconsequential.\" Citing the mainstream availability of Cannibal Holocaust, Jeffrey Sconce rejects definitions of cult films based on controversy and excess, as they\'ve now become meaningless. Cult films have influenced such diverse industries as cosmetics, music videos, and fashion. Cult films have shown up in less expected places; as a sign of his popularity, a bronze statue of Ed Wood has been proposed in his hometown, and L\'Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Holy See, has courted controversy for its endorsement of cult films and pop culture. When cities attempt to renovate neighborhoods, fans have called attempts to demolish iconic settings from cult films \"cultural vandalism\". Cult films can also drive tourism, even when it is unwanted. From Latin America, Alejandro Jodorowsky\'s film El Topo (1970) has attracted attention of rock musicians such as John Lennon, Mick Jagger, and Bob Dylan. As far back as the 1970s, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978) was designed specifically to be a cult film, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show was produced by 20th Century Fox, a major Hollywood studio. Over its decades-long release, Rocky Horror became the seventh highest grossing R-rated film when adjusted for inflation; journalist Matt Singer has questioned whether Rocky Horror{{\'}}s popularity invalidates its cult status. Founded in 1974, Troma Entertainment, an independent studio, became known for both its cult following and cult films. In the 1980s, Danny Peary\'s Cult Movies (1981) influenced director Edgar Wright and film critic Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club. The rise of home video had a mainstreaming effect on cult films and cultish behavior, though some collectors would be unlikely to self-identify as cult film fans. Film critic Joe Bob Briggs began reviewing drive-in theater and cult films, though he faced much criticism as an early advocate of exploitation and cult films. Briggs highlights the mainstreaming of cult films by pointing out the respectful obituaries that cult directors have received from formerly hostile publications and acceptance of politically incorrect films at mainstream film festivals. This acceptance is not universal, though, and some critics have resisted this mainstreaming of paracinema. Beginning in the 1990s, director Quentin Tarantino had the greatest success in turning cult films mainstream. Tarantino later used his fame to champion obscure cult films that had influenced him and set up the short-lived Rolling Thunder Pictures, which distributed several of his favorite cult films. Tarantino\'s clout led Phil Hoad of The Guardian to call Tarantino the world\'s most influential director. As major Hollywood studios and audiences both become savvy to cult films, productions once limited to cult appeal have instead become popular hits, and cult directors have become hot properties known for more mainstream and accessible films. Remarking on the popular trend of remaking cult films, Claude Brodesser-Akner of New York magazine states that Hollywood studios have been superstitiously hoping to recreate past successes rather than trading on nostalgia. Their popularity brought some critics to proclaim the death of cult films now that they have finally become successful and mainstream, are too slick to attract a proper cult following, lack context, or are too easily found online. In response, David Church says that cult film fans have retreated to more obscure and difficult to find films, often using illegal distribution methods, which preserves the outlaw status of cult films. Virtual spaces, such as online forums and fan sites, replace the traditional fanzines and newsletters. Cult film fans consider themselves collectors, rather than consumers, as they associate consumers with mainstream, Hollywood audiences. This collecting can take the place of fetishization of a single film. Addressing concerns that DVDs have revoked the cult status of films like Rocky Horror, academic Mikel J. Koven states that small scale screenings with friends and family can replace midnight showings. Koven also identifies television shows, such as Twin Peaks, as retaining more traditional cult activities inside popular culture. Despite this, the Alamo Drafthouse has capitalized on cult films and the surrounding culture through inspiration drawn from Rocky Horror and retro promotional gimmickry. They sell out their shows regularly and have acquired a cult following of their own. Academic Bob Batchelor, writing in Cult Pop Culture, states that the internet has democratized cult culture and destroyed the line between cult and mainstream. Fans of even the most obscure films can communicate online with each other in vibrant communities. Although known for their big-budget blockbusters, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have criticized the current Hollywood system of gambling everything on the opening weekend of these productions. Geoffrey Macnab of The Independent instead suggests that Hollywood look to capitalize on cult films, which have exploded in popularity on the internet. The rise of social media has been a boon to cult films. Sites such as Twitter have displaced traditional venues for fandom and courted controversy from cultural critics who are unamused by campy cult films. After a clip from one of his films went viral, director-producer Roger Corman made a distribution deal with YouTube. Found footage which had originally been distributed as cult VHS collections eventually went viral on YouTube, which opened them to new generations of fans. Films such as Birdemic (2008) and The Room (2003) gained quick, massive popularity, as prominent members of social networking sites discussed them. Their rise as \"instant cult classics\" bypasses the years of obscurity that most cult films labor under. In response, critics have described the use of viral marketing as astroturfing and an attempt to manufacture cult films. I. Q. Hunter identifies a prefabricated cult film style which includes \"deliberately, insulting bad films\", \"slick exercises in dysfunction and alienation\", and mainstream films \"that sell themselves as worth obsessing over\". Writing for NPR, Scott Tobias states that Don Coscarelli, whose previous films effortlessly attracted cult followings, has drifted into this realm. Tobias criticizes Coscarelli as trying too hard to appeal to cult audiences and sacrificing internal consistency for calculated quirkiness. Influenced by the successful online hype of The Blair Witch Project (1999), other films have attempted to draw online cult fandom with the use of prefabricated cult appeal. Snakes on a Plane (2006) is an example that attracted massive attention from curious fans. Uniquely, its cult following preceded the film\'s release and included speculative parodies of what fans imagined the film might be. This reached the point of convergence culture when fan speculation began to impact on the film\'s production. Although it was proclaimed a cult film and major game-changer before it was released, it failed to win either mainstream audiences or maintain its cult following. In retrospect, critic Spencer Kornhaber called it a serendipitous novelty and a footnote to a \"more naive era of the Internet\". However, it became influential in both marketing and titling. This trend of \"instant cult classics\" which are hailed yet fail to attain a lasting following is described by Matt Singer, who states that the phrase is an oxymoron. Cult films are often approached in terms of auteur theory, which states that the director\'s creative vision drives a film. This has fallen out of favor in academia, creating a disconnect between cult film fans and critics. Matt Hills states that auteur theory can help to create cult films; fans that see a film as continuing a director\'s creative vision are likely to accept it as cult. According to academic Greg Taylor, auteur theory also helped to popularize cult films when middlebrow audiences found an accessible way to approach avant-garde film criticism. Auteur theory provided an alternative culture for cult film fans while carrying the weight of scholarship. By requiring repeated viewings and extensive knowledge of details, auteur theory naturally appealed to cult film fans. Taylor further states that this was instrumental in allowing cult films to break through to the mainstream. Academic Joe Tompkins states that this auteurism is often highlighted when mainstream success occurs. This may take the place of -- and even ignore -- political readings of the director. Cult films and directors may be celebrated for their transgressive content, daring, and independence, but Tompkins argues that mainstream recognition requires they be palatable to corporate interests who stand to gain much from the mainstreaming of cult film culture. While critics may champion revolutionary aspects of filmmaking and political interpretation, Hollywood studios and other corporate interests will instead highlight only the aspects that they wish to legitimize in their own films, such as sensational exploitation. Someone like George A. Romero, whose films are both transgressive and subversive, will have the transgressive aspects highlighted while the subversive aspects are ignored.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,646	Constantinople	Konstantinoupolis (newspaper)}} `{{Use dmy dates\|date=April 2023}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Infobox ancient site \| name = Constantinople \| native_name = {{native name\|grc\|Κωνσταντινούπολις}}<br/>{{native name\|la\|Constantinopolis}}<br/>{{native name\|ota\|قسطنطينيه}} \| image = Byzantine Constantinople-en.png \| alt = \| caption = Map of Constantinople in the Byzantine period, corresponding to the modern-day [[Fatih]] and [[Beyoğlu]] district of [[Istanbul]] \| map_type = Istanbul#Turkey Marmara#Turkey \| map_alt = A map of Byzantine Istanbul \| map_size = 275 \| map_caption = Constantinople was founded on the former site of the [[Greek colonisation\|Greek colony]] of [[Byzantium]], which today is known as [[Istanbul]] in [[Turkey]]. \| coordinates = {{Coord\|41\|00\|45\|N\|28\|58\|48\|E\|type:city_region:TR\|display=inline,title}} \| location = [[Fatih]] and [[Beyoğlu]], [[Istanbul]], Turkey \| region = [[Marmara Region]] \| type = Imperial city \| part_of = {{unbulleted list\|[[Roman Empire]]\|[[Byzantine Empire]]\|[[Latin Empire]]\|[[Ottoman Empire]]}} \| length = \| width = \| area = {{cvt\|6\|km2}} enclosed within Constantinian Walls {{cvt\|14\|km2}} enclosed within Theodosian Walls <!-- find good source for this claim and discuss in article's text --> \| height = \| builder = [[Constantine the Great]] \| material = \| built = 11 May 330 \| abandoned = \| epochs = [[Late antiquity]] to [[Interwar period]] \| cultures = {{unbulleted list\| [[Greek culture\|Greek]]\|[[Culture of ancient Rome\|Latin]]\|[[Byzantine Empire#Culture\|Byzantine]]{{Broken anchor\|date=2024-07-19\|bot=User:Cewbot/log/20201008/configuration\|target_link=Byzantine Empire#Culture\|reason= The anchor (Culture) [[Special:Diff/1189657321\|has been deleted]].}}\|[[Culture of the Ottoman Empire\|Ottoman]]}} \| event = [[List of sieges of Constantinople\|Sieges of Constantinople]], including fall of the city ([[Sack of Constantinople\|1204]] and [[Fall of Constantinople\|1453]]) \| occupants = \| designation1 = WHS \| designation1_offname = [[Historic Areas of Istanbul]] \| designation1_type = Cultural \| designation1_criteria = (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) \| designation1_date = 1985 <small>(9th [[World Heritage Committee\|session]])</small> \| designation1_number = [https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/356 356bis] \| designation1_free1name = Extension \| designation1_free1value = 2017 \| designation1_free2name = Area \| designation1_free2value = 765.5 ha \| designation1_free3name = UNESCO region \| designation1_free3value = [[Lists of World Heritage Sites#Europe\|Europe and North America]] \|}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Timeline of Constantinople}}`{=mediawiki} Constantinople (see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman empires between its consecration in 330 until 1930, when it was renamed to Istanbul. Initially as New Rome, Constantinople was founded in 324 during the reign of Constantine the Great on the site of the existing settlement of Byzantium, and shortly thereafter in 330 became the capital of the Roman Empire. Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century, Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire; 330--1204 and 1261--1453), the Latin Empire (1204--1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453--1922). Following the Turkish War of Independence, the Turkish capital then moved to Ankara. Although the city had been known as Istanbul since 1453, it was officially renamed as Istanbul on 28 March 1930. The city is today the largest city in Europe, straddling the Bosporus strait and lying in both Europe and Asia, and the financial center of Turkey. In 324, following the reunification of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, the ancient city of Byzantium was selected to serve as the new capital of the Roman Empire, and the city was renamed Nova Roma, or \'New Rome\', by Emperor Constantine the Great. On 11 May 330, it was renamed Constantinople and dedicated to Constantine. Constantinople is generally considered to be the center and the \"cradle of Orthodox Christian civilization\". From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe. The city became famous for its architectural masterpieces, such as Hagia Sophia, the cathedral of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which served as the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate; the sacred Imperial Palace, where the emperors lived; the Hippodrome; the Golden Gate of the Land Walls; and opulent aristocratic palaces. The University of Constantinople was founded in the 5th century and contained artistic and literary treasures before it was sacked in 1204 and 1453, including its vast Imperial Library which contained the remnants of the Library of Alexandria and had 100,000 volumes. The city was the home of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and guardian of Christendom\'s holiest relics, such as the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross. thumb\\|upright=1.3\\|Aerial view of Byzantine Constantinople and the Propontis (Sea of Marmara) Constantinople was famous for its massive and complex fortifications, which ranked among the most sophisticated defensive architectures of antiquity. The Theodosian Walls consisted of a double wall lying about 2 km to the west of the first wall and a moat with palisades in front. Constantinople\'s location between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara reduced the land area that needed defensive walls. The city was built intentionally to rival Rome, and it was claimed that several elevations within its walls matched Rome\'s \'seven hills\'. The impenetrable defenses enclosed magnificent palaces, domes, and towers, the result of prosperity Constantinople achieved as the gateway between two continents (Europe and Asia) and two seas (the Mediterranean and the Black Sea). Although besieged on numerous occasions by various armies, the defenses of Constantinople proved impenetrable for nearly nine hundred years. In 1204, however, the armies of the Fourth Crusade took and devastated the city, and for six decades, its inhabitants resided under Latin occupation in a dwindling and depopulated city. In 1261, the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos liberated the city, and after the restoration under the Palaiologos dynasty, it enjoyed a partial recovery. With the advent of the Ottoman Empire in 1299, the Byzantine Empire began to lose territories, and the city began to lose population. By the early 15th century, the Byzantine Empire was reduced to just Constantinople and its environs, along with the territories of the despotate of Morea, in Peloponnese, Greece, making it an enclave inside the Ottoman Empire. The city was finally besieged and conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453, remaining under its control until the early 20th century, after which it was renamed Istanbul under the Empire\'s successor state, Turkey. ## Names ### Before Constantinople {#before_constantinople} According to Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, the first known name of a settlement on the site of Constantinople was Lygos, a settlement likely of Thracian origin founded between the 13th and 11th centuries BC. The site, according to the founding myth of the city, was abandoned by the time Greek settlers from the city-state of Megara founded Byzantium (Βυζάντιον, Byzántion) in around 657 BC, across from the town of Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. The origins of the name of Byzantion, more commonly known by the later Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear, though some suggest it is of Thracian origin. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men, Byzas and Antes, though this was more likely just a play on the word Byzantion. The city was briefly renamed Augusta Antonina in the early 3rd century AD by the Emperor Septimius Severus (193--211), who razed the city to the ground in 196 for supporting a rival contender in the civil war. He then had it rebuilt in honour of his son Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (who succeeded him as Emperor), popularly known as Caracalla. The name appears to have been quickly forgotten and abandoned, and the city reverted to Byzantium/Byzantion after either the assassination of Caracalla in 217 or, at the latest, the fall of the Severan dynasty in 235. ### Names of Constantinople {#names_of_constantinople} Names of Constantinople}} Byzantium took on the name of Constantinople (lit=city of Constantine) after its refoundation under Roman emperor Constantine I, who transferred the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium in 330 and designated his new capital officially as Nova Roma\]\] (Νέα Ῥώμη) \'New Rome\'. During this time, the city was also called \'Second Rome\', \'Eastern Rome\', and Roma Constantinopolitana (Latin for \'Constantinopolitan Rome\'). As the city became the sole remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew, the city also came to have a multitude of nicknames. As the largest and wealthiest city in Europe during the 4th--13th centuries and a center of culture and education of the Mediterranean basin, Constantinople came to be known by prestigious titles such as Basileuousa (Queen of Cities) and Megalopolis (the Great City) and was, in colloquial speech, commonly referred to as just Polis (ἡ Πόλις) \'the City\' by Constantinopolitans and provincial Byzantines alike. In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently. The medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe (Varangians), used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr (from mikill \'big\' and garðr \'city\'), and later Miklagard and Miklagarth. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called Rūmiyyat al-Kubra (Great City of the Romans) and in Persian as Takht-e Rum (Throne of the Romans). In East and South Slavic languages, including in Kievan Rus\', Constantinople has been referred to as Tsargrad (Царьград) or Carigrad, \'City of the Caesar (Emperor)\', from the Slavonic words tsar (\'Caesar\' or \'King\') and grad (\'city\'). This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις (Vasileos Polis), \'the city of the emperor \[king\]\'. In Persian the city was also called Asitane (the Threshold of the State), and in Armenian, it was called Gosdantnubolis (City of Constantine). ### Modern names of the city {#modern_names_of_the_city} The modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin Polin (εἰς τὴν πόλιν), meaning \'(in)to the city\'. This name was used in colloquial speech in Turkish alongside Kostantiniyye, the more formal adaptation of the original Constantinople, during the period of Ottoman rule, while western languages mostly continued to refer to the city as Constantinople until the early 20th century. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script. After that, as part of the Turkification movement, Turkey started to urge other countries to use Turkish names for Turkish cities, instead of other transliterations to Latin script that had been used in Ottoman times and the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. The name Constantinople is still used by members of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the title of one of their most important leaders, the Orthodox patriarch based in the city, referred to as \"His Most Divine All-Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch\". In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpoli(s) (Κωνσταντινούπολις/Κωνσταντινούπολη) or simply just \"the City\" (Η Πόλη). ## History ### Foundation of Byzantium {#foundation_of_byzantium} Constantinople was founded by the Roman emperor Constantine I (272--337) in 324 on the site of an already-existing city, Byzantium, which was settled in the early days of Greek colonial expansion, in around 657 BC, by colonists of the city-state of Megara. This is the first major settlement that would develop on the site of later Constantinople, but the first known settlement was that of Lygos, referred to in Pliny\'s Natural Histories. Apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement. The site, according to the founding myth of the city, was abandoned by the time Greek settlers from the city-state of Megara founded Byzantium (Byzántion) in around 657 BC, across from the town of Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. Hesychius of Miletus wrote that some \"claim that people from Megara, who derived their descent from Nisos, sailed to this place under their leader Byzas, and invent the fable that his name was attached to the city\". Some versions of the founding myth say Byzas was the son of a local nymph, while others say he was conceived by one of Zeus\' daughters and Poseidon. Hesychius also gives alternate versions of the city\'s founding legend, which he attributed to old poets and writers: > It is said that the first Argives, after having received this prophecy from Pythia, > > ` Blessed are those who will inhabit that holy city,`\ > ` a narrow strip of the Thracian shore at the mouth of the Pontos,`\ > ` where two pups drink of the gray sea,`\ > ` where fish and stag graze on the same pasture,` > > set up their dwellings at the place where the rivers Kydaros and Barbyses have their estuaries, one flowing from the north, the other from the west, and merging with the sea at the altar of the nymph called Semestre\" The city maintained independence as a city-state until it was annexed by Darius I in 512 BC into the Persian Empire, who saw the site as the optimal location to construct a pontoon bridge crossing into Europe as Byzantium was situated at the narrowest point in the Bosphorus strait. Persian rule lasted until 478 BC when as part of the Greek counterattack to the Second Persian invasion of Greece, a Greek army led by the Spartan general Pausanias captured the city which remained an independent, yet subordinate, city under the Athenians, and later to the Spartans after 411 BC. A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c. 150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. This treaty would pay dividends retrospectively as Byzantium would maintain this independent status, and prosper under peace and stability in the Pax Romana, for nearly three centuries until the late 2nd century AD. Byzantium was never a major influential city-state like Athens, Corinth or Sparta, but the city enjoyed relative peace and steady growth as a prosperous trading city because of its fortunate location. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbor. Already then, in Greek and early Roman times, Byzantium was famous for the strategic geographic position that made it difficult to besiege and capture, and its position at the crossroads of the Asiatic-European trade route over land and as the gateway between the Mediterranean and Black Seas made it too valuable a settlement to abandon, as Emperor Septimius Severus later realized when he razed the city to the ground for supporting Pescennius Niger\'s claimancy. It was a move greatly criticized by the contemporary consul and historian Cassius Dio who said that Severus had destroyed \"a strong Roman outpost and a base of operations against the barbarians from Pontus and Asia\". He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, the Severan Wall. ### 324--337: The refoundation as Constantinople {#the_refoundation_as_constantinople} Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Having restored the unity of the Empire, and, being in the course of major governmental reforms as well as of sponsoring the consolidation of the Christian church, he was well aware that Rome was an unsatisfactory capital. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, and it offered an undesirable playground for disaffected politicians. Yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Nevertheless, Constantine identified the site of Byzantium as the right place: a place where an emperor could sit, readily defended, with easy access to the Danube or the Euphrates frontiers, his court supplied from the rich gardens and sophisticated workshops of Roman Asia, his treasuries filled by the wealthiest provinces of the Empire. Constantinople was built over six years, and consecrated on 11 May 330. Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis. Yet, at first, Constantine\'s new Rome did not have all the dignities of old Rome. It possessed a proconsul, rather than an urban prefect. It had no praetors, tribunes, or quaestors. Although it did have senators, they held the title clarus, not clarissimus, like those of Rome. It also lacked the panoply of other administrative offices regulating the food supply, police, statues, temples, sewers, aqueducts, or other public works. The new programme of building was carried out in great haste: columns, marbles, doors, and tiles were taken wholesale from the temples of the empire and moved to the new city. In similar fashion, many of the greatest works of Greek and Roman art were soon to be seen in its squares and streets. The emperor stimulated private building by promising householders gifts of land from the imperial estates in Asiana and Pontica and on 18 May 332 he announced that, as in Rome, free distributions of food would be made to the citizens. At the time, the amount is said to have been 80,000 rations a day, doled out from 117 distribution points around the city. Constantine laid out a new square at the centre of old Byzantium, naming it the Augustaeum. The new senate-house (or Curia) was housed in a basilica on the east side. On the south side of the great square was erected the Great Palace of the Emperor with its imposing entrance, the Chalke, and its ceremonial suite known as the Palace of Daphne. Nearby was the vast Hippodrome for chariot-races, seating over 80,000 spectators, and the famed Baths of Zeuxippus. At the western entrance to the Augustaeum was the Milion, a vaulted monument from which distances were measured across the Eastern Roman Empire. From the Augustaeum led a great street, the Mese, lined with colonnades. As it descended the First Hill of the city and climbed the Second Hill, it passed on the left the Praetorium or law-court. Then it passed through the oval Forum of Constantine where there was a second Senate-house and a high column with a statue of Constantine himself in the guise of Helios, crowned with a halo of seven rays and looking toward the rising sun. From there, the Mese passed on and through the Forum Tauri and then the Forum Bovis, and finally up the Seventh Hill (or Xerolophus) and through to the Golden Gate in the Constantinian Wall. After the construction of the Theodosian Walls in the early 5th century, it was extended to the new Golden Gate, reaching a total length of seven Roman miles. After the construction of the Theodosian Walls, Constantinople consisted of an area approximately the size of Old Rome within the Aurelian walls, or some 1,400 ha. ### 337--529: Constantinople during the Barbarian Invasions and the fall of the West {#constantinople_during_the_barbarian_invasions_and_the_fall_of_the_west} The importance of Constantinople increased, but it was gradual. From the death of Constantine in 337 to the accession of Theodosius I, emperors had been resident only in the years 337--338, 347--351, 358--361, 368--369. Its status as a capital was recognized by the appointment of the first known Urban Prefect of the City Honoratus, who held office from 11 December 359 until 361. The urban prefects had concurrent jurisdiction over three provinces each in the adjacent dioceses of Thrace (in which the city was located), Pontus and Asia comparable to the 100-mile extraordinary jurisdiction of the prefect of Rome. The emperor Valens, who hated the city and spent only one year there, nevertheless built the Palace of Hebdomon on the shore of the Propontis near the Golden Gate, probably for use when reviewing troops. All the emperors up to Zeno and Basiliscus were crowned and acclaimed at the Hebdomon. Theodosius I founded the Church of John the Baptist to house the skull of the saint (today preserved at the Topkapı Palace), put up a memorial pillar to himself in the Forum of Taurus, and turned the ruined temple of Aphrodite into a coach house for the Praetorian Prefect; Arcadius built a new forum named after himself on the Mese, near the walls of Constantine. After the shock of the Battle of Adrianople in 378, in which Valens and the flower of the Roman armies were destroyed by the Visigoths within a few days\' march, the city looked to its defences, and in 413--414 Theodosius II built the 18-metre (60-foot)-tall triple-wall fortifications, which were not to be breached until the coming of gunpowder. Theodosius also founded a University near the Forum of Taurus, on 27 February 425. Uldin, a prince of the Huns, appeared on the Danube about this time and advanced into Thrace, but he was deserted by many of his followers, who joined with the Romans in driving their king back north of the river. Subsequent to this, new walls were built to defend the city and the fleet on the Danube improved. thumb\\|left\\|upright=1.15\\|Mosaics of the Great Palace of Constantinople, now in Great Palace Mosaic Museum in Istanbul After the barbarians overran the Western Roman Empire, Constantinople became the indisputable capital city of the Roman Empire. Emperors were no longer peripatetic between various court capitals and palaces. They remained in their palace in the Great City and sent generals to command their armies. The wealth of the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia flowed into Constantinople. ### 527--565: Constantinople in the Age of Justinian {#constantinople_in_the_age_of_justinian} The emperor Justinian I (527--565) was known for his successes in war, for his legal reforms and for his public works. It was from Constantinople that his expedition for the reconquest of the former Diocese of Africa set sail on or about 21 June 533. Before their departure, the ship of the commander Belisarius was anchored in front of the Imperial palace, and the Patriarch offered prayers for the success of the enterprise. After the victory, in 534, the Temple treasure of Jerusalem, looted by the Romans in AD 70 and taken to Carthage by the Vandals after their sack of Rome in 455, was brought to Constantinople and deposited for a time, perhaps in the Church of St Polyeuctus, before being returned to Jerusalem in either the Church of the Resurrection or the New Church. Chariot-racing had been important in Rome for centuries. In Constantinople, the hippodrome became over time increasingly a place of political significance. It was where (as a shadow of the popular elections of old Rome) the people by acclamation showed their approval of a new emperor, and also where they openly criticized the government, or clamoured for the removal of unpopular ministers. It played a crucial role during the riots and in times of political unrest. The Hippodrome provided a space for a crowd to be responded to positively or where the acclamations of a crowd were subverted, resorting to the riots that would ensue in coming years. In the time of Justinian, public order in Constantinople became a critical political issue. Throughout the late Roman and early Byzantine periods, Christianity was resolving fundamental questions of identity, and the dispute between the Chalcedonians and the non-Chalcedonians became the cause of serious disorder, expressed through allegiance to the chariot-racing parties of the Blues and the Greens. The partisans of the Blues and the Greens were said to affect untrimmed facial hair, head hair shaved at the front and grown long at the back, and wide-sleeved tunics tight at the wrist; and to form gangs to engage in night-time muggings and street violence. At last these disorders took the form of a major rebellion of 532, known as the \"Nika\" riots (from the battle-cry of \"Conquer!\" of those involved). The Nika Riots began in the Hippodrome and finished there with the onslaught of over 30,000 people according to Procopius, those in the blue and green factions, innocent and guilty. This came full circle on the relationship within the Hippodrome between the power and the people during the time of Justinian. Fires started by the Nika rioters consumed the Theodosian basilica of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), the city\'s cathedral, which lay to the north of the Augustaeum and had itself replaced the Constantinian basilica founded by Constantius II to replace the first Byzantine cathedral, Hagia Irene (Holy Peace). Justinian commissioned Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus to replace it with a new and incomparable Hagia Sophia. This was the great cathedral of the city, whose dome was said to be held aloft by God alone, and which was directly connected to the palace so that the imperial family could attend services without passing through the streets. \"The architectural form of the building was meant to reflect Justinian programmatic harmony: the circular dome (a symbol of secular authority in classical Roman architecture) would be harmoniously combined with the rectangular form (typical for Christian and pre-Christian temples).\" The dedication took place on 26 December 537 in the presence of the emperor, who was later reported to have exclaimed, \"O Solomon, I have outdone thee!\" Hagia Sophia was served by 600 people including 80 priests, and cost 20,000 pounds of gold to build. Justinian also had Anthemius and Isidore demolish and replace the original Church of the Holy Apostles and Hagia Irene built by Constantine with new churches under the same dedication. The Justinianic Church of the Holy Apostles was designed in the form of an equal-armed cross with five domes, and ornamented with beautiful mosaics. This church was to remain the burial place of the emperors from Constantine himself until the 11th century. When the city fell to the Turks in 1453, the church was demolished to make room for the tomb of Mehmet II the Conqueror. Justinian was also concerned with other aspects of the city\'s built environment, legislating against the abuse of laws prohibiting building within 100 ft of the sea front, in order to protect the view. During Justinian I\'s reign, the city\'s population reached about 500,000 people. However, the social fabric of Constantinople was also damaged by the onset of the Plague of Justinian between 541 and 542 AD, It killed perhaps 40% of the city\'s inhabitants. Lasting two months, the plague is noted to have caused widespread civil disruption, including the inability of the population to bury the dead and attend relatives funerals. ### Survival, 565--717: Constantinople during the Byzantine Dark Ages {#survival_565717_constantinople_during_the_byzantine_dark_ages} In the early 7th century, the Avars and later the Bulgars overwhelmed much of the Balkans, threatening Constantinople with attack from the west. Simultaneously, the Persian Sassanids overwhelmed the Prefecture of the East and penetrated deep into Anatolia. Heraclius, son of the exarch of Africa, set sail for the city and assumed the throne. He found the military situation so dire that he is said to have contemplated withdrawing the imperial capital to Carthage, but relented after the people of Constantinople begged him to stay. The citizens lost their right to free grain in 618 when Heraclius realized that the city could no longer be supplied from Egypt as a result of the Persian wars: the population fell substantially as a result. While the city withstood a siege by the Sassanids and Avars in 626, Heraclius campaigned deep into Persian territory and briefly restored the status quo in 628, when the Persians surrendered all their conquests. However, further sieges followed the Arab conquests, first from 674 to 678 and then in 717 to 718. The Theodosian Walls kept the city impenetrable from the land, while a newly discovered incendiary substance known as Greek fire allowed the Byzantine navy to destroy the Arab fleets and keep the city supplied. In the second siege, the second ruler of Bulgaria, Khan Tervel, rendered decisive help. He was called Saviour of Europe. ### 717--1025: Constantinople during the Macedonian Renaissance {#constantinople_during_the_macedonian_renaissance} In the 730s Leo III carried out extensive repairs of the Theodosian walls, which had been damaged by frequent and violent attacks; this work was financed by a special tax on all the subjects of the Empire. Theodora, widow of the Emperor Theophilus (died 842), acted as regent during the minority of her son Michael III, who was said to have been introduced to dissolute habits by her brother Bardas. When Michael assumed power in 856, he became known for excessive drunkenness, appeared in the hippodrome as a charioteer and burlesqued the religious processions of the clergy. He removed Theodora from the Great Palace to the Carian Palace and later to the monastery of Gastria, but, after the death of Bardas, she was released to live in the palace of St Mamas; she also had a rural residence at the Anthemian Palace, where Michael was assassinated in 867. In 860, an attack was made on the city by a new principality set up a few years earlier at Kiev by Askold and Dir, two Varangian chiefs: Two hundred small vessels passed through the Bosporus and plundered the monasteries and other properties on the suburban Princes\' Islands. Oryphas, the admiral of the Byzantine fleet, alerted the emperor Michael, who promptly put the invaders to flight; but the suddenness and savagery of the onslaught made a deep impression on the citizens. In 980, the emperor Basil II received an unusual gift from Prince Vladimir of Kiev: 6,000 Varangian warriors, which Basil formed into a new bodyguard known as the Varangian Guard. They were known for their ferocity, honour, and loyalty. It is said that, in 1038, they were dispersed in winter quarters in the Thracesian Theme when one of their number attempted to violate a countrywoman, but in the struggle she seized his sword and killed him; instead of taking revenge, however, his comrades applauded her conduct, compensated her with all his possessions, and exposed his body without burial as if he had committed suicide. However, following the death of an Emperor, they became known also for plunder in the Imperial palaces. Later in the 11th century the Varangian Guard became dominated by Anglo-Saxons who preferred this way of life to subjugation by the new Norman kings of England. thumb\\|upright=1.15\\|One of the most famous of the surviving Byzantine mosaics of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople -- the image of Christ Pantocrator on the walls of the upper southern gallery, Christ being flanked by the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist; circa 1261 The Book of the Eparch, which dates to the 10th century, gives a detailed picture of the city\'s commercial life and its organization at that time. The corporations in which the tradesmen of Constantinople were organised were supervised by the Eparch, who regulated such matters as production, prices, import, and export. Each guild had its own monopoly, and tradesmen might not belong to more than one. It is an impressive testament to the strength of tradition how little these arrangements had changed since the office, then known by the Latin version of its title, had been set up in 330 to mirror the urban prefecture of Rome. In the 9th and 10th centuries, Constantinople had a population of between 500,000 and 800,000. #### Iconoclast controversy in Constantinople {#iconoclast_controversy_in_constantinople} In the 8th and 9th centuries, the iconoclast movement caused serious political unrest throughout the Empire. The emperor Leo III issued a decree in 726 against images, and ordered the destruction of a statue of Christ over one of the doors of the Chalke, an act that was fiercely resisted by the citizens. Constantine V convoked a church council in 754, which condemned the worship of images, after which many treasures were broken, burned, or painted over with depictions of trees, birds or animals: One source refers to the church of the Holy Virgin at Blachernae as having been transformed into a \"fruit store and aviary\". Following the death of her husband Leo IV in 780, the empress Irene restored the veneration of images through the agency of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. The iconoclast controversy returned in the early 9th century, only to be resolved once more in 843 during the regency of Empress Theodora, who restored the icons. These controversies contributed to the deterioration of relations between the Western and the Eastern Churches. ### 1025--1081: Constantinople after Basil II {#constantinople_after_basil_ii} In the late 11th century catastrophe struck with the unexpected and calamitous defeat of the imperial armies at the Battle of Manzikert in Armenia in 1071. The Emperor Romanus Diogenes was captured. The peace terms demanded by Alp Arslan, sultan of the Seljuk Turks, were not excessive, and Romanus accepted them. On his release, however, Romanus found that enemies had placed their own candidate on the throne in his absence; he surrendered to them and suffered death by torture, and the new ruler, Michael VII Ducas, refused to honour the treaty. In response, the Turks began to move into Anatolia in 1073. The collapse of the old defensive system meant that they met no opposition, and the empire\'s resources were distracted and squandered in a series of civil wars. Thousands of Turkoman tribesmen crossed the unguarded frontier and moved into Anatolia. By 1080, a huge area had been lost to the Empire, and the Turks were within striking distance of Constantinople. ### 1081--1185: Constantinople under the Komneni {#constantinople_under_the_komneni} Under the Komnenian dynasty (1081--1185), Byzantium staged a remarkable recovery. In 1090--91, the nomadic Pechenegs reached the walls of Constantinople, where Emperor Alexius I with the aid of the Kipchaks annihilated their army. In response to a call for aid from Alexius, the First Crusade assembled at Constantinople in 1096, but declining to put itself under Byzantine command set out for Jerusalem on its own account. John II built the monastery of the Pantocrator (Almighty) with a hospital for the poor of 50 beds. With the restoration of firm central government, the empire became fabulously wealthy. The population was rising (estimates for Constantinople in the 12th century vary from some 100,000 to 500,000), and towns and cities across the realm flourished. Meanwhile, the volume of money in circulation dramatically increased. This was reflected in Constantinople by the construction of the Blachernae palace, the creation of brilliant new works of art, and general prosperity at this time: an increase in trade, made possible by the growth of the Italian city-states, may have helped the growth of the economy. It is certain that the Venetians and others were active traders in Constantinople, making a living out of shipping goods between the Crusader Kingdoms of Outremer and the West, while also trading extensively with Byzantium and Egypt. The Venetians had factories on the north side of the Golden Horn, and large numbers of westerners were present in the city throughout the 12th century. Toward the end of Manuel I Komnenos\'s reign, the number of foreigners in the city reached about 60,000--80,000 people out of a total population of about 400,000 people. In 1171, Constantinople also contained a small community of 2,500 Jews. In 1182, most Latin (Western European) inhabitants of Constantinople were massacred. In artistic terms, the 12th century was a very productive period. There was a revival in the mosaic art, for example: Mosaics became more realistic and vivid, with an increased emphasis on depicting three-dimensional forms. There was an increased demand for art, with more people having access to the necessary wealth to commission and pay for such work. ### 1185--1261: Constantinople during the Imperial Exile {#constantinople_during_the_imperial_exile} On 25 July 1197, Constantinople was struck by a severe fire which burned the Latin Quarter and the area around the Gate of the Droungarios (Odun Kapısı) on the Golden Horn. Nevertheless, the destruction wrought by the 1197 fire paled in comparison with that brought by the Crusaders. In the course of a plot between Philip of Swabia, Boniface of Montferrat and the Doge of Venice, the Fourth Crusade was, despite papal excommunication, diverted in 1203 against Constantinople, ostensibly promoting the claims of Alexios IV Angelos brother-in-law of Philip, son of the deposed emperor Isaac II Angelos. The reigning emperor Alexios III Angelos had made no preparation. The Crusaders occupied Galata, broke the defensive chain protecting the Golden Horn, and entered the harbour, where on 27 July they breached the sea walls: Alexios III fled. But the new Alexios IV Angelos found the Treasury inadequate, and was unable to make good the rewards he had promised to his western allies. Tension between the citizens and the Latin soldiers increased. In January 1204, the protovestiarius Alexios Murzuphlos provoked a riot, it is presumed, to intimidate Alexios IV, but whose only result was the destruction of the great statue of Athena Promachos, the work of Phidias, which stood in the principal forum facing west. In February 1204, the people rose again: Alexios IV was imprisoned and executed, and Murzuphlos took the purple as Alexios V Doukas. He made some attempt to repair the walls and organise the citizenry, but there had been no opportunity to bring in troops from the provinces and the guards were demoralised by the revolution. An attack by the Crusaders on 6 April failed, but a second from the Golden Horn on 12 April succeeded, and the invaders poured in. Alexios V fled. The Senate met in Hagia Sophia and offered the crown to Theodore Lascaris, who had married into the Angelos dynasty, but it was too late. He came out with the Patriarch to the Golden Milestone before the Great Palace and addressed the Varangian Guard. Then the two of them slipped away with many of the nobility and embarked for Asia. By the next day the Doge and the leading Franks were installed in the Great Palace, and the city was given over to pillage for three days. Sir Steven Runciman, historian of the Crusades, wrote that the sack of Constantinople is \"unparalleled in history\". For the next half-century, Constantinople was the seat of the Latin Empire. Under the rulers of the Latin Empire, the city declined, both in population and the condition of its buildings. Alice-Mary Talbot cites an estimated population for Constantinople of 400,000 inhabitants; after the destruction wrought by the Crusaders on the city, about one third were homeless, and numerous courtiers, nobility, and higher clergy, followed various leading personages into exile. \"As a result Constantinople became seriously depopulated,\" Talbot concludes. The Latins took over at least 20 churches and 13 monasteries, most prominently the Hagia Sophia, which became the cathedral of the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople. It is to these that E.H. Swift attributed the construction of a series of flying buttresses to shore up the walls of the church, which had been weakened over the centuries by earthquake tremors. However, this act of maintenance is an exception: for the most part, the Latin occupiers were too few to maintain all of the buildings, either secular and sacred, and many became targets for vandalism or dismantling. Bronze and lead were removed from the roofs of abandoned buildings and melted down and sold to provide money to the chronically under-funded Empire for defense and to support the court; Deno John Geanokoplos writes that \"it may well be that a division is suggested here: Latin laymen stripped secular buildings, ecclesiastics, the churches.\" Buildings were not the only targets of officials looking to raise funds for the impoverished Latin Empire: the monumental sculptures which adorned the Hippodrome and fora of the city were pulled down and melted for coinage. \"Among the masterpieces destroyed, writes Talbot, \"were a Herakles attributed to the fourth-century B.C. sculptor Lysippos, and monumental figures of Hera, Paris, and Helen.\" The Nicaean emperor John III Vatatzes reportedly saved several churches from being dismantled for their valuable building materials; by sending money to the Latins \"to buy them off\" (exonesamenos), he prevented the destruction of several churches. According to Talbot, these included the churches of Blachernae, Rouphinianai, and St. Michael at Anaplous. He also granted funds for the restoration of the Church of the Holy Apostles, which had been seriously damaged in an earthquake. The Byzantine nobility scattered, many going to Nicaea, where Theodore Lascaris set up an imperial court, or to Epirus, where Theodore Angelus did the same; others fled to Trebizond, where one of the Comneni had already with Georgian support established an independent seat of empire. Nicaea and Epirus both vied for the imperial title, and tried to recover Constantinople. In 1261, Constantinople was captured from its last Latin ruler, Baldwin II, by the forces of the Nicaean emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos under the command of Caesar Alexios Strategopoulos. ### 1261--1453: Palaiologan Era and the Fall of Constantinople {#palaiologan_era_and_the_fall_of_constantinople} Although Constantinople was retaken by Michael VIII Palaiologos, the Empire had lost many of its key economic resources, and struggled to survive. The palace of Blachernae in the north-west of the city became the main Imperial residence, with the old Great Palace on the shores of the Bosporus going into decline. When Michael VIII captured the city, its population was 35,000 people, but, by the end of his reign, he had succeeded in increasing the population to about 70,000 people. The Emperor achieved this by summoning former residents who had fled the city when the crusaders captured it, and by relocating Greeks from the recently reconquered Peloponnese to the capital. Military defeats, civil wars, earthquakes and natural disasters were joined by the Black Death, which in 1347 spread to Constantinople, exacerbated the people\'s sense that they were doomed by God. Castilian traveler and writer Ruy González de Clavijo, who saw Constantinople in 1403, wrote that the area within the city walls included small neighborhoods separated by orchards and fields. The ruins of palaces and churches could be seen everywhere. The aqueducts and the most densely inhabited neighborhoods were along the coast of the Marmara Sea and Golden Horn. Only the coastal areas, in particular the commercial areas facing the Golden Horn, had a dense population. Although the Genoese colony in Galata was small, it was overcrowded and had magnificent mansions. By May 1453, the city no longer possessed the treasure troves of Aladdin that the Ottoman troops longingly imagined as they stared up at the walls. Gennadios Scholarios, Patriarch of Constantinople from 1454 to 1464, was saying that the capital of the Empire, that was once the \"city of wisdom\", became \"the city of ruins\". When the Ottoman Turks captured the city (1453) it contained approximately 50,000 people. Tedaldi of Florence estimated the population at 30,000 to 36,000, while in Chronica Vicentina, the Italian Andrei di Arnaldo estimated it at 50,000. The plague epidemic of 1435 must have caused the population to drop. The population decline also had a huge impact upon the Constantinople\'s defense capabilities. At the end of March 1453, emperor Constantine XI ordered a census of districts to record how many able-bodied men were in the city and whatever weapons each possessed for defense. George Sphrantzes, the faithful chancellor of the last emperor, recorded that \"in spite of the great size of our city, our defenders amounted to 4,773 Greeks, as well as just 200 foreigners\". In addition there were volunteers from outside, the \"Genoese, Venetians and those who came secretly from Galata to help the defense\", who numbered \"hardly as many as three thousand\", amounting to something under 8,000 men in total to defend a perimeter wall of twelve miles. Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453. Mehmed II intended to complete his father\'s mission and conquer Constantinople for the Ottomans. In 1452 he reached peace treaties with Hungary and Venice. He also began the construction of the Boğazkesen (later called the Rumelihisarı), a fortress at the narrowest point of the Bosphorus Strait, in order to restrict passage between the Black and Mediterranean seas. Mehmed then tasked the Hungarian gunsmith Urban with both arming Rumelihisarı and building cannon powerful enough to bring down the walls of Constantinople. By March 1453 Urban\'s cannon had been transported from the Ottoman capital of Edirne to the outskirts of Constantinople. In April, having quickly seized Byzantine coastal settlements along the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara, Ottoman troops in Rumelia and Anatolia assembled outside the Byzantine capital. Their fleet moved from Gallipoli to nearby Diplokionion, and the sultan himself set out to meet his army. The Ottomans were commanded by 21-year-old Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. The conquest of Constantinople followed a seven-week siege which had begun on 6 April 1453. The Empire fell on 29 May 1453. The number of people captured by the Ottomans after the fall of the city was around 33,000. The small number of people left in the city indicates that there could not have been many residents there. The primary concern of Mehmed II in the early years of his reign was the construction and settlement of the city. However, since an insufficient number of Muslims accepted his invitation, the settlement of 30 abandoned neighborhoods with the inhabitants of formerly conquered areas became necessary. ### 1453--1930: Ottoman and Republican Kostantiniyye {#ottoman_and_republican_kostantiniyye} The Christian Orthodox city of Constantinople was now under Ottoman control. As tradition followed for the region, Ottoman soldiers had three days to pillage the city. When Mehmed II on the second day entered Constantinople through the Gate of Charisius (today known as Edirnekapı or Adrianople Gate), it is said that first thing he did was ride his horse to Hagia Sophia, which was not in good shape even though it was avoided in the pillage by strict orders. Displeased by the pillaging, Mehmed II ordered it to end, for it will be the capital of his empire. He then ordered that an imam meet him in Hagia Sophia in order to chant the adhan thus transforming the Orthodox cathedral into a Muslim mosque, solidifying Islamic rule in Constantinople. Mehmed\'s main concern with Constantinople had to do with consolidating control over the city and rebuilding its defenses. After 45,000 captives were marched from the city, building projects were commenced immediately after the conquest, which included the repair of the walls, construction of the citadel, and building a new palace. Mehmed issued orders across his empire that Muslims, Christians, and Jews should resettle the city, with Christians and Jews required to pay jizya and Muslims pay Zakat; he demanded that five thousand households needed to be transferred to Constantinople by September. From all over the Islamic empire, prisoners of war and deported people were sent to the city: these people were called \"Sürgün\" in Turkish (σουργούνιδες). Two centuries later, Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi gave a list of groups introduced into the city with their respective origins. Even today, many quarters of Istanbul, such as Aksaray, Çarşamba, bear the names of the places of origin of their inhabitants. However, many people escaped again from the city, and there were several outbreaks of plague, so that in 1459 Mehmed allowed the deported Greeks to come back to the city. ## Culture Constantinople was the largest and richest urban center in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea during the late Eastern Roman Empire, mostly as a result of its strategic position commanding the trade routes between the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. It would remain the capital of the eastern, Greek-speaking empire for over a thousand years and in some ways is the nexus of Byzantine art production. At its peak, roughly corresponding to the Middle Ages, it was one of the richest and largest cities in Europe. It exerted a powerful cultural pull and dominated much of the economic life in the Mediterranean. Visitors and merchants were especially struck by the beautiful monasteries and churches of the city, in particular the Hagia Sophia, or the Church of Holy Wisdom. According to Russian 14th-century traveler Stephen of Novgorod: \"There is much that amazes one there, which the human mind cannot express\". It was especially important for preserving in its libraries manuscripts of Greek and Latin authors throughout a period when instability and disorder caused their mass-destruction in western Europe and north Africa: On the city\'s fall, thousands of these were brought by refugees to Italy, and played a key part in stimulating the Renaissance, and the transition to the modern world. The cumulative influence of the city on the west, over the many centuries of its existence, is incalculable. In terms of technology, art and culture, as well as sheer size, Constantinople was without parallel anywhere in Europe for a thousand years. Many languages were spoken in Constantinople. A 16th century Chinese geographical treatise specifically recorded that there were translators living in the city, indicating it was multilingual, multicultural, and cosmopolitan. ### Women in literature {#women_in_literature} Constantinople was home to the first known Western Armenian journal published and edited by a woman (Elpis Kesaratsian). Entering circulation in 1862, Kit\'arr or Guitar stayed in print for only seven months. Female writers who openly expressed their desires were viewed as immodest, but this changed slowly as journals began to publish more \"women\'s sections\". In the 1880s, Matteos Mamurian invited Srpouhi Dussap to submit essays for Arevelian Mamal. According to Zaruhi Galemkearian\'s autobiography, she was told to write about women\'s place in the family and home after she published two volumes of poetry in the 1890s. By 1900, several Armenian journals had started to include works by female contributors including the Constantinople-based Tsaghik. ### Markets Even before Constantinople was founded, the markets of Byzantion were mentioned first by Xenophon and then by Theopompus who wrote that Byzantians \"spent their time at the market and the harbour\". In Justinian\'s age the Mese street running across the city from east to west was a daily market. Procopius claimed \"more than 500 prostitutes\" did business along the market street. Ibn Batutta who traveled to the city in 1325 wrote of the bazaars \"Astanbul\" in which the \"majority of the artisans and salespeople in them are women\". ### Architecture and coinage {#architecture_and_coinage} The Byzantine Empire used Roman and Greek architectural models and styles to create its own unique type of architecture. The influence of Byzantine architecture and art can be seen in the copies taken from it throughout Europe. Particular examples include St Mark\'s Basilica in Venice, the basilicas of Ravenna, and many churches throughout the Slavic East. Also, alone in Europe until the 13th-century Italian florin, the Empire continued to produce sound gold coinage, the solidus of Diocletian becoming the bezant prized throughout the Middle Ages. Its city walls were much imitated (for example, see Caernarfon Castle) and its urban infrastructure was moreover a marvel throughout the Middle Ages, keeping alive the art, skill and technical expertise of the Roman Empire. In the Ottoman period Islamic architecture and symbolism were used. Great bathhouses were built in Byzantine centers such as Constantinople and Antioch. ### Religion Constantine\'s foundation gave prestige to the Bishop of Constantinople, who eventually came to be known as the Ecumenical Patriarch, and made it a prime center of Christianity alongside Rome. This contributed to cultural and theological differences between Eastern and Western Christianity eventually leading to the Great Schism that divided Western Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy from 1054 onwards. Constantinople is also of great religious importance to Islam, as the conquest of Constantinople is one of the signs of the End time in Islam. ### Education There were many institutions in ancient Constantinople such as the Imperial University of Constantinople, sometimes known as the University of the Palace Hall of Magnaura (Πανδιδακτήριον τῆς Μαγναύρας), an Eastern Roman educational institution that could trace its corporate origins to 425 AD, when the emperor Theodosius II founded the Pandidacterium (Πανδιδακτήριον). ### Media #### Film The first film shown in Constantinople (and the Ottoman Empire) was, L\'Arrivée d\'un train en gare de La Ciotat, by the Lumière Brothers in 1896. The first film made in Constantinople (and the Ottoman Empire) was, Ayastefanos\'taki Rus Abidesinin Yıkılışı, by Fuat Uzkınay in 1914. #### Newspaper In the past the Bulgarian newspapers in the late Ottoman period were Makedoniya, Napredŭk, and Pravo. Between 1908 (after the Young Turk Revolution) and 1914 (start of World War I) the \"Kurdistan Newspaper\" was published in Constantinople by Mikdad Midhad Bedir Khan, before that it was published in exile in Cairo, Egypt. ## International status {#international_status} The city acted as a defence for the eastern provinces of the old Roman Empire against the barbarian invasions of the 5th century. The 18-meter-tall walls built by Theodosius II were, in essence, impregnable to the barbarians coming from south of the Danube river, who found easier targets to the west rather than the richer provinces to the east in Asia. From the 5th century, the city was also protected by the Anastasian Wall, a 60-kilometer chain of walls across the Thracian peninsula. Many scholars`{{Who\|date=January 2010}}`{=mediawiki} argue that these sophisticated fortifications allowed the east to develop relatively unmolested while Ancient Rome and the west collapsed. Constantinople\'s fame was such that it was described even in contemporary Chinese histories, the Old and New Book of Tang, which mentioned its massive walls and gates as well as a purported clepsydra mounted with a golden statue of a man. The Chinese histories even related how the city had been besieged in the 7th century by Mu\'awiya I and how he exacted tribute in a peace settlement.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,653	Clarke's three laws	British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated three adages that are known as Clarke\'s three laws, of which the third law is the best known and most widely cited. They are part of his ideas in his extensive writings about the future. ## The laws {#the_laws} [The laws](https://www.newscientist.com/definition/clarkes-three-laws/) are: 1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ## Origins One account stated that Clarke\'s laws were developed after the editor of his works in French started numbering the author\'s assertions. All three laws appear in Clarke\'s essay \"Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination\", first published in Profiles of the Future (1962); however, they were not all published at the same time. Clarke\'s first law was proposed in the 1962 edition of the essay, as \"Clarke\'s Law\" in Profiles of the Future. The second law is offered as a simple observation in the same essay but its status as Clarke\'s second law was conferred by others. It was initially a derivative of the first law and formally became Clarke\'s second law where the author proposed the third law in the 1973 revision of Profiles of the Future, which included an acknowledgement. It was also here that Clarke wrote about the third law in these words: \"As three laws were good enough for Newton, I have modestly decided to stop there\". The third law is the best known and most widely cited. It was published in a 1968 letter to Science magazine and eventually added to the 1973 revision of the \"Hazards of Prophecy\" essay. ## Variants of the third law {#variants_of_the_third_law} The third law has inspired many snowclones and other variations: - Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God. (Shermer\'s last law) - Any sufficiently advanced act of benevolence is indistinguishable from malevolence (referring to artificial intelligence) - Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice (Grey\'s law) - Any sufficiently advanced garbage is indistinguishable from magic. (Sterling\'s corollary to Clarke\'s law) This idea also underlies the setting of the novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, in which human stalkers try to navigate the location of an alien \"visitation\", trying to make sense of technically advanced items discarded by the aliens. - Any sufficiently advanced garbage is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. ## Corollaries and follow-ups {#corollaries_and_follow_ups} Isaac Asimov\'s follow-up to Clarke\'s First Law: > \"When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervour and emotion -- the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.\" A contrapositive of the third law is \"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.\" (Gehm\'s corollary)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,661	Centime	Centime (from centesimus) is French for \"cent\", and is used in English as the name of the fraction currency in several Francophone countries (including Switzerland, Algeria, Belgium, Morocco and France). In France, the usage of centime goes back to the introduction of the decimal monetary system under Napoleon. This system aimed at replacing non-decimal fractions of older coins. A five-centime coin was known as a sou, i.e. a solidus or shilling. In Francophone Canada `{{frac\|1\|100}}`{=mediawiki} of a Canadian dollar is officially known as a cent (pronounced /sɛnt/) in both English and French. However, in practice, the form of cenne (pronounced /sɛn/) has completely replaced the official cent. Spoken and written use of the official form cent in Francophone Canada is exceptionally uncommon. In the Canadian French vernacular sou, sou noir (noir means \"black\" in French), cenne, and cenne noire are all widely known, used, and accepted monikers when referring to either `{{frac\|1\|100}}`{=mediawiki} of a Canadian dollar or the 1¢ coin (colloquially known as a \"penny\" in North American English). ## Subdivision of euro: cent or centime? {#subdivision_of_euro_cent_or_centime} In the European community, cent is the official name for one hundredth of a euro. However, in French-speaking countries, the word centimeis the preferred term. The Superior Council of the French language of Belgium recommended in 2001 the use of centime, since cent is also the French word for \"hundred\". An analogous decision was published in the Journal officiel in France (2 December 1997). In Morocco, dirhams are divided into 100 centimes and one may find prices in the country quoted in centimes rather than in dirhams. Sometimes centimes are known as francs or, in former Spanish areas, pesetas. ## Usage A centime is one-hundredth of the following basic monetary units: ### Current - Algerian dinar - Burundian franc - CFP franc - CFA franc - Comorian franc - Congolese franc - Djiboutian franc - Ethiopian birr (as santim) - Guinean franc - Haitian gourde - Moroccan dirham - Rwandan franc - Swiss franc (by French and English speakers only; Italian speakers use centesimo. See Rappen) ### Obsolete `{{Incomplete list\|date=August 2008}}`{=mediawiki} - Algerian franc - Belgian franc (Dutch: centiem) - Cambodian franc - French Camerounian franc - French Guianan franc - French franc - Guadeloupe franc - Katangese franc - Latvian lats (Latvian: santīms) - Luxembourgish franc - Malagasy franc - Malian franc - Martinique franc - Monegasque franc - Moroccan franc - New Hebrides franc - Réunion franc - Spanish Peseta - Tunisian franc - Westphalian frank	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,662	Calendar year	A calendar year begins on the New Year\'s Day of the given calendar system and ends on the day before the following New Year\'s Day, and thus consists of a whole number of days. The Gregorian calendar year, which is in use as civil calendar in most of the world, begins on January 1 and ends on December 31. It has a length of 365 days in an ordinary year but, in order to reconcile the calendar year with the astronomical cycle, it has 366 days in a leap year. With 97 leap years every 400 years, the Gregorian calendar year has an average length of 365.2425 days. Other formula-based calendars can have lengths which are further out of step with the solar cycle: for example, the Julian calendar has an average length of 365.25 days, and the Hebrew calendar has an average length of 365.2468 days. The Lunar Hijri calendar (\"Islamic calendar\") is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days. The astronomer\'s mean tropical year, which is averaged over equinoxes and solstices, is currently 365.24219 days, slightly shorter than the average length of the calendar year in most calendars. A year can also be measured by starting on any other named day of the calendar, and ending on the day before this named day in the following year. This may be termed a \"year\'s time\", but is not a \"calendar year\". ## Quarter year {#quarter_year} The calendar year can be divided into four quarters, often abbreviated as Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. Since they are three months each, they are also called trimesters. In the Gregorian calendar: - First quarter, Q1: January 1 -- March 31 (90 days or 91 days in leap years) - Second quarter, Q2: April 1 -- June 30 (91 days) - Third quarter, Q3: July 1 -- September 30 (92 days) - Fourth quarter, Q4: October 1 -- December 31 (92 days) In some domains, weeks are preferred over months for scheduling and reporting, so they use quarters of exactly 13 weeks each, often following ISO week date conventions. One in five to six years has a 53rd week which is usually appended to the last quarter. It is then 98 days instead of 91 days long, which complicates comparisons. In the Chinese calendar, the quarters are traditionally associated with the 4 seasons of the year: - Spring: 1st to 3rd month - Summer: 4th to 6th month - Autumn: 7th to 9th month - Winter: 10th to 12th month ## Quadrimester The calendar year can also be divided into quadrimesters (from French quadrimestre), lasting for four months each. They can also be called the early, middle, or late parts of the year. In the Gregorian calendar: - First quadrimester, early year: January 1 -- April 30 (120 days or 121 days in leap years) - Second quadrimester, mid-year: May 1 -- August 31 (123 days) - Third quadrimester, late year: September 1 -- December 31 (122 days) ## Semester The calendar year can also be divided into semesters, lasting six months each and often being abbreviated as S1 and S2. In the Gregorian calendar: - First semester, S1: January 1 -- June 30 (181 days or 182 days in leap years) - Second semester, S2: July 1 -- December 31 (184 days)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,668	Calcium	Calcium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to its heavier homologues strontium and barium. It is the fifth most abundant element in Earth\'s crust, and the third most abundant metal, after iron and aluminium. The most common calcium compound on Earth is calcium carbonate, found in limestone and the fossils of early sea life; gypsum, anhydrite, fluorite, and apatite are also sources of calcium. The name comes from Latin calx \"lime\", which was obtained from heating limestone. Some calcium compounds were known to the ancients, though their chemistry was unknown until the seventeenth century. Pure calcium was isolated in 1808 via electrolysis of its oxide by Humphry Davy, who named the element. Calcium compounds are widely used in many industries: in foods and pharmaceuticals for calcium supplementation, in the paper industry as bleaches, as components in cement and electrical insulators, and in the manufacture of soaps. On the other hand, the metal in pure form has few applications due to its high reactivity; still, in small quantities it is often used as an alloying component in steelmaking, and sometimes, as a calcium--lead alloy, in making automotive batteries. Calcium is the most abundant metal and the fifth-most abundant element in the human body. As electrolytes, calcium ions (Ca^2+^) play a vital role in the physiological and biochemical processes of organisms and cells: in signal transduction pathways where they act as a second messenger; in neurotransmitter release from neurons; in contraction of all muscle cell types; as cofactors in many enzymes; and in fertilization. Calcium ions outside cells are important for maintaining the potential difference across excitable cell membranes, protein synthesis, and bone formation. ## Characteristics ### Classification Calcium is a very ductile silvery metal (sometimes described as pale yellow) whose properties are very similar to the heavier elements in its group, strontium, barium, and radium. A calcium atom has 20 electrons, with electron configuration \[Ar\]4s`{{sup\|2}}`{=mediawiki}. Like the other elements in group 2 of the periodic table, calcium has two valence electrons in the outermost s-orbital, which are very easily lost in chemical reactions to form a dipositive ion with the stable electron configuration of a noble gas, in this case argon. Hence, calcium is almost always divalent in its compounds, which are usually ionic. Hypothetical univalent salts of calcium would be stable with respect to their elements, but not to disproportionation to the divalent salts and calcium metal, because the enthalpy of formation of MX`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki} is much higher than those of the hypothetical MX. This occurs because of the much greater lattice energy afforded by the more highly charged Ca`{{sup\|2+}}`{=mediawiki} cation compared to the hypothetical Ca`{{sup\|+}}`{=mediawiki} cation. Calcium, strontium, barium, and radium are always considered to be alkaline earth metals; the lighter beryllium and magnesium, also in group 2 of the periodic table, are often included as well. Nevertheless, beryllium and magnesium differ significantly from the other members of the group in their physical and chemical behavior: they behave more like aluminium and zinc respectively and have some of the weaker metallic character of the post-transition metals, which is why the traditional definition of the term \"alkaline earth metal\" excludes them. ### Physical properties {#physical_properties} Calcium metal melts at 842 °C and boils at 1494 °C; these values are higher than those for magnesium and strontium, the neighbouring group 2 metals. It crystallises in the face-centered cubic arrangement like strontium and barium; above 443 C, it changes to body-centered cubic. Its density of 1.526 g/cm`{{sup\|3}}`{=mediawiki} (at 20 °C) is the lowest in its group. Calcium is harder than lead but can be cut with a knife with effort. While calcium is a poorer conductor of electricity than copper or aluminium by volume, it is a better conductor by mass than both due to its very low density. While calcium is infeasible as a conductor for most terrestrial applications as it reacts quickly with atmospheric oxygen, its use as such in space has been considered. ### Chemical properties {#chemical_properties} The chemistry of calcium is that of a typical heavy alkaline earth metal. For example, calcium spontaneously reacts with water more quickly than magnesium but less quickly than strontium to produce calcium hydroxide and hydrogen gas. It also reacts with the oxygen and nitrogen in air to form a mixture of calcium oxide and calcium nitride. When finely divided, it spontaneously burns in air to produce the nitride. Bulk calcium is less reactive: it quickly forms a hydration coating in moist air, but below 30% relative humidity it may be stored indefinitely at room temperature. Besides the simple oxide CaO, calcium peroxide, CaO`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki}, can be made by direct oxidation of calcium metal under a high pressure of oxygen, and there is some evidence for a yellow superoxide Ca(O`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki})`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki}.Calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki}, is a strong base, though not as strong as the hydroxides of strontium, barium or the alkali metals. All four dihalides of calcium are known. Calcium carbonate (CaCO`{{sub\|3}}`{=mediawiki}) and calcium sulfate (CaSO`{{sub\|4}}`{=mediawiki}) are particularly abundant minerals. Like strontium and barium, as well as the alkali metals and the divalent lanthanides europium and ytterbium, calcium metal dissolves directly in liquid ammonia to give a dark blue solution. Due to the large size of the calcium ion (Ca`{{sup\|2+}}`{=mediawiki}), high coordination numbers are common, up to 24 in some intermetallic compounds such as CaZn`{{sub\|13}}`{=mediawiki}. Calcium is readily complexed by oxygen chelates such as EDTA and polyphosphates, which are useful in analytic chemistry and removing calcium ions from hard water. In the absence of steric hindrance, smaller group 2 cations tend to form stronger complexes, but when large polydentate macrocycles are involved the trend is reversed. #### Organocalcium compounds {#organocalcium_compounds} In contrast to organomagnesium compounds, organocalcium compounds are not similarly useful, with one major exception, calcium carbide, CaC~2~. This material, which has historic significance, is prepared by heating calcium oxide with carbon. According to X-ray crystallography, calcium carbide can be described as Ca^2+^ derivative of acetylide, C~2~^2-^, although it is not a salt. Several million tons of calcium carbide are produced annually. Hydrolysis gives acetylene, which is used in welding and a chemical precursor. Reaction with nitrogen gas converts calcium carbide to calcium cyanamide. A dominant theme in molecular organocalcium chemistry is the large radius of calcium, which often leads to high coordination numbers. For example, dimethylcalcium appears to be a 3-dimensional polymer, whereas dimethylmagnesium is a linear polymer with tetrahedral Mg centers. Bulky ligands are often required to disfavor polymeric species. For example, calcium dicyclopentadienyl, `{{chem2\|Ca(C5H5)2}}`{=mediawiki} has a polymeric structure and thus is nonvolatile and insoluble in solvents. Replacing the `{{chem2\|C5H5}}`{=mediawiki} ligand with the bulkier `{{chem2\|C5(CH3)5}}`{=mediawiki} (pentamethylcyclopentadienyl) gives a soluble complex that sublimes and forms well-defined adducts with ethers. Organocalcium compounds tend to be more similar to organoytterbium compounds due to the similar ionic radii of Yb`{{sup\|2+}}`{=mediawiki} (102 pm) and Ca`{{sup\|2+}}`{=mediawiki} (100 pm). Organocalcium compounds have been well investigated. Some such complexes exhibit catalytic properties, although none have been commercialized. ### Isotopes Natural calcium is a mixture of five stable isotopes---`{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, `{{sup\|42}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, `{{sup\|43}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, `{{sup\|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, and `{{sup\|46}}`{=mediawiki}Ca---and `{{sup\|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, whose half-life of 4.3 × 10`{{sup\|19}}`{=mediawiki} years is so long that it can be considered stable all practical purposes stable. Calcium is the first (lightest) element to have six naturally occurring isotopes. By far the most common isotope is `{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, which makes up 96.941% of natural calcium. It is produced in the silicon-burning process from fusion of alpha particles and is the heaviest stable nuclide with equal proton and neutron numbers; its occurrence is also supplemented slowly by the decay of primordial `{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}K. Adding another alpha particle leads to unstable `{{sup\|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ti, which decays via two successive electron captures to stable `{{sup\|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca; this makes up 2.806% of natural calcium and is the second-most common isotope. The other four natural isotopes, `{{sup\|42, 43, 46, 48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, are significantly rarer, each comprising less than 1% of natural calcium. The four lighter isotopes are mainly products of oxygen-burning and silicon-burning, leaving the two heavier ones to be produced via neutron capture. `{{sup\|46}}`{=mediawiki}Ca is mostly produced in a \"hot\" s-process, as its formation requires a rather high neutron flux to allow short-lived `{{sup\|45}}`{=mediawiki}Ca to capture a neutron. `{{sup\|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca is produced by electron capture in the r-process in type Ia supernovae, where high neutron excess and low enough entropy ensures its survival. Ca and `{{sup\|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca are the first \"classically stable\" nuclides with a 6-neutron or 8-neutron excess respectively. Though extremely neutron-rich for such a light element, `{{sup\|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca is very stable because it is a doubly magic nucleus, with 20 protons and 28 neutrons arranged in closed shells. Its beta decay to `{{sup\|48}}`{=mediawiki}Sc is very hindered by the gross mismatch of nuclear spin: `{{sup\|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca has zero nuclear spin, being even--even, while `{{sup\|48}}`{=mediawiki}Sc has spin 6+, so the decay is forbidden by conservation of angular momentum. While two excited states of `{{sup\|48}}`{=mediawiki}Sc are available for decay as well, they are also forbidden due to their high spins. As a result, when `{{sup\|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca does decay, it does so by double beta decay to `{{sup\|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ti instead, being the lightest nuclide known to undergo double beta decay.`{{NUBASE2016\|ref}}`{=mediawiki} Ca can also theoretically double-beta-decay to `{{sup\|46}}`{=mediawiki}Ti, but this has never been observed. The most common isotope `{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca is also doubly magic and could undergo double electron capture to `{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ar, but this has likewise never been observed. Calcium is the only element with two primordial doubly magic isotopes. The experimental lower limits for the half-lives of `{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca and `{{sup\|46}}`{=mediawiki}Ca are 5.9 × 10`{{sup\|21}}`{=mediawiki} years and 2.8 × 10`{{sup\|15}}`{=mediawiki} years respectively.`{{NUBASE2016\|ref}}`{=mediawiki} Excluding `{{sup\|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, the longest lived radioisotope of calcium is `{{sup\|41}}`{=mediawiki}Ca. It decays by electron capture to stable `{{sup\|41}}`{=mediawiki}K with a half-life of about 10`{{sup\|5}}`{=mediawiki} years. Its existence in the early Solar System as an extinct radionuclide has been inferred from excesses of `{{sup\|41}}`{=mediawiki}K. Traces of `{{sup\|41}}`{=mediawiki}Ca also still exist today, as it is a cosmogenic nuclide, continuously produced through neutron activation of natural `{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca. Many other calcium radioisotopes are known, ranging from `{{sup\|35}}`{=mediawiki}Ca to `{{sup\|60}}`{=mediawiki}Ca. They are all much shorter-lived than `{{sup\|41}}`{=mediawiki}Ca; the most stable are `{{sup\|45}}`{=mediawiki}Ca (half-life 163 days) and `{{sup\|47}}`{=mediawiki}Ca (half-life 4.54 days). Isotopes lighter than `{{sup\|42}}`{=mediawiki}Ca usually undergo beta plus decay to isotopes of potassium, and those heavier than `{{sup\|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca usually undergo beta minus decay to scandium; though near the nuclear drip lines, proton emission and neutron emission begin to be significant decay modes as well.`{{NUBASE2016\|ref}}`{=mediawiki} Like other elements, a variety of processes alter the relative abundance of calcium isotopes. The best studied of these processes is the mass-dependent fractionation of calcium isotopes that accompanies the precipitation of calcium minerals such as calcite, aragonite and apatite from solution. Lighter isotopes are preferentially incorporated into these minerals, leaving the surrounding solution enriched in heavier isotopes at a magnitude of roughly 0.025% per atomic mass unit (amu) at room temperature. Mass-dependent differences in calcium isotope composition are conventionally expressed by the ratio of two isotopes (usually `{{sup\|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca/`{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca) in a sample compared to the same ratio in a standard reference material. `{{sup\|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca/`{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca varies by about 1--2‰ among organisms on Earth. ## History thumb\\|upright=0.4\\|One of the \'Ain Ghazal Statues, made from lime plaster Calcium compounds were known for millennia, though their chemical makeup was not understood until the 17th century. Lime as a building material and as plaster for statues was used as far back as around 7000 BC. The first dated lime kiln dates back to 2500 BC and was found in Khafajah, Mesopotamia. About the same time, dehydrated gypsum (CaSO`{{sub\|4}}`{=mediawiki}·2H`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki}O) was being used in the Great Pyramid of Giza. This material would later be used for the plaster in the tomb of Tutankhamun. The ancient Romans instead used lime mortars made by heating limestone (CaCO`{{sub\|3}}`{=mediawiki}). The name \"calcium\" itself derives from the Latin word calx \"lime\". Vitruvius noted that the lime that resulted was lighter than the original limestone, attributing this to the boiling of the water. In 1755, Joseph Black proved that this was due to the loss of carbon dioxide, which as a gas had not been recognised by the ancient Romans. In 1789, Antoine Lavoisier suspected that lime might be an oxide of an element. In his table of the elements, Lavoisier listed five \"salifiable earths\" (i.e., ores that could be made to react with acids to produce salts (salis = salt, in Latin): chaux (calcium oxide), magnésie (magnesia, magnesium oxide), baryte (barium sulfate), alumine (alumina, aluminium oxide), and silice (silica, silicon dioxide)). About these \"elements\", Lavoisier reasoned: `{{blockquote\|We are probably only acquainted as yet with a part of the metallic substances existing in nature, as all those which have a stronger affinity to oxygen than carbon possesses, are incapable, hitherto, of being reduced to a metallic state, and consequently, being only presented to our observation under the form of oxyds, are confounded with earths. It is extremely probable that barytes, which we have just now arranged with earths, is in this situation; for in many experiments it exhibits properties nearly approaching to those of metallic bodies. It is even possible that all the substances we call earths may be only metallic oxyds, irreducible by any hitherto known process.<ref>Lavoisier, Antoine; Kerr, Robert (translator) (1799) ''Elements of Chemistry'', 4th ed. Edinburgh, Scotland: William Creech. [https://books.google.com/books?id=cbFjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA218 p. 218]. The original passage appears in: Lavoisier, Antoine (1789) ''[[Traité Élémentaire de Chimie]]''. Paris, France: Cuchet. Vol. 1. [https://books.google.com/books?id=hZch3yOrayUC&pg=PA174 p. 174].</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} Calcium, along with its congeners magnesium, strontium, and barium, was first isolated by Humphry Davy in 1808. Following the work of Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Magnus Martin of Pontin on electrolysis, Davy isolated calcium and magnesium by putting a mixture of the respective metal oxides with mercury(II) oxide on a platinum plate which was used as the anode, the cathode being a platinum wire partially submerged into mercury. Electrolysis then gave calcium--mercury and magnesium--mercury amalgams, and distilling off the mercury gave the metal. However, pure calcium cannot be prepared in bulk by this method and a workable commercial process for its production was not found until over a century later. ## Occurrence and production {#occurrence_and_production} At 3%, calcium is the fifth most abundant element in the Earth\'s crust, and the third most abundant metal behind aluminium and iron. It is also the fourth most abundant element in the lunar highlands. Sedimentary calcium carbonate deposits pervade the Earth\'s surface as fossilised remains of past marine life; they occur in two forms, the rhombohedral calcite (more common) and the orthorhombic aragonite (forming in more temperate seas). Minerals of the first type include limestone, dolomite, marble, chalk, and Iceland spar; aragonite beds make up the Bahamas, the Florida Keys, and the Red Sea basins. Corals, sea shells, and pearls are mostly made up of calcium carbonate. Among the other important minerals of calcium are gypsum (CaSO`{{sub\|4}}`{=mediawiki}·2H`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki}O), anhydrite (CaSO`{{sub\|4}}`{=mediawiki}), fluorite (CaF`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki}), and apatite (\[Ca`{{sub\|5}}`{=mediawiki}(PO`{{sub\|4}}`{=mediawiki})`{{sub\|3}}`{=mediawiki}X\], X = OH, Cl, or F) The major producers of calcium are China (about 10000 to 12000 tonnes per year), Russia (about 6000 to 8000 tonnes per year), and the United States (about 2000 to 4000 tonnes per year). Canada and France are among the minor producers. In 2005, about 24000 tonnes of calcium were produced; about half of the world\'s extracted calcium is used by the United States, with about 80% of the output used each year. In Russia and China, Davy\'s method of electrolysis is still used, but is instead applied to molten calcium chloride. Since calcium is less reactive than strontium or barium, the oxide--nitride coating that results in air is stable and lathe machining and other standard metallurgical techniques are suitable for calcium. In the U.S. and Canada, calcium is instead produced by reducing lime with aluminium at high temperatures. In this process, powdered high-calcium lime and powdered aluminum are mixed and compacted into briquettes for a high degree of contact, which are then placed in a sealed retort which has been evacuated and heated to \~1200°C. The briquettes release calcium vapor into the vacuum for about 8 hours, which then condenses in the cooled ends of the retorts to form 24-34 kg pieces of calcium metal, as well as some residue of calcium aluminate. High-purity calcium can be obtained by distilling low-purity calcium at high temperatures. ### Geochemical cycling {#geochemical_cycling} Calcium cycling provides a link between tectonics, climate, and the carbon cycle. In the simplest terms, mountain-building exposes calcium-bearing rocks such as basalt and granodiorite to chemical weathering and releases Ca`{{sup\|2+}}`{=mediawiki} into surface water. These ions are transported to the ocean where they react with dissolved CO`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki} to form limestone (CaCO`{{sub\|3}}`{=mediawiki}), which in turn settles to the sea floor where it is incorporated into new rocks. Dissolved CO`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki}, along with carbonate and bicarbonate ions, are termed \"dissolved inorganic carbon\" (DIC). The actual reaction is more complicated and involves the bicarbonate ion (HCO`{{su\|b=3\|p=−}}`{=mediawiki}) that forms when CO`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki} reacts with water at seawater pH: : At seawater pH, most of the dissolved CO`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki} is immediately converted back into `{{chem\|HCO\|3\|-}}`{=mediawiki}. The reaction results in a net transport of one molecule of CO`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki} from the ocean/atmosphere into the lithosphere. The result is that each Ca`{{sup\|2+}}`{=mediawiki} ion released by chemical weathering ultimately removes one CO`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki} molecule from the surficial system (atmosphere, ocean, soil and living organisms), storing it in carbonate rocks where it is likely to stay for hundreds of millions of years. The weathering of calcium from rocks thus scrubs CO`{{sub\|2}}`{=mediawiki} from the ocean and air, exerting a strong long-term effect on climate. ## Applications The largest use of metallic calcium is in steelmaking, due to its strong chemical affinity for oxygen and sulfur. Its oxides and sulfides, once formed, give liquid lime aluminate and sulfide inclusions in steel which float out; on treatment, these inclusions disperse throughout the steel and become small and spherical, improving castability, cleanliness and general mechanical properties. Calcium is also used in maintenance-free automotive batteries, in which the use of 0.1% calcium--lead alloys instead of the usual antimony--lead alloys leads to lower water loss and lower self-discharging. Due to the risk of expansion and cracking, aluminium is sometimes also incorporated into these alloys. These lead--calcium alloys are also used in casting, replacing lead--antimony alloys. Calcium is also used to strengthen aluminium alloys used for bearings, for the control of graphitic carbon in cast iron, and to remove bismuth impurities from lead. Calcium metal is found in some drain cleaners, where it functions to generate heat and calcium hydroxide that saponifies the fats and liquefies the proteins (for example, those in hair) that block drains. Besides metallurgy, the reactivity of calcium is exploited to remove nitrogen from high-purity argon gas and as a getter for oxygen and nitrogen. It is also used as a reducing agent in the production of chromium, zirconium, thorium, vanadium and uranium. It can also be used to store hydrogen gas, as it reacts with hydrogen to form solid calcium hydride, from which the hydrogen can easily be re-extracted. Calcium isotope fractionation during mineral formation has led to several applications of calcium isotopes. In particular, the 1997 observation by Skulan and DePaolo that calcium minerals are isotopically lighter than the solutions from which the minerals precipitate is the basis of analogous applications in medicine and in paleoceanography. In animals with skeletons mineralised with calcium, the calcium isotopic composition of soft tissues reflects the relative rate of formation and dissolution of skeletal mineral. In humans, changes in the calcium isotopic composition of urine have been shown to be related to changes in bone mineral balance. When the rate of bone formation exceeds the rate of bone resorption, the `{{sup\|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca/`{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca ratio in soft tissue rises and vice versa. Because of this relationship, calcium isotopic measurements of urine or blood may be useful in the early detection of metabolic bone diseases like osteoporosis. A similar system exists in seawater, where `{{sup\|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca/`{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca tends to rise when the rate of removal of Ca`{{sup\|2+}}`{=mediawiki} by mineral precipitation exceeds the input of new calcium into the ocean. In 1997, Skulan and DePaolo presented the first evidence of change in seawater `{{sup\|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca/`{{sup\|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca over geologic time, along with a theoretical explanation of these changes. More recent papers have confirmed this observation, demonstrating that seawater Ca`{{sup\|2+}}`{=mediawiki} concentration is not constant, and that the ocean is never in a \"steady state\" with respect to calcium input and output. This has important climatological implications, as the marine calcium cycle is closely tied to the carbon cycle. Many calcium compounds are used in food, as pharmaceuticals, and in medicine, among others. For example, calcium and phosphorus are supplemented in foods through the addition of calcium lactate, calcium diphosphate, and tricalcium phosphate. The last is also used as a polishing agent in toothpaste and in antacids. Calcium lactobionate is a white powder that is used as a suspending agent for pharmaceuticals. In baking, calcium phosphate is used as a leavening agent. Calcium sulfite is used as a bleach in papermaking and as a disinfectant, calcium silicate is used as a reinforcing agent in rubber, and calcium acetate is a component of liming rosin and is used to make metallic soaps and synthetic resins. Calcium is on the World Health Organization\'s List of Essential Medicines. ## Biological and pathological role {#biological_and_pathological_role} Age Calcium (mg/day) -------------- ------------------ 1--3 years 700 4--8 years 1000 9--18 years 1300 19--50 years 1000 \>51 years 1000 Pregnancy 1000 Lactation 1000 : Age-adjusted daily calcium recommendations (from U.S. Institute of Medicine RDAs) thumb\\|upright=1.4\\|Global dietary calcium intake among adults (mg/day). `{{Div col\|small=yes\|colwidth=10em}}`{=mediawiki} `{{legend\|#f51d1e\|<400}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend\|#aa2b2c\|400–500}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend\|#fa7929\|500–600}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend\|#a46e2c\|600–700}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend\|#fee940\|700–800}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend\|#829d29\|800–900}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend\|#84fc5a\|900–1000}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend\|#2d621d\|>1000}}`{=mediawiki} `{{div col end}}`{=mediawiki} ### Function Calcium is an essential element needed in large quantities. The Ca^2+^ ion acts as an electrolyte and is vital to the health of the muscular, circulatory, and digestive systems; is indispensable to the building of bone in the form of hydroxyapatite; and supports synthesis and function of blood cells. For example, it regulates the contraction of muscles, nerve conduction, and the clotting of blood. As a result, intra- and extracellular calcium levels are tightly regulated by the body. Calcium can play this role because the Ca^2+^ ion forms stable coordination complexes with many organic compounds, especially proteins; it also forms compounds with a wide range of solubilities, enabling the formation of the skeleton. ### Binding Calcium ions may be complexed by proteins through binding the carboxyl groups of glutamic acid or aspartic acid residues; through interacting with phosphorylated serine, tyrosine, or threonine residues; or by being chelated by γ-carboxylated amino acid residues. Trypsin, a digestive enzyme, uses the first method; osteocalcin, a bone matrix protein, uses the third. Some other bone matrix proteins such as osteopontin and bone sialoprotein use both the first and the second. Direct activation of enzymes by binding calcium is common; some other enzymes are activated by noncovalent association with direct calcium-binding enzymes. Calcium also binds to the phospholipid layer of the cell membrane, anchoring proteins associated with the cell surface. ### Solubility As an example of the wide range of solubility of calcium compounds, monocalcium phosphate is very soluble in water, 85% of extracellular calcium is as dicalcium phosphate with a solubility of 2.00 mM, and the hydroxyapatite of bones in an organic matrix is tricalcium phosphate with a solubility of 1000 μM. ### Nutrition Calcium is a common constituent of multivitamin dietary supplements, but the composition of calcium complexes in supplements may affect its bioavailability which varies by solubility of the salt involved: calcium citrate, malate, and lactate are highly bioavailable, while the oxalate is less. Other calcium preparations include calcium carbonate, calcium citrate malate, and calcium gluconate. The intestine absorbs about one-third of calcium eaten as the free ion, and plasma calcium level is then regulated by the kidneys. ### Hormonal regulation of bone formation and serum levels {#hormonal_regulation_of_bone_formation_and_serum_levels} Parathyroid hormone and vitamin D promote the formation of bone by allowing and enhancing the deposition of calcium ions there, allowing rapid bone turnover without affecting bone mass or mineral content. When plasma calcium levels fall, cell surface receptors are activated and the secretion of parathyroid hormone occurs; it then proceeds to stimulate the entry of calcium into the plasma pool by taking it from targeted kidney, gut, and bone cells, with the bone-forming action of parathyroid hormone being antagonised by calcitonin, whose secretion increases with increasing plasma calcium levels. ### Abnormal serum levels {#abnormal_serum_levels} Excess intake of calcium may cause hypercalcemia. However, because calcium is absorbed rather inefficiently by the intestines, high serum calcium is more likely caused by excessive secretion of parathyroid hormone (PTH) or possibly by excessive intake of vitamin D, both of which facilitate calcium absorption. All these conditions result in excess calcium salts being deposited in the heart, blood vessels, or kidneys. Symptoms include anorexia, nausea, vomiting, memory loss, confusion, muscle weakness, increased urination, dehydration, and metabolic bone disease. Chronic hypercalcaemia typically leads to calcification of soft tissue and its serious consequences: for example, calcification can cause loss of elasticity of vascular walls and disruption of laminar blood flow---and thence to plaque rupture and thrombosis. Conversely, inadequate calcium or vitamin D intakes may result in hypocalcemia, often caused also by inadequate secretion of parathyroid hormone or defective PTH receptors in cells. Symptoms include neuromuscular excitability, which potentially causes tetany and disruption of conductivity in cardiac tissue. ### Bone disease {#bone_disease} As calcium is required for bone development, many bone diseases can be traced to the organic matrix or the hydroxyapatite in molecular structure or organization of bone. Osteoporosis is a reduction in mineral content of bone per unit volume, and can be treated by supplementation of calcium, vitamin D, and bisphosphonates. Inadequate amounts of calcium, vitamin D, or phosphates can lead to softening of bones, called osteomalacia. ## Safety ### Metallic calcium {#metallic_calcium} Because calcium reacts exothermically with water and acids, calcium metal coming into contact with bodily moisture results in severe corrosive irritation. When swallowed, calcium metal has the same effect on the mouth, oesophagus, and stomach, and can be fatal. However, long-term exposure is not known to have distinct adverse effects.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,689	College	upright=1.35\\|thumb\\| Corpus Christi College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge in England A college (Latin: collegium) may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary school. In most of the world, a college may be a high school or secondary school, a college of further education, a training institution that awards trade qualifications, a higher-education provider that does not have university status (often without its own degree-awarding powers), or a constituent part of a university. In the United States, a college may offer undergraduate programs -- either as an independent institution or as the undergraduate program of a university -- or it may be a residential college of a university or a community college, referring to (primarily public) higher education institutions that aim to provide affordable and accessible education, usually limited to two-year associate degrees. The word \"college\" is generally also used as a synonym for a university in the US, and as used in phrases such as \"college students\" and \"going to college\" it is understood to mean any degree granting institution, whether denominated a school, an institute, a college, or a university. Colleges in countries such as France, Belgium, and Switzerland provide secondary education. ## Etymology The word \"college\" is from the Latin verb lego, legere, legi, lectum, \"to collect, gather together, pick\", plus the preposition cum, \"with\", thus meaning \"selected together\". Thus \"colleagues\" are literally \"persons who have been selected to work together\". In ancient Rome a collegium was a \"body, guild, corporation united in colleagueship; of magistrates, praetors, tribunes, priests, augurs; a political club or trade guild\". Thus a college was a form of corporation or corporate body, an artificial legal person (body/corpus) with its own legal personality, with the capacity to enter into legal contracts, to sue and be sued. In mediaeval England there were colleges of priests, for example in chantry chapels; modern survivals include the Royal College of Surgeons in England (originally the Guild of Surgeons Within the City of London), the College of Arms in London (a body of heralds enforcing heraldic law), an electoral college (to elect representatives); all groups of persons \"selected in common\" to perform a specified function and appointed by a monarch, founder or other person in authority. As for the modern \"college of education\", it was a body created for that purpose, for example Eton College was founded in 1440 by letters patent of King Henry VI for the constitution of a college of Fellows, priests, clerks, choristers, poor scholars, and old poor men, with one master or governor, whose duty it shall be to instruct these scholars and any others who may resort thither from any part of England in the knowledge of letters, and especially of grammar, without payment\". ## Overview ### Higher education {#higher_education} Within higher education, the term can be used to refer to: - A constituent part of a collegiate university, for example King\'s College, Cambridge, or of a federal university, for example King\'s College London. - A liberal arts college, an independent institution of higher education focusing on undergraduate education, such as Williams College or Amherst College. - A liberal arts division of a university whose undergraduate program does not otherwise follow a liberal arts model, such as the Yuanpei College at Peking University. - An institute providing specialised training, such as a college of further education, for example Belfast Metropolitan College, a teacher training college, or an art college. - A Catholic higher education institute which includes universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher education privately run by the Catholic Church, typically by religious institutes. Those tied to the Holy See are specifically called pontifical universities. - In the United States, college is sometimes but rarely a synonym for a research university, such as Dartmouth College, one of the eight universities in the Ivy League. - In the United States, the undergraduate college of a university which also confers graduate degrees, such as Yale College, the undergraduate college within Yale University. ### Further education {#further_education} A sixth form college or college of further education is an educational institution in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Belize, the Caribbean, Malta, Norway, Brunei, and Southern Africa, among others, where students aged 16 to 19 typically study for advanced school-level qualifications, such as A-levels, BTEC, HND or its equivalent and the International Baccalaureate Diploma, or school-level qualifications such as GCSEs. In Singapore and India, this is known as a junior college. The municipal government of the city of Paris uses the phrase \"sixth form college\" as the English name for a lycée. ### Secondary education {#secondary_education} In some national education systems, secondary schools may be called \"colleges\" or have \"college\" as part of their title. In Australia the term \"college\" is applied to any private or independent (non-government) primary and, especially, secondary school as distinct from a state school. Melbourne Grammar School, Cranbrook School, Sydney and The King\'s School, Parramatta are considered colleges. There has also been a recent trend to rename or create government secondary schools as \"colleges\". In the state of Victoria, some state high schools are referred to as secondary colleges, although the pre-eminent government secondary school for boys in Melbourne is still named Melbourne High School. In Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory, \"college\" is used in the name of all state high schools built since the late 1990s, and also some older ones. In New South Wales, some high schools, especially multi-campus schools resulting from mergers, are known as \"secondary colleges\". In Queensland some newer schools which accept primary and high school students are styled state college, but state schools offering only secondary education are called \"State High School\". In Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, \"college\" refers to the final two years of high school (years 11 and 12), and the institutions which provide this. In this context, \"college\" is a system independent of the other years of high school. Here, the expression is a shorter version of matriculation college. In a number of Canadian cities, many government-run secondary schools are called \"collegiates\" or \"collegiate institutes\" (C.I.), a complicated form of the word \"college\" which avoids the usual \"post-secondary\" connotation. This is because these secondary schools have traditionally focused on academic, rather than vocational, subjects and ability levels (for example, collegiates offered Latin while vocational schools offered technical courses). Some private secondary schools (such as Upper Canada College, Vancouver College) choose to use the word \"college\" in their names nevertheless. Some secondary schools elsewhere in the country, particularly ones within the separate school system, may also use the word \"college\" or \"collegiate\" in their names. In New Zealand the word \"college\" normally refers to a secondary school for ages 13 to 17 and \"college\" appears as part of the name especially of private or integrated schools. \"Colleges\" most frequently appear in the North Island, whereas \"high schools\" are more common in the South Island. In the Netherlands, \"college\" is equivalent to HBO (Higher professional education). It is oriented towards professional training with a clear occupational outlook, unlike universities which are scientifically oriented. In South Africa, some secondary schools, especially private schools on the English public school model, have \"college\" in their title, including six of South Africa\'s Elite Seven high schools. A typical example of this category would be St John\'s College. Private schools that specialize in improving children\'s marks through intensive focus on examination needs are informally called \"cram-colleges\". In Sri Lanka the word \"college\" (known as Vidyalaya in Sinhala) normally refers to a secondary school, which usually signifies above the 5th standard. During the British colonial period a limited number of exclusive secondary schools were established based on English public school model (Royal College Colombo, S. Thomas\' College, Mount Lavinia, Trinity College, Kandy) these along with several Catholic schools (St. Joseph\'s College, Colombo, St Anthony\'s College) traditionally carry their name as colleges. Following the start of free education in 1931 large group of central colleges were established to educate the rural masses. Since Sri Lanka gained Independence in 1948, many schools that have been established have been named as \"college\". ### Other As well as an educational institution, the term, in accordance with its etymology, may also refer to any formal group of colleagues set up under statute or regulation; often under a Royal Charter. Examples include an electoral college, the College of Arms, a college of canons, and the College of Cardinals. Other collegiate bodies include professional associations, particularly in medicine and allied professions. In the UK these include the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Physicians. Examples in the United States include the American College of Physicians, the American College of Surgeons, and the American College of Dentists. An example in Australia is the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. ## College by country {#college_by_country} The different ways in which the term \"college\" is used to describe educational institutions in various regions of the world is listed below: ## Americas ### Canada In Canadian English, the term \"college\" usually refers to a trades school, applied arts/science/technology/business/health school or community college. These are post-secondary institutions granting certificates, diplomas, associate degrees and (in some cases) bachelor\'s degrees. The French acronym specific to public institutions within Quebec\'s particular system of pre-university and technical education is CEGEP (Collège d\'enseignement général et professionnel, \"college of general and professional education\"). They are collegiate-level institutions that a student typically enrols in if they wish to continue onto university in the Quebec education system,`{{notetag\|Exceptions are made for "mature" student, meaning 21 years of age or over, and out of the educational system for at least 2 years.}}`{=mediawiki} or to learn a trade. In Ontario and Alberta, there are also institutions that are designated university colleges, which only grant undergraduate degrees. This is to differentiate between universities, which have both undergraduate and graduate programs and those that do not. In Canada, there is a strong distinction between \"college\" and \"university\". In conversation, one specifically would say either \"they are going to university\" (i.e., studying for a three- or four-year degree at a university) or \"they are going to college\" (i.e., studying at a technical/career training). #### Usage in a university setting {#usage_in_a_university_setting} The term college also applies to distinct entities that formally act as an affiliated institution of the university, formally referred to as federated college, or affiliated colleges. A university may also formally include several constituent colleges, forming a collegiate university. Examples of collegiate universities in Canada include Trent University, and the University of Toronto. These types of institutions act independently, maintaining their own endowments, and properties. However, they remain either affiliated, or federated with the overarching university, with the overarching university being the institution that formally grants the degrees. For example, Trinity College was once an independent institution, but later became federated with the University of Toronto. Several centralized universities in Canada have mimicked the collegiate university model; although constituent colleges in a centralized university remains under the authority of the central administration. Centralized universities that have adopted the collegiate model to a degree includes the University of British Columbia, with Green College and St. John\'s College; and the Memorial University of Newfoundland, with Sir Wilfred Grenfell College. Occasionally, \"college\" refers to a subject specific faculty within a university that, while distinct, are neither federated nor affiliated---College of Education, College of Medicine, College of Dentistry, College of Biological Science among others. The Royal Military College of Canada is a military college which trains officers for the Canadian Armed Forces. The institution is a full-fledged university, with the authority to issue graduate degrees, although it continues to word the term college in its name. The institution\'s sister schools, Royal Military College Saint-Jean also uses the term college in its name, although it academic offering is akin to a CEGEP institution in Quebec. A number of post-secondary art schools in Canada formerly used the word college in their names, despite formally being universities. However, most of these institutions were renamed, or re-branded in the early 21st century, omitting the word college from its name. #### Usage in secondary education {#usage_in_secondary_education} The word college continues to be used in the names public separate secondary schools in Ontario. A number of independent schools across Canada also use the word college in its name. Public secular school boards in Ontario also refer to their secondary schools as collegiate institutes. However, usage of the word collegiate institute varies between school boards. Collegiate institute is the predominant name for secondary schools in Lakehead District School Board, and Toronto District School Board, although most school boards in Ontario use collegiate institute alongside high school, and secondary school in the names of their institutions. Similarly, secondary schools in Regina, and Saskatoon are referred to as Collegiate. ### Chile Officially, since 2009, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile incorporated the term \"college\" as the name of a tertiary education program as a bachelor\'s degree. The program features a Bachelor of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, a Bachelor of Social Science and a Bachelor of Arts and Humanities. It has the same system as the American universities, it combines majors and minors and finally, it let the students continue a higher degree in the same university once the program it is completed. But in Chile, the term \"college\" is not usually used for tertiary education, but is used mainly in the name of some private bilingual schools, corresponding to levels 0, 1 and 2 of the ISCED 2011. Some examples are they Santiago College, Saint George\'s College, among others. ### United States {#united_states} In the United States, there were 5,916 post-secondary institutions (universities and colleges) `{{as of\|2020\|alt=as of 2020–21\|post=,}}`{=mediawiki} having peaked at 7,253 in 2012--13 and fallen every year since. A \"college\" in the US can refer to a constituent part of a university (which can be a residential college, the sub-division of the university offering undergraduate courses, or a school of the university offering particular specialized courses), an independent institution offering bachelor\'s-level courses, or an institution offering instruction in a particular professional, technical or vocational field. In popular usage, the word \"college\" is the generic term for any post-secondary undergraduate education. Americans \"go to college\" after high school, regardless of whether the specific institution is formally a college or a university. Some students choose to dual-enroll, by taking college classes while still in high school. The word and its derivatives are the standard terms used to describe the institutions and experiences associated with American post-secondary undergraduate education. Students must pay for college before taking classes. Some borrow the money via loans, and some students fund their educations with cash, scholarships, grants, or some combination of these payment methods. In 2011, the state or federal government subsidized \$8,000 to \$100,000 for each undergraduate degree. For state-owned schools (called \"public\" universities), the subsidy was given to the college, with the student benefiting from lower tuition. The state subsidized on average 50% of public university tuition. Colleges vary in terms of size, degree, and length of stay. Two-year colleges, also known as junior or community colleges, usually offer an associate degree, and four-year colleges usually offer a bachelor\'s degree. Often, these are entirely undergraduate institutions, although some have graduate school programs. Four-year institutions in the U.S. that emphasize a liberal arts curriculum are known as liberal arts colleges. Until the 20th century, liberal arts, law, medicine, theology, and divinity were about the only form of higher education available in the United States. These schools have traditionally emphasized instruction at the undergraduate level, although advanced research may still occur at these institutions. While there is no national standard in the United States, the term \"university\" primarily designates institutions that provide undergraduate and graduate education. A university typically has as its core and its largest internal division an undergraduate college teaching a liberal arts curriculum, also culminating in a bachelor\'s degree. What often distinguishes a university is having, in addition, one or more graduate schools engaged in both teaching graduate classes and in research. Often these would be called a School of Law or School of Medicine, (but may also be called a college of law, or a faculty of law). An exception is Vincennes University, Indiana, which is styled and chartered as a \"university\" even though almost all of its academic programs lead only to two-year associate degrees. Some institutions, such as Dartmouth College and The College of William & Mary, have retained the term \"college\" in their names for historical reasons. In one unique case, Boston College and Boston University, the former located in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts and the latter located in Boston, Massachusetts, are completely separate institutions. Usage of the terms varies among the states. In 1996, for example, Georgia changed all of its four-year institutions previously designated as colleges to universities, and all of its vocational technology schools to technical colleges. The terms \"university\" and \"college\" do not exhaust all possible titles for an American institution of higher education. Other options include \"institute\" (Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology), \"academy\" (United States Military Academy), \"union\" (Cooper Union), \"conservatory\" (New England Conservatory), and \"school\" (Juilliard School). In colloquial use, the institutions are still referred to as \"college\" when referring to undergraduate studies. The term college is also, as in the United Kingdom, used for a constituent semi-autonomous part of a larger university but generally organized on academic rather than residential lines. For example, at many institutions, the undergraduate portion of the university can be briefly referred to as the college (such as The College of the University of Chicago, Harvard College at Harvard, or Columbia College at Columbia) while at others, such as the University of California, Berkeley, \"colleges\" are collections of academic programs and other units that share some common characteristics, mission, or disciplinary focus (the \"college of engineering\", the \"college of nursing\", and so forth). There exist other variants for historical reasons, including some uses that exist because of mergers and acquisitions; for example, Duke University, which was called Trinity College until the 1920s, still calls its main undergraduate subdivision Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. #### Residential colleges {#residential_colleges} Some American universities, such as Princeton, Rice, and Yale have established residential colleges (sometimes, as at Harvard, the first to establish such a system in the 1930s, known as houses) along the lines of Oxford or Cambridge. Unlike the Oxbridge colleges, but similarly to Durham, these residential colleges are not autonomous legal entities nor are they typically much involved in education itself, being primarily concerned with room, board, and social life. At the University of Michigan, University of California, San Diego and the University of California, Santa Cruz, each residential college teaches its own core writing courses and has its own distinctive set of graduation requirements. Many American universities have placed increased emphasis on their residential colleges in recent years. This is exemplified by the creation of new colleges at Ivy League schools such as Yale University and Princeton University, and efforts to strengthen the contribution of the residential colleges to student education, including through a 2016 taskforce at Princeton on residential colleges. #### Origin of the American usage {#origin_of_the_american_usage} The founders of the first institutions of higher education in the United States were graduates of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. The small institutions they founded would not have seemed to them like universities -- they were tiny and did not offer the higher degrees in medicine and theology. Furthermore, they were not composed of several small colleges. Instead, the new institutions felt like the Oxford and Cambridge colleges they were used to -- small communities, housing and feeding their students, with instruction from residential tutors (as in the United Kingdom, described above). When the first students graduated, these \"colleges\" assumed the right to confer degrees upon them, usually with authority---for example, The College of William & Mary has a royal charter from the British monarchy allowing it to confer degrees while Dartmouth College has a charter permitting it to award degrees \"as are usually granted in either of the universities, or any other college in our realm of Great Britain.\" The leaders of Harvard College (which granted America\'s first degrees in 1642) might have thought of their college as the first of many residential colleges that would grow up into a New Cambridge university. However, over time, few new colleges were founded there, and Harvard grew and added higher faculties. Eventually, it changed its title to university, but the term \"college\" had stuck and \"colleges\" have arisen across the United States. In American English, the word \"college\" not only embodies a particular type of school, but has historically been used to refer to the general concept of undergraduate education when it is not necessary to specify a school, as in \"going to college\" or \"college savings accounts\" offered by banks. In a survey of more than 2,000 college students in 33 states and 156 different campuses, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group found the average student spends as much as \$1,200 each year on textbooks and supplies alone. By comparison, the group says that\'s the equivalent of 39 percent of tuition and fees at a community college, and 14 percent of tuition and fees at a four-year public university. #### Morrill Land-Grant Act {#morrill_land_grant_act} In addition to private colleges and universities, the U.S. also has a system of government funded, public universities. Many were founded under the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862. A movement had arisen to bring a form of more practical higher education to the masses, as \"\...many politicians and educators wanted to make it possible for all young Americans to receive some sort of advanced education.\" The Morrill Act \"\...made it possible for the new western states to establish colleges for the citizens.\" Its goal was to make higher education more easily accessible to the citizenry of the country, specifically to improve agricultural systems by providing training and scholarship in the production and sales of agricultural products, and to provide formal education in \"\...agriculture, home economics, mechanical arts, and other professions that seemed practical at the time.\" The act was eventually extended to allow all states that had remained with the Union during the American Civil War, and eventually all states, to establish such institutions. Most of the colleges established under the Morrill Act have since become full universities, and some are among the elite of the world. #### Benefits of college {#benefits_of_college} Selection of a four-year college as compared to a two-year junior college, even by marginal students such as those with a C+ grade average in high school and SAT scores in the mid 800s, increases the probability of graduation and confers substantial economic and social benefits. ## Asia ### Bangladesh In Bangladesh, educational institutions offering higher secondary (11th--12th grade) education are known as colleges. ### Hong Kong {#hong_kong} In Hong Kong, the term \'college\' is used by tertiary institutions as either part of their names or to refer to a constituent part of the university, such as the colleges in the collegiate The Chinese University of Hong Kong; or to a residence hall of a university, such as St. John\'s College, University of Hong Kong. Many older secondary schools have the term \'college\' as part of their names. ### India The modern system of education was heavily influenced by the British starting in 1835. In India, the term \"college\" is commonly reserved for institutions that offer high school diplomas at year 12 (\"Junior College\", similar to American high schools), and those that offer the bachelor\'s degree; some colleges, however, offer programmes up to PhD level. Generally, colleges are located in different parts of a state and all of them are affiliated to a regional university. The colleges offer programmes leading to degrees of that university. Colleges may be either Autonomous or non-autonomous. Autonomous Colleges are empowered to establish their own syllabus, and conduct and assess their own examinations; in non-autonomous colleges, examinations are conducted by the university, at the same time for all colleges under its affiliation. There are several hundred universities and each university has affiliated colleges, often a large number. The first liberal arts and sciences college in India was \"Cottayam College\" or the \"Syrian College\", Kerala in 1815. The First inter linguistic residential education institution in Asia was started at this college. At present it is a Theological seminary which is popularly known as Orthodox Theological Seminary or Old Seminary. After that, CMS College, Kottayam, established in 1817, and the Presidency College, Kolkata, also 1817, initially known as Hindu College. The first college for the study of Christian theology and ecumenical enquiry was Serampore College (1818). The first Missionary institution to impart Western style education in India was the Scottish Church College, Calcutta (1830). The first commerce and economics college in India was Sydenham College, Mumbai (1913). In India a new term has been introduced that is Autonomous Institutes & Colleges. An autonomous Colleges are colleges which need to be affiliated to a certain university. These colleges can conduct their own admission procedure, examination syllabus, fees structure etc. However, at the end of course completion, they cannot issue their own degree or diploma. The final degree or diploma is issued by the affiliated university. Also, some significant changes can pave way under the NEP (New Education Policy 2020) which may affect the present guidelines for universities and colleges. Implemented in the 2023--2024 academic year, the new education policy is said to fill the gaps and cover the drawbacks of the Indian education system. ### Israel thumb\\|upright=0.75\\|Braude College of Engineering In Israel, any non-university higher-learning facility is called a college. Institutions accredited by the Council for Higher Education in Israel (CHE) to confer a bachelor\'s degree are called \"academic colleges\" (Mikhlala; plural Mikhlalot). These colleges (at least 4 for 2012) may also offer master\'s degrees and act as research facilities. There are also over twenty teacher training colleges or seminaries, most of which may award only a Bachelor of Education (BEd) degree. - Academic colleges: Any educational facility that had been approved to offer at least bachelor\'s degree is entitled by CHE to use the term \"academic college\" in its name. - Engineering academic college: Any academic facility that offers at least a bachelor\'s degree and most of it faculties are providing an engineering degree and engineering license. - Educational academic college: After an educational facility that had been approved for \"teachers seminar\" status is then approved to provide a Bachelor of Education, its name is changed to include \"educational academic college.\" - Technical college: A \"technical college\" (מכללה טכנולוגית) is an educational facility that is approved to allow to provide P.E. degree (הנדסאי; 14\'th class) or technician (טכנאי; 13\'th class) diploma and licenses. - Training College: A \"training college\" (מכללה להכשרה or מכללה מקצועית) is an educational facility that provides basic training allowing a person to receive a working permit in a field such as alternative medicine, cooking, art, mechanic, electrician and other professions. A trainee could receive the right to work in certain professions as apprentice (j. mechanic, j. electrician etc.). After working in the training field for enough time, an apprentice can receive a license to operate as mechanic or electrician) This educational facility is mostly used to provide basic training for low tech jobs and for job seekers without any training that are provided by the nation\'s Employment Service (שירות התעסוקה). ### Macau Following the Portuguese usage, the term \"college\" (colégio) in Macau has traditionally been used in the names for private (and non-governmental) pre-university educational institutions, which correspond to form one to form six level tiers. Such schools are usually run by the Roman Catholic church or missionaries in Macau. Examples include Chan Sui Ki Perpetual Help College, Yuet Wah College, and Sacred Heart Canossian College. ### Philippines In the Philippines, colleges usually refer to institutions of learning that grant degrees but whose scholastic fields are not as diverse as that of a university (University of Santo Tomas, University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, Far Eastern University, and AMA University), such as the San Beda College which specializes in law, AMA Computer College whose campuses are spread all over the Philippines which specializes in information and computing technologies, and the Mapúa Institute of Technology which specializes in engineering, or to component units within universities that do not grant degrees but rather facilitate the instruction of a particular field, such as a College of Science and College of Engineering, among many other colleges of the University of the Philippines. A state college may not have the word \"college\" on its name, but may have several component colleges, or departments. Thus, the Eulogio Amang Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology is a state college by classification. Usually, the term \"college\" is also thought of as a hierarchical demarcation between the term \"university\", and quite a number of colleges seek to be recognized as universities as a sign of improvement in academic standards (Colegio de San Juan de Letran, San Beda College), and increase in the diversity of the offered degree programs (called \"courses\"). For private colleges, this may be done through a survey and evaluation by the Commission on Higher Education and accrediting organizations, as was the case of Urios College which is now the Fr. Saturnino Urios University. For state colleges, it is usually done by a legislation by the Congress or Senate. In common usage, \"going to college\" simply means attending school for an undergraduate degree, whether it\'s from an institution recognized as a college or a university. When it comes to referring to the level of education, college is the term more used to be synonymous to tertiary or higher education. A student who is or has studied his/her undergraduate degree at either an institution with college or university in its name is considered to be going to or have gone to college. ### Singapore The term \"college\" in Singapore is generally only used for pre-university educational institutions called \"Junior Colleges\", which provide the final two years of secondary education (equivalent to sixth form in British terms or grades 11--12 in the American system). Since 1 January 2005, the term also refers to the three campuses of the Institute of Technical Education with the introduction of the \"collegiate system\", in which the three institutions are called ITE College East, ITE College Central, and ITE College West respectively. The term \"university\" is used to describe higher-education institutions offering locally conferred degrees. Institutions offering diplomas are called \"polytechnics\", while other institutions are often referred to as \"institutes\" and so forth. ### Sri Lanka {#sri_lanka} There are several professional and vocational institutions that offer post-secondary education without granting degrees that are referred to as \"colleges\". This includes the Sri Lanka Law College, the many Technical Colleges and Teaching Colleges. ### Turkey In Turkey, the term \"kolej\" (college) refers to a private high school, typically preceded by one year of preparatory language education. Notable Turkish colleges include Robert College, Uskudar American Academy, American Collegiate Institute and Tarsus American College. ## Africa ### South Africa {#south_africa} Although the term \"college\" is hardly used in any context at any university in South Africa, some non-university tertiary institutions call themselves colleges. These include teacher training colleges, business colleges and wildlife management colleges. See: List of universities in South Africa#Private colleges and universities; List of post secondary institutions in South Africa. ### Zimbabwe The term college is mainly used by private or independent secondary schools with Advanced Level (Upper 6th formers) and also Polytechnic Colleges which confer diplomas only. A student can complete secondary education (International General Certificate of Secondary Education, IGCSE) at 16 years and proceed straight to a poly-technical college or they can proceed to Advanced level (16 to 19 years) and obtain a General Certificate of Education (GCE) certificate which enables them to enroll at a university, provided they have good grades. Alternatively, with lower grades, the GCE certificate holders will have an added advantage over their GCSE counterparts if they choose to enroll at a polytechnical college. Some schools in Zimbabwe choose to offer the International Baccalaureate studies as an alternative to the IGCSE and GCE. ## Europe ### Greece *Kollegio* (in Greek Κολλέγιο) refers to the Centers of Post-Lyceum Education (in Greek Κέντρο Μεταλυκειακής Εκπαίδευσης, abbreviated as KEME), which are principally private and belong to the Greek post-secondary education system. Some of them have links to EU or US higher education institutions or accreditation organizations, such as the NEASC. Kollegio (or Kollegia in plural) may also refer to private non-tertiary schools, such as the Athens College. ### Ireland thumb\\|upright=1.25\\|right\\|Parliament Square, Trinity College Dublin in Ireland In Ireland the term \"college\" is normally used to describe an institution of tertiary education. University students often say they attend \"college\" rather than \"university\". Until 1989, no university provided teaching or research directly; they were formally offered by a constituent college of the university. There are number of secondary education institutions that traditionally used the word \"college\" in their names: these are either older, private schools (such as Belvedere College, Gonzaga College, Castleknock College, and St. Michael\'s College) or what were formerly a particular kind of secondary school. These secondary schools, formerly known as \"technical colleges,\" were renamed \"community colleges,\" but remain secondary schools. The country\'s only ancient university is the University of Dublin. Created during the reign of Elizabeth I, it is modelled on the collegiate universities of Cambridge and Oxford. However, only one constituent college was ever founded, hence the curious position of Trinity College Dublin today; although both are usually considered one and the same, the university and college are completely distinct corporate entities with separate and parallel governing structures. Among more modern foundations, the National University of Ireland, founded in 1908, consisted of constituent colleges and recognised colleges until 1997. The former are now referred to as constituent universities -- institutions that are essentially universities in their own right. The National University can trace its existence back to 1850 and the creation of the Queen\'s University of Ireland and the creation of the Catholic University of Ireland in 1854. From 1880, the degree awarding roles of these two universities was taken over by the Royal University of Ireland, which remained until the creation of the National University in 1908 and Queen\'s University Belfast. The state\'s two new universities, Dublin City University and University of Limerick, were initially National Institute for Higher Education institutions. These institutions offered university level academic degrees and research from the start of their existence and were awarded university status in 1989 in recognition of this. Third level technical education in the state has been carried out in the Institutes of Technology, which were established from the 1970s as Regional Technical Colleges. These institutions have delegated authority which entitles them to give degrees and diplomas from Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) in their own names. A number of private colleges exist such as Dublin Business School, providing undergraduate and postgraduate courses validated by QQI and in some cases by other universities. Other types of college include colleges of education, such as the Church of Ireland College of Education. These are specialist institutions, often linked to a university, which provide both undergraduate and postgraduate academic degrees for people who want to train as teachers. A number of state-funded further education colleges exist -- which offer vocational education and training in a range of areas from business studies and information and communications technology to sports injury therapy. These courses are usually one, two or less often three years in duration and are validated by QQI at Levels 5 or 6, or for the BTEC Higher National Diploma award, which is a Level 6/7 qualification, validated by Edexcel. There are numerous private colleges (particularly in Dublin and Limerick) which offer both further and higher education qualifications. These degrees and diplomas are often certified by foreign universities/international awarding bodies and are aligned to the National Framework of Qualifications at Levels 6, 7 and 8. ### Netherlands In the Netherlands there are 3 main educational routes after high school. - MBO (middle-level applied education), which is the equivalent of junior college. Designed to prepare students for either skilled trades and technical occupations and workers in support roles in professions such as engineering, accountancy, business administration, nursing, medicine, architecture, and criminology or for additional education at another college with more advanced academic material. - HBO (higher professional education), which is the equivalent of college and has a professional orientation. After HBO (typically 4--6 years), pupils can enroll in a (professional) master\'s program (1--2 years) or enter the job market. The HBO is taught in vocational universities (hogescholen), of which there are over 40 in the Netherlands, each of which offers a broad variety of programs, with the exception of some that specialize in arts or agriculture. Note that the hogescholen are not allowed to name themselves university in Dutch. This also stretches to English and therefore HBO institutions are known as universities of applied sciences. - WO (Scientific education), which is the equivalent to university level education and has an academic orientation. HBO graduates can be awarded two titles, which are Baccalaureus (bc.) and Ingenieur (ing.). At a WO institution, many more bachelor\'s and master\'s titles can be awarded. Bachelor\'s degrees: Bachelor of Arts (BA), Bachelor of Science (BSc) and Bachelor of Laws (LLB). Master\'s degrees: Master of Arts (MA), Master of Laws (LLM) and Master of Science (MSc). The PhD title is a research degree awarded upon completion and defense of a doctoral thesis. ### Portugal Presently in Portugal, the term colégio (college) is normally used as a generic reference to a private (non-government) school that provides from basic to secondary education. Many of the private schools include the term colégio in their name. Some special public schools -- usually of the boarding school type -- also include the term in their name, with a notable example being the Colégio Militar (Military College). The term colégio interno (literally \"internal college\") is used specifically as a generic reference to a boarding school. Until the 19th century, a colégio was usually a secondary or pre-university school, of public or religious nature, where the students usually lived together. A model for these colleges was the Royal College of Arts and Humanities, founded in Coimbra by King John III of Portugal in 1542. ### United Kingdom {#united_kingdom} #### Secondary education and further education {#secondary_education_and_further_education} Further education (FE) colleges and sixth form colleges are institutions providing further education to students over 16. Some of these also provide higher education courses (see below). In the context of secondary education, \'college\' is used in the names of some private schools, e.g. Eton College and Winchester College. #### Higher education {#higher_education_1} In higher education, a college is normally a provider that does not hold university status, although it can also refer to a constituent part of a collegiate or federal university or a grouping of academic faculties or departments within a university. Traditionally the distinction between colleges and universities was that colleges did not award degrees while universities did, but this is no longer the case with NCG having gained taught degree awarding powers (the same as some universities) on behalf of its colleges, and many of the colleges of the University of London holding full degree awarding powers and being effectively universities. Most colleges, however, do not hold their own degree awarding powers and continue to offer higher education courses that are validated by universities or other institutions that can award degrees. In England, `{{as of\|2016\|August\|lc=y}}`{=mediawiki}, over 60% of the higher education providers directly funded by HEFCE (208/340) are sixth-form or further education colleges, often termed colleges of further and higher education, along with 17 colleges of the University of London, one university college, 100 universities, and 14 other providers (six of which use \'college\' in their name). Overall, this means over two-thirds of state-supported higher education providers in England are colleges of one form or another. Many private providers are also called colleges, e.g. the New College of the Humanities and St Patrick\'s College, London. Colleges within universities vary immensely in their responsibilities. The large constituent colleges of the University of London are effectively universities in their own right; colleges in some universities, including those of the University of the Arts London and smaller colleges of the University of London, run their own degree courses but do not award degrees; those at the University of Roehampton provide accommodation and pastoral care as well as delivering the teaching on university courses; those at Oxford and Cambridge deliver some teaching on university courses as well as providing accommodation and pastoral care; and those in Durham, Kent, Lancaster and York provide accommodation and pastoral care but do not normally participate in formal teaching. The legal status of these colleges also varies widely, with University of London colleges being independent corporations and recognised bodies, Oxbridge colleges, colleges of the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) and some Durham colleges being independent corporations and listed bodies, most Durham colleges being owned by the university but still listed bodies, and those of other collegiate universities not having formal recognition. When applying for undergraduate courses through UCAS, University of London colleges are treated as independent providers, colleges of Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and UHI are treated as locations within the universities that can be selected by specifying a \'campus code\' in addition to selecting the university, and colleges of other universities are not recognised. The UHI and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) both include further education colleges. However, while the UHI colleges integrate FE and HE provision, UWTSD maintains a separation between the university campuses (Lampeter, Carmarthen and Swansea) and the two colleges (Coleg Sir Gâr and Coleg Ceredigion; n.b. coleg is Welsh for college), which although part of the same group are treated as separate institutions rather than colleges within the university. A university college is an independent institution with the power to award taught degrees, but which has not been granted university status. University College is a protected title that can only be used with permission, although note that University College London, University College, Oxford and University College, Durham are colleges within their respective universities and not university colleges (in the case of UCL holding full degree awarding powers that set it above a university college), while University College Birmingham is a university in its own right and also not a university college. ## Oceania ### Australia In Australia a college may be an institution of tertiary education that is smaller than a university, run independently or as part of a university. Following a reform in the 1980s many of the formerly independent colleges now belong to a larger universities. Referring to parts of a university, there are residential colleges which provide residence for students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, called university colleges. These colleges often provide additional tutorial assistance, and some host theological study. Many colleges have strong traditions and rituals, so are a combination of dormitory style accommodation and fraternity or sorority culture. Most technical and further education institutions (TAFEs), which offer certificate and diploma vocational courses, are styled \"TAFE colleges\" or \"Colleges of TAFE\". In some places, such as Tasmania, college refers to a type of school for Year 10, 11 and 12 students, e.g. Don College. ### New Zealand {#new_zealand} The constituent colleges of the former University of New Zealand (such as Canterbury University College) have become independent universities. Some halls of residence associated with New Zealand universities retain the name of \"college\", particularly at the University of Otago (which although brought under the umbrella of the University of New Zealand, already possessed university status and degree awarding powers). The institutions formerly known as \"Teacher-training colleges\" now style themselves \"College of education\". Some universities, such as the University of Canterbury, have divided their university into constituent administrative \"Colleges\" -- the College of Arts containing departments that teach Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Science containing Science departments, and so on. This is largely modelled on the Cambridge model, discussed above. Like the United Kingdom some professional bodies in New Zealand style themselves as \"colleges\", for example, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. In some parts of the country, secondary school is often referred to as college and the term is used interchangeably with high school. This sometimes confuses people from other parts of New Zealand. But in all parts of the country many secondary schools have \"College\" in their name, such as Rangitoto College, New Zealand\'s largest secondary.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,697	Civil Rights Memorial	The Civil Rights Memorial is an American memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, created by Maya Lin. The names of 41 people are inscribed on the granite fountain as martyrs who were killed in the civil rights movement. The memorial is sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center. ## Design The names included in the memorial belong to those who were killed between 1955 and 1968. The dates chosen represent a time when legalized segregation was prominent. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in schools was unlawful and 1968 is the year of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The monument was created by Maya Lin, who also created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Civil Rights Memorial was dedicated in 1989. The concept of Lin\'s design is based on the soothing and healing effect of water. It was inspired by a passage from King\'s 1963 \"I Have a Dream\" speech \"\...we will not be satisfied \"until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream\...\" The quotation in the passage, which is inscribed on the memorial, is a direct paraphrase of Amos 5:24, as translated in the American Standard Version of the Bible. The memorial is a fountain in the form of an asymmetric inverted stone cone. A film of water flows over the base of the cone, which contains the 41 names included. It is possible to touch the smooth film of water and to alter it temporarily, which quickly returns to smoothness. The memorial is designed in a timeline manner. It begins with Brown v. Board in 1954, and ends with Martin Luther King Jr.\'s assassination in 1968. ## Tours and location {#tours_and_location} The memorial is in downtown Montgomery, at 400 Washington Avenue, in an open plaza in front of the Civil Rights Memorial Center, which was the offices of the Southern Poverty Law Center until it moved across the street into a new building in 2001. The memorial may be visited freely 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Civil Rights Memorial Center offers guided group tours, lasting approximately one hour. Tours are available by appointment, Monday to Saturday. The memorial is only a few blocks from other historic sites, including the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, the Alabama State Capitol, the Alabama Department of Archives and History, the corners where Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks boarded buses in 1955 on which they would later refuse to give up their seats, and the Rosa Parks Library and Museum. ## Names included {#names_included} ### \"Civil Rights Martyrs\" {#civil_rights_martyrs} The 41 names included in the Civil Rights Memorial are those of: - Louis Allen - Willie Brewster - Benjamin Brown - Johnnie Mae Chappell - James Chaney - Addie Mae Collins - Vernon Dahmer - Jonathan Daniels - Henry Hezekiah Dee - Roman Ducksworth Jr. - Willie Edwards - Medgar Evers - Andrew Goodman - Paul Guihard - Samuel Hammond Jr. - Jimmie Lee Jackson - Wharlest Jackson - Martin Luther King Jr. - Bruce W. Klunder - George W. Lee - Herbert Lee - Viola Liuzzo - Denise McNair - Delano Herman Middleton - Charles Eddie Moore - Oneal Moore - William Lewis Moore - Mack Charles Parker - Lemuel Penn - James Reeb - John Earl Reese - Carole Robertson - Michael Schwerner - Henry Ezekial Smith - Lamar Smith - Emmett Till - Clarence Triggs - Virgil Lamar Ware - Cynthia Wesley - Ben Chester White - Sammy Younge Jr. ### \"The Forgotten\" {#the_forgotten} \"The Forgotten\" are 74 people who are identified in a display at the Civil Rights Memorial Center. These names were not inscribed on the Memorial because there was insufficient information about their deaths at the time the Memorial was created. However, it is thought that these people were killed as a result of racially motivated violence between 1952 and 1968. - Andrew Lee Anderson - Frank Andrews - Isadore Banks - Larry Bolden - James Brazier - Thomas Brewer - Hilliard Brooks - Charles Brown - Jessie Brown - Carrie Brumfield - Eli Brumfield - Silas (Ernest) Caston - Clarence Cloninger - Willie Countryman - Vincent Dahmon - Woodrow Wilson Daniels - Joseph Hill Dumas - Pheld Evans - J. E. Evanston - Mattie Greene - Jasper Greenwood - Jimmie Lee Griffith - A. C. Hall - Rogers Hamilton - Collie Hampton - Alphonso Harris - Izell Henry - Arthur James Hill - Ernest Hunter - Luther Jackson - Ernest Jells - Joe Franklin Jeter - Marshall Johnson - John Lee - Willie Henry Lee - Richard Lillard - George Love - Robert McNair - Maybelle Mahone - Sylvester Maxwell - Clinton Melton - James Andrew Miller - Booker T. Mixon - Nehemiah Montgomery - Frank Morris - James Earl Motley - Sam O\'Quinn - Hubert Orsby - Larry Payne - C. H. Pickett - Albert Pitts - David Pitts - Ernest McPharland - Jimmy Powell - William Roy Prather - Johnny Queen - Donald Rasberry - Fred Robinson - Johnny Robinson - Willie Joe Sanford - Marshall Scott Jr. - Jessie James Shelby - W. G. Singleton - Ed Smith - Eddie James Stewart - Isaiah Taylor - Freddie Lee Thomas - Saleam Triggs - Hubert Varner - Clifton Walker - James Waymers - John Wesley Wilder - Rodell Williamson - Archie Wooden	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,704	Comic strip	}} `{{Globalize\|1=article\|2=United States\|date=December 2023}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Comics navbar\|title=Comic strip\|image=Little Nemo 1907-09-29.jpg\|caption=[[Winsor McCay]]'s ''[[Little Nemo]]'' (1905), an American [[Sunday strip\|Sunday comic strip]] featuring a heightened use of perspective, a sequential narrative in panel tiers, and dream-like plots}}`{=mediawiki} A comic strip is a sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics. Most strips are written and drawn by a comics artist, known as a cartoonist. As the word \"comic\" implies, strips are frequently humorous. Examples of these gag-a-day strips are Blondie, Bringing Up Father, Marmaduke, and Pearls Before Swine. In the late 1920s, comic strips expanded from their mirthful origins to feature adventure stories, as seen in Popeye, Captain Easy, Buck Rogers, Tarzan, and Terry and the Pirates. In the 1940s, soap-opera-continuity strips such as Judge Parker and Mary Worth gained popularity. Because \"comic\" strips are not always funny, cartoonist Will Eisner has suggested that sequential art would be a better genre-neutral name. Comic strips have appeared inside American magazines such as Liberty and Boys\' Life, but also on the front covers, such as the Flossy Frills series on The American Weekly Sunday newspaper supplement. In the UK and the rest of Europe, comic strips are also serialized in comic book magazines, with a strip\'s story sometimes continuing over three pages. ## History Storytelling using a sequence of pictures has existed through history. One medieval European example in textile form is the Bayeux Tapestry. Printed examples emerged in 19th-century Germany and in mid 18th-century England, where some of the first satirical or humorous sequential narrative drawings were produced. William Hogarth\'s 18th-century English caricature include both narrative sequences, such as A Rake\'s Progress, and single panels. The Biblia pauperum (\"Paupers\' Bible\"), a tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the Late Middle Ages, sometimes depicted Biblical events with words spoken by the figures in the miniatures written on scrolls coming out of their mouths---which makes them to some extent ancestors of the modern cartoon strips. In China, with its traditions of block printing and of the incorporation of text with image, experiments with what became lianhuanhua date back to 1884. The origin of the modern English language comic strip can be traced to the efflorescence of caricature in late 18th century London. English caricaturists such as Richard Newton and George Woodward developed sophisticated caricature styles using strips of expressive comic figures with captions that could be read left to right to cumulative effect, as well as business models for advertising and selling cheap comic illustration on regular subscription. Other leading British caricaturists produced strips as well; for example James Gillray in Democracy;-or-a Sketch of the Life of Buonaparte. His contemporary Thomas Rowlandson used strips as early as 1784 for example in The Loves of the Fox and the Badger. Rowlandson may also be credited with inventing the first internationally recognized comic strip character: Doctor Syntax whose picaresque journeys through England were told through a series of comic etchings, accompanied by verse. Original published in parts between 1809 and 1811 in Rudolf Ackermann\'s Poetical Magazine, in book form The Tour of Doctor Syntax in search of the picturesque ran to 9 editions between 1812 and 1819, spun off two sequels, a prequel, numerous pirate imitations and copies including French, German, Danish and translations. His image was available on pottery, textiles wallpaper and other merchandise. The Caricature Magazine or Hudibrastic Mirror, an influential English comic series published in London between 1807 and 1819 by Thomas Tegg included some satirical stories in comic strip format such as The Adventures of Johnny Newcome. ## Newspapers The first newspaper comic strips appeared in North America in the late 19th century. The Yellow Kid is usually credited as one of the first newspaper strips . However, the art form combining words and pictures developed gradually and there are many examples which led up to the comic strip. The Glasgow Looking Glass was the first mass-produced publication to tell stories using illustrations and is regarded as the world\'s first comic strip. It satirised the political and social life of Scotland in the 1820s. It was conceived and illustrated by William Heath. Swiss author and caricature artist Rodolphe Töpffer (Geneva, 1799--1846) is considered the father of the modern comic strips. His illustrated stories such as Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois (1827), first published in the US in 1842 as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck or Histoire de Monsieur Jabot (1831), inspired subsequent generations of German and American comic artists. In 1865, German painter, author, and caricaturist Wilhelm Busch created the strip Max and Moritz, about two trouble-making boys, which had a direct influence on the American comic strip. Max and Moritz was a series of seven severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children\'s stories such as Struwwelpeter (\"Shockheaded Peter\"). In the story\'s final act, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill, and consumed by a flock of geese (without anybody mourning their demise). Max and Moritz provided an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks, who created the Katzenjammer Kids in 1897---a strip starring two German-American boys visually modelled on Max and Moritz. Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, sawing logs for snoring, speech balloons, and thought balloons originated in Dirks\' strip. Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids occasioned one of the first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left William Randolph Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Joseph Pulitzer, it was an unusual move, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst. In a highly unusual court decision, Hearst retained the rights to the name \"Katzenjammer Kids\", while creator Dirks retained the rights to the characters. Hearst promptly hired Harold Knerr to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version Hans and Fritz (later, The Captain and the Kids). Thus, two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks\' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate, ran until 1979. In the United States, the great popularity of comics sprang from the newspaper war (1887 onwards) between Pulitzer and Hearst. The Little Bears (1893--96) was the first American comic strip with recurring characters, while the first color comic supplement was published by the Chicago Inter-Ocean sometime in the latter half of 1892, followed by the New York Journal{{\'}}s first color Sunday comic pages in 1897. On January 31, 1912, Hearst introduced the nation\'s first full daily comic page in his New York Evening Journal. The history of this newspaper rivalry and the rapid appearance of comic strips in most major American newspapers is discussed by Ian Gordon. Numerous events in newspaper comic strips have reverberated throughout society at large, though few of these events occurred in recent years, owing mainly to the declining use of continuous storylines on newspaper comic strips, which since the 1970s had been waning as an entertainment form. From 1903 to 1905 Gustave Verbeek, wrote his comic series \"The UpsideDowns of Old Man Muffaroo and Little Lady Lovekins\". These comics were made in such a way that one could read the 6 panel comic, flip the book and keep reading. He made 64 such comics in total. The longest-running American comic strips are: 1. The Katzenjammer Kids (1897--2006; 109 years) 2. Gasoline Alley (1918--present) 3. Ripley\'s Believe It or Not! (1918--present) 4. Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (1919--present) 5. Thimble Theater/Popeye (1919--present) 6. Blondie (1930--present) 7. Dick Tracy (1931--present) 8. Alley Oop (1932--present) 9. Bringing Up Father (1913--2000; 87 years) 10. Little Orphan Annie (1924--2010; 86 years) Most newspaper comic strips are syndicated; a syndicate hires people to write and draw a strip and then distributes it to many newspapers for a fee. Some newspaper strips begin or remain exclusive to one newspaper. For example, the Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly originally appeared only in the New York Star in 1948 and was not picked up for syndication until the following year. Newspaper comic strips come in two different types: daily strips and Sunday strips. In the United States, a daily strip appears in newspapers on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays. Daily strips usually are printed in black and white, and Sunday strips are usually in color. However, a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers have published Sunday strips in black and white. ## Popularity Making his first appearance in the British magazine Judy by writer and fledgling artist Charles H. Ross in 1867, Ally Sloper is one of the earliest comic strip characters and he is regarded as the first recurring character in comics. The highly popular character was spun off into his own comic, Ally Sloper\'s Half Holiday, in 1884. While in the early 20th century comic strips were a frequent target for detractors of \"yellow journalism\", by the 1920s the medium became wildly popular. While radio, and later, television surpassed newspapers as a means of entertainment, most comic strip characters were widely recognizable until the 1980s, and the \"funny pages\" were often arranged in a way they appeared at the front of Sunday editions. In 1931, George Gallup\'s first poll had the comic section as the most important part of the newspaper, with additional surveys pointing out that the comic strips were the second most popular feature after the picture page. During the 1930s, many comic sections had between 12 and 16 pages, although in some cases, these had up to 24 pages. The popularity and accessibility of strips meant they were often clipped and saved; authors including John Updike and Ray Bradbury have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Often posted on bulletin boards, clipped strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were faxed, photocopied or mailed. The Baltimore Sun{{\'}}s Linda White recalled, \"I followed the adventures of Winnie Winkle, Moon Mullins and Dondi, and waited each fall to see how Lucy would manage to trick Charlie Brown into trying to kick that football. (After I left for college, my father would clip out that strip each year and send it to me just to make sure I didn\'t miss it.)\" ## Production and format {#production_and_format} The two conventional formats for newspaper comics are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. A horizontal strip can also be used for a single panel with a single gag, as seen occasionally in Mike Peters\' Mother Goose and Grimm. Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches high. Initially, a newspaper page included only a single daily strip, usually either at the top or the bottom of the page. By the 1920s, many newspapers had a comics page on which many strips were collected together. During the 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high. Over decades, the daily strips became smaller and smaller, until by 2000, four standard daily strips could fit in an area once occupied by a single daily strip. As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced. Proof sheets were the means by which syndicates provided newspapers with black-and-white line art for the reproduction of strips (which they arranged to have colored in the case of Sunday strips). Michigan State University Comic Art Collection librarian Randy Scott describes these as \"large sheets of paper on which newspaper comics have traditionally been distributed to subscribing newspapers. Typically each sheet will have either six daily strips of a given title or one Sunday strip. Thus, a week of Beetle Bailey would arrive at the Lansing State Journal in two sheets, printed much larger than the final version and ready to be cut apart and fitted into the local comics page.\" Comic strip historian Allan Holtz described how strips were provided as mats (the plastic or cardboard trays in which molten metal is poured to make plates) or even plates ready to be put directly on the printing press. He also notes that with electronic means of distribution becoming more prevalent printed sheets \"are definitely on their way out.\" NEA Syndicate experimented briefly with a two-tier daily strip, Star Hawks, but after a few years, Star Hawks dropped down to a single tier. In Flanders, the two-tier strip is the standard publication style of most daily strips like Spike and Suzy and Nero. They appear Monday through Saturday; until 2003 there were no Sunday papers in Flanders. In the last decades, they have switched from black and white to color. ### Cartoon panels {#cartoon_panels} right\\|thumb\\|upright=1.6\\|Jimmy Hatlo\'s They\'ll Do It Every Time was often drawn in the two-panel format as seen in this 1943 example. Single panels usually, but not always, are not broken up and lack continuity. The daily Peanuts is a strip, and the daily Dennis the Menace is a single panel. J. R. Williams\' long-run Out Our Way continued as a daily panel even after it expanded into a Sunday strip, Out Our Way with the Willets. Jimmy Hatlo\'s They\'ll Do It Every Time was often displayed in a two-panel format with the first panel showing some deceptive, pretentious, unwitting or scheming human behavior and the second panel revealing the truth of the situation. ## Sunday comics {#sunday_comics} right\\|thumb\\|upright=1.85\\|Gene Ahern\'s The Squirrel Cage (January 3, 1937), an example of a topper strip which is better remembered than the strip it accompanied, Ahern\'s Room and Board. right\\|thumb\\|upright=1.5\\|Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells\' New Adventures of Flossy Frills (January 26, 1941), an example of comic strips on Sunday magazines. Sunday newspapers traditionally included a special color section. Early Sunday strips (known colloquially as \"the funny pages/papers\", shortened to \"the funnies\"), such as Thimble Theatre and Little Orphan Annie, filled an entire newspaper page, a format known to collectors as full page. Sunday pages during the 1930s and into the 1940s often carried a secondary strip by the same artist as the main strip. No matter whether it appeared above or below a main strip, the extra strip was known as the topper, such as The Squirrel Cage which ran along with Room and Board, both drawn by Gene Ahern. During the 1930s, the original art for a Sunday strip was usually drawn quite large. For example, in 1930, Russ Westover drew his Tillie the Toiler Sunday page at a size of 17\" × 37\". In 1937, the cartoonist Dudley Fisher launched the innovative Right Around Home, drawn as a huge single panel filling an entire Sunday page. Full-page strips were eventually replaced by strips half that size. Strips such as The Phantom and Terry and the Pirates began appearing in a format of two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the New Orleans Times Picayune, or with one strip on a tabloid page, as in the Chicago Sun-Times. When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to allow for rearranged, cropped or dropped panels. During World War II, because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller because of increased paper and printing costs. The last full-page comic strip was the Prince Valiant strip for 11 April 1971. Comic strips have also been published in Sunday newspaper magazines. Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells\' New Adventures of Flossy Frills was a continuing strip series seen on Sunday magazine covers. Beginning January 26, 1941, it ran on the front covers of Hearst\'s American Weekly newspaper magazine supplement, continuing until March 30 of that year. Between 1939 and 1943, four different stories featuring Flossy appeared on American Weekly covers. Sunday comics sections employed offset color printing with multiple print runs imitating a wide range of colors. Printing plates were created with four or more colors---traditionally, the CMYK color model: cyan, magenta, yellow and \"K\" for black. With a screen of tiny dots on each printing plate, the dots allowed an image to be printed in a halftone that appears to the eye in different gradations. The semi-opaque property of ink allows halftone dots of different colors to create an optical effect of full-color imagery. ## Underground comic strips {#underground_comic_strips} The decade of the 1960s saw the rise of underground newspapers, which often carried comic strips, such as Fritz the Cat and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Zippy the Pinhead initially appeared in underground publications in the 1970s before being syndicated. Bloom County and Doonesbury began as strips in college newspapers under different titles, and later moved to national syndication. Underground comic strips covered subjects that are usually taboo in newspaper strips, such as sex and drugs. Many underground artists, notably Vaughn Bode, Dan O\'Neill, Gilbert Shelton, and Art Spiegelman went on to draw comic strips for magazines such as Playboy, National Lampoon, and Pete Millar\'s CARtoons. Jay Lynch graduated from undergrounds to alternative weekly newspapers to Mad and children\'s books. ## Webcomics Webcomics, also known as online comics and internet comics, are comics that are available to read on the Internet. Many are exclusively published online, but the majority of traditional newspaper comic strips have some Internet presence. King Features Syndicate and other syndicates often provide archives of recent strips on their websites. Some, such as Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, include an email address in each strip. ## Conventions and genres {#conventions_and_genres} Most comic strip characters do not age throughout the strip\'s life, but in some strips, like Lynn Johnston\'s award-winning For Better or For Worse, the characters age as the years pass. The first strip to feature aging characters was Gasoline Alley. The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include The Phantom, Prince Valiant, Dick Tracy, Mary Worth, Modesty Blaise, Little Orphan Annie, Flash Gordon, and Tarzan. Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books, for example Superman, Batman, and The Amazing Spider-Man. A number of strips have featured animals as main characters. Some are non-verbal (Marmaduke, The Angriest Dog in the World), some have verbal thoughts but are not understood by humans, (Garfield, Snoopy in Peanuts), and some can converse with humans (Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, Mutts, Citizen Dog, Buckles, Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, and Pooch Cafe). Other strips are centered entirely on animals, as in Pogo and Donald Duck. Gary Larson\'s The Far Side was unusual, as there were no central characters. Instead The Far Side used a wide variety of characters including humans, monsters, aliens, chickens, cows, worms, amoebas, and more. John McPherson\'s Close to Home also uses this theme, though the characters are mostly restricted to humans and real-life situations. Wiley Miller not only mixes human, animal, and fantasy characters, but also does several different comic strip continuities under one umbrella title, Non Sequitur. Bob Thaves\'s Frank & Ernest began in 1972 and paved the way for some of these strips, as its human characters were manifest in diverse forms---as animals, vegetables, and minerals. ## Social and political influence {#social_and_political_influence} The comics have long held a distorted mirror to contemporary society, and almost from the beginning have been used for political or social commentary. This ranged from the conservative slant of Harold Gray\'s Little Orphan Annie to the unabashed liberalism of Garry Trudeau\'s Doonesbury. Al Capp\'s Li\'l Abner espoused liberal opinions for most of its run, but by the late 1960s, it became a mouthpiece for Capp\'s repudiation of the counterculture of the 1960s. Pogo used animals to particularly devastating effect, caricaturing many prominent politicians of the day as animal denizens of Pogo\'s Okeefenokee Swamp. In a fearless move, Pogo\'s creator Walt Kelly took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, caricaturing him as a bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a megalomaniac who was bent on taking over the characters\' birdwatching club and rooting out all undesirables. Kelly also defended the medium against possible government regulation in the McCarthy era. At a time when comic books were coming under fire for supposed sexual, violent, and subversive content, Kelly feared the same would happen to comic strips. Going before the Congressional subcommittee, he proceeded to charm the members with his drawings and the force of his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire. During the early 20th century, comic strips were widely associated with publisher William Randolph Hearst, whose papers had the largest circulation of strips in the United States. Hearst was notorious for his practice of yellow journalism, and he was frowned on by readers of The New York Times and other newspapers which featured few or no comic strips. Hearst\'s critics often assumed that all the strips in his papers were fronts for his own political and social views. Hearst did occasionally work with or pitch ideas to cartoonists, most notably his continued support of George Herriman\'s Krazy Kat. An inspiration for Bill Watterson and other cartoonists, Krazy Kat gained a considerable following among intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s. Some comic strips, such as Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore, may be printed on the editorial or op-ed page rather than the comics page because of their regular political commentary. For example, the August 12, 1974 Doonesbury strip was awarded a 1975 Pulitzer Prize for its depiction of the Watergate scandal. Dilbert is sometimes found in the business section of a newspaper instead of the comics page because of the strip\'s commentary about office politics, and Tank McNamara often appears on the sports page because of its subject matter. Lynn Johnston\'s For Better or For Worse created an uproar when Lawrence, one of the strip\'s supporting characters, came out of the closet. ## Publicity and recognition {#publicity_and_recognition} The world\'s longest comic strip is 88.9 m long and on display at Trafalgar Square as part of the London Comedy Festival. The London Cartoon Strip was created by 15 of Britain\'s best known cartoonists and depicts the history of London. The Reuben, named for cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is the most prestigious award for U.S. comic strip artists. Reuben awards are presented annually by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS). In 1995, the United States Postal Service issued a series of commemorative stamps, Comic Strip Classics, marking the comic-strip centennial. Today\'s strip artists, with the help of the NCS, enthusiastically promote the medium, which since the 1970s (and particularly the 1990s) has been considered to be in decline due to numerous factors such as changing tastes in humor and entertainment, the waning relevance of newspapers in general and the loss of most foreign markets outside English-speaking countries. One particularly humorous example of such promotional efforts is the Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie, held in 1997 on April Fool\'s Day, an event in which dozens of prominent artists took over each other\'s strips. Garfield{{\'}}s Jim Davis, for example, switched with Blondie{{\'}}s Stan Drake, while Scott Adams (Dilbert) traded strips with Bil Keane (The Family Circus). While the 1997 Switcheroonie was a one-time publicity stunt, an artist taking over a feature from its originator is an old tradition in newspaper cartooning (as it is in the comic book industry). In fact, the practice has made possible the longevity of the genre\'s more popular strips. Examples include Little Orphan Annie (drawn and plotted by Harold Gray from 1924 to 1944 and thereafter by a succession of artists including Leonard Starr and Andrew Pepoy), and Terry and the Pirates, started by Milton Caniff in 1934 and picked up by George Wunder. A business-driven variation has sometimes led to the same feature continuing under a different name. In one case, in the early 1940s, Don Flowers\' Modest Maidens was so admired by William Randolph Hearst that he lured Flowers away from the Associated Press and to King Features Syndicate by doubling the cartoonist\'s salary, and renamed the feature Glamor Girls to avoid legal action by the AP. The latter continued to publish Modest Maidens, drawn by Jay Allen in Flowers\' style. ## Issues in U.S. newspaper comic strips {#issues_in_u.s._newspaper_comic_strips} As newspapers have declined, the changes have affected comic strips. Jeff Reece, lifestyle editor of The Florida Times-Union, wrote, \"Comics are sort of the \'third rail\' of the newspaper.\" ### Size In the early decades of the 20th century, all Sunday comics received a full page, and daily strips were generally the width of the page. The competition between papers for having more cartoons than the rest from the mid-1920s, the growth of large-scale newspaper advertising during most of the thirties, paper rationing during World War II, the decline on news readership (as television newscasts began to be more common) and inflation (which has caused higher printing costs) beginning during the fifties and sixties led to Sunday strips being published on smaller and more diverse formats. As newspapers have reduced the page count of Sunday comic sections since the late 1990s (by the 2010s, most sections have only four pages, with the back page not always being destined for comics) has also led to further downsizes. Daily strips have suffered as well. Before the mid-1910s, there was not a \"standard\" size\", with strips running the entire width of a page or having more than one tier. By the 1920s, strips often covered six of the eight columns occupied by a traditional broadsheet paper. During the 1940s, strips were reduced to four columns wide (with a \"transition\" width of five columns). As newspapers became narrower beginning in the 1970s, strips have gotten even smaller, often being just three columns wide, a similar width to the one most daily panels occupied before the 1940s. In an issue related to size limitations, Sunday comics are often bound to rigid formats that allow their panels to be rearranged in several different ways while remaining readable. Such formats usually include throwaway panels at the beginning, which some newspapers will omit for space. As a result, cartoonists have less incentive to put great efforts into these panels. Garfield and Mutts were known during the mid-to-late 80s and 1990s respectively for their throwaways on their Sunday strips, however both strips now run \"generic\" title panels. Some cartoonists have complained about this, with Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo, openly voicing his discontent about being forced to draw his Sunday strips in such rigid formats from the beginning. Kelly\'s heirs opted to end the strip in 1975 as a form of protest against the practice. Since then, Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson has written extensively on the issue, arguing that size reduction and dropped panels reduce both the potential and freedom of a cartoonist. After a lengthy battle with his syndicate, Watterson won the privilege of making half page-sized Sunday strips where he could arrange the panels any way he liked. Many newspaper publishers and a few cartoonists objected to this, and some papers continued to print Calvin and Hobbes at small sizes. Opus won that same privilege years after Calvin and Hobbes ended, while Wiley Miller circumvented further downsizes by making his Non Sequitur Sunday strip available only in a vertical arrangement. Most strips created since 1990, however, are drawn in the unbroken \"third-page\" format. Few newspapers still run half-page strips, as with Prince Valiant and Hägar the Horrible in the front page of the Reading Eagle Sunday comics section until the mid-2010s. ### Format With the success of The Gumps during the 1920s, it became commonplace for strips (comedy- and adventure-laden alike) to have lengthy stories spanning weeks or months. The \"Monarch of Medioka\" story in Floyd Gottfredson\'s Mickey Mouse comic strip ran from September 8, 1937, to May 2, 1938. Between the 1960s and the late 1980s, as television news relegated newspaper reading to an occasional basis rather than daily, syndicators were abandoning long stories and urging cartoonists to switch to simple daily gags, or week-long \"storylines\" (with six consecutive (mostly unrelated) strips following a same subject), with longer storylines being used mainly on adventure-based and dramatic strips. Strips begun during the mid-1980s or after (such as Get Fuzzy, Over the Hedge, Monty, and others) are known for their heavy use of storylines, lasting between one and three weeks in most cases. The writing style of comic strips changed as well after World War II. With an increase in the number of college-educated readers, there was a shift away from slapstick comedy and towards more cerebral humor. Slapstick and visual gags became more confined to Sunday strips, because as Garfield creator Jim Davis put it, \"Children are more likely to read Sunday strips than dailies.\" ### Second author {#second_author} Many older strips are no longer drawn by the original cartoonist, who has either died or retired. Such strips are known as \"zombie strips\". A cartoonist, paid by the syndicate or sometimes a relative of the original cartoonist, continues writing the strip, a tradition that became commonplace in the early half of the 20th century. Hägar the Horrible and Frank and Ernest are both drawn by the sons of the creators. Some strips which are still in affiliation with the original creator are produced by small teams or entire companies, such as Jim Davis\' Garfield, however there is some debate if these strips fall in this category. This act is commonly criticized by modern cartoonists including Watterson and Pearls Before Swine\'s Stephan Pastis. The issue was addressed in six consecutive Pearls strips in 2005. Charles Schulz, of Peanuts fame, requested that his strip not be continued by another cartoonist after his death. He also rejected the idea of hiring an inker or letterer, comparing it to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts. Schulz\'s family has honored his wishes and refused numerous proposals by syndicators to continue Peanuts with a new author. #### Assistants Since the consolidation of newspaper comics by the first quarter of the 20th century, most cartoonists have used a group of assistants (with usually one of them credited). However, quite a few cartoonists (e.g.: George Herriman and Charles Schulz, among others) have done their strips almost completely by themselves; often criticizing the use of assistants for the same reasons most have about their editors hiring anyone else to continue their work after their retirement. ### Rights to the strips {#rights_to_the_strips} Historically, syndicates owned the creators\' work, enabling them to continue publishing the strip after the original creator retired, left the strip, or died. This practice led to the term \"legacy strips\", or more pejoratively \"zombie strips\". Most syndicates signed creators to 10- or even 20-year contracts. (There have been exceptions, however, such as Bud Fisher\'s Mutt and Jeff being an early---if not the earliest---case in which the creator retained ownership of his work.) Both these practices began to change with the 1970 debut of Universal Press Syndicate, as the company gave cartoonists a 50-percent ownership share of their work. Creators Syndicate, founded in 1987, granted artists full rights to the strips, something that Universal Press did in 1990, followed by King Features in 1995. By 1999 both Tribune Media Services and United Feature had begun granting ownership rights to creators (limited to new and/or hugely popular strips). ### Censorship Starting in the late 1940s, the national syndicates which distributed newspaper comic strips subjected them to very strict censorship. Li\'l Abner was censored in September 1947 and was pulled from the Pittsburgh Press by Scripps-Howard. The controversy, as reported in Time, centered on Capp\'s portrayal of the U.S. Senate. Said Edward Leech of Scripps, \"We don\'t think it is good editing or sound citizenship to picture the Senate as an assemblage of freaks and crooks\... boobs and undesirables.\" As comics are easier for children to access compared to other types of media, they have a significantly more rigid censorship code than other media. Stephan Pastis has lamented that the \"unwritten\" censorship code is still \"stuck somewhere in the 1950s\". Generally, comics are not allowed to include such words as \"damn\", \"sucks\", \"screwed\", and \"hell\", although there have been exceptions such as the September 22, 2010 Mother Goose and Grimm in which an elderly man says, \"This nursing home food sucks,\" and a pair of Pearls Before Swine comics from January 11, 2011, with a character named Ned using the word \"crappy\". Naked backsides and shooting guns cannot be shown, according to Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams. Such comic strip taboos were detailed in Dave Breger\'s book But That\'s Unprintable (Bantam, 1955). Many issues such as sex, narcotics, and terrorism cannot or can very rarely be openly discussed in strips, although there are exceptions, usually for satire, as in Bloom County. This led some cartoonists to resort to double entendre or dialogue children do not understand, as in Greg Evans\' Luann. Another example of wordplay to get around censorship is a July 27, 2016 Pearls Before Swine strip that features Pig talking to his sister, and says the phrase \"I SIS!\" repeatedly after correcting his sister\'s grammar. The strip then cuts to a scene of a NSA wiretap agent, following a scene of Pig being arrested by the FBI saying \"Never correct your sister\'s grammar\", implying that the CIA mistook the phrase \"I SIS\" with \"ISIS\". Younger cartoonists have claimed commonplace words, images, and issues should be allowed in the comics, considering that the pressure on \"clean\" humor has been a chief factor for the declining popularity of comic strips since the 1990s (Aaron McGruder, creator of The Boondocks, decided to end his strip partly because of censorship issues, while the Popeye daily comic strip ended in 1994 after newspapers objected to a storyline they considered to be a satire on abortion). Some of the taboo words and topics are mentioned daily on television and other forms of visual media. Webcomics and comics distributed primarily to college newspapers are much freer in this respect.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,706	Çevik Bir	Çevik Bir (born 1939) is a Turkish retired army general. He was a member of the Turkish General Staff in the 1990s. He took a major part in several important international missions in the Middle East and North Africa. He was born in Buca, İzmir Province, in 1939 and is married with one child. He graduated from the Turkish Military Academy as an engineer officer in 1958, from the Army Staff College in 1970 and from the Armed Forces College in 1971. He graduated from NATO Defense College, Rome, Italy in 1973. From 1983 to 1985, he served at SHAPE, NATO\'s headquarters in Belgium. He was promoted to brigadier general and commanded an armed brigade and division in Turkey. From 1987 to 1991, he served as major general, and then was promoted to lieutenant general. After the dictator Siad Barre's ousting, conflicts between the General Mohammed Farah Aidid party and other clans in Somalia had led to famine and lawlessness throughout the country. An estimated 300,000 people had died from starvation. A combined military force of United States and United Nations (under the name \"UNOSOM\") were deployed to Mogadishu, to monitor the ceasefire and deliver food and supplies to the starving people of Somali. Çevik Bir, who was then a lieutenant-general of Turkey, became the force commander of UNOSOM II in April 1993. Despite the retreat of US and UN forces after several deaths due to local hostilities mainly led by Aidid, the introduction of a powerful military force opened the transportation routes, enabling the provision of supplies and ended the famine quickly. He was succeeded as Force Commander by a Malaysian general in January 1994. He became a four-star general and served three years as vice chairman of the Turkish Armed Forces, then appointed commander of the Turkish First Army, in Istanbul. While he was vice chairman of the TAF, he signed the Turkish-Israeli Military Coordination agreement in 1996. Çevik Bir became the Turkish army\'s deputy chief of general staff shortly after the Somali operation and played a vital role in establishing a Turkish-Israeli entente. He retired from the army on 30 August 1999. He is a former member of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). On 12 April 2012, Bir and 30 other officers were taken in custody for their role in the 1997 military memorandum that forced the then Turkish government, led by the Refah Partisi (Welfare Party), to step down. On 11 September 2021, the General Staff Personnel Presidency reported to the Ankara 5th High Criminal Court, where the case was heard, that the administrative action was taken to demolish the 13 retired generals convicted in the February 28 trial. Thus, Çevik Bir was demoted. Çevik Bir, one of the generals who planned the process, said \"In Turkey we have a marriage of Islam and democracy. (...) The child of this marriage is secularism. Now this child gets sick from time to time. The Turkish Armed Forces is the doctor which saves the child. Depending on how sick the kid is, we administer the necessary medicine to make sure the child recuperates\". ## Distinctions - United Nations Medal (1994) - US Medal of Merit (1994) - Turkish Armed Forces Medal of Distinguished Service (1995) - German Medal of Honor (1996) - Turkish Armed Forces Medal of Merit (1996) - United Kingdom Distinguished Achievement Medal (1997) - United Kingdom Distinguished Service Medal (1997) - Jordanian Medal of Istihkak (1998) - French Medal of Merit (1999)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,714	Cornish Nationalist Party	The Cornish Nationalist Party (CNP; An Parti Kenethlegek Kernow) is a political party founded in 1975. It initially campaigned for independence for Cornwall but later supported devolved powers under central UK control. The CNP should not be confused other Cornish nationalist parties, including Mebyon Kernow (MK) from which the CNP split in 1975, or the similarly named Cornish National Party, which split from MK in 1969. ## History The party was formed on 28 May 1975 by people who left Mebyon Kernow, Cornwall\'s main nationalist party, and was first led by James Whetter. The split with Mebyon Kernow was based on two main debates. First was whether to be a centre-left party, appealing to the electorate on a social democratic line, or whether to appeal emotionally on a centre-right cultural line. At the time, the same debate was occurring in most political parties campaigning for autonomy from the United Kingdom, including the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. Second was whether to embrace devolution as a first step to full independence (or as the sole step if this was what the electorate wished) or for independence to be \"all or nothing\". The CNP represented a more right-wing outlook based on the belief that cultural arguments were more likely to win votes than economic`{{specify\|date=August 2024}}`{=mediawiki} ones. The CNP worked to preserve the Celtic identity of Cornwall, and encouraged links with Cornish people overseas and with other regions with distinct identities. It also gave support to the Cornish language and commemorated Thomas Flamank, a leader of the Cornish Rebellion in 1497, at an annual ceremony at Bodmin on 27 June each year. It also worked to improve Cornwall\'s economy.`{{clarify\|date=August 2024}}`{=mediawiki} Since the death of founder James Whetter in 2018, the CNP has been led by Androw Hawke. ### Electoral and campaign activity {#electoral_and_campaign_activity} Throughout its history, the CNP has been sporadically registered with the Electoral Commission, fielding candidates for some elections but not others. When not participating in elections it has often continued to act as a campaign group or pressure group, although its visibility and influence within Cornwall is negligible. It stood for national elections twice, in 1979 and 1983. In April 2009, a news story reported that the party had re-formed following a conference in Bodmin; however, it did not contest any elections that year. A newspaper article and a revamp of the party website in October 2014 state that the party planned to contest elections once more. The reformed party was registered with the Electoral Commission in 2014, but ceased to be registered in 2017. ### Indian office {#indian_office} In 1983 the party opened an office in India. The Indian office was established by Gagan Narayan Dua and published a periodical entitled Cornish India. ### Publications Whetter was the founder and editor of the CNP quarterly journal,`{{verify source\|date=August 2024}}`{=mediawiki} The Cornish Banner (An Baner Kernewek), within the actions of the Roseland Institute. ## Elections and results {#elections_and_results} Year Election Constituency Candidate Votes \% Ref ------ ------------------------------ ----------------------- --------------- ------- ------ ----- 1979 UK general election Truro James Whetter 227 0.4 1983 UK general election North Cornwall James Whetter 364 0.67 1984 European Parliament election Cornwall and Plymouth James Whetter 1892 1.0 At the 1984 European Parliament election, the CNP was affiliated to the now defunct European Federalist Party (1974-1995). The CNP had one parish councillor, leader Androw Hawke who was elected to Polperro Community Council for the second time on 4 May 2017.`{{failed verification\|date=August 2024}}`{=mediawiki} ## Policy ### Original policies {#original_policies} The Policy Statement of the CNP was published in 1975. The 1977 Programme of the Cornish Nationalist Party was laid out under multiple key points. World and continental government : The party promotes international federalism in which power is decentaralised \"to the true, natural identities and units\" to free Celtic nations from their \"imperialist overlords\". It will work to achieve autonomy for Cornwall to the degree \"necessary for her total fulfilment as a Celtic nation. It believes \"internationalism is based on strong nationalisms.\" Celtic confederation : The party will work to establish a confederation of the six Celtic countries with shared institutions, within a united Europe. The Cornish state : A Cornish state should have sovereign authority inside its traditional border and over its surrounding sea. Its national flag will be the flag of Saint Piran. The Isles of Scilly may have a referendum to decide on membership. Devolved powers may be an acceptable step towards this ultimate goal. Democratic government : Power within the Cornish state should also be decentralised to smaller units and these should be based on traditional hundred, parish and town boundaries. Legal system : Transition from the English legal system to \"Celtic Confederation Courts\", European courts, and UN courts. New court procedures will introduce the verdict \'not proven\' as in Scotland and treat crime against persons as more serious than property crime. Punishment will focus on rehabilitation. Language : Cornish will be the official language, the language of government, and eventually of education, via a process modelled on the revival of the Hebrew language in Israel. Mass communication : The Cornish state will have a free press. Publications and programming promoting Cornish and Celtic culture will be supported by the state. Aid will be given to the promotion of the party\'s Cornish Banner periodical. Social organisation and welfare : The party supports continuing welfare for the old, sick and young. For others it will \"encourage self-reliance and self-sufficiency\" instead of \"hand-outs\". Men and women will be equal but \"encouraged in their loyalties to old-established and traditional nuclear families\" as well as to local communities and to Cornwall. Housing : The party would end second homes and build housing to be bought affordably. Economy : Property rights will be respected and registered in the Cornish state. The economy will be based on a mixture of capitalist and socialist systems. Small businesses will be encouraged, while new industry will emerge \"naturally\" from \"market conditions\". English \"class antagnoism\" will be avoided in larger businesses via profit sharing and worker representation on boards. Farming will be encouraged and fishermen will have sole rights to seas within 50 miles. Cooperatives and unions will be formed. The state has rights to all natural resources in its territory, and extraction companies will pay a proportion of their value to the state. Tourism will be controlled in volume, given better amenities, and refocused on Cornish culture. Transport and communication : Improvements will avoid widening roads and removing hedgerows. Energy : The Cornish state will use existing resources and develop new ones, prioritising natural sources. Environment and ecology : The environment is unique and should be protected via education. People should be encouraged to build new buildings in a traditional Celtic style. Planning control will be minimal to ensure freedom. Sport : Cornish sports and sports that the Cornish are good at will be encouraged in schools and at the national or Celtic level. Culture and recreation : Traditional festivals, dances, literature and folklore will be promoted. Religion : Education should focus on Christianity and ancient Celtic religion. People should have freedom of religion. Youth : The party will develop a Cornish Youth Movement based on the Welsh Urdd Gobaith Cymru. Defence : The Cornish state will have a \"home defence force, linked to local communities and civil units of administration\". It will have no offence force but will contribute to Celtic, European and UN forces. Water rights will be protected by fishery protection vessels and gun boats. Rights may be leased to England for naval use. Foreign policy and ambassadorial recognition : The Cornish state will support international co-operation and justice as well as Celtic unity. Ambassadorial recognition of all but the most closely-linked stated will happen at the Celtic level. ### Other policies {#other_policies} Other policies have included:`{{when\|date=August 2023}}`{=mediawiki} - Better job prospects for Cornish people. - Reduction of unemployment to an acceptable level (2.5%). - The protection of the self-employed and small businesses in Cornwall. - Cheaper housing and priority for Cornish people. - The Cornish state will have control over the number and nature of immigrants. - The establishment of a Cornish economic department to aid the basic industries of farming, fishing, china clay and mining and secondary industries developing from these. - Improved transport facilities in Cornwall with greater scope for private enterprise to operate. - Existing medical and welfare services for Cornish people will be developed and improved. - Protection of Cornish natural resources, including offshore resources. - Courses on Cornish language and history should be made available in schools for those who want them. - The rule of law will be upheld by the Cornish state and the judiciary will be separate from the legislative and executive functions of the state. More recent policies include:`{{when\|date=August 2023}}`{=mediawiki} - A far greater say in government for Cornish people (by referendums if necessary) and the decentralisation of considerable powers to a Cornish nation within a united Europe - special links being established with our Celtic brothers and sisters in Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Wales and Brittany. - Calling for more legislative powers to be given to Cornwall Council. The authority should effectively become the Cornish government, with town and parish councils acting as local government. - Cornwall council should have a reduction in councillors, with standardisation of electoral areas and constituencies in throughout Cornwall. - The Westminster government should appoint a Minister for Cornwall and confirm there will be no further plans to have any parliamentary constituency covering part of Cornwall and Devon. - John Le Bretton, vice-chairman of the party, stated: \"The CNP supports the retention of Cornwall Council as a Cornwall-wide authority running Cornish affairs and we call for the British government in Westminster to devolve powers to the council so that decisions affecting Cornwall can be made in Cornwall\". ## Image The CNP has had image problems, having been seen as similarly styled to nativist and far-right parties, the British National Party (BNP) and National Front (NF). During the 1970s, the party magazine The Cornish Banner / An Baner Kernewek published letters sympathetic to the NF and critical of \"Zionist\" politicians. In around 1976, CNP formed a controversial uniformed wing, for which it received criticism from members of the Celtic League and MK. The group, known as the \"Greenshirts\", was led by the CNP Youth Movement leader and public relations officer Wallace Simmons. Simmons also founded the Cornish Front, which supported the NF. A notable political difference is that CNP and Cornish Front were sympathetic to Irish republicanism while the NF was largely supportive of Ulster loyalism, though there were exceptions within the NF, including former leading figure Patrick Harrington who is of Irish Catholic heritage.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,715	Cryptanalysis	thumb\\|upright=1.5\\|Reconstruction of the appearance of cyclometer, a device used to break the encryption of an early version of the Enigma machine. Based on sketches in Marian Rejewski\'s memoirs. Cryptanalysis (from the Greek kryptós, \"hidden\", and analýein, \"to analyze\") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic security systems and gain access to the contents of encrypted messages, even if the cryptographic key is unknown. In addition to mathematical analysis of cryptographic algorithms, cryptanalysis includes the study of side-channel attacks that do not target weaknesses in the cryptographic algorithms themselves, but instead exploit weaknesses in their implementation. Even though the goal has been the same, the methods and techniques of cryptanalysis have changed drastically through the history of cryptography, adapting to increasing cryptographic complexity, ranging from the pen-and-paper methods of the past, through machines like the British Bombes and Colossus computers at Bletchley Park in World War II, to the mathematically advanced computerized schemes of the present. Methods for breaking modern cryptosystems often involve solving carefully constructed problems in pure mathematics, the best-known being integer factorization. ## Overview In encryption, confidential information (called the \"plaintext\") is sent securely to a recipient by the sender first converting it into an unreadable form (\"ciphertext\") using an encryption algorithm. The ciphertext is sent through an insecure channel to the recipient. The recipient decrypts the ciphertext by applying an inverse decryption algorithm, recovering the plaintext. To decrypt the ciphertext, the recipient requires a secret knowledge from the sender, usually a string of letters, numbers, or bits, called a cryptographic key. The concept is that even if an unauthorized person gets access to the ciphertext during transmission, without the secret key they cannot convert it back to plaintext. Encryption has been used throughout history to send important military, diplomatic and commercial messages, and today is very widely used in computer networking to protect email and internet communication. The goal of cryptanalysis is for a third party, a cryptanalyst, to gain as much information as possible about the original (\"plaintext\"), attempting to \"break\" the encryption to read the ciphertext and learning the secret key so future messages can be decrypted and read. A mathematical technique to do this is called a cryptographic attack. Cryptographic attacks can be characterized in a number of ways: ### Amount of information available to the attacker {#amount_of_information_available_to_the_attacker} Cryptanalytical attacks can be classified based on what type of information the attacker has available. As a basic starting point it is normally assumed that, for the purposes of analysis, the general algorithm is known; this is Shannon\'s Maxim \"the enemy knows the system\" -- in its turn, equivalent to Kerckhoffs\'s principle. This is a reasonable assumption in practice -- throughout history, there are countless examples of secret algorithms falling into wider knowledge, variously through espionage, betrayal and reverse engineering. (And on occasion, ciphers have been broken through pure deduction; for example, the German Lorenz cipher and the Japanese Purple code, and a variety of classical schemes): - Ciphertext-only: the cryptanalyst has access only to a collection of ciphertexts or codetexts. - Known-plaintext: the attacker has a set of ciphertexts to which they know the corresponding plaintext. - Chosen-plaintext (chosen-ciphertext): the attacker can obtain the ciphertexts (plaintexts) corresponding to an arbitrary set of plaintexts (ciphertexts) of their own choosing. - Adaptive chosen-plaintext: like a chosen-plaintext attack, except the attacker can choose subsequent plaintexts based on information learned from previous encryptions, similarly to the Adaptive chosen ciphertext attack. - Related-key attack: Like a chosen-plaintext attack, except the attacker can obtain ciphertexts encrypted under two different keys. The keys are unknown, but the relationship between them is known; for example, two keys that differ in the one bit. ### Computational resources required {#computational_resources_required} Attacks can also be characterised by the resources they require. Those resources include: - Time -- the number of computation steps (e.g., test encryptions) which must be performed. - Memory -- the amount of storage required to perform the attack. - Data -- the quantity and type of plaintexts and ciphertexts required for a particular approach. It is sometimes difficult to predict these quantities precisely, especially when the attack is not practical to actually implement for testing. But academic cryptanalysts tend to provide at least the estimated order of magnitude of their attacks\' difficulty, saying, for example, \"SHA-1 collisions now 2^52^.\" Bruce Schneier notes that even computationally impractical attacks can be considered breaks: \"Breaking a cipher simply means finding a weakness in the cipher that can be exploited with a complexity less than brute force. Never mind that brute-force might require 2^128^ encryptions; an attack requiring 2^110^ encryptions would be considered a break\...simply put, a break can just be a certificational weakness: evidence that the cipher does not perform as advertised.\" ### Partial breaks {#partial_breaks} The results of cryptanalysis can also vary in usefulness. Cryptographer Lars Knudsen (1998) classified various types of attack on block ciphers according to the amount and quality of secret information that was discovered: - Total break -- the attacker deduces the secret key. - Global deduction -- the attacker discovers a functionally equivalent algorithm for encryption and decryption, but without learning the key. - Instance (local) deduction -- the attacker discovers additional plaintexts (or ciphertexts) not previously known. - Information deduction -- the attacker gains some Shannon information about plaintexts (or ciphertexts) not previously known. - Distinguishing algorithm -- the attacker can distinguish the cipher from a random permutation. Academic attacks are often against weakened versions of a cryptosystem, such as a block cipher or hash function with some rounds removed. Many, but not all, attacks become exponentially more difficult to execute as rounds are added to a cryptosystem, so it\'s possible for the full cryptosystem to be strong even though reduced-round variants are weak. Nonetheless, partial breaks that come close to breaking the original cryptosystem may mean that a full break will follow; the successful attacks on DES, MD5, and SHA-1 were all preceded by attacks on weakened versions. In academic cryptography, a weakness or a break in a scheme is usually defined quite conservatively: it might require impractical amounts of time, memory, or known plaintexts. It also might require the attacker be able to do things many real-world attackers can\'t: for example, the attacker may need to choose particular plaintexts to be encrypted or even to ask for plaintexts to be encrypted using several keys related to the secret key. Furthermore, it might only reveal a small amount of information, enough to prove the cryptosystem imperfect but too little to be useful to real-world attackers. Finally, an attack might only apply to a weakened version of cryptographic tools, like a reduced-round block cipher, as a step towards breaking the full system. ## History Cryptanalysis has coevolved together with cryptography, and the contest can be traced through the history of cryptography---new ciphers being designed to replace old broken designs, and new cryptanalytic techniques invented to crack the improved schemes. In practice, they are viewed as two sides of the same coin: secure cryptography requires design against possible cryptanalysis. ### Classical ciphers {#classical_ciphers} `{{See also\|Frequency analysis\|Index of coincidence\|Kasiski examination}}`{=mediawiki} Although the actual word \"cryptanalysis\" is relatively recent (it was coined by William Friedman in 1920), methods for breaking codes and ciphers are much older. David Kahn notes in The Codebreakers that Arab scholars were the first people to systematically document cryptanalytic methods. The first known recorded explanation of cryptanalysis was given by Al-Kindi (c. 801--873, also known as \"Alkindus\" in Europe), a 9th-century Arab polymath, in Risalah fi Istikhraj al-Mu\'amma (A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages). This treatise contains the first description of the method of frequency analysis. Al-Kindi is thus regarded as the first codebreaker in history. His breakthrough work was influenced by Al-Khalil (717--786), who wrote the Book of Cryptographic Messages, which contains the first use of permutations and combinations to list all possible Arabic words with and without vowels. Frequency analysis is the basic tool for breaking most classical ciphers. In natural languages, certain letters of the alphabet appear more often than others; in English, \"E\" is likely to be the most common letter in any sample of plaintext. Similarly, the digraph \"TH\" is the most likely pair of letters in English, and so on. Frequency analysis relies on a cipher failing to hide these statistics. For example, in a simple substitution cipher (where each letter is simply replaced with another), the most frequent letter in the ciphertext would be a likely candidate for \"E\". Frequency analysis of such a cipher is therefore relatively easy, provided that the ciphertext is long enough to give a reasonably representative count of the letters of the alphabet that it contains. Al-Kindi\'s invention of the frequency analysis technique for breaking monoalphabetic substitution ciphers was the most significant cryptanalytic advance until World War II. Al-Kindi\'s Risalah fi Istikhraj al-Mu\'amma described the first cryptanalytic techniques, including some for polyalphabetic ciphers, cipher classification, Arabic phonetics and syntax, and most importantly, gave the first descriptions on frequency analysis. He also covered methods of encipherments, cryptanalysis of certain encipherments, and statistical analysis of letters and letter combinations in Arabic. An important contribution of Ibn Adlan (1187--1268) was on sample size for use of frequency analysis. In Europe, Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta (1535--1615) was the author of a seminal work on cryptanalysis, De Furtivis Literarum Notis. Successful cryptanalysis has undoubtedly influenced history; the ability to read the presumed-secret thoughts and plans of others can be a decisive advantage. For example, in England in 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was tried and executed for treason as a result of her involvement in three plots to assassinate Elizabeth I of England. The plans came to light after her coded correspondence with fellow conspirators was deciphered by Thomas Phelippes. In Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries, the idea of a polyalphabetic substitution cipher was developed, among others by the French diplomat Blaise de Vigenère (1523--96). For some three centuries, the Vigenère cipher, which uses a repeating key to select different encryption alphabets in rotation, was considered to be completely secure (le chiffre indéchiffrable---\"the indecipherable cipher\"). Nevertheless, Charles Babbage (1791--1871) and later, independently, Friedrich Kasiski (1805--81) succeeded in breaking this cipher. During World War I, inventors in several countries developed rotor cipher machines such as Arthur Scherbius\' Enigma, in an attempt to minimise the repetition that had been exploited to break the Vigenère system. ### Ciphers from World War I and World War II {#ciphers_from_world_war_i_and_world_war_ii} In World War I, the breaking of the Zimmermann Telegram was instrumental in bringing the United States into the war. In World War II, the Allies benefitted enormously from their joint success cryptanalysis of the German ciphers -- including the Enigma machine and the Lorenz cipher -- and Japanese ciphers, particularly \'Purple\' and JN-25. \'Ultra\' intelligence has been credited with everything between shortening the end of the European war by up to two years, to determining the eventual result. The war in the Pacific was similarly helped by \'Magic\' intelligence. Cryptanalysis of enemy messages played a significant part in the Allied victory in World War II. F. W. Winterbotham, quoted the western Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, at the war\'s end as describing Ultra intelligence as having been \"decisive\" to Allied victory. Sir Harry Hinsley, official historian of British Intelligence in World War II, made a similar assessment about Ultra, saying that it shortened the war \"by not less than two years and probably by four years\"; moreover, he said that in the absence of Ultra, it is uncertain how the war would have ended. In practice, frequency analysis relies as much on linguistic knowledge as it does on statistics, but as ciphers became more complex, mathematics became more important in cryptanalysis. This change was particularly evident before and during World War II, where efforts to crack Axis ciphers required new levels of mathematical sophistication. Moreover, automation was first applied to cryptanalysis in that era with the Polish Bomba device, the British Bombe, the use of punched card equipment, and in the Colossus computers -- the first electronic digital computers to be controlled by a program. #### Indicator With reciprocal machine ciphers such as the Lorenz cipher and the Enigma machine used by Nazi Germany during World War II, each message had its own key. Usually, the transmitting operator informed the receiving operator of this message key by transmitting some plaintext and/or ciphertext before the enciphered message. This is termed the indicator, as it indicates to the receiving operator how to set his machine to decipher the message. Poorly designed and implemented indicator systems allowed first Polish cryptographers and then the British cryptographers at Bletchley Park to break the Enigma cipher system. Similar poor indicator systems allowed the British to identify depths that led to the diagnosis of the Lorenz SZ40/42 cipher system, and the comprehensive breaking of its messages without the cryptanalysts seeing the cipher machine. #### Depth Sending two or more messages with the same key is an insecure process. To a cryptanalyst the messages are then said to be \"in depth.\" This may be detected by the messages having the same indicator by which the sending operator informs the receiving operator about the key generator initial settings for the message. Generally, the cryptanalyst may benefit from lining up identical enciphering operations among a set of messages. For example, the Vernam cipher enciphers by bit-for-bit combining plaintext with a long key using the \"exclusive or\" operator, which is also known as \"modulo-2 addition\" (symbolized by ⊕ ): : : Plaintext ⊕ Key = Ciphertext Deciphering combines the same key bits with the ciphertext to reconstruct the plaintext: : : Ciphertext ⊕ Key = Plaintext (In modulo-2 arithmetic, addition is the same as subtraction.) When two such ciphertexts are aligned in depth, combining them eliminates the common key, leaving just a combination of the two plaintexts: : : Ciphertext1 ⊕ Ciphertext2 = Plaintext1 ⊕ Plaintext2 The individual plaintexts can then be worked out linguistically by trying probable words (or phrases), also known as \"cribs,\" at various locations; a correct guess, when combined with the merged plaintext stream, produces intelligible text from the other plaintext component: : : Cyphertext1 ⊕ Cyphertext2 ⊕ Plaintext1 = Plaintext2 The recovered fragment of the second plaintext can often be extended in one or both directions, and the extra characters can be combined with the merged plaintext stream to extend the first plaintext. Working back and forth between the two plaintexts, using the intelligibility criterion to check guesses, the analyst may recover much or all of the original plaintexts. (With only two plaintexts in depth, the analyst may not know which one corresponds to which ciphertext, but in practice this is not a large problem.) When a recovered plaintext is then combined with its ciphertext, the key is revealed: : : Plaintext1 ⊕ Ciphertext1 = Key Knowledge of a key then allows the analyst to read other messages encrypted with the same key, and knowledge of a set of related keys may allow cryptanalysts to diagnose the system used for constructing them. ### Development of modern cryptography {#development_of_modern_cryptography} Governments have long recognized the potential benefits of cryptanalysis for intelligence, both military and diplomatic, and established dedicated organizations devoted to breaking the codes and ciphers of other nations, for example, GCHQ and the NSA, organizations which are still very active today. Even though computation was used to great effect in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher and other systems during World War II, it also made possible new methods of cryptography orders of magnitude more complex than ever before. Taken as a whole, modern cryptography has become much more impervious to cryptanalysis than the pen-and-paper systems of the past, and now seems to have the upper hand against pure cryptanalysis. The historian David Kahn notes: Kahn goes on to mention increased opportunities for interception, bugging, side channel attacks, and quantum computers as replacements for the traditional means of cryptanalysis. In 2010, former NSA technical director Brian Snow said that both academic and government cryptographers are \"moving very slowly forward in a mature field.\" However, any postmortems for cryptanalysis may be premature. While the effectiveness of cryptanalytic methods employed by intelligence agencies remains unknown, many serious attacks against both academic and practical cryptographic primitives have been published in the modern era of computer cryptography: - The block cipher Madryga, proposed in 1984 but not widely used, was found to be susceptible to ciphertext-only attacks in 1998. - FEAL-4, proposed as a replacement for the DES standard encryption algorithm but not widely used, was demolished by a spate of attacks from the academic community, many of which are entirely practical. - The A5/1, A5/2, CMEA, and DECT systems used in mobile and wireless phone technology can all be broken in hours, minutes or even in real-time using widely available computing equipment. - Brute-force keyspace search has broken some real-world ciphers and applications, including single-DES (see EFF DES cracker), 40-bit \"export-strength\" cryptography, and the DVD Content Scrambling System. - In 2001, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), a protocol used to secure Wi-Fi wireless networks, was shown to be breakable in practice because of a weakness in the RC4 cipher and aspects of the WEP design that made related-key attacks practical. WEP was later replaced by Wi-Fi Protected Access. - In 2008, researchers conducted a proof-of-concept break of SSL using weaknesses in the MD5 hash function and certificate issuer practices that made it possible to exploit collision attacks on hash functions. The certificate issuers involved changed their practices to prevent the attack from being repeated. Thus, while the best modern ciphers may be far more resistant to cryptanalysis than the Enigma, cryptanalysis and the broader field of information security remain quite active. ## Symmetric ciphers {#symmetric_ciphers} - Boomerang attack - Brute-force attack - Davies\' attack - Differential cryptanalysis - Harvest now, decrypt later - Impossible differential cryptanalysis - Improbable differential cryptanalysis - Integral cryptanalysis - Linear cryptanalysis - Meet-in-the-middle attack - Mod-n cryptanalysis - Related-key attack - Sandwich attack - Slide attack - XSL attack ## Asymmetric ciphers {#asymmetric_ciphers} Asymmetric cryptography (or public-key cryptography) is cryptography that relies on using two (mathematically related) keys; one private, and one public. Such ciphers invariably rely on \"hard\" mathematical problems as the basis of their security, so an obvious point of attack is to develop methods for solving the problem. The security of two-key cryptography depends on mathematical questions in a way that single-key cryptography generally does not, and conversely links cryptanalysis to wider mathematical research in a new way. Asymmetric schemes are designed around the (conjectured) difficulty of solving various mathematical problems. If an improved algorithm can be found to solve the problem, then the system is weakened. For example, the security of the Diffie--Hellman key exchange scheme depends on the difficulty of calculating the discrete logarithm. In 1983, Don Coppersmith found a faster way to find discrete logarithms (in certain groups), and thereby requiring cryptographers to use larger groups (or different types of groups). RSA\'s security depends (in part) upon the difficulty of integer factorization -- a breakthrough in factoring would impact the security of RSA. In 1980, one could factor a difficult 50-digit number at an expense of 10^12^ elementary computer operations. By 1984 the state of the art in factoring algorithms had advanced to a point where a 75-digit number could be factored in 10^12^ operations. Advances in computing technology also meant that the operations could be performed much faster. Moore\'s law predicts that computer speeds will continue to increase. Factoring techniques may continue to do so as well, but will most likely depend on mathematical insight and creativity, neither of which has ever been successfully predictable. 150-digit numbers of the kind once used in RSA have been factored. The effort was greater than above, but was not unreasonable on fast modern computers. By the start of the 21st century, 150-digit numbers were no longer considered a large enough key size for RSA. Numbers with several hundred digits were still considered too hard to factor in 2005, though methods will probably continue to improve over time, requiring key size to keep pace or other methods such as elliptic curve cryptography to be used. Another distinguishing feature of asymmetric schemes is that, unlike attacks on symmetric cryptosystems, any cryptanalysis has the opportunity to make use of knowledge gained from the public key. ## Attacking cryptographic hash systems {#attacking_cryptographic_hash_systems} - Birthday attack - Hash function security summary - Rainbow table ## Side-channel attacks {#side_channel_attacks} - Black-bag cryptanalysis - Man-in-the-middle attack - Power analysis - Replay attack - Rubber-hose cryptanalysis - Timing analysis ## Quantum computing applications for cryptanalysis {#quantum_computing_applications_for_cryptanalysis} Quantum computers, which are still in the early phases of research, have potential use in cryptanalysis. For example, Shor\'s Algorithm could factor large numbers in polynomial time, in effect breaking some commonly used forms of public-key encryption. By using Grover\'s algorithm on a quantum computer, brute-force key search can be made quadratically faster. However, this could be countered by doubling the key length.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,719	Cutaway (filmmaking)	In film and video, a cutaway is the interruption of a continuously filmed action by inserting a view of something else. It is usually followed by a cut back to the first shot. A cutaway scene is the interruption of a scene with the insertion of another scene, generally unrelated or only peripherally related to the original scene. The interruption is usually quick, and is usually, although not always, ended by a return to the original scene. The effect is of commentary to the original scene and creates variety. ## Usage The most common use of cutaway shots in dramatic films is to adjust the pace of the main action, to conceal the deletion of some unwanted part of the main shot, or to allow the joining of parts of two versions of that shot. For example, a scene may be improved by cutting a few frames out of an actor\'s pause; a brief view of a listener can help conceal the break. Or the actor may fumble some of his lines in a group shot; rather than discarding a good version of the shot, the director may just have the actor repeat the lines for a new shot, and cut to that alternate view when necessary. Cutaways are also used often in older horror films in place of special effects. For example, a shot of a zombie getting its head cut off may, for instance, start with a view of an axe being swung through the air, followed by a close-up of the actor swinging it, then followed by a cut back to the now severed head. George A. Romero, creator of the Dead Series, and Tom Savini pioneered effects that removed the need for cutaways in horror films. In news broadcasting and documentary work, the cutaway is used much as it would be in fiction. On location, there is usually just one camera to film an interview, and it is usually trained on the interviewee. Often, there is also only one microphone. After the interview, the interviewer usually repeats his questions while he is being filmed, with pauses that act as if the answers are listened to. These shots can be used as cutaways. Cutaways to the interviewer, called noddies, can also be used to cover cuts. The cutaway does not necessarily contribute any dramatic content of its own, but is used to help the editor assemble a longer sequence. For that reason, editors choose cutaways related to the main action, such as another action or object in the same location. For example, if the main shot is of a man walking down an alley, possible cutaways may include a shot of a cat on a nearby dumpster or a shot of a person watching from a window overhead. The animated series Family Guy is noted for its use of cutaway gags.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,722	Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game)	*Call of Cthulhu* is a horror fiction role-playing game based on H. P. Lovecraft\'s story of the same name and the associated Cthulhu Mythos. The game, often abbreviated as CoC, is published by Chaosium; it was first released in 1981 and is in its seventh edition, with licensed foreign language editions available as well. Its game system is based on Chaosium\'s Basic Role-Playing (BRP) with additions for the horror genre. These include special rules for sanity and luck. ## Gameplay ### Setting Call of Cthulhu is set in a darker version of our world based on H. P. Lovecraft\'s observation (from his essay, \"Supernatural Horror in Literature\") that \"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.\" The original edition, first published in 1981, uses Basic Role-Playing as its basis and is set in the 1920s, the setting of many of Lovecraft\'s stories. The Cthulhu by Gaslight supplement blends the occult and Holmesian mystery and is mostly set in England during the 1890s. Cthulhu Now and Delta Green are set in a modern/1980s era and deal with conspiracies. Recent settings include 1000 AD (Cthulhu: Dark Ages), the 23rd century (Cthulhu Rising) and Ancient Rome (Cthulhu Invictus). The protagonists may also travel to places that are not of this earth, such as the Dreamlands (which can be accessed through dreams as well as being physically connected to the earth), other planets, or the voids of space. In keeping with the Lovecraftian theme, the gamemaster is called the Keeper of Arcane Lore (\"the keeper\"), while player characters are called Investigators of the Unknown (\"investigators\"). While predominantly focused on Lovecraftian fiction and horror, playing in the Cthulhu Mythos is not required. The system also includes ideas for non-Lovecraft games, such as using folk horror or the settings of other authors and horror movies, or with entirely custom settings and creatures by the gamemaster and/or players. ### Mechanics CoC uses the Basic Role-Playing system first developed for RuneQuest and used in other Chaosium games. It is skill-based, with player characters getting better with their skills by succeeding at using them for as long as they stay functionally healthy and sane. They do not, however, gain hit points and do not become significantly harder to kill. The game does not use levels. CoC uses percentile dice (with results ranging from 1 to 100) to determine success or failure. Every player statistic is intended to be compatible with the notion that there is a probability of success for a particular action given what the player is capable of doing. For example, an artist may have a 75% chance of being able to draw something (represented by having 75 in Art skill), and thus rolling a number under 75 would yield a success. Rolling `{{fract\|1\|5}}`{=mediawiki} or less of the skill level (1--15 in the example) would be a \"special success\" (or an \"impale\" for combat skills) and would yield some extra bonus to be determined by the keeper. For example, the artist character might draw especially well or especially fast, or catch some unapparent detail in the drawing. The players take the roles of ordinary people drawn into the realm of the mysterious: detectives, criminals, scholars, artists, war veterans, etc. Often, happenings begin innocently enough, until more and more of the workings behind the scenes are revealed. As the characters learn more of the true horrors of the world and the irrelevance of humanity, their sanity (represented by \"Sanity Points\", abbreviated SAN) inevitably withers away. The game includes a mechanism for determining how damaged a character\'s sanity is at any given point; encountering the horrific beings usually triggers a loss of SAN points. To gain the tools they need to defeat the horrors -- mystic knowledge and magic -- the characters may end up losing some of their sanity, though other means such as pure firepower or simply outsmarting one\'s opponents also exist. CoC has a reputation as a game in which it is quite common for a player character to die in gruesome circumstances or end up in a mental institution. Eventual triumph of the players is not guaranteed. ## History The original conception of Call of Cthulhu was Dark Worlds, a game commissioned by the publisher Chaosium but never published. Sandy Petersen contacted them regarding writing a supplement for their popular fantasy game RuneQuest set in Lovecraft\'s Dreamlands. He took over the writing of Call of Cthulhu, and the game was released in 1981. Petersen oversaw the first four editions with only minor changes to the system. Once he left, development was continued by Lynn Willis, who was credited as co-author in the fifth and sixth editions. After the death of Willis, Mike Mason became Call of Cthulhu line editor in 2013, continuing its development with Paul Fricker. Together they made the most significant rules alterations than in any previous edition, culminating in the release of the 7th edition in 2014. ### Editions +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Edition \| Published \| Format \| Notes \| +==========================+===========+==========================================+======================================================================================================================================+ \| 1st edition \| 1981 \| Boxed set \| Includes 16-page Basic Role-Playing booklet in addition to main rulebook. \| +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| 2nd edition \| 1983 \| Boxed set \| Includes a single rulebook; minor rules changes. \| +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| 3rd edition \| 1986 \| Boxed set \| Divides rules into separate Investigator\'s Book and Keeper\'s Book booklets. \| +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| 4th edition \| 1989 \| Softcover \| Includes content from the Cthulhu Companion and Fragments of Fear: The Second Cthulhu Companion supplements. \| +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| 5th edition \| 1992 \| Softcover \| First version to credit Lynn Willis as co-author. \| +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Edition 5.5 \| 1998 \| Softcover \| Reorganized and updated version of the 5th edition, with new cover art; \"Edition 5.5\" designator appears on title page. \| +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Edition 5.6 \| 1999 \| Hardcover \| Corrected revised printing; \"Edition 5.6\" designator appears on title page. \| +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Edition 5.6.1 \| 2001 \| Hardcover \| Corrected revised printing; \"Edition 5.6.1\" designator appears on title page. \| +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| 20th Anniversary Edition \| 2001 \| Leather-bound hardcover book \| Limited edition bound in green leather, with new \"ancient tome\" layout. \| +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| 6th edition \| 2004 \| Hardcover, softcover, or electronic file \| Same layout and content as 20th Anniversary Edition. \| +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ \| 7th edition \| 2014 \| Hardcover, softcover, or electronic file \| Rules significantly revised by Paul Fricker and Mike Mason. New cover art and full-color layout. Print version released spring 2016. \| +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ### Early releases {#early_releases} For those grounded in the RPG tradition, the very first release of Call of Cthulhu created a brand new framework for table-top gaming. Rather than the traditional format established by Dungeons & Dragons, which often involved the characters wandering through caves or tunnels and fighting different types of monsters, Sandy Petersen introduced the concept of the Onion Skin: Interlocking layers of information and nested clues that lead the player characters from seemingly minor investigations into a missing person to discovering mind-numbingly awful, global conspiracies to destroy the world. Unlike its predecessor games, CoC assumed that most investigators would not survive, alive or sane, and that the only safe way to deal with the vast majority of nasty things described in the rule books was to run away. A well-run CoC campaign should engender a sense of foreboding and inevitable doom in its players. The style and setting of the game, in a relatively modern time period, created an emphasis on real-life settings, character research, and thinking one\'s way around trouble. The first book of Call of Cthulhu adventures was Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. In this work, the characters come upon a secret society\'s foul plot to destroy mankind, and pursue it first near to home and then in a series of exotic locations. This template was to be followed in many subsequent campaigns, including Fungi from Yuggoth (later known as Curse of Cthulhu and Day of the Beast), Spawn of Azathoth, and possibly the most highly acclaimed, Masks of Nyarlathotep. Shadows of Yog-Sothoth is important not only because it represents the first published addition to the boxed first edition of Call of Cthulhu, but because its format defined a new way of approaching a campaign of linked RPG scenarios involving actual clues for the would-be detectives amongst the players to follow and link in order to uncover the dastardly plots afoot. Its format has been used by every other campaign-length Call of Cthulhu publication. The standard of CoC scenarios was well received by independent reviewers. The Asylum and Other Tales, a series of stand alone articles released in 1983, rated an overall 9/10 in Issue 47 of White Dwarf magazine. The standard of the included \'clue\' material varies from scenario to scenario, but reached its zenith in the original boxed versions of the Masks of Nyarlathotep and Horror on the Orient Express campaigns. Inside these one could find matchbooks and business cards apparently defaced by non-player characters, newspaper cuttings and (in the case of Orient Express) period passports to which players could attach their photographs, increasing the sense of immersion. Indeed, during the period that these supplements were produced, third party campaign publishers strove to emulate the quality of the additional materials, often offering separately-priced \'deluxe\' clue packages for their campaigns. Additional milieux were provided by Chaosium with the release of Dreamlands, a boxed supplement containing additional rules needed for playing within the Lovecraft Dreamlands, a large map and a scenario booklet, and Cthulhu By Gaslight, another boxed set which moved the action from the 1920s to the 1890s. ### Cthulhu Now {#cthulhu_now} In 1987, Chaosium issued the supplement titled Cthulhu Now, a collection of rules, supplemental source materials and scenarios for playing Call of Cthulhu in the present day. This proved to be a very popular alternative milieu, so much so that much of the supplemental material is now included in the core rule book. ### Lovecraft Country {#lovecraft_country} Lovecraft Country was a line of supplements for Call of Cthulhu released in 1990. These supplements were overseen by Keith Herber and provided backgrounds and adventures set in Lovecraft\'s fictional towns of Arkham, Kingsport, Innsmouth, Dunwich, and their environs. The intent was to give investigators a common base, as well as to center the action on well-drawn characters with clear motivations. ### `{{anchor}}`{=mediawiki}Terror Australis {#terror_australis} In 1987, Terror Australis: Call of Cthulhu in the Land Down Under was published. In 2018, a revised and updated version of the 1987 game was reissued, with about triple the content and two new games. It requires the Call of Cthulhu Keeper\'s Rulebook (7th Edition) and is usable with Pulp Cthulhu. ### `{{anchor}}`{=mediawiki}Harlem Unbound {#harlem_unbound} In 2020, Chaosium released the 2nd edition of Harlem Unbound, a Call of Cthulhu supplement set in the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem Unbound received three Gold ENNIE Awards and an Indie Game Developer Network award. ### Recent history {#recent_history} In the years since the collapse of the Mythos collectible card game (production ceased in 1997), the release of CoC books has been very sporadic, with up to a year between releases. Chaosium struggled with near bankruptcy for many years before finally starting their upward climb again. 2005 was Chaosium\'s busiest year for many years, with 10 releases for the game. Chaosium took to marketing \"monographs\"---short books by individual writers with editing and layout provided out-of-house---directly to the consumer, allowing the company to gauge market response to possible new works. The range of times and places in which the horrors of the Mythos can be encountered was also expanded in late 2005 onward with the addition of Cthulhu Dark Ages by Stéphane Gesbert, which gives a framework for playing games set in 11th century Europe, Secrets of Japan by Michael Dziesinski for gaming in modern-day Japan, and Secrets of Kenya by David Conyers for gaming in interwar period Africa. In July 2011, Chaosium announced it would re-release a 30th anniversary edition of the CoC 6th edition role-playing game. This 320-page book features thick (3 mm) leatherette hardcovers with the front cover and spine stamped with gold foil. The interior pages are printed in black ink, on 90 gsm matte art paper. The binding is thread sewn, square backed. Chaosium offered a one-time printing of this Collector\'s Edition. On May 28, 2013, a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for the 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu was launched with a goal of \$40,000; it ended on June 29 of the same year having collected \$561,836. It included many more major revisions than any previous edition, and also split the core rules into two books, a Player\'s Guide and Keeper\'s Guide. Problems and delays fulfilling the Kickstarters for the 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu led Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen (who had both left in 1998) to return to an active role at Chaosium in June 2015. The print version of 7th edition became available in September 2016. The available milieux were also expanded with the release of Cthulhu Through the Ages, a supplement containing additional rules needed for playing within the Roman Empire, Mythic Iceland, a futuristic micro-setting, and the End Times, where the monsters of the mythos attempt to subjugate or destroy the world. ## Licenses Chaosium has licensed other publishers to create supplements, video, card and board games using the setting and the Call of Cthulhu brand. Many, such as Delta Green by Pagan Publishing and Arkham Horror by Fantasy Flight, have moved away completely from Call of Cthulhu. Other licensees have included Infogrames, Miskatonic River Press, Theater of the Mind Enterprises, Triad Entertainment, Games Workshop, RAFM, Goodman Games, Grenadier Models Inc. and Yog-Sothoth.com. These supplements may be set in different time frames or even different game universes from the original game. ### Trail of Cthulhu {#trail_of_cthulhu} In February 2008, Pelgrane Press published Trail of Cthulhu, a stand-alone game created by Kenneth Hite using the GUMSHOE System developed by Robin Laws. GUMSHOE is specifically designed to be used in investigative games. ### Shadows of Cthulhu {#shadows_of_cthulhu} In September 2008, Reality Deviant Publications published Shadows of Cthulhu, a supplement that brings Lovecraftian gaming to Green Ronin\'s True20 system. ### Realms of Cthulhu {#realms_of_cthulhu} In October 2009, Reality Blurs published Realms of Cthulhu, a supplement for Pinnacle Entertainment\'s Savage Worlds system. ### Delta Green {#delta_green} Pagan Publishing published Delta Green, a series of supplements originally set in the 1990s, although later supplements add support for playing closer to the present day. In these, player characters are agents of a secret agency known as Delta Green, which fights against creatures from the Mythos and conspiracies related to them. Arc Dream Publishing released a new version of Delta Green in 2016 as a standalone game, partially using the mechanics from Call of Cthulhu. ### d20 Call of Cthulhu {#d20_call_of_cthulhu} In 2001, a stand-alone version of Call of Cthulhu was released by Wizards of the Coast, for the d20 system. Intended to preserve the feeling of the original game, the d20 conversion of the game rules were supposed to make the game more accessible to the large D&D player base. The d20 system also made it possible to use Dungeons & Dragons characters in Call of Cthulhu, as well as to introduce the Cthulhu Mythos into Dungeons & Dragons games. The d20 version of the game is no longer supported by Wizards as per their contract with Chaosium. Chaosium included d20 stats as an appendix in three releases (see Lovecraft Country), but have since dropped the \"dual stat\" idea. ### Card games {#card_games} Mythos was a collectible card game (CCG) based on the Cthulhu Mythos that Chaosium produced and marketed during the mid-1990s. While generally praised for its fast gameplay and unique mechanics, it ultimately failed to gain a very large market presence. It bears mention because its eventual failure brought the company to hard times that affected its ability to produce material for Call of Cthulhu. Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game is a second collectible card game, produced by Fantasy Flight Games. ### Miniatures The first licensed Call of Cthulhu 25 mm gaming miniatures were sculpted by Andrew Chernack and released by Grenadier Models in boxed sets and blister packs in 1983. The license was later transferred to RAFM. As of 2011, RAFM still produce licensed Call of Cthulhu models sculpted by Bob Murch. Both lines include investigator player character models and the iconic monsters of the Cthulhu mythos. As of July 2015, Reaper Miniatures started its third \"Bones Kickstarter\", a Kickstarter intended to help the company migrate some miniatures from metal to plastic, and introducing some new ones. Among the stretch goals was the second \$50 expansion, devoted to the Mythos, with miniatures such as Cultists, Deep Ones, Mi\'Go, and an extra \$15 Shub-Niggurath \"miniature\" (it is, at least, 6x4 squares). It is expected for those miniatures to remain in the Reaper Miniatures catalogue after the Kickstarter project finishes. In 2020 Chaosium announced a license agreement with Ardacious for Call of Cthulhu virtual miniatures to be released on their augmented reality app Ardent Roleplay. ### Video games {#video_games} #### Shadow of the Comet {#shadow_of_the_comet} Shadow of the Comet (later repackaged as Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet) is an adventure game developed and released by Infogrames in 1993. The game is based on H. P. Lovecraft\'s Cthulhu Mythos and uses many elements from Lovecraft\'s The Dunwich Horror and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. A follow-up game, Prisoner of Ice, is not a direct sequel. #### Prisoner of Ice {#prisoner_of_ice} Prisoner of Ice (also Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice) is an adventure game developed and released by Infogrames for the PC and Macintosh computers in 1995 in America and Europe. It is based on H. P. Lovecraft\'s Cthulhu Mythos, particularly At the Mountains of Madness, and is a follow-up to Infogrames\' earlier Shadow of the Comet. In 1997, the game was ported to the Sega Saturn and PlayStation exclusively in Japan. #### Dark Corners of the Earth {#dark_corners_of_the_earth} A licensed first-person shooter adventure game by Headfirst Productions, based on Call of Cthulhu campaign Escape from Innsmouth and released by Bethesda Softworks in 2005/2006 for the PC and Xbox. #### The Wasted Land {#the_wasted_land} In April 2011, Chaosium and new developer Red Wasp Design announced a joint project to produce a mobile video game based on the Call of Cthulhu RPG, entitled Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land. The game was released on January 30, 2012. #### Cthulhu Chronicles {#cthulhu_chronicles} In 2018, Metarcade produced Cthulhu Chronicles, a game for iOS with a campaign of nine mobile interactive fiction stories set in 1920s England based on Call of Cthulhu. The first five stories were released on July 10, 2018. #### Call of Cthulhu {#call_of_cthulhu} Call of Cthulhu is a survival horror role-playing video game developed by Cyanide and published by Focus Home Interactive for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows. The game features a semi-open world environment and incorporates themes of Lovecraftian and psychological horror into a story which includes elements of investigation and stealth. It is inspired by H. P. Lovecraft\'s short story \"The Call of Cthulhu\". ## Reception Steve Peterson reviewed Call of Cthulhu for Different Worlds magazine and stated that \"Call of Cthulhu is an excellent game, well worth your money if you are at all interested in horror of the 1920\'s . This game can add much to any role-playing campaign.\" Multiple reviews of various editions appeared in Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer. - In the March 1982 edition (No. 49), William A. Barton noted that there were some shortcomings resulting from an assumption by the designers that players would have access to rules from RuneQuest that were not in Call of Cthulhu, but otherwise Barton called the game \"an excellent piece of work\.... The worlds of H. P. Lovecraft are truly open for the fantasy gamer.\" - In the October--November 1987 edition (No. 80), Lisa Cohen reviewed the 3rd edition, saying, \"\"This book can be for collectors of art, players, or anyone interested in knowledge about old time occult. It is the one reprint that is worth the money.\" Multiple reviews of various editions appeared in White Dwarf. - In the August 1982 edition (Issue 32), Ian Bailey admired much about the first edition of the game; his only criticism was that the game was too \"U.S. orientated and consequently any Keeper\... who wants to set his game in the UK will have a lot of research to do.\" Bailey gave the game an above average rating of 9 out of 10, saying, \"Call of Cthulhu is an excellent game and a welcome addition to the world of role-playing.\" - In the August 1986 edition (Issue 80), Ashley Shepherd thought the inclusion of much material in the 3rd edition that had been previously published as supplementary books \"makes the game incredibly good value.\" He concluded, \"This package is going to keep Call of Cthulhu at the front of the fantasy game genre.\" Several reviews of various editions and supplements also appeared in Dragon. - In the May 1982 edition (Issue 61), David Cook thought the rules were too complex for new gamers, but said, \"It is a good game for experienced role-playing gamers and ambitious judges, especially if they like Lovecraft's type of story.\" - In the August 1987 edition (Issue 124), Ken Rolston reviewed the Terror Australis supplement for 3rd edition that introduced an Australian setting in the 1920s. Bambra thought that \"Literate, macabre doom shambles from each page. Good reading, and a good campaign setting for COC adventures.\" - In the October 1988 edition (Issue 138), Ken Rolston gave an overview of the 3rd edition, and placed it ahead of its competitors due to superior campaign setting, tone and atmosphere, the player characters as investigators, and the use of realistic player handouts such as authentic-looking newspaper clippings. Rolston concluded, \"CoC is one of role-playing's acknowledged classics. Its various supplements over the years have maintained an exceptional level of quality; several, including Shadows of Yog-Sothoth and Masks of Nyarlathotep, deserve consideration among the greatest pinnacles of the fantasy role-playing game design.\" - In the June 1990 edition (Issue 158), Jim Bambra liked the updated setting of the 4th edition, placing the game firmly in Lovecraft\'s 1920s. He also liked the number of adventures included in the 192-page rulebook: \"The fourth edition contains enough adventures to keep any group happily entertained and sanity blasted.\" However, while Cook questioned whether owners of the 2nd or 3rd edition would get good value for their money --- \"You lack only the car-chase rules and the improved layout of the three books in one. The rest of the material has received minor editing but no substantial changes\" --- Cook strongly recommended the new edition to newcomers, saying, \"If you don't already play CoC, all I can do is urge you to give it a try\.... discover for yourself why it has made so many converts since its release.\" - In the October 1992 edition (Issue 186), Rick Swan admitted that he was skeptical that the 5th edition would offer anything new, but instead found that the new edition benefited from \"fresh material, judicious editing, and thorough polishes.\" He concluded, \"Few RPGs exceed the CoC game's scope or match its skillful integration of background and game systems. And there's no game more fun.\" In his 1990 book The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games, game critic Rick Swan gave the game a top rating of 4 out of 4, calling it \"a masterpiece, easily the best horror RPG ever published and possibly the best RPG, period \... breathtaking in scope and as richly textured as a fine novel. All role-players owe it to themselves to experience this truly remarkable game.\" In Issue 68 of Challenge, Craig Sheeley reviewed the fifth edition and liked the revisions. \"The entire character generation process is highly streamlined and easily illustrated on a two-page flowchart.\" DeJong also liked the inclusion of material from all three of CoC{{\'}}s settings (1890s, 1920s, 1990s), calling it \"One of the best features of this edition.\" And he was very impressed with the layout of the book, commenting, \"The organization and format of this book deserve special mention. I hold that every game company should study this book to learn what to do right.\" DeJong concluded, \"I am seriously impressed with this product. From cover to cover, it's well done.\" In a reader poll conducted by UK magazine Arcane in 1996 to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time, Call of Cthulhu was ranked 1st. Editor Paul Pettengale commented: \"Call of Cthulhu is fully deserved of the title as the most popular roleplaying system ever - it\'s a game that doesn\'t age, is eminently playable, and which hangs together perfectly. The system, even though it\'s over ten years old, it still one of the very best you\'ll find in any roleplaying game. Also, there\'s not a referee in the land who could say they\'ve read every Lovecraft inspired book or story going, so there\'s a pretty-well endless supply of scenario ideas. It\'s simply marvellous.\" Scott Taylor for Black Gate in 2013 rated Call of Cthulhu as #4 in the top ten role-playing games of all time, saying \"With various revisions, but never a full rewrite of its percentile-based system, Call of Cthulhu might be antiquated by today\'s standards, but remember it is supposed to be set in the 1920s, so to me that seems more than appropriate.\" Call of Cthulhu has been reported to be the second-most popular game played on the virtual table top platform Roll20 in 2021 (the most popular being Dungeons & Dragons). It has also been reported to have found success especially in Korea and Japan, and to have overtaken D&D in Japan. In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath noted up to this point in time, \"roleplaying games are united in one way: In some fashion, they are all power fantasies. Characters go someplace, kill some things, find some loot, and maybe gain enough experience points to unlock their hidden personal potential in the form of new spells or a new power.\" Horvath then pointed out that this game, as the first horror RPG, had an essential difference: \"Horror, as a genre, is generally concerned with powerlessness \... In a complete inversion of other RPGs, characters in Call of Cthulhu are doomed.\" About the game itself, Horvath commented, \"I find Call of Cthulhu unabashedly fun, despite the scares and the despair \... The slumbering god is certainly one of the strangest of pop culture canonizations, but there seems to be an endless appetite --- and deep wallets --- for all things Cthulhu. So long as that remains true, the Great Old One will continue to loom large over RPGs.\" ## Awards The game has won multiple awards: - 1982, Origins Awards, Best Role Playing Game - 1981, Game Designer\'s Guild, Select Award - 1985, Games Day Award, Best Role Playing Game - 1986, Games Day Award, Best Contemporary Role Playing Game - 1987, Games Day Award, Best Other Role Playing Game - 1993, Leeds Wargame Club, Best Role Playing Game - 1994, Gamer\'s Choice Award, Hall of Fame - 1995, Origins Award, Hall of Fame - 2001, Origins Award, Best Graphic Presentation of a Book Product (for Call of Cthulhu 20th anniversary edition) - 2002 Gold Ennie Award for \"Best Graphic Design and Layout\". - 2003, GamingReport.com readers voted it as the number-one Gothic/Horror RPG - 2014, ENNIE Awards - Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Quickstart - \'Best Free Product (Silver)\' - 2016, UK Games Expo Awards - \'Best Roleplaying Game\' - 2017, Beasts of War Awards - \'Best RPG\' - 2017, Dragon Con Awards - \'Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures/Collectible Card/Role Playing Game\' (for Pulp Cthulhu rules) - 2017, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Supplement (Gold)\' (for Pulp Cthulhu rules) - 2017, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Cover Art (Gold)\' (for Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook) - 2017, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Cartography (Gold)\' (for Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen Pack) - 2017, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Aid/Accessory (Gold)\' (for Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen Pack) - 2017, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Production Values (Gold)\' (for Call of Cthulhu Slipcase Set) - 2018, Tabletop Gaming Magazine \'Top 150 Greatest Games of All Time\' - Call of Cthulhu - Ranked #3 (Reader Poll) - 2019, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Rules (Gold)\' (for Call of Cthulhu Starter Set) - 2024, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Writing (Gold)\' and \'Best Adventure -- Long Form (Silver)\' for Call of Cthulhu: Alone Against the Static	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,723	Constellations (journal)	*Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory* is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal of critical post-Marxist and democratic theory and successor of Praxis International. Constellations is committed to publishing the best of contemporary critical theory and democratic theory in philosophy, politics, social theory, and law. The journal aims to expanding the global possibilities for radical politics and social criticism. ## Editorial team {#editorial_team} Nadia Urbinati, Amy Allen, Jean L.Cohen, and Andreas Kalyvas are former co-editors. It is currently edited by Simone Chambers, Cristina Lafont, and Hubertus Buchstein. Ertug Tombus is the managing editor of the journal since 2009. Seyla Benhabib, Nancy Fraser and Andrew Arato are the co-founding former editors. With an international editorial contribution, it is based at the New School in New York.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,726	Crane shot	In filmmaking and video production, a crane shot is a shot taken by a camera on a moving crane or jib. Filmmaker D. W. Griffith created the first crane for his 1916 epic film Intolerance, with famed special effects pioneer Eiji Tsuburaya later constructing the first iron camera crane which is still adapted worldwide today. Most cranes accommodate both the camera and an operator, but some can be moved by remote control. Crane shots are often found in what are supposed to be emotional or suspenseful scenes. One example of this technique is the shots taken by remote cranes in the car-chase sequence of the 1985 film To Live and Die in L.A. Some filmmakers place the camera on a boom arm simply to make it easier to move around between ordinary set-ups. ## History D. W. Griffith designed the first camera crane for his 1916 epic film Intolerance. His crane measured 140 feet tall and ascended on six four-wheeled railroad trucks. In 1929, future special effects pioneer Eiji Tsuburaya constructed a smaller replica of Griffith\'s wooden camera crane without blueprints or manuals. Although his wooden crane collapsed shortly after its completion, Tsuburaya created the first-ever iron shooting crane in October 1934, and an adaptation of this crane is still used worldwide today. ## Camera crane types {#camera_crane_types} Camera cranes may be small, medium, or large, depending on the load capacity and length of the loading arm. Historically, the first camera crane provided for lifting the camera together with the operator, and sometimes an assistant. The range of motion of the boom was restricted because of the high load capacity and the need to ensure operator safety. In recent years`{{When\|date=April 2021}}`{=mediawiki} a camera crane boom tripod with a remote control has become popular. It carries on the boom only a movie or television camera without an operator and allows shooting from difficult positions as a small load capacity makes it possible to achieve a long reach of the crane boom and relative freedom of movement. The operator controls the camera from the ground through a motorized panoramic head, using remote control and video surveillance by watching the image on the monitor. A separate category consists of telescopic camera cranes. These devices allow setting an arbitrary trajectory of the camera, eliminating the characteristic jib crane radial displacement that comes with traditional spanning shots. Large camera cranes are almost indistinguishable from the usual boom-type cranes, with the exception of special equipment for smoothly moving the boom and controlling noise. Small camera cranes and crane-trucks have a lightweight construction, often without a mechanical drive. The valves are controlled manually by balancing the load-specific counterweight, facilitating manipulation. To improve usability and repeatability of movement of the crane in different takes, the axis of rotation arrows are provided with limbs and a pointer. In some cases, the camera crane is mounted on a dolly for even greater camera mobility. Such devices are called crane trolleys. In modern films robotic cranes allow use of multiple actuators for high-accuracy repeated movement of the camera in trick photography. These devices are called tap-robots; some sources use the term motion control. ## Manufacturers The major supplier of cranes in the cinema of the United States throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s was the Chapman Company (later Chapman-Leonard of North Hollywood), supplanted by dozens of similar manufacturers around the world. The traditional design provided seats for both the director and the camera operator, and sometimes a third seat for the cinematographer as well. Large weights on the back of the crane compensate for the weight of the people riding the crane and must be adjusted carefully to avoid the possibility of accidents. During the 1960s, the tallest crane was the Chapman Titan crane, a massive design over 20 feet high that won an Academy Scientific & Engineering award. During the last few years, camera cranes have been miniaturized and costs have dropped so dramatically that most aspiring film makers have access to these tools. What was once a \"Hollywood\" effect is now available for under \$400. Manufacturers of camera cranes include ABC-Products, Cambo, Filmotechnic, Polecam, Panther and Matthews Studio Equipment, Sevenoak, and Newton Nordic. ## Camera crane technique {#camera_crane_technique} Most such cranes were manually operated, requiring an experienced boom operator who knew how to vertically raise, lower, and \"crab\" the camera alongside actors while the crane platform rolled on separate tracks. The crane operator and camera operator had to precisely coordinate their moves so that focus, pan, and camera position all started and stopped at the same time, requiring great skill and rehearsal. On the back of the crane is a counter weight. This allows the crane to smooth action while in motion with minimal effort. ## Notable usage {#notable_usage} - D. W. Griffith\'s Intolerance (1916) featured the first ever crane shot for a film. - Atsuo Tomioka\'s 1935 film The Chorus of a Million featured the first iron camera crane, which was created and employed in the film in 1934 by Eiji Tsuburaya. - Leni Riefenstahl had a cameraman shoot a half-circle pan shot from a crane for the 1935 Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will. - A crane shot was used in Orson Welles\' 1941 film Citizen Kane. Welles also used a crane camera during the iconic opening of Touch of Evil (1958). The camera perched on a Chapman crane begins on a close-up of a ticking time bomb and ends three-plus minutes later with a blinding explosion. - The Western High Noon (1952) had a famous crane shot. The shot backs up and rises, in order to show Marshal Will Kane totally alone and isolated on the street. - The 1964 film by Mikhail Kalatozov, I Am Cuba contains two of the most astonishing tracking shots ever attempted. - In his film Sympathy for the Devil, Jean-Luc Godard used a crane for almost every shot in the movie, giving each scene a 360-degree tour of the tableau Godard presented to the viewer. In the final scene, he even shows the crane he was able to rent on his limited budget by including it in the scene. This was one of his traits as a filmmaker --- showing off his budget --- as he did with Brigitte Bardot in Le Mepris (Contempt). - The closing take of Richard Attenborough\'s film version of Oh! What a Lovely War begins with a single war grave, gradually pulling back to reveal hundreds of identical crosses. - The 1980 comedy-drama film The Stunt Man featured a crane throughout the production of the fictitious film-within-a-film (with the director played by Peter O\'Toole). - The television comedy Second City Television (SCTV) uses the concept of the crane shot as comedic material. After using a crane shot in one of the first NBC-produced episodes, the network complained about the exorbitant cost of renting the crane. SCTV writers responded by making the \"crane shot\" a ubiquitous symbol of production excess while also lampooning network executives who care nothing about artistic vision and everything about the bottom line. At the end of the second season, an inebriated Johnny LaRue (John Candy) is given his very own crane by Santa Claus, implying he would be able to have a crane shot whenever he wanted it. - Director Dario Argento included an extensive scene in Tenebrae where the camera seemingly crawled over the walls and up a house wall, all in one seamless take. Due to its length, the tracking shot ended up being the production\'s most difficult and complex part to complete. - The 2004 Johnnie To film Breaking News opens with an elaborate seven-minute single-take crane shot. - Director Dennis Dugan frequently uses top-to-bottom crane shots in his comedy films. - A camera crane panoramic master interior live shot opens The Late Late Show with James Corden after the pre-recorded exterior aerial-shot. - Jeopardy! uses a crane to pan the camera over the audience.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,734	Consequentialism	In moral philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one\'s conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (including omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome. Consequentialism, along with eudaimonism, falls under the broader category of teleological ethics, a group of views which claim that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value. Consequentialists hold in general that an act is right if and only if the act (or in some views, the rule under which it falls) will produce, will probably produce, or is intended to produce, a greater balance of good over evil than any available alternative. Different consequentialist theories differ in how they define moral goods, with chief candidates including pleasure, the absence of pain, the satisfaction of one\'s preferences, and broader notions of the \"general good\". Consequentialism is usually contrasted with deontological ethics (or deontology): deontology, in which rules and moral duty are central, derives the rightness or wrongness of one\'s conduct from the character of the behaviour itself, rather than the outcomes of the conduct. It is also contrasted with both virtue ethics, which focuses on the character of the agent rather than on the nature or consequences of the act (or omission) itself, and pragmatic ethics, which treats morality like science: advancing collectively as a society over the course of many lifetimes, such that any moral criterion is subject to revision. Some argue that consequentialist theories (such as utilitarianism) and deontological theories (such as Kantian ethics) are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, T. M. Scanlon advances the idea that human rights, which are commonly considered a \"deontological\" concept, can only be justified with reference to the consequences of having those rights. Similarly, Robert Nozick argued for a theory that is mostly consequentialist, but incorporates inviolable \"side-constraints\" which restrict the sort of actions agents are permitted to do. Derek Parfit argued that, in practice, when understood properly, rule consequentialism, Kantian deontology, and contractualism would all end up prescribing the same behavior. ## Etymology The term consequentialism was coined by G. E. M. Anscombe in her essay \"Modern Moral Philosophy\" in 1958. However, the meaning of the word has changed over the time since Anscombe used it: in the sense she coined it, she had explicitly placed J. S. Mill in the nonconsequentialist and W. D. Ross in the consequentialist camp, whereas, in the contemporary sense of the word, they would be classified the other way round. This is due to changes in the meaning of the word, not due to changes in perceptions of W. D. Ross\'s and J. S. Mill\'s views. ## Classification One common view is to classify consequentialism, together with virtue ethics, under a broader label of \"teleological ethics\". Proponents of teleological ethics (Greek: telos, \'end, purpose\' and logos, \'science\') argue that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value, meaning that an act is right if and only if it, or the rule under which it falls, produces, will probably produce, or is intended to produce, a greater balance of good over evil than any alternative act. This concept is exemplified by the famous aphorism, \"the end justifies the means,\" variously attributed to Machiavelli or Ovid i.e. if a goal is morally important enough, any method of achieving it is acceptable. Teleological ethical theories are contrasted with deontological ethical theories, which hold that acts themselves are inherently good or bad, rather than good or bad because of extrinsic factors (such as the act\'s consequences or the moral character of the person who acts). ## Forms of consequentialism {#forms_of_consequentialism} ### Utilitarianism In summary, Jeremy Bentham states that people are driven by their interests and their fears, but their interests take precedence over their fears; their interests are carried out in accordance with how people view the consequences that might be involved with their interests. Happiness, in this account, is defined as the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. It can be argued that the existence of phenomenal consciousness and \"qualia\" is required for the experience of pleasure or pain to have an ethical significance. Historically, hedonistic utilitarianism is the paradigmatic example of a consequentialist moral theory. This form of utilitarianism holds that what matters is to aggregate happiness; the happiness of everyone, and not the happiness of any particular person. John Stuart Mill, in his exposition of hedonistic utilitarianism, proposed a hierarchy of pleasures, meaning that the pursuit of certain kinds of pleasure is more highly valued than the pursuit of other pleasures. However, some contemporary utilitarians, such as Peter Singer, are concerned with maximizing the satisfaction of preferences, hence preference utilitarianism. Other contemporary forms of utilitarianism mirror the forms of consequentialism outlined below. ### Rule consequentialism {#rule_consequentialism} In general, consequentialist theories focus on actions. However, this need not be the case. Rule consequentialism is a theory that is sometimes seen as an attempt to reconcile consequentialism with deontology, or rules-based ethics---and in some cases, this is stated as a criticism of rule consequentialism. Like deontology, rule consequentialism holds that moral behavior involves following certain rules. However, rule consequentialism chooses rules based on the consequences that the selection of those rules has. Rule consequentialism exists in the forms of rule utilitarianism and rule egoism. Various theorists are split as to whether the rules are the only determinant of moral behavior or not. For example, Robert Nozick held that a certain set of minimal rules, which he calls \"side-constraints,\" are necessary to ensure appropriate actions. There are also differences as to how absolute these moral rules are. Thus, while Nozick\'s side-constraints are absolute restrictions on behavior, Amartya Sen proposes a theory that recognizes the importance of certain rules, but these rules are not absolute. That is, they may be violated if strict adherence to the rule would lead to much more undesirable consequences. One of the most common objections to rule-consequentialism is that it is incoherent, because it is based on the consequentialist principle that what we should be concerned with is maximizing the good, but then it tells us not to act to maximize the good, but to follow rules (even in cases where we know that breaking the rule could produce better results). In Ideal Code, Real World, Brad Hooker avoids this objection by not basing his form of rule-consequentialism on the ideal of maximizing the good. He writes: > \[T\]he best argument for rule-consequentialism is not that it derives from an overarching commitment to maximise the good. The best argument for rule-consequentialism is that it does a better job than its rivals of matching and tying together our moral convictions, as well as offering us help with our moral disagreements and uncertainties. Derek Parfit described Hooker\'s book as the \"best statement and defence, so far, of one of the most important moral theories.\" ### State consequentialism {#state_consequentialism} State consequentialism, also known as Mohist consequentialism, is an ethical theory that evaluates the moral worth of an action based on how much it contributes to the welfare of a state. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Mohist consequentialism, dating back to the 5th century BCE, is the \"world\'s earliest form of consequentialism, a remarkably sophisticated version based on a plurality of intrinsic goods taken as constitutive of human welfare.\" Unlike utilitarianism, which views utility as the sole moral good, \"the basic goods in Mohist consequentialist thinking are\...order, material wealth, and increase in population.\" The word \"order\" refers to Mozi\'s stance against warfare and violence, which he viewed as pointless and a threat to social stability; \"material wealth\" of Mohist consequentialism refers to basic needs, like shelter and clothing; and \"increase in population\" relates to the time of Mozi, war and famine were common, and population growth was seen as a moral necessity for a harmonious society. In The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Stanford sinologist David Shepherd Nivison writes that the moral goods of Mohism \"are interrelated: more basic wealth, then more reproduction; more people, then more production and wealth\...if people have plenty, they would be good, filial, kind, and so on unproblematically.\" The Mohists believed that morality is based on \"promoting the benefit of all under heaven and eliminating harm to all under heaven.\" In contrast to Jeremy Bentham\'s views, state consequentialism is not utilitarian because it is not hedonistic or individualistic. The importance of outcomes that are good for the community outweigh the importance of individual pleasure and pain. The term state consequentialism has also been applied to the political philosophy of the Confucian philosopher Xunzi. On the other hand, \"legalist\" Han Fei \"is motivated almost totally from the ruler\'s point of view.\" ### Ethical egoism {#ethical_egoism} Ethical egoism can be understood as a consequentialist theory according to which the consequences for the individual agent are taken to matter more than any other result. Thus, egoism will prescribe actions that may be beneficial, detrimental, or neutral to the welfare of others. Some, like Henry Sidgwick, argue that a certain degree of egoism promotes the general welfare of society for two reasons: because individuals know how to please themselves best, and because if everyone were an austere altruist then general welfare would inevitably decrease. ### Ethical altruism {#ethical_altruism} Ethical altruism can be seen as a consequentialist theory which prescribes that an individual take actions that have the best consequences for everyone, not necessarily including themselves (similar to selflessness). This was advocated by Auguste Comte, who coined the term altruism, and whose ethics can be summed up in the phrase \"Live for others.\" ### Two-level consequentialism {#two_level_consequentialism} The two-level approach involves engaging in critical reasoning and considering all the possible ramifications of one\'s actions before making an ethical decision, but reverting to generally reliable moral rules when one is not in a position to stand back and examine the dilemma as a whole. In practice, this equates to adhering to rule consequentialism when one can only reason on an intuitive level, and to act consequentialism when in a position to stand back and reason on a more critical level. This position can be described as a reconciliation between act consequentialism---in which the morality of an action is determined by that action\'s effects---and rule consequentialism---in which moral behavior is derived from following rules that lead to positive outcomes. The two-level approach to consequentialism is most often associated with R. M. Hare and Peter Singer. ### Motive consequentialism {#motive_consequentialism} Another consequentialist application view is motive consequentialism, which looks at whether the state of affairs that results from the motive to choose an action is better or at least as good as each alternative state of affairs that would have resulted from alternative actions. This version gives relevance to the motive of an act and links it to its consequences. An act can therefore not be wrong if the decision to act was based on a right motive. A possible inference is that one can not be blamed for mistaken judgments if the motivation was to do good. ### Negative consequentialism {#negative_consequentialism} Most consequentialist theories focus on promoting some sort of good consequences. However, negative utilitarianism lays out a consequentialist theory that focuses solely on minimizing bad consequences. One major difference between these two approaches is the agent\'s responsibility. Positive consequentialism demands that we bring about good states of affairs, whereas negative consequentialism requires that we avoid bad ones. Stronger versions of negative consequentialism will require active intervention to prevent bad and ameliorate existing harm. In weaker versions, simple forbearance from acts tending to harm others is sufficient. An example of this is the slippery-slope argument, which encourages others to avoid a specified act on the grounds that it may ultimately lead to undesirable consequences. Often \"negative\" consequentialist theories assert that reducing suffering is more important than increasing pleasure. Karl Popper, for example, claimed that \"from the moral point of view, pain cannot be outweighed by pleasure.\" (While Popper is not a consequentialist per se, this is taken as a classic statement of negative utilitarianism.) When considering a theory of justice, negative consequentialists may use a statewide or global-reaching principle: the reduction of suffering (for the disadvantaged) is more valuable than increased pleasure (for the affluent or luxurious). ### Acts and omissions {#acts_and_omissions} Since pure consequentialism holds that an action is to be judged solely by its result, most consequentialist theories hold that a deliberate action is no different from a deliberate decision not to act. This contrasts with the \"acts and omissions doctrine\", which is upheld by some medical ethicists and some religions: it asserts there is a significant moral distinction between acts and deliberate non-actions which lead to the same outcome. This contrast is brought out in issues such as voluntary euthanasia. ### Actualism and possibilism {#actualism_and_possibilism} The normative status of an action depends on its consequences according to consequentialism. The consequences of the actions of an agent may include other actions by this agent. Actualism and possibilism disagree on how later possible actions impact the normative status of the current action by the same agent. Actualists assert that it is only relevant what the agent would actually do later for assessing the value of an alternative. Possibilists, on the other hand, hold that we should also take into account what the agent could do, even if she would not do it. For example, assume that Gifre has the choice between two alternatives, eating a cookie or not eating anything. Having eaten the first cookie, Gifre could stop eating cookies, which is the best alternative. But after having tasted one cookie, Gifre would freely decide to continue eating cookies until the whole bag is finished, which would result in a terrible stomach ache and would be the worst alternative. Not eating any cookies at all, on the other hand, would be the second-best alternative. Now the question is: should Gifre eat the first cookie or not? Actualists are only concerned with the actual consequences. According to them, Gifre should not eat any cookies at all since it is better than the alternative leading to a stomach ache. Possibilists, however, contend that the best possible course of action involves eating the first cookie and this is therefore what Gifre should do. One counterintuitive consequence of actualism is that agents can avoid moral obligations simply by having an imperfect moral character. For example, a lazy person might justify rejecting a request to help a friend by arguing that, due to her lazy character, she would not have done the work anyway, even if she had accepted the request. By rejecting the offer right away, she managed at least not to waste anyone\'s time. Actualists might even consider her behavior praiseworthy since she did what, according to actualism, she ought to have done. This seems to be a very easy way to \"get off the hook\" that is avoided by possibilism. But possibilism has to face the objection that in some cases it sanctions and even recommends what actually leads to the worst outcome. Douglas W. Portmore has suggested that these and other problems of actualism and possibilism can be avoided by constraining what counts as a genuine alternative for the agent. On his view, it is a requirement that the agent has rational control over the event in question. For example, eating only one cookie and stopping afterward only is an option for Gifre if she has the rational capacity to repress her temptation to continue eating. If the temptation is irrepressible then this course of action is not considered to be an option and is therefore not relevant when assessing what the best alternative is. Portmore suggests that, given this adjustment, we should prefer a view very closely associated with possibilism called maximalism. ## Issues ### Action guidance {#action_guidance} One important characteristic of many normative moral theories such as consequentialism is the ability to produce practical moral judgements. At the very least, any moral theory needs to define the standpoint from which the goodness of the consequences are to be determined. What is primarily at stake here is the responsibility of the agent. #### The ideal observer {#the_ideal_observer} One common tactic among consequentialists, particularly those committed to an altruistic (selfless) account of consequentialism, is to employ an ideal, neutral observer from which moral judgements can be made. John Rawls, a critic of utilitarianism, argues that utilitarianism, in common with other forms of consequentialism, relies on the perspective of such an ideal observer. The particular characteristics of this ideal observer can vary from an omniscient observer, who would grasp all the consequences of any action, to an ideally informed observer, who knows as much as could reasonably be expected, but not necessarily all the circumstances or all the possible consequences. Consequentialist theories that adopt this paradigm hold that right action is the action that will bring about the best consequences from this ideal observer\'s perspective. #### The real observer {#the_real_observer} In practice, it is very difficult, and at times arguably impossible, to adopt the point of view of an ideal observer. Individual moral agents do not know everything about their particular situations, and thus do not know all the possible consequences of their potential actions. For this reason, some theorists have argued that consequentialist theories can only require agents to choose the best action in line with what they know about the situation. However, if this approach is naïvely adopted, then moral agents who, for example, recklessly fail to reflect on their situation, and act in a way that brings about terrible results, could be said to be acting in a morally justifiable way. Acting in a situation without first informing oneself of the circumstances of the situation can lead to even the most well-intended actions yielding miserable consequences. As a result, it could be argued that there is a moral imperative for agents to inform themselves as much as possible about a situation before judging the appropriate course of action. This imperative, of course, is derived from consequential thinking: a better-informed agent is able to bring about better consequences. ### Consequences for whom {#consequences_for_whom} Moral action always has consequences for certain people or things. Varieties of consequentialism can be differentiated by the beneficiary of the good consequences. That is, one might ask \"Consequences for whom?\" #### Agent-focused or agent-neutral {#agent_focused_or_agent_neutral} A fundamental distinction can be drawn between theories which require that agents act for ends perhaps disconnected from their own interests and drives, and theories which permit that agents act for ends in which they have some personal interest or motivation. These are called \"agent-neutral\" and \"agent-focused\" theories respectively. Agent-neutral consequentialism ignores the specific value a state of affairs has for any particular agent. Thus, in an agent-neutral theory, an actor\'s personal goals do not count any more than anyone else\'s goals in evaluating what action the actor should take. Agent-focused consequentialism, on the other hand, focuses on the particular needs of the moral agent. Thus, in an agent-focused account, such as one that Peter Railton outlines, the agent might be concerned with the general welfare, but the agent is more concerned with the immediate welfare of herself and her friends and family. These two approaches could be reconciled by acknowledging the tension between an agent\'s interests as an individual and as a member of various groups, and seeking to somehow optimize among all of these interests. For example, it may be meaningful to speak of an action as being good for someone as an individual, but bad for them as a citizen of their town. #### Non-humans {#non_humans} Many consequentialist theories may seem primarily concerned with human beings and their relationships with other human beings. However, some philosophers argue that we should not limit our ethical consideration to the interests of human beings alone. Jeremy Bentham, who is regarded as the founder of utilitarianism, argues that animals can experience pleasure and pain, thus demanding that \'non-human animals\' should be a serious object of moral concern. More recently, Peter Singer has argued that it is unreasonable that we do not give equal consideration to the interests of animals as to those of human beings when we choose the way we are to treat them. Such equal consideration does not necessarily imply identical treatment of humans and non-humans, any more than it necessarily implies identical treatment of all humans. ### Value of consequences {#value_of_consequences} One way to divide various consequentialisms is by the types of consequences that are taken to matter most, that is, which consequences count as good states of affairs. According to utilitarianism, a good action is one that results in an increase in pleasure, and the best action is one that results in the most pleasure for the greatest number. Closely related is eudaimonic consequentialism, according to which a full, flourishing life, which may or may not be the same as enjoying a great deal of pleasure, is the ultimate aim. Similarly, one might adopt an aesthetic consequentialism, in which the ultimate aim is to produce beauty. However, one might fix on non-psychological goods as the relevant effect. Thus, one might pursue an increase in material equality or political liberty instead of something like the more ephemeral \"pleasure\". Other theories adopt a package of several goods, all to be promoted equally. As the consequentialist approach contains an inherent assumption that the outcomes of a moral decision can be quantified in terms of \"goodness\" or \"badness,\" or at least put in order of increasing preference, it is an especially suited moral theory for a probabilistic and decision theoretical approach. ### Virtue ethics {#virtue_ethics} Consequentialism can also be contrasted with aretaic moral theories such as virtue ethics. Whereas consequentialist theories posit that consequences of action should be the primary focus of our thinking about ethics, virtue ethics insists that it is the character rather than the consequences of actions that should be the focal point. Some virtue ethicists hold that consequentialist theories totally disregard the development and importance of moral character. For example, Philippa Foot argues that consequences in themselves have no ethical content, unless it has been provided by a virtue such as benevolence. However, consequentialism and virtue ethics need not be entirely antagonistic. Iain King has developed an approach that reconciles the two schools. Other consequentialists consider effects on the character of people involved in an action when assessing consequence. Similarly, a consequentialist theory may aim at the maximization of a particular virtue or set of virtues. Finally, following Foot\'s lead, one might adopt a sort of consequentialism that argues that virtuous activity ultimately produces the best consequences.`{{Clarify\|What issue in consequentialism is being discussed here?\|date=February 2012}}`{=mediawiki} ### Ultimate end {#ultimate_end} The ultimate end is a concept in the moral philosophy of Max Weber, in which individuals act in a faithful, rather than rational, manner. ## Criticisms G. E. M. Anscombe objects to the consequentialism of Sidgwick on the grounds that the moral worth of an action is premised on the predictive capabilities of the individual, relieving them of the responsibility for the \"badness\" of an act should they \"make out a case for not having foreseen\" negative consequences. Immanuel Kant makes a similar argument against consequentialism in the case of the inquiring murder. The example asks whether or not it would be right to give false statement to an inquiring murderer in order to misdirect the individual away from the intended victim. He argues, in On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives, that lying from \"benevolent motives,\" here the motive to maximize the good consequences by protecting the intended victim, should then make the liar responsible for the consequences of the act. For example, it could be that by misdirecting the inquiring murder away from where one thought the intended victim was actually directed the murder to the intended victim. That such an act is immoral mirrors Anscombe\'s objection to Sidgwick that his consequentialism would problematically absolve the consequentalist of moral responsibility when the consequentalist fails to foresee the true consequences of an act. The future amplification of the effects of small decisions is an important factor that makes it more difficult to predict the ethical value of consequences, even though most would agree that only predictable consequences are charged with a moral responsibility. Bernard Williams has argued that consequentialism is alienating because it requires moral agents to put too much distance between themselves and their own projects and commitments. Williams argues that consequentialism requires moral agents to take a strictly impersonal view of all actions, since it is only the consequences, and not who produces them, that are said to matter. Williams argues that this demands too much of moral agents---since (he claims) consequentialism demands that they be willing to sacrifice any and all personal projects and commitments in any given circumstance in order to pursue the most beneficent course of action possible. He argues further that consequentialism fails to make sense of intuitions that it can matter whether or not someone is personally the author of a particular consequence. For example, that participating in a crime can matter, even if the crime would have been committed anyway, or would even have been worse, without the agent\'s participation. Some consequentialists---most notably Peter Railton---have attempted to develop a form of consequentialism that acknowledges and avoids the objections raised by Williams. Railton argues that Williams\'s criticisms can be avoided by adopting a form of consequentialism in which moral decisions are to be determined by the sort of life that they express. On his account, the agent should choose the sort of life that will, on the whole, produce the best overall effects. ## Notable consequentialists {#notable_consequentialists} - R. M. Adams (born 1937) - Jonathan Baron (born 1944) - Jeremy Bentham (1748--1832) - Richard B. Brandt (1910--1997) - John Dewey (1857--1952) - Julia Driver (1961- ) - Milton Friedman (1912--2006) - David Friedman (born 1945) - William Godwin (1756--1836) - R. M. Hare (1919--2002) - John Harsanyi (1920--2000) - Brad Hooker (born 1957) - Francis Hutcheson (1694--1746) - Shelly Kagan (born 1963) - Niccolò Machiavelli (1469--1527) - James Mill (1773--1836) - John Stuart Mill (1806--1873) - G. E. Moore (1873--1958) - Mozi (470--391 BCE) - Philip Pettit (born 1945) - Peter Railton (born 1950) - Henry Sidgwick (1838--1900) - Peter Singer (born 1946) - J. J. C. Smart (1920--2012)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,736	Catherine Coleman	Catherine Grace \"Cady\" Coleman (born December 14, 1960) is an American chemist, engineer, former United States Air Force colonel, and retired NASA astronaut. She is a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions, and departed the International Space Station on May 23, 2011, as a crew member of Expedition 27 after logging 159 days in space. ## Education Coleman graduated from Wilbert Tucker Woodson High School, Fairfax, Virginia, in 1978. In 1978--1979, she was an exchange student at Røyken Upper Secondary School in Norway with the AFS Intercultural Programs. She received a B.S. degree in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1983 and was commissioned as graduate of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (Air Force ROTC)., then received a Ph.D. degree in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1991. She was advised by Professor Thomas J. McCarthy on her doctorate. As an undergraduate, she was a member of the intercollegiate rowing crew and was a resident of Baker House. ## Military career {#military_career} Coleman continued to pursue her PhD at the University of Massachusetts Amherst as a second lieutenant. In 1988, she entered active duty at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as a research chemist. During her work, she participated as a surface analysis consultant on the NASA Long Duration Exposure Facility experiment. In 1991, she received her doctorate in polymer science and engineering. She retired from the Air Force in November 2009 as a colonel. ## NASA career {#nasa_career} Coleman was selected by NASA in 1992 to join the NASA Astronaut Corps. In 1995, she was a member of the STS-73 crew on the scientific mission USML-2 with experiments including biotechnology, combustion science, and the physics of fluids. STS-93 was Coleman\'s second space flight in 1999. She was mission specialist in charge of deploying the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its Inertial Upper Stage out of the shuttle\'s cargo bay. Coleman served as Chief of Robotics for the Astronaut Office, to include robotic arm operations and training for all Space Shuttle and International Space Station missions. In October 2004, Coleman served as an aquanaut during the NEEMO 7 mission aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory, living and working underwater for eleven days. Coleman was assigned as a backup U.S. crew member for Expeditions 19, 20 and 21 and served as a backup crew member for Expeditions 24 and 25 as part of her training for Expedition 26. Coleman launched on December 15, 2010 (December 16, 2010 Baikonur time), aboard Soyuz TMA-20 to join the Expedition 26 mission aboard the International Space Station. She retired from NASA on December 1, 2016. ### Spaceflight experience {#spaceflight_experience} STS-73 on Space Shuttle Columbia (October 20 to November 5, 1995) was the second United States Microgravity Laboratory (USML-2) mission. The mission focused on materials science, biotechnology, combustion science, the physics of fluids, and numerous scientific experiments housed in the pressurized Spacelab module. In completing her first space flight, Coleman orbited the Earth 256 times, traveled over 6 million miles, and logged a total of 15 days, 21 hours, 52 minutes and 21 seconds in space. STS-93 on Columbia (July 22 to 27, 1999) was a five-day mission during which Coleman was the lead mission specialist for the deployment of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Designed to conduct comprehensive studies of the universe, the telescope will enable scientists to study exotic phenomena such as exploding stars, quasars, and black holes. Mission duration was 118 hours and 50 minutes. Soyuz TMA-20 / Expedition 26/27 (December 15, 2010, to May 23, 2011) was an extended duration mission to the International Space Station. ## Personal Coleman is married to glass artist Josh Simpson who lives in Massachusetts. They have two sons. She is part of the band Bandella, which also includes fellow NASA astronaut Stephen Robinson, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, and Micki Pettit (wife of the astronaut Donald Pettit). Coleman is a flute player and has taken several flutes with her to the ISS, including a pennywhistle from Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains, an old Irish flute from Matt Molloy of The Chieftains, and a flute from Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull (band). On February 15, 2011, she played one of the instruments live from orbit on National Public Radio. On April 12, 2011, she played a duet with Ian Anderson to honour Yuri Gagarin\'s 50th anniversary of his flight. She first recorded her part, which later on Anderson joined while on tour in Perm. On May 13 of that year, Coleman delivered a taped commencement address to the class of 2011 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As do many other astronauts, Coleman holds an amateur radio license (callsign: KC5ZTH). As of 2015, she is also known to be working as a guest speaker at the Baylor College of Medicine, for the children\'s program \"Saturday Morning Science\". In 2018, she gave a graduation address to Carter Lynch, the sole graduate of Cuttyhunk Elementary School, on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts. In 2019 the Irish postal service An Post issued a set of commemorative stamps for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landings, Catherine Coleman is featured alongside fellow astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Eileen Collins.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,739	Compiler	Compilation}} `{{Use dmy dates\|date=October 2020}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Program execution}}`{=mediawiki} In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the source language) into another language (the target language). The name \"compiler\" is primarily used for programs that translate source code from a high-level programming language to a low-level programming language (e.g. assembly language, object code, or machine code) to create an executable program. There are many different types of compilers which produce output in different useful forms. A cross-compiler produces code for a different CPU or operating system than the one on which the cross-compiler itself runs. A bootstrap compiler is often a temporary compiler, used for compiling a more permanent or better optimised compiler for a language. Related software include decompilers, programs that translate from low-level languages to higher level ones; programs that translate between high-level languages, usually called source-to-source compilers or transpilers; language rewriters, usually programs that translate the form of expressions without a change of language; and compiler-compilers, compilers that produce compilers (or parts of them), often in a generic and reusable way so as to be able to produce many differing compilers. A compiler is likely to perform some or all of the following operations, often called phases: preprocessing, lexical analysis, parsing, semantic analysis (syntax-directed translation), conversion of input programs to an intermediate representation, code optimization and machine specific code generation. Compilers generally implement these phases as modular components, promoting efficient design and correctness of transformations of source input to target output. Program faults caused by incorrect compiler behavior can be very difficult to track down and work around; therefore, compiler implementers invest significant effort to ensure compiler correctness. ## Comparison with interpreter {#comparison_with_interpreter} With respect to making source code runnable, an interpreter provides a similar function as a compiler, but via a different mechanism. An interpreter executes code without converting it to machine code. Some interpreters execute source code while others execute an intermediate form such as bytecode. A program compiled to native code tends to run faster than if interpreted. Environments with a bytecode intermediate form tend toward intermediate speed. Just-in-time compilation allows for native execution speed with a one-time startup processing time cost. Low-level programming languages, such as assembly and C, are typically compiled, especially when speed is a significant concern, rather than cross-platform support. For such languages, there are more one-to-one correspondences between the source code and the resulting machine code, making it easier for programmers to control the use of hardware. In theory, a programming language can be used via either a compiler or an interpreter, but in practice, each language tends to be used with only one or the other. Nonetheless, it is possible to write a compiler for a language that is commonly interpreted. For example, Common Lisp can be compiled to Java bytecode (then interpreted by the Java virtual machine), C code (then compiled to native machine code), or directly to native code. ## History upright=1.5\\|thumb \\|A diagram of the operation of a typical multi-language, multi-target compiler Theoretical computing concepts developed by scientists, mathematicians, and engineers formed the basis of digital modern computing development during World War II. Primitive binary languages evolved because digital devices only understand ones and zeros and the circuit patterns in the underlying machine architecture. In the late 1940s, assembly languages were created to offer a more workable abstraction of the computer architectures. Limited memory capacity of early computers led to substantial technical challenges when the first compilers were designed. Therefore, the compilation process needed to be divided into several small programs. The front end programs produce the analysis products used by the back end programs to generate target code. As computer technology provided more resources, compiler designs could align better with the compilation process. It is usually more productive for a programmer to use a high-level language, so the development of high-level languages followed naturally from the capabilities offered by digital computers. High-level languages are formal languages that are strictly defined by their syntax and semantics which form the high-level language architecture. Elements of these formal languages include: - Alphabet, any finite set of symbols; - String, a finite sequence of symbols; - Language, any set of strings on an alphabet. The sentences in a language may be defined by a set of rules called a grammar. Backus--Naur form (BNF) describes the syntax of \"sentences\" of a language. It was developed by John Backus and used for the syntax of Algol 60. The ideas derive from the context-free grammar concepts by linguist Noam Chomsky. \"BNF and its extensions have become standard tools for describing the syntax of programming notations. In many cases, parts of compilers are generated automatically from a BNF description.\" Between 1942 and 1945, Konrad Zuse designed the first (algorithmic) programming language for computers called \[\[Plankalkül\]\] (\"Plan Calculus\"). Zuse also envisioned a Planfertigungsgerät (\"Plan assembly device\") to automatically translate the mathematical formulation of a program into machine-readable punched film stock. While no actual implementation occurred until the 1970s, it presented concepts later seen in APL designed by Ken Iverson in the late 1950s. APL is a language for mathematical computations. Between 1949 and 1951, Heinz Rutishauser proposed Superplan, a high-level language and automatic translator. His ideas were later refined by Friedrich L. Bauer and Klaus Samelson. High-level language design during the formative years of digital computing provided useful programming tools for a variety of applications: - FORTRAN (Formula Translation) for engineering and science applications is considered to be one of the first actually implemented high-level languages and first optimizing compiler.`{{third-party inline\|date=October 2024}}`{=mediawiki} - COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) evolved from A-0 and FLOW-MATIC to become the dominant high-level language for business applications. - LISP (List Processor) for symbolic computation. Compiler technology evolved from the need for a strictly defined transformation of the high-level source program into a low-level target program for the digital computer. The compiler could be viewed as a front end to deal with the analysis of the source code and a back end to synthesize the analysis into the target code. Optimization between the front end and back end could produce more efficient target code. Some early milestones in the development of compiler technology: - May 1952: Grace Hopper\'s team at Remington Rand wrote the compiler for the A-0 programming language (and coined the term compiler to describe it), although the A-0 compiler functioned more as a loader or linker than the modern notion of a full compiler. - 1952, before September: An Autocode compiler developed by Alick Glennie for the Manchester Mark I computer at the University of Manchester is considered by some to be the first compiled programming language. - 1954--1957: A team led by John Backus at IBM developed FORTRAN which is usually considered the first high-level language. In 1957, they completed a FORTRAN compiler that is generally credited as having introduced the first unambiguously complete compiler. - 1959: The Conference on Data Systems Language (CODASYL) initiated development of COBOL. The COBOL design drew on A-0 and FLOW-MATIC. By the early 1960s COBOL was compiled on multiple architectures. - 1958--1960: Algol 58 was the precursor to ALGOL 60. It introduced code blocks, a key advance in the rise of structured programming. ALGOL 60 was the first language to implement nested function definitions with lexical scope. It included recursion. Its syntax was defined using BNF. ALGOL 60 inspired many languages that followed it. Tony Hoare remarked: \"\... it was not only an improvement on its predecessors but also on nearly all its successors.\" - 1958--1962: John McCarthy at MIT designed LISP. The symbol processing capabilities provided useful features for artificial intelligence research. In 1962, LISP 1.5 release noted some tools: an interpreter written by Stephen Russell and Daniel J. Edwards, a compiler and assembler written by Tim Hart and Mike Levin. Early operating systems and software were written in assembly language. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the use of high-level languages for system programming was still controversial due to resource limitations. However, several research and industry efforts began the shift toward high-level systems programming languages, for example, BCPL, BLISS, B, and C. BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language) designed in 1966 by Martin Richards at the University of Cambridge was originally developed as a compiler writing tool. Several compilers have been implemented, Richards\' book provides insights to the language and its compiler. BCPL was not only an influential systems programming language that is still used in research but also provided a basis for the design of B and C languages. BLISS (Basic Language for Implementation of System Software) was developed for a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-10 computer by W. A. Wulf\'s Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) research team. The CMU team went on to develop BLISS-11 compiler one year later in 1970. Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), a time-sharing operating system project, involved MIT, Bell Labs, General Electric (later Honeywell) and was led by Fernando Corbató from MIT. Multics was written in the PL/I language developed by IBM and IBM User Group. IBM\'s goal was to satisfy business, scientific, and systems programming requirements. There were other languages that could have been considered but PL/I offered the most complete solution even though it had not been implemented. For the first few years of the Multics project, a subset of the language could be compiled to assembly language with the Early PL/I (EPL) compiler by Doug McIlory and Bob Morris from Bell Labs. EPL supported the project until a boot-strapping compiler for the full PL/I could be developed. Bell Labs left the Multics project in 1969, and developed a system programming language B based on BCPL concepts, written by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson. Ritchie created a boot-strapping compiler for B and wrote Unics (Uniplexed Information and Computing Service) operating system for a PDP-7 in B. Unics eventually became spelled Unix. Bell Labs started the development and expansion of C based on B and BCPL. The BCPL compiler had been transported to Multics by Bell Labs and BCPL was a preferred language at Bell Labs. Initially, a front-end program to Bell Labs\' B compiler was used while a C compiler was developed. In 1971, a new PDP-11 provided the resource to define extensions to B and rewrite the compiler. By 1973 the design of C language was essentially complete and the Unix kernel for a PDP-11 was rewritten in C. Steve Johnson started development of Portable C Compiler (PCC) to support retargeting of C compilers to new machines. Object-oriented programming (OOP) offered some interesting possibilities for application development and maintenance. OOP concepts go further back but were part of LISP and Simula language science. Bell Labs became interested in OOP with the development of C++. C++ was first used in 1980 for systems programming. The initial design leveraged C language systems programming capabilities with Simula concepts. Object-oriented facilities were added in 1983. The Cfront program implemented a C++ front-end for C84 language compiler. In subsequent years several C++ compilers were developed as C++ popularity grew. In many application domains, the idea of using a higher-level language quickly caught on. Because of the expanding functionality supported by newer programming languages and the increasing complexity of computer architectures, compilers became more complex. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) sponsored a compiler project with Wulf\'s CMU research team in 1970. The Production Quality Compiler-Compiler PQCC design would produce a Production Quality Compiler (PQC) from formal definitions of source language and the target. PQCC tried to extend the term compiler-compiler beyond the traditional meaning as a parser generator (e.g., Yacc) without much success. PQCC might more properly be referred to as a compiler generator. PQCC research into code generation process sought to build a truly automatic compiler-writing system. The effort discovered and designed the phase structure of the PQC. The BLISS-11 compiler provided the initial structure. The phases included analyses (front end), intermediate translation to virtual machine (middle end), and translation to the target (back end). TCOL was developed for the PQCC research to handle language specific constructs in the intermediate representation. Variations of TCOL supported various languages. The PQCC project investigated techniques of automated compiler construction. The design concepts proved useful in optimizing compilers and compilers for the (since 1995, object-oriented) programming language Ada. The Ada STONEMAN document formalized the program support environment (APSE) along with the kernel (KAPSE) and minimal (MAPSE). An Ada interpreter NYU/ED supported development and standardization efforts with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Standards Organization (ISO). Initial Ada compiler development by the U.S. Military Services included the compilers in a complete integrated design environment along the lines of the STONEMAN document. Army and Navy worked on the Ada Language System (ALS) project targeted to DEC/VAX architecture while the Air Force started on the Ada Integrated Environment (AIE) targeted to IBM 370 series. While the projects did not provide the desired results, they did contribute to the overall effort on Ada development. Other Ada compiler efforts got underway in Britain at the University of York and in Germany at the University of Karlsruhe. In the U. S., Verdix (later acquired by Rational) delivered the Verdix Ada Development System (VADS) to the Army. VADS provided a set of development tools including a compiler. Unix/VADS could be hosted on a variety of Unix platforms such as DEC Ultrix and the Sun 3/60 Solaris targeted to Motorola 68020 in an Army CECOM evaluation. There were soon many Ada compilers available that passed the Ada Validation tests. The Free Software Foundation GNU project developed the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) which provides a core capability to support multiple languages and targets. The Ada version GNAT is one of the most widely used Ada compilers. GNAT is free but there is also commercial support, for example, AdaCore, was founded in 1994 to provide commercial software solutions for Ada. GNAT Pro includes the GNU GCC based GNAT with a tool suite to provide an integrated development environment. High-level languages continued to drive compiler research and development. Focus areas included optimization and automatic code generation. Trends in programming languages and development environments influenced compiler technology. More compilers became included in language distributions (PERL, Java Development Kit) and as a component of an IDE (VADS, Eclipse, Ada Pro). The interrelationship and interdependence of technologies grew. The advent of web services promoted growth of web languages and scripting languages. Scripts trace back to the early days of Command Line Interfaces (CLI) where the user could enter commands to be executed by the system. User Shell concepts developed with languages to write shell programs. Early Windows designs offered a simple batch programming capability. The conventional transformation of these language used an interpreter. While not widely used, Bash and Batch compilers have been written. More recently sophisticated interpreted languages became part of the developers tool kit. Modern scripting languages include PHP, Python, Ruby and Lua. (Lua is widely used in game development.) All of these have interpreter and compiler support. \"When the field of compiling began in the late 50s, its focus was limited to the translation of high-level language programs into machine code \... The compiler field is increasingly intertwined with other disciplines including computer architecture, programming languages, formal methods, software engineering, and computer security.\" The \"Compiler Research: The Next 50 Years\" article noted the importance of object-oriented languages and Java. Security and parallel computing were cited among the future research targets. ## Compiler construction {#compiler_construction} A compiler implements a formal transformation from a high-level source program to a low-level target program. Compiler design can define an end-to-end solution or tackle a defined subset that interfaces with other compilation tools e.g. preprocessors, assemblers, linkers. Design requirements include rigorously defined interfaces both internally between compiler components and externally between supporting toolsets. In the early days, the approach taken to compiler design was directly affected by the complexity of the computer language to be processed, the experience of the person(s) designing it, and the resources available. Resource limitations led to the need to pass through the source code more than once. A compiler for a relatively simple language written by one person might be a single, monolithic piece of software. However, as the source language grows in complexity the design may be split into a number of interdependent phases. Separate phases provide design improvements that focus development on the functions in the compilation process. ### One-pass vis-à-vis multi-pass compilers`{{anchor\|Single-pass}}`{=mediawiki} {#one_pass_vis_à_vis_multi_pass_compilers} Classifying compilers by number of passes has its background in the hardware resource limitations of computers. Compiling involves performing much work and early computers did not have enough memory to contain one program that did all of this work. As a result, compilers were split up into smaller programs which each made a pass over the source (or some representation of it) performing some of the required analysis and translations. The ability to compile in a single pass has classically been seen as a benefit because it simplifies the job of writing a compiler and one-pass compilers generally perform compilations faster than multi-pass compilers. Thus, partly driven by the resource limitations of early systems, many early languages were specifically designed so that they could be compiled in a single pass (e.g., Pascal). In some cases, the design of a language feature may require a compiler to perform more than one pass over the source. For instance, consider a declaration appearing on line 20 of the source which affects the translation of a statement appearing on line 10. In this case, the first pass needs to gather information about declarations appearing after statements that they affect, with the actual translation happening during a subsequent pass. The disadvantage of compiling in a single pass is that it is not possible to perform many of the sophisticated optimizations needed to generate high quality code. It can be difficult to count exactly how many passes an optimizing compiler makes. For instance, different phases of optimization may analyse one expression many times but only analyse another expression once. Splitting a compiler up into small programs is a technique used by researchers interested in producing provably correct compilers. Proving the correctness of a set of small programs often requires less effort than proving the correctness of a larger, single, equivalent program. ### Three-stage compiler structure {#three_stage_compiler_structure} thumb\\|center\\|upright=2.5\\|Compiler design Regardless of the exact number of phases in the compiler design, the phases can be assigned to one of three stages. The stages include a front end, a middle end, and a back end. - The front end scans the input and verifies syntax and semantics according to a specific source language. For statically typed languages it performs type checking by collecting type information. If the input program is syntactically incorrect or has a type error, it generates error and/or warning messages, usually identifying the location in the source code where the problem was detected; in some cases the actual error may be (much) earlier in the program. Aspects of the front end include lexical analysis, syntax analysis, and semantic analysis. The front end transforms the input program into an intermediate representation (IR) for further processing by the middle end. This IR is usually a lower-level representation of the program with respect to the source code. - The middle end performs optimizations on the IR that are independent of the CPU architecture being targeted. This source code/machine code independence is intended to enable generic optimizations to be shared between versions of the compiler supporting different languages and target processors. Examples of middle end optimizations are removal of useless (dead-code elimination) or unreachable code (reachability analysis), discovery and propagation of constant values (constant propagation), relocation of computation to a less frequently executed place (e.g., out of a loop), or specialization of computation based on the context, eventually producing the \"optimized\" IR that is used by the back end. - The back end takes the optimized IR from the middle end. It may perform more analysis, transformations and optimizations that are specific for the target CPU architecture. The back end generates the target-dependent assembly code, performing register allocation in the process. The back end performs instruction scheduling, which re-orders instructions to keep parallel execution units busy by filling delay slots. Although most optimization problems are NP-hard, heuristic techniques for solving them are well-developed and implemented in production-quality compilers. Typically the output of a back end is machine code specialized for a particular processor and operating system. This front/middle/back-end approach makes it possible to combine front ends for different languages with back ends for different CPUs while sharing the optimizations of the middle end. Practical examples of this approach are the GNU Compiler Collection, Clang (LLVM-based C/C++ compiler), and the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, which have multiple front-ends, shared optimizations and multiple back-ends. #### Front end {#front_end} The front end analyzes the source code to build an internal representation of the program, called the intermediate representation (IR). It also manages the symbol table, a data structure mapping each symbol in the source code to associated information such as location, type and scope. While the frontend can be a single monolithic function or program, as in a scannerless parser, it was traditionally implemented and analyzed as several phases, which may execute sequentially or concurrently. This method is favored due to its modularity and separation of concerns. Most commonly, the frontend is broken into three phases: lexical analysis (also known as lexing or scanning), syntax analysis (also known as scanning or parsing), and semantic analysis. Lexing and parsing comprise the syntactic analysis (word syntax and phrase syntax, respectively), and in simple cases, these modules (the lexer and parser) can be automatically generated from a grammar for the language, though in more complex cases these require manual modification. The lexical grammar and phrase grammar are usually context-free grammars, which simplifies analysis significantly, with context-sensitivity handled at the semantic analysis phase. The semantic analysis phase is generally more complex and written by hand, but can be partially or fully automated using attribute grammars. These phases themselves can be further broken down: lexing as scanning and evaluating, and parsing as building a concrete syntax tree (CST, parse tree) and then transforming it into an abstract syntax tree (AST, syntax tree). In some cases additional phases are used, notably line reconstruction and preprocessing, but these are rare. The main phases of the front end include the following: - `{{visible anchor\|Line reconstruction}}`{=mediawiki} converts the input character sequence to a canonical form ready for the parser. Languages which strop their keywords or allow arbitrary spaces within identifiers require this phase. The top-down, recursive-descent, table-driven parsers used in the 1960s typically read the source one character at a time and did not require a separate tokenizing phase. Atlas Autocode and Imp (and some implementations of ALGOL and Coral 66) are examples of stropped languages whose compilers would have a Line Reconstruction phase. - Preprocessing supports macro substitution and conditional compilation. Typically the preprocessing phase occurs before syntactic or semantic analysis; e.g. in the case of C, the preprocessor manipulates lexical tokens rather than syntactic forms. However, some languages such as Scheme support macro substitutions based on syntactic forms. - Lexical analysis (also known as lexing or tokenization) breaks the source code text into a sequence of small pieces called lexical tokens. This phase can be divided into two stages: the scanning, which segments the input text into syntactic units called lexemes and assigns them a category; and the evaluating, which converts lexemes into a processed value. A token is a pair consisting of a token name and an optional token value. Common token categories may include identifiers, keywords, separators, operators, literals and comments, although the set of token categories varies in different programming languages. The lexeme syntax is typically a regular language, so a finite-state automaton constructed from a regular expression can be used to recognize it. The software doing lexical analysis is called a lexical analyzer. This may not be a separate step---it can be combined with the parsing step in scannerless parsing, in which case parsing is done at the character level, not the token level. - Syntax analysis (also known as parsing) involves parsing the token sequence to identify the syntactic structure of the program. This phase typically builds a parse tree, which replaces the linear sequence of tokens with a tree structure built according to the rules of a formal grammar which define the language\'s syntax. The parse tree is often analyzed, augmented, and transformed by later phases in the compiler. - Semantic analysis adds semantic information to the parse tree and builds the symbol table. This phase performs semantic checks such as type checking (checking for type errors), or object binding (associating variable and function references with their definitions), or definite assignment (requiring all local variables to be initialized before use), rejecting incorrect programs or issuing warnings. Semantic analysis usually requires a complete parse tree, meaning that this phase logically follows the parsing phase, and logically precedes the code generation phase, though it is often possible to fold multiple phases into one pass over the code in a compiler implementation. #### Middle end {#middle_end} The middle end, also known as optimizer, performs optimizations on the intermediate representation in order to improve the performance and the quality of the produced machine code. The middle end contains those optimizations that are independent of the CPU architecture being targeted. The main phases of the middle end include the following: - Analysis: This is the gathering of program information from the intermediate representation derived from the input; data-flow analysis is used to build use-define chains, together with dependence analysis, alias analysis, pointer analysis, escape analysis, etc. Accurate analysis is the basis for any compiler optimization. The control-flow graph of every compiled function and the call graph of the program are usually also built during the analysis phase. - Optimization: the intermediate language representation is transformed into functionally equivalent but faster (or smaller) forms. Popular optimizations are inline expansion, dead-code elimination, constant propagation, loop transformation and even automatic parallelization. Compiler analysis is the prerequisite for any compiler optimization, and they tightly work together. For example, dependence analysis is crucial for loop transformation. The scope of compiler analysis and optimizations vary greatly; their scope may range from operating within a basic block, to whole procedures, or even the whole program. There is a trade-off between the granularity of the optimizations and the cost of compilation. For example, peephole optimizations are fast to perform during compilation but only affect a small local fragment of the code, and can be performed independently of the context in which the code fragment appears. In contrast, interprocedural optimization requires more compilation time and memory space, but enable optimizations that are only possible by considering the behavior of multiple functions simultaneously. Interprocedural analysis and optimizations are common in modern commercial compilers from HP, IBM, SGI, Intel, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems. The free software GCC was criticized for a long time for lacking powerful interprocedural optimizations, but it is changing in this respect. Another open source compiler with full analysis and optimization infrastructure is Open64, which is used by many organizations for research and commercial purposes. Due to the extra time and space needed for compiler analysis and optimizations, some compilers skip them by default. Users have to use compilation options to explicitly tell the compiler which optimizations should be enabled. #### Back end {#back_end} The back end is responsible for the CPU architecture specific optimizations and for code generation. The main phases of the back end include the following: - Machine dependent optimizations: optimizations that depend on the details of the CPU architecture that the compiler targets. A prominent example is peephole optimizations, which rewrites short sequences of assembler instructions into more efficient instructions. - Code generation: the transformed intermediate language is translated into the output language, usually the native machine language of the system. This involves resource and storage decisions, such as deciding which variables to fit into registers and memory and the selection and scheduling of appropriate machine instructions along with their associated addressing modes (see also Sethi--Ullman algorithm). Debug data may also need to be generated to facilitate debugging. ### Compiler correctness {#compiler_correctness} Compiler correctness is the branch of software engineering that deals with trying to show that a compiler behaves according to its language specification. Techniques include developing the compiler using formal methods and using rigorous testing (often called compiler validation) on an existing compiler. ## Compiled vis-à-vis interpreted languages {#compiled_vis_à_vis_interpreted_languages} Higher-level programming languages usually appear with a type of translation in mind: either designed as compiled language or interpreted language. However, in practice there is rarely anything about a language that requires it to be exclusively compiled or exclusively interpreted, although it is possible to design languages that rely on re-interpretation at run time. The categorization usually reflects the most popular or widespread implementations of a language -- for instance, BASIC is sometimes called an interpreted language, and C a compiled one, despite the existence of BASIC compilers and C interpreters. Interpretation does not replace compilation completely. It only hides it from the user and makes it gradual. Even though an interpreter can itself be interpreted, a set of directly executed machine instructions is needed somewhere at the bottom of the execution stack (see machine language). Furthermore, for optimization compilers can contain interpreter functionality, and interpreters may include ahead of time compilation techniques. For example, where an expression can be executed during compilation and the results inserted into the output program, then it prevents it having to be recalculated each time the program runs, which can greatly speed up the final program. Modern trends toward just-in-time compilation and bytecode interpretation at times blur the traditional categorizations of compilers and interpreters even further. Some language specifications spell out that implementations must include a compilation facility; for example, Common Lisp. However, there is nothing inherent in the definition of Common Lisp that stops it from being interpreted. Other languages have features that are very easy to implement in an interpreter, but make writing a compiler much harder; for example, APL, SNOBOL4, and many scripting languages allow programs to construct arbitrary source code at runtime with regular string operations, and then execute that code by passing it to a special evaluation function. To implement these features in a compiled language, programs must usually be shipped with a runtime library that includes a version of the compiler itself. ## Types One classification of compilers is by the platform on which their generated code executes. This is known as the target platform. A native or hosted compiler is one whose output is intended to directly run on the same type of computer and operating system that the compiler itself runs on. The output of a cross compiler is designed to run on a different platform. Cross compilers are often used when developing software for embedded systems that are not intended to support a software development environment. The output of a compiler that produces code for a virtual machine (VM) may or may not be executed on the same platform as the compiler that produced it. For this reason, such compilers are not usually classified as native or cross compilers. The lower level language that is the target of a compiler may itself be a high-level programming language. C, viewed by some as a sort of portable assembly language, is frequently the target language of such compilers. For example, Cfront, the original compiler for C++, used C as its target language. The C code generated by such a compiler is usually not intended to be readable and maintained by humans, so indent style and creating pretty C intermediate code are ignored. Some of the features of C that make it a good target language include the `#line` directive, which can be generated by the compiler to support debugging of the original source, and the wide platform support available with C compilers. While a common compiler type outputs machine code, there are many other types: - Source-to-source compilers are a type of compiler that takes a high-level language as its input and outputs a high-level language. For example, an automatic parallelizing compiler will frequently take in a high-level language program as an input and then transform the code and annotate it with parallel code annotations (e.g. OpenMP) or language constructs (e.g. Fortran\'s `DOALL` statements). Other terms for a source-to-source compiler are transcompiler or transpiler. - Bytecode compilers compile to assembly language of a theoretical machine, like some Prolog implementations - This Prolog machine is also known as the Warren Abstract Machine (or WAM). - Bytecode compilers for Java, Python are also examples of this category. - Just-in-time compilers (JIT compiler) defer compilation until runtime. JIT compilers exist for many modern languages including Python, JavaScript, Smalltalk, Java, Microsoft .NET\'s Common Intermediate Language (CIL) and others. A JIT compiler generally runs inside an interpreter. When the interpreter detects that a code path is \"hot\", meaning it is executed frequently, the JIT compiler will be invoked and compile the \"hot\" code for increased performance. - For some languages, such as Java, applications are first compiled using a bytecode compiler and delivered in a machine-independent intermediate representation. A bytecode interpreter executes the bytecode, but the JIT compiler will translate the bytecode to machine code when increased performance is necessary.`{{primary source inline\|date=March 2017}}`{=mediawiki} - Hardware compilers (also known as synthesis tools) are compilers whose input is a hardware description language and whose output is a description, in the form of a netlist or otherwise, of a hardware configuration. - The output of these compilers target computer hardware at a very low level, for example a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) or structured application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).`{{primary source inline\|date=March 2017}}`{=mediawiki} Such compilers are said to be hardware compilers, because the source code they compile effectively controls the final configuration of the hardware and how it operates. The output of the compilation is only an interconnection of transistors or lookup tables. - An example of hardware compiler is XST, the Xilinx Synthesis Tool used for configuring FPGAs.`{{primary source inline\|date=March 2017}}`{=mediawiki} Similar tools are available from Altera,`{{primary source inline\|date=March 2017}}`{=mediawiki} Synplicity, Synopsys and other hardware vendors. - Research systems compile subsets of high level serial languages, such as Python or C++, directly into parallelized digital logic. This is typically easier to do for functional languages or functional subsets of multi-paradigm languages. - A program that translates from a low-level language to a higher level one is a decompiler. - A program that translates into an object code format that is not supported on the compilation machine is called a cross compiler and is commonly used to prepare code for execution on embedded software applications.`{{better source needed\|date=March 2023}}`{=mediawiki} - A program that rewrites object code back into the same type of object code while applying optimisations and transformations is a binary recompiler. Assemblers, which translate human readable assembly language to the machine code instructions executed by hardware, are not considered compilers. (The inverse program that translates machine code to assembly language is called a disassembler.)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,743	Counting-out game	A counting-out game or counting-out rhyme is a simple method of \'randomly\' selecting a person from a group, often used by children for the purpose of playing another game. It usually requires no materials, and is achieved with spoken words or hand gestures. The historian Henry Carrington Bolton suggested in his 1888 book Counting Out Rhymes of Children that the custom of counting out originated in the \"superstitious practices of divination by lots.\" Many such methods involve one person pointing at each participant in a circle of players while reciting a rhyme. A new person is pointed at as each word is said. The player who is selected at the conclusion of the rhyme is \"it\" or \"out\". In an alternate version, the circle of players may each put two feet in and at the conclusion of the rhyme, that player removes one foot and the rhyme starts over with the next person. In this case, the first player that has both feet removed is \"it\" or \"out\". In theory the result of a counting rhyme is determined entirely by the starting selection (and would result in a modulo operation), but in practice they are often accepted as random selections because the number of words has not been calculated beforehand, so the result is unknown until someone is selected. A variant of counting-out game, known as the Josephus problem, represents a famous theoretical problem in mathematics and computer science. ## Examples Several simple games can be played to select one person from a group, either as a straightforward winner, or as someone who is eliminated. Rock, Paper, Scissors, Odd or Even and Blue Shoe require no materials and are played using hand gestures, although with the former it is possible for a player to win or lose through skill rather than luck. Coin flipping and drawing straws are fair methods of randomly determining a player. Fizz Buzz is a spoken word game where if a player slips up and speaks a word out of sequence, they are eliminated. ### Common rhymes {#common_rhymes} (These rhymes may have many local or regional variants.) - Eeny, meeny, miny, moe - 10 Little Indians - Five Little Ducks - Ip dip - One, Two, Three, Four, Five - Tinker, Tailor (traditionally played in England) - Yan Tan Tethera - Inky Pinky Ponky - One potato, two potato - Ink-a-dink - - En Den Dino	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,759	Complex analysis	Complexity theory}} `{{More footnotes\|date=March 2021}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Complex analysis sidebar}}`{=mediawiki} Complex analysis, traditionally known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis that investigates functions of complex numbers. It is helpful in many branches of mathematics, including algebraic geometry, number theory, analytic combinatorics, and applied mathematics, as well as in physics, including the branches of hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and twistor theory. By extension, use of complex analysis also has applications in engineering fields such as nuclear, aerospace, mechanical and electrical engineering. As a differentiable function of a complex variable is equal to the sum function given by its Taylor series (that is, it is analytic), complex analysis is particularly concerned with analytic functions of a complex variable, that is, holomorphic functions. The concept can be extended to functions of several complex variables. Complex analysis is contrasted with real analysis, which deals with the study of real numbers and functions of a real variable. ## History Complex analysis is one of the classical branches in mathematics, with roots in the 18th century and just prior. Important mathematicians associated with complex numbers include Euler, Gauss, Riemann, Cauchy, Weierstrass, and many more in the 20th century. Complex analysis, in particular the theory of conformal mappings, has many physical applications and is also used throughout analytic number theory. In modern times, it has become very popular through a new boost from complex dynamics and the pictures of fractals produced by iterating holomorphic functions. Another important application of complex analysis is in string theory which examines conformal invariants in quantum field theory. ## Complex functions {#complex_functions} A complex function is a function from complex numbers to complex numbers. In other words, it is a function that has a (not necessarily proper) subset of the complex numbers as a domain and the complex numbers as a codomain. Complex functions are generally assumed to have a domain that contains a nonempty open subset of the complex plane. For any complex function, the values $z$ from the domain and their images $f(z)$ in the range may be separated into real and imaginary parts: : $z=x+iy \quad \text{ and } \quad f(z) = f(x+iy)=u(x,y)+iv(x,y),$ where $x,y,u(x,y),v(x,y)$ are all real-valued. In other words, a complex function $f:\mathbb{C}\to\mathbb{C}$ may be decomposed into : $u:\mathbb{R}^2\to\mathbb{R} \quad$ and $\quad v:\mathbb{R}^2\to\mathbb{R},$ i.e., into two real-valued functions ($u$, $v$) of two real variables ($x$, $y$). Similarly, any complex-valued function `{{mvar\|f}}`{=mediawiki} on an arbitrary set `{{mvar\|X}}`{=mediawiki} (is isomorphic to, and therefore, in that sense, it) can be considered as an ordered pair of two real-valued functions: `{{math\|(Re ''f'', Im ''f'')}}`{=mediawiki} or, alternatively, as a vector-valued function from `{{mvar\|X}}`{=mediawiki} into $\mathbb R^2.$ Some properties of complex-valued functions (such as continuity) are nothing more than the corresponding properties of vector valued functions of two real variables. Other concepts of complex analysis, such as differentiability, are direct generalizations of the similar concepts for real functions, but may have very different properties. In particular, every differentiable complex function is analytic (see next section), and two differentiable functions that are equal in a neighborhood of a point are equal on the intersection of their domain (if the domains are connected). The latter property is the basis of the principle of analytic continuation which allows extending every real analytic function in a unique way for getting a complex analytic function whose domain is the whole complex plane with a finite number of curve arcs removed. Many basic and special complex functions are defined in this way, including the complex exponential function, complex logarithm functions, and trigonometric functions. ## Holomorphic functions {#holomorphic_functions} Complex functions that are differentiable at every point of an open subset $\Omega$ of the complex plane are said to be holomorphic on `{{nowrap\|<math>\Omega</math>.}}`{=mediawiki} In the context of complex analysis, the derivative of $f$ at $z_0$ is defined to be : $f'(z_0) = \lim_{z \to z_0} \frac{f(z)-f(z_0)}{z-z_0}.$ Superficially, this definition is formally analogous to that of the derivative of a real function. However, complex derivatives and differentiable functions behave in significantly different ways compared to their real counterparts. In particular, for this limit to exist, the value of the difference quotient must approach the same complex number, regardless of the manner in which we approach $z_0$ in the complex plane. Consequently, complex differentiability has much stronger implications than real differentiability. For instance, holomorphic functions are infinitely differentiable, whereas the existence of the nth derivative need not imply the existence of the (n + 1)th derivative for real functions. Furthermore, all holomorphic functions satisfy the stronger condition of analyticity, meaning that the function is, at every point in its domain, locally given by a convergent power series. In essence, this means that functions holomorphic on $\Omega$ can be approximated arbitrarily well by polynomials in some neighborhood of every point in $\Omega$. This stands in sharp contrast to differentiable real functions; there are infinitely differentiable real functions that are nowhere analytic; see `{{slink\|Non-analytic smooth function\|A smooth function which is nowhere real analytic}}`{=mediawiki}. Most elementary functions, including the exponential function, the trigonometric functions, and all polynomial functions, extended appropriately to complex arguments as functions `{{nowrap\|<math>\mathbb{C}\to\mathbb{C}</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} are holomorphic over the entire complex plane, making them entire functions, while rational functions $p/q$, where p and q are polynomials, are holomorphic on domains that exclude points where q is zero. Such functions that are holomorphic everywhere except a set of isolated points are known as meromorphic functions. On the other hand, the functions `{{nowrap\|<math>z\mapsto \Re(z)</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} `{{nowrap\|<math>z\mapsto \|z\|</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} and $z\mapsto \bar{z}$ are not holomorphic anywhere on the complex plane, as can be shown by their failure to satisfy the Cauchy--Riemann conditions (see below). An important property of holomorphic functions is the relationship between the partial derivatives of their real and imaginary components, known as the Cauchy--Riemann conditions. If $f:\mathbb{C}\to\mathbb{C}$, defined by `{{nowrap\|<math>f(z) = f(x + iy) = u(x, y) + iv(x, y)</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} where `{{nowrap\|<math>x, y, u(x, y),v(x, y) \in \R</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} is holomorphic on a region `{{nowrap\|<math>\Omega</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} then for all $z_0\in \Omega$, $$\frac{\partial f}{\partial\bar{z}}(z_0) = 0,\ \text{where } \frac\partial{\partial\bar{z}} \mathrel{:=} \frac12\left(\frac\partial{\partial x} + i\frac\partial{\partial y}\right).$$ In terms of the real and imaginary parts of the function, u and v, this is equivalent to the pair of equations $u_x = v_y$ and $u_y=-v_x$, where the subscripts indicate partial differentiation. However, the Cauchy--Riemann conditions do not characterize holomorphic functions, without additional continuity conditions (see Looman--Menchoff theorem). Holomorphic functions exhibit some remarkable features. For instance, Picard\'s theorem asserts that the range of an entire function can take only three possible forms: `{{nowrap\|<math>\mathbb{C}</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} `{{nowrap\|<math>\mathbb{C}\setminus\{z_0\}</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} or $\{z_0\}$ for some `{{nowrap\|<math>z_0\in\mathbb{C}</math>.}}`{=mediawiki} In other words, if two distinct complex numbers $z$ and $w$ are not in the range of an entire function `{{nowrap\|<math>f</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} then $f$ is a constant function. Moreover, a holomorphic function on a connected open set is determined by its restriction to any nonempty open subset. ## Conformal map {#conformal_map} ## Major results {#major_results} One of the central tools in complex analysis is the line integral. The line integral around a closed path of a function that is holomorphic everywhere inside the area bounded by the closed path is always zero, as is stated by the Cauchy integral theorem. The values of such a holomorphic function inside a disk can be computed by a path integral on the disk\'s boundary (as shown in Cauchy\'s integral formula). Path integrals in the complex plane are often used to determine complicated real integrals, and here the theory of residues among others is applicable (see methods of contour integration). A \"pole\" (or isolated singularity) of a function is a point where the function\'s value becomes unbounded, or \"blows up\". If a function has such a pole, then one can compute the function\'s residue there, which can be used to compute path integrals involving the function; this is the content of the powerful residue theorem. The remarkable behavior of holomorphic functions near essential singularities is described by Picard\'s theorem. Functions that have only poles but no essential singularities are called meromorphic. Laurent series are the complex-valued equivalent to Taylor series, but can be used to study the behavior of functions near singularities through infinite sums of more well understood functions, such as polynomials. A bounded function that is holomorphic in the entire complex plane must be constant; this is Liouville\'s theorem. It can be used to provide a natural and short proof for the fundamental theorem of algebra which states that the field of complex numbers is algebraically closed. If a function is holomorphic throughout a connected domain then its values are fully determined by its values on any smaller subdomain. The function on the larger domain is said to be analytically continued from its values on the smaller domain. This allows the extension of the definition of functions, such as the Riemann zeta function, which are initially defined in terms of infinite sums that converge only on limited domains to almost the entire complex plane. Sometimes, as in the case of the natural logarithm, it is impossible to analytically continue a holomorphic function to a non-simply connected domain in the complex plane but it is possible to extend it to a holomorphic function on a closely related surface known as a Riemann surface. All this refers to complex analysis in one variable. There is also a very rich theory of complex analysis in more than one complex dimension in which the analytic properties such as power series expansion carry over whereas most of the geometric properties of holomorphic functions in one complex dimension (such as conformality) do not carry over. The Riemann mapping theorem about the conformal relationship of certain domains in the complex plane, which may be the most important result in the one-dimensional theory, fails dramatically in higher dimensions. A major application of certain complex spaces is in quantum mechanics as wave functions.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,776	Caving	Caving, also known as spelunking (United States and Canada) and potholing (United Kingdom and Ireland), is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology is the scientific study of caves and the cave environment. The challenges involved in caving vary according to the cave being visited; in addition to the total absence of light beyond the entrance, negotiating pitches, squeezes, and water hazards can be difficult. Cave diving is a distinct, and more hazardous, sub-speciality undertaken by a small minority of technically proficient cavers. In an area of overlap between recreational pursuit and scientific study, the most devoted and serious-minded cavers become accomplished at the surveying and mapping of caves and the formal publication of their efforts. These are usually published freely and publicly, especially in the UK and other European countries, although in the US they are generally more private. Although caving is sometimes categorized as an \"extreme sport,\" cavers do not commonly use this terminology and typically dislike the term being used in reference to caving, as it implies a disregard for safety. Though caving is a fairly safe sport compared to other activities that are sometimes classified as \"extreme sports\", incidents do occur. These tend to be related to flooding, hypothermia, rock falls, caver falls, SRT accidents, or some combination of these. Many caving skills overlap with those involved in canyoning and mine and urban exploration. ## Motivation Caving is often undertaken for the enjoyment of the outdoor activity or for physical exercise, as well as original exploration, similar to mountaineering or diving. Physical or biological science is also an important goal for some cavers, while others are engaged in cave photography. Virgin cave systems comprise some of the last unexplored regions on Earth and much effort is put into trying to locate, enter and survey them. In well-explored regions (such as most developed nations), the most accessible caves have already been explored, and gaining access to new caves often requires cave digging or cave diving. Caving, in certain areas, has also been utilized as a form of eco and adventure tourism, for example in New Zealand. Tour companies have established an industry leading and guiding tours into and through caves. Depending on the type of cave and the type of tour, the experience could be adventure-based or ecological-based. There are tours led through lava tubes by a guiding service (e.g. Lava River Cave, the oceanic islands of Tenerife, [Iceland](http://cave.is/caves-in-iceland/leidarendi-cave/) and [Hawaii](https://web.archive.org/web/20080218044937/http://www.nps.gov/havo/planyourvisit/craterrimtour_tube.htm)). Caving has also been described as an \"individualist\'s team sport\" by some, as cavers can often make a trip without direct physical assistance from others but will generally go in a group for companionship or to provide emergency help if needed. Some however consider the assistance cavers give each other as a typical team sport activity. ## Etymology The term potholing refers to the act of exploring potholes, a word originating in the north of England for predominantly vertical caves. Clay Perry, an American caver of the 1940s, wrote about a group of men and boys who explored and studied caves throughout New England. This group referred to themselves as spelunkers, a term derived from the Latin spēlunca (\"cave, cavern, den\"). This is regarded as the first use of the word in the Americas. Throughout the 1950s, spelunking was the general term used for exploring caves in US English. It was used freely, without any positive or negative connotations, although only rarely outside the US. In the 1960s, the terms spelunking and spelunker began to be considered déclassé among experienced enthusiasts. In 1985, Steve Knutson -- editor of the National Speleological Society (NSS) publication American Caving Accidents -- made the following distinction: This sentiment is exemplified by bumper stickers and T-shirts displayed by some cavers: \"Cavers rescue spelunkers\". Nevertheless, outside the caving community, \"spelunking\" and \"spelunkers\" predominately remain neutral terms referring to the practice and practitioners, without any respect to skill level. ## History In the mid-19th century, John Birkbeck explored potholes in England, notably Gaping Gill in 1842 and Alum Pot in 1847--8, returning there in the 1870s. In the mid-1880s, Herbert E. Balch began exploring Wookey Hole Caves and in the 1890s, Balch was introduced to the caves of the Mendip Hills. One of the oldest established caving clubs, Yorkshire Ramblers\' Club, was founded in 1892. Caving as a specialized pursuit was pioneered by Édouard-Alfred Martel (1859--1938), who first achieved the descent and exploration of the Gouffre de Padirac, in France, as early as 1889 and the first complete descent of a 110-metre wet vertical shaft at Gaping Gill in 1895. He developed his own techniques based on ropes and metallic ladders. Martel visited Kentucky and notably Mammoth Cave National Park in October 1912. In the 1920s famous US caver Floyd Collins made important explorations in the area and in the 1930s, as caving became increasingly popular, small exploration teams both in the Alps and in the karstic high plateaus of southwest France (Causses and Pyrenees) transformed cave exploration into both a scientific and recreational activity. Robert de Joly, Guy de Lavaur and Norbert Casteret were prominent figures of that time, surveying mostly caves in Southwest France. During World War II, an alpine team composed of Pierre Chevalier, Fernand Petzl, Charles Petit-Didier and others explored the Dent de Crolles cave system near Grenoble, which became the deepest explored system in the world (-658m) at that time. The lack of available equipment during the war forced Pierre Chevalier and the rest of the team to develop their own equipment, leading to technical innovation. The scaling-pole (1940), nylon ropes (1942), use of explosives in caves (1947) and mechanical rope-ascenders (Henri Brenot\'s \"monkeys\", first used by Chevalier and Brenot in a cave in 1934) can be directly associated to the exploration of the Dent de Crolles cave system. In 1941, American cavers organized themselves into the National Speleological Society (NSS) to advance the exploration, conservation, study and understanding of caves in the United States. American caver Bill Cuddington, known as \"Vertical Bill\", further developed the single-rope technique (SRT) in the late 1950s. In 1958, two Swiss alpinists, Juesi and Marti teamed together, creating the first rope ascender known as the Jumar. In 1968 Bruno Dressler asked Fernand Petzl, who worked as a metals machinist, to build a rope-ascending tool, today known as the Petzl Croll, that he had developed by adapting the Jumar to vertical caving. Pursuing these developments, Petzl started in the 1970s a caving equipment manufacturing company named Petzl. The development of the rappel rack and the evolution of mechanical ascension systems extended the practice and safety of vertical exploration to a wider range of cavers. ## Practice and equipment {#practice_and_equipment} Hard hats are worn to protect the head from bumps and falling rocks. The caver\'s primary light source is usually mounted on the helmet in order to keep the hands free. Electric LED lights are most common. Many cavers carry two or more sources of light -- one as primary and the others as backup in case the first fails. More often than not, a second light will be mounted to the helmet for quick transition if the primary fails. Carbide lamp systems are an older form of illumination, inspired by miner\'s equipment, and are still used by some cavers, particularly on remote expeditions where electric charging facilities are not available. The type of clothes worn underground varies according to the environment of the cave being explored, and the local culture. In cold caves, the caver may wear a warm base layer that retains its insulating properties when wet, such as a fleece (\"furry\") suit or polypropylene underwear, and an oversuit of hard-wearing (e.g., cordura) or waterproof (e.g., PVC) material. Lighter clothing may be worn in warm caves, particularly if the cave is dry, and in tropical caves thin polypropylene clothing is used, to provide some abrasion protection while remaining as cool as possible. Wetsuits may be worn if the cave is particularly wet or involves stream passages. On the feet boots are worn -- hiking-style boots in drier caves, or rubber boots (such as wellies) often with neoprene socks (\"wetsocks\") in wetter caves. Knee-pads (and sometimes elbow-pads) are popular for protecting joints during crawls. Depending on the nature of the cave, gloves are sometimes worn to protect the hands against abrasion or cold. In pristine areas and for restoration, clean oversuits and powder-free, non-latex surgical gloves are used to protect the cave itself from contaminants. Ropes are used for descending or ascending pitches (single rope technique or SRT) or for protection. Knots commonly used in caving are the figure-of-eight- (or figure-of-nine-) loop, bowline, alpine butterfly, and Italian hitch. Ropes are usually rigged using bolts, slings, and carabiners. In some cases cavers may choose to bring and use a flexible metal ladder. In addition to the equipment already described, cavers frequently carry packs containing first-aid kits, emergency equipment, and food. Containers for securely transporting urine are also commonly carried. On longer trips, containers for securely transporting feces out of the cave are carried. During very long trips, it may be necessary to camp in the cave -- some cavers have stayed underground for many days, or in particularly extreme cases, for weeks at a time. This is particularly the case when exploring or mapping extensive cave systems, where it would be impractical to retrace the route back to the surface regularly. Such long trips necessitate the cavers carrying provisions, sleeping, and cooking equipment. ## Safety `{{See also\|Cave rescue}}`{=mediawiki} Caves can be dangerous places; hypothermia, falling, flooding, falling rocks and physical exhaustion are the main risks. Rescuing people from underground is difficult and time-consuming, and requires special skills, training, and equipment. Full-scale cave rescues often involve the efforts of dozens of rescue workers (often other long-time cavers who have participated in specialized courses, as normal rescue staff are not sufficiently experienced in cave environments), who may themselves be put in jeopardy in effecting the rescue. This said, caving is not necessarily a high-risk sport (especially if it does not involve difficult climbs or diving). As in all physical sports, knowing one\'s limitations is key. Caving in warmer climates carries the risk of contracting histoplasmosis, a fungal infection that is contracted from bird or bat droppings. It can cause pneumonia and can disseminate in the body to cause continued infections. In many parts of the world, leptospirosis, a type of bacterial infection spread by animals including rats, is a distinct threat. The presence of rat urine in rainwater or precipitation that enters the cave\'s water system is the primary vector of infection. Complications are uncommon, but can be serious. These safety risks while caving can be minimized by using a number of techniques: - Checking that there is no danger of flooding during the expedition. Rainwater funneled underground can flood a cave very quickly, trapping people in cut-off passages and drowning them. In the UK, drowning accounts for almost half of all caving fatalities (see List of UK caving fatalities). - Using teams of several cavers, preferably at least four. If an injury occurs, one caver stays with the injured person while the other two go out for help, providing assistance to each other on their way out. - Notifying people outside the cave as to the intended return time. After an appropriate delay without a return, these will then organize a search party (usually made up by other cavers trained in cave rescues, as even professional emergency personnel are unlikely to have the skills to effect a rescue in difficult conditions). - Use of helmet-mounted lights (hands-free) with extra batteries. American cavers recommend a minimum of three independent sources of light per person, but two lights is common practice among European cavers. - Sturdy clothing and footwear, as well as a helmet, are necessary to reduce the impact of abrasions, falls, and falling objects. Synthetic fibers and woolens, which dry quickly, shed water, and are warm when wet, are vastly preferred to cotton materials, which retain water and increase the risk of hypothermia. It is also helpful to have several layers of clothing, which can be shed (and stored in the pack) or added as needed. In watery cave passages, polypropylene thermal underwear or wetsuits may be required to avoid hypothermia. - Cave passages look different from different directions. In long or complex caves, even experienced cavers can become lost. To reduce the risk of becoming lost, it is necessary to memorize the appearance of key navigational points in the cave as they are passed by the exploring party. Each member of a cave party shares responsibility for being able to remember the route out of the cave. In some caves it may be acceptable to mark a small number of key junctions with small stacks or \"cairns\" of rocks, or to leave a non-permanent mark such as high-visibility flagging tape tied to a projection. - Vertical caving uses ladders or single rope technique (SRT) to avoid the need for climbing passages that are too difficult. SRT is a complex skill and requires proper training and well-maintained equipment. Some drops that are abseiled down may be as deep as several hundred meters (for example Harwoods Hole). ## Cave conservation {#cave_conservation} Many cave environments are very fragile. Many speleothems can be damaged by even the slightest touch and some by impacts as slight as a breath. Research suggests that increased carbon dioxide levels can lead to \"a higher equilibrium concentration of calcium within the drip waters feeding the speleothems, and hence causes dissolution of existing features.\" In 2008, researchers found evidence that respiration from cave visitors may generate elevated carbon dioxide concentrations in caves, leading to increased temperatures of up to 3 °C and a dissolution of existing features. Pollution is also of concern. Since water that flows through a cave eventually comes out in streams and rivers, any pollution may ultimately end up in someone\'s drinking water, and can even seriously affect the surface environment, as well. Even minor pollution such as dropping organic material can have a dramatic effect on the cave biota. Cave-dwelling species are also very fragile. Often, a particular species found in a cave may live within that cave alone, and be found nowhere else in the world; an example is the Alabama cave shrimp. Cave-dwelling species are accustomed to a near-constant climate of temperature and humidity, and any disturbance can be disruptive to the species\' life cycles. Though cave wildlife may not always be immediately visible, it is typically nonetheless present in most caves. Bats are one such fragile species of cave-dwelling animal. Bats which hibernate are most vulnerable during the winter season, when no food supply exists on the surface to replenish the bat\'s store of energy should it be awakened from hibernation. Bats which migrate are most sensitive during the summer months when they are raising their young. For these reasons, visiting caves inhabited by hibernating bats is discouraged during cold months; and visiting caves inhabited by migratory bats is discouraged during the warmer months when they are most sensitive and vulnerable. Due to an affliction affecting bats in the northeastern US known as white nose syndrome (WNS), the US Fish & Wildlife Service has called for a moratorium effective March 26, 2009, on caving activity in states known to have hibernacula (MD, NY, VT, NH, MA, CT, NJ, PA, VA, and WV) affected by WNS, as well as adjoining states. Some cave passages may be marked with flagging tape or other indicators to show biologically, aesthetically, or archaeologically sensitive areas. Marked paths may show ways around notably fragile areas such as a pristine floor of sand or silt which may be thousands of years old, dating from the last time water flowed through the cave. Such deposits may easily be spoiled forever by a single misplaced step. Active formations such as flowstone can be similarly marred with a muddy footprint or handprint, and ancient human artifacts, such as fiber products, may even crumble to dust under all but the most gentle touch. In 1988, concerned that cave resources were becoming increasingly damaged through unregulated use, Congress enacted the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act, giving land management agencies in the United States expanded authority to manage cave conservation on public land. ## Caving organizations {#caving_organizations} Cavers in many countries have created organizations for the administration and oversight of caving activities within their nations. The oldest of these is the French Federation of Speleology (originally Société de spéléologie) founded by Édouard-Alfred Martel in 1895, which produced the first periodical journal in speleology, Spelunca. The first University-based speleological institute in the world was founded in 1920 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, by Emil Racovita, a Romanian biologist, zoologist, speleologist and explorer of Antarctica. The British Speleological Association was established in 1935. In the United States, the National Speleological Society in the US was founded in 1941; however, it was originally formed as the Speleological Society of the District of Columbia on May 6, 1939. An international speleological congress was proposed at a meeting in Valence-sur-Rhone, France in 1949 and first held in 1953 in Paris. The International Union of Speleology (UIS) was founded in 1965.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,785	Crime	In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term crime does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition, though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or offence (or criminal offence) is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state (\"a public wrong\"). Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law. The notion that acts such as murder, rape, and theft are to be prohibited exists worldwide. What precisely is a criminal offence is defined by the criminal law of each relevant jurisdiction. While many have a catalogue of crimes called the criminal code, in some common law nations no such comprehensive statute exists. The state (government) has the power to severely restrict one\'s liberty for committing certain crimes. In most modern societies, there are procedures to which investigations and trials must adhere. If found guilty, an offender may be sentenced to a form of reparation such as a community sentence, or, depending on the nature of their offence, to undergo imprisonment, life imprisonment or, in some jurisdictions, death. Usually, to be classified as a crime, the \"act of doing something criminal\" (actus reus) must`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}with certain exceptions`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}be accompanied by the \"intention to do something criminal\" (mens rea). While every crime violates the law, not every violation of the law counts as a crime. Breaches of private law (torts and breaches of contract) are not automatically punished by the state, but can be enforced through civil procedure. ## Definition The exact definition of crime is a philosophical issue without an agreed upon answer. Fields such as law, politics, sociology, and psychology define crime in different ways. Crimes may be variously considered as wrongs against individuals, against the community, or against the state. The criminality of an action is dependent on its context; acts of violence will be seen as crimes in many circumstances but as permissible or desirable in others. Crime was historically seen as a manifestation of evil, but this has been superseded by modern criminal theories. ### Legalism Legal and political definitions of crime consider actions that are banned by authorities or punishable by law. Crime is defined by the criminal law of a given jurisdiction, including all actions that are subject to criminal procedure. There is no limit to what can be considered a crime in a legal system, so there may not be a unifying principle used to determine whether an action should be designated as a crime. From a legal perspective, crimes are generally wrong actions that are severe enough to warrant punishment that infringes on the perpetrator\'s liberties. English criminal law and the related common law of Commonwealth countries can define offences that the courts alone have developed over the years, without any actual legislation: common law offences. The courts used the concept of malum in se to develop various common law offences. ### Sociology As a sociological concept, crime is associated with actions that cause harm and violate social norms. Under this definition, crime is a type of social construct, and societal attitudes determine what is considered criminal. In legal systems based on legal moralism, the predominant moral beliefs of society determine the legal definition as well as the social definition of crime. This system is less prominent in liberal democratic societies that prioritize individualism and multiculturalism over other moral beliefs. Paternalism defines crime not only as harm to others or to society, but also as harm to the self. ### Psychology Psychological definitions consider the state of mind of perpetrators and their relationship with their environment. ## History ### Early history {#early_history} Restrictions on behavior existed in all prehistoric societies. Crime in early human society was seen as a personal transgression and was addressed by the community as a whole rather than through a formal legal system, often through the use of custom, religion, or the rule of a tribal leader. Some of the oldest extant writings are ancient criminal codes. The earliest known criminal code was the Code of Ur-Nammu (`{{c.\|lk=no\|2100\|2050 BC}}`{=mediawiki}), and the first known criminal code that incorporated retaliatory justice was the Code of Hammurabi. The latter influenced the conception of crime across several civilizations over the following millennia. The Romans systematized law and applied their system across the Roman Empire. The initial rules of Roman law regarded assaults as a matter of private compensation. The most significant Roman law concept involved dominion. Most acts recognized as crimes in ancient societies, such as violence and theft, have persisted to the modern era. The criminal justice system of Imperial China existed unbroken for over 2,000 years. Many of the earliest conceptions of crime are associated with sin and corresponded to acts that were believed to invoke the anger of a deity. This idea was further popularized with the development of the Abrahamic religions. The understanding of crime and sin were closely associated with one another for much of history, and conceptions of crime took on many of the ideas associated with sin. Islamic law developed its own system of criminal justice as Islam spread in the seventh and eighth centuries. ### Post-classical era {#post_classical_era} In post-classical Europe and East Asia, central government was limited and crime was defined locally. Towns established their own criminal justice systems, while crime in the countryside was defined by the social hierarchies of feudalism. In some places, such as the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, feudal justice survived into the 19th century. Common law first developed in England under the rule of Henry II in the 12th century. He established a system of traveling judges that tried accused criminals in each region of England by applying precedent from previous rulings. Legal developments in 12th century England also resulted in the earliest known recording of official crime data. ### Modern era {#modern_era} In the modern era, crime came to be seen as an issue affecting society rather than conflicts between individuals. Writers such as Thomas Hobbes saw crime as a societal issue as early as the 17th century. Imprisonment developed as a long-term penalty for crime in the 18th century. Increasing urbanization and industrialization in the 19th century caused crime to become an immediate issue that affected society, prompting government intervention in crime and the establishment of criminology as its own field. Anthropological criminology was popularized by Cesare Lombroso in the late-19th century. This was a biological determinist school of thought based in social darwinism, arguing that certain people are naturally born as criminals. The eugenics movement of the early-20th century similarly held that crime was caused primarily by genetic factors. The concept of crime underwent a period of change as modernism was widely accepted in the years following World War II. Crime increasingly came to be seen as a societal issue, and criminal law was seen as a means to protect the public from antisocial behavior. This idea was associated with a larger trend in the western world toward social democracy and centre-left politics. Through most of history, reporting of crime was generally local. The advent of mass media through radio and television in the mid-20th century allowed for the sensationalism of crime. This created well-known stories of criminals such as Jeffrey Dahmer, and it allowed for dramatization that perpetuates misconceptions about crime. Forensic science was popularized in the 1980s, establishing DNA profiling as a new method to prevent and analyze crime. ## Criminal law {#criminal_law} Virtually all countries in the 21st century have criminal law grounded in civil law, common law, Islamic law, or socialist law. Historically, criminal codes have often divided criminals by class or caste, prescribing different penalties depending on status. In some tribal societies, an entire clan is recognized as liable for a crime. In many cases, disputes over a crime in this system lead to a feud that lasts over several generations. ### Criminalization The state determines what actions are considered criminal in the scope of the law. Criminalization has significant human rights considerations, as it can infringe on rights of autonomy and subject individuals to unjust punishment. ### Law enforcement {#law_enforcement} The enforcement of criminal law seeks to prevent crime and sanction crimes that do occur. This enforcement is carried out by the state through law enforcement agencies, such as police, which are empowered to arrest suspected perpetrators of crimes. Law enforcement may focus on policing individual crimes, or it may focus on bringing down overall crime rates. One common variant, community policing, seeks to prevent crime by integrating police into the community and public life. ### Criminal procedure {#criminal_procedure} When the perpetrator of a crime is found guilty of the crime, the state delivers a sentence to determine the penalty for the crime. ### Liability If a crime is committed, the individual responsible is considered to be liable for the crime. For liability to exist, the individual must be capable of understanding the criminal process and the relevant authority must have legitimate power to establish what constitutes a crime. ### International criminal law {#international_criminal_law} International criminal law typically addresses serious offenses, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. As with all international law, these laws are created through treaties and international custom, and they are defined through the consensus of the involved states. International crimes are not prosecuted through a standard legal system, though international organizations may establish tribunals to investigate and rule on egregious offenses such as genocide. ## Types ### White-collar crime {#white_collar_crime} White-collar crime refers to financially motivated, nonviolent or non-directly violent crime committed by individuals, businesses and government professionals. The crimes are believed to be committed by middle- or upper-class individuals for financial gains. Typical white-collar crimes could include wage theft, fraud, bribery, Ponzi schemes, insider trading, labor racketeering, embezzlement, cybercrime, copyright infringement, money laundering, identity theft, and forgery. ### Blue-collar crime {#blue_collar_crime} Blue-collar crime is any crime committed by an individual from a lower social class as opposed to white-collar crime which is associated with crime committed by someone of a higher-level social class. These crimes are primarily small scale, for immediate beneficial gain to the individual or group involved in them. Examples of blue-collar crime include Narcotic production or distribution, sexual assault, theft, burglary, assault or murder. ### Violent crime {#violent_crime} Violent crime is crime that involves an act of violent aggression against another person. Common examples of violent crime include homicide, assault, sexual assault, and robbery. Some violent crimes, such as assault, may be committed with the intention of causing harm. Other violent crimes, such as robbery, may use violence to further another goal. Violent crime is distinct from noncriminal types of violence, such as self-defense, use of force, and acts of war. Acts of violence are most often perceived as deviant when they are committed as an overreaction or a disproportionate response to provocation. ### Property crime {#property_crime} Common examples of property crime include burglary, theft, and vandalism. Examples of financial crimes include counterfeiting, smuggling, tax evasion, and bribery. The scope of financial crimes has expanded significantly since the beginning of modern economics in the 17th century. In occupational crime, the complexity and anonymity of computer systems may help criminal employees camouflage their operations. The victims of the most costly scams include banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, and other large financial institutions. ### Public order crime {#public_order_crime} Public order crime is crime that violates a society\'s norms about what constitutes socially acceptable behavior. Examples of public order crimes include gambling, drug-related crime, public intoxication, prostitution, loitering, breach of the peace, panhandling, vagrancy, street harassment, excessive noise, and littering. Public order crime is associated with the broken windows theory, which posits that public order crimes increase the likelihood of other types of crime. Some public order crimes are considered victimless crimes in which no specific victim can be identified. Most nations in the Western world have moved toward decriminalization of victimless crimes in the modern era. Adultery, fornication, blasphemy, apostasy, and invoking the name of God are commonly recognized as crimes in theocratic societies or those heavily influenced by religion. ### Political crime {#political_crime} Political crime is crime that directly challenges or threatens the state. Examples of political crimes include subversion, rebellion, treason, mutiny, espionage, sedition, terrorism, riot, and unlawful assembly. Political crimes are associated with the political agenda of a given state, and they are necessarily applied against political dissidents. Due to their unique relation to the state, political crimes are often encouraged by one nation against another, and it is political alignment rather than the act itself that determines criminality. State crime that is carried out by the state to repress law-abiding citizens may also be considered political crime. ### Inchoate crime {#inchoate_crime} Inchoate crime is crime that is carried out in anticipation of other illegal actions but does not cause direct harm. Examples of inchoate crimes include attempt and conspiracy. Inchoate crimes are defined by substantial action to facilitate a crime with the intention of the crime\'s occurrence. This is distinct from simple preparation for or consideration of criminal activity. They are unique in that renunciation of criminal intention is generally enough to absolve the perpetrator of criminal liability, as their actions are no longer facilitating a potential future crime. ## Participants ### Criminal A criminal is an individual who commits a crime. What constitutes a criminal can vary depending on the context and the law, and it often carries a pejorative connotation. Criminals are often seen as embodying certain stereotypes or traits and are seen as a distinct type of person from law-abiding citizens. Despite this, no mental or physical trend is identifiable that differentiates criminals from non-criminals. Public response to criminals may be indignant or sympathetic. Indignant responses involve resentment and a desire for vengeance, wishing to see criminals removed from society or made to suffer for harm that they cause. Sympathetic responses involve compassion and understanding, seeking to rehabilitate or forgive criminals and absolve them of blame. In the modern era, a criminal is a human being. Historically, from ancient times until the 19th century, many societies believed that non-human animals were capable of committing crimes, and prosecuted and punished them accordingly. Prosecutions of animals gradually dwindled during the 19th century, although a few were recorded as late as the 1910s and 1920s. ### Victim A victim is an individual who has been treated unjustly or made to suffer. In the context of crime, the victim is the individual that is harmed by a violation of criminal law. Victimization is associated with post-traumatic stress and a long-term decrease in quality of life. Victimology is the study of victims, including their role in crime and how they are affected. Several factors affect an individual\'s likelihood of becoming a victim. Some factors may cause victims of crime to experience short-term or long-term \"repeat victimization\". Common long-term victims are those that have close relationships with the criminal, manifesting in crimes such as domestic violence, embezzlement, child abuse, and bullying. Repeat victimization may also occur when a potential victim appears to be a viable target, such as when indicating wealth in a less affluent region. Many of the traits that indicate criminality also indicate victimality; victims of crime are more likely to engage in unlawful behavior and respond to provocation. Overall demographic trends of victims and criminals are often similar, and victims are more likely to have engaged in criminal activities themselves. The victims may only want compensation for the injuries suffered, while remaining indifferent to a possible desire for deterrence. Victims, on their own, may lack the economies of scale that could allow them to administer a penal system, let alone to collect any fines levied by a court. ## Crime statistics {#crime_statistics} Information and statistics about crime in a given jurisdiction are collected as crime estimates, typically produced by national or international agencies. Methods to collect crime statistics may vary, even between jurisdictions within the same nation. Under-reporting of crime is common, particularly in developing nations, resulting in the dark figure of crime. Victim studies may be used to determine the frequency of crime in a given population. The gap to official statistics is generally smaller with higher severity of the crime. Clearance rate measures the fraction of crimes where a criminal charge has been laid or the responsible person convicted. Fear of crime can be distinct from crime probability. ### Public perception {#public_perception} Crime is often a high priority political issue in developed countries, regardless of the country\'s crime rates. People that are not regularly exposed to crime most often experience it through media, including news reporting and crime fiction. Exposure of crime through news stories is associated with alarmism and inaccurate perceptions of crime trends. Selection bias in new stories about criminals significantly over-represent the prevalence of violent crime, and news reporting will often overemphasize a specific type of crime for a period of time, creating a \"crime wave\" effect. As public opinion of morality changes over time, actions that were once condemned as crimes may be considered justifiable. ## Criminal justice {#criminal_justice} ### Natural-law theory {#natural_law_theory} Justifying the state\'s use of force to coerce compliance with its laws has proven a consistent theoretical problem. One of the earliest justifications involved the theory of natural law. This posits that the nature of the world or of human beings underlies the standards of morality or constructs them. Thomas Aquinas wrote in the 13th century: \"the rule and measure of human acts is the reason, which is the first principle of human acts\". He regarded people as by nature rational beings, concluding that it becomes morally appropriate that they should behave in a way that conforms to their rational nature. Thus, to be valid, any law must conform to natural law and coercing people to conform to that law is morally acceptable. In the 1760s, William Blackstone described the thesis: : \"This law of nature, being co-eval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.\" But John Austin (1790--1859), an early positivist, applied utilitarianism in accepting the calculating nature of human beings and the existence of an objective morality. He denied that the legal validity of a norm depends on whether its content conforms to morality. Thus, in Austinian terms, a moral code can objectively determine what people ought to do, the law can embody whatever norms the legislature decrees to achieve social utility, but every individual remains free to choose what to do. Similarly, H.L.A. Hart saw the law as an aspect of sovereignty, with lawmakers able to adopt any law as a means to a moral end. Thus the necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of a proposition of law involved internal logic and consistency, and that the state\'s agents used state power with responsibility. Ronald Dworkin rejects Hart\'s theory and proposes that all individuals should expect the equal respect and concern of those who govern them as a fundamental political right. He offers a theory of compliance overlaid by a theory of deference (the citizen\'s duty to obey the law) and a theory of enforcement, which identifies the legitimate goals of enforcement and punishment. Legislation must conform to a theory of legitimacy, which describes the circumstances under which a particular person or group is entitled to make law, and a theory of legislative justice, which describes the law they are entitled or obliged to make. There are natural-law theorists who have accepted the idea of enforcing the prevailing morality as a primary function of the law. This view entails the problem that it makes any moral criticism of the law impossible: if conformity with natural law forms a necessary condition for legal validity, all valid law must, by definition, count as morally just. Thus, on this line of reasoning, the legal validity of a norm necessarily entails its moral justice. ### Corrections and punishment {#corrections_and_punishment} Authorities may respond to crime through corrections, carrying out punishment as a means to censure the criminal act. Punishment is generally reserved for serious offenses. Individuals regularly engage in activity that could be scrutinized under criminal law but are deemed inconsequential. Retributive justice seeks to create a system of accountability and punish criminals in a way that knowingly causes suffering. This may arise out of a feeling that criminals deserve to suffer and that punishment should exist for its own sake. The existence of punishment also creates an effect of deterrence that discourages criminal action for fear of punishment. Rehabilitation seeks to understand and mitigate the causes of a criminal\'s unlawful action to prevent recidivism. Different criminological theories propose different methods of rehabilitation, including strengthening social networks, reducing poverty, influencing values, and providing therapy for physical and mental ailments. Rehabilitative programs may include counseling or vocational education. Developed nations are less likely to use physical punishments. Instead, they will impose financial penalties or imprisonment. In places with widespread corruption or limited rule of law, crime may be punished extralegally through mob rule and lynching. Whether a crime can be resolved through financial compensation varies depending on the culture and the specific context of the crime. Historically, many societies have absolved acts of homicide through compensation to the victim\'s relatives. ## Criminology The study of crime is called criminology. Criminology is a subfield of sociology that addresses issues of social norms, social order, deviance, and violence. It includes the motivations and consequences of crime and its perpetrators, as well as preventative measures, either studying criminal acts on an individual level or the relationship of crime and the community. Due to the wide range of concepts associated with crime and the disagreement on a precise definition, the focus of criminology can vary considerably. Various theories within criminology provide different descriptions and explanations for crime, including social control theory, subcultural theory, strain theory, differential association, and labeling theory. Subfields of criminology and related fields of study include crime prevention, criminal law, crime statistics, anthropological criminology, criminal psychology, criminal sociology, criminal psychiatry, victimology, penology, and forensic science. Besides sociology, criminology is often associated with law and psychology. ## Causes and correlates {#causes_and_correlates} Criminal behavior determinants include cost--benefit analysis, opportunity or crime of passion. A person that commits a criminal act typically believes that its benefits will outweigh the risk of being caught and punished. Negative economic factors, such as unemployment and income inequality, can increase the incentive to commit crime, while severe punishments can deter crime in some cases. Social factors similarly affect the likelihood of criminal activity. Crime corresponds heavily with social integration; groups that are less integrated with society or that are forcibly integrated with society are more likely to engage in crime. Involvement in the community, such as through a church, decreases the likelihood of crime, while associating with criminals increases the likelihood of becoming a criminal as well. There is no known genetic cause of crime. Some genes have been found to affect traits that may incline individuals toward criminal activity, but no biological or physiological trait has been found to directly cause or compel criminal actions. One biological factor is the disparity between men and women, as men are significantly more likely to commit crimes than women in virtually all cultures. Crimes committed by men also tend to be more severe than those committed by women. Crime distribution shows a long tail with a small fraction of individuals re-offending many times due to high recidivism, while onset of crime at younger age predicts a longer criminal career.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,794	Central tendency	In statistics, a central tendency (or measure of central tendency) is a central or typical value for a probability distribution. Colloquially, measures of central tendency are often called averages. The term central tendency dates from the late 1920s. The most common measures of central tendency are the arithmetic mean, the median, and the mode. A middle tendency can be calculated for either a finite set of values or for a theoretical distribution, such as the normal distribution. Occasionally authors use central tendency to denote \"the tendency of quantitative data to cluster around some central value.\" The central tendency of a distribution is typically contrasted with its dispersion or variability; dispersion and central tendency are the often characterized properties of distributions. Analysis may judge whether data has a strong or a weak central tendency based on its dispersion. ## Measures The following may be applied to one-dimensional data. Depending on the circumstances, it may be appropriate to transform the data before calculating a central tendency. Examples are squaring the values or taking logarithms. Whether a transformation is appropriate and what it should be, depend heavily on the data being analyzed. Arithmetic mean or simply, mean: the sum of all measurements divided by the number of observations in the data set.\ Median: the middle value that separates the higher half from the lower half of the data set. The median and the mode are the only measures of central tendency that can be used for ordinal data, in which values are ranked relative to each other but are not measured absolutely.\ Mode: the most frequent value in the data set. This is the only central tendency measure that can be used with nominal data, which have purely qualitative category assignments.\ Generalized mean: A generalization of the Pythagorean means, specified by an exponent.\ Geometric mean: the nth root of the product of the data values, where there are n of these. This measure is valid only for data that are measured on a strictly positive scale.\ Harmonic mean: the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of the reciprocals of the data values. This measure is valid only for data that are measured either on a strictly positive or a strictly negative scale.\ Weighted arithmetic mean: an arithmetic mean that incorporates weighting to certain data elements.\ Truncated mean or trimmed mean: the arithmetic mean of data values after a certain number or proportion of the highest and lowest data values have been discarded.\ Interquartile mean: a truncated mean based on data within the interquartile range.\ Midrange: the arithmetic mean of the maximum and minimum values of a data set.\ Midhinge: the arithmetic mean of the first and third quartiles.\ Quasi-arithmetic mean: A generalization of the generalized mean, specified by a continuous injective function.\ Trimean: the weighted arithmetic mean of the median and two quartiles.\ Winsorized mean: an arithmetic mean in which extreme values are replaced by values closer to the median. Any of the above may be applied to each dimension of multi-dimensional data, but the results may not be invariant to rotations of the multi-dimensional space. Geometric median: the point minimizing the sum of distances to a set of sample points. This is the same as the median when applied to one-dimensional data, but it is not the same as taking the median of each dimension independently. It is not invariant to different rescaling of the different dimensions.\ Quadratic mean (often known as the root mean square): useful in engineering, but not often used in statistics. This is because it is not a good indicator of the center of the distribution when the distribution includes negative values.\ Simplicial depth: the probability that a randomly chosen simplex with vertices from the given distribution will contain the given center\ Tukey median: a point with the property that every halfspace containing it also contains many sample points ## Solutions to variational problems {#solutions_to_variational_problems} Several measures of central tendency can be characterized as solving a variational problem, in the sense of the calculus of variations, namely minimizing variation from the center. That is, given a measure of statistical dispersion, one asks for a measure of central tendency that minimizes variation: such that variation from the center is minimal among all choices of center. In a quip, \"dispersion precedes location\". These measures are initially defined in one dimension, but can be generalized to multiple dimensions. This center may or may not be unique. In the sense of `{{math\|{{var\|L}}<sup>{{var\|p}}</sup>}}`{=mediawiki} spaces, the correspondence is: dispersion central tendency -- ---------------------------- --------------------------- variation ratio mode average absolute deviation median (geometric median) standard deviation mean (centroid) maximum deviation midrange The associated functions are called `{{math\|{{var\|p}}}}`{=mediawiki}-norms: respectively 0-\"norm\", 1-norm, 2-norm, and ∞-norm. The function corresponding to the `{{var\|L}}`{=mediawiki}^0^ space is not a norm, and is thus often referred to in quotes: 0-\"norm\". In equations, for a given (finite) data set `{{math\|X}}`{=mediawiki}, thought of as a vector `{{math\|{{strong\|x}} {{=}}`{=mediawiki} (`{{var\|x}}`{=mediawiki}`{{sub\|1}}`{=mediawiki},...,`{{var\|x}}`{=mediawiki}`{{sub\|{{var\|n}}}}`{=mediawiki})}}, the dispersion about a point `{{math\|{{strong\|c}}}}`{=mediawiki} is the \"distance\" from `{{math\|{{strong\|x}}}}`{=mediawiki} to the constant vector `{{math\|{{strong\|c}} {{=}}`{=mediawiki} (`{{var\|c}}`{=mediawiki},...,`{{var\|c}}`{=mediawiki})}} in the `{{var\|p}}`{=mediawiki}-norm (normalized by the number of points `{{var\|n}}`{=mediawiki}): $$f_p(c) = \left\\| \mathbf{x} - \mathbf{c} \right\\|_p := \bigg( \frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^n \left\| x_i - c\right\| ^p \bigg) ^{1/p}$$ For `{{math\|{{var\|p}} {{=}}`{=mediawiki} 0}} and `{{math\|{{var\|p {{=}} ∞}}`{=mediawiki}}} these functions are defined by taking limits, respectively as `{{math\|{{var\|p}} → 0}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math\|{{var\|p}} → ∞}}`{=mediawiki}. For `{{math\|{{var\|p}} {{=}}`{=mediawiki} 0}} the limiting values are `{{math\|0<sup>0</sup> {{=}}`{=mediawiki} 0}} and `{{math\|{{var\|a}}<sup>0</sup> {{=}}`{=mediawiki} 1}} for `{{math\|{{var\|a}} ≠ 0}}`{=mediawiki}, so the difference becomes simply equality, so the 0-norm counts the number of unequal points. For `{{math\|{{var\|p}} {{=}}`{=mediawiki} ∞}} the largest number dominates, and thus the ∞-norm is the maximum difference. ### Uniqueness The mean (L^2^ center) and midrange (L^∞^ center) are unique (when they exist), while the median (L^1^ center) and mode (L^0^ center) are not in general unique. This can be understood in terms of convexity of the associated functions (coercive functions). The 2-norm and ∞-norm are strictly convex, and thus (by convex optimization) the minimizer is unique (if it exists), and exists for bounded distributions. Thus standard deviation about the mean is lower than standard deviation about any other point, and the maximum deviation about the midrange is lower than the maximum deviation about any other point. The 1-norm is not strictly convex, whereas strict convexity is needed to ensure uniqueness of the minimizer. Correspondingly, the median (in this sense of minimizing) is not in general unique, and in fact any point between the two central points of a discrete distribution minimizes average absolute deviation. The 0-\"norm\" is not convex (hence not a norm). Correspondingly, the mode is not unique -- for example, in a uniform distribution any point is the mode. ### Clustering Instead of a single central point, one can ask for multiple points such that the variation from these points is minimized. This leads to cluster analysis, where each point in the data set is clustered with the nearest \"center\". Most commonly, using the 2-norm generalizes the mean to k-means clustering, while using the 1-norm generalizes the (geometric) median to k-medians clustering. Using the 0-norm simply generalizes the mode (most common value) to using the k most common values as centers. Unlike the single-center statistics, this multi-center clustering cannot in general be computed in a closed-form expression, and instead must be computed or approximated by an iterative method; one general approach is expectation--maximization algorithms. ### Information geometry {#information_geometry} The notion of a \"center\" as minimizing variation can be generalized in information geometry as a distribution that minimizes divergence (a generalized distance) from a data set. The most common case is maximum likelihood estimation, where the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) maximizes likelihood (minimizes expected surprisal), which can be interpreted geometrically by using entropy to measure variation: the MLE minimizes cross-entropy (equivalently, relative entropy, Kullback--Leibler divergence). A simple example of this is for the center of nominal data: instead of using the mode (the only single-valued \"center\"), one often uses the empirical measure (the frequency distribution divided by the sample size) as a \"center\". For example, given binary data, say heads or tails, if a data set consists of 2 heads and 1 tails, then the mode is \"heads\", but the empirical measure is 2/3 heads, 1/3 tails, which minimizes the cross-entropy (total surprisal) from the data set. This perspective is also used in regression analysis, where least squares finds the solution that minimizes the distances from it, and analogously in logistic regression, a maximum likelihood estimate minimizes the surprisal (information distance). ## Relationships between the mean, median and mode {#relationships_between_the_mean_median_and_mode} For unimodal distributions the following bounds are known and are sharp: : $\frac{\| \theta - \mu \|}{ \sigma } \le \sqrt{ 3 } ,$ ```{=html} <!-- --> ``` : $\frac{\| \nu - \mu \|}{ \sigma } \le \sqrt{ 0.6 } ,$ ```{=html} <!-- --> ``` : $\frac{\| \theta - \nu \|}{ \sigma } \le \sqrt{ 3 } ,$ where μ is the mean, ν is the median, θ is the mode, and σ is the standard deviation. For every distribution, : $\frac{\| \nu - \mu \|}{ \sigma } \le 1.$	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,796	Celebrity	Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group due to the attention given to them by mass media. The word is also used to refer to famous individuals. A person may attain celebrity status by having great wealth, participation in sports or the entertainment industry, their position as a political figure, or even their connection to another celebrity. \'Celebrity\' usually implies a favorable public image, as opposed to the neutrals \'famous\' or \'notable\', or the negatives \'infamous\' and \'notorious\'. ## History In his 2020 book Dead Famous: An Unexpected History Of Celebrity, British historian Greg Jenner uses the definition: `{{blockquote\|Celebrity (noun): a unique persona made widely known to the public via media coverage, and whose life is publicly consumed as dramatic entertainment, and whose commercial brand is made profitable for those who exploit their popularity, and perhaps also for themselves.<ref name="jenner">{{cite book \|last1=Jenner \|first1=Greg \|title=Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen \|date=2020 \|isbn=978-0297869801 \|url=https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Famous-Celebrity-Greg-Jenner/dp/0297869809/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_g5447869900?_encoding=UTF8&%2AVersion%2A=1&%2Aentries%2A=0&ie=UTF8#reader_B07VTMZGGQ \|access-date=24 May 2020 \|chapter=Introduction\|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson }}</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} Although his book is subtitled \"from Bronze Age to Silver Screen\", and despite the fact that \"Until very recently, sociologists argued that celebrity was invented just over 100 years ago, in the flickering glimmer of early Hollywood\" and the suggestion that some medieval saints might qualify, Jenner asserts that the earliest celebrities lived in the early 1700s, his first example being Henry Sacheverell. Over time, the invention of more types of mass media has broadened the ways in which people have become famous. Athletes in Ancient Greece were welcomed home as heroes, had songs and poems written in their honor, and received free food and gifts from those seeking celebrity endorsement. Ancient Rome similarly lauded actors and notorious gladiators, and Julius Caesar appeared on a coin in his own lifetime (a departure from the usual depiction of battles and divine lineage). In the early 12th century, Thomas Becket became famous following his murder, the first possible case of posthumous popularity. The Christian Church promoted him as a martyr, and images of him and scenes from his life became widespread in just a few years. In a pattern often repeated, what started as an explosion of popularity (often referred to with the suffix \'mania\') turned into long-lasting fame: pilgrimages to Canterbury Cathedral, where he was killed, became instantly fashionable, and the fascination with his life and death inspired plays and films. The cult of personality (particularly in the west) can be traced back to the Romantics in the 18th century, whose livelihood as artists and poets depended on the currency of their reputation. Lord Byron became a celebrity in 1812 after the publication of the first two cantos of Childe Harold\'s Pilgrimage. \"I awoke one morning and found myself famous,\" he said. According to McGann: \"He rapidly became the most brilliant star in the dazzling world of Regency London.\" Establishing cultural hot spots became important in generating fame, such as in London and Paris in the 18th and 19th centuries. Newspapers started including \"gossip\" columns, and certain clubs and events became places to be seen to receive publicity. David Lodge called Charles Dickens the \"first writer to feel the intense pressure of being simultaneously an artist and an object of unrelenting public interest and adulation\", and Juliet John backed up the claim for Dickens \"to be called the first self-made global media star of the age of mass culture.\" Theatrical actors were often considered celebrities. Restaurants near theaters, where actors would congregate, began putting up caricatures or photographs of actors on celebrity walls in the late 19th century. The subject of widespread public and media interest, Lillie Langtry, made her West End theatre debut in 1881 causing a sensation in London by becoming the first socialite to appear on stage. The following year she became the poster-girl for Pears Soap, becoming the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product. In 1895, poet and playwright Oscar Wilde became the subject of \"one of the first celebrity trials\". Another example of celebrities in the entertainment industry was in music, beginning in the mid-19th century. Never seen before in music, many people engaged in an immense fan frenzy called Lisztomania that began in 1841. This created the basis for the behavior fans have around their favorite musicians in modern society. The movie industry spread around the globe in the first half of the 20th century, creating the first film celebrities. The term celebrity was not always tied to actors in films however, especially when cinema was starting as a medium. As Paul McDonald states in The Star System: Hollywood\'s Production of Popular Identities, \"In the first decade of the twentieth century, American film production companies withheld the names of film performers, despite requests from audiences, fearing that public recognition would drive performers to demand higher salaries.\" Public fascination went well beyond the on-screen exploits of movie stars, and their private lives became headline news: for example, in Hollywood the marriages of Elizabeth Taylor and in Bollywood the affairs of Raj Kapoor in the 1950s. Like theatrical actors before them, movie actors were the subjects of celebrity walls in restaurants they frequented, near movie studios, most notably at Sardi\'s in Hollywood. The second half of the century saw television and popular music bring new forms of celebrity, such as the rock star and the pop group, epitomised by Elvis Presley and the Beatles, respectively. John Lennon\'s highly controversial 1966 quote: \"We\'re more popular than Jesus now\", which he later insisted was not a boast, and that he was not in any way comparing himself with Christ, gives an insight into both the adulation and notoriety that fame can bring. Unlike movies, television created celebrities who were not primarily actors; for example, presenters, talk show hosts, and newsreaders. However, most of these are only famous within the regions reached by their particular broadcaster, and only a few such as Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Springer, or David Frost could be said to have broken through into wider stardom. Television also gave exposure to sportspeople, notably Pelé after his emergence at the 1958 FIFA World Cup, with Barney Ronay in The Guardian stating, \"What is certain is that Pelé invented this game, the idea of individual global sporting superstardom, and in a way that is unrepeatable now.\" In the \'60s and early \'70s, the book publishing industry began to persuade major celebrities to put their names on autobiographies and other titles in a genre called celebrity publishing. In most cases, the book was not written by the celebrity but by a ghostwriter, but the celebrity would then be available for a book tour and appearances on talk shows. ## Wealth ### Forbes Celebrity 100 {#forbes_celebrity_100} Forbes magazine releases an annual Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the highest-paid celebrities in the world. The total earnings for all top celebrity 100 earners totaled \$4.5 billion in 2010 alone. For instance, Forbes ranked media mogul and talk show host, Oprah Winfrey as the top earner \"Forbes magazine\'s annual ranking of the most powerful celebrities\", with earnings of \$290 million in the past year. Forbes cites that Lady Gaga reportedly earned over \$90 million in 2010. In 2011, golfer Tiger Woods was one of highest-earning celebrity athletes, with an income of \$74 million and is consistently ranked one of the highest-paid athletes in the world. In 2013, Madonna was ranked as the fifth most powerful and the highest-earning celebrity of the year with earnings of \$125 million. She has consistently been among the most powerful and highest-earning celebrities in the world, occupying the third place in Forbes Celebrity 100 2009 with \$110 million of earnings, and getting the tenth place in the 2011 edition of the list with annual earnings equal to \$58 million. Beyoncé has also appeared in the top ten in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2017, and topped the list in 2014 with earnings of \$115 million. Cristiano Ronaldo followed by Lionel Messi in 2020 became the first two athletes in a team sport to surpass \$1 billion in earnings during their careers. Forbes also lists the top-earning deceased celebrities, with singer Michael Jackson, fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien and children\'s author Roald Dahl each topping the annual list with earnings of \$500 million over the course of a year. ### Entrepreneurship and endorsements {#entrepreneurship_and_endorsements} Celebrity endorsements have proven very successful around the world where, due to increasing consumerism, a person owns a \"status symbol\" by purchasing a celebrity-endorsed product. Although it has become commonplace for celebrities to place their name with endorsements onto products just for quick money, some celebrities have gone beyond merely using their names and have put their entrepreneurial spirit to work by becoming entrepreneurs by attaching themselves in the business aspects of entertainment and building their own business brand beyond their traditional salaried activities. Along with investing their salaried wages into growing business endeavors, several celebrities have become innovative business leaders in their respective industries. Numerous celebrities have ventured into becoming business moguls and established themselves as entrepreneurs, idolizing many well known business leaders such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Warren Buffett. For instance, former basketball player Michael Jordan became an entrepreneur involved with many sports-related ventures including investing a minority stake in the Charlotte Bobcats, Paul Newman started his own salad dressing business after leaving behind a distinguished acting career, and rap musician Birdman started his own record label, clothing line, and an oil business while maintaining a career as a rap artist. In 2014, David Beckham became co-owner of new Major League Soccer team Inter Miami, which began playing in 2020. Former Brazil striker and World Cup winner Ronaldo became the majority owner of La Liga club Real Valladolid in 2018. Other celebrities such as Tyler Perry, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg have become successful entrepreneurs through starting their own film production companies and running their own movie studios beyond their traditional activities. Tabloid magazines and talk TV shows bestow a great deal of attention to celebrities. To stay in the public eye and build wealth in addition to their salaried labor, numerous celebrities have begun participating and branching into various business ventures and endorsements, which include: animation, publishing, fashion designing, cosmetics, consumer electronics, household items and appliances, cigarettes, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages, hair care, hairdressing, jewelry design, fast food, credit cards, video games, writing, and toys. In addition to these, some celebrities have been involved with some business and investment-related ventures also include: sports team ownership, fashion retailing, establishments such as restaurants, cafes, hotels, and casinos, movie theaters, advertising and event planning, management-related ventures such as sports management, financial services, model management, and talent management, record labels, film production, television production, publishing books and music, massage therapy, salons, health and fitness, and real estate. Although some celebrities have achieved additional financial success from various business ventures, the vast majority of celebrities are not successful businesspeople and still rely on salaried labored wages to earn a living. Not all celebrities eventually succeed with their businesses and other related side ventures. Some celebrities either went broke or filed for bankruptcy as a result of dabbling with such side businesses or endorsements. ## Famous for being famous {#famous_for_being_famous} Famous for being famous, in popular culture terminology, refers to someone who attains celebrity status for no particular identifiable reason, or who achieves fame through association with a celebrity. The term is a pejorative, suggesting the target has no particular talents or abilities. British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge made the first known usage of the phrase in the introduction to his book Muggeridge Through The Microphone: BBC Radio and Television (1967) in which he wrote: > In the past if someone was famous or notorious, it was for something---as a writer or an actor or a criminal; for some talent or distinction or abomination. Today one is famous for being famous. People who come up to one in the street or in public places to claim recognition nearly always say: \"I\'ve seen you on the telly!\" The coinages \"famesque\" and \"celebutante\" are of similar pejorative gist. This shift has sparked criticism for promoting superficial recognition over substantive achievements and reflects broader changes in how fame and success are perceived in modern culture. ## Mass media phenomena {#mass_media_phenomena} Mass media has dramatically reshaped the concept of celebrity by amplifying visibility and extending fame globally. With the rise of television, social media, and reality TV, individuals can achieve stardom not just through traditional talents but also through their personal lives and online presence. This heightened visibility brings intense public scrutiny, where every detail of a celebrity\'s life is subject to constant media coverage. Celebrities often become brands themselves, influencing trends and consumer behavior while navigating the pressures of privacy erosion and mental health challenges. Celebrities may be resented for their accolades, and the public may have a love/hate relationship with celebrities. Due to the high visibility of celebrities\' private lives, their successes and shortcomings are often made very public. Celebrities are alternately portrayed as glowing examples of perfection, when they garner awards, or as decadent or immoral if they become associated with a scandal. When seen in a positive light, celebrities are frequently portrayed as possessing skills and abilities beyond average people; for example, celebrity actors are routinely celebrated for acquiring new skills necessary for filming a role within a very brief time, and to a level that amazes the professionals who train them. Similarly, some celebrities with very little formal education can sometimes be portrayed as experts on complicated issues. Some celebrities have been very vocal about their political views. For example, Matt Damon expressed his displeasure with 2008 US vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, as well as with the 2011 United States debt-ceiling crisis. ## Internet Also known as being internet famous. ### Social networking and video hosting {#social_networking_and_video_hosting} Most high-profile celebrities participate in social networking services and photo or video hosting platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Social networking services allow celebrities to communicate directly with their fans, removing the \"traditional\" media. Through social media, many people outside of the entertainment and sports sphere become a celebrity in their own sphere. Social media humanizes celebrities in a way that arouses public fascination as evident by the success of magazines such as Us Weekly and People Weekly. Celebrity blogging has also spawned stars such as Perez Hilton who is known for not only blogging but also outing celebrities. Social media and the rise of the smartphone has changed how celebrities are treated and how people gain the platform of fame. Websites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube allow people to become a celebrity in a different manner. For example, Justin Bieber got his start on YouTube by posting videos of him singing. His fans were able to directly contact him through his content and were able to interact with him on several social media platforms. The internet, as said before, also allows fans to connect with their favorite celebrity without ever meeting them in person. Social media sites have also contributed to the fame of certain celebrities, such as Tila Tequila who became known through MySpace. ### Asia A report by the BBC highlighted a longtime trend of Asian internet celebrities called Wanghong in Chinese. According to the BBC, there are two kinds of online celebrities in China---those who create original content, such as Papi Jiang, who is regularly censored by Chinese authorities for cursing in her videos, and Wanghongs fall under the second category, as they have clothing and cosmetics businesses on Taobao, China\'s equivalent of Amazon. ## Access restriction {#access_restriction} Access to celebrities is strictly controlled by the celebrities entourage of staff which includes managers, publicists, agents, personal assistants, and bodyguards. Journalists may even have difficulty accessing celebrities for interviews. Writer and actor Michael Musto said, \"You have to go through many hoops just to talk to a major celebrity. You have to get past three different sets of publicists: the publicist for the event, the publicist for the movie, and then the celebrity\'s personal publicist. They all have to approve you.\" Celebrities also typically have security staff at their home or properties, to protect them and their belongs from similar threats. ## \"Fifteen minutes of fame\" {#fifteen_minutes_of_fame} \"15 minutes of fame\" is a phrase often used as slang to short-lived publicity. Certain \"15 minutes of fame\" celebrities can be average people seen with an A-list celebrity, who are sometimes noticed on entertainment news channels such as E! News. These are ordinary people becoming celebrities, often based on the ridiculous things they do. \"In fact, many reality show contestants fall into this category: the only thing that qualifies them to be on TV is that they\'re real.\" ## Health implications {#health_implications} Common threats such as stalking have spawned celebrity worship syndrome where a person becomes overly involved with the details of a celebrity\'s personal life. Psychologists have indicated that though many people obsess over glamorous film, television, sport and music stars, the disparity in salaries in society seems to value professional athletes and entertainment industry-based professionals. One study found that singers, musicians, actors and athletes die younger on average than writers, composers, academics, politicians and businesspeople, with a greater incidence of cancer and especially lung cancer. However, it was remarked that the reasons for this remained unclear, with theories including innate tendencies towards risk-taking as well as the pressure or opportunities of particular types of fame. Fame might have negative psychological effects. An academic study on the subject said that fame has an addictive quality to it. When a celebrity\'s fame recedes over time, the celebrity may find it difficult to adjust psychologically. Recently, there has been more attention toward the impact celebrities have on health decisions of the population at large. It is believed that the public will follow celebrities\' health advice to some extent. This can have positive impacts when the celebrities give solid, evidence-informed health advice, however, it can also have detrimental effects if the health advice is not accurate enough.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,797	Cluster sampling	thumb\\|upright=1.3\\|Cluster sampling. A group of twelve people are divided into pairs, and two pairs are then selected at random. In statistics, cluster sampling is a sampling plan used when mutually homogeneous yet internally heterogeneous groupings are evident in a statistical population. It is often used in marketing research. In this sampling plan, the total population is divided into these groups (known as clusters) and a simple random sample of the groups is selected. The elements in each cluster are then sampled. If all elements in each sampled cluster are sampled, then this is referred to as a \"one-stage\" cluster sampling plan. If a simple random subsample of elements is selected within each of these groups, this is referred to as a \"two-stage\" cluster sampling plan. A common motivation for cluster sampling is to reduce the total number of interviews and costs given the desired accuracy. For a fixed sample size, the expected random error is smaller when most of the variation in the population is present internally within the groups, and not between the groups. ## Cluster elemental {#cluster_elemental} The population within a cluster should ideally be as heterogeneous as possible, but there should be homogeneity between clusters. Each cluster should be a small-scale representation of the total population. The clusters should be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. A random sampling technique is then used on any relevant clusters to choose which clusters to include in the study. In single-stage cluster sampling, all the elements from each of the selected clusters are sampled. In two-stage cluster sampling, a random sampling technique is applied to the elements from each of the selected clusters. The main difference between cluster sampling and stratified sampling is that in cluster sampling the cluster is treated as the sampling unit so sampling is done on a population of clusters (at least in the first stage). In stratified sampling, the sampling is done on elements within each stratum. In stratified sampling, a random sample is drawn from each of the strata, whereas in cluster sampling only the selected clusters are sampled. A common motivation for cluster sampling is to reduce costs by increasing sampling efficiency. This contrasts with stratified sampling where the motivation is to increase precision. There is also multistage cluster sampling, where at least two stages are taken in selecting elements from clusters. ## When clusters are of different sizes {#when_clusters_are_of_different_sizes} Without modifying the estimated parameter, cluster sampling is unbiased when the clusters are approximately the same size. In this case, the parameter is computed by combining all the selected clusters. When the clusters are of different sizes there are several options: One method is to sample clusters and then survey all elements in that cluster. Another method is a two-stage method of sampling a fixed proportion of units (be it 5% or 50%, or another number, depending on cost considerations) from within each of the selected clusters. Relying on the sample drawn from these options will yield an unbiased estimator. However, the sample size is no longer fixed upfront. This leads to a more complicated formula for the standard error of the estimator, as well as issues with the optics of the study plan (since the power analysis and the cost estimations often relate to a specific sample size). A third possible solution is to use probability proportionate to size sampling. In this sampling plan, the probability of selecting a cluster is proportional to its size, so a large cluster has a greater probability of selection than a small cluster. The advantage here is that when clusters are selected with probability proportionate to size, the same number of interviews should be carried out in each sampled cluster so that each unit sampled has the same probability of selection. ## Applications of cluster sampling {#applications_of_cluster_sampling} An example of cluster sampling is area sampling or geographical cluster sampling. Each cluster is a geographical area in an area sampling frame. Because a geographically dispersed population can be expensive to survey, greater economy than simple random sampling can be achieved by grouping several respondents within a local area into a cluster. It is usually necessary to increase the total sample size to achieve equivalent precision in the estimators, but cost savings may make such an increase in sample size feasible. For the organization of a population census, the first step is usually dividing the overall geographic area into enumeration areas or census tracts for the field work organization. Enumeration areas may be also useful as first-stage units for cluster sampling in many types of surveys. When a population census is outdated, the list of individuals should not be directly used as sampling frame for a socio-economic survey. Updating the whole census is economically unfeasible. A good alternative may be keeping the old enumeration areas, with some update in highly dynamic areas, such as urban suburbs, selecting a sample of enumeration areas and updating the list of individuals or households only in the selected enumeration areas. Cluster sampling is used to estimate low mortalities in cases such as wars, famines and natural disasters. ### Fisheries science {#fisheries_science} It is almost impossible to take a simple random sample of fish from a population, which would require that individuals are captured individually and at random. This is because fishing gears capture fish in groups (or clusters). In commercial fisheries sampling, the costs of operating at sea are often too large to select hauls individually and at random. Therefore, observations are further clustered by either vessel or fishing trip. ### Economics The World Bank has applied adaptive cluster sampling to study informal businesses in developing countries in a cost efficient manner, as the informal sector is not captured by official records and too expensive to be studied through simple random sampling. The approach follows a two-stage sampling whereby adaptive cluster sampling is used to generate an estimate of the universe of informal businesses in operations, while the second stage to obtain a random sample about the characteristics of those businesses. ## Advantages - Can be cheaper than other sampling plans -- e.g. fewer travel expenses, and administration cost. - Feasibility: This sampling plan takes large populations into account. Since these groups are so small, deploying any other sampling plan would be very costly. - Economy: The regular two major concerns of expenditure, i.e., traveling and listing, are greatly reduced in this method. For example: Compiling research information about every household in a city would be very costly, whereas compiling information about various blocks of the city will be more economical. Here, traveling as well as listing efforts will be greatly reduced. - Reduced variability: in the rare case of a negative intraclass correlation between subjects within a cluster, the estimators produced by cluster sampling will yield more accurate estimates than data obtained from a simple random sample (i.e. the design effect will be larger than 1). This is not a commonplace scenario. Major use: when the sampling frame of all elements is not available we can resort only to cluster sampling. ## Disadvantages - Higher sampling error, which can be expressed by the design effect: the ratio between the variance of an estimator made from the samples of the cluster study and the variance of an estimator obtained from a sample of subjects in an equally reliable, randomly sampled unclustered study. The larger the intraclass correlation is between subjects within a cluster the worse the design effect becomes (i.e. the larger it gets from 1. Indicating a larger expected increase in the variance of the estimator). In other words, the more there is heterogeneity between clusters and more homogeneity between subjects within a cluster, the less accurate our estimators become. This is because in such cases we are better on sampling as many clusters as we can and making do with a small sample of subjects from within each cluster (i.e. two-stage cluster sampling). - Complexity. Cluster sampling is more sophisticated and requires more attention with how to plan and how to analyze (i.e.: to take into account the weights of subjects during the estimation of parameters, confidence intervals, etc.) ## More on cluster sampling {#more_on_cluster_sampling} ### Two-stage cluster sampling {#two_stage_cluster_sampling} Two-stage cluster sampling, a simple case of multistage sampling, is obtained by selecting cluster samples in the first stage and then selecting a sample of elements from every sampled cluster. Consider a population of N clusters in total. In the first stage, n clusters are selected using the ordinary cluster sampling method. In the second stage, simple random sampling is usually used. It is used separately in every cluster and the numbers of elements selected from different clusters are not necessarily equal. The total number of clusters N, the number of clusters selected n, and the numbers of elements from selected clusters need to be pre-determined by the survey designer. Two-stage cluster sampling aims at minimizing survey costs and at the same time controlling the uncertainty related to estimates of interest. This method can be used in health and social sciences. For instance, researchers used two-stage cluster sampling to generate a representative sample of the Iraqi population to conduct mortality surveys. Sampling in this method can be quicker and more reliable than other methods, which is why this method is now used frequently. ### Inference when the number of clusters is small {#inference_when_the_number_of_clusters_is_small} Cluster sampling methods can lead to significant bias when working with a small number of clusters. For instance, it can be necessary to cluster at the state or city-level, units that may be small and fixed in number. Microeconometrics methods for panel data often use short panels, which is analogous to having few observations per clusters and many clusters. The small cluster problem can be viewed as an incidental parameter problem. While the point estimates can be reasonably precisely estimated, if the number of observations per cluster is sufficiently high, we need the number of clusters $G\rightarrow \infty$ for the asymptotics to kick in. If the number of clusters is low the estimated covariance matrix can be downward biased. Small numbers of clusters are a risk when there is serial correlation or when there is intraclass correlation as in the Moulton context. When having few clusters, we tend to underestimate serial correlation across observations when a random shock occurs, or the intraclass correlation in a Moulton setting. Several studies have highlighted the consequences of serial correlation and highlighted the small-cluster problem. In the framework of the Moulton factor, an intuitive explanation of the small cluster problem can be derived from the formula for the Moulton factor. Assume for simplicity that the number of observations per cluster is fixed at n. Below, $V_{c}(\beta)$ stands for the covariance matrix adjusted for clustering, $V(\beta)$ stands for the covariance matrix not adjusted for clustering, and ρ stands for the intraclass correlation: : $\frac{V_{c}(\hat\beta)}{V(\hat\beta)}=1+(n-1)\rho$ The ratio on the left-hand side indicates how much the unadjusted scenario overestimates the precision. Therefore, a high number means a strong downward bias of the estimated covariance matrix. A small cluster problem can be interpreted as a large n: when the data is fixed and the number of clusters is low, the number of data within a cluster can be high. It follows that inference, when the number of clusters is small, will not have the correct coverage. Several solutions for the small cluster problem have been proposed. One can use a bias-corrected cluster-robust variance matrix, make T-distribution adjustments, or use bootstrap methods with asymptotic refinements, such as the percentile-t or wild bootstrap, that can lead to improved finite sample inference. Cameron, Gelbach and Miller (2008) provide microsimulations for different methods and find that the wild bootstrap performs well in the face of a small number of clusters.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,808	Casey at the Bat	\"Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888\" is a mock-heroic poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. It was first published in The San Francisco Examiner (then called The Daily Examiner) on June 3, 1888, under the pen name \"Phin\", based on Thayer\'s college nickname, \"Phinney\". Featuring a dramatic narrative about a baseball game, the poem was later popularized by DeWolf Hopper in many vaudeville performances. It has become one of the best-known poems in American literature. ## Synopsis A baseball team from the fictional town of \"Mudville\" (the home team) is losing by two runs in its last inning. Both the team and its fans, a crowd of 5,000, believe that they can win if Casey, Mudville\'s star player, gets to bat. However, Casey is scheduled to be the fifth batter of the inning, and the first two batters (Cooney and Barrows) fail to get on base. The next two batters (Flynn and Jimmy Blake) are perceived to be weak hitters with little chance of reaching base to allow Casey a chance to bat. Surprisingly, Flynn hits a single, and Blake follows with a double that allows Flynn to reach third base. Both runners are now in scoring position and Casey represents the potential winning run. Casey is so sure of his abilities that he does not swing at the first two pitches, both called strikes. On the last pitch, the overconfident Casey strikes out swinging, ending the game and sending the crowd home unhappy. ## Text The text is filled with references to baseball as it was in 1888, which in many ways is not far removed from today\'s version. As a work, the poem encapsulates much of the appeal of baseball, including the involvement of the crowd. It also has a fair amount of baseball jargon that can pose challenges for the uninitiated. This is the complete poem as it originally appeared in The Daily Examiner. After publication, various versions with minor changes were produced. ## Inspiration Thayer said he chose the name \"Casey\" after a non-player of Irish ancestry he once knew named Daniel H. Casey; it is open to debate whom, if anyone, he modeled the character after. It has been reported that Thayer\'s best friend Samuel Winslow, who played baseball at Harvard, was the inspiration for Casey. Another classmate of Thayer at Harvard---Edward Terry Sanford---also has been put forward as a possible model for Casey, in part on the ground that Thayer and Sanford were both members of a student group at Harvard (the OK Society) that played some baseball in the mid-1880s. Sanford would go on to a distinguished career in the law, culminating in his appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1923. Another candidate is National League player Mike \"King\" Kelly, who became famous when Boston paid Chicago a record \$10,000 for him. He had a personality that fans liked to cheer or jeer. After the 1887 season, Kelly went on a playing tour to San Francisco. Thayer, who wrote \"Casey\" in 1888, covered the San Francisco leg for the San Francisco Examiner. Thayer, in a letter he wrote in 1905, mentions Kelly as showing \"impudence\" in claiming to have written the poem. The author of the 2004 definitive biography of Kelly---which included a close tracking of his vaudeville career---did not find Kelly claiming to have been the author. ## Composition and publication history {#composition_and_publication_history} \"Casey at the Bat\" was first published in The Daily Examiner on June 3, 1888. A month after the poem was published, it was reprinted as \"Kelly at the Bat\" in the New York Sporting Times. Aside from omitting the first five verses, the only changes from the original are substitutions of Kelly for Casey, and Boston for Mudville. King Kelly, then of the Boston Beaneaters, was one of baseball\'s two biggest stars at the time (along with Cap Anson).`{{r\|rosenberg\|page1=9}}`{=mediawiki} In 1897, the magazine Current Literature noted the two versions and said, \"The locality, as originally given, is Mudville, not Boston; the latter was substituted to give the poem local color.\" ## Live performances {#live_performances} left\\|thumb\\|upright=1.1\\|1909 theatrical poster with DeWolf Hopper in A Matinee Idol DeWolf Hopper gave the poem\'s first stage recitation on August 14, 1888, at New York\'s Wallack Theatre as part of the comic opera Prinz Methusalem in the presence of the Chicago White Stockings and New York Giants baseball teams; August 14, 1888 was also Thayer\'s 25th birthday. Hopper became known as an orator of the poem, and recited it more than 10,000 times (by his count---some tabulations are as much as four times higher) before his death. `{{Quote_box \|width=20% \|align=right \|quote="It is as perfect an [[epitome]] of our national game today as it was when every player drank his coffee from a [[mustache cup]]. There are one or more Caseys in every [[Baseball league\|league]], [[Bush league\|bush]] or big, and there is no day in the playing season that this same supreme [[tragedy]], as stark as [[Aristophanes]] for the moment, does not befall on some field."<ref name=Gardner />}}`{=mediawiki} On stage in the early 1890s, baseball star Kelly recited the original \"Casey\" a few dozen times and not the parody. For example, in a review in 1893 of a variety show he was in, the Indianapolis News said, \"Many who attended the performance had heard of Kelly\'s singing and his reciting, and many had heard De Wolf Hopper recite \'Casey at the Bat\' in his inimitable way. Kelly recited this in a sing-song, school-boy fashion.\" Upon Kelly\'s death, a writer would say he gained \"considerable notoriety by his ludicrous rendition of \'Casey at the Bat,\' with which he concluded his \'turn\' \[act\] at each performance.\"`{{r\|rosenberg\|page1=229}}`{=mediawiki} During the 1980s, the magic/comedy team Penn & Teller performed a version of \"Casey at the Bat\" with Teller (the \"silent\" partner) struggling to escape a straitjacket while suspended upside-down over a platform of sharp steel spikes. The set-up was that Penn Jillette would leap off his chair upon finishing the poem, releasing the rope which supported Teller, and send Teller to a gruesome death if Teller had failed to free himself by that time. Jillette enhanced the drama of the performance by drastically accelerating the pace of his recital after the first few stanzas, greatly reducing the time that Teller had left to work free from his bonds. ## Recordings The first recorded version of \"Casey at the Bat\" was made by Russell Hunting, speaking in a broad Irish accent, in 1893; an [1898 cylinder recording of the text made for the Columbia Graphophone label by Hunting](http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder5348) can be accessed from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library. DeWolf Hopper\'s more famous recorded recitation was released in October 1906. In 1946, Walt Disney released a recording of the narration of the poem by Jerry Colonna, which accompanied the studio\'s animated cartoon adaptation of the poem (see below). In 1973, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra commissioned its former Composer-in-Residence, Frank Proto, to create a work to feature Baseball Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bench with the orchestra. The result \"Casey At The Bat -- an American Folk Tale for Narrator and Orchestra\" was an immediate hit and recorded by Bench and the orchestra. It has since been performed more than 800 times by nearly every major and Metropolitan orchestra in the U.S. and Canada. In 1980, baseball pitcher Tug McGraw recorded Casey at The Bat---an American Folk Tale for Narrator and Orchestra by Frank Proto with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops. In 1996, actor James Earl Jones recorded the poem with arranger/composer Steven Reineke and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. On a 1997 CD set with memorable moments and stories from the game of baseball titled Take Me Out to the Ball Game produced by Jerry Hoffman and Douglas Duer, a Vincent Price oration of the poem is a slightly altered version of the original. In 1998, actor Sir Derek Jacobi recorded the poem with composer/arranger Randol Alan Bass and the National Symphony of London, with the composer conducting. This work, titled \"Casey at the Bat\", has been recorded by the Boston Pops Orchestra, Keith Lockhart conducting. In 2013, Dave Jageler and Charlie Slowes, both radio announcers for the Washington Nationals, each made recordings of the poem for the Library of Congress to mark the 125th anniversary of its first publication. ## Mudville A rivalry of sorts has developed between two cities claiming to be the Mudville described in the poem. Residents of Holliston, Massachusetts, where there is a neighborhood called Mudville, claim it as the Mudville described in the poem. Thayer grew up in nearby Worcester, Massachusetts, where he wrote the poem in 1888; his family owned a wool mill less than 1 mi from Mudville\'s baseball field. However, residents of Stockton, California---which was known for a time as Mudville prior to incorporation in 1850---also lay claim to being the inspiration for the poem. In 1887, Thayer covered baseball for The Daily Examiner---owned by his Harvard classmate William Randolph Hearst---and is said to have covered the local California League team, the Stockton Ports. For the 1902 season, after the poem became popular, Stockton\'s team was renamed the Mudville Nine. The team reverted to the Mudville Nine moniker for the 2000 and 2001 seasons. The Visalia Rawhide, another California League team, currently keeps Mudville alive playing in Mudville jerseys on June 3 each year. Despite the towns\' rival claims, Thayer himself told the Syracuse Post-Standard that \"the poem has no basis in fact.\" ## Adaptations The poem has been adapted to diverse types of media: ### Books - Ralph Andreano\'s 1965 book, No Joy in Mudville, laments the death of heroes in modern baseball. - In the book Faithful by Steward O\'Nan and Stephen King, describing the 2004 season of the Boston Red Sox, a chapter contributed by King is named \"The Gloom is gone from Mudville\". - Wallace Tripp illustrated a popular 1978 book of the poem. - Kurtis Scaletta\'s 2009 children\'s novel, Mudville, is about a town where it has been raining for 22 years, delaying a baseball game between two rival towns. ### Comics - Marvel Comics published a spoof in August 1969, in the 9th issue of Not Brand Echh, featuring parodies of their popular heroes and villains, and the Bulk (parody of the Hulk) as Casey. - DC Comics\' series Fables from the Vertigo Comics imprint featured an adaptation titled \"Out to the Ball Game\", which features a similar baseball match, with Weyland Smith playing the part of Casey against a team of goblins. ### Film - In 1922, Lee De Forest recorded DeWolf Hopper reciting the poem in DeForest\'s Phonofilm sound-on-film process. - In 1927, a feature-length silent film Casey at the Bat was released, starring Wallace Beery, Ford Sterling, and ZaSu Pitts. At least three other films based on Thayer\'s poem preceded this 1927 release: an Edison short in 1899, another short starring Harry T. Morey in 1913, and a five-reel feature starring DeWolf Hopper in 1916. - Walt Disney Productions produced an Animated Segment adaptation of the poem for the film Make Mine Music (1946) and uses the original text, but is set in 1902 according to the opening song\'s lyrics, instead of 1888. This version is recited by Jerry Colonna. It was later released as an individual short on July 16, 1954. A sequel short was also produced Casey Bats Again and released on June 18, 1954. - A 1976 animated short adaptation, featuring narration by Paul Frees, was released in 1976 by Fine Arts Films. - In 1986, Elliott Gould starred as \"Casey\" in the Shelley Duvall\'s Tall Tales and Legends adaptation of the story, which also starred Carol Kane, Howard Cosell, Bob Uecker, Bill Macy and Rae Dawn Chong. The screenplay, adapted from the poem, was written by Andy Borowitz and the production was directed by David Steinberg. - In The Dream Team (1989), Michael Keaton\'s character announces that \"there is no joy in Mudville\" after giving a fellow mental patient three \"strikes\" for psychotic behavior. - In 1993 the last paragraph is quoted in the film Short Cuts (by Robert Altman), when Lyle Lovett as Andy Bitkower is calling anonymously Andie MacDowell as Ann Finnigan in minute 01:34:58. ### Radio - The poem was adapted for an episode of On Stage that aired on CBS on April 16, 1953. It was written by E. Jack Neuman and starred Elliott Lewis, Cathy Lewis, Hy Averback, Herb Butterfield, Byron Kane, Peter Leeds, Hal March, Howard McNear, and Sidney Miller. - Radio personality Casey Kasem self-identified on-air as \"Casey at the mic.\" ### Television - Jackie Gleason in his \"Reginald Van Gleason III\" persona (in full Mudville baseball uniform) performed a recitation of the poem on his And Awaaaay We Go! album. - Season 1, episode 35 of The Twilight Zone, \"The Mighty Casey\", concerns a baseball player who is actually a robot (June 17, 1960). - In the Northern Exposure episode \"The Graduate\", Chris Stevens gains his Master\'s degree in Comparative literature by subjecting his assessors to a spirited re-enactment of the poem. - In General Hospital, Steve Hardy performs the poem during the 1994 Nurses\' Ball while dressed in a Mudville baseball uniform. He concludes by telling the audience not to worry because Casey is married to the Mudville owner\'s daughter. - In How I Met Your Mother, the episode \"Bedtime Stories\" (which is done entirely in rhymes) features a subplot called \"Mosby At The Bat\". The start of that section of the episode begins with \"The outlook wasn\'t brilliant for poor Ted\'s romantic life\", a line based on the opening of the original poem. - In One Tree Hill, season 8 episode \"The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul\" was a flashback-heavy episode revolving around a baseball game with Jamie Scott narrating the poem throughout. ### Music - Art-song composer Sidney Homer turned the poem into a song. Sheet music was published by G. Schirmer in 1920 as part of Six Cheerful Songs to Poems of American Humor. - William Schuman composed an opera, The Mighty Casey (1953), based on the poem. - The song \"No Joy in Mudville\" from Death Cab for Cutie\'s album We Have the Facts and We\'re Voting Yes directly references the poem. - The song \"Centerfield\" by John Fogerty includes the line \"Well, I spent some time in the Mudville Nine, watchin\' it from the bench. You know I took some lumps when the Mighty Casey struck out.\" - The song \"No Joy In Pudville\" by Steroid Maximus is a reference to this poem. - Joe Walsh\'s 1973 song \"Rocky Mountain Way\" features the lyrics \"Bases are loaded/ And Casey\'s at bat/ Playin\' it play-by-play/ Time to change the batter.\" - In 2008 American composer Randol Alan Bass used the song \"Take Me Out to the Ball Game\" by Alfred Von Tilzer and Jack Norworth in Casey at the Bat, a setting of the poem for concert band and narrator. ### Theatre - \"Casey at the Bat\" was adapted into a 1953 opera by American composer William Schuman. - An orchestral adaptation by composer Frank Proto has been recorded by the Cincinnati Pops orchestra conducted by Erich Kunzel with baseball star Johnny Bench narrating. - The Dallas Symphony commissioned an arrangement of \"Casey\" by Randol Alan Bass in 2001, which he later arranged for concert band. ## Derivations For a relatively short poem apparently dashed off quickly (and denied by its author for years), \"Casey at the Bat\" had a profound effect on American popular culture. It has been recited, re-enacted, adapted, dissected, parodied, and subjected to just about every other treatment one could imagine. ### Sequels - \"Casey\'s Revenge\", by Grantland Rice (1907), gives Casey another chance against the pitcher who had struck him out in the original story. It was written in 1906, and its first known publication was in the quarterly magazine The Speaker in June 1907, under the pseudonym of James Wilson. In this version, Rice cites the nickname \"Strike-Out Casey\", hence the influence on Casey Stengel\'s name. Casey\'s team is down three runs by the last of the ninth, and once again Casey is down to two strikes---with the bases full this time. However, he connects, and hits the ball so far that it is never found. - \"Casey - Twenty Years Later\", by Clarence P. McDonald (1908), imagines a different redemption for Casey, long after his retirement. The poem, which was indeed published twenty years after the original, in the San Francisco Examiner, sees Casey attending a championship game between the fictional team of \"Bugville\" and an unspecified opponent. In a losing effort, Bugville\'s players are benched and injured throughout the game, until the captain is forced to call for a volunteer from the attendees. An aged Casey answers the call and fills the role surprisingly well, culminating with him hitting the game-winning home run, in his first swing at bat. He then reveals his identity to the joyous fans and players. - In response to the popularity of the 1946 Walt Disney animated adaptation, Disney made a sequel, Casey Bats Again (1954), in which Casey\'s nine daughters redeem his reputation. - In 1988, on the 100th anniversary of the poem, Sports Illustrated writer Frank Deford constructed a fanciful story (later expanded to book form) for what happened before and after the famous ball game. ### Parodies Of the many parodies made of the poem, some of the notable ones include: - Mad magazine republished the original version of the poem in the 1950s with artwork by Jack Davis and no alterations to the text. Later lampoons in Mad included \"\'Cool\' Casey at the Bat\" (1960), an interpretation of the poem in beatnik style, with artwork by Don Martin although the ending still has Casey striking out; \"Casey at the Dice\" in 1969, about a professional gambler; \"Casey at the Contract Talks\" in 1974 (which ends with the owner telling Casey to \"practice hard at home this year \'cause now you\'ve struck out twice\"); Casey at the Talks\" in 1977, a \"modern\" version of the famed poem in which Mudville tries unsuccessfully to sign free agent Casey \[the last line of which is \"Mighty Casey has held out\"\]; \"Baseball at the Bat\", a satire on baseball itself, \"Howard at the Mike\", about Howard Cosell; \"Casey at the Byte\" (1985), a tale of a cocky young computer expert who accidentally erases the White House Budget Plan; \"Clooney as the Bat\", a mockery of George Clooney\'s role as Batman in Batman and Robin; and in 2006 as \"Barry at the Bat\", poking fun at Barry Bonds\' alleged involvement in the BALCO scandal; in 2001, \"Jordan at the Hoop\", satirizing Michael Jordan\'s return to the NBA and his time with the Washington Wizards; and in 2012, \"Casey at the Trial\", satirizing Casey Anthony\'s acquittal in the case of the death of her daughter Caylee. It also includes a \"Poetry Round Robin\" where famous poems are rewritten in the style of the next poet in line, featured Casey at the Bat as written by Edgar Allan Poe. - Sportswriter Leonard Koppett claimed in a 1979 tongue-in-cheek article that the published poem omits 18 lines penned by Thayer, which changed the overall theme of the poem. Koppett added lines, claiming to have transcribed them off an old phonograph recording, that take the pitch count on Casey to full. Meanwhile, his uncle Arnold stirs up wagering action in the stands, before a wink passes between them. Casey throws the game. - Foster Brooks (\"the Lovable Lush\" from the Dean Martin Show) wrote \"Riley on the Mound\", which recounts the story from the pitcher\'s perspective. [1](https://www.chicagotribune.com/1988/06/03/for-a-guy-who-struck-out-100-years-ago-mighty-casey-is-still/) - In his 1987 Baseball Abstract, Bill James published \"Casey Chases A Knuckler\", which employed a five-line stanza and AAAAB structure, about former MLB knuckleball pitcher Charlie Hough - Author Phil Bolsta penned a parody entitled \"Hrbek at the Bat\" about Twins slugger Kent Hrbek which was published in 1987 in the Minneapolis Review of Baseball. - Radio performer Garrison Keillor\'s parodic version of the poem reimagines the game as a road game, instead of a home game, for the Mudville team. The same events occur with Casey striking out in the ninth inning as in the original poem, but with everything told from the perspective of other team. - An episode of Tiny Toon Adventures featured a short titled \"Buster at the Bat\", where Sylvester provides narration as Buster goes up to bat. The poem was parodied again for an episode of Animaniacs, this time with Wakko as the title character and Yakko narrating. Both versions end on a happier note with the main character hitting a home run. - In the fourth season of Garfield and Friends the episode entitled \"Mind Over Matter/Orson at the Bat/Multiple Choice Cartoon\" features Wade Duck narrating a parody of the poem as Orson Pig experiences it in a dream sequence. - In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius episode \"Return of the Nanobots\", Cindy\'s poem is identical to the ending of \"Casey at the Bat\" but replaces Mudville with Retroville and the last famed line with \"cause Jimmy is an idiot!\" - The New York Times published a parody by Hart Seely and Frank Cammuso in which the poem was narrated by Phil Rizzuto, a New York Yankees announcer who was known to veer off on tangents while calling the game. The poem was later published in Seely and Cammuso\'s book, 2007 Eleven And Other American Comedies. - David Pogue penned a parody version titled \'A Desktop Critic: Steven Saves the Mac\' for Macworld magazine that ran in their October 1999 issue. It tells the story of Steve Jobs\' triumphant return to a struggling Apple Inc and his early efforts to reverse the company\'s fortunes. - Dick Flavin wrote a version titled Teddy at the Bat, after Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams died in July 2002. Flavin performed the poem at Fenway Park during the night-long tribute to Williams done at the park later that month. The poem replaced Flynn and Blake with Bobby Doerr and Johnny Pesky, the batters who preceded Williams in the 1946 Red Sox lineup. - In 2000, Michael J. Farrand adapted the rhyming scheme, tone, and theme of the poem---while reversing the outcome---to create his poem \"The Man Who Gave All the Dreamers in Baseball Land Bigger Dreams to Dream\" about Kirk Gibson\'s home run off Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. The poem appears at the Baseball Almanac. - Norman Jackman wrote a reversed-outcome version in 1951 called \"Bobby Thomson at the Bat,\" which went unknown for over 60 years until the San Francisco Giants published it in 2012. It\'s about Thomson\'s famous home run in a 1951 Giant-Dodger playoff game. In 2016, the poem was accepted into the poetry files of the National Baseball Library and Archive of the Hall of Fame. - The New York Times best-selling author and poet laureate of The Ringer, Shea Serrano, penned a loving tribute to NBA player Gordon Hayward in the vein of \"Casey at the Bat\" in 2017. - Canadian comedy duo Wayne and Shuster created \"Shakespearean Baseball\", featuring William Shakespeare-esque characters and dialogue in a skit based upon the poem. They performed the play on The Ed Sullivan Show and on Canadian TV numerous times between the 1950s and 1980s. - Baseball writer and Villanova professor Mitchell Nathanson updated the poem for contemporary times in 2019, publishing \"Casey @ the Bat\" in The Washington Post. ### Translations There are three known translations of the poem into a foreign language, one in French, written in 2007 by French Canadian linguist Paul Laurendeau, with the title Casey au bâton, and two in Hebrew. One by the sports journalist Menachem Less titled \"התור של קייסי לחבוט\" \[Hator Shel Casey Lachbot\], and the other more recent and more true to the original cadence and style by Jason H. Elbaum called קֵיסִי בַּמַּחְבֵּט \[Casey BaMachbayt\]. ### Names Casey Stengel describes in his autobiography how his original nickname \"K.C.\" (for his hometown, Kansas City, Missouri) evolved into \"Casey\". It was influenced not just by the name of the poem, which was widely popular in the 1910s, but also because he tended to strike out frequently in his early career so fans and writers started calling him \"strikeout Casey\". ## Contemporary culture {#contemporary_culture} `{{In popular culture\|date=May 2021}}`{=mediawiki} ### Video games {#video_games} - The poem is referenced in the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game EarthBound, where a weapon is named the Casey Bat, which is the strongest weapon in the game, but will only hit 25% of the time. ### Television {#television_1} - A recurring character in the Pokémon anime, a girl who is a very enthusiastic fan of baseball, is named \"Casey\" in the English version in reference to the poem. - Season 1, episode 35 of The Twilight Zone was named \"The Mighty Casey\" in reference to the poem\'s lead character, though the plot is unrelated. - The title of Season 3, episode 17 of The Simpsons, \"Homer at the Bat\", is a reference to the poem. - A third-season episode of Storm Chasers was titled \"Sean Casey At Bat\". The episode featured Casey (a chaser) intercepting a tornado for the first time in TIV 2. - In the show Friends, Ross clarifies how to spell \"Casey\" as in \"at the bat\" in the Season 2, episode 14 titled \"The One with the Prom Video.\" - In the show Containment, Season 1, episode 6 takes its name, \"He Stilled the Rising Tumult\", from the poem. - In the show Black Mirror, Season 6, episode 3, \"Beyond the Sea\" quotes the poem.`{{Explain\|date=February 2024}}`{=mediawiki} ### Theme parks {#theme_parks} - Casey\'s Corner is a baseball-themed restaurant in Walt Disney World\'s Magic Kingdom, which serves primarily hotdogs. Pictures of Casey and the pitcher from the Disney animated adaptation are hanging on the walls, and a life-size statue of a baseball player identified as \"Casey\" stands just outside the restaurant. Additionally, the scoreboard in the restaurant shows that Mudville lost to the visitors by two runs. - A hot dog restaurant featuring the Disney character can be found at Disneyland Paris\' Disneyland Park since its opening in 1992, under the name Casey\'s Corner. - A game called Casey at the Bat is in the Games of the Boardwalk at the Disneyland Resort\'s Disney California Adventure. ### Theatre {#theatre_1} - In Cabaret (1993) Clifford Bradshaw recites the end of \"Mighty Casey\" to Sally Bowles. ### Postage stamp {#postage_stamp} On July 11, 1996, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp depicting \"Mighty Casey.\" The stamp was part of a set commemorating American folk heroes. Other stamps in the set depicted Paul Bunyan, John Henry, and Pecos Bill.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,814	Chinese dominoes	Chinese dominoes are used in several tile-based games, namely, tien gow, pai gow, tiu u and kap tai shap. In Cantonese they are called `{{zh\|cy=gwāt pái\|labels=no}}`{=mediawiki} (`{{zh\|c=骨牌\|labels=no}}`{=mediawiki}), which literally means \"bone tiles\"; it is also the name of a northern Chinese game, where the rules are quite different from the southern Chinese version of tien gow. ## History Ming author Xie Zhaozhe (1567--1624) records the legend of dominoes having been presented to Song Emperor Huizong in 1112. However the contemporary Li Qingzhao (1084 -- c. 1155) made no mention of dominoes in her compendium of games. In China, early \"domino\" tiles were functionally identical to playing cards. An identifiable version of Chinese dominoes developed in the 12th or 13th century. The oldest confirmed written mention of dominoes in China comes from the Former Events in Wulin (i.e. the capital Hangzhou) written by the Yuan Dynasty (1271--1368) author Zhou Mi (1232--1298), who listed \"pupai\" (gambling plaques or dominoes) as well as dice as items sold by peddlers during the reign of Song Emperor Xiaozong (`{{reign\|1162\|1189}}`{=mediawiki}). Andrew Lo asserts that Zhou Mi meant dominoes when referring to pupai, since the Ming author Lu Rong (1436--1494) explicitly defined pupai as dominoes (in regards to a story of a suitor who won a maiden\'s hand by drawing out four winning pupai from a set). Tiles dating from the 12th to 14th centuries have survived. Unlike most modern tiles they are white with black and red pips. The earliest known manual written about dominoes is the Manual of the Xuanhe Period (《宣和牌譜》) written by Qu You (1341--1427), but some Chinese scholars believe this manual is a forgery from a later time. In the Encyclopedia of a Myriad of Treasures, Zhang Pu (1602--1641) described the game of laying out dominoes as pupai, although the character for pu had changed,`{{clarify\|date=August 2022}}`{=mediawiki} yet retained a similar pronunciation. During the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), the suits known as \"Chinese\" and \"barbarian\" were renamed to \"civil\" and \"military\" respectively to avoid offending the ruling Manchus. Tiles with blank ends, like those found in Western \"double-six\" dominoes, once existed during the 17th century. These games employed two sets of \"double-six\" tiles. It is possible that these were the types of dominoes that made it to Europe the following century. However, the 32-piece Chinese domino set, made to represent each possible face of two thrown dice and thus have no blank faces, differs from the 28-piece domino set found in the West during the mid 18th century. Chinese dominoes with blank faces were known during the 17th century. Each domino originally represented one of the 21 results of throwing two six-sided dice (2d6). One half of each domino is set with the pips from one die and the other half contains the pips from the second die. Chinese sets also introduce duplicates of some throws and divide the tiles into two suits: military and civil. Chinese dominoes are also longer than typical European ones. Traditional Chinese domino games include Tien Gow, Pai Gow, Che Deng, and others. ## Deck composition and ranking {#deck_composition_and_ranking} Civil suit (文子) ------------------- ------------------------------------------------ ----- Rank Roll / Domino 1 (high) frameless\\|upright=0.15frameless\\|upright=0.15 6-6 2 frameless\\|upright=0.15frameless\\|upright=0.15 1-1 3 frameless\\|upright=0.15frameless\\|upright=0.15 4-4 4 frameless\\|upright=0.15frameless\\|upright=0.15 3-1 5 frameless\\|upright=0.15frameless\\|upright=0.15 5-5 6 frameless\\|upright=0.15frameless\\|upright=0.15 3-3 7 frameless\\|upright=0.15frameless\\|upright=0.15 2-2 8 frameless\\|upright=0.15frameless\\|upright=0.15 5-6 9 frameless\\|upright=0.15frameless\\|upright=0.15 4-6 10 frameless\\|upright=0.15frameless\\|upright=0.15 1-6 11 frameless\\|upright=0.15frameless\\|upright=0.15 1-5 : Dice combinations and domino equivalents Each tile pattern in the Chinese domino set is equivalent to a single outcome when two six-sided dice are thrown. Each combination is only used once, so there are 21 unique possible patterns. Eleven of these 21 unique patterns are repeated to make a total of 32 tiles in a Chinese dominoes set. The 32-tile set is divided into two \"suits\" or groups called \"military\" and \"civil\". There are no markings on the tiles to distinguish these suits; a player must simply remember which tiles belong to which group. There are two each of the eleven civil suit tiles (6-6, 1-1, 4-4, 1-3, 5-5, 3-3, 2-2, 5-6, 4-6, 1-6, 1-5) and one each of the ten military suit tiles (3-6, 4-5; 2-6, 3-5; 2-5, 3-4; 2-4; 1-4, 2-3; 1-2). ### Civil suit {#civil_suit} Each civil tile also has a Chinese name. Here are the Cantonese names and rough English translations: - 6-6 is tin (天 heaven) - 1-1 is dei (地 earth) - 4-4 is yan (人 man) - 1-3 is ngo (鵝 goose or 和 harmony) - 5-5 is mui (梅 plum flower) - 3-3 is cheung (長 long) - 2-2 is ban (板 board) - 5-6 is fu (斧 hatchet) - 4-6 is ping (屏 partition) - 1-6 is tsat (七 long leg seven) - 1-5 is luk (六 big head six) The civil tiles are ranked according to the Chinese cultural significance of the tile names, and must be memorized. The hendiatris of Three talents (天地人) dates back for over two thousand years while the harmony (和) of the three have been in dice and domino games since at least the Ming dynasty. Remembering the suits and rankings of the tiles is easier if one understands the Chinese names of the tiles and the symbolism behind them. ### Military suit {#military_suit} The military tiles are named and ranked according to the total pips or points on the tiles. For example, the \"nines\" (3-6 and 4-5) rank higher than the \"eights\" (2-6 and 3-5). The rankings of the individual tiles are similar in most games. However, the ranking of combinations of tiles is slightly different in Pai Gow and Tien Gow. Since there is only one of each military tile, these are usually grouped in four mixed \"pairs\" of equivalent total points: nines, eights, sevens, and fives; for example, the 3-6 and 4-5 tiles \"match\" because they have same total points (nine) and both are in the military suit. Among the military tiles, individual tiles of the same pair rank equally, such as 1-4 and 2-3, each totaling five. The 2-4 (six) and 1-2 (three) military tiles also are paired together in many games despite the nominal difference in total points. They are the only tiles in the entire set that have no corresponding tile in the military suit, considering sums. In Pai Gow both of these tiles may be scored as three or six, depending on which is more advantageous. This pair when played together is considered a suit on its own, called the gi jun (至尊 supreme). It is the highest ranking pair in the game of Pai Gow, though the tiles rank low individually (in their normal order). When either tile of this pair is played individually in the game of Tien Gow, each takes its regular ranking according to the total points among the other military suit tiles. ### Physical characteristics {#physical_characteristics} Stewart Culin stated that traditional dominoes are made of Chinese ebony with measurements of 2+5/8 in long, 7/8 in wide, and 3/8 in thick. Values are marked with white and red pips. Using the same coloring scheme as traditional Chinese dice, every half-domino with 1 or 4 pips has those pips colored red; for example, the 4-5 domino has four red pips and five white pips. The only exception is the pair of 6-6 tiles. Half of the pips on the 6-6 domino are colored red to make them stand out as the top ranking tiles. Typically, one of the short edges is marked with a single red pip, and the backs may be marked with three pips, arrayed diagonally white-red-white. ### Variants <File:挖花牌.JPG%7CHalf> of a Digging Flowers set. The other half is identical. <File:골패> 骨牌 삼재도 三才圖.jpg\\|Dominoes from Korea There are also sets with where the tiles have Xiangqi characters next to the pips. As Xiangqi also has 32 pieces, these dual use sets can be used to play Giog. Variant sets include the Digging Flowers (挖花) game, which use the same 21 patterns generated by the 2d6 combination; some tiles have flowers or frames printed on them while others have their values duplicated. In addition, a Digging Flowers set may include several bonus tiles from mahjong, including flower, season, and blank tiles. Dominoes from Korea also come in a set of 32 and bear markings schematically identical to Chinese dominoes, based on the throw of two dice, although the tiles are closer in size and shape to those used in mahjong, measuring 3/4 ×, and the pip size may vary, especially for the 1- and 4-pip halves. The pairings for the \"military\" suit also differ: 1-2 and 4-5; 1-4 and 2-3, 2-4 and 3-4, 2-5 and 3-5, and 2-6 and 3-6. <table> <caption>Dice throws / tile names (Korean)</caption> <thead> <tr class="header"> <th><p>Value<br /> (Qty)</p></th> <th><p>Image</p></th> <th><p>Name</p></th> <th style="background:#aaa;"><p> </p></th> <th><p>Value<br /> (Qty)</p></th> <th><p>Image</p></th> <th><p>Name</p></th> <th style="background:#aaa;"><p> </p></th> <th><p>Value<br /> (Qty)</p></th> <th><p>Image</p></th> <th><p>Name</p></th> <th style="background:#aaa;"><p> </p></th> <th><p>Value<br /> (Qty)</p></th> <th><p>Image</p></th> <th><p>Name</p></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1-1<br /> (2)</p></td> <td><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td><p>smallest<br /> <em>syo-syo</em><br /> (소소)</p></td> <td><p>2-2<br /> (2)</p></td> <td><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td><p>superior two<br /> <em>tjoun-a</em><br /> (진이)</p></td> <td><p>3-3<br /> (2)</p></td> <td><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td><p>long three<br /> <em>tjyang-sam</em><br /> (장삼)</p></td> <td><p>4-4<br /> (2)</p></td> <td><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td><p>superior red<br /> <em>tjoun-hong</em><br /> (직흥)</p></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td style="background:#fdd;"><p>1-2<br /> (1)</p></td> <td style="background:#fdd;"><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td style="background:#fdd;"><p>rat nose<br /> <em>tjoui-hko</em><br /> (쥐코)</p></td> <td style="background:#fed;"><p>2-3<br /> (1)</p></td> <td style="background:#fed;"><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td style="background:#fed;"><p>two, three<br /> <em>a-sam</em><br /> (이삼)</p></td> <td style="background:#ffd;"><p>3-4<br /> (1)</p></td> <td style="background:#ffd;"><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td style="background:#ffd;"><p>three, four<br /> <em>sam-sa</em><br /> (삼사)</p></td> <td style="background:#fdd;"><p>4-5<br /> (1)</p></td> <td style="background:#fdd;"><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td style="background:#fdd;"><p>four, five<br /> <em>sa-o</em><br /> (사오)</p></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1-3<br /> (2)</p></td> <td><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td><p>small, three<br /> <em>syo-sam</em><br /> (소삼)</p></td> <td style="background:#ffd;"><p>2-4<br /> (1)</p></td> <td style="background:#ffd;"><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td style="background:#ffd;"><p>two, four<br /> <em>a-sa</em><br /> (이사)</p></td> <td style="background:#dfd;"><p>3-5<br /> (1)</p></td> <td style="background:#dfd;"><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td style="background:#dfd;"><p>three, five<br /> <em>sam-o</em><br /> (삼오)</p></td> <td><p>4-6<br /> (2)</p></td> <td><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td><p>four, six<br /> <em>sa-ryouk</em><br /> (사육)</p></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td style="background:#fed;"><p>1-4<br /> (1)</p></td> <td style="background:#fed;"><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td style="background:#fed;"><p>white, four<br /> <em>paik-sa</em><br /> (백사)</p></td> <td style="background:#dfd;"><p>2-5<br /> (1)</p></td> <td style="background:#dfd;"><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td style="background:#dfd;"><p>sovereign two<br /> <em>koan-i</em><br /> (관이)</p></td> <td style="background:#ddf;"><p>3-6<br /> (1)</p></td> <td style="background:#ddf;"><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td style="background:#ddf;"><p>three, six<br /> <em>sam-ryouk</em><br /> (삼육)</p></td> <td><p>5-5<br /> (2)</p></td> <td><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td><p>superior five<br /> <em>tjoun-o</em><br /> (준오)</p></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td><p>1-5<br /> (2)</p></td> <td><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td><p>white, five<br /> <em>paik-o</em><br /> (백오)</p></td> <td style="background:#ddf;"><p>2-6<br /> (1)</p></td> <td style="background:#ddf;"><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td style="background:#ddf;"><p>two, six<br /> <em>a-ryouk</em><br /> (이육)</p></td> <td colspan="3" style="background:#aaa;"><p> </p></td> <td><p>5-6<br /> (2)</p></td> <td><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td><p>five, six<br /> <em>o-ryouk</em><br /> (오육)</p></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td><p>1-6<br /> (2)</p></td> <td><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td><p>white, six<br /> <em>paik-ryouk</em><br /> (백육)</p></td> <td colspan="3" style="background:#aaa;"><p> </p></td> <td colspan="3" style="background:#aaa;"><p> </p></td> <td><p>6-6<br /> (2)</p></td> <td><p>frameless\|upright=0.15</p></td> <td><p>superior six<br /> <em>tjoun-ryouk</em><br /> (주륙)</p></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> : Dice throws / tile names (Korean) Chinese Dominoes may also appear in a card format (:zh:纸骨牌). 15 Lake Cards (`{{cjkv\|c=十五湖牌}}`{=mediawiki}) have the 21 patterns (from the 2d6 combinations) quadruplicated to form an 84-card deck. Si Chuan Cards (`{{cjkv\|c=四川長牌}}`{=mediawiki}) may have the 21 patterns plus two additional cards (the \"listen - use\" and the \"god of wealth\") duplicated up to 5 times to form a 115-card deck. ## Bone tiles game {#bone_tiles_game} The eponymous game of Bone Tiles (gǔpái in Mandarin) is played in northern and central China and as far south as Hunan. The name suggests that it is or became the default game played with dominoes in those regions. It is a trick-taking game similar to Tien Gow but has been simplified. In single-tile tricks, the civil and military suits have been merged into a single suit. In double-tile tricks, there is a new ranking order similar to Pai Gow. Triple-tile and quadruple-tile tricks are not allowed as in older versions of Tien Gow. Scoring has been simplified to number of stacks won.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,826	Complex number	thumb\\|upright=1.15\\|right\\|A complex number can be visually represented as a pair of numbers `{{math\|(''a'', ''b'')}}`{=mediawiki} forming a vector on a diagram called an Argand diagram, representing the complex plane. Re is the real axis, Im is the imaginary axis, and `{{mvar\|i}}`{=mediawiki} is the \"imaginary unit\", that satisfies `{{math\|1=''i''<sup>2</sup> = −1}}`{=mediawiki}. In mathematics, a complex number is an element of a number system that extends the real numbers with a specific element denoted `{{mvar\|i}}`{=mediawiki}, called the imaginary unit and satisfying the equation $i^{2}= -1$; every complex number can be expressed in the form $a + bi$, where `{{mvar\|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar\|b}}`{=mediawiki} are real numbers. Because no real number satisfies the above equation, `{{mvar\|i}}`{=mediawiki} was called an imaginary number by René Descartes. For the complex number `{{nowrap\|<math>a+bi</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} `{{mvar\|a}}`{=mediawiki} is called the `{{visible anchor\|real part}}`{=mediawiki}, and `{{mvar\|b}}`{=mediawiki} is called the `{{visible anchor\|imaginary part}}`{=mediawiki}. The set of complex numbers is denoted by either of the symbols $\mathbb C$ or `{{math\|'''C'''}}`{=mediawiki}. Despite the historical nomenclature, \"imaginary\" complex numbers have a mathematical existence as firm as that of the real numbers, and they are fundamental tools in the scientific description of the natural world. Complex numbers allow solutions to all polynomial equations, even those that have no solutions in real numbers. More precisely, the fundamental theorem of algebra asserts that every non-constant polynomial equation with real or complex coefficients has a solution which is a complex number. For example, the equation $(x+1)^2 = -9$ has no real solution, because the square of a real number cannot be negative, but has the two nonreal complex solutions $-1+3i$ and $-1-3i$. Addition, subtraction and multiplication of complex numbers can be naturally defined by using the rule $i^{2}=-1$ along with the associative, commutative, and distributive laws. Every nonzero complex number has a multiplicative inverse. This makes the complex numbers a field with the real numbers as a subfield. Because of these properties, `{{tmath\|1=a + bi = a + ib}}`{=mediawiki}, and which form is written depends upon convention and style considerations. The complex numbers also form a real vector space of dimension two, with $\{1,i\}$ as a standard basis. This standard basis makes the complex numbers a Cartesian plane, called the complex plane. This allows a geometric interpretation of the complex numbers and their operations, and conversely some geometric objects and operations can be expressed in terms of complex numbers. For example, the real numbers form the real line, which is pictured as the horizontal axis of the complex plane, while real multiples of $i$ are the vertical axis. A complex number can also be defined by its geometric polar coordinates: the radius is called the absolute value of the complex number, while the angle from the positive real axis is called the argument of the complex number. The complex numbers of absolute value one form the unit circle. Adding a fixed complex number to all complex numbers defines a translation in the complex plane, and multiplying by a fixed complex number is a similarity centered at the origin (dilating by the absolute value, and rotating by the argument). The operation of complex conjugation is the reflection symmetry with respect to the real axis. The complex numbers form a rich structure that is simultaneously an algebraically closed field, a commutative algebra over the reals, and a Euclidean vector space of dimension two. `{{TOC limit\|3}}`{=mediawiki} ## Definition and basic operations {#definition_and_basic_operations} A complex number is an expression of the form `{{math\|1=''a'' + ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}, where `{{mvar\|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar\|b}}`{=mediawiki} are real numbers, and `{{math\|''i''}}`{=mediawiki} is an abstract symbol, the so-called imaginary unit, whose meaning will be explained further below. For example, `{{math\|2 + 3''i''}}`{=mediawiki} is a complex number. For a complex number `{{math\|''a'' + ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}, the real number `{{mvar\|a}}`{=mediawiki} is called its real part, and the real number `{{mvar\|b}}`{=mediawiki} (not the complex number `{{math\|''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}) is its imaginary part. The real part of a complex number `{{mvar\|z}}`{=mediawiki} is denoted `{{math\|Re(''z'')}}`{=mediawiki}, $\mathcal{Re}(z)$, or $\mathfrak{R}(z)$; the imaginary part is `{{math\|Im(''z'')}}`{=mediawiki}, $\mathcal{Im}(z)$, or $\mathfrak{I}(z)$: for example, $\operatorname{Re}(2 + 3i) = 2$, $\operatorname{Im}(2 + 3i) = 3$. A complex number `{{mvar\|z}}`{=mediawiki} can be identified with the ordered pair of real numbers $(\Re (z),\Im (z))$, which may be interpreted as coordinates of a point in a Euclidean plane with standard coordinates, which is then called the complex plane or Argand diagram. The horizontal axis is generally used to display the real part, with increasing values to the right, and the imaginary part marks the vertical axis, with increasing values upwards. A real number `{{mvar\|a}}`{=mediawiki} can be regarded as a complex number `{{math\|''a'' + 0''i''}}`{=mediawiki}, whose imaginary part is 0. A purely imaginary number `{{math\|''bi''}}`{=mediawiki} is a complex number `{{math\|0 + ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}, whose real part is zero. It is common to write `{{math\|1=''a'' + 0''i'' = ''a''}}`{=mediawiki}, `{{math\|1=0 + ''bi'' = ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}, and `{{math\|1=''a'' + (−''b'')''i'' = ''a'' − ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}; for example, `{{math\|1=3 + (−4)''i'' = 3 − 4''i''}}`{=mediawiki}. The set of all complex numbers is denoted by $\Complex$ (blackboard bold) or `{{math\|'''C'''}}`{=mediawiki} (upright bold). In some disciplines such as electromagnetism and electrical engineering, `{{mvar\|j}}`{=mediawiki} is used instead of `{{mvar\|i}}`{=mediawiki}, as `{{mvar\|i}}`{=mediawiki} frequently represents electric current, and complex numbers are written as `{{math\|''a'' + ''bj''}}`{=mediawiki} or `{{math\|''a'' + ''jb''}}`{=mediawiki}. ### Addition and subtraction {#addition_and_subtraction} Two complex numbers $a =x+yi$ and $b =u+vi$ are added by separately adding their real and imaginary parts. That is to say: $a + b =(x+yi) + (u+vi) = (x+u) + (y+v)i.$ Similarly, subtraction can be performed as $a - b =(x+yi) - (u+vi) = (x-u) + (y-v)i.$ The addition can be geometrically visualized as follows: the sum of two complex numbers `{{mvar\|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar\|b}}`{=mediawiki}, interpreted as points in the complex plane, is the point obtained by building a parallelogram from the three vertices `{{mvar\|O}}`{=mediawiki}, and the points of the arrows labeled `{{mvar\|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar\|b}}`{=mediawiki} (provided that they are not on a line). Equivalently, calling these points `{{mvar\|A}}`{=mediawiki}, `{{mvar\|B}}`{=mediawiki}, respectively and the fourth point of the parallelogram `{{mvar\|X}}`{=mediawiki} the triangles `{{mvar\|OAB}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar\|XBA}}`{=mediawiki} are congruent. ### Multiplication`{{anchor\|Multiplication\|Square}}`{=mediawiki} The product of two complex numbers is computed as follows: $$(a+bi) \cdot (c+di) = ac - bd + (ad+bc)i.$$ For example, $(3+2i)(4-i) = 3 \cdot 4 - (2 \cdot (-1)) + (3 \cdot (-1) + 2 \cdot 4)i = 14 +5i.$ In particular, this includes as a special case the fundamental formula $$i^2 = i \cdot i = -1.$$ This formula distinguishes the complex number i from any real number, since the square of any (negative or positive) real number is always a non-negative real number. With this definition of multiplication and addition, familiar rules for the arithmetic of rational or real numbers continue to hold for complex numbers. More precisely, the distributive property, the commutative properties (of addition and multiplication) hold. Therefore, the complex numbers form an algebraic structure known as a field, the same way as the rational or real numbers do. ### Complex conjugate, absolute value, argument and division {#complex_conjugate_absolute_value_argument_and_division} right\\|thumb\\|upright=0.8\\|Geometric representation of `{{mvar\|z}}`{=mediawiki} and its conjugate `{{mvar\|{{overline\|z}}}}`{=mediawiki} in the complex plane. The complex conjugate of the complex number `{{math\|1=''z'' = ''x'' + ''yi''}}`{=mediawiki} is defined as $\overline z = x-yi.$ It is also denoted by some authors by $z^$. Geometrically, `{{mvar\|{{overline\|z}}}}`{=mediawiki} is the \"reflection\" of `{{mvar\|z}}`{=mediawiki} about the real axis. Conjugating twice gives the original complex number: $\overline{\overline{z}}=z.$ A complex number is real if and only if it equals its own conjugate. The unary operation of taking the complex conjugate of a complex number cannot be expressed by applying only the basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. For any complex number `{{math\|1=''z'' = ''x'' + ''yi''}}`{=mediawiki} , the product $$z \cdot \overline z = (x+iy)(x-iy) = x^2 + y^2$$ is a non-negative real* number. This allows to define the absolute value (or modulus or magnitude) of z to be the square root $\|z\|=\sqrt{x^2+y^2}.$ By Pythagoras\' theorem, $\|z\|$ is the distance from the origin to the point representing the complex number z in the complex plane. In particular, the circle of radius one around the origin consists precisely of the numbers z such that $\|z\| = 1$. If $z = x = x + 0i$ is a real number, then $\|z\|= \|x\|$: its absolute value as a complex number and as a real number are equal. Using the conjugate, the reciprocal of a nonzero complex number $z = x + yi$ can be computed to be $\frac{1}{z} = \frac{\bar{z}}{z\bar{z}} = \frac{\bar{z}}{\|z\|^2} = \frac{x - yi}{x^2 + y^2} = \frac{x}{x^2 + y^2} - \frac{y}{x^2 + y^2}i.$ More generally, the division of an arbitrary complex number $w = u + vi$ by a non-zero complex number $z = x + yi$ equals $\frac{w}{z} = \frac{w\bar{z}}{\|z\|^2} = \frac{(u + vi)(x - iy)}{x^2 + y^2} = \frac{ux + vy}{x^2 + y^2} + \frac{vx - uy}{x^2 + y^2}i.$ This process is sometimes called \"rationalization\" of the denominator (although the denominator in the final expression may be an irrational real number), because it resembles the method to remove roots from simple expressions in a denominator. The argument of `{{mvar\|z}}`{=mediawiki} (sometimes called the \"phase\" `{{mvar\|φ}}`{=mediawiki}) is the angle of the radius `{{mvar\|Oz}}`{=mediawiki} with the positive real axis, and is written as `{{math\|arg ''z''}}`{=mediawiki}, expressed in radians in this article. The angle is defined only up to adding integer multiples of $2\pi$, since a rotation by $2\pi$ (or 360°) around the origin leaves all points in the complex plane unchanged. One possible choice to uniquely specify the argument is to require it to be within the interval $(-\pi,\pi]$, which is referred to as the principal value. The argument can be computed from the rectangular form `{{mvar\|x + yi}}`{=mediawiki} by means of the arctan (inverse tangent) function. ### Polar form`{{anchor\|Polar form}}`{=mediawiki} {#polar_form} For any complex number z, with absolute value $r = \|z\|$ and argument $\varphi$, the equation $$z=r(\cos\varphi +i\sin\varphi)$$ holds. This identity is referred to as the polar form of z. It is sometimes abbreviated as $z = r \operatorname\mathrm{cis} \varphi$. In electronics, one represents a phasor with amplitude `{{mvar\|r}}`{=mediawiki} and phase `{{mvar\|φ}}`{=mediawiki} in angle notation:$z = r \angle \varphi .$ If two complex numbers are given in polar form, i.e., `{{math\|1=''z''<sub>1</sub> = ''r''<sub>1</sub>(cos ''φ''<sub>1</sub> + ''i'' sin ''φ''<sub>1</sub>)}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math\|1=''z''<sub>2</sub> = ''r''<sub>2</sub>(cos ''φ''<sub>2</sub> + ''i'' sin ''φ''<sub>2</sub>)}}`{=mediawiki}, the product and division can be computed as $z_1 z_2 = r_1 r_2 (\cos(\varphi_1 + \varphi_2) + i \sin(\varphi_1 + \varphi_2)).$ $\frac{z_1}{z_2} = \frac{r_1}{r_2} \left(\cos(\varphi_1 - \varphi_2) + i \sin(\varphi_1 - \varphi_2)\right), \text{if }z_2 \ne 0.$ (These are a consequence of the trigonometric identities for the sine and cosine function.) In other words, the absolute values are multiplied and the arguments are added to yield the polar form of the product. The picture at the right illustrates the multiplication of $(2+i)(3+i)=5+5i.$ Because the real and imaginary part of `{{math\|5 + 5''i''}}`{=mediawiki} are equal, the argument of that number is 45 degrees, or `{{math\|''π''/4}}`{=mediawiki} (in radian). On the other hand, it is also the sum of the angles at the origin of the red and blue triangles are arctan(1/3) and arctan(1/2), respectively. Thus, the formula $\frac{\pi}{4} = \arctan\left(\frac{1}{2}\right) + \arctan\left(\frac{1}{3}\right)$ holds. As the arctan function can be approximated highly efficiently, formulas like this -- known as Machin-like formulas -- are used for high-precision approximations of `{{pi}}`{=mediawiki}: $\frac{\pi}{4} = 4 \arctan\left(\frac{1}{5}\right) - \arctan\left(\frac{1}{239}\right)$ ### Powers and roots {#powers_and_roots} The n-th power of a complex number can be computed using de Moivre\'s formula, which is obtained by repeatedly applying the above formula for the product: $z^{n}=\underbrace{z \cdot \dots \cdot z}_{n \text{ factors}} = (r(\cos \varphi + i\sin \varphi ))^n = r^n \, (\cos n\varphi + i \sin n \varphi).$ For example, the first few powers of the imaginary unit i are $i, i^2 = -1, i^3 = -i, i^4 = 1, i^5 = i, \dots$. The `{{mvar\|n}}`{=mediawiki} `{{mvar\|n}}`{=mediawiki}th roots of a complex number `{{mvar\|z}}`{=mediawiki} are given by $z^{1/n} = \sqrt[n]r \left( \cos \left(\frac{\varphi+2k\pi}{n}\right) + i \sin \left(\frac{\varphi+2k\pi}{n}\right)\right)$ for `{{math\|0 ≤ ''k'' ≤ ''n'' − 1}}`{=mediawiki}. (Here $\sqrt[n]r$ is the usual (positive) `{{mvar\|n}}`{=mediawiki}th root of the positive real number `{{mvar\|r}}`{=mediawiki}.) Because sine and cosine are periodic, other integer values of `{{mvar\|k}}`{=mediawiki} do not give other values. For any $z \ne 0$, there are, in particular n distinct complex n-th roots. For example, there are 4 fourth roots of 1, namely $$z_1 = 1, z_2 = i, z_3 = -1, z_4 = -i.$$ In general there is no natural way of distinguishing one particular complex `{{mvar\|n}}`{=mediawiki}th root of a complex number. (This is in contrast to the roots of a positive real number x, which has a unique positive real n-th root, which is therefore commonly referred to as the n-th root of x.) One refers to this situation by saying that the `{{mvar\|n}}`{=mediawiki}th root is a `{{mvar\|n}}`{=mediawiki}-valued function of `{{mvar\|z}}`{=mediawiki}. ### Fundamental theorem of algebra {#fundamental_theorem_of_algebra} The fundamental theorem of algebra, of Carl Friedrich Gauss and Jean le Rond d\'Alembert, states that for any complex numbers (called coefficients) `{{math\|''a''<sub>0</sub>, ..., ''a''<sub>''n''</sub>}}`{=mediawiki}, the equation $a_n z^n + \dotsb + a_1 z + a_0 = 0$ has at least one complex solution z, provided that at least one of the higher coefficients `{{math\|''a''<sub>1</sub>, ..., ''a''<sub>''n''</sub>}}`{=mediawiki} is nonzero. This property does not hold for the field of rational numbers $\Q$ (the polynomial `{{math\|''x''<sup>2</sup> − 2}}`{=mediawiki} does not have a rational root, because `{{math\|√2}}`{=mediawiki} is not a rational number) nor the real numbers $\R$ (the polynomial `{{math\|''x''<sup>2</sup> + 4}}`{=mediawiki} does not have a real root, because the square of `{{mvar\|x}}`{=mediawiki} is positive for any real number `{{mvar\|x}}`{=mediawiki}). Because of this fact, $\Complex$ is called an algebraically closed field. It is a cornerstone of various applications of complex numbers, as is detailed further below. There are various proofs of this theorem, by either analytic methods such as Liouville\'s theorem, or topological ones such as the winding number, or a proof combining Galois theory and the fact that any real polynomial of odd degree has at least one real root. ## History The solution in radicals (without trigonometric functions) of a general cubic equation, when all three of its roots are real numbers, contains the square roots of negative numbers, a situation that cannot be rectified by factoring aided by the rational root test, if the cubic is irreducible; this is the so-called casus irreducibilis (\"irreducible case\"). This conundrum led Italian mathematician Gerolamo Cardano to conceive of complex numbers in around 1545 in his Ars Magna, though his understanding was rudimentary; moreover, he later described complex numbers as being \"as subtle as they are useless\". Cardano did use imaginary numbers, but described using them as \"mental torture.\" This was prior to the use of the graphical complex plane. Cardano and other Italian mathematicians, notably Scipione del Ferro, in the 1500s created an algorithm for solving cubic equations which generally had one real solution and two solutions containing an imaginary number. Because they ignored the answers with the imaginary numbers, Cardano found them useless. Work on the problem of general polynomials ultimately led to the fundamental theorem of algebra, which shows that with complex numbers, a solution exists to every polynomial equation of degree one or higher. Complex numbers thus form an algebraically closed field, where any polynomial equation has a root. Many mathematicians contributed to the development of complex numbers. The rules for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and root extraction of complex numbers were developed by the Italian mathematician Rafael Bombelli. A more abstract formalism for the complex numbers was further developed by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton, who extended this abstraction to the theory of quaternions. The earliest fleeting reference to square roots of negative numbers can perhaps be said to occur in the work of the Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD, where in his Stereometrica he considered, apparently in error, the volume of an impossible frustum of a pyramid to arrive at the term $\sqrt{81 - 144}$ in his calculations, which today would simplify to $\sqrt{-63} = 3i\sqrt{7}$. Negative quantities were not conceived of in Hellenistic mathematics and Hero merely replaced the negative value by its positive $\sqrt{144 - 81} = 3\sqrt{7}.$ The impetus to study complex numbers as a topic in itself first arose in the 16th century when algebraic solutions for the roots of cubic and quartic polynomials were discovered by Italian mathematicians (Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia and Gerolamo Cardano). It was soon realized (but proved much later) that these formulas, even if one were interested only in real solutions, sometimes required the manipulation of square roots of negative numbers. In fact, it was proved later that the use of complex numbers is unavoidable when all three roots are real and distinct. However, the general formula can still be used in this case, with some care to deal with the ambiguity resulting from the existence of three cubic roots for nonzero complex numbers. Rafael Bombelli was the first to address explicitly these seemingly paradoxical solutions of cubic equations and developed the rules for complex arithmetic, trying to resolve these issues. The term \"imaginary\" for these quantities was coined by René Descartes in 1637, who was at pains to stress their unreal nature: `{{blockquote\|... sometimes only imaginary, that is one can imagine as many as I said in each equation, but sometimes there exists no quantity that matches that which we imagine.<br/> [''... quelquefois seulement imaginaires c'est-à-dire que l'on peut toujours en imaginer autant que j'ai dit en chaque équation, mais qu'il n'y a quelquefois aucune quantité qui corresponde à celle qu'on imagine.'']}}`{=mediawiki} A further source of confusion was that the equation $\sqrt{-1}^2 = \sqrt{-1}\sqrt{-1} = -1$ seemed to be capriciously inconsistent with the algebraic identity $\sqrt{a}\sqrt{b} = \sqrt{ab}$, which is valid for non-negative real numbers `{{mvar\|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar\|b}}`{=mediawiki}, and which was also used in complex number calculations with one of `{{mvar\|a}}`{=mediawiki}, `{{mvar\|b}}`{=mediawiki} positive and the other negative. The incorrect use of this identity in the case when both `{{mvar\|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar\|b}}`{=mediawiki} are negative, and the related identity $\frac{1}{\sqrt{a}} = \sqrt{\frac{1}{a}}$, even bedeviled Leonhard Euler. This difficulty eventually led to the convention of using the special symbol `{{math\|''i''}}`{=mediawiki} in place of $\sqrt{-1}$ to guard against this mistake. Even so, Euler considered it natural to introduce students to complex numbers much earlier than we do today. In his elementary algebra text book, Elements of Algebra, he introduces these numbers almost at once and then uses them in a natural way throughout. In the 18th century complex numbers gained wider use, as it was noticed that formal manipulation of complex expressions could be used to simplify calculations involving trigonometric functions. For instance, in 1730 Abraham de Moivre noted that the identities relating trigonometric functions of an integer multiple of an angle to powers of trigonometric functions of that angle could be re-expressed by the following de Moivre\'s formula: $(\cos \theta + i\sin \theta)^{n} = \cos n \theta + i\sin n \theta.$ thumb \\|upright=1.5 \\|Euler\'s formula relates the complex exponential function of an imaginary argument, which can be thought of as describing uniform circular motion in the complex plane, to the cosine and sine functions, geometrically its projections onto the real and imaginary axes, respectively. In 1748, Euler went further and obtained Euler\'s formula of complex analysis: $e ^{i\theta } = \cos \theta + i\sin \theta$ by formally manipulating complex power series and observed that this formula could be used to reduce any trigonometric identity to much simpler exponential identities. The idea of a complex number as a point in the complex plane was first described by Danish--Norwegian mathematician Caspar Wessel in 1799, although it had been anticipated as early as 1685 in Wallis\'s A Treatise of Algebra. Wessel\'s memoir appeared in the Proceedings of the Copenhagen Academy but went largely unnoticed. In 1806 Jean-Robert Argand independently issued a pamphlet on complex numbers and provided a rigorous proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra. Carl Friedrich Gauss had earlier published an essentially topological proof of the theorem in 1797 but expressed his doubts at the time about \"the true metaphysics of the square root of −1\". It was not until 1831 that he overcame these doubts and published his treatise on complex numbers as points in the plane, largely establishing modern notation and terminology: > If one formerly contemplated this subject from a false point of view and therefore found a mysterious darkness, this is in large part attributable to clumsy terminology. Had one not called +1, −1, $\sqrt{-1}$ positive, negative, or imaginary (or even impossible) units, but instead, say, direct, inverse, or lateral units, then there could scarcely have been talk of such darkness. In the beginning of the 19th century, other mathematicians discovered independently the geometrical representation of the complex numbers: Buée, Mourey, Warren, Français and his brother, Bellavitis. The English mathematician G.H. Hardy remarked that Gauss was the first mathematician to use complex numbers in \"a really confident and scientific way\" although mathematicians such as Norwegian Niels Henrik Abel and Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi were necessarily using them routinely before Gauss published his 1831 treatise. Augustin-Louis Cauchy and Bernhard Riemann together brought the fundamental ideas of complex analysis to a high state of completion, commencing around 1825 in Cauchy\'s case. The common terms used in the theory are chiefly due to the founders. Argand called `{{math\|cos ''φ'' + ''i'' sin ''φ''}}`{=mediawiki} the direction factor, and $r = \sqrt{a^2 + b^2}$ the modulus; + \\tfrac{b}{\\sqrt{a\^2 + b\^2}} \\sqrt{-1} \], whose module is unity \[1\], would represent its direction.\]}} Cauchy (1821) called `{{math\|cos ''φ'' + ''i'' sin ''φ''}}`{=mediawiki} the reduced form (l\'expression réduite) and apparently introduced the term argument; Gauss used `{{math\|''i''}}`{=mediawiki} for $\sqrt{-1}$, introduced the term complex number for `{{math\|''a'' + ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}, and called `{{math\|''a''<sup>2</sup> + ''b''<sup>2</sup>}}`{=mediawiki} the norm. The expression direction coefficient, often used for `{{math\|cos ''φ'' + ''i'' sin ''φ''}}`{=mediawiki}, is due to Hankel (1867), and absolute value, for modulus, is due to Weierstrass. Later classical writers on the general theory include Richard Dedekind, Otto Hölder, Felix Klein, Henri Poincaré, Hermann Schwarz, Karl Weierstrass and many others. Important work (including a systematization) in complex multivariate calculus has been started at beginning of the 20th century. Important results have been achieved by Wilhelm Wirtinger in 1927. ## Abstract algebraic aspects {#abstract_algebraic_aspects} While the above low-level definitions, including the addition and multiplication, accurately describe the complex numbers, there are other, equivalent approaches that reveal the abstract algebraic structure of the complex numbers more immediately. ### Construction as a quotient field {#construction_as_a_quotient_field} One approach to $\C$ is via polynomials, i.e., expressions of the form $p(X) = a_nX^n+\dotsb+a_1X+a_0,$ where the coefficients `{{math\|''a''<sub>0</sub>, ..., ''a''<sub>''n''</sub>}}`{=mediawiki} are real numbers. The set of all such polynomials is denoted by $\R[X]$. Since sums and products of polynomials are again polynomials, this set $\R[X]$ forms a commutative ring, called the polynomial ring (over the reals). To every such polynomial p, one may assign the complex number $p(i) = a_n i^n + \dotsb + a_1 i + a_0$, i.e., the value obtained by setting $X = i$. This defines a function $$\R[X] \to \C$$ This function is surjective since every complex number can be obtained in such a way: the evaluation of a linear polynomial $a+bX$ at $X = i$ is $a+bi$. However, the evaluation of polynomial $X^2 + 1$ at i is 0, since $i^2 + 1 = 0.$ This polynomial is irreducible, i.e., cannot be written as a product of two linear polynomials. Basic facts of abstract algebra then imply that the kernel of the above map is an ideal generated by this polynomial, and that the quotient by this ideal is a field, and that there is an isomorphism $$\R[X] / (X^2 + 1) \stackrel \cong \to \C$$ between the quotient ring and $\C$. Some authors take this as the definition of $\C$. Accepting that $\Complex$ is algebraically closed, because it is an algebraic extension of $\mathbb{R}$ in this approach, $\Complex$ is therefore the algebraic closure of $\R.$ ### Matrix representation of complex numbers {#matrix_representation_of_complex_numbers} Complex numbers `{{math\|''a'' + ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki} can also be represented by `{{math\|2 × 2}}`{=mediawiki} matrices that have the form $\begin{pmatrix} a & -b \\ b & \;\; a \end{pmatrix}.$ Here the entries `{{mvar\|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar\|b}}`{=mediawiki} are real numbers. As the sum and product of two such matrices is again of this form, these matrices form a subring of the ring of `{{math\|2 × 2}}`{=mediawiki} matrices. A simple computation shows that the map $a+ib\mapsto \begin{pmatrix} a & -b \\ b & \;\; a \end{pmatrix}$ is a ring isomorphism from the field of complex numbers to the ring of these matrices, proving that these matrices form a field. This isomorphism associates the square of the absolute value of a complex number with the determinant of the corresponding matrix, and the conjugate of a complex number with the transpose of the matrix. The polar form representation of complex numbers explicitly gives these matrices as scaled rotation matrices. $r (\cos \theta + i \sin \theta)\mapsto \begin{pmatrix} r \cos \theta & -r \sin \theta \\ r \sin \theta & \;\; r \cos \theta \end{pmatrix}$ In particular, the case of `{{math\|1=''r'' = 1}}`{=mediawiki}, which is $\|a + ib\| = \sqrt{a^2+b^2} = 1$, gives (unscaled) rotation matrices. ## Complex analysis {#complex_analysis} The study of functions of a complex variable is known as complex analysis and has enormous practical use in applied mathematics as well as in other branches of mathematics. Often, the most natural proofs for statements in real analysis or even number theory employ techniques from complex analysis (see prime number theorem for an example). Unlike real functions, which are commonly represented as two-dimensional graphs, complex functions have four-dimensional graphs and may usefully be illustrated by color-coding a three-dimensional graph to suggest four dimensions, or by animating the complex function\'s dynamic transformation of the complex plane. ### Convergence The notions of convergent series and continuous functions in (real) analysis have natural analogs in complex analysis. A sequence of complex numbers is said to converge if and only if its real and imaginary parts do. This is equivalent to the (ε, δ)-definition of limits, where the absolute value of real numbers is replaced by the one of complex numbers. From a more abstract point of view, $\mathbb{C}$, endowed with the metric $\operatorname{d}(z_1, z_2) = \|z_1 - z_2\|$ is a complete metric space, which notably includes the triangle inequality $\|z_1 + z_2\| \le \|z_1\| + \|z_2\|$ for any two complex numbers `{{math\|''z''<sub>1</sub>}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math\|''z''<sub>2</sub>}}`{=mediawiki}. ### Complex exponential {#complex_exponential} Like in real analysis, this notion of convergence is used to construct a number of elementary functions: the exponential function `{{math\|exp ''z''}}`{=mediawiki}, also written `{{math\|''e''<sup>''z''</sup>}}`{=mediawiki}, is defined as the infinite series, which can be shown to converge for any z: $\exp z:= 1+z+\frac{z^2}{2\cdot 1}+\frac{z^3}{3\cdot 2\cdot 1}+\cdots = \sum_{n=0}^{\infty} \frac{z^n}{n!}.$ For example, $\exp (1)$ is Euler\'s number $e \approx 2.718$. Euler\'s formula states: $\exp(i\varphi) = \cos \varphi + i\sin \varphi$ for any real number `{{mvar\|φ}}`{=mediawiki}. This formula is a quick consequence of general basic facts about convergent power series and the definitions of the involved functions as power series. As a special case, this includes Euler\'s identity $\exp(i \pi) = -1.$ ### Complex logarithm {#complex_logarithm} For any positive real number t, there is a unique real number x such that $\exp(x) = t$. This leads to the definition of the natural logarithm as the inverse $\ln \colon \R^+ \to \R ; x \mapsto \ln x$ of the exponential function. The situation is different for complex numbers, since $$\exp(z+2\pi i) = \exp z \exp (2 \pi i) = \exp z$$ by the functional equation and Euler\'s identity. For example, `{{math\|1=''e''{{sup\|''iπ''}} = ''e''{{sup\|3''iπ''}} = −1}}`{=mediawiki} , so both `{{mvar\|iπ}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math\|3''iπ''}}`{=mediawiki} are possible values for the complex logarithm of `{{math\|−1}}`{=mediawiki}. In general, given any non-zero complex number w, any number z solving the equation $$\exp z = w$$ is called a complex logarithm of `{{mvar\|w}}`{=mediawiki}, denoted $\log w$. It can be shown that these numbers satisfy $z = \log w = \ln\|w\| + i\arg w,$ where $\arg$ is the argument defined above, and $\ln$ the (real) natural logarithm. As arg is a multivalued function, unique only up to a multiple of `{{math\|2''π''}}`{=mediawiki}, log is also multivalued. The principal value of log is often taken by restricting the imaginary part to the interval `{{open-closed\|−''π'', ''π''}}`{=mediawiki}. This leads to the complex logarithm being a bijective function taking values in the strip $\R^+ + \; i \, \left(-\pi, \pi\right]$ (that is denoted $S_0$ in the above illustration) $\ln \colon \; \Complex^\times \; \to \; \; \; \R^+ + \; i \, \left(-\pi, \pi\right] .$ If $z \in \Complex \setminus \left( -\R_{\ge 0} \right)$ is not a non-positive real number (a positive or a non-real number), the resulting principal value of the complex logarithm is obtained with `{{math\|−''π'' < ''φ'' < ''π''}}`{=mediawiki}. It is an analytic function outside the negative real numbers, but it cannot be prolongated to a function that is continuous at any negative real number $z \in -\R^+$, where the principal value is `{{math\|1=ln ''z'' = ln(−''z'') + ''iπ''}}`{=mediawiki}. Complex exponentiation `{{math\|''z''<sup>''ω''</sup>}}`{=mediawiki} is defined as $z^\omega = \exp(\omega \ln z),$ and is multi-valued, except when `{{mvar\|ω}}`{=mediawiki} is an integer. For `{{math\|1=''ω'' = 1 / ''n''}}`{=mediawiki}, for some natural number `{{mvar\|n}}`{=mediawiki}, this recovers the non-uniqueness of `{{mvar\|n}}`{=mediawiki}th roots mentioned above. If `{{math\|''z'' > 0}}`{=mediawiki} is real (and `{{mvar\|ω}}`{=mediawiki} an arbitrary complex number), one has a preferred choice of $\ln x$, the real logarithm, which can be used to define a preferred exponential function. Complex numbers, unlike real numbers, do not in general satisfy the unmodified power and logarithm identities, particularly when naïvely treated as single-valued functions; see failure of power and logarithm identities. For example, they do not satisfy $a^{bc} = \left(a^b\right)^c.$ Both sides of the equation are multivalued by the definition of complex exponentiation given here, and the values on the left are a subset of those on the right. ### Complex sine and cosine {#complex_sine_and_cosine} The series defining the real trigonometric functions `{{math\|sin}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math\|cos}}`{=mediawiki}, as well as the hyperbolic functions `{{math\|sinh}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math\|cosh}}`{=mediawiki}, also carry over to complex arguments without change. For the other trigonometric and hyperbolic functions, such as `{{math\|tan}}`{=mediawiki}, things are slightly more complicated, as the defining series do not converge for all complex values. Therefore, one must define them either in terms of sine, cosine and exponential, or, equivalently, by using the method of analytic continuation. The value of a trigonometric or hyperbolic function of a complex number can be expressed in terms of those functions evaluated on real numbers, via angle-addition formulas. For `{{math\|1=''z'' = ''x'' + ''iy''}}`{=mediawiki}, $\sin{z} = \sin{x} \cosh{y} + i \cos{x} \sinh{y}$ $\cos{z} = \cos{x} \cosh{y} - i \sin{x} \sinh{y}$ $\tan{z} = \frac{\tan{x} + i \tanh{y}}{1 - i \tan{x} \tanh{y}}$ $\cot{z} = -\frac{1 + i \cot{x} \coth{y}}{\cot{x} -i \coth{y}}$ $\sinh{z} = \sinh{x} \cos{y} + i \cosh{x} \sin{y}$ $\cosh{z} = \cosh{x} \cos{y} + i \sinh{x} \sin{y}$ $\tanh{z} = \frac{\tanh{x} + i \tan{y}}{1 + i \tanh{x} \tan{y}}$ $\coth{z} = \frac{1 - i \coth{x} \cot{y}}{\coth{x} - i \cot{y}}$ Where these expressions are not well defined, because a trigonometric or hyperbolic function evaluates to infinity or there is division by zero, they are nonetheless correct as limits. ### Holomorphic functions {#holomorphic_functions} A function $f: \mathbb{C}$ → $\mathbb{C}$ is called holomorphic or complex differentiable at a point $z_0$ if the limit $$\lim_{z \to z_0} {f(z) - f(z_0) \over z - z_0 }$$ exists (in which case it is denoted by $f'(z_0)$). This mimics the definition for real differentiable functions, except that all quantities are complex numbers. Loosely speaking, the freedom of approaching $z_0$ in different directions imposes a much stronger condition than being (real) differentiable. For example, the function $$f(z) = \overline z$$ is differentiable as a function $\R^2 \to \R^2$, but is not complex differentiable. A real differentiable function is complex differentiable if and only if it satisfies the Cauchy--Riemann equations, which are sometimes abbreviated as $$\frac{\partial f}{\partial \overline z} = 0.$$ Complex analysis shows some features not apparent in real analysis. For example, the identity theorem asserts that two holomorphic functions `{{mvar\|f}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar\|g}}`{=mediawiki} agree if they agree on an arbitrarily small open subset of $\mathbb{C}$. Meromorphic functions, functions that can locally be written as `{{math\|''f''(''z'')/(''z'' − ''z''<sub>0</sub>)<sup>''n''</sup>}}`{=mediawiki} with a holomorphic function `{{mvar\|f}}`{=mediawiki}, still share some of the features of holomorphic functions. Other functions have essential singularities, such as `{{math\|sin(1/''z'')}}`{=mediawiki} at `{{math\|1=''z'' = 0}}`{=mediawiki}. ## Applications Complex numbers have applications in many scientific areas, including signal processing, control theory, electromagnetism, fluid dynamics, quantum mechanics, cartography, and vibration analysis. Some of these applications are described below. Complex conjugation is also employed in inversive geometry, a branch of geometry studying reflections more general than ones about a line. In the network analysis of electrical circuits, the complex conjugate is used in finding the equivalent impedance when the maximum power transfer theorem is looked for. ### Geometry #### Shapes Three non-collinear points $u, v, w$ in the plane determine the shape of the triangle $\{u, v, w\}$. Locating the points in the complex plane, this shape of a triangle may be expressed by complex arithmetic as $S(u, v, w) = \frac {u - w}{u - v}.$ The shape $S$ of a triangle will remain the same, when the complex plane is transformed by translation or dilation (by an affine transformation), corresponding to the intuitive notion of shape, and describing similarity. Thus each triangle $\{u, v, w\}$ is in a similarity class of triangles with the same shape. #### Fractal geometry {#fractal_geometry} The Mandelbrot set is a popular example of a fractal formed on the complex plane. It is defined by plotting every location $c$ where iterating the sequence $f_c(z)=z^2+c$ does not diverge when iterated infinitely. Similarly, Julia sets have the same rules, except where $c$ remains constant. #### Triangles Every triangle has a unique Steiner inellipse -- an ellipse inside the triangle and tangent to the midpoints of the three sides of the triangle. The foci of a triangle\'s Steiner inellipse can be found as follows, according to Marden\'s theorem: Denote the triangle\'s vertices in the complex plane as `{{math\|1=''a'' = ''x''<sub>''A''</sub> + ''y''<sub>''A''</sub>''i''}}`{=mediawiki}, `{{math\|1=''b'' = ''x''<sub>''B''</sub> + ''y''<sub>''B''</sub>''i''}}`{=mediawiki}, and `{{math\|1=''c'' = ''x''<sub>''C''</sub> + ''y''<sub>''C''</sub>''i''}}`{=mediawiki}. Write the cubic equation $(x-a)(x-b)(x-c)=0$, take its derivative, and equate the (quadratic) derivative to zero. Marden\'s theorem says that the solutions of this equation are the complex numbers denoting the locations of the two foci of the Steiner inellipse. ### Algebraic number theory {#algebraic_number_theory} As mentioned above, any nonconstant polynomial equation (in complex coefficients) has a solution in $\mathbb{C}$. A fortiori, the same is true if the equation has rational coefficients. The roots of such equations are called algebraic numbers -- they are a principal object of study in algebraic number theory. Compared to $\overline{\mathbb{Q}}$, the algebraic closure of $\mathbb{Q}$, which also contains all algebraic numbers, $\mathbb{C}$ has the advantage of being easily understandable in geometric terms. In this way, algebraic methods can be used to study geometric questions and vice versa. With algebraic methods, more specifically applying the machinery of field theory to the number field containing roots of unity, it can be shown that it is not possible to construct a regular nonagon using only compass and straightedge -- a purely geometric problem. Another example is the Gaussian integers; that is, numbers of the form `{{math\|''x'' + ''iy''}}`{=mediawiki}, where `{{mvar\|x}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar\|y}}`{=mediawiki} are integers, which can be used to classify sums of squares. ### Analytic number theory {#analytic_number_theory} Analytic number theory studies numbers, often integers or rationals, by taking advantage of the fact that they can be regarded as complex numbers, in which analytic methods can be used. This is done by encoding number-theoretic information in complex-valued functions. For example, the Riemann zeta function `{{math\|ζ(''s'')}}`{=mediawiki} is related to the distribution of prime numbers. ### Improper integrals {#improper_integrals} In applied fields, complex numbers are often used to compute certain real-valued improper integrals, by means of complex-valued functions. Several methods exist to do this; see methods of contour integration. ### Dynamic equations {#dynamic_equations} In differential equations, it is common to first find all complex roots `{{mvar\|r}}`{=mediawiki} of the characteristic equation of a linear differential equation or equation system and then attempt to solve the system in terms of base functions of the form `{{math\|1=''f''(''t'') = ''e''<sup>''rt''</sup>}}`{=mediawiki}. Likewise, in difference equations, the complex roots `{{mvar\|r}}`{=mediawiki} of the characteristic equation of the difference equation system are used, to attempt to solve the system in terms of base functions of the form `{{math\|1=''f''(''t'') = ''r''<sup>''t''</sup>}}`{=mediawiki}. ### Linear algebra {#linear_algebra} Since $\C$ is algebraically closed, any non-empty complex square matrix has at least one (complex) eigenvalue. By comparison, real matrices do not always have real eigenvalues, for example rotation matrices (for rotations of the plane for angles other than 0° or 180°) leave no direction fixed, and therefore do not have any real eigenvalue. The existence of (complex) eigenvalues, and the ensuing existence of eigendecomposition is a useful tool for computing matrix powers and matrix exponentials. Complex numbers often generalize concepts originally conceived in the real numbers. For example, the conjugate transpose generalizes the transpose, hermitian matrices generalize symmetric matrices, and unitary matrices generalize orthogonal matrices. ### In applied mathematics {#in_applied_mathematics} #### Control theory {#control_theory} In control theory, systems are often transformed from the time domain to the complex frequency domain using the Laplace transform. The system\'s zeros and poles are then analyzed in the complex plane. The root locus, Nyquist plot, and Nichols plot techniques all make use of the complex plane. In the root locus method, it is important whether zeros and poles are in the left or right half planes, that is, have real part greater than or less than zero. If a linear, time-invariant (LTI) system has poles that are - in the right half plane, it will be unstable, - all in the left half plane, it will be stable, - on the imaginary axis, it will have marginal stability. If a system has zeros in the right half plane, it is a nonminimum phase system. #### Signal analysis {#signal_analysis} Complex numbers are used in signal analysis and other fields for a convenient description for periodically varying signals. For given real functions representing actual physical quantities, often in terms of sines and cosines, corresponding complex functions are considered of which the real parts are the original quantities. For a sine wave of a given frequency, the absolute value `{{math\|{{!}}`{=mediawiki}z{{!}}}} of the corresponding `{{mvar\|z}}`{=mediawiki} is the amplitude and the argument `{{math\|arg ''z''}}`{=mediawiki} is the phase. If Fourier analysis is employed to write a given real-valued signal as a sum of periodic functions, these periodic functions are often written as complex-valued functions of the form $x(t) = \operatorname{Re} \{X( t ) \}$ and $X( t ) = A e^{i\omega t} = a e^{ i \phi } e^{i\omega t} = a e^{i (\omega t + \phi) }$ where ω represents the angular frequency and the complex number A encodes the phase and amplitude as explained above. This use is also extended into digital signal processing and digital image processing, which use digital versions of Fourier analysis (and wavelet analysis) to transmit, compress, restore, and otherwise process digital audio signals, still images, and video signals. Another example, relevant to the two side bands of amplitude modulation of AM radio, is: $\begin{align} \cos((\omega + \alpha)t) + \cos\left((\omega - \alpha)t\right) & = \operatorname{Re}\left(e^{i(\omega + \alpha)t} + e^{i(\omega - \alpha)t}\right) \\ & = \operatorname{Re}\left(\left(e^{i\alpha t} + e^{-i\alpha t}\right) \cdot e^{i\omega t}\right) \\ & = \operatorname{Re}\left(2\cos(\alpha t) \cdot e^{i\omega t}\right) \\ & = 2 \cos(\alpha t) \cdot \operatorname{Re}\left(e^{i\omega t}\right) \\ & = 2 \cos(\alpha t) \cdot \cos\left(\omega t\right). \end{align}$ ### In physics {#in_physics} #### Electromagnetism and electrical engineering {#electromagnetism_and_electrical_engineering} In electrical engineering, the Fourier transform is used to analyze varying electric currents and voltages. The treatment of resistors, capacitors, and inductors can then be unified by introducing imaginary, frequency-dependent resistances for the latter two and combining all three in a single complex number called the impedance. This approach is called phasor calculus. In electrical engineering, the imaginary unit is denoted by `{{mvar\|j}}`{=mediawiki}, to avoid confusion with `{{mvar\|I}}`{=mediawiki}, which is generally in use to denote electric current, or, more particularly, `{{mvar\|i}}`{=mediawiki}, which is generally in use to denote instantaneous electric current. Because the voltage in an AC circuit is oscillating, it can be represented as $V(t) = V_0 e^{j \omega t} = V_0 \left (\cos\omega t + j \sin\omega t \right ),$ To obtain the measurable quantity, the real part is taken: $v(t) = \operatorname{Re}(V) = \operatorname{Re}\left [ V_0 e^{j \omega t} \right ] = V_0 \cos \omega t.$ The complex-valued signal `{{math\|''V''(''t'')}}`{=mediawiki} is called the analytic representation of the real-valued, measurable signal `{{math\|''v''(''t'')}}`{=mediawiki}. #### Fluid dynamics {#fluid_dynamics} In fluid dynamics, complex functions are used to describe potential flow in two dimensions. #### Quantum mechanics {#quantum_mechanics} The complex number field is intrinsic to the mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics, where complex Hilbert spaces provide the context for one such formulation that is convenient and perhaps most standard. The original foundation formulas of quantum mechanics -- the Schrödinger equation and Heisenberg\'s matrix mechanics -- make use of complex numbers. #### Relativity In special relativity and general relativity, some formulas for the metric on spacetime become simpler if one takes the time component of the spacetime continuum to be imaginary. (This approach is no longer standard in classical relativity, but is used in an essential way in quantum field theory.) Complex numbers are essential to spinors, which are a generalization of the tensors used in relativity. ## Characterizations, generalizations and related notions {#characterizations_generalizations_and_related_notions} ### Algebraic characterization {#algebraic_characterization} The field $\Complex$ has the following three properties: - First, it has characteristic 0. This means that `{{math\|1=1 + 1 + ⋯ + 1 ≠ 0}}`{=mediawiki} for any number of summands (all of which equal one). - Second, its transcendence degree over $\Q$, the prime field of $\Complex,$ is the cardinality of the continuum. - Third, it is algebraically closed (see above). It can be shown that any field having these properties is isomorphic (as a field) to $\Complex.$ For example, the algebraic closure of the field $\Q_p$ of the `{{mvar\|p}}`{=mediawiki}-adic number also satisfies these three properties, so these two fields are isomorphic (as fields, but not as topological fields). Also, $\Complex$ is isomorphic to the field of complex Puiseux series. However, specifying an isomorphism requires the axiom of choice. Another consequence of this algebraic characterization is that $\Complex$ contains many proper subfields that are isomorphic to $\Complex$. ### Characterization as a topological field {#characterization_as_a_topological_field} The preceding characterization of $\Complex$ describes only the algebraic aspects of $\Complex.$ That is to say, the properties of nearness and continuity, which matter in areas such as analysis and topology, are not dealt with. The following description of $\Complex$ as a topological field (that is, a field that is equipped with a topology, which allows the notion of convergence) does take into account the topological properties. $\Complex$ contains a subset `{{math\|''P''}}`{=mediawiki} (namely the set of positive real numbers) of nonzero elements satisfying the following three conditions: - is closed under addition, multiplication and taking inverses. - If `{{mvar\|x}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar\|y}}`{=mediawiki} are distinct elements of `{{math\|''P''}}`{=mediawiki}, then either `{{math\|''x'' − ''y''}}`{=mediawiki} or `{{math\|''y'' − ''x''}}`{=mediawiki} is in `{{math\|''P''}}`{=mediawiki}. - If `{{mvar\|S}}`{=mediawiki} is any nonempty subset of `{{math\|''P''}}`{=mediawiki}, then `{{math\|1=''S'' + ''P'' = ''x'' + ''P''}}`{=mediawiki} for some `{{mvar\|x}}`{=mediawiki} in $\Complex.$ Moreover, $\Complex$ has a nontrivial involutive automorphism `{{math\|''x'' ↦ ''x''}}`{=mediawiki} (namely the complex conjugation), such that `{{math\|''x x''}}`{=mediawiki} is in `{{math\|''P''}}`{=mediawiki} for any nonzero `{{mvar\|x}}`{=mediawiki} in $\Complex.$ Any field `{{mvar\|F}}`{=mediawiki} with these properties can be endowed with a topology by taking the sets `{{math\|1= ''B''(''x'', ''p'') = { ''y'' {{!}}`{=mediawiki} p − (y − x)(y − x)\* ∈ P } }} as a base, where `{{mvar\|x}}`{=mediawiki} ranges over the field and `{{mvar\|p}}`{=mediawiki} ranges over `{{math\|''P''}}`{=mediawiki}. With this topology `{{mvar\|F}}`{=mediawiki} is isomorphic as a topological field to $\Complex.$ The only connected locally compact topological fields are $\R$ and $\Complex.$ This gives another characterization of $\Complex$ as a topological field, because $\Complex$ can be distinguished from $\R$ because the nonzero complex numbers are connected, while the nonzero real numbers are not. ### Other number systems {#other_number_systems} rational numbers $\Q$ real numbers $\R$ complex numbers $\C$ quaternions $\mathbb H$ octonions $\mathbb O$ sedenions $\mathbb S$ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------- ------------------- ---------------------- ------------------------- ----------------------- ----------------------- complete dimension as an $\R$-vector space \[does not apply\] 1 2 4 8 16 ordered multiplication commutative `{{nowrap\|1=(<math>xy=yx</math>)}}`{=mediawiki} multiplication associative `{{nowrap\|1=(<math>(xy)z=x(yz)</math>)}}`{=mediawiki} normed division algebra `{{nowrap\|1=(over <math>\R</math>)}}`{=mediawiki} \[does not apply\] : Number systems The process of extending the field $\mathbb R$ of reals to $\mathbb C$ is an instance of the Cayley--Dickson construction. Applying this construction iteratively to $\C$ then yields the quaternions, the octonions, the sedenions, and the trigintaduonions. This construction turns out to diminish the structural properties of the involved number systems. Unlike the reals, $\Complex$ is not an ordered field, that is to say, it is not possible to define a relation `{{math\|''z''<sub>1</sub> < ''z''<sub>2</sub>}}`{=mediawiki} that is compatible with the addition and multiplication. In fact, in any ordered field, the square of any element is necessarily positive, so `{{math\|1=''i''<sup>2</sup> = −1}}`{=mediawiki} precludes the existence of an ordering on $\Complex.$ Passing from $\C$ to the quaternions $\mathbb H$ loses commutativity, while the octonions (additionally to not being commutative) fail to be associative. The reals, complex numbers, quaternions and octonions are all normed division algebras over $\mathbb R$. By Hurwitz\'s theorem they are the only ones; the sedenions, the next step in the Cayley--Dickson construction, fail to have this structure. The Cayley--Dickson construction is closely related to the regular representation of $\mathbb C,$ thought of as an $\mathbb R$-algebra (an $\mathbb{R}$-vector space with a multiplication), with respect to the basis `{{math\|(1, ''i'')}}`{=mediawiki}. This means the following: the $\mathbb R$-linear map $\begin{align} \mathbb{C} &\rightarrow \mathbb{C} \\ z &\mapsto wz \end{align}$ for some fixed complex number `{{mvar\|w}}`{=mediawiki} can be represented by a `{{math\|2 × 2}}`{=mediawiki} matrix (once a basis has been chosen). With respect to the basis `{{math\|(1, ''i'')}}`{=mediawiki}, this matrix is $\begin{pmatrix} \operatorname{Re}(w) & -\operatorname{Im}(w) \\ \operatorname{Im}(w) & \operatorname{Re}(w) \end{pmatrix},$ that is, the one mentioned in the section on matrix representation of complex numbers above. While this is a linear representation of $\mathbb C$ in the 2 × 2 real matrices, it is not the only one. Any matrix $J = \begin{pmatrix}p & q \\ r & -p \end{pmatrix}, \quad p^2 + qr + 1 = 0$ has the property that its square is the negative of the identity matrix: `{{math\|1=''J''<sup>2</sup> = −''I''}}`{=mediawiki}. Then $\{ z = a I + b J : a,b \in \mathbb{R} \}$ is also isomorphic to the field $\mathbb C,$ and gives an alternative complex structure on $\mathbb R^2.$ This is generalized by the notion of a linear complex structure. Hypercomplex numbers also generalize $\mathbb R,$ $\mathbb C,$ $\mathbb H,$ and $\mathbb{O}.$ For example, this notion contains the split-complex numbers, which are elements of the ring $\mathbb R[x]/(x^2-1)$ (as opposed to $\mathbb R[x]/(x^2+1)$ for complex numbers). In this ring, the equation `{{math\|1=''a''<sup>2</sup> = 1}}`{=mediawiki} has four solutions. The field $\mathbb R$ is the completion of $\mathbb Q,$ the field of rational numbers, with respect to the usual absolute value metric. Other choices of metrics on $\mathbb Q$ lead to the fields $\mathbb Q_p$ of `{{mvar\|p}}`{=mediawiki}-adic numbers (for any prime number `{{mvar\|p}}`{=mediawiki}), which are thereby analogous to $\mathbb{R}$. There are no other nontrivial ways of completing $\mathbb Q$ than $\mathbb R$ and $\mathbb Q_p,$ by Ostrowski\'s theorem. The algebraic closures $\overline {\mathbb{Q}_p}$ of $\mathbb Q_p$ still carry a norm, but (unlike $\mathbb C$) are not complete with respect to it. The completion $\mathbb{C}_p$ of $\overline {\mathbb{Q}_p}$ turns out to be algebraically closed. By analogy, the field is called `{{mvar\|p}}`{=mediawiki}-adic complex numbers. The fields $\mathbb R,$ $\mathbb Q_p,$ and their finite field extensions, including $\mathbb C,$ are called local fields.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,828	Cryptozoology	Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti, the chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, or the Mokele-mbembe. Cryptozoologists refer to these entities as cryptids, a term coined by the subculture. Because it does not follow the scientific method, cryptozoology is considered a pseudoscience by mainstream science: it is neither a branch of zoology nor of folklore studies. It was originally founded in the 1950s by zoologists Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson. Scholars have noted that the subculture rejected mainstream approaches from an early date, and that adherents often express hostility to mainstream science. Scholars studying cryptozoologists and their influence (including cryptozoology\'s association with Young Earth creationism) noted parallels in cryptozoology and other pseudosciences such as ghost hunting and ufology, and highlighted uncritical media propagation of cryptozoologist claims. ## Terminology, history, and approach {#terminology_history_and_approach} As a field, cryptozoology originates from the works of Bernard Heuvelmans, a Belgian zoologist, and Ivan T. Sanderson, a Scottish zoologist. Notably, Heuvelmans published On the Track of Unknown Animals (French: Sur la piste des bêtes ignorées) in 1955, a landmark work among cryptozoologists that was followed by numerous other similar works. In addition, Sanderson published a series of books that contributed to the developing hallmarks of cryptozoology, including Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life (1961). Heuvelmans himself traced cryptozoology to the work of Anthonie Cornelis Oudemans, who theorized that a large unidentified species of seal was responsible for sea serpent reports. Cryptozoology is \'the study of hidden animals\' (from Ancient Greek: κρυπτός, kryptós \"hidden, secret\"; Ancient Greek ζῷον, zōion \"animal\", and λόγος, logos, i.e. \"knowledge, study\"). The term dates from 1959 or before--- Heuvelmans attributes the coinage of the term cryptozoology to Sanderson. Following cryptozoology, the term cryptid was coined in 1983 by cryptozoologist J. E. Wall in the summer issue of the International Society of Cryptozoology newsletter. According to Wall \"\[It has been\] suggested that new terms be coined to replace sensational and often misleading terms like \'monster\'. My suggestion is \'cryptid\', meaning a living thing having the quality of being hidden or unknown \... describing those creatures which are (or may be) subjects of cryptozoological investigation.\" The Oxford English Dictionary defines the noun cryptid as \"an animal whose existence or survival to the present day is disputed or unsubstantiated; any animal of interest to a cryptozoologist\". While used by most cryptozoologists, the term cryptid is not used by academic zoologists. In a textbook aimed at undergraduates, academics Caleb W. Lack and Jacques Rousseau note that the subculture\'s focus on what it deems to be \"cryptids\" is a pseudoscientific extension of older belief in monsters and other similar entities from the folkloric record, yet with a \"new, more scientific-sounding name: cryptids\". While biologists regularly identify new species, cryptozoologists often focus on creatures from the folkloric record. Most famously, these include the Loch Ness Monster, Champ (folklore), Bigfoot, the chupacabra, as well as other \"imposing beasts that could be labeled as monsters\". In their search for these entities, cryptozoologists may employ devices such as motion-sensitive cameras, night-vision equipment, and audio-recording equipment. While there have been attempts to codify cryptozoological approaches, unlike biologists, zoologists, botanists, and other academic disciplines, however, \"there are no accepted, uniform, or successful methods for pursuing cryptids\". Some scholars have identified precursors to modern cryptozoology in certain medieval approaches to the folkloric record, and the psychology behind the cryptozoology approach has been the subject of academic study. Few cryptozoologists have a formal science education, and fewer still have a science background directly relevant to cryptozoology. Adherents often misrepresent the academic backgrounds of cryptozoologists. According to writer Daniel Loxton and paleontologist Donald Prothero, \"\[c\]ryptozoologists have often promoted \'Professor Roy Mackal, PhD.\' as one of their leading figures and one of the few with a legitimate doctorate in biology. What is rarely mentioned, however, is that he had no training that would qualify him to undertake competent research on exotic animals. This raises the specter of \'credential mongering\', by which an individual or organization feints a person\'s graduate degree as proof of expertise, even though his or her training is not specifically relevant to the field under consideration.\" Besides Heuvelmans, Sanderson, and Mackal, other notable cryptozoologists with academic backgrounds include Grover Krantz, Karl Shuker, and Richard Greenwell. In a 2025 interview with science writer Sharon Hill \"Cryptids have become cutified\" \... The reason why cryptids are seeing a resurgence are because of the Internet, for example, the Flatwoods monster is seen in over 33 video games, but the real reason according to Hill is because for a while cryptids were thought to be real animals that some people had assigned magical powers to, and with some investigation the hope was that the magic could be stripped away and they would discover a real, perhaps unknown animal. "One of the reasons why I think that fell apart completely was because the International Society of Cryptozoology fell apart completely, so there were no longer any gatekeepers as of the early 1990's to say 'a cryptid is these animals that we are studying because we think it's got a zoological basis', those people were gone \... they were quite old, they died and there was nobody there to take over that gatekeeping aspect although some people tried. \... Then you saw an explosion of amateurs in the 2000s \... they became researchers that connected via the Internet. Now they start making media they can publish themselves \... it started to hit a younger and younger generation \... who love these creatures \... now everything can be a cryptid." Historically, notable cryptozoologists have often identified instances featuring \"irrefutable evidence\" (such as Sanderson and Krantz), only for the evidence to be revealed as the product of a hoax. This may occur during a closer examination by experts or upon confession of the hoaxer. ### Expeditions Cryptozoologists have often led unsuccessful expeditions to find evidence of cryptids. Bigfoot researcher René Dahinden led searches into caves to find evidence of sasquatch, as early sasquatch legends claimed they lived in rocky areas. Despite the failure of these searches, he spent years trying to find proof of bigfoot. Lensgrave Adam Christoffer Knuth led an expedition into Lake Tele in the Congo to find the Mokele-mbembe in 2018. While the expedition was a failure, they discovered a new species of green algae. ### Young Earth creationism {#young_earth_creationism} A subset of cryptozoology promotes the pseudoscience of Young Earth creationism, rejecting conventional science in favor of a literal Biblical interpretation and promoting concepts such as \"living dinosaurs\". Science writer Sharon Hill observes that the Young Earth creationist segment of cryptozoology is \"well-funded and able to conduct expeditions with a goal of finding a living dinosaur that they think would invalidate evolution\". Anthropologist Jeb J. Card says that \"\[\[Creationism\\|\[c\]reationists\]\] have embraced cryptozoology and some cryptozoological expeditions are funded by and conducted by creationists hoping to disprove evolution.\" In a 2013 interview, paleontologist Donald Prothero notes an uptick in creationist cryptozoologists. He observes that \"\[p\]eople who actively search for Loch Ness monsters or Mokele Mbembe do it entirely as creationist ministers. They think that if they found a dinosaur in the Congo it would overturn all of evolution. It wouldn\'t. It would just be a late-occurring dinosaur, but that\'s their mistaken notion of evolution.\" Citing a 2013 exhibit at the Petersburg, Kentucky-based Creation Museum, which claimed that dragons were once biological creatures who walked the earth alongside humanity and is broadly dedicated to Young Earth creationism, religious studies academic Justin Mullis notes that \"\[c\]ryptozoology has a long and curious history with Young Earth Creationism, with this new exhibit being just one of the most recent examples\". Academic Paul Thomas analyzes the influence and connections between cryptozoology in his 2020 study of the Creation Museum and the creationist theme park Ark Encounter. Thomas comments that, \"while the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter are flirting with pseudoarchaeology, coquettishly whispering pseudoarchaeological rhetoric, they are each fully in bed with cryptozoology\" and observes that \"\[y\]oung-earth creationists and cryptozoologists make natural bed fellows. As with pseudoarchaeology, both young-earth creationists and cryptozoologists bristle at the rejection of mainstream secular science and lament a seeming conspiracy to prevent serious consideration of their claims.\" ### Lack of critical media coverage {#lack_of_critical_media_coverage} Media outlets have often uncritically disseminated information from cryptozoologist sources, including newspapers that repeat false claims made by cryptozoologists or television shows that feature cryptozoologists as monster hunters (such as the popular and purportedly nonfiction American television show MonsterQuest, which aired from 2007 to 2010). Media coverage of purported \"cryptids\" often fails to provide more likely explanations, further propagating claims made by cryptozoologists. ## Reception and pseudoscience {#reception_and_pseudoscience} There is a broad consensus among academics that cryptozoology is a pseudoscience. The subculture is regularly criticized for reliance on anecdotal information and because in the course of investigating animals that most scientists believe are unlikely to have existed, cryptozoologists do not follow the scientific method. No academic course of study nor university degree program grants the status of cryptozoologist and the subculture is primarily the domain of individuals without training in the natural sciences. Anthropologist Jeb J. Card summarizes cryptozoology in a survey of pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology: `{{blockquote\|Cryptozoology purports to be the study of previously unidentified animal species. At first glance, this would seem to differ little from zoology. New species are discovered by field and museum zoologists every year. Cryptozoologists cite these discoveries as justification of their search but often minimize or omit the fact that the discoverers do not identify as cryptozoologists and are academically trained zoologists working in an ecological paradigm rather than organizing expeditions to seek out supposed examples of unusual and large creatures.<ref name="CARD-23-32">Card (2016: 23–32).</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} Card notes that \"cryptozoologists often show their disdain and even hatred for professional scientists, including those who enthusiastically participated in cryptozoology\", which he traces back to Heuvelmans\'s early \"rage against critics of cryptozoology\". He finds parallels with cryptozoology and other pseudosciences, such as ghost hunting and ufology, and compares the approach of cryptozoologists to colonial big-game hunters, and to aspects of European imperialism. According to Card, \"\[m\]ost cryptids are framed as the subject of indigenous legends typically collected in the heyday of comparative folklore, though such legends may be heavily modified or worse. Cryptozoology\'s complicated mix of sympathy, interest, and appropriation of indigenous culture (or non-indigenous construction of it) is also found in New Age circles and dubious \"Indian burial grounds\" and other legends \[\...\] invoked in hauntings such as the \"Amityville\" hoax \[\...\]\". In a 2011 foreword for The American Biology Teacher, then National Association of Biology Teachers president Dan Ward uses cryptozoology as an example of \"technological pseudoscience\" that may confuse students about the scientific method. Ward says that \"Cryptozoology \[\...\] is not valid science or even science at all. It is monster hunting.\" Historian of science Brian Regal includes an entry for cryptozoology in his Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia (2009). Regal says that \"as an intellectual endeavor, cryptozoology has been studied as much as cryptozoologists have sought hidden animals\". In a 1992 issue of Folklore, folklorist Véronique Campion-Vincent says: `{{blockquote\|Unexplained appearances of mystery animals are reported all over the world today. Beliefs in the existence of fabulous and supernatural animals are ubiquitous and timeless. In the continents discovered by Europe indigenous beliefs and tales have strongly influenced the perceptions of the conquered confronted by a new natural environment. In parallel with the growing importance of the scientific approach, these traditional mythical tales have been endowed with sometimes highly artificial precision and have given birth to contemporary legends solidly entrenched in their territories. The belief self-perpetuates today through multiple observations enhanced by the media and encouraged (largely with the aim of gain for touristic promotion) by the local population, often genuinely convinced of the reality of this profitable phenomenon."<ref name="CAMPION-VINCENT-173">Campion-Vincent (1992: 160–183).</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} Campion-Vincent says that \"four currents can be distinguished in the study of mysterious animal appearances\": \"Forteans\" (\"compiler\[s\] of anomalies\" such as via publications like the Fortean Times), \"occultists\" (which she describes as related to \"Forteans\"), \"folklorists\", and \"cryptozoologists\". Regarding cryptozoologists, Campion-Vincent says that \"this movement seems to deserve the appellation of parascience, like parapsychology: the same corpus is reviewed; many scientists participate, but for those who have an official status of university professor or researcher, the participation is a private hobby\". In her Encyclopedia of American Folklore, academic Linda Watts says that \"folklore concerning unreal animals or beings, sometimes called monsters, is a popular field of inquiry\" and describes cryptozoology as an example of \"American narrative traditions\" that \"feature many monsters\". In his analysis of cryptozoology, folklorist Peter Dendle says that \"cryptozoology devotees consciously position themselves in defiance of mainstream science\" and that: `{{blockquote\|The psychological significance of cryptozoology in the modern world [...] serves to channel guilt over the decimation of species and destruction of the natural habitat; to recapture a sense of mysticism and danger in a world now perceived as fully charted and over-explored; and to articulate resentment of and defiance against a scientific community perceived as monopolising the pool of culturally acceptable beliefs.<ref name="DENDLE-2006-190-206">Dendle (2006: 190–206).</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} In a paper published in 2013, Dendle refers to cryptozoologists as \"contemporary monster hunters\" that \"keep alive a sense of wonder in a world that has been very thoroughly charted, mapped, and tracked, and that is largely available for close scrutiny on Google Earth and satellite imaging\" and that \"on the whole the devotion of substantial resources for this pursuit betrays a lack of awareness of the basis for scholarly consensus (largely ignoring, for instance, evidence of evolutionary biology and the fossil record).\" According to historian Mike Dash, few scientists doubt there are thousands of unknown animals, particularly invertebrates, awaiting discovery; however, cryptozoologists are largely uninterested in researching and cataloging newly discovered species of ants or beetles, instead focusing their efforts towards \"more elusive\" creatures that have often defied decades of work aimed at confirming their existence. Paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson (1984) lists cryptozoology among examples of human gullibility, along with creationism: `{{blockquote\|Humans are the most inventive, deceptive, and gullible of all animals. Only those characteristics can explain the belief of some humans in creationism, in the arrival of UFOs with extraterrestrial beings, or in some aspects of cryptozoology. [...] In several respects the discussion and practice of cryptozoology sometimes, although not invariably, has demonstrated both deception and gullibility. An example seems to merit the old Latin saying 'I believe because it is incredible,' although Tertullian, its author, applied it in a way more applicable to the present day creationists.<ref name="SIMPSON-1984-1-16">Simpson (1984: 1–19).</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} Paleontologist Donald Prothero (2007) cites cryptozoology as an example of pseudoscience and categorizes it, along with Holocaust denial and UFO abductions claims, as aspects of American culture that are \"clearly baloney\". In Scientifical Americans: The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers (2017), Hill surveys the field and discusses aspects of the subculture, noting internal attempts at creating more scientific approaches and the involvement of Young Earth creationists and a prevalence of hoaxes. She concludes that many cryptozoologists are \"passionate and sincere in their belief that mystery animals exist. As such, they give deference to every report of a sighting, often without critical questioning. As with the ghost seekers, cryptozoologists are convinced that they will be the ones to solve the mystery and make history. With the lure of mystery and money undermining diligent and ethical research, the field of cryptozoology has serious credibility problems.\" ## Organizations There have been several organizations, of varying types, dedicated or related to cryptozoology. These include: - International Fortean Organization -- a network of professional Fortean researchers and writers based in the United States - International Society of Cryptozoology -- an American organisation that existed from 1982 to 1998 - Kosmopoisk -- a Russian organisation whose interests include cryptozoology and Ufology - The Centre for Fortean Zoology- an English organization centered around hunting for unknown animals ## Museums and exhibitions {#museums_and_exhibitions} The zoological and cryptozoological collection and archive of Bernard Heuvelmans is held at the Musée Cantonal de Zoologie in Lausanne and consists of around \"1,000 books, 25,000 files, 25,000 photographs, correspondence, and artifacts\". In 2006, the Bates College Museum of Art held the \"Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale\" exhibition, which compared cryptozoological creatures with recently extinct animals like the thylacine and extant taxa like the coelacanth, once thought long extinct (living fossils). The following year, the American Museum of Natural History put on a mixed exhibition of imaginary and extinct animals, including the elephant bird Aepyornis maximus and the great ape Gigantopithecus blacki, under the name \"Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids\". In 2003, cryptozoologist Loren Coleman opened the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. The museum houses more than 3000 cryptozoology related artifacts.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,836	Geography of Colombia	The Republic of Colombia is situated largely in the north-west of South America, with some territories falling within the boundaries of Central America. It is bordered to the north-west by Panama; to the east by Brazil and Venezuela; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; and it shares maritime limits with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. Colombia has a land size of 1141748 km2 and it is the 25th largest nation in the world and the fourth-largest country in South America (after Brazil, Argentina, and Peru). Colombia\'s population is not evenly distributed, and most of the people live in the mountainous western portion of the country as well as along the northern coastline; the highest number live in or near the capital city of Bogotá. The southern and eastern portions of the country are sparsely inhabited, consisting of tropical rainforest, and inland tropical plains that contain large estates or large livestock farms, oil and gas production facilities, small farming communities, and indigenous tribes with their territories. Colombia has the 35th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of 808,158 km2. ## Main Colombia usually classifies its geography into five natural regions, from the Andes mountain range, a region shared with Ecuador, Venezuela; the Pacific Ocean coastal region, shared with Panama and Ecuador; the Caribbean Sea coastal region, shared with Venezuela and Panama; the Llanos (plains), shared with Venezuela; to the Amazon Rainforest region shared with Venezuela, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador. Colombia is one of only two South American countries that have coastline on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the other being Chile. The World Factbook does not differentiate between the Amazon region of Colombia (predominantly jungle) and the Orinoquia region of Colombia (predominantly plains). It suggests dividing the country into four geographic regions: the Andean highlands, consisting of the three Andean ranges and intervening valley lowlands; the Caribbean lowlands coastal region; the Pacific lowlands coastal region, separated from the Caribbean lowlands by swamps at the base of the Isthmus of Panama; and eastern Colombia, the great plain that lies to the east of the Andes Mountains. The chief western mountain range, the Cordillera Occidental, is a moderately high range with peaks reaching up to about 15,000 ft (4,670 m). The Cauca River Valley, an important agricultural region with several large cities on its borders, separates the Cordillera Occidental from the massive Cordillera Central. Several snow-clad volcanoes in the Cordillera Central have summits that rise above 17000 ft. The valley of the slow-flowing and muddy Magdalena River, a major transportation artery, separates the Cordillera Central from the main eastern range, the Cordillera Oriental. The peaks of the Cordillera Oriental are moderately high. This range differs from Colombia\'s other mountain ranges in that it contains several large basins. In the east, the sparsely populated, flat to gently rolling eastern lowlands called llanos cover almost 60 percent of the country\'s total land area. This cross section of the republic does not include two of Colombia\'s regions: the Caribbean coastal lowlands and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, both in the northern part of the country. The lowlands in the west are mostly swampy; the reed-filled marshes of the area are called ciénagas by the people of Colombia. The Guajira Peninsula in the east is semiarid and is occupied primarily by indigenous peoples. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a spectacular triangular snowcapped block of rock that towers over the eastern part of this lowland. Here can be found the highest peak of the country, named Pico Cristobal Colon (5775 m). ### Andean region {#andean_region} Near the Ecuadorian frontier, the Andes Mountains divide into three distinct, roughly parallel chains, called cordilleras, that extend northeastward almost to the Caribbean Sea. Altitudes reach more than 18700 ft, and mountain peaks are permanently covered with snow. The elevated basins and plateaus of these ranges have a moderate climate that provides pleasant living conditions and in many places enables farmers to harvest twice a year. Torrential rivers on the slopes of the mountains produce a large hydroelectric power potential and add their volume to the navigable rivers in the valleys. In the late 1980s, approximately 78 percent of the country\'s population lived in the Andean highlands. The Cordillera Occidental in the west, the Cordillera Central in the center, and the Cordillera Oriental in the east have different characteristics. Geologically, the Cordillera Occidental and the Cordillera Central form the western and eastern sides of a massive crystalline arch that extends from the Caribbean lowlands to the southern border of Ecuador. The Cordillera Oriental, however, is composed of folded stratified rocks overlying a crystalline core. The Cordillera Occidental is relatively low and is the least populated of the three cordilleras. Summits are only about 9840 ft above sea level and do not have permanent snows. Few passes exist, although one that is about 4985 ft above sea level provides the major city of Cali with an outlet to the Pacific Ocean. The relatively low elevation of the cordillera permits dense vegetation, which on the western slopes is truly tropical. The Cordillera Occidental is separated from the Cordillera Central by the deep rift of the Cauca Valley. The Río Cauca rises within 124 mi of the border with Ecuador and flows through some of the best farmland in the country. After the two cordilleras converge, the Cauca Valley becomes a deep gorge reaching to the Caribbean lowlands. The Cordillera Central is the loftiest of the mountain systems. Its crystalline rocks form a towering wall dotted with snow-covered volcanoes that is 500 mi long. There are no plateaus in this range and no passes under 10825 ft. The highest peak in this range, the Nevado del Huila, reaches 17602 ft above sea level. The second highest peak is a volcano, Nevado del Ruiz, which erupted violently on November 13, 1985. Toward its northern end, this cordillera separates into several branches that descend toward the Caribbean coast. Between the Cordillera Central and the Cordillera Oriental flows the Magdalena River. This 1600 km river rises near a point some 180 km north of the border with Ecuador, where the Cordillera Oriental and the Cordillera Central diverge. Its spacious drainage area is fed by numerous mountain torrents originating high in the snowfields. The Magdalena River is generally navigable from the Caribbean Sea as far as the town of Neiva, deep in the interior, but it is interrupted midway by rapids. The valley floor is very deep; nearly 800 km from the river\'s mouth the elevation is no more than about 300 m. In the Cordillera Oriental, at elevations between 2500 and, three large fertile basins and a number of small ones provide suitable areas for settlement and intensive economic production. In the basin of Cundinamarca, where the Spanish encountered the regional Chibcha Indians, the European invaders established the town of Santa Fe de Bogotá (present-day Bogotá) at an elevation of 2650 m above sea level. To the north of Bogotá, in the densely populated basins of Chiquinquirá and Boyacá, are fertile fields, rich mines, and large industrial establishments that produce much of the national wealth. Still farther north, where the Cordillera Oriental makes an abrupt turn to the northwest near the border with Venezuela, the Sierra Nevada de Cocuy, the highest point of this range, rises to 5493 m above sea level. In the department of Santander, the valleys on the western slopes are more spacious, and agriculture is intensive in the area around Bucaramanga. The northernmost region of the range around Cúcuta is so rugged that historically it has been easier for residents here to maintain communications and transportation with Venezuela than with the adjacent parts of Colombia. The basic plantation of Colombia is grassy and is near the equator which allows many tropical-like plants. ### Caribbean region {#caribbean_region} The Caribbean lowlands consist of all of Colombia north of an imaginary line extending northeastward from the Golfo de Urabá to the Venezuelan frontier at the northern extremity of the Cordillera Oriental. The semiarid Guajira Peninsula and Guajira--Barranquilla xeric scrub, in the extreme north, bear little resemblance to the rest of the region. In the southern part rises the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, an isolated mountain system with peaks reaching heights over 5700 m and slopes generally too steep for cultivation. The Caribbean lowlands region is in roughly the shape of a triangle, the longest side of which is the coastline. Most of the country\'s commerce moves through the cities of Cartagena, Barranquilla, Santa Marta, and the other ports located along this important coast. Inland from these cities are swamps, hidden streams, and shallow lakes that support banana and cotton plantations for major commodity crops, countless small farms, and, in higher places, cattle ranches. The city of Cartagena is a petrochemical, seaport (#1 in the country), and tourist city (#1 in the country). Santa Marta is also a seaport and tourist city but it is smaller scale city in comparison. Barranquilla is located some 25 mi from the Caribbean coastline but it is a more developed city, with a greater number of industries and commercial places, widely known for its skilled workers in producing all forms of metalwork and accomplishing construction. Its inhabitants have the highest education level of the region. The city is famous as the starting point and focus of the region and the country\'s development: it was the first city in the nation to install and use telephones, public lighting, air mail, planes, and industrial works. The Caribbean region merges next to and is connected with the Andean highlands through the two great river valleys. After the Andean highlands, it is the second-most important region in terms of economic activity. Approximately 17% of the country\'s population lived in this region in the late 1980s. The region also includes the peninsular archipelago of San Andres Island and the Insular Territories of Colombia, which are disputed in part by Nicaragua. However, the Colombian Navy protects such territories with the use of force when necessary to avoid foreign invasion. The islands are fortified with two important bases for defense and custom controls. These were formerly used for research of classified projects with civilian assistance; the local universities often conduct research in the areas of oceanography and marine biology but also in the fields of biochemistry, genetics and immunology. Colombia is known for its advances in medical fields in experimental surgery, breast implant development, or prosthetics, and immunology. These facilities serve as containment and secure experimentation labs to complement those in Barranquilla and other undisclosed locations within the coast territories. The Insular Region is considered by some as a geopolitical region of Colombia. It comprises the areas outside the continental territories of Colombia and includes the San Andrés y Providencia Department in the Caribbean Sea and the Malpelo and Gorgona islands in the Pacific Ocean. Its subregions include other groups of islands: - Archipiélago de San Bernardo (in the Morrosquillo Gulf, Caribbean). - Islas del Rosario (Caribbean) - Isla Fuerte (Caribbean) - Isla Barú (Caribbean) - Isla Tortuguilla (Caribbean) - Isla Tierra Bomba (Caribbean) ### Pacific region {#pacific_region} The western third of the country is the most geographically complex. Starting at the shore of the Pacific Ocean in the west and moving eastward at a latitude of 5 degrees north, a diverse sequence of features is encountered. In the extreme west are the very narrow and discontinuous Pacific coastal lowlands, which are backed by the Serranía de Baudó, the lowest and narrowest of Colombia\'s mountain ranges. Next is the broad region of the Río Atrato/Río San Juan lowland. In 1855, William Kennish, an engineer and veteran of the British Royal Navy, who had immigrated to the United States and was working for a New York City firm, studied the area and proposed an inter-oceanic river aqueduct and tunnel to connect the Rio Atrato, with its mouth at the Atlantic Ocean, with tributaries and through a tunnel and aqueduct through Nerqua Pass, to flow into Bahía Humboldt at the Pacific Ocean. This was his alternative to the canal that was eventually built further west on the isthmus of what became Panama after it gained independence in the early 20th century. Although the US sent an expedition to explore Kennish\'s proposal, the concept was not developed at the time. Colombia refused a later US offer to build a canal. After independence, in 1903 Panama made a treaty with the US to support construction of the Panama Canal. Colombia occupies most of the Andes mountain range northern extremity, sharing a bit with Venezuela; the range splits into three branches between the Colombia-Ecuador border. In the 1980s, only three percent of all Colombians resided in the Pacific lowlands, a region of jungle and swamp with considerable but little-exploited potential in minerals and other resources. Later in the 20th century, it was threatened by mining-related deforestation, as gold mining proceeded by both major companies and artisan miners. Buenaventura is the only port of any size on the coast. To the east, the Pacific lowlands are bounded by the Cordillera Occidental, from which numerous streams run. Most of the streams flow westward to the Pacific, but the largest, the navigable Río Atrato, flows northward to the Golfo de Urabá. Its river settlements have access to the major Atlantic ports and consequently are commercially related primarily to the Caribbean lowlands hinterland. To the west of the Río Atrato rises the Serranía de Baudó, an isolated chain of low mountains that occupies a large part of the region. Its highest elevation is less than 1,800 meters, and its vegetation resembles that of the surrounding tropical forest. The Atrato Swamp, in Chocó Department adjoining the border with Panama, is a deep muck sixty-five kilometers in width. For years it has challenged engineers seeking to complete the Pan-American Highway. This stretch, near Turbo, where the highway is interrupted, is known as the Tapón del Chocó (Chocon Plug). A second major transportation project in Chocó Department has been proposed. A second inter-oceanic canal would be constructed by dredging the Río Atrato and tributary streams and digging short access canals. Completion of either of these projects would do much to transform this region, although it could have devastating consequences on the fragile, tropical forest environment. ### Orinoquía region {#orinoquía_region} The area east of the Andes includes about 699,300 square kilometers or three-fifths of the country\'s total area, but Colombians view it almost as an alien land. The entire area, known as the eastern plains, was home to only two percent of the country\'s population in the late 1980s. The Spanish term for plains (llanos) can be applied only to the open plains in the northern part, particularly the Piedmont areas near the Cordillera Oriental, where extensive cattle raising is practiced. The region is unbroken by highlands except in Meta Department, where the Serranía de la Macarena, an outlier of the Andes has unique vegetation and wildlife believed to be reminiscent of those that once existed throughout the Andes. ### Amazon region {#amazon_region} Many of the numerous large rivers of eastern Colombia are navigable. The Río Guaviare and the streams to its north flow eastward and drain into the basin of the Río Orinoco, a river that crosses into Venezuela and flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Those south of the Río Guaviare flows into the Amazon Basin. The Río Guaviare divides eastern Colombia into the llanos subregion in the north and the tropical rainforest, or selva, subregion in the south. ## Climate The striking variety in temperature and precipitation results principally from differences in elevation. Temperatures range from very hot at sea level to relatively cold at higher elevations but vary little with the season. At Bogotá, for example, the average annual temperature is 15 °C, and the difference between the average of the coldest and the warmest months is less than 1 °C (1.8 °F). More significant, however, is the daily variation in temperature, from 5 °C at night to 17 °C during the day. Colombians customarily describe their country in terms of the climatic zones: the area under 900 m in elevation is called the hot zone (tierra caliente), elevations between 900 and are the temperate zone (tierra templada), and elevations from 1980 m to about 3500 m constitute the cold zone (tierra fría). The upper limit of the cold zone marks the tree line and the approximate limit of human habitation. The treeless regions adjacent to the cold zone and extending to approximately 4500 m are high, bleak areas (usually referred to as the páramos), above which begins the area of permanent snow (nevado). About 86% of the country\'s total area lies in the hot zone. Included in the hot zone and interrupting the temperate area of the Andean highlands are the long and narrow extension of the Magdalena Valley and a small extension in the Cauca Valley. Temperatures, depending on elevation, vary between 24 and, and there are alternating dry and wet seasons corresponding to summer and winter, respectively. Breezes on the Caribbean coast, however, reduce both heat and precipitation. Rainfall in the hot zone is heaviest in the Pacific lowlands and in parts of eastern Colombia, where rain is almost a daily occurrence and rain forests predominate. Precipitation exceeds 7600 mm annually in most of the Pacific lowlands, making this one of the wettest regions in the world. The highest average annual precipitation in the world is estimated to be in Lloro, Colombia, with 13299 mm. In eastern Colombia, it decreases from 6350 mm in portions of the Andean Piedmont to 2540 mm eastward. Extensive areas of the Caribbean interior are permanently flooded, more because of poor drainage than because of the moderately heavy precipitation during the rainy season from May through October. The temperate zone covers about 8% of the country. This zone includes the lower slopes of the Cordillera Oriental and the Cordillera Central and most of the intermontane valleys. The important cities of Medellín (1487 m) and Cali (1030 m) are located in this zone, where rainfall is moderate and the mean annual temperature varies between 19 and, depending on the elevation. In the higher elevations of this zone, farmers benefit from two wet and two dry seasons each year; January through March and July through September are the dry seasons. The cold or cool zone constitutes about 6% of the total area, including some of the most densely populated plateaus and terraces of the Colombian Andes; this zone supports about one fourth of the country\'s total population. The mean temperature ranges between 10 and, and the wet seasons occur in April and May and from September to December, as in the high elevations of the temperate zone. Precipitation is moderate to heavy in most parts of the country; the heavier rainfall occurs in the low-lying hot zone. Considerable variations occur because of local conditions that affect wind currents, however, and areas on the leeward side of the Guajira Peninsula receive generally light rainfall; the annual rainfall of 350 mm recorded at the Uribia station there is the lowest in Colombia. Considerable year-to-year variations have been recorded, and Colombia sometimes experiences droughts. Colombia\'s geographic and climatic variations have combined to produce relatively well-defined \"ethnocultural\" groups among different regions of the country: the Costeño from the Caribbean coast; the Caucano in the Cauca region and the Pacific coast; the Antioqueño in Antioquia, Caldas, Risaralda, and Valle del Cauca departments; the Tolimense in Tolima and Huila departments; the Cundiboyacense in the interior departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá in the Cordillera Oriental; the Santandereano in Norte de Santander and Santander departments; and the Llanero in the eastern plains. Each group has distinctive characteristics, accents, customs, social patterns, and forms of cultural adaptation to climate and topography that differentiates it from other groups. Even with rapid urbanization and modernization, regionalism and regional identification continued to be important reference points, although they were somewhat less prominent in the 1980s than in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Colombia\'s proximity to the equator influences its climates. The lowland areas are continuously hot. Altitude affects temperature greatly. Temperatures decrease about 3.5 F-change for every 1000 ft increase in altitude above sea level. Rainfall varies by location in Colombia, tending to increase as one travels southward. This is especially true in the eastern lowlands. For example, rainfall in parts of the Guajira Peninsula seldom exceeds 30 in per year. Colombia\'s rainy southeast, however, is often drenched by more than 200 in of rain per year. Rainfall in most of the rest of the country runs between these two extremes. ## Vegetation Altitude affects not only temperature, but also vegetation. In fact, altitude is one of the most important influences on vegetation patterns in Colombia. The mountainous parts of the country can be divided into several vegetation zones according to altitude, although the altitude limits of each zone may vary somewhat depending on the latitude. The \"tierra caliente\" (hot land), below 1000 m, is the zone of tropical crops such as bananas. The tierra templada (temperate land), extending from an altitude of 1000 to, is the zone of coffee and maize. Wheat and potatoes dominate in the \"tierra fría\" (cold land), at altitudes from 2000 to. In the \"zona forestada\" (forested zone), which is located between 3200 and, many of the trees have been cut for firewood. Treeless pastures dominate the páramos, or alpine grasslands, at altitudes of 4000 to. Above 4500 m, where temperatures are below freezing, is the \"tierra helada\", a zone of permanent snow and ice. Vegetation also responds to rainfall patterns. A scrub woodland of scattered trees and bushes dominates the semiarid northeast. To the south, savannah (tropical grassland) vegetation covers the Colombian portion of the llanos. The rainy areas in the southeast are blanketed by tropical rainforest. In the mountains, the spotty patterns of precipitation in alpine areas complicate vegetation patterns. The rainy side of a mountain may be lush and green, while the other side, in the rain shadow, may be parched. ## Relief The Andean range is located in Colombia from the southwest (Ecuador border) toward the northeast (Venezuela border) and is divided in the Colombian Massif (Macizo Colombiano) in three ranges (East Andes, Central Andes and West Andes) that form two long valleys, Magdalena and Cauca follow by the rivers of the same name. The eastern half of Colombia, comprising more than half its territory, is plain and composed by savanna and rainforest, crossed by rivers belonging to the Amazon and Orinoco basins. The northern part, called the Llanos, is a savanna region, mostly in the Orinoco basin (therefore called also Orinoquía). The southern part is covered by the Amazon rain forest and belongs mostly to the Amazon basin. It is usually called Amazonía. At the north and west of the Andes range there are some coastal plains. The Caribbean plains at the north and the Pacific plains at the west. A recent global remote sensing analysis suggested that there were 553km² of tidal flats in Colombia, making it the 46th ranked country in terms of tidal flat area. Colombian Pacific Plains are among the most rainy parts in the world, chiefly at the north (Chocó). The highest mountain in Colombia is not in the Andes but in the Caribbean plain: Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta with its highest points named Pico Cristobal Colon (5775 m) and Pico Simon Bolivar (same elevation). Other mountains in the Caribbean plain include the Montes de María and the Serranía de San Lucas. In the Pacific Plains there are other mountain formations, chiefly the Serranía del Darién and the Serranía del Baudó. In the eastern Region, there is the Serranía de la Macarena and there are formations belonging to the Guyana Shield. ## Protected areas {#protected_areas} ## Environmental issues {#environmental_issues} The main environmental issues affecting Colombia are deforestation; soil and water quality damage from overuse of pesticides; air pollution, especially in Bogota, from vehicle emissions and other main cities. The collateral damaged produced by attacks against oil pipeline infrastructure by rebel guerrillas in the Colombian armed conflict has produced long term damage to the environment. The armed groups also deforest large areas to cultivate illegal crops and open unauthorized highways in protected areas. ## Extreme points {#extreme_points} Highest points: Snowfields and glaciers in Colombia are limited to the highest peaks and ranges in the Cordillera Central and Cordillera Oriental and above the 4700 m elevation on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The total area of snowfields and glaciers was estimated to be about 104 square kilometers in the early 1970s. Historical, geographical, and pictorial records point toward a consistent and progressive depletion of ice-and-snow masses in the Colombian Andes since the end of the \"Little Ice Age\" in the late 1800s. Many glaciers have disappeared during the 20th century, and others are expected to disappear in the coming decades. ## Facts Land size: total: 1138910 km2 Land boundaries: total: 6,672 km Coastline: 3,208 km (Caribbean Sea 1,760 km, North Pacific Ocean 1,448 km) Exclusive Economic Zone: total: 808,158 km2 Climate: tropical along coast and eastern plains; cooler in highlands Terrain: flat coastal lowlands, central highlands, high Andes Mountains, eastern lowland plains Elevation extremes: lowest point: Pacific Ocean 0 m highest point: Pico Cristobal Colon 5,975 m note: nearby Pico Simon Bolivar also has the same elevation Natural resources: petroleum, natural gas, coal, iron ore, nickel, gold, copper, emeralds, hydropower Land use: arable land: 1.43% permanent crops: 1.68% other: 96.89% (2012) Irrigated land: 10,870 km^2^ (2011) Total renewable water resources: 2,132 km^3^ (2011) Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural): total: 12.65 km^3^ (55%/4%/41%) per capita: 308 m^3^/yr (2010) Natural hazards: highlands subject to volcanic eruptions; occasional earthquakes; periodic droughts Environment - international agreements: party to: Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands signed, but not ratified: Law of the Sea ## Hydrology Colombia has four main drainage systems: the Pacific drain, the Caribbean drain, the Orinoco Basin and the Amazon Basin. The Orinoco and Amazon Rivers mark limits with Colombia to Venezuela and Peru respectively. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ \| Caribbean Drain \| Pacific Drain \| Orinoco Basin \| Amazon Basin \| +======================================================================+=================+=================+====================+ \| ### Rivers confined to Colombia {#rivers_confined_to_colombia} \| \| \| \| +----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ \| - Atrato \| - Baudó \| - Guaviare \| - Apaporis \| \| - Cauca \| - Patía \| - Inírida \| - Caguán \| \| - Magdalena \| - San Juan \| - Meta \| \| \| - Nechí \| \| - Vichada \| \| \| - Sinú \| \| \| \| +----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ \| ### Rivers originating in Colombia {#rivers_originating_in_colombia} \| \| \| \| +----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ \| - Catatumbo \| \| - Arauca \| - Caquetá \| \| \| \| \| - Guainía \| \| \| \| \| - Putumayo River \| \| \| \| \| - Vaupés \| +----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ ### Lakes - Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta - La Cocha Lagoon - Lake Tota	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,838	Politics of Colombia	Colombia is a presidential representative democratic republic with a multi-party system, where the President of Colombia is both head of state and head of government. The national government has separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The legislative power is held by the two chambers of the Congress of Colombia, the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, with the four high courts for each jurisdiction of law: the Constitutional Court of Colombia, Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia, Council of State, and Superior Council of Judicature. ## Constitution The current Colombian Constitution of 1991, enacted on July 5, 1991, strengthened the administration of justice with the provision for introduction of an adversarial system, which entirely replaced the existing Napoleonic Code. Other significant reforms under the new constitution included civil divorce, dual nationality, the office of Vice President of Colombia, and the election of Departmental Governors. Additionally, the constitution expanded citizens\' fundamental rights, including the right of \"tutela,\" which allows individuals to request immediate court action if they feel their constitutional rights are being violated and if no other legal recourse is available. ## Executive branch {#executive_branch} The President of Colombia is elected to a single four-year term. The 1991 constitution reestablished the position of the Vice President of Colombia, who is elected on the same ticket as the president. By law, the vice president will succeed in the event of the president\'s resignation, illness, or death. Since 2015, the president has been barred from running for reelection, even for a nonconsecutive term. ## Legislative branch {#legislative_branch} Colombia\'s bicameral congress consists of a 108-member senate and a 172-member chamber of representatives. Senators are elected on the basis of a nationwide ballot, while representatives are elected in multi member districts co-located within the 32 national departments. The country\'s capital is a separate capital district and elects its own representatives. Members may be re-elected indefinitely, and, in contrast to the pre-1991 constitution system, there are no alternate congressmen. Congress meets twice a year, and the president has the power to call it into special session when needed. ## Judicial branch {#judicial_branch} The civilian judiciary is a separate and independent branch of government. Guidelines and the general structure for Colombia\'s administration of justice are set out in Law 270 of March 7, 1996. After the 1991 Constitution, Colombia\'s legal system began incorporating elements of an oral, accusatory system. The judicial branch\'s general structure comprises four distinct jurisdictions: ordinary, administrative, constitutional, and special. Colombia\'s highest judicial organs are the Supreme Court, the Council of State, the Constitutional Court, and the Superior Judicial Council. Although all the high courts technically oversee separate jurisdictions, the Constitutional Court has a broad spectrum of judicial oversight, often allowing it to rule on issues overseen by different jurisdictions and even weigh in directly on the rulings of other high courts. ## Elections ### Recent elections {#recent_elections} #### 2022 presidential election {#presidential_election} #### 2022 parliamentary election {#parliamentary_election} ##### Senate ##### Chamber of Representatives {#chamber_of_representatives} ## Political parties {#political_parties} ## Corruption ## International organization participation {#international_organization_participation} ### Global United Nations `{{Columns-list\|colwidth=10em\| * [[Food and Agriculture Organization\|FAO]] * [[International Atomic Energy Agency\|IAEA]] * [[ICAO]] * [[International Trade Union Confederation\|ITUC]] * [[IFAD]] * [[International Labour Organization\|ILO]] * [[International Monetary Fund\|IMF]] * [[International Maritime Organization\|IMO]] * [[International Organization for Migration\|IOM]] * [[ITU]] * [[Union of South American Nations\|UNASUR]] * [[UNCTAD]] * [[UNESCO]] * [[UNHCR]] * [[United Nations Industrial Development Organization\|UNIDO]] * [[UPU]] * [[WHO]] * [[WIPO]] * [[WMO]] * [[WToO]] }}`{=mediawiki}World Bank `{{Columns-list\|colwidth=10em\| * [[International Development Association\|IDA]] * [[International Bank for Reconstruction and Development\|IBRD]] * [[International Finance Corporation\|IFC]] * [[MIGA]] }}`{=mediawiki} Other `{{Columns-list\|colwidth=10em\| [[Group of 24\|G-24]] [[Group of 77\|G-77]] [[International Chamber of Commerce\|ICC]] [[International Criminal Court\|ICCt]] [[International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement\|ICRM]] [[IFRCS]] [[IHO]] [[Interpol (organization)\|Interpol]] [[IOC]] [[International Organization for Standardization\|ISO]] [[Non-Aligned Movement\|NAM]] [[OPCW]] [[Permanent Court of Arbitration\|PCA]] [[World Customs Organization\|WCO]] [[World Federation of Trade Unions\|WFTU]] [[World Trade Organization\|WTO]] *[[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development\|OECD]] }}`{=mediawiki} ### Regional	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,840	Communications in Colombia	Since being liberalized in 1991, the Colombian telecommunications sector has added new services, expanded coverage, improved efficiency, and lowered costs. The sector has had the second largest (after energy) investment in infrastructure (54 percent) since 1997. However, the economic downturn between 1999 and 2002 adversely affected telecommunications. During this period, Colombia\'s telecommunications industry lost US\$2 billion despite a profit of US\$1 billion in local service. In June 2003, the government liquidated the state-owned and heavily indebted National Telecommunications Company (Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones---Telecom) and replaced it with Colombia Telecomunicaciones (Colombia Telecom). The measure enabled the industry to expand rapidly, and in 2004 it constituted 2.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Telefónica of Spain acquired 50 percent plus one share of the company in 2006. As a result of increasing competition, Colombia has a relatively modern telecommunications infrastructure that primarily serves larger towns and cities. Colombia\'s telecommunication system includes access to 8 different international Submarine cable systems, Intelsat, 11 domestic satellite Earth stations, and a nationwide microwave radio relay system. ## Telephones The country\'s teledensity (the density of telephone lines in a community) is relatively high for Latin America (17 percent in 2006). However, there is a steep imbalance between rural and urban areas, with some regions below 10 percent and the big cities exceeding 30 percent. Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali account for about 50 percent of telephone lines in use. By the end of 2005, the number of telephone main lines in use totaled 7,851,649. Colombia Telecom accounted for only about 31 percent of these lines; 27 other operators accounted for the rest. Colombia\'s mobile market is one of the fastest-growing businesses in the country. In 1993, the first mobile phone call was made. In mid-2004 mobile telephones overtook fixed lines in service for the first time. By 2005 Colombia had the highest mobile phone density (90 percent) in Latin America, as compared with the region\'s average density of 70 percent. The number of mobile telephone subscribers totaled an estimated 31 million in 2007, as compared to 21.8 million in 2005 and 6.8 million in 2001. ## Radio and television {#radio_and_television} In late 2004, Radio Televisión Nacional de Colombia (RTVC) replaced the liquidated Inravisión (Instituto Nacional de Radio y Televisión) as the government-run radio and television broadcasting service, which oversees three national television stations and five radio companies (which operate about a dozen principal networks). Colombia has about 60 television stations, including seven low-power stations. In 2000 the population had about 11.9 million television receivers in use. Of the approximately 515 radio stations, 454 are AM; 34, FM; and 27, shortwave. ## Undersea Cables {#undersea_cables} As of 2016, Colombia has access to the following international Submarine cable systems: SAC/LAN, Maya-1, AMX-1, Pan Am, SAm-1, ARCOS-1, CFX-1, and PCCS. These cables land at 4 locations in the Caribbean: Barranquilla, Cartagena, Riohacha, and Tolu. One cable lands on the Pacific Ocean coast at Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca. ## Internet Colombia is still far behind Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina in terms of online usage. It had an estimated total of 900,000 Internet subscribers by the end of 2005, a figure that equated to 4,739,000 Internet users, or 11.5 percent of the 2005 population (10.9 per 100 inhabitants). By late 2009 39% of households had internet access Colombia had 581,877 Internet hosts in 2006. Although as many as 70 percent of Colombians accessed the Internet over their ordinary telephone lines, dial-up access is losing ground to broadband. In 2005 Colombia had 345,000 broadband subscriber lines, or one per 100 inhabitants. In 2006 the number of personal computers per 1,000 people increased to an estimated 87 per 1,000 inhabitants, a rate still below that in other large Latin American economies. The internet country code is .co.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,841	Transport in Colombia	Transport in Colombia is regulated by the Ministry of Transport. Road travel is the main means of transport; 69 percent of cargo is transported by road, as compared with 27 percent by railroad, 3 percent by internal waterways, and 1 percent by air. ## History ### Indigenous peoples influence {#indigenous_peoples_influence} The indigenous peoples in Colombia used and some continue to use the waterways as the way of transportation using rafts and canoes. ### Spanish influence {#spanish_influence} With the arrival of the Europeans the Spaniards brought the horses, mules and donkey (which developed into the Paso Fino) used by them in ranching duties later in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Horses contributed greatly to the transport of the Spanish conquerors and colonizers. They also introduced the wheel, and brought wooden carts and carriages to facilitate their transport. The Spaniards also developed the first roads, rudimentary and most of these in the Caribbean region. Due to the rough terrain of Colombia communications between regions was difficult and affected the effectiveness of the central government creating isolation in some regions. Maritime navigation developed locally after Spain lifted its restrictions on ports within the Spanish Empire inducing mercantilism. Spanish also transported African slaves and forcedly migrated many indigenous tribes throughout Colombia. ### Post-independence {#post_independence} With the independence and the influences of the European Industrial Revolution the main way of transport in Colombia became the navigation mainly through the Magdalena River which connected Honda in inland Colombia, with Barranquilla by the Caribbean Sea to the trade with the United States and Europe. This also brought a large wave of immigrants from European and Middle Eastern countries. The industrialization process and transportation in Colombia were affected by the internal civil wars that surged after the independence from Spain and that continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. ### Standardization During the late 19th century European and American companies introduced railways to carry to the ports the local production of raw materials intended for exports and also imports from Europe. Steam ships began carrying Colombians, immigrants and goods from Europe and the United States over the Magdalena River. The Ministry of Transport was created in 1905 during the presidency of Rafael Reyes under the name of Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transporte or Ministry of Public Works and Transport with the main function of taking care of national assets issues, including mines, oil (fuel), patents and trade marks, railways, roads, bridges, national buildings and land without landowners. In the early 20th century roads and highways maintenance and construction regulations were established. Rivers were cleaned, dragged and channeled and the navigational industry was organized. The Public works districts were created, as well as the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Colombia (National Railways of Colombia). Among other major projects developed were the aqueduct of Bogotá, La Regadera Dam and the Vitelma Water Treatment Plant. The Ministry also created the National Institute of Transit (from the Spanish Instituto Nacional de Tránsito), (INTRA) under the Transport and tariffs Directorate and was in charge of designing the first National roads plan with the support of many foreign multinational construction companies. Aviation was born in Barranquilla with the creation of SCADTA in 1919 a joint venture between Colombians and Germans that delivered mail to the main cities of Colombia which later merged with SACO to form Avianca. ## Infrastructure ### Railways Colombia has 3,034 km of rail lines, 150 km of which are `{{RailGauge\|1435mm}}`{=mediawiki} gauge and 3,154 km of which are `{{RailGauge\|914mm}}`{=mediawiki} gauge. However, only 2,611 km of lines are still in use. Rail transport in Colombia remains underdeveloped. The national railroad system, once the country\'s main mode of transport for freight, has been neglected in favor of road development and now accounts for only about a quarter of freight transport. Passenger-rail use was suspended in 1992 resumed at the end of the 1990s, and as of 2017 it is considered abandoned (at least for long distances). Fewer than 165,000 passenger journeys were made in 1999, as compared with more than 5 million in 1972, and the figure was only 160,130 in 2005. The two still-functioning passenger trains are: one between Puerto Berrío and García Cadena, and another one between Bogotá and Zipaquirá. Short sections of railroad, mainly the Bogotá-Atlantic rim, are used to haul goods, mostly coal, to the Caribbean and Pacific ports. In 2005 a total of 27.5 million metric tons of cargo were transported by rail. Although the nation\'s rail network links seven of the country\'s 10 major cities, very little of it has been used regularly because of security concerns, lack of maintenance, and the power of the road transport union. During 2004--6, approximately 2,000 kilometers of the country\'s rail lines underwent refurbishment. This upgrade involved two main projects: the 1,484-kilometer line linking Bogotá to the Caribbean Coast and the 499-kilometer Pacific coastal network that links the industrial city of Cali and the surrounding coffee-growing region to the port of Buenaventura. ### Roads The three main north--south highways are the Caribbean, Eastern, and Central Trunk Highways (troncales). Estimates of the length of Colombia\'s road system in 2004 ranged from 115,000 kilometers to 145,000 kilometers, of which fewer than 15 percent were paved. However, according to 2005 data reported by the Colombian government, the road network totaled 163,000 kilometers, 68 percent of which were paved and in good condition. The increase may reflect some newly built roads. President Uribe has vowed to pave more than 2,500 kilometers of roads during his administration, and about 5,000 kilometers of new secondary roads were being built in the 2003--6 period. Despite serious terrain obstacles, almost three-quarters of all cross-border dry cargo is now transported by road, 105,251 metric tons in 2005. Highways are managed by the Colombian Ministry of Transport through the National Roads Institute. The security of the highways in Colombia is managed by the Highway Police unit of the Colombian National Police. Colombia is crossed by the Panamerican Highway. ### Ports, waterways, and merchant marine {#ports_waterways_and_merchant_marine} Seaports handle around 80 percent of international cargo. In 2005 a total of 105,251 metric tons of cargo were transported by water. Colombia\'s most important ocean terminals are Barranquilla, Cartagena, and Santa Marta on the Caribbean Coast and Buenaventura and Tumaco on the Pacific Coast. Exports mostly pass through the Caribbean ports of Cartagena and Santa Marta, while 65 percent of imports arrive at the port of Buenaventura. Other important ports and harbors are Bahía de Portete, Leticia, Puerto Bolívar, San Andrés, Santa Marta, and Turbo. Since privatization was implemented in 1993, the efficiency of port handling has increased greatly. Privatization, however, has had negative impacts as well. In Buenaventura, for example, privatization of the harbor has increased unemployment and social issues. There are plans to construct a deep-water port at Bahía Solano. The main inland waterways total about 18,200 kilometers, 11,000 kilometers of which are navigable by riverboats. A well-developed and important form of transport for both cargo and passengers, inland waterways transport approximately 3.8 million metric tons of freight and more than 5.5 million passengers annually. Main inland waterways are the Magdalena--Cauca River system, which is navigable for 1,500 kilometers; the Atrato, which is navigable for 687 kilometers; the Orinoco system of more than five navigable rivers, which total more than 4,000 kilometers of potential navigation (mainly through Venezuela); and the Amazonas system, which has four main rivers totaling 3,000 navigable kilometers (mainly through Brazil). The government is planning an ambitious program to more fully utilize the main rivers for transport. In addition, the navy\'s riverine brigade has been patrolling waterways more aggressively in order to establish safer river transport in the more remote areas in the south and east of the country. The merchant marine totals 17 ships (1,000 gross registered tons or more), including four bulk, 13 cargo, one container, one liquefied gas, and three petroleum tanker ships. Colombia also has seven ships registered in other countries (Antigua and Barbuda, two; Panama, five). ### Civil Aviation {#civil_aviation} 180px\\|thumb\\|Vehicles on the El Dorado Airport platform The Special Administrative Unit of Civil Aeronautics is responsible of regulating and controlling the use of air space by civil aviation. The customs/immigration issues are controlled by the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS). Colombia has well-developed air routes and an estimated total of 984 airports, 100 of which have paved runways, plus two heliports. Of the 74 main airports, 20 can accommodate jet aircraft. Two airports are more than 3,047 meters in length, nine are 2,438--3,047 meters, 39 are 1,524--2,437 meters, 38 are 914--1,523 meters, 12 are shorter than 914 meters, and 880 have unpaved runways. The government has been selling its stake in local airports in order to allow their privatization. The country has 40 regional airports, and the cities of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Cartagena, Cúcuta, Leticia, Pereira, Armenia, San Andrés, and Santa Marta have international airports. Bogotá\'s El Dorado International Airport handles 550 million metric tons of cargo and 22 million passengers a year, making it the largest airport in Latin America in terms of cargo and the third largest in passenger numbers. ### Urban transport {#urban_transport} Urban transport systems have been developed in Barranquilla, Bogotá, Cali, and Medellín. Traffic congestion in Bogotá had been greatly exacerbated by a lack of rail transport; however, this problem was alleviated, to a degree, by the formation of one of the world\'s most expansive and highest-capacity bus rapid transit (BRT) systems---known as the TransMilenio (opened 2000)---and the restriction of vehicles through a daily, rotating ban on private cars (depending on plate numbers). Bogotá\'s BRT consists of bus and minibus services managed by both private- and public-sector enterprises. Since 1995, Medellín has had a modern urban railway, the Metro de Medellín, utilizing two train lines with 27 stations. The Metro also connects with the cities of Itagüí, Envigado, and Bello. An elevated gondola-cablecar system, the Metrocable, opened in 2004 to improve Metro accessibility for some of the city\'s more isolated, dense barrios. The gondola design was specifically chosen due to the mountainous geography of the city, with most of the neighborhoods served being reasonably higher in elevation from the city center. A BRT line called Transmetro began operating in 2011, with a second line added in 2013. Other Colombian cities have also installed BRT systems, such as Cali, with a six-line system (opened 2008), Barranquilla with two lines (opened 2010), Bucaramanga with one line (opened 2010), Cartagena with one line (opened 2015) and Pereira, with three lines (opened 2006). A future light rail line in Barranquilla is planned. ### Pipelines Colombia has 4,350 kilometers of gas pipelines, 6,134 kilometers of oil pipelines, and 3,140 kilometers of refined-products pipelines. The country has five major oil pipelines, four of which connect with the Caribbean export terminal at Puerto Coveñas. Until at least September 2005, the United States funded efforts to help protect a major pipeline, the 769-kilometer-long Caño Limón--Puerto Coveñas pipeline, which carries about 20 percent of Colombia\'s oil production to Puerto Coveñas from the guerrilla-infested Arauca region in the eastern Andean foothills and Amazonian jungle. The number of attacks against pipelines began declining substantially in 2002. In 2004 there were only 17 attacks against the Caño Limón--Puerto Coveñas pipeline, down from 170 in 2001. However, a bombing in February 2005 shut the pipeline for several weeks, and attacks against the electrical gird system that provides energy to the Caño Limón oilfield have continued. New oil pipeline projects with Brazil and Venezuela are underway. In addition, the already strong cross-border trade links between Colombia and Venezuela were solidified in July 2004 with an agreement to build a US\$320 million natural gas pipeline between the two countries, to be completed in 2008.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,843	Military Forces of Colombia	The Military Forces of Colombia (links=no) are the unified armed forces of the Republic of Colombia. They consist of the Colombian Army, the Colombian Navy and the Colombian Aerospace Force. The National Police of Colombia, although technically not part of the military, is controlled and administered by the Ministry of National Defence, and national conscription also includes service in the National Police, thus making it a de facto gendarmerie and a branch of the military. The President of Colombia is the military\'s commander in chief, and helps formulate defense policy through the Ministry of National Defence, which is in charge of day-to-day operations. The Military Forces of Colombia have their roots in the Army of the Commoners (Ejército de los Comuneros), which was formed on 7 August 1819 -- before the establishment of the present day Colombia -- to meet the demands of the Revolutionary War against the Spanish Empire. After their triumph in the war, the Army of the Commoners disbanded, and the Congress of Angostura created the Gran Colombian Army to replace it, thus establishing the first military service branch of the country. The Colombian military was operationally involved in World War II and was the only Latin American country to send troops to the Korean War. Ever since the advent of the Colombian Conflict, the Colombian military has been involved in combat, pacification, counter-insurgency, and drug interdiction operations all over the country\'s national territory. Recently it has participated in counter-piracy efforts in the Horn of Africa under Operation Ocean Shield and Operation Atalanta. The military of Colombia is the third largest in the Western Hemisphere in terms of active personnel and has the fourth largest expenditure in the Americas, behind the United States Armed Forces, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Brazilian Armed Forces respectively. ## Services The Colombian Constitution includes two overlapping definitions of what could be defined as \'armed forces\' in English: - The Public Force (La Fuerza Pública): Includes the Military Forces proper and the National Police (Title VII, chapter VII, Art. 216) - The Military Forces (Las Fuerzas Militares): Includes only the 3 major military service branches: Army, Navy and Aerospace Force (Title VII, chapter VII, Art. 217) This is a subtle yet important distinction, both in terms of emphasizing the civil nature of the National Police, but also adapting the national police to function as a paramilitary force which can perform military duties as a result of the Colombian Conflict. This has led to some of the most important police units adopting military training and conducting special operations alongside the Colombian Army, Aerospace Force, and Navy. Therefore, the functions of the Colombian Police in practical terms are similar to those of a gendarmerie, like the Spanish Civil Guard and the Carabineros de Chile, which maintain military ranks for all police personnel. ## Personnel The Colombian armed forces consist of:\ Military Forces: - Colombian Army - Colombian Navy -- and attached services Marines and Colombian Coast Guard - Colombian Aerospace Force And, - National Police of Colombia Public Force strength as of April 2014. ----------- --------------------------- -------------- ----------- Force Service Officers Total Military Colombian Army 10,094 246,325 Military Colombian Navy 2,481 33,824 Military Colombian Aerospace Force 2,679 13,928 Public Colombian National Police 6,924 176,557 Total 22,178 470, 634 ----------- --------------------------- -------------- ----------- ### Dependencies - Military Medical Corps (\'Sanidad Militar\') -- Medical and Nurse Corps - Indumil (Industrias Militares -- INDUMIL) -- Military Industry Depot - Military Sports Federation (Federación Deportiva Militar -- FEDECODEMIL) - Military Printing (Imprenta Militar) - Military Museum (Museo Militar) -- History of the Armed Forces of Colombia - Superior War College (Escuela Superior de Guerra (Colombia) ESDEGUE) ## Funding In 2000, Colombia assigned 3.9% of its GDP to defense. By 2008 this figure had risen to 4.8%, ranking it 14th in the world. The armed forces number about 250,000 uniformed personnel: 145,000 military and 105,000 police. These figures do not include assistance personnel such as cooks, medics, mechanics, and so on. This makes the Colombian military one of the largest and most well-equipped in Latin America. Many Colombian military personnel have received military training assistance directly in Colombia and also in the United States. The United States has provided equipment and financing to the Colombian military and police through the military assistance program, foreign military sales, and the international narcotics control program, all currently united under the auspices of Plan Colombia. ## Rank Insignia {#rank_insignia} : <File:Colombian> Air Force Sikorsky UH-60L Arpía III (S-70A-41) Ramírez-1.jpg\\|Colombian Aerospace Force Sikorsky UH-60L Arpía III (S-70A-41) just after having launched several flares. <File:Infantes> de marina colombia.JPG\\|Colombian Marines <File:Arc> fragata caldas.jpg\\|Colombian Navy Frigate ARC Caldas <File:Special> Forces Colombia.jpg\\|Colombian Special Forces soldiers <File:ARC> Almirante Padilla.jpg\\|A vessel of the Colombian Navy	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,844	History of Colombia	The history of Colombia includes its settlement by indigenous peoples and the establishment of agrarian societies, notably the Muisca Confederation, Quimbaya Civilization, and Tairona Chiefdoms. The Spanish arrived in 1499 and initiated a period of annexation and colonization, ultimately creating the Viceroyalty of New Granada, with its capital at Bogotá. Independence from Spain was won in 1819, but by 1830 the resulting \"Gran Colombia\" Federation was dissolved. What is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada. The new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation (1858) and then the United States of Colombia (1863) before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. A period of constant political violence ensued, and Panama seceded in 1903. Since the 1960s, the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict which escalated in the 1990s but decreased from 2005 onward. The legacy of Colombia\'s history has resulted in a rich cultural heritage, and Colombia\'s geographic and climatic variations have contributed to the development of strong regional identities. ## Pre-Colombian {#pre_colombian} From approximately 12,000 years BP onwards, hunter-gatherer societies existed near present-day Bogotá (at El Abra and Tequendama), and they traded with one another and with cultures living in the Magdalena River valley. Due to its location, the present territory of Colombia was a corridor of early human migration from Mesoamerica and the Caribbean to the Andes and the Amazon basin. The oldest archaeological finds are from the Pubenza archaeological site and El Totumo archaeological site in the Magdalena Valley 100 km southwest of Bogotá. These sites date from the Paleoindian period (18.000--8000 BCE). At Puerto Hormiga archaeological site and other sites, traces from the Archaic period in South America (\~8000--2000 BCE) have been found. Vestiges indicate that there was also early occupation in the regions of El Abra, Tibitó and Tequendama in Cundinamarca. The oldest pottery discovered in the Americas, found at the San Jacinto archaeological site, dates to 5000--4000 BCE. Indigenous people inhabited the territory that is now Colombia by 10.500 BCE. Nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes at the El Abra and Tequendama sites near present-day Bogotá traded with one another and with other cultures from the Magdalena River Valley. Serranía de la Lindosa, a mountainous region of Guaviare Department, is known for an extensive prehistoric rock art site which stretches for nearly eight miles. Some authors have argued that the site depicts now extinct animals such as horses, gomphotheres and ground sloths and that it was painted around 12,600 years ago, but other authors have argued that the drawings depict modern (including domestic) animals and were created in the last 500 years after European contact. Between 5000 and 1000 BCE, hunter-gatherer tribes transitioned to agrarian societies; fixed settlements were established, and pottery appeared. Beginning in the 1st millennium BCE, groups of Amerindians including the Muisca, Quimbaya, Tairona, Calima, Zenú, Tierradentro, San Agustín, Tolima and Urabá became skilled in farming, mining and metalcraft; and some developed the political system of cacicazgos with a pyramidal structure of power headed by caciques. The Muisca inhabited mainly the area of what is now the Departments of Boyacá and Cundinamarca high plateau (Altiplano Cundiboyacense) where they formed the Muisca Confederation. The Muisca had one of the most developed political systems (Muisca Confederation) in South America, surpassed only by the Incas. They farmed maize, potato, quinoa and cotton, and traded gold, emeralds, blankets, ceramic handicrafts, coca and especially salt with neighboring nations. The Tairona inhabited northern Colombia in the isolated Andes mountain range of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The Quimbaya inhabited regions of the Cauca River Valley between the Western and Central Ranges. The Incas expanded their empire on the southwest part of the country. During the 1200s, Malayo-Polynesians and Native Americans in Colombia made contact, thereby spreading Native American genetics from Precolonial Colombia to some Pacific Ocean islands. Muisca raft Legend of El Dorado Offerings of gold.jpg\\|The zipa used to cover his body in gold, and. from his Muisca raft. He offered treasures to the Guatavita goddess in the middle of the sacred lake. This old Muisca tradition became the origin of the El Dorado legend. Museo del Oro Zenú Bogota mod.jpg\\|A lowland Zenú cast-gold bird ornament that served as a staff head. dated 490 CE. This culture used alloys with a high gold content. The crest of the bird consists of the typical Zenú semi-filigree. Regular filigree is braided wire, but the Zenú cast theirs. Taironapendants metropolitan 2006.jpg\\|Tairona figure pendants in gold Cacique Quimbaya de oro (M. América, Madrid) 01.jpg\\|Golden statuette of a Quimbaya cacique Parque Arqueológico de San Agustín - tomb of a deity with supporting warriors.jpg\\|San Agustín Archaeological Park (UNESCO World Heritage Site) contains the largest collection of religious monuments and megalithic sculptures in Latin America, and is considered the world\'s largest necropolis. Lost City Ruins.jpg\\|Ciudad Perdida is a major settlement believed to have been founded around 800 CE. It consists of a series of 169 terraces carved into the mountainside, a net of tiled roads and several small circular plazas. The entrance can only be accessed by a climb up some 1,200 stone steps through dense jungle. Villa de Leyva el infiernito.jpg\\|El Infiernito, a pre-Columbian archaeoastronomical site located on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the outskirts of Villa de Leyva ## Colonial Period {#colonial_period} ### Pre-Columbian history {#pre_columbian_history} Main article: Spanish conquest of New Granada, Spanish conquest of the Muisca Europeans first visited the territory that became Colombia in 1499 when the first expedition of Alonso de Ojeda arrived at the Cabo de la Vela. The Spanish made several attempts to settle along the north coast of today\'s Colombia in the early 16th century, but their first permanent settlement, at Santa Marta, dates from 1525. The Spanish commander Pedro de Heredia founded Cartagena on June 1, 1533, in the former location of the indigenous Caribbean Calamarí village. Cartagena grew rapidly, fueled first by the gold in the tombs of the Sinú culture, and later by trade. The thirst for gold and land lured Spanish explorers to visit Chibchan-speaking areas; resulting in the Spanish conquest of the Chibchan Nations - the conquest by the Spanish monarchy of the Chibcha language-speaking nations, mainly the Muisca and Tairona who inhabited present-day Colombia, beginning the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The Spanish advance inland from the Caribbean coast began independently from three different directions, under Jimenéz de Quesáda, Sebastián de Benalcázar (known in Colombia as Belalcázar), and Nikolaus Federmann. Although the Indian treasures drew all three, none intended to reach the Muisca territory where they finally met. In August 1538, Quesáda founded Santa Fe de Bogotá on the site of Muisca village of Bacatá. In 1549, the institution of the Spanish Royal Audiencia in Bogotá gave that city the status of capital of New Granada, which comprised in large part what is now the territory of Colombia. As early as the 1500s, however, secret anti-Spanish discontentment was already brewing for Colombians since Spain prohibited direct trade between the Viceroyalty of Peru, which included Colombia, and the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which included the Philippines, the source of Asian products like silk and porcelain which was in demand in the Americas. Illegal trade between Peruvians, Filipinos, and Mexicans continued in secret, as smuggled Asian goods ended up in Córdoba, Colombia, the distribution center for illegal Asian imports, due to the collusion between these peoples against the authorities in Spain. They settled and traded with each other while disobeying the forced Spanish monopoly in more expensive silks and porcelain made in homeland Spain. In 1717, the Viceroyalty of New Granada was originally created, and then it was temporarily removed, to finally be reestablished in 1739. Felipe Salonga a rebel Filipino who mixed Christianity with Islam and was from the formerly Muslim kingdom Manila and who was implicated in the Tondo Conspiracy, was presumably exiled to the location of what is now the Viceroyalty of New Granada (Named after a formerly Islamic kingdom in Spain) in the Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada he fomented opposition against Spain among the oppressed Native Americas. The viceroyalty had Santa Fé de Bogotá as its capital. This viceroyalty included some other provinces of northwestern South America which had previously been under the jurisdiction of the viceroyalties of New Spain or Peru and correspond mainly to today\'s Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. Bogotá became one of the principal administrative centers of the Spanish possessions in the New World, along with Lima and Mexico City. ## Gran Colombia: independence re-claimed {#gran_colombia_independence_re_claimed} From then on, the long independence struggle was led mainly by Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander in neighboring Venezuela. Bolívar returned to New Granada only in 1819 after establishing himself as leader of the pro-independence forces in the Venezuelan llanos. From there he led an army over the Andes and captured New Granada after a quick campaign that ended at the Battle of Boyacá on August 7, 1819. (For more information. see Military career of Simón Bolívar.) That year, the Congress of Angostura established the Republic of Gran Colombia, which included all territories under the jurisdiction of the former Viceroyalty of New Granada. Bolívar was elected the first president of Gran Colombia and Santander, vice president. As the Federation of Gran Colombia was dissolved in 1830, the Department of Cundinamarca (as established in Angostura) became a new country, the Republic of New Granada. Colombia was the first nation in the Andean area to believe that racial inferiority was the cause of many of its initial problems. Creoles in the country believed that non-white citizens, mainly Indians and Africans, were lazy and holding the nation back. This led to an attempt to make a homogenous society that reflected the so-called good qualities of white people. These ideals led to a long-lasting racial and geographical segregation. However, Colombia demonstrated a notable commitment to civil rights during the nineteenth century. The Colombian Constitution of 1863 made liberal promises for a broad range of civil rights, reflecting principles similar to those found in the United States Constitution, such as freedom of association, press, speech, religion, and due process. Colombia also abolished the death penalty during this time. Lastly, Colombian society embraced inclusivity, emphasizing that rights should be granted \"universally without notice of sex nor differences of color nor unjust preferences of fortune, nor distinctions of age\". ## The Republic: Liberal and Conservative conflict {#the_republic_liberal_and_conservative_conflict} In 1863 the name of the republic was changed officially to \"United States of Colombia,\" and in 1886 the country adopted its present name: \"Republic of Colombia\". Two political parties grew out of conflicts between the followers of Bolívar and Santander and their political visions---the Conservatives and the Liberals -- and have since dominated Colombian politics. Bolívar\'s supporters, who later formed the nucleus of the Conservative Party, sought strong centralized government, alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, and a limited franchise. Santander\'s followers, forerunners of the Liberals, wanted a decentralized government, state rather than church control over education and other civil matters, and a broadened suffrage. During the mid-19th century, Colombia embraced a vision of \"American republican modernity,\" which emphasized democratic republicanism, universal male suffrage, and civil rights as markers of progress, positioning the country as a leader in the Atlantic World. This period saw Colombia enact significant political reforms, such as the 1853 Constitution, which eliminated property and literacy requirements for voting, making it one of the most democratic nations of its time. However, by the 1880s, Colombia shifted toward Western industrial modernity, prioritizing economic development and state centralization over the earlier focus on political rights, leading to the adoption of the 1886 Constitution and the end of its republican experiment. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, each party held the presidency for roughly equal periods of time. Colombia maintained a tradition of civilian government and regular, free elections. The military has seized power three times in Colombia\'s history: in 1830, after the dissolution of Great Colombia; again in 1854 (by General José María Melo); and from 1953 to 1957 (under General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla). Civilian rule was restored within one year in the first two instances. Notwithstanding the country\'s commitment to democratic institutions, Colombia\'s history has also been characterized by widespread, violent conflict. Two civil wars resulted from bitter rivalry between the Conservative and Liberal parties. The Thousand Days\' War (1899--1902) cost an estimated 100.000 lives, and up to 300.000 people died during \"La Violencia\" of the late 1940s and 1950s, a bipartisan confrontation which erupted after the assassination of Liberal popular candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. United States activity to influence the area (especially the Panama Canal construction and control) led to a military uprising in the Isthmus Department in 1903, which resulted in the separation and independence of Panama. A military coup in 1953 toppled the right-wing government of Conservative Laureano Gómez and brought General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla to power. Initially, Rojas enjoyed considerable popular support, due largely to his success in reducing \"La Violencia.\" When he did not restore democratic rule and occasionally engaged in open repression, however, he was overthrown by the military in 1957 with the backing of both political parties, and a provisional government was installed. ## The National Front regime (1958--1974) {#the_national_front_regime_19581974} In July 1957, former Conservative President Laureano Gómez (1950--1953) and former Liberal President Alberto Lleras (1945--1946. 1958--1962) issued the \"Declaration of Sitges,\" in which they proposed a \"National Front,\" whereby the Liberal and Conservative parties would govern jointly. The presidency would be determined by an alternating conservative and liberal president every 4 years for 16 years; the two parties would have parity in all other elective offices. The National Front ended \"La Violencia,\" and National Front administrations attempted to institute far-reaching social and economic reforms in cooperation with the Alliance for Progress. In particular, the Liberal president Alberto Lleras Camargo (1958--1962) created the Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (INCORA), and Carlos Lleras Restrepo (1966--1970) further developed land entitlement. In 1968 and 1969 alone, the INCORA issued more than 60.000 land titles to farmers and workers. In the end, the contradictions between each successive Liberal and Conservative administration made the results decidedly mixed. Despite the progress in certain sectors, many social and political injustices continued. The National Front system itself eventually began to be seen as a form of political repression by dissidents and even many mainstream voters, and many protesters were victimized during this period. Especially after what was later confirmed as the fraudulent election of Conservative candidate Misael Pastrana in 1970, which resulted in the defeat of the relatively populist candidate and former president (dictator) Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. The M-19 guerrilla movement, \"Movimiento 19 de Abril\" (19 April Movement), would eventually be founded in part as a response to this particular event. The FARC was formed in 1964 by Manuel Marulanda Vélez and other Marxist--Leninist supporters after a military attack on the community of Marquetalia. Although the system established by the Sitges agreement was phased out by 1974, the 1886 Colombian constitution --- in effect until 1991---required that the losing political party be given adequate and equitable participation in the government, which, according to many observers and later analysis, eventually resulted in some increase in corruption and legal relaxation. The current 1991 constitution does not have that requirement, but subsequent administrations have tended to include members of opposition parties. ## Post-National Front {#post_national_front} From 1974 until 1982, different presidential administrations chose to focus on ending the persistent insurgencies that sought to undermine Colombia\'s traditional political system. Both groups claimed to represent the poor and weak against the rich and powerful classes of the country, demanding the completion of true land and political reform from an openly Communist perspective. By 1974, another challenge to the state\'s authority and legitimacy had come from 19th of April Movement (M-19), a mostly urban guerrilla group founded in response to an alleged electoral fraud during the final National Front election of Misael Pastrana Borrero (1970--1974) and the defeat of former dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Initially, the M-19 attracted a degree of attention and sympathy from mainstream Colombians that the FARC and National Liberation Army (ELN) had found largely elusive earlier due to extravagant and daring operations, such as stealing a sword that had belonged to Colombia\'s Independence hero Simon Bolívar. At the same time, its larger profile soon made it the focus of the state\'s counterinsurgency efforts. The ELN guerrilla had been seriously crippled by military operations in the region of Anorí by 1974, but it managed to reconstitute itself and escape destruction, in part due to the administration of Alfonso López Michelsen (1974--1978) allowing it to escape encirclement, hoping to initiate a peace process with the group. By 1982, the perceived passivity of the FARC, together with the relative success of the government\'s efforts against the M-19 and ELN, enabled the administration of the Liberal Party\'s Julio César Turbay (1978--1982) to lift a state-of-siege decree that had been in effect, on and off, for most of the previous 30 years. Under the latest such decree, president Turbay had implemented security policies that, though of some military value against the M-19 in particular, were considered highly questionable both inside and outside Colombian circles due to numerous accusations of military human rights abuses against suspects and captured guerrillas. Citizen exhaustion due to the conflict\'s newfound intensity led to the election of president Belisario Betancur (1982--1986), a Conservative who won 47% of the popular vote, directed peace feelers at all the insurgents, and negotiated a 1984 cease-fire with the FARC and M-19 after a 1982 release of many guerrillas imprisoned during the previous effort to overpower them. The ELN rejected entering any negotiation and continued to recover itself through the use of extortions and threats, in particular against foreign oil companies of European and U.S. origin. As these events were developing, the growing illegal drug trade and its consequences were also increasingly becoming a matter of widespread importance to all participants in the Colombian conflict. Guerrillas and newly wealthy drug lords had mutually uneven relations, and thus numerous incidents occurred between them. Eventually, the kidnapping of drug cartel family members by guerrillas led to the creation of the 1981 Muerte a Secuestradores (MAS) death squad (\"Death to Kidnappers\"). Pressure from the U.S. government and critical sectors of Colombian society was met with further violence, as the Medellín Cartel and its hitmen bribed or murdered numerous public officials, politicians and others who stood in its way by supporting the implementation of extradition of Colombian nationals to the U.S. Victims of cartel violence included Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara, whose assassination in 1984 made the Betancur administration begin to directly oppose the drug lords. The first negotiated cease-fire with the M-19 ended when the guerrillas resumed fighting in 1985, claiming that the cease-fire had not been fully respected by official security forces, saying that several of its members had suffered threats and assaults, and also questioning the government\'s real willingness to implement any accords. The Betancur administration, in turn, questioned the M-19\'s actions and its commitment to the peace process, as it continued to advance high-profile negotiations with the FARC, which led to the creation of the Patriotic Union (Colombia) (UP), a legal and non-clandestine political organization. On November 6, 1985, the M-19 stormed the Colombian Palace of Justice and held the Supreme Court magistrates hostage, intending to put president Betancur on trial. In the ensuing crossfire that followed the military\'s reaction, scores of people lost their lives, as did most of the guerrillas, including several high-ranking operatives. Both sides blamed each other for the outcome. Meanwhile, individual FARC members initially joined the UP leadership in representation of the guerrilla command, though most of the guerrilla\'s chiefs and militiamen did not demobilize nor disarm, as that was not a requirement of the process at that point in time. Tension soon significantly increased as both sides began to accuse each other of not respecting the cease-fire. Political violence against FARC and UP members (including presidential candidate Jaime Pardo) was blamed on drug lords and also on members of the security forces (to a much lesser degree on the argued inaction of Betancur administration). Members of the government and security authorities increasingly accused the FARC of continuing to recruit guerrillas. as well as kidnapping, extorting and politically intimidating voters even as the UP was already participating in politics. The Virgilio Barco (1986--1990) administration, in addition to continuing to handle the difficulties of the complex negotiations with the guerrillas, also inherited a particularly chaotic confrontation against the drug lords, who were engaged in a campaign of terrorism and murder in response to government moves in favor of their extradition overseas. The UP also suffered an increasing number of losses during this term (including the assassination of presidential candidate Bernardo Jaramillo), which stemmed both from private proto-paramilitary organizations, increasingly powerful drug lords and a number of would-be paramilitary-sympathizers within the armed forces. ## Post-1990 {#post_1990} Following administrations had to contend with the guerrillas, paramilitaries, narcotics traffickers and the violence and corruption that they all perpetuated, both through force and negotiation. Narcoterrorists assassinated three presidential candidates before César Gaviria was elected in 1990. Since the death of Medellín cartel leader Pablo Escobar in a police shootout in December 1993, indiscriminate acts of violence associated with that organization have abated as the \"cartels\" have broken up into multiple smaller and often-competing trafficking organizations. Nevertheless, violence continues as these drug organizations resort to violence as part of their operations but also to protest government policies, including extradition. The M-19 and several smaller guerrilla groups were successfully incorporated into a peace process as the 1980s ended and the 1990s began, which culminated in the elections for a Constituent Assembly of Colombia that would write a new constitution, which took effect in 1991. The new Constitution brought about a considerable number of institutional and legal reforms based on principles that the delegates considered as more modern, humanist, democratic and politically open than those in the 1886 constitution. Practical results were mixed and mingled emerged (such as the debate surrounding the constitutional prohibition of extradition, which later was reversed), but together with the reincorporation of some of the guerrilla groups to the legal political framework, the new Constitution inaugurated an era that was both a continuation and a gradual, but significant, departure from what had come before. Contacts with the FARC, which had irregularly continued despite the generalized de facto interruptions of the ceasefire and the official 1987 break from negotiations, were temporarily cut off in 1990 under the presidency of César Gaviria (1990--1994). The Colombian Army\'s assault on the FARC\'s Casa Verde sanctuary at La Uribe, Meta, followed by a FARC offensive that sought to undermine the deliberations of the Constitutional Assembly, began to highlight a significant break in the uneven negotiations carried over from the previous decade. President Ernesto Samper assumed office in August 1994. However, a political crisis relating to large-scale contributions from drug traffickers to Samper\'s presidential campaign diverted attention from governance programs, thus slowing, and in many cases, halting progress on the nation\'s domestic reform agenda. The military also suffered several setbacks in its fight against the guerrillas when several of its rural bases began to be overrun and a record number of soldiers and officers were taken prisoner by the FARC (which since 1982 was attempting to implement a more \"conventional\" style of warfare. seeking to eventually defeat the military in the field). On August 7, 1998, Andrés Pastrana was sworn in as the President of Colombia. A member of the Conservative Party, Pastrana defeated Liberal Party candidate Horacio Serpa in a run-off election marked by high voter turnout and little political unrest. The new president\'s program was based on a commitment to bring about a peaceful resolution of Colombia\'s longstanding civil conflict and to cooperate fully with the United States to combat the trafficking of illegal drugs. While early initiatives in the Colombian peace process gave reason for optimism, the Pastrana administration also has had to combat high unemployment and other economic problems, such as the fiscal deficit and the impact of global financial instability on Colombia. During his administration, unemployment has risen to over 20%. Additionally, the growing severity of countrywide guerrilla attacks by the FARC and ELN. and smaller movements, as well as the growth of drug production, corruption and the spread of even more violent paramilitary groups such as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) has made it difficult to solve the country\'s problems. Although the FARC and ELN accepted participation in the peace process, they did not make explicit commitments to end the conflict. The FARC suspended talks in November 2000, to protest what it called \"paramilitary terrorism\" but returned to the negotiating table in February 2001 following 2 days of meetings between President Pastrana and FARC leader Manuel Marulanda. The Colombian Government and ELN in early 2001 continued discussions aimed at opening a formal peace process. ## From 2004 and on {#from_2004_and_on} By 2004, the security situation of Colombia had shown improvement, and the economy, while still fragile, had also shown some positive signs. On the other hand, relatively little had been accomplished in structurally solving most of the country\'s other grave problems, in part due to legislative and political conflicts between the administration and the Colombian Congress (including those over the controversial 2006 project to give President Álvaro Uribe the right to be re-elected), and a relative lack of freely allocated funds and credits. In October 2006, Uribe was re-elected by a landslide. Some critical observers consider in retrospect that Uribe\'s policies, while admittedly reducing crime and guerrilla activity, were too slanted in favor of a military solution to Colombia\'s internal war, neglecting grave social and human rights concerns to a certain extent. They hoped that Uribe\'s government would make serious efforts towards improving the human rights situation inside the country, protecting civilians and reducing any abuses committed by the armed forces. Uribe\'s supporters in turn believed that increased military action was a necessary prelude to any serious negotiation attempt with the guerrillas and that the increased security situation would help the government, in the long term, to focus more actively on reducing most wide-scale abuses and human rights violations on the part of both the armed groups and any rogue security forces that might have links to the paramilitaries. In short, these supporters maintained that the security situation needed to be stabilized in favor of the government before any other social concerns could take precedence. In February 2010, the constitutional court blocked President Alvaro Uribe from seeking re-election again. Uribe left the presidency in 2010. In 2010, Juan Manuel Santos was elected president; he was supported by ex-president Uribe, and he owed his election mainly through having won over former Uribe supporters. But two years after winning the presidential election, Santos (to widespread surprise) began peace talks with FARC. which took place in Havana. Re-elected in 2014, Santos revived an important infrastructure program, which had been planned during the Uribe administration. Focused mainly on the provision of national highways, the program was led by former vice-president Germán Vargas Lleras. In 2015, Colombia\'s Congress limited presidency to single term, preventing the president from seeking re-election. Talks between the government and the guerrillas resulted in the announcement of a peace agreement. However, a referendum to ratify the deal was unsuccessful. Afterward, the Colombian government and the FARC signed a revised peace deal in November 2016, which the Colombian congress approved. In 2016, President Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The government began a process of attention and comprehensive reparation for victims of conflict. Colombia under President Santos showed some progress in the struggle to defend human rights, as expressed by HRW. A Special Jurisdiction of Peace was created to investigate, clarify, prosecute and punish serious human rights violations and grave breaches of international humanitarian law which occurred during the armed conflict and to satisfy victims\' right to justice. During his visit to Colombia, Pope Francis paid tribute to the victims of the conflict. In May 2018, Ivan Duque, the candidate of the conservative Centro Democrático (Democratic Centre), won the presidential election. On 7 August 2018, he was sworn in as the new president of Colombia. Colombia\'s relations with Venezuela have fluctuated due to the ideological differences between both governments. Colombia has offered humanitarian support with food and medicines to mitigate the shortage of supplies in Venezuela. Colombia\'s Foreign Ministry said that all efforts to resolve Venezuela\'s crisis should be peaceful. Colombia proposed the idea of the Sustainable Development Goals and a final document was adopted by the United Nations. In February 2019, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro cut diplomatic relations with Colombia after Colombian President Ivan Duque helped Venezuelan opposition politicians deliver humanitarian aid to their country. Colombia recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country\'s legitimate president. In January 2020, Colombia rejected Maduro\'s proposal that the two countries restore diplomatic relations. The 19 June 2022 election run-off vote ended in a win for former guerrilla Gustavo Petro, taking 50.47% of the vote compared to 47.27% of right-wing Rodolfo Hernández. The single-term limit for the country\'s presidency prevented president Iván Duque from seeking re-election. Petro became the country\'s first leftist president-elect. On 7 August 2022, he was sworn in.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,846	Geography of the Czech Republic	The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the north. It consists mostly of low hills and plateaus surrounded along the borders by low mountains. Two areas of lowlands follow the Elbe river and the Morava river. About a third of the area of the Czech Republic is covered by forests. The Czech Republic also possesses Moldauhafen, a 30,000 m^2^ enclave in the middle of Hamburg docks in Germany, which was awarded to Czechoslovakia by Article 363 of the Treaty of Versailles to allow the landlocked country a place where goods transported down river could be transferred to seagoing ships. This territory reverts to Germany in 2028. ## Physical geography {#physical_geography} ### Climate Main article: Climate of the Czech Republic The Czech Republic\'s climate is temperate, transitional between an oceanic climate and a continental climate. The summers are rather cool and dry, with average temperatures in most areas around 20 °C, the winters are fairly mild and wet with temperatures averaging around 0 °C in most areas. The relative humidity varies between 60% and 80%. #### Examples ### Geology Most of the area of the Czech Republic belongs to the geographically stable Bohemian Massif. Only an area of the Western Carpathians in the east of the country is younger, lifted during the Tertiary. Igneous rocks make up the base of the Bohemian Massif. Sedimentary rocks are mostly found in the north-eastern part of Bohemia with significant areas of sandstone. Among the metamorphic rocks, the most commonly found is Gneiss. ### Mountains The most notable mountain ranges in the Czech Republic are all found along the borders of the country. In Bohemia it is the Bohemian Forest and Ore Mountains, both bordering Germany. Then the long region of Sudetes with several mountains ranges, including Giant Mountains with Sněžka -- the highest peak of the Czech Republic. The last major mountain range is the Moravian-Silesian Beskids in the east. ### Rivers Main article: Rivers of the Czech Republic There are four major rivers in the Czech Republic. The Elbe (locally \"Labe\") flows from the Giant Mountains in the north east of Bohemia to the west and then through northern Germany all the way to the North Sea. The Morava River drains most of Moravia and flows to the south into the Danube and ultimately to the Black Sea. The Oder starts in the Moravian Silesia and flows north through Poland into the Baltic Sea. The fourth major river is the Vltava, which is the longest river of the Czech Republic and drains the southern part of Bohemia before flowing into the Elbe at Mělník. ### Bodies of water {#bodies_of_water} Natural occurring bodies of water are rather scarce; most of the significant bodies of water are man-made ponds and reservoirs. The largest pond is the Rožmberk Pond, which is one of the system of fish ponds built in the 16th century around Třeboň. The largest reservoir by area covered is the Lipno Reservoir (4,870 ha), built in the 1950s and the largest reservoir by volume is Orlík Reservoir (716 million m^3^), built around the same time. The largest and deepest natural lake is Černé jezero (18.4 ha). ## Human geography {#human_geography} ### Population geography {#population_geography} Main article: Demographics of the Czech Republic The population of the Czech Republic is estimated to be around 10.6 million. The highest population density is in the larger metropolitan area of Ostrava and of course in the area around the capital of Prague. The lowest population density is in the Czech-German and Czech-Austrian borderlands, mostly as a lasting result of the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after the World War II. ### Political geography {#political_geography} The Czech Republic is divided into thirteen regions and one capital city with regional status. The older administrative units of seventy-six districts are still recognized and remain the seats of various branches of state administration. Historically, the Czech Republic can be split into three regions: Bohemia in the west, Moravia in the east and Czech Silesia in the north east. ### Industry and agriculture {#industry_and_agriculture} Areas affected the most by heavy industry are the Sokolov Basin and the Most Basin in the north-west of the Czech Republic. The extensive deposits of brown coal in those areas are mostly used for electricity production. It is estimated, that almost 40% of all electric power produced in the Czech Republic comes from burning brown coal mined in these areas. Plant agriculture is focused around the lowlands surrounding the Elbe and the Morava. Around 34% of the country is covered by forests and approximately 37% of land is arable. The estimated area of irrigated land is 385 km^2^, and freshwater withdrawal per capita is around 164 m^3^ every year.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,848	Politics of the Czech Republic	The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary republic, in which the president is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the Government of the Czech Republic, which reports to the Chamber of Deputies. The legislature is exercised by the Parliament. The Czech Parliament is bicameral: the upper house of the Parliament is the Senate, and the lower house is the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate consists of 81 members who are elected for six years. The Chamber of Deputies consists of 200 members who are elected for four years. The judiciary system is topped by the trio of the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court and Supreme Administrative Court. The highest legal document is the Constitution of the Czech Republic, complemented by constitutional laws and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. The current constitution went in effect on 1 January 1993, after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The Czech Republic has a multi-party system. Between 1993 and 2013, the two largest political parties were the centre-left Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) and centre-right Civic Democratic Party (ODS). This changed in early 2014, with the rise of a new major political party ANO 2011, which has since led two cabinets. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices the Czech Republic was 2023 the 16th most electoral democratic country in the world. ## Executive branch {#executive_branch} The president is the head of state, and the prime minister is the head of government. The majority of executive power is given to the Cabinet, which consists of the prime minister, deputy prime ministers and ministers (usually heads of the ministries). `{{office-table}}`{=mediawiki} \\|President \\|Petr Pavel \\|Independent \\|9 March 2023 \\|- \\|Prime Minister \\|Petr Fiala \\|Civic Democratic Party \\|28 November 2021 \\|} ### President The president of the Czech Republic is elected by a direct vote for five years. They can only serve for two terms. The president is a formal head of state with limited executive powers specified in the articles 54 to 66 of the Constitution: - to appoint or dismiss the prime minister and other members of the Cabinet - to appoint or dismiss the entire Cabinet - to confirm or decline a resignation of the prime minister and other members of the Cabinet - to summon a session of the Chamber of Deputies - to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies when specific conditions described in the Constitution are met - to pardon and mitigate penalties imposed by the court, order not to initiate criminal proceedings, suspend them if they are already initiated and to wipe previous criminal records - to declare the date of elections to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate - to bestow state honors - to appoint and promote generals - to appoint judges - to appoint the president and vice-president of the Supreme Audit Office - to appoint members of the Board of the Czech National Bank - to appoint or dismiss heads of diplomatic missions The president is also the commander in chief of the Armed Forces and ratifies all domestic laws and international agreements. ### Cabinet The Cabinet is the supreme executive body in the Czech Republic. It makes its decisions as a body. It is held responsible by the Chamber of Deputies. The president appoints every new prime minister, who then chooses the ministers. All ministers of the Cabinet need to be approved by the president and within thirty days after the presidential approval they must ask the Chamber of Deputies for a vote of confidence. #### Prime minister {#prime_minister} The prime minister is the head of government. The prime minister organizes the work of the Cabinet, presides over it and acts in its name. The prime minister sets the agenda for most foreign and domestic policies but has to obtain the president\'s approval to hire or dismiss any other member of the Cabinet. #### Ministers Ministers are any member of the Cabinet who are not the prime minister. They are usually the head of a ministry, but this is not required. A ministry -- sometimes called government department -- is a governmental organisation that manages a specific sector of public administration. The number of ministries varies depending on the particular Cabinet and is managed by the Competence Law. As of 2021, the Czech Republic had 13 ministers and 14 ministries.`{{Huh?\|date=March 2023}}`{=mediawiki} ## Legislative branch {#legislative_branch} The Parliament (Parlament in Czech) consists of two houses. The lower house is the Chamber of Deputies, and the upper house is the Senate. \\|President of the Chamber of Deputies \\|Markéta Pekarová Adamová \\|TOP 09 \\|10 November 2021 \\|- \\|President of the Senate \\|Miloš Vystrčil \\|Civic Democratic Party \\|19 February 2020 \\|} ### Chamber of Deputies {#chamber_of_deputies} The Chamber of Deputies (Poslanecká sněmovna in Czech) has 200 members, elected for four-year terms by proportional representation with a 5% election threshold. The Chamber of Deputies elections happen every four years, unless the reigning Cabinet prematurely loses the Chamber of Deputies\' support. Candidates for every political party participating in the elections are split among 14 electoral districts, which are identical to the country\'s administrative regions. A citizen must be at least 21 years old to be eligible for candidacy. The Chamber of Deputies was formerly known as the Czech National Council. It has the same powers and responsibilities as the now-defunct Federal Assembly of the Czechoslovakia. ### Senate The Senate (Senát in Czech) has 81 members, each elected for a six-year term. Senate elections happen every two years and only a third of the seats is contested each time. All of the 81 Senate electoral districts are designed to contain roughly the same number of voters. The Senate elections use a two-round system, when the two most successful candidates from the first round face each other again in the second round usually a week later. Only citizens who have reached the age of 40 are eligible for candidacy. The senate\'s function is to be a stabilizing force and its influence is significantly lower than that of the Chamber of Deputies. ## Judicial branch {#judicial_branch} The Czech court system recognizes four categories of courts and the Constitutional Court, which stands outside of the court system. ### Constitutional Court {#constitutional_court} The Constitutional Court\'s main purpose is to protect people\'s constitutional rights and freedoms. The decisions of the court are final, cannot be overturned and are considered a source of law. The court is composed of 15 justices who are named for a renewable period of 10 years by the president and approved by the Senate. Its functionality is similar to that of the Supreme Court of the United States. ### Supreme courts {#supreme_courts} There are two supreme courts in the court system of the Czech Republic -- the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court. Both reside in Brno. #### Supreme Court {#supreme_court} The Supreme Court of the Czech Republic is the court of highest appeal for almost all legal cases heard in the Czech Republic. The justices of the Supreme Court analyze and evaluate legally effective decisions of lower courts. They unify the Czech judicature. #### Supreme Administrative Court {#supreme_administrative_court} The Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic protects people from unlawful decisions and procedures of the state authorities. It examines objections to elections and has the authority to ban or suspend the activity of political parties. It resolves competence disputes between governmental organizations and also serves as disciplinary court for other members of the judiciary. ### High courts {#high_courts} There are two high courts in the Czech Republic -- one in Prague and one in Olomouc . They serve as courts of appeal to Regional Courts in cases, where the Regional Court acted as a court of first instance. Presidents of the high courts are appointed by the president for seven years. The vice-presidents are appointed by the minister of justice and also serve a seven-year term. A justice is required by the law to have at least eight years of experience before becoming a member of a High Court. ### Regional courts {#regional_courts} Regional courts serve mainly as the courts of appeal to district courts and also as the only instance of administrative courts besides the Supreme Administrative Court. However, they can also act as courts of first instance in cases of more severe criminal charges, disputes between corporations or disputes over intellectual property. There are eight regional courts in the Czech Republic: in Brno, Ostrava, Hradec Králové, Ústí nad Labem, Plzeň, České Budějovice and two in Prague. ### District courts {#district_courts} District courts serve as the courts of first instance in almost all civil or criminal proceedings. There is a total of 86 district courts in the Czech Republic. Notaries and executors are appointed by the minister of justice to their jurisdictions. ## Regional government {#regional_government} The Czech Republic is divided in 14 administrative regions, including one for the capital of Prague. The older system of 73 administrative districts (okresy in Czech) and 4 municipalities was abandoned in 1999 in an administrative reform. Each of the regions has a regional council with a varied number of regional councilors and a president of the regional cabinet (hejtman in Czech) as its formal head. The capital of Prague is the only exception to this, as the City Council acts both as regional and municipal governing body and is led by a mayor. Regional councilors are elected for four-year terms similarly to deputies in the Chamber of Deputies. All adults eligible to vote are also eligible to be a candidate to a regional council. ## Composition of the Senate {#composition_of_the_senate} For the current composition of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic, see List of MPs elected in the 2017 Czech legislative election. `{{Composition of the Senate of the Czech Republic}}`{=mediawiki} ## Recent political developments {#recent_political_developments} From 1991, the Czech Republic, originally as part of Czechoslovakia and since 1993 in its own right, has been a member of the Visegrád Group and from 1995, the OECD. The Czech Republic joined NATO on 12 March 1999 and the European Union on 1 May 2004. On 21 December 2007 the Czech Republic joined the Schengen Area. Until 2017, either the Czech Social Democratic Party or the Civic Democratic Party led the governments of the Czech Republic. In October 2017, populist movement ANO 2011, led by the country\'s second-richest man, Andrej Babiš, won the elections with three times more votes than its closest rival, the centre-right Civic Democrats. In December 2017, Czech President Miloš Zeman appointed Andrej Babiš as the new prime minister. On 28 November 2021, Czech President Miloš Zeman appointed opposition leader Petr Fiala as the country\'s new prime minister. The centre-right coalition Spolu (meaning Together) won tightly contested legislative elections in October 2021 against Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and his right-wing populist ANO party. Babiš had sought re-election after four years in power. In January 2023, Former NATO general Petr Pavel won the election runoff over Andrej Babiš to succeed Miloš Zeman as the fourth president of the Czech Republic.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,849	Economy of the Czech Republic	The economy of the Czech Republic is a developed export-oriented social market economy based in services, manufacturing, and innovation that maintains a high-income welfare state and the European social model. The Czech Republic participates in the European Single Market as a member of the European Union, and is therefore a part of the economy of the European Union. It uses its own currency, the Czech koruna, instead of the euro. It is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The Czech Republic ranks 16th in inequality-adjusted human development and 24th in World Bank Human Capital Index, ahead of countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom or France. In 2019 it was described by The Guardian as \"one of Europe\'s most flourishing economies\", but in 2023 as \"sick man of Europe\" by Die Welt. The industry sector accounts for 37% of the economy, while services account for 61% and agriculture for 2%. The principal industries are high tech engineering, electronics and machine-building, steel production, transportation equipment (automotive, rail and aerospace industry), chemicals, advanced materials and pharmaceuticals. The major services are research and development, ICT and software development, nanotechnology and life sciences. Its main agricultural products are cereals, vegetable oils and hops. the Czech GDP per capita at purchasing power parity is \$50,961 and 698,706 Czech crowns (\$31,368) at nominal value. `{{As of\|September 2021\|post=,}}`{=mediawiki} the unemployment rate in the Czech Republic was the lowest in the EU at 2.6%, and the poverty rate is the second lowest of OECD members, following Denmark. The Czech Republic ranks 21st in the Index of Economic Freedom (ranked behind Chile), 30th in the Global Innovation Index (ranked behind UAE), 32nd in the Global Competitiveness Report, 41st in the ease of doing business index and 25th in the Global Enabling Trade Report (ranked behind Canada). The largest trading partner for both export and import is Germany, followed by other members of the EU. The Czech Republic has a highly diverse economy that ranks 7th in the 2019 Economic Complexity Index. ## History ### From industrialisation to communism (1800-1989) {#from_industrialisation_to_communism_1800_1989} The Czech lands were among the first industrialized countries in continental Europe during the German Confederation era. The Czech industrial tradition dates back to the 19th century, when the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were the economic and industrial heartland of the Austrian Empire and later the Austrian side of Austria-Hungary. The Czech lands produced a majority (about 70%) of all industrial goods in the Empire, some of which were almost monopolistic. After the First World War, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire collapsed and independent Czechoslovakia was created. Czechoslovakia had way too big industrial production for a small internal market and it missed the big market of the former Empire. The Czechoslovak crown was introduced in April 1919 at a 1:1 ratio to the Austro-Hungarian currency, it became one of the most stable currencies in Europe. It is a widespread myth among Czechs that the First Republic belonged to the 10 most developed economies of the world. In fact it had the 14th highest GDP per capita in the world. The Czech part (without Slovakia and Transcarpathia) had a similar GDP in the 1920s to Germany and Belgium, which was higher than that of the crisis-struck Austrian First Republic. The consequences of the 1938 Munich Agreement and subsequent Nazi Germany occupation were disastrous for the economy. After the occupation and forced subordination of the economy to Nazi German economic interests, the crown was officially pegged to the mark at a ratio of 1:10, even though the unofficial exchange rate was 1 to 6-7 and Germans immediately started buying Czech goods in large quantities. After the World War II and the Communist Coup d\'état were all the economies of the socialist countries tightly linked to that of the Soviet Union, in accordance with Stalin\'s development policy of planned interdependence. Czechoslovakia was the most prosperous country in the Eastern Bloc, however it was during the decades overtaken not only by Austria or Finland but also Southern European economies like that of Italy, Spain or Greece. ### 1989--1995 The \"Velvet Revolution\" in 1989, offered a chance for profound and sustained political and economic reform. With the disintegration of the communist economic alliance in 1991, Czech manufacturers lost their traditional markets among former communist countries in the east. Signs of economic resurgence began to appear in the wake of the shock therapy that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) labelled the \"big bang\" of January 1991. Since then, consistent liberalization and astute economic management has led to the removal of 95% of all price controls, low unemployment, a positive balance of payments position, a stable exchange rate, a shift of exports from former communist economic bloc markets to Western Europe, and relatively low foreign debt. Inflation has been higher than in some other countries -- mostly in the 10% range -- and the government has run consistent modest budget deficits. Two government priorities have been strict fiscal policies and creating a good climate for incoming investment in the republic. Following a series of currency devaluations, the crown has remained stable in relation to the US dollar. The Czech crown became fully convertible for most business purposes in late 1995. In order to stimulate the economy and attract foreign partners, the government has revamped the legal and administrative structure governing investment. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the country, till that point highly dependent on exports to the USSR, had to make a radical shift in economic outlook: away from the East, and towards the West. This necessitated the restructuring of existing banking and telecommunications facilities, as well as adjusting commercial laws and practices to fit Western standards. Further minimizing reliance on a single major partner, successive Czech governments have welcomed U.S. investment (amongst others) as a counterbalance to the strong economic influence of Western European partners, especially of their powerful neighbour, Germany. Although foreign direct investment (FDI) runs in uneven cycles, with a 12.9% share of total FDI between 1990 and March 1998, the U.S. was the third-largest foreign investor in the Czech economy, behind Germany and the Netherlands. The country boasts a flourishing consumer production sector and has privatized most state-owned heavy industries through the voucher privatization system. Under the system, every citizen was given the opportunity to buy, for a moderate price, a book of vouchers that represents potential shares in any state-owned company. The voucher holders could then invest their vouchers, increasing the capital base of the chosen company, and creating a nation of citizen share-holders. This is in contrast to Russian privatization, which consisted of sales of communal assets to private companies rather than share-transfer to citizens. The effect of this policy has been dramatic. Under communism, state ownership of businesses was estimated to be 97%. Privatization through restitution of real estate to the former owners was largely completed in 1992. By 1998, more than 80% of enterprises were in private hands. Now completed, the program has made Czechs, who own shares of each of the Czech companies, one of the highest per-capita share owners in the world. On the other hand, by the public is the voucher privatisation seen mostly as unfair and source of corruption. ### 1995--2000 {#section_1} The country\'s economic transformation was far from complete. Political and financial crises in 1997 shattered the Czech Republic\'s image as one of the most stable and prosperous of post-Communist states. Delays in enterprise restructuring and failure to develop a well-functioning capital market played major roles in Czech economic troubles, which culminated in a currency crisis in May. The formerly pegged currency was forced into a floating system as investors sold their Korunas faster than the government could buy them. This followed a worldwide trend to divest from developing countries that year. Investors also worried the republic\'s economic transformation was far from complete. Another complicating factor was the current account deficit, which reached nearly 8% of GDP. In response to the crisis, two austerity packages were introduced later in the spring (called vernacularly \"The Packages\"), which cut government spending by 2.5% of GDP. Growth dropped to 0.3% in 1997, −2.3% in 1998, and −0.5% in 1999. The government established a restructuring agency in 1999 and launched a revitalization program -- to spur the sale of firms to foreign companies. Key priorities included accelerating legislative convergence with EU norms, restructuring enterprises, and privatising banks and utilities. The economy, fueled by increased export growth and investment, was expected to recover by 2000. ### 2000--2005 {#section_2} Growth in 2000--05 was supported by exports to the EU, primarily to Germany, and a strong recovery of foreign and domestic investment. Domestic demand is playing an ever more important role in underpinning growth as interest rates drop and the availability of credit cards and mortgages increases. Current account deficits of around 5% of GDP are beginning to decline as demand for Czech products in the European Union increases. Inflation is under control. Recent accession to the EU gives further impetus and direction to structural reform. In early 2004 the government passed increases in the Value Added Tax (VAT) and tightened eligibility for social benefits with the intention to bring the public finance gap down to 4% of GDP by 2006, but more difficult pension and healthcare reforms will have to wait until after the next elections. Privatization of the state-owned telecommunications firm Český Telecom took place in 2005. Intensified restructuring among large enterprises, improvements in the financial sector, and effective use of available EU funds should strengthen output growth. ### 2005--2010 {#section_3} Growth continued in the first years of the EU membership. The credit portion of the 2008 financial crisis did not affect the Czech Republic much, mostly due to its stable banking sector which has learned its lessons during a smaller crisis in the late 1990s and became much more cautious. As a fraction of the GDP, the Czech public debt is among the smallest ones in Central and Eastern Europe. Moreover, unlike many other post-communist countries, an overwhelming majority of the household debt -- over 99% -- is denominated in the local Czech currency. That\'s why the country wasn\'t affected by the shrunken money supply in the U.S. dollars. However, as a large exporter, the economy was sensitive to the decrease of the demand in Germany and other trading partners. In the middle of 2009, the annual drop of the GDP for 2009 was estimated around 3% or 4.3%, a relatively modest decrease. The impact of the economic crisis may have been limited by the existence of the national currency that temporarily weakened in H1 of 2009, simplifying the life of the exporters. The Czech Republic has a well-educated population and a densely developed infrastructure. ### 2010--2019 {#section_4} Due to the Great Recession, Czech Republic was in stagnation or decreasing of GDP. Some commenters and economists criticising fiscally conservative policy of Petr Nečas\' right-wing government, especially criticising ex-minister of finance, Miroslav Kalousek. Miroslav Kalousek in a 2008 interview, as minister of finance in the center-right government of Mirek Topolánek, said \"Czech Republic will not suffer by financial crisis\". In September 2008, Miroslav Kalousek formed state budget with projection of 5% GDP increase in 2009. In 2009 and 2010, Czech Republic suffered strong economical crisis and GDP decreased by 4,5%. From 2009 to 2012, Czech Republic suffered highest state budget deficits in history of independent Czech Republic. From 2008 to 2012, the public debt of Czech Republic increased by 18,9%. Most decrease of industrial output was in construction industry (-25% in 2009, -15,5% in 2013). From 4Q 2009 to 1Q 2013, GDP decreased by 7,8%. In 2012, Czech government increased VAT. Basic VAT was increased from 20% in 2012 to 21% in 2013 and reduced VAT increased from 14% to 15% in 2013. Small enterprises sales decreased by 21% from 2012 to 2013 as result of increasing VAT. Patria.cz predicting sales stagnation and mild increase in 2013. Another problem is foreign trade. The Czech Republic is considered an export economy (the Czech Republic has strong machinery and automobile industries), however in 2013, foreign trade rapidly decreased which led to many other problems and increase of state budget deficit. In 2013, Czech National Bank, central bank, implemented controversial monetary step. To increase export and employment, CNB wilfully deflated Czech Crown (CZK), which inflation increased from 0.2% in November 2013, to 1.3% in 1Q 2014. In 2014, GDP in the Czech Republic increased by 2% and is predicted to increase by 2.7% in 2015. In 2015, Czech Republic\'s economy grew by 4,2% and it\'s the fastest growing economy in the European Union. On 29 May 2015, it was announced that growth of the Czech economy has increased from calculated 3,9% to 4,2%. In August 2015, Czech GDP growth was 4.4%, making the Czech economy the highest growing in Europe. On 9 November 2015, unemployment in the Czech Republic was at 5.9%, the lowest number since February 2009. On the other hand, the economy suffers from dividends being paid to the foreign owners of Czech companies (in 2016 worth CZK 289 billion). It is seen as a hurdle to catching up with the Western European economies and as a reason for salaries being only a third of neighbouring Germany or Austria. In 2019 it was described by The Guardian as \"one of Europe\'s most flourishing economies\" ### 2020-present The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic in the early 2020s as well as the European energy crisis caused by the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 hit the Czech economy hard. In 2023, the conservative German newspaper Die Welt called the Czech Republic \"Europe\'s sick man\" as it was the only country not to economically recover from the pandemic trap. Furthermore, the newspaper highlighting the danger of the Czech Republic being stuck in the middle-income trap, although it is labelled as high-income country by the World Bank since 2006. ## Adoption of Euro and EU funds {#adoption_of_euro_and_eu_funds} Since its accession to the European Union in 2004, the Czech Republic has adopted the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union and it is bound by the Treaty of Accession 2003 to adopt the Euro currency in the future. Although the Czech Republic is economically well positioned to adopt the euro, following the European debt crisis there has been considerable opposition among the public adoption of the euro currency. There is no target date by the government for joining the ERM II or adopting the euro. The cabinet that was formed following the 2017 legislative election did not plan to proceed with euro adoption within its term, and this policy was continued by the succeeding cabinet formed after the 2021 election. However, by the start of 2024, President Petr Pavel called on the government to take concrete steps in adopting the euro. The Czech Republic also receives €24.2bn between 2014 and 2020 from the European Structural and Investment Funds, however, this sum does not outweigh the amount of capital outflow of profits of foreign owned firms from the Czech Republic into other EU members, at which the funds are aimed to compensate for. ## Public policy {#public_policy} `{{Expand section\|date=August 2017}}`{=mediawiki} `{{See also\|Healthcare in the Czech Republic\|Welfare in the Czech Republic\|European social model}}`{=mediawiki} Social policy in the Czech Republic addresses issues such as healthcare, education, social welfare, housing and pensions. The government provides social assistance and benefits to vulnerable groups, including the elderly, disabled, and unemployed. These social safety nets help protect individuals and families against income loss and social risks. The Czech Republic has elements of the European social model in its welfare system and social policies. However, there are some aspect, where the Czech Republic differs from the model. The Czech Republic provides universal access to healthcare, and healthcare services are predominantly financed through compulsory health insurance contributions. The country has a well-developed healthcare system that aims to provide essential medical care to all citizens. The Czech Republic has labor market regulations in place to protect workers\' rights, ensure fair wages, and promote job security. However, labor market flexibility has increased in recent years, and the country has undertaken labor market reforms to enhance competitiveness. As of 2016, the Czech Republic has the second lowest poverty rate of OECD members only behind Denmark. The Czech healthcare system ranks 13th in the 2016 Euro health consumer index. ## Prague Stock Exchange {#prague_stock_exchange} The Czech economy also includes its capital market. In the case of the Czech Republic, it is the Prague Stock Exchange (PSE). (PSE). The Prague Stock Exchange is governed by the Capital Market Business Act and the stock exchange rules it sets itself. All of its activities are controlled by the Czech National Bank. The Vienna Stock Exchange is the majority shareholder of the Prague Stock Exchange. The Prague Stock Exchange has four main markets: - Prime Market - a market for trading the largest and most prestigious issues of shares of Czech and foreign companies (the market capitalization of the company should exceed EUR 1 million) - Standard Market - a market designed for trading large and prestigious issues of shares of Czech and foreign companies (Market Capitalization of the company should exceed EUR 1 million) - Free Market - a market admits to trading both investment instruments for which the issuer has requested admission to trading and investment instruments traded on other world exchanges which are admitted to trading without the issuer\'s consent - START Market - a market for smaller innovative companies (Small and Medium Enterprises) that wish to raise new capital or whose owners wish to partially or wholly exit their existing business to capitalise their existing operations The largest issue traded on the Prague Stock Exchange is the energy company ČEZ. The main activity of ČEZ is the sale of electricity, mainly generated from its own sources, and the related provision of support services to the electricity system. Other large issues on the Prague Stock Exchange\'s Prime Market include banking houses - Komerční banka, MONETA Money Bank and the dual listing of the Austrian company Erste Group Bank, under which the local bank Česká spořitelna falls; as well as Colt CZ Group focusing mainly on the production of firearms (traded on the Prague Stock Exchange from 2020). From the Standard market, the largest issue is Philip Morris ČR, the largest manufacturer and seller of tobacco products in the Czech Republic. On the START market, we find, for example, e-commerce companies Bezvavlasy and Pilulka Lékárny, leather manufacturer and processor KARO Leather or urban furniture manufacturer mmcité. ## Energy In Czech Republic energy production is diverse, with a mix of nuclear, coal, natural gas, and renewable sources. Nuclear power plays a significant role, while efforts to increase renewable usage are underway. The country aims to balance energy security, environmental concerns and sustainability in its energy policies. National objectives are to cut gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 (compared with 1990) and to construct one nuclear reactor at the current Dukovany NPP site by late 2030s. The Czech energy sector is largely built around two large nuclear plants and several smaller conventional coal power plants. Nuclear and coal power plants provide primarily baseload power at a high level of utilization, while gas fired units, reservoir hydro and pumped storage provide flexible generation. Recent rises in costs of carbon credits have made coal power plants almost financially inviable. in 2022, Czech gross electricity production reached 78.8 terawatt-hours (TWh), while domestic consumption was around 60.4 TWh. The Czech energy mix was made up of 53.60 percent fossil fuels (47.50 percent lignite, 5.86 percent natural gas, etc.), 40.95 percent nuclear power, and 5.46 percent renewables (3.34 percent biomass, 1.47 percent solar, 0.63 percent water, etc.). The first green hydrogen electrolyzer powered by solar energy in the Czech Republic started in May 2023 with production capacity of about 100 kilograms per day / 8,000 kilograms of green hydrogen per year. While the goal of EU funds is to support a sustainable low-carbon-emission economy and ensure energy security by utilizing alternative energies, the Czech approach is different. As described in the State Energy Policy, the future Czech energy mix will be primarily based on nuclear power with a goal of reaching 50 percent of the energy supply. Due to EU regulations, the share of coal energy will decrease but be largely replaced by both one (and possibly more) large nuclear reactors. The deployment of a series of small modular reactors is also under consideration by the Czechs. The share of alternative energies will grow but its potential for becoming the backbone of the energy sector is unclear. ## Statistical indicators {#statistical_indicators} ### Development of main indicators {#development_of_main_indicators} The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980--2017. Inflation under 2% is in green. +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ \| Year \| GDP\ \| GDP per capita\ \| GDP (in Bil. US\$ nominal) \| GDP growth\ \| Inflation rate\ \| Unemployment\ \| Government debt\ \| \| \| (in Bil. US\$ PPP) \| (in US\$ PPP) \| \| (real) \| (in Percent) \| (in Percent) \| (in % of GDP) \| +======+====================+=================+============================+=============+=================+===============+==================+ \| 2015 \| 340.6 \| 32,318 \| 209.1 \| 5.3 % \| 0.3 % \| 5.0 % \| 40.0 % \| +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ \| 2016 \| 353.9 \| 33,529 \| 229.6 \| 2.6 % \| 0.7 % \| 3.9 % \| 36.8 % \| +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ \| 2017 \| 375.7 \| 35,512 \| 208.9 \| 4.3 % \| 2.4 % \| 2.9 % \| 34.7 % \| +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ \| 2018 \| 397.7 \| 37,547 \| 211.7 \| 3.5 % \| 2.3 % \| 3.0 % \| 32.9 % \| +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ \| 2019 \| 418.7 \| 39,478 \| 209.4 \| 3.0 % \| 2.0 % \| 3.2 % \| 31.3 % \| +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ \| 2020 \| 437.7 \| 41,220 \| 188.0 \| 2.5 % \| 2.0 % \| 3.4 % \| 29.4 % \| +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ ### Background From the CIA World Factbook 2017 GDP (pp.): \$353.9 billion (2016) GDP (nom.): \$195.3 billion (2016) GDP Growth: 2.6% (2016) GDP per capita (pp.): \$33,500 (2016) GDP per capita (nom.): \$18,487 (2016) GDP by sector: Agriculture: 2.5% Industry: 37.5% Services: 60% (2016) Inflation: 0.7% (2016) Labour Force: 5.427 million (2017) Unemployment: 2,3% (September 2018) Industrial production growth rate: 3.5% (2016) Household income or consumption by percentage share: (2015) - lowest 10%: 4.1% - highest 10%: 21.7% Public Debt: 34.2% GDP (2018) ### Trade and finance {#trade_and_finance} Exports: \$136.1 billion Export goods: machinery and transport equipment, raw materials, fuel, chemicals (2018) Imports: \$122.8 billion Import goods: machinery and transport equipment, raw materials and fuels, chemicals (2018) Current Account balance: \$2.216 billion (2018) Export partners: Germany 32.4%, Slovakia 8.4%, Poland 5.8%, UK 5.2%, France 5.2%, Italy 4.3%, Austria 4.2% (2016) Import partners: Germany 30.6%, Poland 9.6%, China 7.5%, Slovakia 6.3%, Netherlands 5.3%, Italy 4.1% (2016) Reserves: \$85.73 billion (31 December 2016) Foreign Direct Investment: \$139.6 billion (31 December 2016) Czech Investment Abroad: \$43.09 billion (31 December 2016) External debt: \$138 billion (31 December 2016) Value of Publicly Traded Shares: \$44.5 billion (31 December 2016) Exchange rates: - koruny (Kč) per US\$1 -- 21.82 Kč (September 2018), 18.75 (December 2010), 18.277 (2007), 23.957 (2005), 25.7 (2004), 28.2 (2003), 32.7 (2002), 38.0 (2001), 38.6 (2001), 34.6 (1999), 32.3 (1998), 31.7 (1997), 27.1 (1996), 26.5 (1995) - koruny (Kč) per EUR€1 -- 27.33 (May 2015), 25.06 (December 2010) ### IT and Telecommunications {#it_and_telecommunications} Households with access to fixed and mobile telephone access - landline telephone -- 25% (2009) - according to the Czech Statistical Office: 55,2% (2005); 31,1% (2008); 27,6% (2009); 24,2% (2010); 23,4% (2011); 21,8% (2012) - mobile telephone -- 94% (2009) - according to the Czech Statistical Office: 81,2% (2005); 92,4% (2008); 94,6% (2009); 95,6% (2010); 96,2% (2011); 97,0% (2012) Individuals with mobile telephone access - according to the Czech Statistical Office: 75,8% (2005); 90,6% (2009); 93,9% (2011); 96,0% (2012); 96,0% (2013) Broadband penetration rate - fixed broadband -- 19.1% (2010) - mobile broadband -- 3.5% (2010) Individuals using computer and internet - computer -- 67% (2009) - according to the Czech Statistical Office: 42,0% (2005); 59,2% (2009); 64,1% (2010); 67,1% (2011); 69,5% (2012); 70,2% (2013) - internet -- 80.9% (2019) - according to the Czech Statistical Office: 32,1% (2005); 55,9% (2009); 61,8% (2010); 65,5% (2011); 69,5% (2012); 70,4% (2013) ### Companies In 2022, the sector with the highest number of companies registered in Czech Republic is Services with 295,538 companies followed by Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate and Wholesale Trade with 189,308 and 95,142 companies respectively. ## International rankings {#international_rankings} ### Society and quality of life {#society_and_quality_of_life} thumb\\|400px\\|upright=2\\|Index of Economic Freedom 2018 - 32nd in Human Development Index (2022) - 18th in inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (2022) - 6th in Henley Passport Index (2024) - 24th in Human Capital Index (2018) - 16th in Quality of Nationality Index (Henley & Partners, 2018) - 27th in Legatum Prosperity Index (2019) - 22nd in Social Progress Index (2019) ### Macroeconomics - 41st in Ease of doing business index (2019) - 7th in Economic Complexity Index (2018) - 26th in Global Competitiveness Report (2022) - 25th in Global Enabling Trade Report (2016) - 24th in Global Innovation Index (2019) - 21st in Index of Economic Freedom (2018)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,850	Telecommunications in the Czech Republic	There are telecommunications in the Czech Republic. ## Office There is a Czech Telecommunication Office (Czech: Český Telekomunikační Úřad) called CTU. ## Companies Telecom companies have included České Radiokomunikace, O2 Czech Republic (formerly Telefonica O2 Czech Republic), Vodafone Czech Republic (formerly Oskar Mobil a.s.), CETIN, CS Link, Eurotel, Skylink and Telekom Austria Czech Republic. ## Telephones The number of main line telephones in use was 3,741,492 in 1998, 3.869 million in 2000, 3.626 million in 2003, 2.888 million in 2006, and 1,294,806 in 2021. The number of mobile cellular phones was 965,476 in 1998, 4.346 million in 2000, 9.708 million in 2003, and 13.075 million in 2007. Copper subscriber systems have been improved with Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) equipment to accommodate Internet and other digital signals. Trunk systems include fibre-optic cable and microwave radio relay. ## Television There were 3,428,817 televisions in December 1999 and 3,405,834 televisions in December 2000. There were 150 television broadcast stations and 1,434 repeaters in 2000. ## Radio There were 3,173,856 radios in December 1999, and 3,159,134 radios in December 2000. In 2000, the radio broadcast stations were AM 31, FM 304 and shortwave 17. In 1999, they were AM 21, FM 199 and shortwave 1. ## Internet The number of internet users was 2.69 million in 2001, 5.1 million in 2005, 4.4 million in 2007 and 7.6 million in 2012. There were 35 Internet Service Providers in 1999, and more than three hundred in 2000. The internet country code is .cz.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,851	Transport in the Czech Republic	Transport in the Czech Republic relies on several main modes, including transport by road, rail, water and air. ## Railways The Czech Republic has a total railway length of 9435 km which makes it a country with the second highest rail density in the world. The vast majority (9341 km) is standard gauge. Electrified railways generally have voltages of 3 kV DC or 25 kV AC. 94 km of track is narrow gauge. The most prominent Czech railway company is the state-owned České dráhy (ČD) (English: Czech Railways). Prague has an underground rapid transit system, the Prague Metro. In addition, the cities of Brno, Liberec, Most, Olomouc, Ostrava, Plzeň, and Prague have tram systems. In April 2025, Czechia introduced Europe\'s first driverless passenger train on the 24-kilometer Kopidlno to Dolní Bousov line in the Mladá Boleslav District. Developed by AŽD Praha, the train features a modified 811 series engine named Edita, equipped with sensors and computing systems to autonomously monitor surroundings and adjust speed. Despite its autonomous capabilities, a driver remains on board during this testing phase due to legal requirements and to handle unforeseen situations. Fully autonomous operation without onboard staff is anticipated by 2031, pending technological advancements and legislative changes. ## Roads The Czech Republic has, in total, 55653 km of roads. It has 1247 km of motorways. In the 1980s and 1990s there was a significant increase in passenger transport on the roads in the Czech Republic, which was associated with a sharp increase in the accident rate. Between 2007 and 2013, the death rate fell in every year, with a record low of 583 deaths in 2013, compared with the 1994 high of 1,473 casualties. Despite this however, the fatality rate per head of population is moderately high, comparable to the United States. ### Highways There are 2 main categories of roads forming the main network: Motorways and Highways. These roads are managed by the state-owned Directorate of Highways and Motorways of the Czech Republic -- ŘSD, established in 1997. Among the first modern motorways in the Czech Republic was the motorway from Prague to the Slovak border through Brno whose construction was started on May 2, 1939. Motorways are dual carriageways with tolls and a speed limit of 130 km/h. Highways can be single and dual carriageway with a speed limit of 90 km/h (dual carriageways are commonly signposted as Roads for motorcars with a speed limit of 110 km/h). ŘSD currently manages and maintains 1,369 km of motorways (dálnice). ## Waterways The Vltava is the country\'s longest river, at 430 km. 358 km of the Elbe (Labe), which totals 1154 km, is also present in the country. An artificial waterway, nowadays used for recreation, is the Baťa Canal. ## Ports and harbours {#ports_and_harbours} Děčín, Mělník, Prague, Ústí nad Labem, Moldauhafen in Hamburg (no longer operational, will be handed over to Germany in 2028) ## Airports `{{see also\|List of airports in the Czech Republic}}`{=mediawiki} In 2006, the Czech Republic had a total 121 airports. 46 of these airports had paved runways while 75 had unpaved runways. The largest and busiest airport in the Czech Republic is Václav Havel Airport Prague, opened in 1937. Other international airports include Brno-Tuřany Airport, Karlovy Vary Airport, Ostrava Leoš Janáček Airport, Pardubice Airport, Kunovice Airport and Public domestic and private international airport is for example Hradec Králové Airport. Airports with paved runways Total: 46 (2007) - Over 3,047 m: 2 - 2,438 to 3,047 m: 10 - 1,524 to 2,437 m: 13 - 914 to 1,523 m: 2 - Under 914 m: 19 Airports with unpaved runways Total: 75 (2007) - 1,524 to 2,437 m: 1 - 914 to 1,523 m: 25 - Under 914 m: 49 ## Heliports 2 (2006)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,859	Continuity Irish Republican Army	The Continuity Irish Republican Army (Continuity IRA or CIRA), styling itself as the Irish Republican Army (\[\[Óglaigh na hÉireann\]\]), is an Irish republican paramilitary group that aims to bring about a united Ireland. It claims to be a direct continuation of the original Irish Republican Army and the national army of the Irish Republic that was proclaimed in 1916. It emerged from a split in the Provisional IRA in 1986 but did not become active until the Provisional IRA ceasefire of 1994. It is an illegal organisation in the Republic of Ireland and is designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the United States. It has links with the political party Republican Sinn Féin (RSF). Since 1994, the CIRA has waged a campaign in Northern Ireland against the British Army and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary. This is part of a wider campaign against the British security forces by dissident republican paramilitaries. It has targeted the security forces in gun attacks and bombings, as well as with grenades, mortars and rockets. The CIRA has also carried out bombings with the goal of causing economic harm and/or disruption, as well as many punishment attacks on alleged criminals. To date, it has been responsible for the death of one PSNI officer. The CIRA was smaller and less active than the now-defunct Real IRA, and there have been a number of splits within the organisation since the mid-2000s. ## Origins The Continuity IRA has its origins in a split in the Provisional IRA. In September 1986, the Provisional IRA held a General Army Convention (GAC), the organisation\'s supreme decision-making body. It was the first GAC in 16 years. The meeting, which like all such meetings was secret, was convened to discuss among other resolutions, the articles of the Provisional IRA constitution which dealt with abstentionism, specifically its opposition to the taking of seats in Dáil Éireann (the parliament of the Republic of Ireland). The GAC passed motions (by the necessary two-thirds majority) allowing members of the Provisional IRA to discuss and debate the taking of parliamentary seats, and the removal of the ban on members of the organisation from supporting any successful republican candidate who took their seat in Dáil Éireann. The Provisional IRA convention delegates opposed to the change in the constitution claimed that the convention was gerrymandered \"by the creation of new IRA organisational structures for the convention, including the combinations of Sligo-Roscommon-Longford and Wicklow-Wexford-Waterford.\" The only IRA body that supported this viewpoint was the outgoing IRA Executive. Those members of the outgoing Executive who opposed the change comprised a quorum. They met, dismissed those in favour of the change, and set up a new Executive. They contacted Tom Maguire, who was a commander in the old IRA and had supported the Provisionals against the Official IRA (see Irish republican legitimatism), and asked him for support. Maguire had also been contacted by supporters of Gerry Adams, then president of Sinn Féin, and a supporter of the change in the Provisional IRA constitution. Maguire rejected Adams\' supporters, supported the IRA Executive members opposed to the change, and named the new organisers the Continuity Army Council. In a 1986 statement, he rejected \"the legitimacy of an Army Council styling itself the Council of the Irish Republican Army which lends support to any person or organisation styling itself as Sinn Féin and prepared to enter the partition parliament of Leinster House.\" In 1987, Maguire described the \"Continuity Executive\" as the \"lawful Executive of the Irish Republican Army.\" ## Campaign Initially, the Continuity IRA did not reveal its existence, either in the form of press statements or paramilitary activity. Although the Garda Síochána had suspicions that the organisation existed, they were unsure of its name, labelling it the \"Irish National Republican Army\". On 21 January 1994, on the 75th anniversary of the First Dáil Éireann, a group of men in paramilitary dress offered a \"final salute\" to Tom Maguire by firing over his grave. A public statement headed \"Irish Republican Publicity Bureau\" signed \"B Ó Ruairc, Rúnaí \[Secretary\]\" identifying the firing party as \"Volunteers of Óglaigh na hÉireann-the Irish Republican Army\", and two accompanying photos were published in Saoirse Irish Freedom. Garda Special Branch detectives raided the headquarters of Republican Sinn Féin at Arran Quay, Dublin, two days after the graveside volley, seizing files and questioning staff. In February 1994 it was reported that in previous months Gardaí had found arms dumps along the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth that did not belong to the Provisional IRA, and forensics tests determined had been used for firing practice recently. It was only after the Provisional IRA declared a ceasefire in 1994 that the Continuity IRA became active, announcing its intention to continue the campaign against British rule. The CIRA continues to oppose the Good Friday Agreement and, unlike the Provisional IRA (and the Real IRA in 1998), the CIRA has not announced a ceasefire or agreed to participate in weapons decommissioning---nor is there any evidence that it will. In the 18th Independent Monitoring Commission\'s report, the RIRA, the CIRA and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) were deemed a potential future threat. The CIRA was labelled \"active, dangerous and committed and\... capable of a greater level of violent and other crime\". Like the RIRA and RIRA splinter group Óglaigh na hÉireann, it too sought funds for expansion. It is also known to have worked with the INLA. The CIRA has been involved in a number of bombing and shooting incidents. Targets of the CIRA have included the British military, the Northern Ireland police (both the Royal Ulster Constabulary and its successor the Police Service of Northern Ireland). Since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 the CIRA, along with other paramilitaries opposing the ceasefire, have been involved with a countless number of punishment shootings and beatings. By 2005 the CIRA was believed to be an established presence on the island of Great Britain with the capability of launching attacks. A bomb defused in Dublin in December 2005 was believed to have been the work of the CIRA. In February 2006, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) blamed the CIRA for planting four bombs in Northern Ireland during the final quarter of 2005, as well as several hoax bomb warnings. The IMC also blamed the CIRA for the killings of two former CIRA members in Belfast, who had stolen CIRA weapons and established a rival organisation. The CIRA continued to be active in both planning and undertaking attacks on the PSNI. The IMC said they tried to lure police into ambushes, while they have also taken to stoning and using petrol bombs. In addition, other assaults, robbery, tiger kidnapping, extortion, fuel laundering and smuggling were undertaken by the group. The CIRA also actively took part in recruiting and training members, including disgruntled former Provisional IRA members. As a result of this continued activity the IMC said the group remained \"a very serious threat\". On 10 March 2009 the CIRA claimed responsibility for the fatal shooting of a PSNI officer in Craigavon, County Armagh---the first police fatality in Northern Ireland since 1998. The officer was fatally shot by a sniper as he and a colleague investigated \"suspicious activity\" at a house nearby when a window was smashed by youths causing the occupant to phone the police. The PSNI officers responded to the emergency call, giving a CIRA sniper the chance to shoot and kill officer Stephen Carroll. Carroll was killed two days after the Real IRA\'s 2009 Massereene Barracks shooting at Massereene Barracks in Antrim. In a press interview with Republican Sinn Féin some days later, regarded by some to be the political wing of the Continuity IRA, Richard Walsh described the attacks as \"acts of war\". In 2013, the Continuity IRA\'s \'South Down Brigade\' threatened a Traveller family in Newry and published a statement in the local newspaper. There were negotiations with community representatives and the CIRA announced the threat was lifted. It was believed the threat was issued after a Traveller feud which resulted in a pipe bomb attack in Bessbrook, near Newry. The Continuity IRA is believed to be strongest in the County Fermanagh -- North County Armagh area (Craigavon, Armagh and Lurgan). It is believed to be behind a number of attacks such as pipe bombings, rocket attacks, gun attacks, and the PSNI claimed it orchestrated riots a number of times to lure police officers into areas such as Kilwilkie in Lurgan and Drumbeg in Craigavon in order to attack them. It also claimed the group orchestrated a riot during a security alert in Lurgan. The alert turned out to be a hoax.`{{failed verification\|date=December 2019}}`{=mediawiki} On Easter 2016, the Continuity IRA marched in paramilitary uniforms through North Lurgan, Co Armagh, without any hindrance from the PSNI who monitored the parade from a police helicopter. In July and August 2019 the CIRA carried out attempted bomb attacks on the PSNI in Craigavon, County Armagh and Wattlebridge, County Fermanagh. On 5 February 2020, a bomb planted by the CIRA was found by the PSNI in a lorry in Lurgan. The CIRA believed the lorry was going to be put on a North Channel ferry to Scotland in January 2020. ## Claim to legitimacy {#claim_to_legitimacy} Similar to the claim put forward by the Provisional IRA after its split from the Official IRA in 1969, the Continuity IRA claims to be the legitimate continuation of the original Irish Republican Army or Óglaigh na hÉireann. This argument is based on the view that the surviving anti-Treaty members of the Second Dáil delegated their \"authority\" to the IRA Army Council in 1938. As further justification for this claim, Tom Maguire, one of those anti-Treaty members of the Second Dáil, issued a statement in favour of the Continuity IRA, just as he had done in 1969 in favour of the Provisionals. J. Bowyer Bell, in his The Irish Troubles, describes Maguire\'s opinion in 1986: \"abstentionism was a basic tenet of republicanism, a moral issue of principle. Abstentionism gave the movement legitimacy, the right to wage war, to speak for a Republic all but established in the hearts of the people\". Maguire\'s stature was such that a delegation from Gerry Adams sought his support in 1986, but was rejected. ## Relationship to other organisations {#relationship_to_other_organisations} These changes within the IRA were accompanied by changes on the political side and at the 1986 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (party conference), which followed the IRA Convention, the party\'s policy of abstentionism, which forbade Sinn Féin elected representatives from taking seats in the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Republic, was dropped. On 2 November, the 628 delegates present cast their votes, the result being 429 to 161. The traditionalists, having lost at both conventions, walked out of the Mansion House, met that evening at the West County Hotel, and reformed as Republican Sinn Féin (RSF). According to a report in the Cork Examiner, the Continuity IRA\'s first chief of staff was Dáithí Ó Conaill, who also served as the first chairman of RSF from 1986 to 1987. The Continuity IRA and RSF perceive themselves as forming a \"true\" Republican Movement. ## Structure and status {#structure_and_status} The leadership of the Continuity IRA is believed to be based in the provinces of Munster and Ulster. It was alleged that its chief of staff was a Limerick man and that a number of other key members were from that county, until their expulsion. Dáithí Ó Conaill was the first chief of staff until 1991. In 2004 the United States (US) government believed the Continuity IRA consisted of fewer than fifty hardcore activists. In 2005, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell told Dáil Éireann that the organisation had a maximum of 150 members. The CIRA is an illegal organisation under UK (section 11(1) of the Terrorism Act 2000) and ROI law due to the use of \'IRA\' in the group\'s name, in a situation analogous to that of the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA). Membership of the organisation is punishable by a sentence of up to ten years imprisonment under UK law. On 31 May 2001 Dermot Gannon became the first person to be convicted of membership of the CIRA solely on the word of a Garda Síochána chief superintendent. On 13 July 2004, the US government designated the CIRA as a \'Foreign Terrorist Organization\'. This made it illegal for Americans to provide material support to the CIRA, requires US financial institutions to block the group\'s assets and denies alleged CIRA members visas into the US. ## External aid and arsenal {#external_aid_and_arsenal} The US government suspects the Continuity IRA of having received funds and arms from supporters in the United States. Security sources in Ireland have expressed the suspicion that, in co-operation with the RIRA, the Continuity IRA may have acquired arms and materiel from the Balkans. They also suspect that the Continuity IRA arsenal contains some weapons that were taken from Provisional IRA arms dumps, including a few dozen rifles, machine guns, and pistols; a small amount of the explosive Semtex; and a few dozen detonators. ## Internal tension and splits {#internal_tension_and_splits} In 2005, several members of the CIRA, who were serving prison sentences in Portlaoise Prison for paramilitary activity, left the organisation. Some transferred to the INLA landing of the prison, but the majority of those who left are now independent and on E4 landing. The remaining CIRA prisoners have moved to D Wing. Supporters of the Continuity IRA leadership claim that this resulted from an internal disagreement, which although brought to a conclusion, was followed by some people leaving the organisation anyway. Supporters of the disaffected members established the Concerned Group for Republican Prisoners. Most of those who had left went back to the CIRA, or dissociated themselves from the CGRP, which is now defunct. In February 2006, the Independent Monitoring Commission claimed in a report on paramilitary activity that two groups, styling themselves as \"Óglaigh na hÉireann\" and \"Saoirse na hÉireann\", had been formed after a split in the Continuity IRA either in early 2006 or late 2005. The Óglaigh na hÉireann group was responsible for a number of pipe bomb attacks on the PSNI, bomb hoaxes, and robberies, the IMC also claimed the organisation was responsible for the killing of Andrew Burns on 12 February 2008 and was seeking to recruit former members of the RIRA. The Saoirse na hÉireann (SNH) group was composed of \"disaffected and largely young republicans\" and was responsible for a number of bomb hoaxes, two of which took place in September 2006. It was thought to have operated largely in republican areas of Belfast . The groups had apparently ceased operations by early 2009. In 2007, the Continuity IRA was responsible for shooting dead two of its members who had left and attempted to create their own organisation. Upon leaving the CIRA, they had allegedly taken a number of guns with them. The Continuity IRA is believed by Gardaí to have been involved in a number of gangland killings in Dublin and Limerick. In July 2010, members of a \"militant Northern-based faction within the CIRA\" claimed to have overthrown the leadership of the organisation. They also claimed that an Army Convention representing \"95 per cent of volunteers\" had unanimously elected a new 12-member Army Executive, which in turn appointed a new seven-member Army Council. The moves came as a result of dissatisfaction with the southern-based leadership and the apparent winding-down of military operations. A senior source from RSF said: \"We would see them \[the purported new leadership\] as just another splinter group that has broken away.\" This organisation is referred to as the Real CIRA. In June 2011 CIRA member Liam Kenny was murdered, allegedly by drug dealers, at his home in Clondalkin, West Dublin. On 28 November 2011 an innocent man was mistakenly shot dead in retaliation for the murder of Liam Kenny. Limerick Real IRA volunteer Rose Lynch pleaded guilty to this murder at the Special Criminal Court and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In July 2012 the CIRA announced it had a new leadership after expelling members who had been working against the organisation. In April 2014 a former leading member of the Belfast Continuity IRA who had been expelled from the organisation, Tommy Crossan, was shot dead. ## In popular culture {#in_popular_culture} The CIRA are depicted in RTÉ\'s TV series crime drama Love/Hate.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,874	Claudine (book series)	The *Claudine* series consists of four early novels by French authors Colette and Henry Gauthier-Villars, published 1900--1904. Written in diary form, they describe the growth to maturity of a young girl, Claudine. Aged fifteen at the beginning of the first book, Claudine à l\'école, the series describes her education and experiences as she grows up. All the books are written in first-person with the first three having Claudine herself as the narrator. The last in the series, Claudine s\'en va, introduces a new narrator, Annie. The novels were written in the late 19th century in collaboration with Colette\'s first husband, the writer Henry Gauthier-Villars, better known by his pen name \"Willy\". There has been much speculation over the degree of involvement of both Colette and Willy in the writing of the Claudine novels, particularly as Willy was known for often using ghostwriters. Consequently, although the novels were originally attributed to Willy only and published under his name alone, they were later published under both names. After the death of Willy, Colette went to court to challenge her former husband\'s involvement in any of the writing, and subsequently had his name removed from the books. This decision however was overturned after her death, as Willy\'s son from a prior relationship, Jacques Gauthier-Villars, successfully sued to have his father\'s name restored. The Claudine novels are thought to be roughly autobiographical. ## List of books {#list_of_books} - Claudine à l\'école (1900) -- Claudine at School - Claudine à Paris (1901) -- Claudine in Paris - Claudine en ménage (1902) -- Claudine Married - Claudine s\'en va (1903) -- Claudine and Annie	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,881	Century	A century is a period of 100 years or 10 decades. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word century comes from the Latin centum, meaning one hundred. Century is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or centenary is a hundredth anniversary, or a celebration of this, typically the remembrance of an event which took place a hundred years earlier. ## Start and end of centuries {#start_and_end_of_centuries} Although a century can mean any arbitrary period of 100 years, there are two viewpoints on the nature of standard centuries. One is based on strict construction, while the other is based on popular perception. According to the strict construction, the 1st century AD, which began with AD 1, ended with AD 100, and the 2nd century with AD 200;`{{NoteTag\|[[AD]] and [[Common Era\|CE]] year numbering, which are numerically equivalent, are now commonly used to number years, including those which occurred before these notations were invented; AD did not become widespread in Europe until early in the 2nd millennium.}}`{=mediawiki} in this model, the n-th century starts with a year that follows a year with a multiple of 100 (except the first century as it began after the year 1 BC) and ends with the next coming year with a multiple of 100 (100n), i.e. the 20th century comprises the years 1901 to 2000, and the 21st century comprises the years 2001 to 2100 in strict usage. In common perception and practice, centuries are structured by grouping years based on sharing the \'hundreds\' digit(s). In this model, the n-th century starts with the year that ends in \"00\" and ends with the year ending in \"99\"; for example, in popular culture, the years 1900 to 1999 constitute the 20th century, and the years 2000 to 2099 constitute the 21st century. (This is similar to the grouping of \"0-to-9 decades\" which share the \'tens\' digit.) To facilitate calendrical calculations by computer, the astronomical year numbering and ISO 8601 systems both contain a year zero, with the astronomical year 0 corresponding to the year 1 BC, the astronomical year -1 corresponding to 2 BC, and so on. Year 2 BC 1 BC 1 2 \... 99 100 101 102 \... 199 200 201 202 \... 1899 1900 1901 1902 \... 1999 2000 2001 2002 \... 2025 \... 2099 2100 2101 2102 \... --------- ---------------- ------ ------------- --- ------ ---- ------------- ------------- ----- ------ ----- ------------- ------------- ----- ------ -------------- -------------- -------------- ------ ------ ------ -------------- -------------- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------------- -------------- ------ ------ Strict 1st century BC 1st century 2nd century 3rd century \... 19th century 20th century 21st century 22nd century \... Popular 1st century BC 1st century 2nd century 3rd century \... 19th century 20th century 21st century 22nd century \... : Strict vs Popular usage ## Alternative naming systems {#alternative_naming_systems} Informally, years may be referred to in groups based on the hundreds part of the year. In this system, the years 1900--1999 are referred to as the nineteen hundreds (1900s). Aside from English usage, this system is used in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Finnish and Hungarian. The Swedish nittonhundratalet (or 1900-talet), Danish nittenhundredetallet (or nittenhundredetallet), Norwegian nittenhundretallet (or 1900-tallet), Finnish tuhatyhdeksänsataaluku (or 1900-luku) and Hungarian ezerkilencszázas évek (or 1900-as évek) refer unambiguously to the years 1900--1999. In Swedish, however, a century is in more rare cases referred to as det n-te seklet/århundradet (\"the n-th century\") rather than n-hundratalet, i.e. the 17th century is (in rare cases) referred to as 17:(d)e/sjuttonde århundradet/seklet rather than 1600-talet and mainly also referring to the years 1601--1700 rather than 1600--1699; according to Svenska Akademiens ordbok, 16:(d)e/sextonde århundradet may refer to either the years 1501--1600 or 1500--1599. ## Similar dating units in other calendar systems {#similar_dating_units_in_other_calendar_systems} While the century has been commonly used in the West, other cultures and calendars have utilized differently sized groups of years in a similar manner. The Hindu calendar, in particular, summarizes its years into groups of 60, while the Aztec calendar considers groups of 52.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,903	Cultural movement	A cultural movement is a shared effort by loosely affiliated individuals to change the way others in society think by disseminating ideas through various art forms and making intentional choices in daily life. By definition, cultural movements are intertwined with other phenomena such as social movements and political movements, and can be difficult to distinguish from broader cultural change or transformation. Historically, different nations or regions of the world have gone through their own independent sequence of movements in culture; but as world communications have accelerated, this geographical distinction has become less distinct. When cultural movements go through revolutions from one to the next, genres tend to get attacked and mixed up, and often new genres are generated and old ones fade.: These changes are often reactions against the prior cultural form, which typically has grown stale and repetitive. An obsession emerges among the mainstream with the new movement, and the old one falls into neglect -- sometimes it dies out entirely, but often it chugs along favored in a few disciplines and occasionally making reappearances (sometimes prefixed with \"neo-\"). There is continual argument over the precise definition of each of these periods as one historian might group them differently, or choose different names or descriptions. Even though in many cases the popular change from one to the next can be swift and sudden, the beginning and end of movements are somewhat subjective. This is because the movements did not spring out of the blue and into existence then come to an abrupt end and lose total support, as would be suggested by a date range. Thus use of the term \"period\" is somewhat deceptive. \"Period\" also suggests a linearity of development, whereas it has not been uncommon for two or more distinctive cultural approaches to be active at the same time. Historians will be able to find distinctive traces of a cultural movement before its accepted beginning, and there will always be new creations in old forms. So it can be more useful to think in terms of broad \"movements\" that have rough beginnings and endings. Yet for historical perspective, some rough date ranges will be provided for each to indicate the \"height\" or accepted time span of the movement. This list covers Western, notably European and American cultural movements. They have, however, been paralleled by cultural movements in East Asia and elsewhere. In the late 20th and early 21st century in Thailand, for example, there has been a cultural shift away from Western social and political values and more toward Japanese and Chinese. As well, Thai culture has reinvigorated monarchical concepts to accommodate state shifts away from Western ideology regarding democracy and monarchies. ## Cultural movements {#cultural_movements} - Graeco-Roman - The Greek culture marked a departure from the other Mediterranean cultures that preceded and surrounded it. The Romans adopted Greek and other styles, and spread the result throughout Western Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Together, Greek and Roman thought in philosophy, religion, science, history, and all forms of thought can be viewed as a central underpinning of Western culture, and is therefore termed the Classical Age by some. Others might divide it into the Hellenistic period and the Roman period, or might choose other finer divisions. : : See: Classical architecture --- Classical sculpture --- Greek architecture --- Hellenistic architecture --- Ionic --- Doric --- Corinthian --- Stoicism --- Cynicism --- Epicurean --- Roman architecture --- Early Christian --- Neoplatonism - Romanesque (11th century & 12th centuries) - A style (esp. architectural) similar in form and materials to Roman styles. Romanesque seems to be the first pan-European style since Roman Imperial Architecture and examples are found in every part of the continent. : : See: Romanesque architecture --- Ottonian Art - Gothic (mid 12th century until mid 15th century) : : See: Gothic architecture --- Gregorian chant --- Neoplatonism - Nominalism ```{=html} <!-- --> ``` - - Rejects Platonic realism as a requirement for thinking and speaking in general terms. - Humanism (16th century) ```{=html} <!-- --> ``` - Renaissance - The use of light, shadow, and perspective to more accurately represent life. Because of how fundamentally these ideas were felt to alter so much of life, some have referred to it as the \"Golden Age\". In reality it was less an \"Age\" and more of a movement in popular philosophy, science, and thought that spread over Europe (and probably other parts of the world), over time, and affected different aspects of culture at different points in time. Very roughly, the following periods can be taken as indicative of place/time foci of the Renaissance: Italian Renaissance 1450--1550. Spanish Renaissance 1550--1587. English Renaissance 1588--1629. - Protestant Reformation - The Protestant Reformation, often referred to simply as the Reformation, was a schism from the Roman Catholic Church initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli and other early Protestant Reformers in the 16th century Europe. - Mannerism - Anti-classicist movement that sought to emphasize the feeling of the artist himself. - See: Mannerism/Art - Baroque - Emphasizes power and authority, characterized by intricate detail and without the \"disturbing angst\" of Mannerism. Essentially is exaggerated Classicism to promote and glorify the Church and State. Occupied with notions of infinity. - See: Baroque art --- Baroque music - Rococo - Neoclassical (17th--19th centuries) - Severe, unemotional movement recalling Roman and Greek (\"classical\") style, reacting against the overbred Rococo style and the emotional Baroque style. It stimulated revival of classical thinking, and had especially profound effects on science and politics. It also had a direct influence on Academic Art in the 19th century. Beginning in the early 17th century with Cartesian thought (see René Descartes), this movement provided philosophical frameworks for the natural sciences, sought to determine the principles of knowledge by rejecting all things previously believed to be known about the world. In Renaissance Classicism attempts are made to recreate the classic art forms --- tragedy, comedy, and farce. - See also: Weimar Classicism - Age of Enlightenment (1688--1789): Reason (rationalism) seen as the ideal. - Romanticism (1770--1830) - Began in Germany and spread to England and France as a reaction against Neoclassicism and against the Age of Enlightenment.. The notion of \"folk genius\", or an inborn and intuitive ability to do magnificent things, is a core principle of the Romantic movement. Nostalgia for the primitive past in preference to the scientifically minded present. Romantic heroes, exemplified by Napoleon, are popular. Fascination with the past leads to a resurrection of interest in the Gothic period. It did not really replace the Neoclassical movement so much as provide a counterbalance; many artists sought to join both styles in their works. - See: Symbolism - Realism (1830--1905) - Ushered in by the Industrial Revolution and growing Nationalism in the world. Began in France. Attempts to portray the speech and mannerisms of everyday people in everyday life. Tends to focus on middle class social and domestic problems. Plays by Ibsen are an example. Naturalism evolved from Realism, following it briefly in art and more enduringly in theatre, film, and literature. Impressionism, based on \'scientific\' knowledge and discoveries concerns observing nature and reality objectively. - See: Post-Impressionism --- Neo-impressionism --- Pointillism --- Pre-Raphaelite - Art Nouveau (1880--1905) - Decorative, symbolic art - See: Transcendentalism - Modernism (1880--1965) - Also known as the Avant-garde movement. Originating in the 19th century with Symbolism, the Modernist movement composed itself of a wide range of \'isms\' that ran in contrast to Realism and that sought out the underlying fundamentals of art and philosophy. The Jazz age and Hollywood emerge and have their hey-days. - See: Fauvism --- Cubism --- Futurism --- Suprematism --- Dada --- Constructivism --- Surrealism --- Expressionism --- Existentialism --- Op art --- Art Deco --- Bauhaus --- Neo-Plasticism --- Precisionism --- Abstract expressionism --- New Realism --- Color field painting --- Happening --- Fluxus --- Hard-edge painting --- Pop art --- Photorealism --- Minimalism --- Postminimalism --- Lyrical abstraction --- Situationism - Postmodernism (since c.1965) - A reaction to Modernism, in a way, Postmodernism largely discards the notion that artists should seek pure fundamentals, often questioning whether such fundamentals even exist -- or suggestion that if they do exist, they may be irrelevant. It is exemplified by movements such as deconstructivism, conceptual art, etc. - See: Postmodern philosophy --- Postmodern music --- Postmodern art - Post-postmodernism (since c.1990)	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,909	Counterpoint	In music theory, counterpoint is the relationship of two or more simultaneous musical lines (also called voices) that are harmonically dependent on each other, yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. The term originates from the Latin punctus contra punctum meaning \"point against point\", i.e. \"note against note\". John Rahn describes counterpoint as follows: Counterpoint has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradition, strongly developing during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period, especially in the Baroque period. In Western pedagogy, counterpoint is taught through a system of species (see below). There are several different forms of counterpoint, including imitative counterpoint and free counterpoint. Imitative counterpoint involves the repetition of a main melodic idea across different vocal parts, with or without variation. Compositions written in free counterpoint often incorporate non-traditional harmonies and chords, chromaticism and dissonance. ## General principles {#general_principles} The term \"counterpoint\" has been used to designate a voice or even an entire composition. Counterpoint focuses on melodic interaction---only secondarily on the harmonies produced by that interaction. Work initiated by Guerino Mazzola (born 1947) has given counterpoint theory a mathematical foundation. In particular, Mazzola\'s model gives a structural (and not psychological) foundation of forbidden parallels of fifths and the dissonant fourth. Octavio Agustin has extended the model to microtonal contexts. Another theorist who has tried to incorporate mathematical principles in his study of counterpoint is Sergei Taneyev (1856--1915). Inspired by Spinoza, Taneyev developed a theory which covers and generalizes a wide range of advanced contrapuntal phenomena, including what is known to the English-speaking theorists as invertible counterpoint (although he describes them mainly using his own, custom-built terminology), by means of linking them to simple algebraic procedures. In counterpoint, the functional independence of voices is the prime concern. The violation of this principle leads to special effects, which are avoided in counterpoint. In organ registers, certain interval combinations and chords are activated by a single key so that playing a melody results in parallel voice leading. These voices, losing independence, are fused into one and the parallel chords are perceived as single tones with a new timbre. In counterpoint, parallel voices are prohibited because they violate the heterogeneity of musical texture when independent voices occasionally disappear turning into a new timbre quality and vice versa. ## Development Some examples of related compositional techniques include: the round (familiar in folk traditions), the canon, and perhaps the most complex contrapuntal convention: the fugue. All of these are examples of imitative counterpoint. ## Examples from the repertoire {#examples_from_the_repertoire} There are many examples of song melodies that are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. For example, \"Frère Jacques\" and \"Three Blind Mice\" combine euphoniously when sung together. A number of popular songs that share the same chord progression can also be sung together as counterpoint. A well-known pair of examples is \"My Way\" combined with \"Life on Mars\". Johann Sebastian Bach is revered as one of the greatest masters of counterpoint. For example, the harmony implied in the opening subject of the Fugue in G-sharp minor from Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier is heard anew in a subtle way when a second voice is added. \"The counterpoint in bars 5-8\... sheds an unexpected light on the tonality of the Subject.\": Bach\'s 3-part Invention in F minor combines three independent melodies: According to pianist András Schiff, Bach\'s counterpoint influenced the composing of both Mozart and Beethoven. In the development section of the opening movement of Beethoven\'s Piano Sonata in E minor, Beethoven demonstrates this influence by adding \"a wonderful counterpoint\" to one of the main themes. A further example of fluid counterpoint in late Beethoven may be found in the first orchestral variation on the \"Ode to Joy\" theme in the last movement of Beethoven\'s Symphony No. 9, bars 116--123. The famous theme is heard on the violas and cellos, while \"the basses add a bass-line whose sheer unpredictability gives the impression that it is being spontaneously improvised. Meantime a solo bassoon adds a counterpoint that has a similarly impromptu quality.\" In the Prelude to Richard Wagner\'s opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, three themes from the opera are combined simultaneously. According to Gordon Jacob, \"This is universally and justly acclaimed as an extraordinary feat of virtuosity.\" However, Donald Tovey points out that here \"the combination of themes \... unlike classical counterpoint, really do not of themselves combine into complete or euphonious harmony.\" One spectacular example of 5-voice counterpoint can be found in the finale to Mozart\'s Symphony No 41 (\"Jupiter\" Symphony). Here five tunes combine simultaneously in \"a rich tapestry of dialogue\": See also Invertible counterpoint. ## Species counterpoint {#species_counterpoint} Species counterpoint was developed as a pedagogical tool in which students progress through several \"species\" of increasing complexity, with a very simple part that remains constant known as the cantus firmus (Latin for \"fixed melody\"). Species counterpoint generally offers less freedom to the composer than other types of counterpoint and therefore is called a \"strict\" counterpoint. The student gradually attains the ability to write free counterpoint (that is, less rigorously constrained counterpoint, usually without a cantus firmus) according to the given rules at the time. The idea is at least as old as 1532, when Giovanni Maria Lanfranco described a similar concept in his Scintille di musica (Brescia, 1533). The 16th-century Venetian theorist Zarlino elaborated on the idea in his influential Le institutioni harmoniche, and it was first presented in a codified form in 1619 by Lodovico Zacconi in his Prattica di musica. Zacconi, unlike later theorists, included a few extra contrapuntal techniques, such as invertible counterpoint. In 1725 Johann Joseph Fux published Gradus ad Parnassum (Steps to Parnassus), in which he described five species: 1. Note against note; 2. Two notes against one; 3. Four notes against one; 4. Notes offset against each other (as suspensions); 5. All the first four species together, as \"florid\" counterpoint. A succession of later theorists quite closely imitated Fux\'s seminal work, often with some small and idiosyncratic modifications in the rules. Many of Fux\'s rules concerning the purely linear construction of melodies have their origin in solfeggio. Concerning the common practice era, alterations to the melodic rules were introduced to enable the function of certain harmonic forms. The combination of these melodies produced the basic harmonic structure, the figured bass. ### Considerations for all species {#considerations_for_all_species} The following rules apply to melodic writing in each species, for each part: 1. The final note must be approached by step. If the final is approached from below, then the leading tone must be raised in a minor key (Dorian, Hypodorian, Aeolian, Hypoaeolian), but not in Phrygian or Hypophrygian mode. Thus, in the Dorian mode on D, a C`{{music\|sharp}}`{=mediawiki} is necessary at the cadence. 2. Permitted melodic intervals are the perfect unison, fourth, fifth, and octave, as well as the major and minor second, major and minor third, and ascending minor sixth. The ascending minor sixth must be immediately followed by motion downwards. 3. If writing two skips in the same direction---something that must be only rarely done---the second must be smaller than the first, and the interval between the first and the third note may not be dissonant. The three notes should be from the same triad; if this is impossible, they should not outline more than one octave. In general, do not write more than two skips in the same direction. 4. If writing a skip in one direction, it is best to proceed after the skip with step-wise motion in the other direction. 5. The interval of a tritone in three notes should be avoided (for example, an ascending melodic motion F--A--B`{{music\|natural}}`{=mediawiki}) as is the interval of a seventh in three notes. 6. There must be a climax or high point in the line countering the cantus firmus. This usually occurs somewhere in the middle of exercise and must occur on a strong beat. 7. An outlining of a seventh is avoided within a single line moving in the same direction. And, in all species, the following rules govern the combination of the parts: 1. The counterpoint must begin and end on a perfect consonance. 2. Contrary motion should dominate. 3. Perfect consonances must be approached by oblique or contrary motion. 4. Imperfect consonances may be approached by any type of motion. 5. The interval of a tenth should not be exceeded between two adjacent parts unless by necessity. 6. Build from the bass, upward. ### First species {#first_species} In first species counterpoint, each note in every added part (parts being also referred to as lines or voices) sounds against one note in the cantus firmus. Notes in all parts are sounded simultaneously, and move against each other simultaneously. Since all notes in First species counterpoint are whole notes, rhythmic independence is not available. In the present context, a \"step\" is a melodic interval of a half or whole step. A \"skip\" is an interval of a third or fourth. (See Steps and skips.) An interval of a fifth or larger is referred to as a \"leap\". A few further rules given by Fux, by study of the Palestrina style, and usually given in the works of later counterpoint pedagogues, are as follows. `{{Image frame\|width=392\|content=<score sound="1"> \relative c'' { << \new Staff { \clef "treble" d1 a b d cis d } \new Staff { \clef "treble" d,1 f g f e d } >> } </score>\|caption=Short example of "first species" counterpoint}}`{=mediawiki} 1. Begin and end on either the unison, octave, or fifth, unless the added part is underneath, in which case begin and end only on unison or octave. 2. Use no unisons except at the beginning or end. 3. Avoid parallel fifths or octaves between any two parts; and avoid \"hidden\" parallel fifths or octaves: that is, movement by similar motion to a perfect fifth or octave, unless one part (sometimes restricted to the higher of the parts) moves by step. 4. Avoid moving in parallel fourths. (In practice Palestrina and others frequently allowed themselves such progressions, especially if they do not involve the lowest of the parts.) 5. Do not use an interval more than three times in a row. 6. Attempt to use up to three parallel thirds or sixths in a row. 7. Attempt to keep any two adjacent parts within a tenth of each other, unless an exceptionally pleasing line can be written by moving outside that range. 8. Avoid having any two parts move in the same direction by skip. 9. Attempt to have as much contrary motion as possible. 10. Avoid dissonant intervals between any two parts: major or minor second, major or minor seventh, any augmented or diminished interval, and perfect fourth (in many contexts). In the adjacent example in two parts, the cantus firmus is the lower part. (The same cantus firmus is used for later examples also. Each is in the Dorian mode.) ### Second species {#second_species} In second species counterpoint, two notes in each of the added parts work against each longer note in the given part. `{{Image frame\|content=<score sound="1"> { # (set-global-staff-size 15) \relative c' { << \new Staff { r2 a' d c b e d a b cis d1 \bar "\|." } \new Staff { d,1 f g f e d} >> } } </score> <br />Short example of "second species" counterpoint }}`{=mediawiki} Additional considerations in second species counterpoint are as follows, and are in addition to the considerations for first species: 1. It is permissible to begin on an upbeat, leaving a half-rest in the added voice. 2. The accented beat may be consonant (perfect or imperfect), the unaccented beat may then have dissonance, in the form of three kinds of melodic embellishment: Passing Note (scalic movement between two consonances), Neighbour Note (a step away from a consonance and back to the same consonance) or an Escape Tone (a step in one direction to a dissonance followed by a leap in the opposite direction to a consonance). The accented beat may have dissonance as well, but the unaccented beat that follows it must be consonant. This is known as Accented Dissonance, and takes the form of either a Neighbour note or a Passing note, which must resolve down to a consonance on the offbeat. 1. Avoid the interval of the unison except at the beginning or end of the example, except that it may occur on the unaccented portion of the bar. 2. Use caution with successive accented perfect fifths or octaves. They must not be used as part of a sequential pattern. The example shown is weak due to similar motion in the second measure in both voices. A good rule to follow: if one voice skips or jumps try to use step-wise motion in the other voice or at the very least contrary motion. ### Third species {#third_species} In third species counterpoint, four (or three, etc.) notes move against each longer note in the given part. Three special figures are introduced into third species and later added to fifth species, and ultimately outside the restrictions of species writing. There are three figures to consider: The nota cambiata, double neighbor tones, and double passing tones. Double neighbor tones: the figure is prolonged over four beats and allows special dissonances. The upper and lower tones are prepared on beat 1 and resolved on beat 4. The fifth note or downbeat of the next measure should move by step in the same direction as the last two notes of the double neighbor figure. Lastly a double passing tone allows two dissonant passing tones in a row. The figure would consist of 4 notes moving in the same direction by step. The two notes that allow dissonance would be beat 2 and 3 or 3 and 4. The dissonant interval of a fourth would proceed into a diminished fifth and the next note would resolve at the interval of a sixth. ### Fourth species {#fourth_species} In fourth species counterpoint, some notes are sustained or suspended in an added part while notes move against them in the given part, often creating a dissonance on the beat, followed by the suspended note then changing (and \"catching up\") to create a subsequent consonance with the note in the given part as it continues to sound. As before, fourth species counterpoint is called expanded when the added-part notes vary in length among themselves. The technique requires chains of notes sustained across the boundaries determined by beat, and so creates syncopation. A dissonant interval is allowed on beat 1 because of the syncopation created by the suspension. While it is not incorrect to start with a half note, it is also common to start 4th species with a half rest. \\relative c\' { \\new PianoStaff \<\< \\new Staff { \\set Staff.explicitKeySignatureVisibility = #all-invisible a\'2 d\~ d c\~ c bes\~ \\key d \\minor bes a b cis d1 \\bar \"\\|.\" } \\new Staff { d, f g f e d \\bar \"\\|.\" } \>\> } Short example of \"fourth species\" counterpoint ### Fifth species (florid counterpoint) {#fifth_species_florid_counterpoint} In fifth species counterpoint, sometimes called florid counterpoint, the other four species of counterpoint are combined within the added parts. In the example, the first and second bars are second species, the third bar is third species, the fourth and fifth bars are third and embellished fourth species, and the final bar is first species. In florid counterpoint it is important that no one species dominates the composition. \\relative c\' { \\new PianoStaff \<\< \\new Staff { r2 a\' d c b4 c d e f e d2\~ d4 cis8 b cis2 d1 \\bar \"\\|.\" } \\new Staff { d, f g f e d \\bar \"\\|.\" } \>\> } Short example of \"Florid\" counterpoint ## Contrapuntal derivations {#contrapuntal_derivations} Since the Renaissance period in European music, much contrapuntal music has been written in imitative counterpoint. In imitative counterpoint, two or more voices enter at different times, and (especially when entering) each voice repeats some version of the same melodic element. The fantasia, the ricercar, and later, the canon and fugue (the contrapuntal form par excellence) all feature imitative counterpoint, which also frequently appears in choral works such as motets and madrigals. Imitative counterpoint spawned a number of devices, including: Melodic inversion: The inverse of a given fragment of melody is the fragment turned upside down---so if the original fragment has a rising major third (see interval), the inverted fragment has a falling major (or perhaps minor) third, etc. (Compare, in twelve-tone technique, the inversion of the tone row, which is the so-called prime series turned upside down.) (Note: in invertible counterpoint, including double and triple counterpoint, the term inversion is used in a different sense altogether. At least one pair of parts is switched, so that the one that was higher becomes lower. See Inversion in counterpoint; it is not a kind of imitation, but a rearrangement of the parts.)\ Retrograde: Whereby an imitative voice sounds the melody backwards in relation to the leading voice.\ Retrograde inversion: Where the imitative voice sounds the melody backwards and upside-down at once.\ Augmentation: When in one of the parts in imitative counterpoint the note values are extended in duration compared to the rate at which they were sounded when introduced.\ Diminution: When in one of the parts in imitative counterpoint the note values are reduced in duration compared to the rate at which they were sounded when introduced. ## Free counterpoint {#free_counterpoint} Broadly speaking, due to the development of harmony, from the Baroque period on, most contrapuntal compositions were written in the style of free counterpoint. This means that the general focus of the composer had shifted away from how the intervals of added melodies related to a cantus firmus, and more toward how they related to each other. Nonetheless, according to Kent Kennan: \"\....actual teaching in that fashion (free counterpoint) did not become widespread until the late nineteenth century.\" Young composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, were still educated in the style of \"strict\" counterpoint, but in practice, they would look for ways to expand on the traditional concepts of the subject. Main features of free counterpoint: 1. All forbidden chords, such as second-inversion, seventh, ninth etc., can be used freely as long as they resolve to a consonant triad 2. Chromaticism is allowed 3. The restrictions about rhythmic-placement of dissonance are removed. It is possible to use passing tones on the accented beat 4. Appoggiatura is available: dissonance tones can be approached by leaps. ## Linear counterpoint {#linear_counterpoint} Linear counterpoint is \"a purely horizontal technique in which the integrity of the individual melodic lines is not sacrificed to harmonic considerations. \"Its distinctive feature is rather the concept of melody, which served as the starting-point for the adherents of the \'new objectivity\' when they set up linear counterpoint as an anti-type to the Romantic harmony.\" The voice parts move freely, irrespective of the effects their combined motions may create.\" In other words, either \"the domination of the horizontal (linear) aspects over the vertical\" is featured or the \"harmonic control of lines is rejected.\" Associated with neoclassicism, the technique was first used in Igor Stravinsky\'s Octet (1923), inspired by J. S. Bach and Giovanni Palestrina. However, according to Knud Jeppesen: \"Bach\'s and Palestrina\'s points of departure are antipodal. Palestrina starts out from lines and arrives at chords; Bach\'s music grows out of an ideally harmonic background, against which the voices develop with a bold independence that is often breath-taking.\" According to Cunningham, linear harmony is \"a frequent approach in the 20th century\...\[in which lines\] are combined with almost careless abandon in the hopes that new \'chords\' and \'progressions\'\...will result.\" It is possible with \"any kind of line, diatonic or duodecuple\". ## Dissonant counterpoint {#dissonant_counterpoint} Dissonant counterpoint was originally theorized by Charles Seeger as \"at first purely a school-room discipline,\" consisting of species counterpoint but with all the traditional rules reversed. First species counterpoint must be all dissonances, establishing \"dissonance, rather than consonance, as the rule,\" and consonances are \"resolved\" through a skip, not step. He wrote that \"the effect of this discipline\" was \"one of purification\". Other aspects of composition, such as rhythm, could be \"dissonated\" by applying the same principle. Seeger was not the first to employ dissonant counterpoint, but was the first to theorize and promote it. Other composers who have used dissonant counterpoint, if not in the exact manner prescribed by Charles Seeger, include Johanna Beyer, John Cage, Ruth Crawford-Seeger, Vivian Fine, Carl Ruggles, Henry Cowell, Carlos Chávez, John J. Becker, Henry Brant, Lou Harrison, Wallingford Riegger, and Frank Wigglesworth.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,912	Carbonate	A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid, (`{{chem2\|H2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula `{{chem2\|CO3(2-)}}`{=mediawiki}. The word \"carbonate\" may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate group `{{chem2\|O\dC(\sO\s)2}}`{=mediawiki}. The term is also used as a verb, to describe carbonation: the process of raising the concentrations of carbonate and bicarbonate ions in water to produce carbonated water and other carbonated beverages`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}either by the addition of carbon dioxide gas under pressure or by dissolving carbonate or bicarbonate salts into the water. In geology and mineralogy, the term \"carbonate\" can refer both to carbonate minerals and carbonate rock (which is made of chiefly carbonate minerals), and both are dominated by the carbonate ion, `{{chem2\|CO3(2-)}}`{=mediawiki}. Carbonate minerals are extremely varied and ubiquitous in chemically precipitated sedimentary rock. The most common are calcite or calcium carbonate, `{{chem2\|CaCO3}}`{=mediawiki}, the chief constituent of limestone (as well as the main component of mollusc shells and coral skeletons); dolomite, a calcium-magnesium carbonate `{{chem2\|CaMg(CO3)2}}`{=mediawiki}; and siderite, or iron(II) carbonate, `{{chem2\|FeCO3}}`{=mediawiki}, an important iron ore. Sodium carbonate (\"soda\" or \"natron\"), `{{chem2\|Na2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}, and potassium carbonate (\"potash\"), `{{chem2\|K2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}, have been used since antiquity for cleaning and preservation, as well as for the manufacture of glass. Carbonates are widely used in industry, such as in iron smelting, as a raw material for Portland cement and lime manufacture, in the composition of ceramic glazes, and more. New applications of alkali metal carbonates include: thermal energy storage, catalysis and electrolyte both in fuel cell technology as well as in electrosynthesis of `{{chem2\|H2O2}}`{=mediawiki} in aqueous media. ## Structure and bonding {#structure_and_bonding} The carbonate ion is the simplest oxocarbon anion. It consists of one carbon atom surrounded by three oxygen atoms, in a trigonal planar arrangement, with D~3h~ molecular symmetry. It has a molecular mass of 60.01 g/mol and carries a total formal charge of −2. It is the conjugate base of the hydrogencarbonate (bicarbonate) ion, `{{chem2\|HCO3-}}`{=mediawiki}, which is the conjugate base of `{{chem2\|H2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}, carbonic acid. The Lewis structure of the carbonate ion has two (long) single bonds to negative oxygen atoms, and one short double bond to a neutral oxygen atom. : This structure is incompatible with the observed symmetry of the ion, which implies that the three bonds are the same length and that the three oxygen atoms are equivalent. As in the case of the isoelectronic nitrate ion, the symmetry can be achieved by a resonance among three structures: : This resonance can be summarized by a model with fractional bonds and delocalized charges: : ## Chemical properties {#chemical_properties} right\\|thumb\\|190px\\|Stalactites and stalagmites are carbonate minerals. Metal carbonates generally decompose on heating, liberating carbon dioxide leaving behind an oxide of the metal. This process is called calcination, after calx, the Latin name of quicklime or calcium oxide, CaO, which is obtained by roasting limestone in a lime kiln: : As illustrated by its affinity for `{{chem2\|Ca(2+)}}`{=mediawiki}, carbonate is a ligand for many metal cations. Transition metal carbonate and bicarbonate complexes feature metal ions covalently bonded to carbonate in a variety of bonding modes. Lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium, and ammonium carbonates are water-soluble salts, but carbonates of 2+ and 3+ ions are often poorly soluble in water. Of the insoluble metal carbonates, `{{chem2\|CaCO3}}`{=mediawiki} is important because, in the form of scale, it accumulates in and impedes flow through pipes. Hard water is rich in this material, giving rise to the need for infrastructural water softening. Acidification of carbonates generally liberates carbon dioxide: : Thus, scale can be removed with acid. In solution the equilibrium between carbonate, bicarbonate, carbon dioxide and carbonic acid is sensitive to pH, temperature, and pressure. Although di- and trivalent carbonates have low solubility, bicarbonate salts are far more soluble. This difference is related to the disparate lattice energies of solids composed of mono- vs dianions, as well as mono- vs dications. In aqueous solution, carbonate, bicarbonate, carbon dioxide, and carbonic acid participate in a dynamic equilibrium. In strongly basic conditions, the carbonate ion predominates, while in weakly basic conditions, the bicarbonate ion is prevalent. In more acid conditions, aqueous carbon dioxide, `{{chem2\|CO2(aq)}}`{=mediawiki}, is the main form, which, with water, `{{chem2\|H2O}}`{=mediawiki}, is in equilibrium with carbonic acid`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}the equilibrium lies strongly towards carbon dioxide. Thus sodium carbonate is basic, sodium bicarbonate is weakly basic, while carbon dioxide itself is a weak acid. ## Organic carbonates {#organic_carbonates} In organic chemistry a carbonate can also refer to a functional group within a larger molecule that contains a carbon atom bound to three oxygen atoms, one of which is double bonded. These compounds are also known as organocarbonates or carbonate esters, and have the general formula `{{chem2\|R\sO\sC(\dO)\sO\sR′}}`{=mediawiki}, or `{{chem2\|RR′CO3}}`{=mediawiki}. Important organocarbonates include dimethyl carbonate, the cyclic compounds ethylene carbonate and propylene carbonate, and the phosgene replacement, triphosgene. ## Buffer Three reversible reactions control the pH balance of blood and act as a buffer to stabilise it in the range 7.37--7.43: 1. 2. 3. Exhaled `{{chem2\|CO2(g)}}`{=mediawiki} depletes `{{chem2\|CO2(aq)}}`{=mediawiki}, which in turn consumes `{{chem2\|H2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}, causing the equilibrium of the first reaction to try to restore the level of carbonic acid by reacting bicarbonate with a hydrogen ion, an example of Le Châtelier\'s principle. The result is to make the blood more alkaline (raise pH). By the same principle, when the pH is too high, the kidneys excrete bicarbonate (`{{chem2\|HCO3-}}`{=mediawiki}) into urine as urea via the urea cycle (or Krebs--Henseleit ornithine cycle). By removing the bicarbonate, more `{{chem2\|H+}}`{=mediawiki} is generated from carbonic acid (`{{chem2\|H2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}), which comes from `{{chem2\|CO2(g)}}`{=mediawiki} produced by cellular respiration. Crucially, a similar buffer operates in the oceans. It is a major factor in climate change and the long-term carbon cycle, due to the large number of marine organisms (especially coral) which are made of calcium carbonate. Increased solubility of carbonate through increased temperatures results in lower production of marine calcite and increased concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This, in turn, increases Earth temperature. The amount of `{{chem2\|CO3(2-)}}`{=mediawiki} available is on a geological scale and substantial quantities may eventually be redissolved into the sea and released to the atmosphere, increasing `{{chem2\|CO2}}`{=mediawiki} levels even more. ## Carbonate salts {#carbonate_salts} - Carbonate overview: ## Presence outside Earth {#presence_outside_earth} It is generally thought that the presence of carbonates in rock is strong evidence for the presence of liquid water. Recent observations of the planetary nebula NGC 6302 show evidence for carbonates in space, where aqueous alteration similar to that on Earth is unlikely. Other minerals have been proposed which would fit the observations. Small amounts of carbonate deposits have been found on Mars via spectral imaging and Martian meteorites also contain small amounts. Groundwater may have existed at Gusev and Meridiani Planum.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,916	Circumference	`{{General geometry}}`{=mediawiki} In geometry, the circumference (`{{etymology\|la\|{{wikt-lang\|la\|circumferēns}}\|carrying around, circling}}`{=mediawiki}) is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse. The circumference is the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and straightened out to a line segment. More generally, the perimeter is the curve length around any closed figure. Circumference may also refer to the circle itself, that is, the locus corresponding to the edge of a disk. The `{{em\|{{visible anchor\|circumference of a sphere}}}}`{=mediawiki} is the circumference, or length, of any one of its great circles. ## Circle 2πR (Person of Interest)}} The circumference of a circle is the distance around it, but if, as in many elementary treatments, distance is defined in terms of straight lines, this cannot be used as a definition. Under these circumstances, the circumference of a circle may be defined as the limit of the perimeters of inscribed regular polygons as the number of sides increases without bound. The term circumference is used when measuring physical objects, as well as when considering abstract geometric forms. ### Relationship with `{{pi}}`{=mediawiki} {#relationship_with} The circumference of a circle is related to one of the most important mathematical constants. This constant, pi, is represented by the Greek letter $\pi.$ Its first few decimal digits are 3.141592653589793\... Pi is defined as the ratio of a circle\'s circumference $C$ to its diameter $d:$ $\pi = \frac{C}{d}.$ Or, equivalently, as the ratio of the circumference to twice the radius. The above formula can be rearranged to solve for the circumference: ${C} = \pi \cdot{d} = 2\pi \cdot{r}.\!$ The ratio of the circle\'s circumference to its radius is equivalent to $2\pi$. This is also the number of radians in one turn. The use of the mathematical constant `{{pi}}`{=mediawiki} is ubiquitous in mathematics, engineering, and science. In Measurement of a Circle written circa 250 BCE, Archimedes showed that this ratio (written as $C/d,$ since he did not use the name `{{pi}}`{=mediawiki}) was greater than 3`{{sfrac\|10\|71}}`{=mediawiki} but less than 3`{{sfrac\|1\|7}}`{=mediawiki} by calculating the perimeters of an inscribed and a circumscribed regular polygon of 96 sides. This method for approximating `{{pi}}`{=mediawiki} was used for centuries, obtaining more accuracy by using polygons of larger and larger number of sides. The last such calculation was performed in 1630 by Christoph Grienberger who used polygons with 10^40^ sides. ## Ellipse Main article: Ellipse#Circumference Some authors use circumference to denote the perimeter of an ellipse. There is no general formula for the circumference of an ellipse in terms of the semi-major and semi-minor axes of the ellipse that uses only elementary functions. However, there are approximate formulas in terms of these parameters. One such approximation, due to Euler (1773), for the canonical ellipse, $\frac{x^2}{a^2} + \frac{y^2}{b^2} = 1,$ is $C_{\rm{ellipse}} \sim \pi \sqrt{2\left(a^2 + b^2\right)}.$ Some lower and upper bounds on the circumference of the canonical ellipse with $a\geq b$ are: $2\pi b \leq C \leq 2\pi a,$ $\pi (a+b) \leq C \leq 4(a+b),$ $4\sqrt{a^2+b^2} \leq C \leq \pi \sqrt{2\left(a^2+b^2\right)}.$ Here the upper bound $2\pi a$ is the circumference of a circumscribed concentric circle passing through the endpoints of the ellipse\'s major axis, and the lower bound $4\sqrt{a^2+b^2}$ is the perimeter of an inscribed rhombus with vertices at the endpoints of the major and minor axes. The circumference of an ellipse can be expressed exactly in terms of the complete elliptic integral of the second kind. More precisely, $C_{\rm{ellipse}} = 4a \int_0^{\pi/2} \sqrt{1 - e^2 \sin^2\theta}\ d\theta,$ where $a$ is the length of the semi-major axis and $e$ is the eccentricity $\sqrt{1 - b^2/a^2}.$	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,930	Coffea	*Coffea* is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. Coffea species are shrubs or small trees native to tropical and southern Africa and tropical Asia. The seeds of some species, called coffee beans, are used to flavor various beverages and products. The fruits, like the seeds, contain a large amount of caffeine, and have a distinct sweet taste. The plant ranks as one of the world\'s most valuable and widely traded commodity crops and is an important export product of several countries, including those in Central and South America, the Caribbean and Africa. The coffee trade relies heavily on two of the over 120 species, Coffea arabica (commonly known simply as \"Arabica\"), which accounts for 60--80% of the world\'s coffee production, and Coffea canephora (known as \"Robusta\"), which accounts for about 20--40%. Both coffee species are vulnerable to shifts, caused by climate change, in their growing zones, which are likely to result in a decline in production in some of the most important growing regions. ## Cultivation and use {#cultivation_and_use} There are over 130 species of Coffea, which is grown from seed. The two most popular are Coffea arabica (commonly known simply as \"Arabica\"), which accounts for 60--80% of the world\'s coffee production, and Coffea canephora (known as \"Robusta\"), which accounts for about 20--40%. C. arabica is preferred for its sweeter taste, while C. canephora has a higher caffeine content. C. arabica has its origins in the highlands of Ethiopia and the Boma Plateau of Sudan, and came about as the result of a hybrid between C. canephora and C. eugenioides. The trees produce edible red or purple fruits that are either epigynous berries or indehiscent drupes. The fruit is often referred to as a \"coffee cherry\", and it contains two seeds, called \"coffee beans\". Despite these terms, coffee is neither a true cherry (the fruit of certain species in the genus Prunus) nor a true bean (seeds from plants in the family Fabaceae). In any coffee crop, about 5--10% of fruits contain only a single bean. Called a peaberry, it is smaller and rounder than a normal coffee bean. When grown in the tropics, coffee is a vigorous bush or small tree that usually grows to a height of 3 -. Most commonly cultivated coffee species grow best at high elevations, but do not tolerate freezing temperatures. The Coffea arabica tree grows fruit after three to five years, producing for an average of 50 to 60 years, though up to 100 years is possible. The white flowers are highly scented. The fruit takes about nine months to ripen. ## Ecology The caffeine in coffee beans serves as a toxic substance that protects against insects and other pests, a form of natural plant defense against herbivory. Caffeine simultaneously attracts pollinators, specifically honeybees, by creating an olfactory memory that signals bees to return to the plant\'s flowers. Not all Coffea species contain caffeine, and the earliest species had little or no caffeine content. Caffeine has evolved independently in multiple lineages of Coffea in Africa, perhaps in response to high pest predation in the humid environments of West-Central Africa. Caffeine has also evolved independently in the more distantly related genera Theobroma (cacao) and Camellia (tea). This suggests that caffeine production is an adaptive trait in coffee and plant evolution. The fruit and leaves also contain caffeine, and can be used to make coffee cherry tea and coffee-leaf tea. The fruit is also used in many brands of soft drink as well as pre-packaged teas. Several insect pests affect coffee production, including the coffee borer beetle (Hypothenemus hampei) and the coffee leafminer (Leucoptera caffeina). Coffee is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species, Dalcera abrasa, turnip moth and some members of the genus Endoclita, including E. damor and E. malabaricus. ## Research New species of Coffea are still being identified in the 2000s. In 2008 and 2009, researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, named seven from the mountains of northern Madagascar, including C. ambongensis, C. boinensis, C. labatii, C. pterocarpa, C. bissetiae, and C. namorokensis. In 2008, two new species were discovered in Cameroon: Coffea charrieriana, which is caffeine-free, and Coffea anthonyi. By crossing the new species with other known coffees, two new features might be introduced to cultivated coffee plants: beans without caffeine and self-pollination. In 2011, Coffea absorbed the twenty species of the former genus Psilanthus due to the morphological and genetic similarities between the two genera. Historically, the two have been considered distinct genera due to differences in the length of the corolla tube and the anther arrangement: Coffea with a short corolla tube and exserted style and anthers; Psilanthus with a long corolla tube and included anthers. However, these characteristics were not present in all species of either respective genus, making the two genera overwhelmingly similar in both morphology and genetic sequence. This transfer expanded Coffea from 104 species to 124, and extended its native distribution to tropical Asia and Australasia. The coffee genome was published in 2014, with more than 25,000 genes identified. This revealed that coffee plants make caffeine using a different set of genes from those found in tea, cacao and other such plants. A robust and almost fully resolved phylogeny of the entire genus was published in 2017. In addition to resolving the relationships of Coffea species, this study\'s results suggest Africa or Asia as the likely ancestral origin of Coffea and point to several independent radiations across Africa, Asia, and the Western Indian Ocean Islands. In 2020, a technique of DNA fingerprinting, or genetic authentication of plant material, was proven effective for coffee. For the study, scientists used DNA extraction and SSR marker analysis. This technique or similar ones may allow for several improvements to coffee production such as improved information for farmers as to the susceptibility of their coffee plants to pests and disease, a professionalized coffee seed system, and transparency and traceability for buyers of green, un-roasted coffee. ## Species As of May 2024, Plants of the World Online includes: `{{div col\|colwidth=20em}}`{=mediawiki} 1. Coffea abbayesii J.-F. Leroy 2. Coffea affinis De Wild. 3. Coffea alleizettii Dubard 4. Coffea ambanjensis J.-F. Leroy 5. Coffea ambongenis J.-F. Leroy ex A. P. Davis 6. Coffea andrambovatensis J.-F. Leroy 7. Coffea ankaranensis J.-F. Leroy ex A. P. Davis 8. Coffea anthonyi Stoff. & F. Anthony 9. Coffea arabica L. 10. Coffea arenesiana J.-F. Leroy 11. Coffea augagneurii Dubard 12. Coffea bakossii Cheek & Bridson 13. Coffea benghalensis B. Heyne ex Schult. 14. Coffea bertrandii A. Chev. 15. Coffea betamponensis Portères & J.-F. Leroy 16. Coffea bissetiae A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 17. Coffea boinensis A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 18. Coffea boiviniana A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 19. Coffea bonnieri Dubard 20. Coffea brassii (J.-F. Leroy) A. P. Davis 21. Coffea brevipes Hiern 22. Coffea bridsoniae A. P. Davis & Mvungi 23. Coffea buxifolia A. Chev. 24. Coffea callmanderi `{{Au\|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 25. Coffea canephora (\"Coffea robusta\") Pierre ex A. Froehner 26. Coffea carrissoi A. Chev. 27. Coffea charrieriana Stoff. & F. Anthony 28. Coffea cochinchinensis Pierre ex Pit. 29. Coffea commersoniana (Baill.) A. Chev. 30. Coffea congensis A. Froehner 31. Coffea costatifructa Bridson 32. Coffea coursiana J.-F. Leroy 33. Coffea dactylifera Robbr. & Stoff. 34. Coffea darainensis `{{Au\|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 35. Coffea decaryana J.-F. Leroy 36. Coffea dubardii Jum. 37. Coffea ebracteolata (Hiern) Brenan 38. Coffea eugenioides S. Moore 39. Coffea fadenii Bridson 40. Coffea farafanganensis J.-F. Leroy 41. Coffea floresiana Boerl. 42. Coffea fotsoana Stoff. & Sonké 43. Coffea fragilis J.-F. Leroy 44. Coffea fragrans Wall. ex Hook. f. 45. Coffea gallienii Dubard 46. Coffea grevei Drake ex A. Chev. 47. Coffea heimii J.-F. Leroy 48. Coffea × heterocalyx `{{Au\|Stoff.}}`{=mediawiki} 49. Coffea homollei J.-F. Leroy 50. Coffea horsfieldiana Miq. 51. Coffea humbertii J.-F. Leroy 52. Coffea humblotiana Baill. 53. Coffea humilis A. Chev. 54. Coffea jumellei J.-F. Leroy 55. Coffea kalobinonensis `{{Au\|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 56. Coffea kapakata (A. Chev.) Bridson 57. Coffea kianjavatensis J.-F. Leroy 58. Coffea kihansiensis A. P. Davis & Mvungi 59. Coffea kimbozensis Bridson 60. Coffea kivuensis Lebrun 61. Coffea labatii A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 62. Coffea lancifolia A. Chev. 63. Coffea lebruniana Germ. & Kester 64. Coffea leonimontana Stoff. 65. Coffea leroyi A. P. Davis 66. Coffea liaudii J.-F. Leroy ex A. P. Davis 67. Coffea liberica Hiern 68. Coffea ligustroides S. Moore 69. Coffea littoralis A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 70. Coffea lulandoensis Bridson 71. Coffea mabesae (Elmer) J.-F. Leroy 72. Coffea macrocarpa A. Rich. 73. Coffea madurensis Teijsm. & Binn. ex Koord. 74. Coffea magnistipula Stoff. & Robbr. 75. Coffea malabarica (Sivar., Biju & P. Mathew) A.P.Davis 76. Coffea mangoroensis Portères 77. Coffea mannii (Hook. f.) A. P. Davis 78. Coffea manombensis A. P. Davis 79. Coffea mapiana Sonké, Nguembou & A P. Davis 80. Coffea mauritiana Lam. 81. Coffea mayombensis A. Chev. 82. Coffea mcphersonii A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 83. Coffea melanocarpa Welw. ex Hiern 84. Coffea merguensis Ridl. 85. Coffea microdubardii `{{Au\|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 86. Coffea millotii J.-F. Leroy 87. Coffea minutiflora A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 88. Coffea mogenetii Dubard 89. Coffea mongensis Bridson 90. Coffea montekupensis Stoff. 91. Coffea montis-sacri A. P. Davis 92. Coffea moratii J.-F. Leroy ex A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 93. Coffea mufindiensis Hutch. ex Bridson 94. Coffea myrtifolia (A.Rich. ex DC.) J.-F. Leroy 95. Coffea namorokensis A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 96. Coffea neobridsoniae A. P. Davis 97. Coffea neoleroyi A. P. Davis 98. Coffea perrieri Drake ex Jum. & H. Perrier 99. Coffea pervilleana (Baill.) Drake 100. Coffea pocsii Bridson 101. Coffea pseudozanguebariae Bridson 102. Coffea pterocarpa A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 103. Coffea pustulata `{{Au\|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 104. Coffea racemosa Lour. 105. Coffea rakotonasoloi A. P. Davis 106. Coffea ratsimamangae J.-F. Leroy ex A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 107. Coffea resinosa (Hook. f.) Radlk. 108. Coffea rhamnifolia (Chiov.) Bridson 109. Coffea richardii J.-F. Leroy 110. Coffea rizetiana `{{Au\|Stoff. & Noirot}}`{=mediawiki} 111. Coffea rupicola `{{Au\|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 112. Coffea sahafaryensis J.-F. Leroy 113. Coffea sakarahae J.-F. Leroy 114. Coffea salvatrix Swynn. & Philipson 115. Coffea sambavensis J.-F. Leroy ex A. P Davis & Rakotonas. 116. Coffea sapinii (De Wild.) A. P. Davis 117. Coffea schliebenii Bridson 118. Coffea semsei (Bridson) A. P. Davis 119. Coffea sessiliflora Bridson 120. Coffea stenophylla G. Don 121. Coffea tetragona Jum. & H. Perrier 122. Coffea togoensis A. Chev. 123. Coffea toshii A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 124. Coffea travancorensis Wight & Arn. 125. Coffea tricalysioides J.-F. Leroy 126. Coffea tsirananae J.-F. Leroy 127. Coffea vatovavyensis J.-F. Leroy 128. Coffea vavateninensis J.-F. Leroy 129. Coffea vianneyi J.-F. Leroy 130. Coffea vohemarensis A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 131. Coffea wightiana Wall. ex Wight & Arn. 132. Coffea zanguebariae Lour.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,932	Carbohydrate	thumb\\|class=skin-invert\\|upright=1.25\\|Lactose is a disaccharide found in animal milk. It consists of a molecule of D-galactose and a molecule of D-glucose bonded by beta-1-4 glycosidic linkage. A carbohydrate (`{{IPAc-en\|ˌ\|k\|ɑːr\|b\|oʊ\|ˈ\|h\|aɪ\|d\|r\|eɪ\|t}}`{=mediawiki}) is a biomolecule composed of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O) atoms. The typical hydrogen-to-oxygen atomic ratio is 2:1, analogous to that of water, and is represented by the empirical formula `{{chem2\|C_{''m''}(H2O)_{''n''} }}`{=mediawiki} (where m and n may differ). This formula does not imply direct covalent bonding between hydrogen and oxygen atoms; for example, in `{{chem2\|CH2O}}`{=mediawiki}, hydrogen is covalently bonded to carbon, not oxygen. While the 2:1 hydrogen-to-oxygen ratio is characteristic of many carbohydrates, exceptions exist. For instance, uronic acids and deoxy-sugars like fucose deviate from this precise stoichiometric definition. Conversely, some compounds conforming to this definition, such as formaldehyde and acetic acid, are not classified as carbohydrates. The term is predominantly used in biochemistry, functioning as a synonym for saccharide (`{{ety\|grc\|''σάκχαρον'' ({{grc-transl\|σάκχαρον}})\|sugar}}`{=mediawiki}), a group that includes sugars, starch, and cellulose. The saccharides are divided into four chemical groups: monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides. Monosaccharides and disaccharides, the smallest (lower molecular weight) carbohydrates, are commonly referred to as sugars. While the scientific nomenclature of carbohydrates is complex, the names of the monosaccharides and disaccharides very often end in the suffix -ose, which was originally taken from the word glucose (`{{ety\|grc\|''{{wikt-lang\|grc\|γλεῦκος}}'' ({{grc-transl\|γλεῦκος}})\|wine, [[must]]}}`{=mediawiki}), and is used for almost all sugars (e.g., fructose (fruit sugar), sucrose (cane or beet sugar), ribose, lactose (milk sugar)). Carbohydrates perform numerous roles in living organisms. Polysaccharides serve as an energy store (e.g., starch and glycogen) and as structural components (e.g., cellulose in plants and chitin in arthropods and fungi). The 5-carbon monosaccharide ribose is an important component of coenzymes (e.g., ATP, FAD and NAD) and the backbone of the genetic molecule known as RNA. The related deoxyribose is a component of DNA. Saccharides and their derivatives include many other important biomolecules that play key roles in the immune system, fertilization, preventing pathogenesis, blood clotting, and development. Carbohydrates are central to nutrition and are found in a wide variety of natural and processed foods. Starch is a polysaccharide and is abundant in cereals (wheat, maize, rice), potatoes, and processed food based on cereal flour, such as bread, pizza or pasta. Sugars appear in human diet mainly as table sugar (sucrose, extracted from sugarcane or sugar beets), lactose (abundant in milk), glucose and fructose, both of which occur naturally in honey, many fruits, and some vegetables. Table sugar, milk, or honey is often added to drinks and many prepared foods such as jam, biscuits and cakes. Cellulose, a polysaccharide found in the cell walls of all plants, is one of the main components of insoluble dietary fiber. Although it is not digestible by humans, cellulose and insoluble dietary fiber generally help maintain a healthy digestive system by facilitating bowel movements. Other polysaccharides contained in dietary fiber include resistant starch and inulin, which feed some bacteria in the microbiota of the large intestine, and are metabolized by these bacteria to yield short-chain fatty acids. ## Terminology In scientific literature, the term \"carbohydrate\" has many synonyms, like \"sugar\" (in the broad sense), \"saccharide\", \"ose\", \"glucide\", \"hydrate of carbon\" or \"polyhydroxy compounds with aldehyde or ketone\". Some of these terms, especially \"carbohydrate\" and \"sugar\", are also used with other meanings. In food science and in many informal contexts, the term \"carbohydrate\" often means any food that is particularly rich in the complex carbohydrate starch (such as cereals, bread and pasta) or simple carbohydrates, such as sugar (found in candy, jams, and desserts). This informality is sometimes confusing since it confounds chemical structure and digestibility in humans. The term \"carbohydrate\" (or \"carbohydrate by difference\") refers also to dietary fiber, which is a carbohydrate, but, unlike sugars and starches, fibers are not hydrolyzed by human digestive enzymes. Fiber generally contributes little food energy in humans, but is often included in the calculation of total food energy. The fermentation of soluble fibers by gut microflora can yield short-chain fatty acids, and soluble fiber is estimated to provide about 2 kcal/g. ## History The history of the discovery regarding carbohydrates dates back around 10,000 years ago in Papua New Guinea during the cultivation of sugarcane during the Neolithic agricultural revolution. The term \"carbohydrate\" was first proposed by German chemist Carl Schmidt (chemist) in 1844. In 1856, glycogen, a form of carbohydrate storage in animal livers, was discovered by French physiologist Claude Bernard. ## Structure Formerly the name \"carbohydrate\" was used in chemistry for any compound with the formula C~m~ (H~2~O)~n~. Following this definition, some chemists considered formaldehyde (CH~2~O) to be the simplest carbohydrate, while others claimed that title for glycolaldehyde. Today, the term is generally understood in the biochemistry sense, which excludes compounds with only one or two carbons and includes many biological carbohydrates which deviate from this formula. For example, while the above representative formulas would seem to capture the commonly known carbohydrates, ubiquitous and abundant carbohydrates often deviate from this. For example, carbohydrates often display chemical groups such as: N-acetyl (e.g., chitin), sulfate (e.g., glycosaminoglycans), carboxylic acid and deoxy modifications (e.g., fucose and sialic acid). Natural saccharides are generally built of simple carbohydrates called monosaccharides with general formula (CH~2~O)~n~ where n is three or more. A typical monosaccharide has the structure H--(CHOH)~x~(C=O)--(CHOH)~y~--H, that is, an aldehyde or ketone with many hydroxyl groups added, usually one on each carbon atom that is not part of the aldehyde or ketone functional group. Examples of monosaccharides are glucose, fructose, and glyceraldehydes. However, some biological substances commonly called \"monosaccharides\" do not conform to this formula (e.g., uronic acids and deoxy-sugars such as fucose) and there are many chemicals that do conform to this formula but are not considered to be monosaccharides (e.g., formaldehyde CH~2~O and inositol (CH~2~O)~6~). The open-chain form of a monosaccharide often coexists with a closed ring form where the aldehyde/ketone carbonyl group carbon (C=O) and hydroxyl group (--OH) react forming a hemiacetal with a new C--O--C bridge. Monosaccharides can be linked together into what are called polysaccharides (or oligosaccharides) in a large variety of ways. Many carbohydrates contain one or more modified monosaccharide units that have had one or more groups replaced or removed. For example, deoxyribose, a component of DNA, is a modified version of ribose; chitin is composed of repeating units of N-acetyl glucosamine, a nitrogen-containing form of glucose. ## Division Carbohydrates are polyhydroxy aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, acids, their simple derivatives and their polymers having linkages of the acetal type. They may be classified according to their degree of polymerization, and may be divided initially into three principal groups, namely sugars, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides. +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Class\ \| Subgroup \| Components \| \| (degree of polymerization) \| \| \| +============================+============================+============================================================+ \| Sugars (1--2) \| Monosaccharides \| Glucose, galactose, fructose, xylose \| +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ \| \| Disaccharides \| Sucrose, lactose, maltose, isomaltulose, trehalose \| +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ \| \| Polyols \| Sorbitol, mannitol \| +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Oligosaccharides (3--9) \| Malto-oligosaccharides \| Maltodextrins \| +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ \| \| Other oligosaccharides \| Raffinose, stachyose, fructo-oligosaccharides \| +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Polysaccharides (\>9) \| Starch \| Amylose, amylopectin, modified starches \| +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ \| \| Non-starch polysaccharides \| Glycogen, Cellulose, Hemicellulose, Pectins, Hydrocolloids \| +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ : The major dietary carbohydrates ## Monosaccharides upright=0.5\\|thumb\\|class=skin-invert\\|D-glucose is an aldohexose with the formula (C·H~2~O)~6~. The red atoms highlight the aldehyde group and the blue atoms highlight the asymmetric center furthest from the aldehyde; because this -OH is on the right of the Fischer projection, this is a D sugar. Monosaccharides are the simplest carbohydrates in that they cannot be hydrolyzed to smaller carbohydrates. They are aldehydes or ketones with two or more hydroxyl groups. The general chemical formula of an unmodified monosaccharide is (C•H~2~O)~n~, literally a \"carbon hydrate\". Monosaccharides are important fuel molecules as well as building blocks for nucleic acids. The smallest monosaccharides, for which n=3, are dihydroxyacetone and D- and L-glyceraldehydes. ### Classification of monosaccharides {#classification_of_monosaccharides} The α and β anomers of glucose. Note the position of the hydroxyl group (red or green) on the anomeric carbon relative to the CH~2~OH group bound to carbon 5: they either have identical absolute configurations (R,R or S,S) (α), or opposite absolute configurations (R,S or S,R) (β). Monosaccharides are classified according to three different characteristics: the placement of its carbonyl group, the number of carbon atoms it contains, and its chiral handedness. If the carbonyl group is an aldehyde, the monosaccharide is an aldose; if the carbonyl group is a ketone, the monosaccharide is a ketose. Monosaccharides with three carbon atoms are called trioses, those with four are called tetroses, five are called pentoses, six are hexoses, and so on. These two systems of classification are often combined. For example, glucose is an aldohexose (a six-carbon aldehyde), ribose is an aldopentose (a five-carbon aldehyde), and fructose is a ketohexose (a six-carbon ketone). Each carbon atom bearing a hydroxyl group (-OH), with the exception of the first and last carbons, are asymmetric, making them stereo centers with two possible configurations each (R or S). Because of this asymmetry, a number of isomers may exist for any given monosaccharide formula. Using Le Bel-van\'t Hoff rule, the aldohexose D-glucose, for example, has the formula (C·H~2~O)~6~, of which four of its six carbons atoms are stereogenic, making D-glucose one of 2^4^=16 possible stereoisomers. In the case of glyceraldehydes, an aldotriose, there is one pair of possible stereoisomers, which are enantiomers and epimers. 1, 3-dihydroxyacetone, the ketose corresponding to the aldose glyceraldehydes, is a symmetric molecule with no stereo centers. The assignment of D or L is made according to the orientation of the asymmetric carbon furthest from the carbonyl group: in a standard Fischer projection if the hydroxyl group is on the right the molecule is a D sugar, otherwise it is an L sugar. The \"D-\" and \"L-\" prefixes should not be confused with \"d-\" or \"l-\", which indicate the direction that the sugar rotates plane polarized light. This usage of \"d-\" and \"l-\" is no longer followed in carbohydrate chemistry. ### Ring-straight chain isomerism {#ring_straight_chain_isomerism} The aldehyde or ketone group of a straight-chain monosaccharide will react reversibly with a hydroxyl group on a different carbon atom to form a hemiacetal or hemiketal, forming a heterocyclic ring with an oxygen bridge between two carbon atoms. Rings with five and six atoms are called furanose and pyranose forms, respectively, and exist in equilibrium with the straight-chain form. During the conversion from straight-chain form to the cyclic form, the carbon atom containing the carbonyl oxygen, called the anomeric carbon, becomes a stereogenic center with two possible configurations: The oxygen atom may take a position either above or below the plane of the ring. The resulting possible pair of stereoisomers is called anomers. In the α anomer, the -OH substituent on the anomeric carbon rests on the opposite side (trans) of the ring from the CH~2~OH side branch. The alternative form, in which the CH~2~OH substituent and the anomeric hydroxyl are on the same side (cis) of the plane of the ring, is called the β anomer. ### Use in living organisms {#use_in_living_organisms} Monosaccharides are the major fuel source for metabolism, and glucose is an energy-rich molecule utilized to generate ATP in almost all living organisms. Glucose is a high-energy substrate produced in plants through photosynthesis by combining energy-poor water and carbon dioxide in an endothermic reaction fueled by solar energy. When monosaccharides are not immediately needed, they are often converted to more space-efficient (i.e., less water-soluble) forms, often polysaccharides. In animals, glucose circulating the blood is a major metabolic substrate and is oxidized in the mitochondria to produce ATP for performing useful cellular work. In humans and other animals, serum glucose levels must be regulated carefully to maintain glucose within acceptable limits and prevent the deleterious effects of hypo- or hyperglycemia. Hormones such as insulin and glucagon serve to keep glucose levels in balance: insulin stimulates glucose uptake into the muscle and fat cells when glucose levels are high, whereas glucagon helps to raise glucose levels if they dip too low by stimulating hepatic glucose synthesis. In many animals, including humans, this storage form is glycogen, especially in liver and muscle cells. In plants, starch is used for the same purpose. The most abundant carbohydrate, cellulose, is a structural component of the cell wall of plants and many forms of algae. Ribose is a component of RNA. Deoxyribose is a component of DNA. Lyxose is a component of lyxoflavin found in the human heart. Ribulose and xylulose occur in the pentose phosphate pathway. Galactose, a component of milk sugar lactose, is found in galactolipids in plant cell membranes and in glycoproteins in many tissues. Mannose occurs in human metabolism, especially in the glycosylation of certain proteins. Fructose, or fruit sugar, is found in many plants and humans, it is metabolized in the liver, absorbed directly into the intestines during digestion, and found in semen. Trehalose, a major sugar of insects, is rapidly hydrolyzed into two glucose molecules to support continuous flight. ## Disaccharides Main article: Disaccharide Two joined monosaccharides are called a disaccharide, the simplest kind of polysaccharide. Examples include sucrose and lactose. They are composed of two monosaccharide units bound together by a covalent bond known as a glycosidic linkage formed via a dehydration reaction, resulting in the loss of a hydrogen atom from one monosaccharide and a hydroxyl group from the other. The formula of unmodified disaccharides is C~12~H~22~O~11~. Although there are numerous kinds of disaccharides, a handful of disaccharides are particularly notable. Sucrose, pictured to the right, is the most abundant disaccharide, and the main form in which carbohydrates are transported in plants. It is composed of one D-glucose molecule and one D-fructose molecule. The systematic name for sucrose, O-α-D-glucopyranosyl-(1→2)-D-fructofuranoside, indicates four things: - Its monosaccharides: glucose and fructose - Their ring types: glucose is a pyranose and fructose is a furanose - How they are linked together: the oxygen on carbon number 1 (C1) of α-D-glucose is linked to the C2 of D-fructose. - The -oside suffix indicates that the anomeric carbon of both monosaccharides participates in the glycosidic bond. Lactose, a disaccharide composed of one D-galactose molecule and one D-glucose molecule, occurs naturally in mammalian milk. The systematic name for lactose is O-β-D-galactopyranosyl-(1→4)-D-glucopyranose. Other notable disaccharides include maltose (two D-glucoses linked α-1,4) and cellobiose (two D-glucoses linked β-1,4). Disaccharides can be classified into two types: reducing and non-reducing disaccharides. If the functional group is present in bonding with another sugar unit, it is called a reducing disaccharide or biose. ## Oligosaccharides and polysaccharides {#oligosaccharides_and_polysaccharides} ### Oligosaccharides Oligosaccharides are saccharide polymers composed of three to ten units of monosaccharides, connected via glycosidic linkages, similar to disaccharides. They are usually linked to lipids or amino acids glycosic linkage with oxygen or nitrogen to form glycolipids and glycoproteins, though some, like the raffinose series and the fructooligosaccharides, do not. They have roles in cell recognition and cell adhesion. ### Polysaccharides ## Nutrition Carbohydrate consumed in food yields 3.87 kilocalories of energy per gram for simple sugars, and 3.57 to 4.12 kilocalories per gram for complex carbohydrate in most other foods. Relatively high levels of carbohydrate are associated with processed foods or refined foods made from plants, including sweets, cookies and candy, table sugar, honey, soft drinks, breads and crackers, jams and fruit products, pastas and breakfast cereals. Refined carbohydrates from processed foods such as white bread or rice, soft drinks, and desserts are readily digestible, and many are known to have a high glycemic index, which reflects a rapid assimilation of glucose. By contrast, the digestion of whole, unprocessed, fiber-rich foods such as beans, peas, and whole grains produces a slower and steadier release of glucose and energy into the body. Animal-based foods generally have the lowest carbohydrate levels, although milk does contain a high proportion of lactose. Organisms typically cannot metabolize all types of carbohydrate to yield energy. Glucose is a nearly universal and accessible source of energy. Many organisms also have the ability to metabolize other monosaccharides and disaccharides but glucose is often metabolized first. In Escherichia coli, for example, the lac operon will express enzymes for the digestion of lactose when it is present, but if both lactose and glucose are present, the lac operon is repressed, resulting in the glucose being used first (see: Diauxie). Polysaccharides are also common sources of energy. Many organisms can easily break down starches into glucose; most organisms, however, cannot metabolize cellulose or other polysaccharides such as chitin and arabinoxylans. These carbohydrate types can be metabolized by some bacteria and protists. Ruminants and termites, for example, use microorganisms to process cellulose, fermenting it to caloric short-chain fatty acids. Even though humans lack the enzymes to digest fiber, dietary fiber represents an important dietary element for humans. Fibers promote healthy digestion, help regulate postprandial glucose and insulin levels, reduce cholesterol levels, and promote satiety. The Institute of Medicine recommends that American and Canadian adults get between 45 and 65% of dietary energy from whole-grain carbohydrates. The Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization jointly recommend that national dietary guidelines set a goal of 55--75% of total energy from carbohydrates, but only 10% directly from sugars (their term for simple carbohydrates). A 2017 Cochrane Systematic Review concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support the claim that whole grain diets can affect cardiovascular disease. ### Classification The term complex carbohydrate was first used in the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs publication Dietary Goals for the United States (1977) where it was intended to distinguish sugars from other carbohydrates (which were perceived to be nutritionally superior). However, the report put \"fruit, vegetables and whole-grains\" in the complex carbohydrate column, despite the fact that these may contain sugars as well as polysaccharides. The standard usage, however, is to classify carbohydrates chemically: simple if they are sugars (monosaccharides and disaccharides) and complex if they are polysaccharides (or oligosaccharides). Carbohydrates are sometimes divided into \"available carbohydrates\", which are absorbed in the small intestine and \"unavailable carbohydrates\", which pass to the large intestine, where they are subject to fermentation by the gastrointestinal microbiota. #### Glycemic index {#glycemic_index} The glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load concepts characterize the potential for carbohydrates in food to raise blood glucose compared to a reference food (generally pure glucose). Expressed numerically as GI, carbohydrate-containing foods can be grouped as high-GI (score more than 70), moderate-GI (56--69), or low-GI (less than 55) relative to pure glucose (GI=100). Consumption of carbohydrate-rich, high-GI foods causes an abrupt increase in blood glucose concentration that declines rapidly following the meal, whereas low-GI foods with lower carbohydrate content produces a lower blood glucose concentration that returns gradually after the meal. Glycemic load is a measure relating the quality of carbohydrates in a food (low- vs. high-carbohydrate content -- the GI) by the amount of carbohydrates in a single serving of that food. ### Health effects of dietary carbohydrate restriction {#health_effects_of_dietary_carbohydrate_restriction} Low-carbohydrate diets may miss the health advantages -- such as increased intake of dietary fiber and phytochemicals -- afforded by high-quality plant foods such as legumes and pulses, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. A \"meta-analysis, of moderate quality,\" included as adverse effects of the diet halitosis, headache and constipation.`{{Better source needed\|reason=Quoting source: "Only one meta-analysis, of moderate quality, reported adverse effects of LCDs [...]"\|date=August 2022}}`{=mediawiki} Carbohydrate-restricted diets can be as effective as low-fat diets in helping achieve weight loss over the short term when overall calorie intake is reduced. An Endocrine Society scientific statement said that \"when calorie intake is held constant \[\...\] body-fat accumulation does not appear to be affected by even very pronounced changes in the amount of fat vs carbohydrate in the diet.\" In the long term, low-carbohydrate diets do not appear to confer a \"metabolic advantage,\" and effective weight loss or maintenance depends on the level of calorie restriction, not the ratio of macronutrients in a diet. The reasoning of diet advocates that carbohydrates cause undue fat accumulation by increasing blood insulin levels, but a more balanced diet that restricts refined carbohydrates can also reduce serum glucose and insulin levels and may also suppress lipogenesis and promote fat oxidation. However, as far as energy expenditure itself is concerned, the claim that low-carbohydrate diets have a \"metabolic advantage\" is not supported by clinical evidence. Further, it is not clear how low-carbohydrate dieting affects cardiovascular health, although two reviews showed that carbohydrate restriction may improve lipid markers of cardiovascular disease risk. Carbohydrate-restricted diets are no more effective than a conventional healthy diet in preventing the onset of type 2 diabetes, but for people with type 2 diabetes, they are a viable option for losing weight or helping with glycemic control. There is limited evidence to support routine use of low-carbohydrate dieting in managing type 1 diabetes. The American Diabetes Association recommends that people with diabetes should adopt a generally healthy diet, rather than a diet focused on carbohydrate or other macronutrients. An extreme form of low-carbohydrate diet -- the ketogenic diet -- is established as a medical diet for treating epilepsy. Through celebrity endorsement during the early 21st century, it became a fad diet as a means of weight loss, but with risks of undesirable side effects, such as low energy levels and increased hunger, insomnia, nausea, and gastrointestinal discomfort.`{{scientific citation needed\|date=May 2023}}`{=mediawiki} The British Dietetic Association named it one of the \"top 5 worst celeb diets to avoid in 2018\". ## Metabolism Carbohydrate metabolism is the series of biochemical processes responsible for the formation, breakdown and interconversion of carbohydrates in living organisms. The most important carbohydrate is glucose, a simple sugar (monosaccharide) that is metabolized by nearly all known organisms. Glucose and other carbohydrates are part of a wide variety of metabolic pathways across species: plants synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water by photosynthesis storing the absorbed energy internally, often in the form of starch or lipids. Plant components are consumed by animals and fungi, and used as fuel for cellular respiration. Oxidation of one gram of carbohydrate yields approximately 16 kJ (4 kcal) of energy, while the oxidation of one gram of lipids yields about 38 kJ (9 kcal). The human body stores between 300 and 500 g of carbohydrates depending on body weight, with the skeletal muscle contributing to a large portion of the storage. Energy obtained from metabolism (e.g., oxidation of glucose) is usually stored temporarily within cells in the form of ATP. Organisms capable of anaerobic and aerobic respiration metabolize glucose and oxygen (aerobic) to release energy, with carbon dioxide and water as byproducts. ### Catabolism Catabolism is the metabolic reaction which cells undergo to break down larger molecules, extracting energy. There are two major metabolic pathways of monosaccharide catabolism: glycolysis and the citric acid cycle. In glycolysis, oligo- and polysaccharides are cleaved first to smaller monosaccharides by enzymes called glycoside hydrolases. The monosaccharide units can then enter into monosaccharide catabolism. A 2 ATP investment is required in the early steps of glycolysis to phosphorylate Glucose to Glucose 6-Phosphate (G6P) and Fructose 6-Phosphate (F6P) to Fructose 1,6-biphosphate (FBP), thereby pushing the reaction forward irreversibly. In some cases, as with humans, not all carbohydrate types are usable as the digestive and metabolic enzymes necessary are not present. ## Carbohydrate chemistry {#carbohydrate_chemistry} Carbohydrate chemistry is a large and economically important branch of organic chemistry. Some of the main organic reactions that involve carbohydrates are: - Amadori rearrangement - Carbohydrate acetalisation - Carbohydrate digestion - Cyanohydrin reaction - Koenigs--Knorr reaction - Lobry de Bruyn--Van Ekenstein transformation - Nef reaction - Wohl degradation - Tipson-Cohen reaction - Ferrier rearrangement - Ferrier II reaction ## Chemical synthesis {#chemical_synthesis} Carbohydrate synthesis is a sub-field of organic chemistry concerned specifically with the generation of natural and unnatural carbohydrate structures. This can include the synthesis of monosaccharide residues or structures containing more than one monosaccharide, known as oligosaccharides. Selective formation of glycosidic linkages and selective reactions of hydroxyl groups are very important, and the usage of protecting groups is extensive. Common reactions for glycosidic bond formation are as follows: - Chemical glycosylation - Fischer glycosidation - Koenigs-Knorr reaction - Crich beta-mannosylation While some common protection methods are as below: - Carbohydrate acetalisation - Trimethylsilyl - Benzyl ether - p-Methoxybenzyl ether	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,936	Chemical thermodynamics	Chemical thermodynamics is the study of the interrelation of heat and work with chemical reactions or with physical changes of state within the confines of the laws of thermodynamics. Chemical thermodynamics involves not only laboratory measurements of various thermodynamic properties, but also the application of mathematical methods to the study of chemical questions and the spontaneity of processes. The structure of chemical thermodynamics is based on the first two laws of thermodynamics. Starting from the first and second laws of thermodynamics, four equations called the \"fundamental equations of Gibbs\" can be derived. From these four, a multitude of equations, relating the thermodynamic properties of the thermodynamic system can be derived using relatively simple mathematics. This outlines the mathematical framework of chemical thermodynamics. ## History In 1865, the German physicist Rudolf Clausius, in his Mechanical Theory of Heat, suggested that the principles of thermochemistry, e.g. the heat evolved in combustion reactions, could be applied to the principles of thermodynamics. Building on the work of Clausius, between the years 1873-76 the American mathematical physicist Willard Gibbs published a series of three papers, the most famous one being the paper On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances. In these papers, Gibbs showed how the first two laws of thermodynamics could be measured graphically and mathematically to determine both the thermodynamic equilibrium of chemical reactions as well as their tendencies to occur or proceed. Gibbs\' collection of papers provided the first unified body of thermodynamic theorems from the principles developed by others, such as Clausius and Sadi Carnot. During the early 20th century, two major publications successfully applied the principles developed by Gibbs to chemical processes and thus established the foundation of the science of chemical thermodynamics. The first was the 1923 textbook Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances by Gilbert N. Lewis and Merle Randall. This book was responsible for supplanting the chemical affinity with the term free energy in the English-speaking world. The second was the 1933 book Modern Thermodynamics by the methods of Willard Gibbs written by E. A. Guggenheim. In this manner, Lewis, Randall, and Guggenheim are considered as the founders of modern chemical thermodynamics because of the major contribution of these two books in unifying the application of thermodynamics to chemistry. ## Overview The primary objective of chemical thermodynamics is the establishment of a criterion for determination of the feasibility or spontaneity of a given transformation. In this manner, chemical thermodynamics is typically used to predict the energy exchanges that occur in the following processes: 1. Chemical reactions 2. Phase changes 3. The formation of solutions The following state functions are of primary concern in chemical thermodynamics: - Internal energy (U) - Enthalpy (H) - Entropy (S) - Gibbs free energy (G) Most identities in chemical thermodynamics arise from application of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, particularly the law of conservation of energy, to these state functions. The three laws of thermodynamics (global, unspecific forms): 1. The energy of the universe is constant. 2. In any spontaneous process, there is always an increase in entropy of the universe. 3. The entropy of a perfect crystal (well ordered) at 0 Kelvin is zero. ## Chemical energy {#chemical_energy} Chemical energy is the energy that can be released when chemical substances undergo a transformation through a chemical reaction. Breaking and making chemical bonds involves energy release or uptake, often as heat that may be either absorbed by or evolved from the chemical system. Energy released (or absorbed) because of a reaction between chemical substances (\"reactants\") is equal to the difference between the energy content of the products and the reactants. This change in energy is called the change in internal energy of a chemical system. It can be calculated from $\Delta_{\rm f}U^{\rm o}_{\mathrm {reactants}}$, the internal energy of formation of the reactant molecules related to the bond energies of the molecules under consideration, and $\Delta_{\rm f}U^{\rm o}_{\mathrm {products}}$, the internal energy of formation of the product molecules. The change in internal energy is equal to the heat change if it is measured under conditions of constant volume (at STP condition), as in a closed rigid container such as a bomb calorimeter. However, at constant pressure, as in reactions in vessels open to the atmosphere, the measured heat is usually not equal to the internal energy change, because pressure-volume work also releases or absorbs energy. (The heat change at constant pressure is called the enthalpy change; in this case the widely tabulated enthalpies of formation are used.) A related term is the heat of combustion, which is the chemical energy released due to a combustion reaction and of interest in the study of fuels. Food is similar to hydrocarbon and carbohydrate fuels, and when it is oxidized, its energy release is similar (though assessed differently than for a hydrocarbon fuel --- see food energy). In chemical thermodynamics, the term used for the chemical potential energy is chemical potential, and sometimes the Gibbs-Duhem equation is used. ## Chemical reactions {#chemical_reactions} In most cases of interest in chemical thermodynamics there are internal degrees of freedom and processes, such as chemical reactions and phase transitions, which create entropy in the universe unless they are at equilibrium or are maintained at a \"running equilibrium\" through \"quasi-static\" changes by being coupled to constraining devices, such as pistons or electrodes, to deliver and receive external work. Even for homogeneous \"bulk\" systems, the free-energy functions depend on the composition, as do all the extensive thermodynamic potentials, including the internal energy. If the quantities { N~i~ }, the number of chemical species, are omitted from the formulae, it is impossible to describe compositional changes. ### Gibbs function or Gibbs Energy {#gibbs_function_or_gibbs_energy} For an unstructured, homogeneous \"bulk\" system, there are still various extensive compositional variables { N~i~ } that G depends on, which specify the composition (the amounts of each chemical substance, expressed as the numbers of molecules present or the numbers of moles). Explicitly, $G = G(T,P,\{N_i\})\,.$ For the case where only PV work is possible, $\mathrm{d}G = -S\, \mathrm{d}T + V \, \mathrm{d}P + \sum_i \mu_i \, \mathrm{d}N_i \,$ a restatement of the fundamental thermodynamic relation, in which μ~i~ is the chemical potential for the i-th component in the system $\mu_i = \left( \frac{\partial G}{\partial N_i}\right)_{T,P,N_{j\ne i},etc. } \,.$ The expression for dG is especially useful at constant T and P, conditions, which are easy to achieve experimentally and which approximate the conditions in living creatures $(\mathrm{d}G)_{T,P} = \sum_i \mu_i \, \mathrm{d}N_i\,.$ ### Chemical affinity {#chemical_affinity} While this formulation is mathematically defensible, it is not particularly transparent since one does not simply add or remove molecules from a system. There is always a process involved in changing the composition; e.g., a chemical reaction (or many), or movement of molecules from one phase (liquid) to another (gas or solid). We should find a notation which does not seem to imply that the amounts of the components ( N~i~ ) can be changed independently. All real processes obey conservation of mass, and in addition, conservation of the numbers of atoms of each kind. Consequently, we introduce an explicit variable to represent the degree of advancement of a process, a progress variable ξ for the extent of reaction (Prigogine & Defay, p. 18; Prigogine, pp. 4--7; Guggenheim, p. 37.62), and to the use of the partial derivative ∂G/∂ξ (in place of the widely used \"ΔG\", since the quantity at issue is not a finite change). The result is an understandable expression for the dependence of dG on chemical reactions (or other processes). If there is just one reaction $(\mathrm{d}G)_{T,P} = \left( \frac{\partial G}{\partial \xi}\right)_{T,P} \, \mathrm{d}\xi.\,$ If we introduce the stoichiometric coefficient for the i-th component in the reaction $\nu_i = \partial N_i / \partial \xi \,$ (negative for reactants), which tells how many molecules of i are produced or consumed, we obtain an algebraic expression for the partial derivative $\left( \frac{\partial G}{\partial \xi} \right)_{T,P} = \sum_i \mu_i \nu_i = -\mathbb{A}\,$ where we introduce a concise and historical name for this quantity, the \"affinity\", symbolized by A, as introduced by Théophile de Donder in 1923.(De Donder; Progogine & Defay, p. 69; Guggenheim, pp. 37, 240) The minus sign ensures that in a spontaneous change, when the change in the Gibbs free energy of the process is negative, the chemical species have a positive affinity for each other. The differential of G takes on a simple form that displays its dependence on composition change $(\mathrm{d}G)_{T,P} = -\mathbb{A}\, d\xi \,.$ If there are a number of chemical reactions going on simultaneously, as is usually the case, $(\mathrm{d}G)_{T,P} = -\sum_k\mathbb{A}_k\, d\xi_k \,.$ with a set of reaction coordinates { ξ~j~ }, avoiding the notion that the amounts of the components ( N~i~ ) can be changed independently. The expressions above are equal to zero at thermodynamic equilibrium, while they are negative when chemical reactions proceed at a finite rate, producing entropy. This can be made even more explicit by introducing the reaction rates dξ~j~/dt. For every physically independent process (Prigogine & Defay, p. 38; Prigogine, p. 24) $\mathbb{A}\ \dot{\xi} \le 0 \,.$ This is a remarkable result since the chemical potentials are intensive system variables, depending only on the local molecular milieu. They cannot \"know\" whether temperature and pressure (or any other system variables) are going to be held constant over time. It is a purely local criterion and must hold regardless of any such constraints. Of course, it could have been obtained by taking partial derivatives of any of the other fundamental state functions, but nonetheless is a general criterion for (−T times) the entropy production from that spontaneous process; or at least any part of it that is not captured as external work. (See Constraints below.) We now relax the requirement of a homogeneous \"bulk\" system by letting the chemical potentials and the affinity apply to any locality in which a chemical reaction (or any other process) is occurring. By accounting for the entropy production due to irreversible processes, the equality for dG is now replaced by $\mathrm{d}G = - S \, \mathrm{d}T + V \, \mathrm{d}P -\sum_k\mathbb{A}_k\, \mathrm{d}\xi_k + \mathrm{\delta} W'\,$ or $\mathrm{d}G_{T,P} = -\sum_k\mathbb{A}_k\, \mathrm{d}\xi_k + \mathrm{\delta} W'.\,$ Any decrease in the Gibbs function of a system is the upper limit for any isothermal, isobaric work that can be captured in the surroundings, or it may simply be dissipated, appearing as T times a corresponding increase in the entropy of the system and its surrounding. Or it may go partly toward doing external work and partly toward creating entropy. The important point is that the extent of reaction for a chemical reaction may be coupled to the displacement of some external mechanical or electrical quantity in such a way that one can advance only if the other also does. The coupling may occasionally be rigid, but it is often flexible and variable. ### Solutions In solution chemistry and biochemistry, the Gibbs free energy decrease (∂G/∂ξ, in molar units, denoted cryptically by ΔG) is commonly used as a surrogate for (−T times) the global entropy produced by spontaneous chemical reactions in situations where no work is being done; or at least no \"useful\" work; i.e., other than perhaps ± P dV. The assertion that all spontaneous reactions have a negative ΔG is merely a restatement of the second law of thermodynamics, giving it the physical dimensions of energy and somewhat obscuring its significance in terms of entropy. When no useful work is being done, it would be less misleading to use the Legendre transforms of the entropy appropriate for constant T, or for constant T and P, the Massieu functions −F/T and −G/T, respectively. ## Non-equilibrium {#non_equilibrium} Generally the systems treated with the conventional chemical thermodynamics are either at equilibrium or near equilibrium. Ilya Prigogine developed the thermodynamic treatment of open systems that are far from equilibrium. In doing so he has discovered phenomena and structures of completely new and completely unexpected types. His generalized, nonlinear and irreversible thermodynamics has found surprising applications in a wide variety of fields. The non-equilibrium thermodynamics has been applied for explaining how ordered structures e.g. the biological systems, can develop from disorder. Even if Onsager\'s relations are utilized, the classical principles of equilibrium in thermodynamics still show that linear systems close to equilibrium always develop into states of disorder which are stable to perturbations and cannot explain the occurrence of ordered structures. Prigogine called these systems dissipative systems, because they are formed and maintained by the dissipative processes which take place because of the exchange of energy between the system and its environment and because they disappear if that exchange ceases. They may be said to live in symbiosis with their environment. The method which Prigogine used to study the stability of the dissipative structures to perturbations is of very great general interest. It makes it possible to study the most varied problems, such as city traffic problems, the stability of insect communities, the development of ordered biological structures and the growth of cancer cells to mention but a few examples. ### System constraints {#system_constraints} In this regard, it is crucial to understand the role of walls and other constraints, and the distinction between independent processes and coupling. Contrary to the clear implications of many reference sources, the previous analysis is not restricted to homogeneous, isotropic bulk systems which can deliver only PdV work to the outside world, but applies even to the most structured systems. There are complex systems with many chemical \"reactions\" going on at the same time, some of which are really only parts of the same, overall process. An independent process is one that could proceed even if all others were unaccountably stopped in their tracks. Understanding this is perhaps a \"thought experiment\" in chemical kinetics, but actual examples exist. A gas-phase reaction at constant temperature and pressure which results in an increase in the number of molecules will lead to an increase in volume. Inside a cylinder closed with a piston, it can proceed only by doing work on the piston. The extent variable for the reaction can increase only if the piston moves out, and conversely if the piston is pushed inward, the reaction is driven backwards. Similarly, a redox reaction might occur in an electrochemical cell with the passage of current through a wire connecting the electrodes. The half-cell reactions at the electrodes are constrained if no current is allowed to flow. The current might be dissipated as Joule heating, or it might in turn run an electrical device like a motor doing mechanical work. An automobile lead-acid battery can be recharged, driving the chemical reaction backwards. In this case as well, the reaction is not an independent process. Some, perhaps most, of the Gibbs free energy of reaction may be delivered as external work. The hydrolysis of ATP to ADP and phosphate can drive the force-times-distance work delivered by living muscles, and synthesis of ATP is in turn driven by a redox chain in mitochondria and chloroplasts, which involves the transport of ions across the membranes of these cellular organelles. The coupling of processes here, and in the previous examples, is often not complete. Gas can leak slowly past a piston, just as it can slowly leak out of a rubber balloon. Some reaction may occur in a battery even if no external current is flowing. There is usually a coupling coefficient, which may depend on relative rates, which determines what percentage of the driving free energy is turned into external work, or captured as \"chemical work\", a misnomer for the free energy of another chemical process.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,938	Standard works	The Standard Works of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church, the largest in the Latter Day Saint movement) are the four books that currently constitute its open scriptural canon. The four books of the standard works are: - The Authorized King James Version (KJV) as the official scriptural text of the Bible (other versions of the Bible are used in non-English-speaking countries) - The Book of Mormon, subtitled since 1981 \"Another Testament of Jesus Christ\" - The Doctrine and Covenants (D&C) - The Pearl of Great Price (containing the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith--Matthew, Joseph Smith--History, and the Articles of Faith) The Standard Works are printed and distributed by the LDS Church both in a single binding called a quadruple combination and as a set of two books, with the Bible in one binding, and the other three books in a second binding called a triple combination. Current editions of the Standard Works include a number of non-canonical study aids, including a Bible dictionary, photographs, maps and gazetteer, topical guide, index, footnotes, cross references, and excerpts from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. The scriptural canon is \"open\" due to the Latter-day Saint belief in continuous revelation. Additions can be made to the scriptural canon with the \"common consent\" of the church\'s membership. Other branches of the Latter Day Saint movement reject some of the Standard Works or add other scriptures, such as the Book of the Law of the Lord and The Word of the Lord Brought to Mankind by an Angel. ## Differences in canonicity across sects {#differences_in_canonicity_across_sects} Canons of various Latter Day Saint denominations reject some of the Standard Works canonized by the LDS Church or have included additional works. For instance, the Bickertonite sect does not consider the Pearl of Great Price or D&C to be scriptural. Rather, they believe that the New Testament scriptures contain a true description of the church as established by Jesus Christ, and that both the King James Version of the Bible and the Book of Mormon are the inspired word of God. Some Latter Day Saint denominations accept earlier versions of the Standard Works or work to develop corrected translations. Others have purportedly received additional revelations. The Community of Christ points to Jesus Christ as the living Word of God, and it affirms the Bible, along with the Book of Mormon, as well as its own regularly appended version of D&C as scripture for the church. While it publishes a version of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible---which includes material from the Book of Moses---Community of Christ also accepts the use of other English translations of the Bible, such as the standard King James Version and the New Revised Standard Version. Like the Bickertonites, the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) rejects the D&C and the Pearl of Great Price, as well as the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, preferring to use only the King James Bible and the Book of Mormon as doctrinal standards. The Book of Commandments is accepted as being superior to the D&Cs as a compendium of Smith\'s early revelations but is not accorded the same status as the Bible or the Book of Mormon. The Word of the Lord and The Word of the Lord Brought to Mankind by an Angel are two related books considered to be scriptural by Fettingite factions that separated from the Temple Lot church. Both books contain revelations said to be given to former Church of Christ (Temple Lot) apostle Otto Fetting by an angelic being who said he was John the Baptist. The latter title (120 messages) contains the entirety of the former\'s material (30 message) with additional revelations (90 messages) said to be given to William A. Draves by this same being, after Fetting\'s death. Neither are accepted by the larger Temple Lot body of believers. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) considers the Bible (when correctly translated), the Book of Mormon, and editions of the D&C published prior to Joseph Smith\'s death (which contained the Lectures on Faith) to be inspired scripture. They also hold the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible to be inspired, but do not believe modern publications of the text are accurate. Other portions of the Pearl of Great Price, however, are not considered to be scriptural---though are not necessarily fully rejected either. The Book of Jasher was consistently used by both Joseph Smith and James Strang, but as with other Latter Day Saint denominations and sects, there is no official stance on its authenticity, and it is not considered canonical. This sect likewise holds as scriptural several prophecies, visions, revelations, and translations printed by James Strang, and published in the Revelations of James J. Strang. An additional work, called The Book of the Law of the Lord, is also accepted as inspired scripture by the Strangites. They likewise hold as scriptural several prophecies, visions, revelations, and translations printed by James Strang, and published in the Revelations of James J. Strang. Among other things, this text contains his purported \"Letter of Appointment\" from Joseph Smith and his translation of the Voree plates. The Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite) accepts the following as scripture: the Inspired Version of the Bible (including the Book of Moses and Joseph Smith--Matthew), the Book of Mormon, and the 1844 edition of the D&C (including the Lectures on Faith). However, the revelation on tithing (section 107 in the 1844 edition; 119 in modern LDS Church editions) is emphatically rejected by members of this church, as it is not believed to be given by Joseph Smith. The Book of Abraham is rejected as scripture, as are the other portions of the Pearl of Great Price that do not appear in the Inspired Version of the Bible. Many Latter Day Saint denominations have also either adopted the Articles of Faith or at least view them as a statement of basic theology. (They are considered scriptural by the LDS Church and are included in the Pearl of Great Price.) At times, the Articles of Faith have been adapted to fit the respective belief systems of various faith communities. ## Process of addition or alteration {#process_of_addition_or_alteration} The D&C teaches that \"all things must be done in order, and by common consent in the church\". This applies to adding new scripture. LDS Church president Harold B. Lee taught \"The only one authorized to bring forth any new doctrine is the President of the Church, who, when he does, will declare it as revelation from God, and it will be so accepted by the Council of the Twelve and sustained by the body of the Church.\" There are several instances of this happening in the LDS Church: - June 9, 1830: First conference of the church, The Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ, now known as D&C 20. If the Bible and Book of Mormon were not sustained on April 6 then they were by default when the Articles and Covenants were sustained. (see D&C 20:8-11) - August 17, 1835: Select revelations from Joseph Smith were unanimously accepted as scripture. These were later printed in the D&C. - October 10, 1880: The Pearl of Great Price was unanimously accepted as scripture. Also at that time, other revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants -- which had not been accepted as scripture in 1835 because they were received after that date -- were unanimously accepted as scripture. - October 6, 1890: Official Declaration 1 was accepted unanimously as scripture. It later began to be published in the Doctrine and Covenants. - April 3, 1976: Two visions (one received by Joseph Smith and the other by Joseph F. Smith) were accepted as scripture and added to the Pearl of Great Price. (The two visions were later moved to the D&C as sections 137 and 138.) - September 30, 1978: Official Declaration 2 was accepted unanimously as scripture. It immediately was added to the Doctrine and Covenants. When a doctrine undergoes this procedure, the LDS Church treats it as the word of God, and it is used as a standard to compare other doctrines. Lee taught: > It is not to be thought that every word spoken by the General Authorities is inspired, or that they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost in everything they speak and write. Now you keep that in mind. I don\'t care what his position is, if he writes something or speaks something that goes beyond anything that you can find in the standard works, unless that one be the prophet, seer, and revelator---please note that one exception---you may immediately say, \"Well, that is his own idea!\" And if he says something that contradicts what is found in the standard works (I think that is why we call them \"standard\"---it is the standard measure of all that men teach), you may know by that same token that it is false; regardless of the position of the man who says it. ## The Bible {#the_bible} English-speaking Latter-day Saints typically study a custom edition of the KJV, which includes custom chapter headings, footnotes referencing books in the Standard Works, and select passages from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Though the KJV was always commonly used, it was officially adopted in the 1950s when J. Reuben Clark, of the church\'s First Presidency, argued extensively that newer translations, such as Revised Standard Version (RSV) of 1952, were of lower quality and less compatible with LDS Church tradition. After publishing its own KJV edition in 1979, the First Presidency announced in 1992 that the KJV was the church\'s official English Bible, stating: \"\[w\]hile other Bible versions may be easier to read than the King James Version, in doctrinal matters latter-day revelation supports the King James Version in preference to other English translations.\" In 2010, this statement was written into the church\'s Handbook, which directs official church policy and programs. A Spanish version, with a similar format and using a slightly revised version of the 1909 Reina-Valera translation, was published in 2009. Latter-day Saints in other non-English speaking areas may use other versions of the Bible. Though the Bible is part of the LDS Church\'s canon and members believe it to be the word of God, they believe that errors, omissions, and mistranslations are present in even the earliest known Biblical manuscripts. They state that the errors in the Bible have led to incorrect interpretations of certain passages. Thus, as Joseph Smith explained, the church believes the Bible to be the word of God \"as far as it is translated correctly\". The LDS Church teaches that \"\[t\]he most reliable way to measure the accuracy of any biblical passage is not by comparing different texts, but by comparison with the Book of Mormon and modern-day revelations\". The manuscripts of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible state that \"the Songs of Solomon are not inspired scripture,\" and therefore it is not included in the LDS Church\'s canon and is rarely studied by its members. However, it is still printed in every version of the KJV published by the church. ### The Apocrypha {#the_apocrypha} Although the Apocrypha was part of the 1611 edition of the KJV, the LDS Church does not currently use the Apocrypha as part of its canon. Joseph Smith taught that while the contemporary edition of the Apocrypha was not to be relied on for doctrine, it was potentially useful when read with a spirit of discernment. ### Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible {#joseph_smith_translation_of_the_bible} Joseph Smith translated selected verses of the Bible, working by subject. His complete work is known as the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, or the Inspired Version. Although this selected translation is not generally quoted by church members, the English Bible issued by the church and commonly used by Latter-day Saints contains cross-references to the Joseph Smith Translation (JST), as well as an appendix containing longer excerpts from it. Excerpts that were too long to include in the Bible appendix are included in the Pearl of Great Price as the Book of Moses (for Genesis 1:1-6:13) and Joseph Smith-Matthew (for Matthew 23:39-24:51 and Mark 13). ## The Book of Mormon {#the_book_of_mormon} LDS Church members, and others in the Latter Day Saint movement, consider the Book of Mormon a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. It contains a record of God\'s dealings with the prophets and ancient inhabitants of the Americas. The introduction to the book asserts that it \"contains, as does the Bible, the fullness of the everlasting gospel. The book was written by many ancient prophets by the spirit of prophecy and revelation. Their words, written on gold plates, were quoted and abridged by a prophet-historian named Mormon.\" Segments of the Book of Mormon provide an account of the culture, religious teachings, and civilizations of some of the groups who immigrated to the New World. One came from Jerusalem in 600 B.C., and afterward separated into two nations, identified in the book as the Nephites and the Lamanites. Some years after their arrival, the Nephites met with a similar group, the Mulekites who left the Middle East during the same period. An older group arrived in America much earlier, when the Lord confounded the tongues at the Tower of Babel. This group is known as the Jaredites and their story is condensed in the Book of Ether. The crowning event recorded in the Book of Mormon is the personal ministry of Jesus Christ among Nephites soon after his resurrection. This account presents the doctrines of the gospel, outlines the plan of salvation, and offers men peace in this life and eternal salvation in the life to come. The latter segments of the Book of Mormon detail the destruction of these civilizations, as all were destroyed except the Lamanites. The book asserts that the Lamanites are among the ancestors of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. According to his record, Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by gift and power of God through a set of interpreters, later referred to as the Urim and Thummim. Eleven witnesses signed testimonies of its authenticity, which are now included in the preface to the Book of Mormon. The Three Witnesses testified to have seen an angel present the golden plates and to have heard God bear witness to its truth. Eight others stated that Joseph Smith showed them the golden plates and that they handled and examined them. ## The Doctrine and Covenants {#the_doctrine_and_covenants} The LDS Church\'s D&C is a collection of revelations, policies, letters, and statements given to the modern church by past church presidents. This record contains points of church doctrine and direction on church government. The book has existed in numerous forms, with varying content, throughout the history of the church and has also been published in differing formats by the various Latter Day Saint denominations. When the church chooses to canonize new material, it is typically added to the D&C; the most recent changes were made in 1981. ## The Pearl of Great Price {#the_pearl_of_great_price} The Pearl of Great Price is a selection of material produced by Joseph Smith and deals with many significant aspects of the faith and doctrine of the church. Many of these materials were initially published in church periodicals in the early days of the church. The Pearl of Great Price contains five sections: - Selections from the Book of Moses: portions of the Book of Genesis from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. - The Book of Abraham: a translation from papyri acquired by Smith in 1835, dealing with Abraham\'s journeys in Egypt. The work contains many distinctive Mormon doctrines such as exaltation. - Joseph Smith--Matthew: portions of the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Mark from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. - Joseph Smith--History: a first-person narrative of Smith\'s life before the founding of the church. The material is taken from Documentary History of the Church and is based on a history written by Smith in 1838. - The Articles of Faith: concise listing of thirteen fundamental doctrines of Mormonism composed by Smith in 1842. ## Table of canonicity {#table_of_canonicity} All denominations in the Latter Day Saint movement listed below use the same canon of the Book of Mormon. Other uses and content vary among their respective canons. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Books \| The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) \| Community of Christ (RLDS) \| Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite) \| Church of Christ (Temple Lot) \| Church of Christ (Fettingite) \| Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) \| Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite) \| +===============================================================================================================================================================================+==============================================================+============================+=======================================+===============================+===============================+=========================================================+====================================+ \| Doctrine and Covenants \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Book of Commandments \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Moroni\'s visit to Joseph Smith \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Conferral of Aaronic priesthood by John the Baptist \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Three Witnesses \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Parley P. Pratt and Ziba Peterson \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Property division \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Location of Zion at Jackson County, Missouri \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Prayer of Joseph Smith; keys of the kingdom \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To William E. McLellin \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Testimony of the Book of Commandments \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Orson Hyde, Luke S. Johnson, Lyman E. Johnson, and William E. McLellin; bishops; parents \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Assignments for John Whitmer \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Stewardship; equality \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon called to preach \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Bishops \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Explanation of 1 Corinthians 7:14; salvation of children \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Missionary work; families of missionaries \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Jesus Christ; resurrection; degrees of glory; origin of Satan \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Explanation of certain verses in Revelation \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| United Order; equality \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Jared Carter \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Stephen Burnett and Eden Smith \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Jesse Gause; on 18 Mar 1833 its application was transferred to Frederick G. Williams \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Obedience; United Order; equality \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Husbands and fathers; widows and orphans \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Priesthood \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Letter from Joseph Smith to W. W. Phelps; United Order; One Mighty and Strong; equality \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Parable of the Tares explained \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Prophecy of war and calamity \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| The \"olive leaf\"; \"Lord\'s message of peace\" \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| A \"Word of Wisdom\" \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Keys of the kingdom; First Presidency \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| The Apocrypha \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Frederick G. Williams \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| John\'s record of Christ; intelligence; innocence of children \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Hyrum Smith, Reynolds Cahoon, and Jared Carter; construction of various buildings commanded \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Kirtland Temple to be built; purpose of temples \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Division of property \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Saints in Jackson County, Missouri; temple to be built in Jackson County \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Promises and warnings; martyrs; when war is justified; forgiving enemies \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To John Murdock \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon to preach gospel; Rigdon to be Smith\'s spokesman; welfare of Orson Hyde and John Gould \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Redemption of Zion; parables; United States and the U.S. Constitution; Saints to seek redress \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Minutes for first high council meeting \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Redemption of Zion; organization of Zion\'s Camp \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| United Order \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Redemption of Zion; purpose of Kirtland Temple; peace \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Warren A. Cowdery; Second Coming \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Priesthood; quorums \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Lyman Sherman \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Dedicatory prayer for Kirtland Temple \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Visitation of Jesus Christ to accept Kirtland Temple; conferral of priesthood keys; coming of Moses, Elias, and Elijah \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| temporal needs of the church \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Thomas B. Marsh; Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; First Presidency \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Answers to questions on the Book of Isaiah \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Concerning David W. Patten \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Name of the church; stakes; temple to be built at Far West, Missouri \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Adam-ondi-Ahman \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Concerning William Marks, Newel K. Whitney, and Oliver Granger; property; sacrifice \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles filled \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Tithing \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Council on the Disposition of the Tithes \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Prayer and prophecies of Joseph Smith; why many are called but few chosen \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Destiny of Joseph Smith \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Letter to church; duty in relation to their persecutors \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Nauvoo Temple and Nauvoo House to be built; baptism for the dead \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Saints in Iowa \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| To Brigham Young \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Letter to church; baptism for the dead \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Letter to church; baptism for the dead \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Distinguishing the nature of angels and disembodied spirits \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Various items of instruction; corporeal nature of God and Jesus Christ; intelligence; seer stones \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Various items of instruction; celestial marriage; eternal life \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Plural marriage; celestial marriage; sealing power; exaltation \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Original \"Appendix\"; Second Coming; missionary work \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| secular governments and laws in general \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Martyrdom of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Organization of Mormon pioneer westward journey \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Salvation for the dead; salvation of little children \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Jesus Christ preached to spirits in prison; salvation for the dead \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Cessation of plural marriage \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| 1978 Revelation on Priesthood: cessation of priesthood restrictions based on race \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| God\'s words to Moses \| Yes\ \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| (Pearl of Great Price) \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Prophecy of Enoch \| Yes\ \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| (Pearl of Great Price) \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| General meeting of the quorums of the church to consider the labors of the committee charged with organizing publication of the revelations into a book \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Declaration on marriage; one spouse only \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Tithing \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Calling of William Marks \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Priesthood ordination of other races \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Foreign missions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Instructions to the elders \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Branch and district presidents \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Duties of quorums \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Lamoni College; church publications; relations with the LDS Church; doctrinal tracts; interpretation of various scriptures; gospel boat; branch in Detroit \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Patriarchs; foreign missions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Quorums \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Sanitarium \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Organization and colonization \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Presiding Bishopric \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Presiding Bishop \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Missionary work \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; unity \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; work toward Zion \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; Zion \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; counsel \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Commendation; urge to work \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; counsel \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| New President of the Church named \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; unity commended \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; stewardship \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; counsel \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; relationship between ministerial programs; prepare to build temple at Independence \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Clarification of 149 \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; counsel on culture; Independence Temple preparation; ecology \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; reconciliation \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| New precedent on presidential succession; presidential successor named; changes in leadership positions; reconciliation \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| New President of the Church; changes in leadership positions; counsel on outreach \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; counsel on outreach \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; counsel on witness \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Purpose of Independence Temple; priesthood opened to women; changes in leadership positions \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; unity; humility \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; the spiritual life \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Changes in leadership positions; trusting the Spirit; Independence Temple accepted \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| New President of the Church named \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Proclaim peace; reach out; patience; embrace differences; respect tradition \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Be a prophetic people; diversity; tithing \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Strive for peace; missionary work; use and misuse of scripture; equality; generosity \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Effects of baptism, confirmation, and sacrament of the Lord\'s Supper; cultural awareness and sensitivity; flexibility in number of quorums of seventy; accelerate evangelism \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Expand community, promote peace, and end poverty; tithing; unity in diversity; act in accordance to beliefs \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Pearl of Great Price \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Book of Moses \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Book of Abraham \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Joseph Smith--Matthew \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Joseph Smith--History \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Articles of Faith \| \| Inspired \| \| \| \| Inspired \| Inspired \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Latter Day Saint movement other religious text \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| The Word of the Lord \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| The Word of the Lord Brought to Mankind by an Angel \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Lectures on Faith \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Book of Jasher \| \| \| \| \| \| No - not considered canonical \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| The Book of the Law of the Lord \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ \| Letter of Appointment \| \| \| \| \| \| \| \| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,942	History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints	The history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) has three main periods, described generally as: 1. the early history during the lifetime of Joseph Smith, which is in common with most Latter Day Saint movement churches; 2. the \"pioneer era\" under the leadership of Brigham Young and his 19th-century successors; 3. the modern era beginning in the early 20th century as the practice of polygamy was discontinued and many members sought reintegration into U.S. society. The LDS Church originated in the burned-over district within Western New York. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, was raised in this region during the Second Great Awakening. Smith gained a small following in the late 1820s as he was dictating the Book of Mormon, which he said was a translation of inscriptions found on a set of golden plates buried near his home in Upstate New York by an Indigenous American prophet named Moroni. On April 6, 1830, at the home of Peter Whitmer in Fayette, New York, Smith organized the religion\'s first legal church entity, the Church of Christ, which grew rapidly under Smith\'s leadership. The main body of the church moved first to Kirtland, Ohio, in the early 1830s, then to Missouri in 1838, where the 1838 Mormon War with other Missouri settlers ensued. On October 27, 1838, Lilburn W. Boggs, the Governor of Missouri, signed Missouri Executive Order 44, which called to expel adherents from the state. Approximately 15,000 Mormons fled to Illinois after their surrender at Far West on November 1, 1838. After fleeing from Missouri, Smith founded the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, which grew rapidly. When Smith was killed, Nauvoo had a population of about 12,000 people, nearly all members of Smith\'s church. After his death, a succession crisis ensued and the majority voted to accept the Quorum of the Twelve, led by Brigham Young, as the church\'s leading body. After suffering persecution in Illinois, Young left Nauvoo in 1846 and led his followers, the Mormon pioneers, to Salt Lake Valley. The Mormon pioneers then branched out to pioneer a large state called Deseret, establishing colonies that spanned from Canada to Mexico. Young incorporated the LDS Church as a legal entity and governed his followers as a theocratic leader, assuming both political and religious positions. He also publicized the previously secret practice of plural marriage, a form of polygamy. By 1857, tensions had again escalated between Latter-day Saints and other Americans, largely as a result of the teachings on polygamy and theocracy. During the Utah War, from 1857 to 1858, the United States Army conducted an invasion of Utah, after which Young agreed to be replaced by a non-Mormon territorial Governor, Alfred Cumming. The church, however, still wielded significant political power in Utah Territory. Even after Young died in 1877, many members continued the practice of polygamy despite opposition by the United States Congress. When tensions with the U.S. government came to a head in 1890, the church officially abandoned the public practice of polygamy in the United States and eventually stopped performing official polygamous marriages altogether after a Second Manifesto in 1904. Eventually, the church adopted a policy of excommunicating members who were found to be practicing polygamy, and today seeks to actively distance itself from polygamist fundamentalist groups. During the 20th century, the church became an international organization. The church first began engaging with mainstream American culture, and then with international cultures. It engaged especially in Latin American countries by sending out thousands of missionaries. The church began publicly supporting monogamy and the nuclear family, and at times played a role in political matters. One of the official changes to the organization during the modern era was the participation of black members in temple ceremonies, which began in 1978, reversing a policy originally instituted by Young. The church has also gradually changed its temple ceremony. There continue to be periodic changes in the structure and organization of the church. ## Early history (1820s to 1846) {#early_history_1820s_to_1846} Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, was raised in Western New York during the Second Great Awakening. Smith gained a small following in the late 1820s as he was dictating the Book of Mormon. He stated that the book was a translation of characters from an ancient script called reformed Egyptian that he stated was inscribed on gold plates which had been buried near his residence in western New York by an indigenous American prophet. Smith said he had been given the plates from the angel Moroni. On April 6, 1830, in western New York, Smith organized the religion\'s first legal church entity, the Church of Christ. The church rapidly gained a following who viewed Smith as their prophet. In late 1830, Smith envisioned a \"City of Zion\", a utopian city in Native American lands near Independence, Missouri. In October 1830, he sent his Assistant President, Oliver Cowdery, and others on a mission to the area.`{{unreliable source?\|date=September 2021}}`{=mediawiki} Passing through Kirtland, Ohio, the missionaries converted a congregation of Disciples of Christ led by Sidney Rigdon, and in 1831, Smith decided to temporarily move his followers to Kirtland until lands in the Missouri area could be purchased. In the meantime, the church\'s headquarters remained in Kirtland from 1831 to 1838 and there the church built its first temple and continued to grow in membership from 680 to 17,881 members. While the main church body was in Kirtland, many of Smith\'s followers attempted to establish settlements in Missouri but were met with resistance from other Missourians who believed Mormons were abolitionists or who distrusted their political ambitions. After Smith and other Mormons in Kirtland emigrated to Missouri in 1838, hostilities escalated into the 1838 Mormon War, culminating in adherents being expelled from the state under an Extermination Order signed by Lilburn W. Boggs, the governor of Missouri. After Missouri, Smith founded the city of Nauvoo, Illinois as the new church headquarters, and served as the city\'s mayor and leader of the Nauvoo Legion. As church leader, Smith also instituted the then-secret practice of plural marriage and taught a political system he called \"theodemocracy\", to be led by a Council of Fifty which had secretly and symbolically anointed him king of this millennial theodemocracy. On June 7, 1844, a newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor, edited by dissident Mormon William Law, issued a scathing criticism of polygamy and the Nauvoo theocratic government, including a call for church reform based on earlier Mormon principles. In response to the newspaper\'s publication, Smith and the Nauvoo City Council declared the paper a public nuisance, and ordered the press destroyed. The town marshal carried out the order during the evening of June 10. The destruction of the press led to charges of riot against Smith and other members of the council. After Smith surrendered on the charges, he was also charged with treason against Illinois. While in state custody, he and his brother Hyrum Smith, who was second in line to the church presidency, were killed in a firefight with an angry mob attacking the jail on June 27, 1844. After Smith\'s death, a succession crisis ensued. In this crisis a number of church leaders campaigned to lead the church. Most adherents voted on August 8, 1844, to accept the leadership of Brigham Young, the senior apostle. Later, adherents bolstered their succession claims by referring to a March 1844 meeting in which Joseph committed the \"keys of the kingdom\" to a group of members within the Council of Fifty that included the apostles. In addition, by the end of the 1800s, several of Young\'s followers had published reminiscences recalling that during Young\'s August 8 speech, he looked or sounded similar to Joseph Smith, which they attributed to the power of God. ## Pioneer era (c. 1846 to c. 1900) {#pioneer_era_c._1846_to_c._1900} ### Migration to Utah and colonization of the West {#migration_to_utah_and_colonization_of_the_west} Main article: Mormon pioneers, History of Utah Under the leadership of Brigham Young, church leaders planned to leave Nauvoo, Illinois in April 1846, but amid threats from the state militia, they were forced to cross the Mississippi River in the cold of February. They eventually left the boundaries of the United States to what is now Utah, where they founded Salt Lake City. The groups that left Illinois for Utah became known as the Mormon pioneers and forged a path to Salt Lake City known as the Mormon Trail. The arrival of the Mormon Pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, is commemorated by the Utah State holiday Pioneer Day. Groups of converts from the United States, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere were encouraged to gather in Utah in the following decades. Both the original Mormon migration and subsequent convert migrations resulted in many deaths. Brigham Young organized a great colonization of the American West, with Mormon settlements extending from Canada to Mexico. Notable cities that sprang from early Mormon settlements include San Bernardino, California, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Mesa, Arizona. ### Brigham Young\'s early theocratic leadership {#brigham_youngs_early_theocratic_leadership} Following the death of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young stated that the church should be led by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (see succession crisis). Later, after the migration to Utah had begun, Young was sustained as a member of the First Presidency on December 25, 1847, and then as President of the Church on October 8, 1848. In the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded the area to the United States. As a result, Brigham Young sent emissaries to Washington, D.C. with a proposal to create a vast State of Deseret, of which Young would be the first governor. Instead, Congress created the much smaller Utah Territory in 1850, and Young was appointed governor in 1851. Because of his religious position, Young exercised much more practical control over the affairs of Mormon and non-Mormon settlers than a typical territorial governor of the time. For most of the 19th century, the LDS Church maintained an ecclesiastical court system parallel to federal courts, and required Mormons to use the system exclusively for civil matters, or face church discipline. ### Mormon Reformation {#mormon_reformation} In 1856--1858, the church underwent what is commonly called the Mormon Reformation. In 1855, a drought struck the flourishing territory. Very little rain fell, and dependable mountain streams ran very low. An infestation of grasshoppers and crickets destroyed whatever crops the Mormons had managed to salvage. During the winter of 1855--56, flour and other basic necessities were very scarce and costly. In September 1856, as the drought continued, the trials and difficulties led to an explosion of religious fervor. Jedediah M. Grant, a counselor in the First Presidency and a well-known conservative voice in the extended community, preached three days of fiery sermons to the people of Kaysville, Utah territory. He called for repentance and a general recommitment to moral living and religious teachings. 500 people presented themselves for \"re-baptism\"---a symbol of their determination to reform their lives. The message spread from Kaysville to surrounding Mormon communities. Church leaders traveled around the territory, expressing their concern about signs of spiritual decay and calling for repentance. Members were asked to seal their rededication with re-baptism. Several sermons Willard Richards and George A. Smith had given earlier in the history of the church had touched on the concept of blood atonement, suggesting that apostates could become so enveloped in sin that the voluntary shedding of their own blood might increase their chances of eternal salvation. On September 21, 1856, while calling for sincere repentance, Brigham Young took the idea further, and stated: This belief became ingrained in the church\'s public image during that period and drew widespread ridicule in Eastern newspapers, particularly in connection with the practice of polygamy. The notion faced consistent criticism from numerous Mormons and was ultimately disavowed as an official doctrine by the LDS Church in 1978. Nevertheless, in contemporary times, critics of the church and some popular writers continue to associate a formal doctrine of blood atonement with the Church. Throughout the winter, special meetings were held and Mormons were urged to adhere to the commandments of God and the practices and precepts of the church. Preaching placed emphasis on the practice of plural marriage, adherence to the Word of Wisdom, attendance at church meetings, and personal prayer. On December 30, 1856, the entire all-Mormon territorial legislature was re-baptized for the remission of their sins, and confirmed under the hands of the Twelve Apostles. As time went on, however, the sermons became intolerant and hysterical. ### Utah War and Mountain Meadows massacre {#utah_war_and_mountain_meadows_massacre} In 1857--1858, the church was involved in an armed conflict with the U.S. government, now known as the Utah War. The settlers and the United States government battled for hegemony over the culture and government of the territory. Tensions over the Utah War, the murder of Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt in Arkansas, and threats of violence from the Baker-Fancher wagon train (and possibly other factors), resulted in rogue Mormon settlers in southern Utah massacring a wagon train from Arkansas, known as Mountain Meadows massacre. The result of the Utah War was the succeeding of the governorship of the Utah territory from Brigham Young to Alfred Cumming, an outsider appointed by President James Buchanan. ### Brigham Young\'s later years {#brigham_youngs_later_years} The church had attempted unsuccessfully to institute the United Order numerous times, most recently during the Mormon Reformation. In 1874, Young once again attempted to establish a permanent Order, which he called the \"United Order of Enoch\" in at least 200 LDS Church-established communities, beginning in St. George, Utah on February 9, 1874. In Young\'s Order, producers typically transferred ownership of their property to the Order itself. All members within the order would then collectively partake in the cooperative\'s net income, often distributed in proportion to the value of the property initially contributed. Occasionally, members received wages for their labor on the shared property. Much like Joseph Smith\'s United Order, Young\'s Order had a brief existence. By the time Young died, most of these Orders had faltered. As the 19th century drew to a close, these Orders had effectively become extinct. Young died in August 1877, but the First Presidency was not reorganized until 1880, when he was succeeded by John Taylor, who in the interim had served as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. ### Polygamy and the United States \"Mormon question\" {#polygamy_and_the_united_states_mormon_question} For several decades, polygamy was preached as God\'s law. Brigham Young, the church\'s second president, had 56 wives during his life; many other church leaders were also polygamists. This early practice of polygamy caused conflict between church members and the broader American society. In 1854, the Republican party referred in its platform to polygamy and slavery as the \"twin relics of barbarism.\" In 1862, the U.S. Congress enacted the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, signed by Abraham Lincoln, which made bigamy a felony in the territories punishable by \$500 or five years in prison. The law also permitted the confiscation of church property without compensation. However, this law was not enforced by the Lincoln administration or by Mormon-controlled territorial probate courts. Moreover, as Mormon polygamist marriages were performed in secret, it was difficult to prove when a polygamist marriage had taken place. In the meantime, Congress was preoccupied with the American Civil War. In 1874, after the war, Congress passed the Poland Act, which transferred jurisdiction over Morrill Act cases to federal prosecutors and courts, which were not controlled by Mormons. In addition, the Morrill Act was upheld in 1878 by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Reynolds v. United States. After Reynolds, Congress became even more aggressive against polygamy, and passed the Edmunds Act in 1882. The Edmunds Act prohibited not just bigamy, which remained a felony, but also bigamous cohabitation, which was prosecuted as a misdemeanor, and did not require proof an actual marriage ceremony had taken place. The Act also vacated the Utah territorial government, created an independent committee to oversee elections to prevent Mormon influence, and disenfranchised any former or present polygamist. Further, the law allowed the government to deny civil rights to polygamists without a trial. In 1887, Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act, which allowed prosecutors to force plural wives to testify against their husbands, abolished the right of women to vote, disincorporated the church, and confiscated the church\'s property. By this time, many church leaders had gone into hiding to avoid prosecution, and half the Utah prison population was composed of polygamists. Church leadership officially ended the practice in the United States in 1890, based on a decree of church president Wilford Woodruff called the 1890 Manifesto. ## 20th century {#th_century} The church\'s modern era began soon after it renounced polygamy in 1890. Prior to the 1890 Manifesto, church leaders had been in hiding, many ecclesiastical matters had been neglected, and the church organization itself had been disincorporated. With the reduction in federal pressure afforded by the Manifesto, however, the church began to re-establish its institutions. ### World Wars {#world_wars} Throughout both World Wars, the LDS Church maintained a stance of neutrality, focusing on supporting its members spiritually and materially without endorsing any political sides. The church\'s leaders guided members through these challenging times by bolstering welfare programs and emphasizing faith. The wars notably influenced the LDS Church\'s international expansion and its role as a global religious organization committed to humanitarian efforts. #### LDS Church in World War I {#lds_church_in_world_war_i} During World War I, the LDS Church was led by Joseph F. Smith, who navigated the church through the tumultuous period with a focus on neutrality and peace. Many members served in the military, and the church organized welfare and support efforts for those affected by the war. #### LDS Church in World War II {#lds_church_in_world_war_ii} In World War II, the LDS Church, under the leadership of Heber J. Grant, continued its tradition of non-partisanship in global conflicts, while still supporting its members' decisions to serve in their respective countries' military forces. The church\'s extensive welfare system was pivotal during this time, providing support for both members and non-members affected by the war. ### Post-Manifesto polygamy and the Second Manifesto {#post_manifesto_polygamy_and_the_second_manifesto} The 1890 Manifesto did not, itself, eliminate the practice of new plural marriages, as they continued to occur clandestinely, mostly with church approval and authority. In addition, most Mormon polygamists and every polygamous general authority continued to cohabit with their polygamous wives. Mormon leaders, including Woodruff, maintained that the Manifesto was a temporary expediency designed to enable Utah to obtain statehood and that at some future date, the practice would soon resume. Nevertheless, the 1890 Manifesto provided the church breathing room to obtain Utah\'s statehood, which it received in 1896 after a campaign to convince the American public that Mormon leaders had abandoned polygamy and intended to stay out of politics. Despite being admitted to the United States, Utah was initially unsuccessful in having its elected representatives and senators seated in the United States Congress. In 1898, Utah elected general authority B.H. Roberts to the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat. Roberts, however, was denied a seat there because he was practicing polygamy. In 1903, the Utah legislature selected Reed Smoot, also an LDS Church general authority but also a monogamist, as its first senator. From 1904 to 1907, the United States Senate conducted a series of Congressional hearings on whether Smoot should be seated. Eventually, the Senate granted Smoot a seat and allowed him to vote. However, the hearings raised controversy as to whether polygamy had actually been abandoned as claimed in the 1890 Manifesto, and whether the LDS Church continued to exercise influence on Utah politics. In response to these hearings, church president Joseph F. Smith issued a Second Manifesto denying that any post-Manifesto marriages had the church\'s sanction, and announcing that those entering such marriages in the future would be excommunicated. The Second Manifesto did not annul existing plural marriages within the church, and the church tolerated some degree of polygamy into at least the 1930s. However, eventually, the church adopted a policy of excommunicating its members found practicing polygamy and today seeks to actively distance itself from Mormon fundamentalist groups still practicing polygamy. In modern times, members of the Mormon religion do not practice polygamy. ### Involvement in national politics {#involvement_in_national_politics} #### Relationship to the women\'s suffrage movement {#relationship_to_the_womens_suffrage_movement} In 1870, the Utah Territory had become one of the first polities to grant women the right to vote---a right which the U.S. Congress revoked in 1887 as part of the Edmunds-Tucker Act. As a result, a number of LDS women became active and vocal proponents of women\'s rights. Of particular note was the LDS journalist and suffragist Emmeline B. Wells, editor of the Woman\'s Exponent, a Utah feminist newspaper. Wells, who was both a feminist and a polygamist, wrote vocally in favor of a woman\'s role in the political process and public discourse. National suffrage leaders, however, were somewhat perplexed by the seeming paradox between Utah\'s progressive stand on women\'s rights, and the church\'s stand on polygamy. In 1890, after the church officially renounced polygamy, U.S. suffrage leaders began to embrace Utah\'s feminism more directly, and in 1891, Utah hosted the Rocky Mountain Suffrage Conference in Salt Lake City, attended by such national feminist leaders as Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw. The Utah Woman Suffrage Association, which had been formed in 1889 as a branch of the American Woman Suffrage Association (which in 1890 became the National American Woman Suffrage Association), was then successful in demanding that the constitution of the nascent state of Utah should enfranchise women. In 1896, Utah became the third state in the U.S. to grant women the right to vote. #### Debate over temperance and prohibition {#debate_over_temperance_and_prohibition} The LDS Church was actively involved in support of the temperance movement in the 19th century, and later the prohibition movement under the presidency of Heber J. Grant. #### Relationship with socialism and communism {#relationship_with_socialism_and_communism} Mormonism has had a mixed relationship with socialism in its various forms. In the earliest days of Mormonism, Joseph Smith had established a form of Christian communalism, an idea made popular during the Second Great Awakening, combined with a move toward theocracy. Mormons referred to this form of theocratic communalism as the United Order, or the law of consecration. While short-lived during the life of Joseph Smith, the United Order was re-established for a time in several communities of Utah during the theocratic political leadership of Brigham Young. Some aspects of secular socialism also found a place in the political views of Joseph Smith. He ran for President of the United States on a platform that included a nationalized bank aimed at addressing the abuses of private banks. As a secular political leader in Nauvoo, Joseph Smith introduced collective farms to support those lacking property, ensuring sustenance for the poor and their families. Upon reaching Utah, Brigham Young guided the church leadership in advocating for collective industry ownership. In 1876, a circular issued by them emphasized the importance of wealth distribution for liberty, warning against tyranny, oppression, and the vices arising from unequal wealth distribution. The circular, signed by the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency, cautioned that continuous wealth concentration among the rich and deepening poverty among the poor could lead the nation toward disaster. In addition to religious socialism, many Mormons in Utah were interested in the secular socialist movement that began in America during the 1890s. During the 1890s to the 1920s, the Utah Social Democratic Party, which became part of the Socialist Party of America in 1901, elected about 100 socialists to state offices in Utah. An estimated 40% of Utah Socialists were Mormon. Many early socialists visited the Church\'s cooperative communities in Utah with great interest and were well received by the church leadership. Prominent early socialists such as Albert Brisbane, Victor Prosper Considerant, Plotino Rhodakanaty, Edward Bellamy, and Ruth & Reginald Wright Kauffman showed great interest in the successful cooperative communities of the church in Utah. For example, while doing research for what would become a best selling socialist novel, Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy toured the Church\'s cooperative communities in Utah and visited with Lorenzo Snow for a week. Ruth & Reginald Wright Kauffman also wrote a book, though this one non-fiction, after visiting the Church in Utah. Their book was titled The Latter Day Saints: A Study of the Mormons in the Light of Economic Conditions, which discussed the Church from a Marxist perspective. Socialist Plotino Rhodakanaty also became a prominent early church member in Mexico, after being baptized by a group of missionaries which included Moses Thatcher. Thatcher kept in touch with Rhodakanaty for years following and was himself perhaps the most prominent member of the church to have openly identified himself as a socialist supporter. Albert Brisbane and Victor Prosper Considerant also visited the church in Utah during its early years, prompting Considerant to note that \"thanks to a certain dose of socialist solidarity, the Mormons have in a few years attained a state of unbelievable prosperity\". Attributing the peculiar socialist attitudes of the early Mormons to their success in the desert of the western United States was common even among those who were not themselves socialist. For instance, in his book History of Utah, 1540--1886, Hubert Howe Bancroft points out that the Mormons \"while not communists, the elements of socialism enter strongly into all their relations, public and private, social, commercial, and industrial, as well as religious and political. This tends to render them exclusive, independent of the gentiles and their government, and even in some respects antagonistic to them. They have assisted each other until nine out of ten own their farms, while commerce and manufacturing are to large extent cooperative. The rights of property are respected; but while a Mormon may sell his farm to a gentile, it would not be deemed good fellowship for him to do so.\" While religious and secular socialism gained some acceptance among Mormons, the church was more circumspect about Marxist Communism because of its acceptance of violence as a means to achieve revolution. From the time of Joseph Smith, the church had taken a favorable view as to the American Revolution and the necessity at times to violently overthrow the government, however the church viewed the revolutionary nature of Leninist Communism as a threat to the United States Constitution, which the church saw as divinely inspired to ensure the agency of man. In 1936, the First Presidency issued a statement which stated in part that "to support Communism is treasonable to our free institutions, and no patriotic American citizen may become either a Communist or supporter of Communism. \... \[N\]o loyal American citizen and no faithful church member can be a Communist." The strident atheism of Marxist thought may have also been considered incompatible with the church\'s fundamentally religious worldview. In later years, such leaders as Ezra Taft Benson would take a stronger anti-Communist position publicly, his anti-Communism often being anti-leftist in general. However, the stridency of Benson\'s views was strongly disliked by others in the church\'s leadership, and even considered a point of embarrassment for the church. Later, Benson would become church president and backed off of his political rhetoric. Toward the end of his presidency, the church even began to discipline church members who had taken Benson\'s earlier hardline right-wing speeches too much to heart, some of whom claimed that the church had excommunicated them for adhering too closely to Benson\'s right-wing ideology. ### Institutional reforms {#institutional_reforms} #### Developments in Church financing {#developments_in_church_financing} Soon after the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church was in a dire financial condition. It was recovering from the U.S. crackdown on polygamy, and had difficulty reclaiming property that had been confiscated during polygamy raids. Meanwhile, there was a national recession beginning in 1893. By the late 1890s, the church was about \$2 million in debt, and near bankruptcy. In response, Lorenzo Snow, then President of the Church, conducted a campaign to raise the payment of tithing, of which less than 20% of LDS had been paying during the 1890s. After a visit to Saint George, Utah, which had a much higher-than-average percentage of full 10% tithe-payers, Snow felt that he had received a revelation. As a result of Snow\'s vigorous campaign, tithing payment increased dramatically from 18.4% in 1898 to an eventual peak of 59.3% in 1910. From that time, payment of tithing has been a requirement for temple worship within the faith. During this timeframe, changes were made in stipends for bishops and general authorities. Bishops once received a 10% stipend from tithing funds, but are now purely volunteer. General authorities receive stipends, and formerly received loans from church funds. #### Changes to meeting schedule {#changes_to_meeting_schedule} In earlier times, Latter-day Saint meetings occurred every Sunday morning and evening, with additional gatherings throughout the week. This structure was convenient for Utah Saints, as they typically resided within walking distance of a church building. However, outside of Utah, this meeting schedule presented logistical challenges. In 1980, the church implemented the \"Consolidated Meeting Schedule,\" consolidating most church meetings into a three-hour block on Sundays. In 2019, the meeting schedule was condensed into a two-hour block, with meetings during the second hour alternating between Sunday School and gendered (Relief Society / Priesthood) meetings. #### Changes to missionary service {#changes_to_missionary_service} In 1982, the First Presidency announced that the length of service of male full-time missionaries would be reduced to 18 months. In 1984, a little more than two years later, it was announced that the length of service would be returned to its original length of 24 months. Starting in 1990, paying for a mission became easier on those called to work in industrialized nations. Missionaries began paying into a church-wide general missionary fund instead of paying on their own. The amount paid into the fund does not vary by location; therefore, missionaries serving in low-cost-of-living-areas effectively subsidize missionaries serving in areas with higher costs. #### Changes to church hierarchy and structure {#changes_to_church_hierarchy_and_structure} During the 1960s, the church pursued a Priesthood Correlation Program, which streamlined and centralized the structure of the church. It had begun earlier in 1908, as the Correlation Program. The program increased church control over viewpoints taught in local church meetings. During this time period, priesthood editorial oversight was established of formerly priesthood-auxiliary-specific YMMIA, YLMIA, Relief Society, Primary, and Sunday School magazines. In 1911, the church adopted the Scouting program for its male members of appropriate age. The Priesthood-Auxiliary movement (1928--1937) re-emphasized the church hierarchy around Priesthood, and re-emphasized other church organizations as \"priesthood auxiliaries\" with reduced autonomy. ### LDS multiculturalism {#lds_multiculturalism} As the church began to collide and meld with cultures outside of Utah and the United States, the church began to jettison some of the parochialisms and prejudices that had become part of Latter-day Saint culture but were not essential to Mormonism. During and after the civil rights movement, the church faced a critical point in its history, where its previous attitudes toward other cultures and people of color, which had once been shared by much of the Anglo-American mainstream, carried racist and neocolonialist connotations. The mid-20th century saw the church critiqued over its positions on Black and Native American matters, especially the institution\'s bias towards European standards or norms at the expense and disregard of other racial or ethnic backgrounds\' identity and humanity. #### The church and black people {#the_church_and_black_people} The cause of some of the church\'s most damaging publicity had to do with the church\'s policy of discrimination against black people. Black people were always officially welcome in the church, and Joseph Smith established an early precedent for it by ordaining black males to the Priesthood. Smith was also anti-slavery, going so far as to run on an anti-slavery platform as a candidate for the presidency of the United States. At times, however, Smith had shown sympathy for the belief that black people were the cursed descendants of Cain, a belief which was commonly held in his day. In 1849, church doctrine taught that while black people could be baptized, black men could not be ordained to the Priesthood and black people could not enter LDS temples. Journal histories and public teachings of the time reflect that Young and others stated that God would some day reverse this policy of discrimination. By the late 1960s, the church had expanded into Brazil, the Caribbean, and the nations of Africa, but it was also being criticized for its policy of racial discrimination. In the case of Africa and the Caribbean, the church had not yet begun large-scale missionary efforts in most areas. There were large groups of people who desired to join the church in Ghana and Nigeria and there were also many faithful church members who were of African descent in Brazil. On June 9, 1978, under the administration of Spencer W. Kimball, the church\'s leadership changed the long-standing policy. Today, there are many black members of the church, and there are also many predominantly black congregations. In the Salt Lake City area, black members organized branches of a monthly gathering and activity arm called the Genesis Group that provided group members with additional support. #### The church and Native Americans {#the_church_and_native_americans} During the post-World War II period, the church also began to focus on expansion into a number of Native American cultures, as well as Oceanic cultures, which many Mormons considered to be the same ethnicity. These peoples were called \"Lamanites\", because they were all believed to descend from the Lamanite group in the Book of Mormon. In 1947, the church began the Indian Placement Program, where Native American students (upon request by their parents) were voluntarily placed in Anglo Latter-day Saint foster homes during the school year, where they would attend public schools and become assimilated into Mormon culture. In 1955, the church began ordaining black Melanesians to the Priesthood. The church\'s policy toward Native Americans also came under fire during the 1970s. In particular the Indian Placement Program was criticized as neocolonial. In 1977, the U.S. government commissioned a study to investigate accusations that the church was using its influence to push children into joining the program. However, the commission rejected these accusations and found that the program was beneficial in many cases, and provided well-balanced American education for thousands, allowing the children to return to their cultures and customs. One issue was that the time away from family caused the assimilation of Native American students into American culture, rather than allowing the children to learn within, and preserve, their own culture. By the late 1980s, the program had been in decline, and in 1996, it was discontinued. In 2016, three lawsuits against the LDS Church were filed in the Navajo Nation District Court, alleging that participants in the program were sexually abused in their foster homes. The church asked for the lawsuits to be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, arguing that the alleged abuse took place outside the reservation. In 1981, the church published a new LDS edition of the Standard Works that changed a passage in The Book of Mormon that Lamanites (considered by many Latter-day Saints to be Native Americans) will \"become white and delightsome\" after accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead of continuing the original reference to skin color, the new edition replaced the word \"white\" with the word \"pure\". ### Doctrinal reforms and influences {#doctrinal_reforms_and_influences} In 1927, the church implemented its \"Good Neighbor policy\", whereby it removed any suggestion in church literature, sermons, and ordinances that its members should seek vengeance on US citizens or governments, particularly for the assassinations of its founder Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum. The church also reformed the temple ordinance around this time to remove such references. #### Evolution The issue of evolution has been a point of controversy for some members of the church. The first official statement on the issue of evolution was in 1909, which marked the centennial of Charles Darwin\'s birth and the 50th anniversary of his masterwork, On the Origin of Species. In that year, the First Presidency, led by Joseph F. Smith as president, issued a statement reinforcing the predominant religious view of creationism, and calling human evolution one of the \"theories of men\", but falling short of declaring evolution untrue or evil. Soon after the 1909 statement, Joseph F. Smith professed in an editorial that \"the church itself has no philosophy about the modus operandi employed by the Lord in His creation of the world.\" In 1925, as a result of publicity from the \"Scopes Monkey Trial\" concerning the right to teach evolution in Tennessee public schools, the First Presidency reiterated its 1909 stance, stating that \"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern, declares man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity.\" In the early 1930s there was an intense debate between liberal theologian and general authority B. H. Roberts and some members of the Council of the Twelve Apostles over attempts by B. H. Roberts to reconcile the fossil record with the scriptures by introducing a doctrine of pre-Adamite creation, and backing up this speculative doctrine using geology, biology, anthropology, and archeology. More conservative members of the Twelve Apostles, including Joseph Fielding Smith, rejected his speculation because it contradicted the idea that there was no death until after the fall of Adam. James E. Talmage published a book through the LDS Church that explicitly stated that organisms lived and died on this earth before the earth was fit for human habitation. The debate over pre-Adamites has been interpreted by LDS proponents of evolution as a debate about organic evolution. This view, based on the belief that a dichotomy of thought on the subject of evolution existed between B. H. Roberts and Joseph Fielding Smith, has become common among pro-evolution members of the church. As a result, the ensuing 1931 statement has been interpreted by some as official permission for members to believe in organic evolution. Later, Joseph Fielding Smith published his book Man: His Origin and Destiny, which denounced evolution without qualification. Similar statements of denunciation were made by Bruce R. McConkie, who in 1980 denounced evolution as one of \"the seven deadly heresies.\" Evolution was also denounced by the conservative apostle Ezra Taft Benson, who in 1975 called on church members to use the Book of Mormon to combat evolution and several times denounced evolution as a \"falsehood\" on a par with socialism, rationalism, and humanism. A dichotomy of opinion exists among church members today. Largely influenced by Smith, McConkie, and Benson, evolution is rejected by a large number of conservative church members. A minority accept evolution, supported in part by the debate between B. H. Roberts and Joseph Fielding Smith, in part by a large amount of scientific evidence, and in part by Joseph F. Smith\'s words that \"the church itself has no philosophy about the modus operandi employed by the Lord in His creation of the world.\" Meanwhile, Brigham Young University, the largest private university owned and operated by the church, not only teaches evolution to its biology majors, but has also done significant research in evolution. BYU-I, another church-run school, also teaches it. A 2018 study in PLOS One researched the attitudes toward evolution of Latter-day Saint undergraduates. The study revealed that there has been a recent shift of attitude towards evolution among LDS undergraduates, from antagonistic to more accepting. The researchers cited examples of more acceptance of fossil and geological records, as well as an acceptance of the old age of the earth. The researchers attributed this attitude change to several factors including primary-school exposure to evolution and a reduction in the number of anti-evolution statements from the First Presidency. #### Reacting to pluralism {#reacting_to_pluralism} The church was opposed to the Equal Rights Amendment. In 1995, the church issued The Family: A Proclamation to the World. The church opposes same-sex marriage, but does not object to rights regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the family or the constitutional rights of churches and their adherents to administer and practice their religion free from government interference. The church supported a gay rights bill in Salt Lake City which bans discrimination against gay men and lesbians in housing and employment, calling them \"common-sense rights.\" Some church members have formed a number of unofficial support organizations, including Evergreen International, Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons, North Star, Disciples2, Wildflowers, Family Fellowship, GLYA (Gay LDS Young Adults), LDS Reconciliation, Gamofites and the Guardrail foundation. Church leaders have met with people from Evergreen International, Inc. and several gay rights leaders. #### Challenges to fundamental church doctrine {#challenges_to_fundamental_church_doctrine} In 1967, a set of papyrus manuscripts were discovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art that appear to be the manuscripts from which Joseph Smith said to have translated the Book of Abraham in 1835. These manuscripts were presumed lost in the Chicago fire of 1871. Analyzed by Egyptologists, the manuscripts were identified as The Book of the Dead, an ancient Egyptian funerary text. Moreover, the scholars\' translations of the scrolls disagreed with Smith\'s purported translation. This discovery forced many Mormon apologists to moderate the earlier prevailing view that Smith\'s translations were literal one-to-one translations. In the early 1980s, the apparent discovery of an early Mormon manuscript, which came to be known as the \"Salamander Letter\", received much publicity. This letter, reportedly discovered by a scholar named Mark Hofmann, alleged that the Book of Mormon was given to Joseph Smith by a being that changed itself into a salamander, not by an angel as the official church history recounted. The document was purchased by private collector Steven Christensen, but was still significantly publicized and even printed in the church\'s official magazine, the Ensign. The document, however, was revealed as a forgery in 1985, and Hofmann was arrested for two murders related to his forgeries. #### Mormon dissidents and scholars {#mormon_dissidents_and_scholars} In 1989, George P. Lee, a Navajo member of the First Quorum of the Seventy who had participated in the Indian Placement Program in his youth, was excommunicated. The church action occurred not long after he had submitted to the Church a 23-page letter critical of the program and the effect it had on Native American culture. In October 1994, Lee confessed to, and was convicted of, sexually molesting a 13-year-old girl in 1989. It is not known if church leaders had knowledge of this crime during the excommunication process. In the late 1980s, the administration of Ezra Taft Benson formed what it called the Strengthening Church Members Committee, to keep files on potential church dissidents and collect their published material for possible later use in church disciplinary proceedings. The existence of this committee was first publicized by an anti-Mormon ministry in 1991, when it was referred to in a memo dated July 19, 1990 leaked from the office of the church\'s Presiding Bishopric. At the 1992 Sunstone Symposium, dissident Mormon scholar Lavina Fielding Anderson accused the Committee of being \"an internal espionage system,\" which prompted Brigham Young University professor and moderate Mormon scholar Eugene England to \"accuse that committee of undermining the Church,\" a charge for which he later publicly apologized. The publicity concerning the statements of Anderson and England, however, prompted the church to officially acknowledge the existence of the committee. The Church explained that the Committee \"provides local church leadership with information designed to help them counsel with members who, however well-meaning, may hinder the progress of the church through public criticism.\" Official concern about the work of dissident scholars within the church led to the excommunication or disfellowshipping of six such scholars, dubbed the September Six, in September 1993. ### Latter-day Saint public relations {#latter_day_saint_public_relations} In the 1960s, the church formed the Church Information Service with the goal of being ready to respond to media inquiries and generate positive media coverage. The organization kept a photo file to provide photos to the media for such events as Temple dedications. It also worked to get stories covering Family Home Evening, the church welfare plan and the church\'s youth activities in various publications. As part of the church\'s efforts to re-position its image as that of a mainstream religion, the church began to moderate its earlier anti--Roman Catholic rhetoric. In Bruce R. McConkie\'s 1958 edition of Mormon Doctrine, he had stated his unofficial opinion that the Catholic Church was part of \"the church of the devil\" and \"the great and abominable church\" because it was among organizations that misled people away from following God\'s laws. In his 1966 edition of the same book, the specific reference to the Catholic Church was removed. According to Riess and Tickle, early Mormons rarely quoted from the Book of Mormon in their speeches and writings. It was not until the 1980s that it was cited regularly in speeches given by LDS Church leaders at the biannual general conferences. In 1982, the LDS Church subtitled the Book of Mormon \"Another Testament of Jesus Christ.\" Apostle Boyd K. Packer stated that the scripture now took its place \"beside the Old Testament and the New Testament. Riess and Tickle assert that the introduction of this subtitle was intended to emphasize the Christ-centered nature of the Book of Mormon. They assert that the LDS \"rediscovery of the Book of Mormon in the late twentieth century is strongly connected to their renewed emphasis on the person and nature of Jesus Christ.\" In 1995, the church announced a new logo design that emphasized the words \"JESUS CHRIST\" in large capital letters, and de-emphasized the words \"The Church of\" and \"of Latter-day Saints\". ## 21st century {#st_century} On January 1, 2000, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles released a proclamation entitled \"The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles\". This document commemorated the birth of Jesus and set forth the church\'s official view regarding Christ. The church has participated in several interfaith cooperation initiatives. The church has opened its broadcasting facilities (Bonneville International) to other Christian groups and has participated in the VISN Religious Interfaith Cable Television Network. The church has also participated in numerous joint humanitarian efforts with other churches. Lastly, the church has agreed not to baptize Holocaust victims by proxy. Beginning in 2001, the church also sponsors or sponsored a low-interest educational loan program known as the Perpetual Education Fund, which provides or provided educational opportunities to students from developing nations. In 2004, the church endorsed an amendment to the United States Constitution banning homosexual marriage. The church also announced its opposition to political measures that \"confer legal status on any other sexual relationship\" than a \"man and a woman lawfully wedded as husband and wife.\" On November 5, 2015, an update letter to LDS Church leaders for the Church Handbook was leaked. The policy banned a \"child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship\" from baby blessings, baptism, confirmation, priesthood ordination, and missionary service until the child was not living with their homosexual parent(s), was \"of legal age\", and \"disavow\[ed\] the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage\", in addition to receiving approval from the Office of the First Presidency. The policy update also added that entering a same-sex marriage as a type of \"apostasy\", mandating a disciplinary council. The next day, in a video interview, apostle D. Todd Christofferson clarified that the policy was \"about love\" and \"protect\[ing\] children\" from \"difficulties, challenges, conflicts\" where \"parents feel one way and the expectations of the Church are very different\". On November 13, the First Presidency released a letter clarifying that the policy applied \"only to those children whose primary residence is with a couple living in a same-gender marriage or similar relationship\" and that for children residing with parents in a same-sex relationship who had already received ordinances the policy would not require that \"privileges be curtailed or that further ordinances be withheld\". The next day around 1,500 members gathered across from the Church Office Building to submit their resignation letters in response to the policy change with thousands more resigning online in the weeks after Two months later, in a satellite broadcast, apostle Russell M. Nelson stated that the policy change was \"revealed to President Monson\" in a \"sacred moment\" when \"the Lord inspired \[him\] \... to declare \... the will of the Lord\". In April 2019, the church---then led by Nelson---reversed these policies, citing efforts to be more accepting to people of all kinds of backgrounds. For over 100 years, the church was a major sponsor of Scouting programs for boys, particularly in the United States. The LDS Church was the largest chartered organization in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), having joined the BSA as its first charter organization in 1913. In 2020, the church ended its relationship with the BSA and began an alternate, religion-centered youth program, which replaced all other youth programs. Prior to leaving the Scouting program, LDS Scouts made up nearly 20 percent of all enrolled Boy Scouts, more than any other church. ### Legal entities and merger {#legal_entities_and_merger} In 1887, the LDS Church was legally dissolved in the United States by the Edmunds--Tucker Act because of the church\'s practice of polygamy. For more than the next hundred years, the church as a whole operated as an unincorporated entity. During that time, tax-exempt corporations of the LDS Church included the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which managed non-ecclesiastical real estate and other holdings; and the Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which governed temples, other sacred buildings, and the church\'s employees. By 2021, the two had been merged into one corporate entity, legally named \"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\" ### Ensign Peak Advisors {#ensign_peak_advisors} In December 2019, a whistleblower alleged the church held over \$100 billion in investment funds through its investment management company, Ensign Peak Advisors (EP); that it failed to use the funds for charitable purposes and instead used them in for-profit ventures; and that it misled contributors and the public about the usage and extent of those funds. In response, the church\'s First Presidency stated that \"the Church complies with all applicable law governing our donations, investments, taxes, and reserves,\" and that \"a portion\" of funds received by the church are \"methodically safeguarded through wise financial management and the building of a prudent reserve for the future\". The church has not directly addressed the fund\'s size to the public, but third parties have treated the disclosures as legitimate. In February 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a \$5 million penalty to the church and its investment company, EP. The SEC alleged that the church concealed its investments and their management in multiple shell companies from 1997 to 2019; the SEC believes these shell companies were approved by senior church leadership to avoid public transparency. The church released a statement that in 2000 EP \"received and relied upon legal counsel regarding how to comply with its reporting obligations while attempting to maintain the privacy of the portfolio.\" After initial SEC concern in June 2019, the church stated that EP \"adjusted its approach and began filing a single aggregated report.\"	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,946	Casuistry	Casuistry (`{{IPAc-en\|ˈ\|k\|æ\|zj\|u\|ᵻ\|s\|t\|r\|i}}`{=mediawiki} `{{respell\|KAZ\|ew\|iss\|tree}}`{=mediawiki}) is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending abstract rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. The term is also used pejoratively to criticise the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to ethical questions (as in sophistry). It has been defined as follows: > Study of cases of conscience and a method of solving conflicts of obligations by applying general principles of ethics, religion, and moral theology to particular and concrete cases of human conduct. This frequently demands an extensive knowledge of natural law and equity, civil law, ecclesiastical precepts, and an exceptional skill in interpreting these various norms of conduct\.... It remains a common method in applied ethics. ## Etymology According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the term and its agent noun \"casuist\", appearing from about 1600, derive from the Latin noun `{{Wikt-lang\|la\|casus}}`{=mediawiki}, meaning \"case\", especially as referring to a \"case of conscience\". The same source says, \"Even in the earliest printed uses the sense was pejorative\". ## History Casuistry dates from at least Aristotle (384--322 BC), yet the peak of casuistry was from 1550 to 1650, when the Society of Jesus (commonly known as the Jesuits) used case-based reasoning, particularly in administering the Sacrament of Penance (or \"confession\"). The term became pejorative following Blaise Pascal\'s attack on the misuse of the method in his Provincial Letters (1656--57). The French mathematician, religious philosopher and Jansenist sympathiser attacked priests who used casuistic reasoning in confession to pacify wealthy church donors. Pascal charged that \"remorseful\" aristocrats could confess a sin one day, re-commit it the next, then generously donate to the church and return to re-confess their sin, confident that they were being assigned a penance in name only. These criticisms darkened casuistry\'s reputation in the following centuries. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary quotes a 1738 essay by Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke to the effect that casuistry \"destroys, by distinctions and exceptions, all morality, and effaces the essential difference between right and wrong, good and evil\". The 20th century saw a revival of interest in casuistry. In their book The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin argue that it is not casuistry but its abuse that has been a problem; that, properly used, casuistry is powerful reasoning. Jonsen and Toulmin offer casuistry as a method for compromising the contradictory principles of moral absolutism and moral relativism. In addition, the ethical philosophies of utilitarianism (especially preference utilitarianism) and pragmatism have been identified as employing casuistic reasoning.`{{by whom\|date=June 2022}}`{=mediawiki} ### Early modernity {#early_modernity} The casuistic method was popular among Catholic thinkers in the early modern period. Casuistic authors include Antonio Escobar y Mendoza, whose Summula casuum conscientiae (1627) enjoyed great success, Thomas Sanchez, Vincenzo Filliucci (Jesuit and penitentiary at St Peter\'s), Antonino Diana, Paul Laymann (Theologia Moralis, 1625), John Azor (Institutiones Morales, 1600), Etienne Bauny, Louis Cellot, Valerius Reginaldus, and Hermann Busembaum (d. 1668). The progress of casuistry was interrupted toward the middle of the 17th century by the controversy which arose concerning the doctrine of probabilism, which effectively stated that one could choose to follow a \"probable opinion\"`{{mdash}}`{=mediawiki}that is, an opinion supported by a theologian or another`{{mdash}}`{=mediawiki}even if it contradicted a more probable opinion or a quotation from one of the Fathers of the Church. Certain kinds of casuistry were criticised by early Protestant theologians, because it was used to justify many of the abuses that they sought to reform. It was famously attacked by the Catholic and Jansenist philosopher Blaise Pascal during the formulary controversy against the Jesuits, in his Provincial Letters, as the use of rhetorics to justify moral laxity, which became identified by the public with Jesuitism; hence the everyday use of the term to mean complex and sophistic reasoning to justify moral laxity. By the mid-18th century, \"casuistry\" had become a synonym for attractive-sounding, but ultimately false, moral reasoning. In 1679 Pope Innocent XI publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (stricti mentalis), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suarez and other casuists as propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication. Despite this condemnation by a pope, both Catholicism and Protestantism permit the use of ambiguous statements in specific circumstances. ### Later modernity {#later_modernity} G. E. Moore dealt with casuistry in chapter 1.4 of his Principia Ethica, in which he claimed that \"the defects of casuistry are not defects of principle; no objection can be taken to its aim and object. It has failed only because it is far too difficult a subject to be treated adequately in our present state of knowledge\". Furthermore, he asserted that \"casuistry is the goal of ethical investigation. It cannot be safely attempted at the beginning of our studies, but only at the end\". Since the 1960s, applied ethics has revived the ideas of casuistry in applying moral reasoning to particular cases in law, bioethics, and business ethics. Its facility for dealing with situations where rules or values conflict with each other has made it a useful approach in professional ethics, and casuistry\'s reputation has improved somewhat as a result. Pope Francis, a Jesuit, has criticized casuistry as \"the practice of setting general laws on the basis of exceptional cases\" in instances where a more holistic approach would be preferred.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,948	Chinese input method	Several input methods allow the use of Chinese characters with computers. Most allow selection of characters based either on their pronunciation or their graphical shape. Phonetic input methods are easier to learn but are less efficient, while graphical methods allow faster input, but have a steep learning curve. Other methods allow users to write characters directly via touchscreens, such as those found on mobile phones and tablet computers. ## History Chinese input methods predate the computer. One of the early attempts was an electro-mechanical Chinese typewriter Mingkwai (`{{zh\|c=明快 \|p=míngkuài \|w=ming-k'uai}}`{=mediawiki}) which was invented by Lin Yutang, a prominent Chinese writer, in the 1940s. It assigned thirty base shapes or strokes to different keys and adopted a new way of categorizing Chinese characters. But the typewriter was not produced commercially and Lin soon found himself deeply in debt. Before the 1980s, Chinese publishers hired teams of workers and selected a few thousand type pieces from an enormous Chinese character set. Chinese government agencies entered characters using a long, complicated list of Chinese telegraph codes, which assigned different numbers to each character. During the early computer era, Chinese characters were categorized by their radicals or Pinyin romanization, but results were less than satisfactory. In the 1970s to 1980s, large keyboards with thousands of keys were used to input Chinese. Each key was mapped to several Chinese characters. To type a character, one pressed the character key and then a selection key. There were also experimental \"radical keyboards\" with dozens to several hundreds keys. Chinese characters were decomposed into \"radicals\", each of which was represented by a key. Unwieldy and difficult to use, these keyboards became obsolete after the introduction of Cangjie input method, the first method to use only the standard QWERTY keyboard and make Chinese touch typing possible. Chu Bong-Foo invented a common input method in 1976 with his Cangjie input method, which assigns different \"roots\" to each key on a standard computer keyboard. With this method, for example, the character 日 is assigned to the A key, and 月 is assigned to B. Typing them together will result in the character 明 (\"bright\"). Despite its steeper learning curve, this method remains popular in Chinese communities that use traditional Chinese characters, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan; the method allows very precise input, thus allowing users to type more efficiently and quickly, provided they are familiar with the fairly complicated rules of the method. It was the first method that allowed users to enter more than a hundred Chinese characters per minute. Its popularity is also helped by its omnipresence on traditional Chinese computer systems, since Chu has given up its patent in 1982, stating that it should be part of the cultural asset. Developers of Chinese systems can adopt it freely, and users do not have the hassle of it being absent on devices with Chinese support. Cangjie input programs supporting a large CJK character set have been developed. All methods have their strengths and weaknesses. The pinyin method can be learned rapidly but its maximum input rate is limited. The Wubi method takes longer to learn, but expert typists can enter text much more rapidly with it than with phonetic methods. However, Wubi is proprietary, and a version of it has become freely available only after its inventor lost a patent lawsuit in 1997. Due to these complexities, there is no \"standard\" method. By 1989, bopomofo and pinyin were available for the IBM PC. In mainland China, pinyin methods such as Sogou Pinyin and Google Pinyin are the most popular. In Taiwan, use of Cangjie, Dayi, Boshiamy, and bopomofo predominate; and in Hong Kong and Macau, the Cangjie is most often taught in schools, while a few schools teach CKC Chinese Input System. Other methods include handwriting recognition, OCR and speech recognition. The computer itself must first be \"trained\" before the first or second of these methods are used; that is, the new user enters the system in a special \"learning mode\" so that the system can learn to identify their handwriting or speech patterns. The latter two methods are used less frequently than keyboard-based input methods and suffer from relatively high error rates, especially when used without proper \"training\", though higher error rates are an acceptable trade-off to many users. ## Categories ### Phonetic-based {#phonetic_based} The user enters pronunciations that are converted into relevant Chinese characters. The user must select the desired character from homophones, which are common in Chinese. Modern systems, such as Sogou Pinyin and Google Pinyin, predict the desired characters based on context and user preferences. For example, if one enters the sounds jicheng, the software will type 繼承 (to inherit), but if jichengche is entered, 計程車 (taxi) will appear. Various Chinese dialects complicate the system. Phonetic methods are mainly based on standard pinyin, Zhuyin/Bopomofo, and Jyutping in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, respectively. Input methods based on other varieties of Chinese, like Hakka or Minnan, also exist. While the phonetic system is easy to learn, choosing appropriate Chinese characters slows typing speed. Most users report a typing speed of fifty characters per minute, though some reach over one hundred per minute. With some phonetic IMEs (Input Method Editors), in addition to predictive input based on previous conversions, it is possible for users to create custom dictionary entries for frequently used characters and phrases, potentially lowering the number of characters required to evoke it. #### Shuangpin thumb\\|upright=1.35\\|The Microsoft pinyin 2003 shuangpin scheme. Shuangpin (双拼; 雙拼), literally dual spell, is a stenographical phonetic input method based on hanyu pinyin that reduces the number of keystrokes for one Chinese character to two by distributing every vowel and consonant composed of more than one letter to a specific key. In most Shuangpin layout schemes such as Xiaohe, Microsoft 2003 and Ziranma, the most frequently used vowels are placed on the middle layer, reducing the risk of repetitive strain injury. Shuangpin is supported by a large number of pinyin input software including QQ, Microsoft Bing Pinyin, Sogou Pinyin and Google Pinyin. ### Shape-based {#shape_based} - Cangjie input method - Simplified Cangjie - Dayi method - Array input method (行列) - Four-corner method - Stroke count method - Wubi method - Zhengma method - Biaoxingma method - ZYQ method (正易全) ### Others - Chinese telegraph code (中文電碼) ### Examples of keyboard layouts {#examples_of_keyboard_layouts} Image:Keyboard layout Zhuyin.svg\\|A typical keyboard layout for zhuyin on computers, which can be used as an input method Image:Wubi keyboard.png\\|A keyboard using the Wubi method Image:Keyboard layout cangjie.png\\|A typical keyboard layout for the Cangjie method, which is based on the U.S. keyboard layout. Note the non-standard use of Z as the collision key. Image:Keyboard layout Dayi.svg\\|A typical keyboard layout for the Dayi method Image:Keyboard layout Chinese Traditional.png\\|Chinese (traditional) keyboard layout, a US keyboard with Zhuyin, Cangjie and Dayi key labels, which can all be used to input Chinese characters into a computer ## Software - Microsoft IME - Sogou Pinyin - Google Pinyin	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,980	Carbon sink	thumb\\|upright=1.35 \\|Carbon sinks (green bars on the right) remove carbon from the atmosphere, whereas carbon sources (greenhouse gas emissions) (grey bars on the left) add them. Since the 1850s, there are more carbon sources than sinks and therefore the carbon dioxide in Earth\'s atmosphere is rising.A carbon sink is a natural or artificial carbon sequestration process that \"removes a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere\". These sinks form an important part of the natural carbon cycle. An overarching term is carbon pool, which is all the places where carbon on Earth can be, i.e. the atmosphere, oceans, soil, florae, fossil fuel reservoirs and so forth. A carbon sink is a type of carbon pool that has the capability to take up more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. Globally, the two most important carbon sinks are vegetation and the ocean. Soil is an important carbon storage medium. Much of the organic carbon retained in the soil of agricultural areas has been depleted due to intensive farming. Blue carbon designates carbon that is fixed via certain marine ecosystems. Coastal blue carbon includes mangroves, salt marshes and seagrasses. These make up a majority of ocean plant life and store large quantities of carbon. Deep blue carbon is located in international waters and includes carbon contained in \"continental shelf waters, deep-sea waters and the sea floor beneath them\". For climate change mitigation purposes, the maintenance and enhancement of natural carbon sinks, mainly soils and forests, is important. In the past, human practices like deforestation and industrial agriculture have depleted natural carbon sinks. This kind of land use change has been one of the causes of climate change. ## Definition In the context of climate change and in particular mitigation, a sink is defined as \"Any process, activity or mechanism which removes a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere\". In the case of non-`{{CO2}}`{=mediawiki} greenhouse gases, sinks need not store the gas. Instead they can break it down into substances that have a reduced effect on global warming. For example, nitrous oxide can be reduced to harmless N~2~. Related terms are \"carbon pool, reservoir, sequestration, source and uptake\". The same publication defines carbon pool as \"a reservoir in the Earth system where elements, such as carbon \[\...\], reside in various chemical forms for a period of time.\" Both carbon pools and carbon sinks are important concepts in understanding the carbon cycle, but they refer to slightly different things. A carbon pool can be thought of as the overarching term, and carbon sink is then a particular type of carbon pool: A carbon pool is all the places where carbon can be stored (for example the atmosphere, oceans, soil, plants, and fossil fuels). ## Types The amount of carbon dioxide varies naturally in a dynamic equilibrium with photosynthesis of land plants. The natural carbon sinks are: - Soil is a carbon store and active carbon sink. - Photosynthesis by terrestrial plants with grass and trees allows them to serve as carbon sinks during growing seasons. - Absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans via solubility and biological pumps. Artificial carbon sinks are those that store carbon in building materials or deep underground (geologic carbon sequestration). No major artificial systems remove carbon from the atmosphere on a large scale yet. Public awareness of the significance of `{{CO2}}`{=mediawiki} sinks has grown since passage of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which promotes their use as a form of carbon offset. ## Natural carbon sinks {#natural_carbon_sinks} thumb\\|right\\|upright=2\\|This diagram of the fast carbon cycle shows the movement of carbon between land, atmosphere, soil and oceans in billions of tons of carbon per year. Yellow numbers are natural fluxes, red are human contributions in billions of tons of carbon per year. White numbers indicate stored carbon.Main article: Carbon sequestration ### Soils Soils represent a short to long-term carbon storage medium and contain more carbon than all terrestrial vegetation and the atmosphere combined. Plant litter and other biomass including charcoal accumulates as organic matter in soils, and is degraded by chemical weathering and biological degradation. More recalcitrant organic carbon polymers such as cellulose, hemi-cellulose, lignin, aliphatic compounds, waxes and terpenoids are collectively retained as humus. Organic matter tends to accumulate in litter and soils of colder regions such as the boreal forests of North America and the Taiga of Russia. Leaf litter and humus are rapidly oxidized and poorly retained in sub-tropical and tropical climate conditions due to high temperatures and extensive leaching by rainfall. Areas, where shifting cultivation or slash and burn agriculture are practiced, are generally only fertile for two to three years before they are abandoned. These tropical jungles are similar to coral reefs in that they are highly efficient at conserving and circulating necessary nutrients, which explains their lushness in a nutrient desert. Grasslands contribute to soil organic matter, stored mainly in their extensive fibrous root mats. Due in part to the climatic conditions of these regions (e.g., cooler temperatures and semi-arid to arid conditions), these soils can accumulate significant quantities of organic matter. This can vary based on rainfall, the length of the winter season, and the frequency of naturally occurring lightning-induced grass-fires. While these fires release carbon dioxide, they improve the quality of the grasslands overall, in turn increasing the amount of carbon retained in the humic material. They also deposit carbon directly into the soil in the form of biochar that does not significantly degrade back to carbon dioxide. Much organic carbon retained in many agricultural areas worldwide has been severely depleted due to intensive farming practices. Since the 1850s, a large proportion of the world\'s grasslands have been tilled and converted to croplands, allowing the rapid oxidation of large quantities of soil organic carbon. Methods that significantly enhance carbon sequestration in soil are called carbon farming. They include for example no-till farming, residue mulching, cover cropping, and crop rotation. ### Forests ### Deep ocean, tidal marshes, mangroves and seagrasses {#deep_ocean_tidal_marshes_mangroves_and_seagrasses} ## Enhancing natural carbon sinks {#enhancing_natural_carbon_sinks} ### Purpose in the context of climate change {#purpose_in_the_context_of_climate_change} ### Carbon sequestration techniques in oceans {#carbon_sequestration_techniques_in_oceans} To enhance carbon sequestration processes in oceans the following technologies have been proposed but none have achieved large scale application so far: Seaweed farming, ocean fertilisation, artificial upwelling, basalt storage, mineralization and deep sea sediments, adding bases to neutralize acids. The idea of direct deep-sea carbon dioxide injection has been abandoned. ## Artificial carbon sinks {#artificial_carbon_sinks} ### Geologic carbon sequestration {#geologic_carbon_sequestration} ### Wooden buildings {#wooden_buildings} Broad-base adoption of mass timber and their role in substituting steel and concrete in new mid-rise construction projects over the next few decades has the potential to turn timber buildings into carbon sinks, as they store the carbon dioxide taken up from the air by trees that are harvested and used as mass timber. This could result in storing between 10 million tons of carbon per year in the lowest scenario and close to 700 million tons in the highest scenario. For this to happen, the harvested forests would need to be sustainably managed and wood from demolished timber buildings would need to be reused or preserved on land in various forms. Using rapidly renewable plant materials like bamboo, straw or hempcrete can be further carbon sinks.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,987	Coal	Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is a type of fossil fuel, formed when dead plant matter decays into peat which is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth\'s tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. Coal is used primarily as a fuel. While coal has been known and used for thousands of years, its usage was limited until the Industrial Revolution. With the invention of the steam engine, coal consumption increased. In 2020, coal supplied about a quarter of the world\'s primary energy and over a third of its electricity. Some iron and steel-making and other industrial processes burn coal. The extraction and burning of coal damages the environment, causing premature death and illness, and it is the largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide contributing to climate change. Fourteen billion tonnes of carbon dioxide were emitted by burning coal in 2020, which is 40% of total fossil fuel emissions and over 25% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. As part of worldwide energy transition, many countries have reduced or eliminated their use of coal power. The United Nations Secretary General asked governments to stop building new coal plants by 2020. Global coal use was 8.3 billion tonnes in 2022, and is set to remain at record levels in 2023. To meet the Paris Agreement target of keeping global warming below 2 C-change coal use needs to halve from 2020 to 2030, and \"phasing down\" coal was agreed upon in the Glasgow Climate Pact. The largest consumer and importer of coal in 2020 was China, which accounts for almost half the world\'s annual coal production, followed by India with about a tenth. Indonesia and Australia export the most, followed by Russia. ## Etymology The word originally took the form col in Old English, from reconstructed Proto-Germanic \*kula(n), from Proto-Indo-European root \*g(e)u-lo- \"live coal\". Germanic cognates include the Old Frisian kole, Middle Dutch cole, Dutch kool, Old High German chol, German Kohle and Old Norse kol. Irish gual is also a cognate via the Indo-European root. ## Formation of coal {#formation_of_coal} The conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called coalification. At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying areas. In these wetlands, the process of coalification began when dead plant matter was protected from oxidation, usually by mud or acidic water, and was converted into peat. The resulting peat bogs, which trapped immense amounts of carbon, were eventually deeply buried by sediments. Then, over millions of years, the heat and pressure of deep burial caused the loss of water, methane and carbon dioxide and increased the proportion of carbon. The grade of coal produced depended on the maximum pressure and temperature reached, with lignite (also called \"brown coal\") produced under relatively mild conditions, and sub-bituminous coal, bituminous coal, or anthracite coal (also called \"hard coal\" or \"black coal\") produced in turn with increasing temperature and pressure. Of the factors involved in coalification, temperature is much more important than either pressure or time of burial. Subbituminous coal can form at temperatures as low as {{ convert\\|35 to 80\\|C\\|\\|sp=us}} while anthracite requires a temperature of at least 180 to 245 C. Although coal is known from most geologic periods, 90% of all coal beds were deposited in the Carboniferous and Permian periods. Paradoxically, this was during the Late Paleozoic icehouse, a time of global glaciation. However, the drop in global sea level accompanying the glaciation exposed continental shelves that had previously been submerged, and to these were added wide river deltas produced by increased erosion due to the drop in base level. These widespread areas of wetlands provided ideal conditions for coal formation. The rapid formation of coal ended with the coal gap in the Permian--Triassic extinction event, where coal is rare. Favorable geography alone does not explain the extensive Carboniferous coal beds. Other factors contributing to rapid coal deposition were high oxygen levels, above 30%, that promoted intense wildfires and formation of charcoal that was all but indigestible by decomposing organisms; high carbon dioxide levels that promoted plant growth; and the nature of Carboniferous forests, which included lycophyte trees whose determinate growth meant that carbon was not tied up in heartwood of living trees for long periods. One theory suggested that about 360 million years ago, some plants evolved the ability to produce lignin, a complex polymer that made their cellulose stems much harder and more woody. The ability to produce lignin led to the evolution of the first trees. But bacteria and fungi did not immediately evolve the ability to decompose lignin, so the wood did not fully decay but became buried under sediment, eventually turning into coal. About 300 million years ago, mushrooms and other fungi developed this ability, ending the main coal-formation period of earth\'s history. Although some authors pointed at some evidence of lignin degradation during the Carboniferous, and suggested that climatic and tectonic factors were a more plausible explanation, reconstruction of ancestral enzymes by phylogenetic analysis corroborated a hypothesis that lignin degrading enzymes appeared in fungi approximately 200 MYa. One likely tectonic factor was the Central Pangean Mountains, an enormous range running along the equator that reached its greatest elevation near this time. Climate modeling suggests that the Central Pangean Mountains contributed to the deposition of vast quantities of coal in the late Carboniferous. The mountains created an area of year-round heavy precipitation, with no dry season typical of a monsoon climate. This is necessary for the preservation of peat in coal swamps. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants. This coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae. Sometimes coal seams (also known as coal beds) are interbedded with other sediments in a cyclothem. Cyclothems are thought to have their origin in glacial cycles that produced fluctuations in sea level, which alternately exposed and then flooded large areas of continental shelf. ### Chemistry of coalification {#chemistry_of_coalification} The woody tissue of plants is composed mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Modern peat is mostly lignin, with a content of cellulose and hemicellulose ranging from 5% to 40%. Various other organic compounds, such as waxes and nitrogen- and sulfur-containing compounds, are also present. Lignin has a weight composition of about 54% carbon, 6% hydrogen, and 30% oxygen, while cellulose has a weight composition of about 44% carbon, 6% hydrogen, and 49% oxygen. Bituminous coal has a composition of about 84.4% carbon, 5.4% hydrogen, 6.7% oxygen, 1.7% nitrogen, and 1.8% sulfur, on a weight basis. The low oxygen content of coal shows that coalification removed most of the oxygen and much of the hydrogen a process called carbonization. Carbonization proceeds primarily by dehydration, decarboxylation, and demethanation. Dehydration removes water molecules from the maturing coal via reactions such as : 2 R--OH → R--O--R + H~2~O Decarboxylation removes carbon dioxide from the maturing coal: : RCOOH → RH + CO~2~ while demethanation proceeds by reaction such as : 2 R-CH~3~ → R-CH~2~-R + CH~4~ : R-CH~2~-CH~2~-CH~2~-R → R-CH=CH-R + CH~4~ In these formulas, R represents the remainder of a cellulose or lignin molecule to which the reacting groups are attached. Dehydration and decarboxylation take place early in coalification, while demethanation begins only after the coal has already reached bituminous rank. The effect of decarboxylation is to reduce the percentage of oxygen, while demethanation reduces the percentage of hydrogen. Dehydration does both, and (together with demethanation) reduces the saturation of the carbon backbone (increasing the number of double bonds between carbon). As carbonization proceeds, aliphatic compounds convert to aromatic compounds. Similarly, aromatic rings fuse into polyaromatic compounds (linked rings of carbon atoms). The structure increasingly resembles graphene, the structural element of graphite. Chemical changes are accompanied by physical changes, such as decrease in average pore size. ### Macerals Macerals are coalified plant parts that retain the morphology and some properties of the original plant. In many coals, individual macerals can be identified visually. Some macerals include: - vitrinite, derived from woody parts - lipinite, derived from spores and algae - inertite, derived from woody parts that had been burnt in prehistoric times - huminite, a precursor to vitrinite. In coalification huminite is replaced by vitreous (shiny) vitrinite. Maturation of bituminous coal is characterized by bitumenization, in which part of the coal is converted to bitumen, a hydrocarbon-rich gel. Maturation to anthracite is characterized by debitumenization (from demethanation) and the increasing tendency of the anthracite to break with a conchoidal fracture, similar to the way thick glass breaks. ### Types thumb\\|upright=1.35\\|Coal ranking system used by the United States Geological Survey As geological processes apply pressure to dead biotic material over time, under suitable conditions, its metamorphic grade or rank increases successively into: - Peat, a precursor of coal - Lignite, or brown coal, the lowest rank of coal, most harmful to health when burned, used almost exclusively as fuel for electric power generation - Sub-bituminous coal, whose properties range between those of lignite and those of bituminous coal, is used primarily as fuel for steam-electric power generation. - Bituminous coal, a dense sedimentary rock, usually black, but sometimes dark brown, often with well-defined bands of bright and dull material. It is used primarily as fuel in steam-electric power generation and to make coke. Known as steam coal in the UK, and historically used to raise steam in steam locomotives and ships - Anthracite coal, the highest rank of coal, is a harder, glossy black coal used primarily for residential and commercial space heating. - Graphite, a difficult to ignite coal which is mostly used in pencils, or powdered for lubrication. - Cannel coal (sometimes called \"candle coal\"), a variety of fine-grained, high-rank coal with significant hydrogen content, which consists primarily of liptinite. It is related to boghead coal. There are several international standards for coal. The classification of coal is generally based on the content of volatiles. However the most important distinction is between thermal coal (also known as steam coal), which is burnt to generate electricity via steam; and metallurgical coal (also known as coking coal), which is burnt at high temperature to make steel. Hilt\'s law is a geological observation that (within a small area) the deeper the coal is found, the higher its rank (or grade). It applies if the thermal gradient is entirely vertical; however, metamorphism may cause lateral changes of rank, irrespective of depth. For example, some of the coal seams of the Madrid, New Mexico coal field were partially converted to anthracite by contact metamorphism from an igneous sill while the remainder of the seams remained as bituminous coal. ## History The earliest recognized use is from the Shenyang area of China where by 4000 BC Neolithic inhabitants had begun carving ornaments from black lignite. Coal from the Fushun mine in northeastern China was used to smelt copper as early as 1000 BC. Marco Polo, the Italian who traveled to China in the 13th century, described coal as \"black stones \... which burn like logs\", and said coal was so plentiful, people could take three hot baths a week. In Europe, the earliest reference to the use of coal as fuel is from the geological treatise On Stones (Lap. 16) by the Greek scientist Theophrastus (c. 371--287 BC): Outcrop coal was used in Britain during the Bronze Age (3000--2000 BC), where it formed part of funeral pyres. In Roman Britain, with the exception of two modern fields, \"the Romans were exploiting coals in all the major coalfields in England and Wales by the end of the second century AD\". Evidence of trade in coal, dated to about AD 200, has been found at the Roman settlement at Heronbridge, near Chester; and in the Fenlands of East Anglia, where coal from the Midlands was transported via the Car Dyke for use in drying grain. Coal cinders have been found in the hearths of villas and Roman forts, particularly in Northumberland, dated to around AD 400. In the west of England, contemporary writers described the wonder of a permanent brazier of coal on the altar of Minerva at Aquae Sulis (modern day Bath), although in fact easily accessible surface coal from what became the Somerset coalfield was in common use in quite lowly dwellings locally. Evidence of coal\'s use for iron-working in the city during the Roman period has been found. In Eschweiler, Rhineland, deposits of bituminous coal were used by the Romans for the smelting of iron ore. `{{anchor\|Sea coal}}`{=mediawiki} No evidence exists of coal being of great importance in Britain before about AD 1000, the High Middle Ages. Coal came to be referred to as \"seacoal\" in the 13th century; the wharf where the material arrived in London was known as Seacoal Lane, so identified in a charter of King Henry III granted in 1253. Initially, the name was given because much coal was found on the shore, having fallen from the exposed coal seams on cliffs above or washed out of underwater coal outcrops, but by the time of Henry VIII, it was understood to derive from the way it was carried to London by sea. In 1257--1259, coal from Newcastle upon Tyne was shipped to London for the smiths and lime-burners building Westminster Abbey. Seacoal Lane and Newcastle Lane, where coal was unloaded at wharves along the River Fleet, still exist. These easily accessible sources had largely become exhausted (or could not meet the growing demand) by the 13th century, when underground extraction by shaft mining or adits was developed. The alternative name was \"pitcoal\", because it came from mines. Cooking and home heating with coal (in addition to firewood or instead of it) has been done in various times and places throughout human history, especially in times and places where ground-surface coal was available and firewood was scarce, but a widespread reliance on coal for home hearths probably never existed until such a switch in fuels happened in London in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Historian Ruth Goodman has traced the socioeconomic effects of that switch and its later spread throughout Britain and suggested that its importance in shaping the industrial adoption of coal has been previously underappreciated. The development of the Industrial Revolution led to the large-scale use of coal, as the steam engine took over from the water wheel. In 1700, five-sixths of the world\'s coal was mined in Britain. Britain would have run out of suitable sites for watermills by the 1830s if coal had not been available as a source of energy. In 1947 there were some 750,000 miners in Britain, but the last deep coal mine in the UK closed in 2015. A grade between bituminous coal and anthracite was once known as \"steam coal\" as it was widely used as a fuel for steam locomotives. In this specialized use, it is sometimes known as \"sea coal\" in the United States. Small \"steam coal\", also called dry small steam nuts (DSSN), was used as a fuel for domestic water heating. Coal played an important role in industry in the 19th and 20th century. The predecessor of the European Union, the European Coal and Steel Community, was based on the trading of this commodity. Coal continues to arrive on beaches around the world from both natural erosion of exposed coal seams and windswept spills from cargo ships. Many homes in such areas gather this coal as a significant, and sometimes primary, source of home heating fuel. ## Composition Coal is a mixture of diverse organic compounds and polymers. Several kinds exist, with variable dark colors and composition. Young coals (brown coal, lignite) are not completely black. The two main black coals are bituminous, which is more abundant, and anthracite. The type of coal with the highest percentage of carbon in its chemical composition is anthracite, followed by bituminous, then lignite, and finally brown coal. The fuel value of coal varies in the same order. Some anthracite deposits contain pure carbon in the form of graphite. For bituminous coal, the elemental composition on a dry, ash-free basis of 84.4% carbon, 5.4% hydrogen, 6.7% oxygen, 1.7% nitrogen, and 1.8% sulfur, on a weight basis. This composition reflects partly the composition of the precursor plants. The second main fraction of coal is ash, an undesirable, noncombustable mixture of inorganic minerals. The composition of ash is often discussed in terms of oxides obtained after combustion in air: ------------------------------- ---------- 20--40 10--35 5--35 CaO 1--20 MgO 0.3--4 0.5--2.5 & `{{chem2\|K2O}}`{=mediawiki} 1--4 0.1--12 ------------------------------- ---------- : Ash composition, weight percent Of particular interest is the sulfur content of coal, which can vary from less than 1% to as much as 4%. Most of the sulfur and most of the nitrogen is incorporated into the organic fraction in the form of organosulfur compounds and organonitrogen compounds. This sulfur and nitrogen are strongly bound within the hydrocarbon matrix. These elements are released as SO~2~ and NO~x~ upon combustion. They cannot be removed, economically at least, otherwise. Some coals contain inorganic sulfur, mainly in the form of iron pyrite (FeS~2~). Being a dense mineral, it can be removed from coal by mechanical means, e.g. by froth flotation. Some sulfate occurs in coal, especially weathered samples. It is not volatilized and can be removed by washing. Minor components include: Substance Content --------------- --------- Mercury (Hg) Arsenic (As) Selenium (Se) : Average content As minerals, Hg, As, and Se are not problematic to the environment, especially since they are only trace components. They become however mobile (volatile or water-soluble) when these minerals are combusted. ## Uses Most coal is used as fuel. 27.6% of world energy was supplied by coal in 2017 and Asia used almost three-quarters of it. Other large-scale applications also exist. The energy density of coal is roughly 24 megajoules per kilogram (approximately 6.7 kilowatt-hours per kg). For a coal power plant with a 40% efficiency, it takes an estimated 325 kg of coal to power a 100 W lightbulb for one year. ### Electricity generation {#electricity_generation} In 2022, 68% of global coal use was used for electricity generation. Coal burnt in coal power stations to generate electricity is called thermal coal. It is usually pulverized and then burned in a furnace with a boiler. The furnace heat converts boiler water to steam, which is then used to spin turbines which turn generators and create electricity. The thermodynamic efficiency of this process varies between about 25% and 50% depending on the pre-combustion treatment, turbine technology (e.g. supercritical steam generator) and the age of the plant. A few integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants have been built, which burn coal more efficiently. Instead of pulverizing the coal and burning it directly as fuel in the steam-generating boiler, the coal is gasified to create syngas, which is burned in a gas turbine to produce electricity (just like natural gas is burned in a turbine). Hot exhaust gases from the turbine are used to raise steam in a heat recovery steam generator which powers a supplemental steam turbine. The overall plant efficiency when used to provide combined heat and power can reach as much as 94%. IGCC power plants emit less local pollution than conventional pulverized coal-fueled plants. Other ways to use coal are as coal-water slurry fuel (CWS), which was developed in the Soviet Union, or in an MHD topping cycle. However these are not widely used due to lack of profit. In 2017 38% of the world\'s electricity came from coal, the same percentage as 30 years previously. In 2018 global installed capacity was 2TW (of which 1TW is in China) which was 30% of total electricity generation capacity. The most dependent major country is South Africa, with over 80% of its electricity generated by coal; but China alone generates more than half of the world\'s coal-generated electricity. Efforts around the world to reduce the use of coal have led some regions to switch to natural gas and renewable energy. In 2018 coal-fired power station capacity factor averaged 51%, that is they operated for about half their available operating hours. ### Coke Coke is a solid carbonaceous residue that is used in manufacturing steel and other iron-containing products. Coke is made when metallurgical coal (also known as coking coal) is baked in an oven without oxygen at temperatures as high as 1,000 °C, driving off the volatile constituents and fusing together the fixed carbon and residual ash. Metallurgical coke is used as a fuel and as a reducing agent in smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. The carbon monoxide produced by its combustion reduces hematite (an iron oxide) to iron. : Pig iron, which is too rich in dissolved carbon, is also produced. The coke must be strong enough to resist the weight of overburden in the blast furnace, which is why coking coal is so important in making steel using the conventional route. Coke from coal is grey, hard, and porous and has a heating value of 29.6 MJ/kg. Some coke-making processes produce byproducts, including coal tar, ammonia, light oils, and coal gas. Petroleum coke (petcoke) is the solid residue obtained in oil refining, which resembles coke but contains too many impurities to be useful in metallurgical applications. ### Production of chemicals {#production_of_chemicals} upright=1.35\\|thumb\\|Production of chemicals from coal Chemicals have been produced from coal since the 1950s. Coal can be used as a feedstock in the production of a wide range of chemical fertilizers and other chemical products. The main route to these products was coal gasification to produce syngas. Primary chemicals that are produced directly from the syngas include methanol, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide, which are the chemical building blocks from which a whole spectrum of derivative chemicals are manufactured, including olefins, acetic acid, formaldehyde, ammonia, urea, and others. The versatility of syngas as a precursor to primary chemicals and high-value derivative products provides the option of using coal to produce a wide range of commodities. In the 21st century, however, the use of coalbed methane is becoming more important. Because the slate of chemical products that can be made via coal gasification can in general also use feedstocks derived from natural gas and petroleum, the chemical industry tends to use whatever feedstocks are most cost-effective. Therefore, interest in using coal tended to increase for higher oil and natural gas prices and during periods of high global economic growth that might have strained oil and gas production. Coal to chemical processes require substantial quantities of water. Much coal to chemical production is in China where coal dependent provinces such as Shanxi are struggling to control its pollution. ### Liquefaction Coal can be converted directly into synthetic fuels equivalent to gasoline or diesel by hydrogenation or carbonization. Coal liquefaction emits more carbon dioxide than liquid fuel production from crude oil. Mixing in biomass and using carbon capture and storage (CCS) would emit slightly less than the oil process but at a high cost. State owned China Energy Investment runs a coal liquefaction plant and plans to build 2 more. Coal liquefaction may also refer to the cargo hazard when shipping coal. ### Gasification Coal gasification, as part of an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal-fired power station, is used to produce syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H~2~) gas to fire gas turbines to produce electricity. Syngas can also be converted into transportation fuels, such as gasoline and diesel, through the Fischer--Tropsch process; alternatively, syngas can be converted into methanol, which can be blended into fuel directly or converted to gasoline via the methanol to gasoline process. Gasification combined with Fischer--Tropsch technology was used by the Sasol chemical company of South Africa to make chemicals and motor vehicle fuels from coal. During gasification, the coal is mixed with oxygen and steam while also being heated and pressurized. During the reaction, oxygen and water molecules oxidize the coal into carbon monoxide (CO), while also releasing hydrogen gas (H~2~). This used to be done in underground coal mines, and also to make town gas, which was piped to customers to burn for illumination, heating, and cooking. : 3C (as Coal) + O~2~ + H~2~O → H~2~ + 3CO If the refiner wants to produce gasoline, the syngas is routed into a Fischer--Tropsch reaction. This is known as indirect coal liquefaction. If hydrogen is the desired end-product, however, the syngas is fed into the water gas shift reaction, where more hydrogen is liberated: : CO + H~2~O → CO~2~ + H~2~ ## Coal industry {#coal_industry} ### Mining About 8,000 Mt of coal are produced annually, about 90% of which is hard coal and 10% lignite. `{{As of\|2018}}`{=mediawiki} just over half is from underground mines. The coal mining industry employs almost 2.7 million workers. More accidents occur during underground mining than surface mining. Not all countries publish mining accident statistics so worldwide figures are uncertain, but it is thought that most deaths occur in coal mining accidents in China: in 2017 there were 375 coal mining related deaths in China. Most coal mined is thermal coal (also called steam coal as it is used to make steam to generate electricity) but metallurgical coal (also called \"metcoal\" or \"coking coal\" as it is used to make coke to make iron) accounts for 10% to 15% of global coal use. ### As a traded commodity {#as_a_traded_commodity} China mines almost half the world\'s coal, followed by India with about a tenth. At 471 Mt and a 34% share of global exports, Indonesia was the largest exporter by volume in 2022, followed by Australia with 344 Mt and Russia with 224 Mt. Other major exporters of coal are the United States, South Africa, Colombia, and Canada. In 2022, China, India, and Japan were the biggest importers of coal, importing 301, 228, and 184 Mt respectively. Russia is increasingly orienting its coal exports from Europe to Asia as Europe transitions to renewable energy and subjects Russia to sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine. The price of metallurgical coal is volatile and much higher than the price of thermal coal because metallurgical coal must be lower in sulfur and requires more cleaning. Coal futures contracts provide coal producers and the electric power industry an important tool for hedging and risk management. In some countries, new onshore wind or solar generation already costs less than coal power from existing plants. However, for China this is forecast for the early 2020s and for southeast Asia not until the late 2020s. In India, building new plants is uneconomic and, despite being subsidized, existing plants are losing market share to renewables. In many countries in the Global North, there is a move away from the use of coal and former mine sites are being used as a tourist attraction. ### Market trends {#market_trends} thumb\\|upright=1.8\\|Coal production by region In 2022, China used 4520 Mt of coal, comprising more than half of global coal consumption. India, the European Union, and the United States, were the next largest consumers of coal, using 1162, 461, and 455 Mt respectively. Over the past decade, China has almost always accounted for the lion\'s share of the global growth in coal demand. Therefore, international market trends depend on Chinese energy policy. Although the government effort to reduce air pollution in China means that the global long-term trend is to burn less coal, the short and medium term trends may differ, in part due to Chinese financing of new coal-fired power plants in other countries. Preliminary analysis by International Energy Agency (IEA) indicates that global coal exports reached an all-time high in 2023. Through to 2026, the IEA expects global coal trade to decline by about 12%, driven by growing domestic production in coal-intensive economies such as China and India and coal phase-out plans elsewhere, such as in Europe. While thermal coal exports are expected to decline by about 16% by 2026, exports of metallurgical coal are expected to slightly increase by almost 2%. ## Damage to human health`{{anchor\|Health_effects}}`{=mediawiki} {#damage_to_human_health} The use of coal as fuel causes health problems and deaths. The mining and processing of coal causes air and water pollution. Coal-powered plants emit nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulate pollution, and heavy metals, which adversely affect human health. Coalbed methane extraction is important to avoid mining accidents. The deadly London smog was caused primarily by the heavy use of coal. Globally coal is estimated to cause 800,000 premature deaths every year, mostly in India and China. Burning coal is a major contributor to sulfur dioxide emissions, which creates PM2.5 particulates, the most dangerous form of air pollution. Coal smokestack emissions cause asthma, strokes, reduced intelligence, artery blockages, heart attacks, congestive heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias, mercury poisoning, arterial occlusion, and lung cancer. Annual health costs in Europe from use of coal to generate electricity are estimated at up to €43 billion. In China, early deaths due to air pollution coal plants have been estimated at 200 per GW-year, however they may be higher around power plants where scrubbers are not used or lower if they are far from cities. Improvements to China\'s air quality and human health would grow with more stringent climate policies, mainly because the country\'s energy is so heavily reliant on coal. And there would be a net economic benefit. A 2017 study in the Economic Journal found that for Britain during the period 1851--1860, \"a one standard deviation increase in coal use raised infant mortality by 6--8% and that industrial coal use explains roughly one-third of the urban mortality penalty observed during this period.\" Breathing in coal dust causes coalworker\'s pneumoconiosis or \"black lung\", so called because the coal dust literally turns the lungs black. In the US alone, it is estimated that 1,500 former employees of the coal industry die every year from the effects of breathing in coal mine dust. Huge amounts of coal ash and other waste is produced annually. Use of coal generates hundreds of millions of tons of ash and other waste products every year. These include fly ash, bottom ash, and flue-gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals, along with non-metals such as selenium. Around 10% of coal is ash. Coal ash is hazardous and toxic to human beings and some other living things. Coal ash contains the radioactive elements uranium and thorium. Coal ash and other solid combustion byproducts are stored locally and escape in various ways that expose those living near coal plants to radiation and environmental toxics. ## Damage to the environment {#damage_to_the_environment} Coal mining, coal combustion wastes, and flue gas are causing major environmental damage. Water systems are affected by coal mining. For example, the mining of coal affects groundwater and water table levels and acidity. Spills of fly ash, such as the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill, can also contaminate land and waterways, and destroy homes. Power stations that burn coal also consume large quantities of water. This can affect the flows of rivers, and has consequential impacts on other land uses. In areas of water scarcity, such as the Thar Desert in Pakistan, coal mining and coal power plants contribute to the depletion of water resources. One of the earliest known impacts of coal on the water cycle was acid rain. In 2014, approximately 100 Tg/S of sulfur dioxide (SO~2~) was released, over half of which was from burning coal. After release, the sulfur dioxide is oxidized to H~2~SO~4~ which scatters solar radiation, hence its increase in the atmosphere exerts a cooling effect on the climate. This beneficially masks some of the warming caused by increased greenhouse gases. However, the sulfur is precipitated out of the atmosphere as acid rain in a matter of weeks, whereas carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Release of SO~2~ also contributes to the widespread acidification of ecosystems. Disused coal mines can also cause issues. Subsidence can occur above tunnels, causing damage to infrastructure or cropland. Coal mining can also cause long lasting fires, and it has been estimated that thousands of coal seam fires are burning at any given time. For example, Brennender Berg has been burning since 1668, and is still burning in the 21st century. The production of coke from coal produces ammonia, coal tar, and gaseous compounds as byproducts which if discharged to land, air or waterways can pollute the environment. The Whyalla steelworks is one example of a coke producing facility where liquid ammonia was discharged to the marine environment. ### Climate change {#climate_change} thumb\\|upright=1.5 \\| The warming influence (called radiative forcing) of long-lived greenhouse gases has nearly doubled in 40 years, with carbon dioxide being the dominant driver of global warming. The largest and most long-term effect of coal use is the release of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes climate change. Coal-fired power plants were the single largest contributor to the growth in global CO~2~ emissions in 2018, 40% of the total fossil fuel emissions, and more than a quarter of total emissions.`{{refn\|14.4 gigatonnes coal/50 gigatonnes total\|group=note}}`{=mediawiki} Coal mining can emit methane, another greenhouse gas. In 2016 world gross carbon dioxide emissions from coal usage were 14.5 gigatonnes. For every megawatt-hour generated, coal-fired electric power generation emits around a tonne of carbon dioxide, which is double the approximately 500 kg of carbon dioxide released by a natural gas-fired electric plant. The emission intensity of coal varies with type and generator technology and exceeds 1200 g per kWh in some countries. In 2013, the head of the UN climate agency advised that most of the world\'s coal reserves should be left in the ground to avoid catastrophic global warming. To keep global warming below 1.5 °C or 2 °C hundreds, or possibly thousands, of coal-fired power plants will need to be retired early. ### Underground fires {#underground_fires} Thousands of coal fires are burning around the world. Those burning underground can be difficult to locate and many cannot be extinguished. Fires can cause the ground above to subside, their combustion gases are dangerous to life, and breaking out to the surface can initiate surface wildfires. Coal seams can be set on fire by spontaneous combustion or contact with a mine fire or surface fire. Lightning strikes are an important source of ignition. The coal continues to burn slowly back into the seam until oxygen (air) can no longer reach the flame front. A grass fire in a coal area can set dozens of coal seams on fire. Coal fires in China burn an estimated 120 million tons of coal a year, emitting 360 million metric tons of CO~2~, amounting to 2--3% of the annual worldwide production of CO~2~ from fossil fuels. ## Pollution mitigation and carbon capture {#pollution_mitigation_and_carbon_capture} Main article: Coal pollution mitigation, Carbon capture and storage Systems and technologies exist to mitigate the health and environmental impact of burning coal for energy. ### Precombustion treatment {#precombustion_treatment} Refined coal is the product of a coal-upgrading technology that removes moisture and certain pollutants from lower-rank coals such as sub-bituminous and lignite (brown) coals. It is one form of several precombustion treatments and processes for coal that alter coal\'s characteristics before it is burned. Thermal efficiency improvements are achievable by improved pre-drying (especially relevant with high-moisture fuel such as lignite or biomass). The goals of precombustion coal technologies are to increase efficiency and reduce emissions when the coal is burned. Precombustion technology can sometimes be used as a supplement to postcombustion technologies to control emissions from coal-fueled boilers. ### Post combustion approaches {#post_combustion_approaches} Post combustion approaches to mitigate pollution include flue-gas desulfurization, selective catalytic reduction, electrostatic precipitators, and fly ash reduction. ### Carbon capture and storage {#carbon_capture_and_storage} Carbon capture and storage (CCS) can be used to capture carbon dioxide from the flue gas of coal power plants and bury it securely in an underground reservoir. Between 1972 and 2017, plans were made to add CCS to enough coal and gas power plants to sequester 161 million tonnes of `{{chem\|CO\|2\|}}`{=mediawiki} per year, but by 2021 98% of these plans had failed. Cost, the absence of measures to address long-term liability for stored CO~2~, and limited social acceptability have all contributed to project cancellations. As of 2024, CCS is in operation at only four coal power plants and one gas power plant worldwide. ### \"Clean coal\" and \"abated coal\" {#clean_coal_and_abated_coal} Since the mid-1980s, the term \"clean coal\" has been widely used with various meanings. Initially, \"clean coal technology\" referred to scrubbers and catalytic converters that reduced the pollutants that cause acid rain. The scope then expanded to include reduction of other pollutants such as mercury. Recently, the term has come to encompass the use of carbon capture and storage to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In political discourse, the term has been erroneously used to imply that coal itself can be clean. For instance, it has been suggested that \"clean coal\" can be produced and exported. Even with scrubbers and some CCS, coal still has a fairly high environmental impact. In discussions on greenhouse gas emissions, another common term is \"abatement\" of coal use. In the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, an agreement was reached to phase down unabated coal use. Since the term abated was not defined, the agreement was criticized for being open to abuse. Without a clear definition, is possible for fossil fuel use to be called \"abated\" if it uses CCS only in a minimal fashion, such as capturing only 30% of the emissions from a plant. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers fossil fuels to be unabated if they are \"produced and used without interventions that substantially reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted throughout the life-cycle; for example, capturing 90% or more from power plants.\" ## Economics In 2018 `{{USD\| 80 billion}}`{=mediawiki} was invested in coal supply but almost all for sustaining production levels rather than opening new mines. In the long term coal and oil could cost the world trillions of dollars per year. Coal alone may cost Australia billions, whereas costs to some smaller companies or cities could be on the scale of millions of dollars. The economies most damaged by coal (via climate change) may be India and the US as they are the countries with the highest social cost of carbon. Bank loans to finance coal are a risk to the Indian economy. China is the largest producer of coal in the world. It is the world\'s largest energy consumer, and coal in China supplies 60% of its primary energy. However two fifths of China\'s coal power stations are estimated to be loss-making. Air pollution from coal storage and handling costs the US almost 200 dollars for every extra ton stored, due to PM2.5. Coal pollution costs the {{€\\|43 billion}} each year. Measures to cut air pollution benefit individuals financially and the economies of countries such as China. ### Subsidies Subsidies for coal in 2021 have been estimated at `{{US$\|19 billion}}`{=mediawiki}, not including electricity subsidies, and are expected to rise in 2022. `{{As of\|2019}}`{=mediawiki} G20 countries provide at least `{{US$\|63.9 billion}}`{=mediawiki} of government support per year for the production of coal, including coal-fired power: many subsidies are impossible to quantify but they include `{{US$\|27.6 billion}}`{=mediawiki} in domestic and international public finance, `{{US$\|15.4 billion}}`{=mediawiki} in fiscal support, and `{{US$\|20.9 billion}}`{=mediawiki} in state-owned enterprise (SOE) investments per year. In the EU state aid to new coal-fired plants is banned from 2020, and to existing coal-fired plants from 2025. As of 2018, government funding for new coal power plants was supplied by Exim Bank of China, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Indian public sector banks. Coal in Kazakhstan was the main recipient of coal consumption subsidies totalling US\$2 billion in 2017. Coal in Turkey benefited from substantial subsidies in 2021. ### Stranded assets {#stranded_assets} Some coal-fired power stations could become stranded assets, for example China Energy Investment, the world\'s largest power company, risks losing half its capital. However, state-owned electricity utilities such as Eskom in South Africa, Perusahaan Listrik Negara in Indonesia, Sarawak Energy in Malaysia, Taipower in Taiwan, EGAT in Thailand, Vietnam Electricity and EÜAŞ in Turkey are building or planning new plants. As of 2021 this may be helping to cause a carbon bubble which could cause financial instability if it bursts. ## Politics Countries building or financing new coal-fired power stations, such as China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey and Bangladesh, face mounting international criticism for obstructing the aims of the Paris Agreement. In 2019, the Pacific Island nations (in particular Vanuatu and Fiji) criticized Australia for failing to cut their emissions at a faster rate than they were, citing concerns about coastal inundation and erosion. In May 2021, the G7 members agreed to end new direct government support for international coal power generation. ## Cultural usage {#cultural_usage} Coal is the official state mineral of Kentucky, and the official state rock of Utah and West Virginia. These US states have a historic link to coal mining. Some cultures hold that children who misbehave will receive only a lump of coal from Santa Claus for Christmas in their stockings instead of presents. It is also customary and considered lucky in Scotland to give coal as a gift on New Year\'s Day. This occurs as part of first-footing and represents warmth for the year to come.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
5,993	Chemical bond	A chemical bond is the association of atoms or ions to form molecules, crystals, and other structures. The bond may result from the electrostatic force between oppositely charged ions as in ionic bonds or through the sharing of electrons as in covalent bonds, or some combination of these effects. Chemical bonds are described as having different strengths: there are \"strong bonds\" or \"primary bonds\" such as covalent, ionic and metallic bonds, and \"weak bonds\" or \"secondary bonds\" such as dipole--dipole interactions, the London dispersion force, and hydrogen bonding. Since opposite electric charges attract, the negatively charged electrons surrounding the nucleus and the positively charged protons within a nucleus attract each other. Electrons shared between two nuclei will be attracted to both of them. \"Constructive quantum mechanical wavefunction interference\" stabilizes the paired nuclei (see Theories of chemical bonding). Bonded nuclei maintain an optimal distance (the bond distance) balancing attractive and repulsive effects explained quantitatively by quantum theory. The atoms in molecules, crystals, metals and other forms of matter are held together by chemical bonds, which determine the structure and properties of matter. All bonds can be described by quantum theory, but, in practice, simplified rules and other theories allow chemists to predict the strength, directionality, and polarity of bonds. The octet rule and VSEPR theory are examples. More sophisticated theories are valence bond theory, which includes orbital hybridization and resonance, and molecular orbital theory which includes the linear combination of atomic orbitals and ligand field theory. Electrostatics are used to describe bond polarities and the effects they have on chemical substances. ## Overview of main types of chemical bonds {#overview_of_main_types_of_chemical_bonds} A chemical bond is an attraction between atoms. This attraction may be seen as the result of different behaviors of the outermost or valence electrons of atoms. These behaviors merge into each other seamlessly in various circumstances, so that there is no clear line to be drawn between them. However it remains useful and customary to differentiate between different types of bond, which result in different properties of condensed matter. In the simplest view of a covalent bond, one or more electrons (often a pair of electrons) are drawn into the space between the two atomic nuclei. Energy is released by bond formation. This is not as a result of reduction in potential energy, because the attraction of the two electrons to the two protons is offset by the electron-electron and proton-proton repulsions. Instead, the release of energy (and hence stability of the bond) arises from the reduction in kinetic energy due to the electrons being in a more spatially distributed (i.e. longer de Broglie wavelength) orbital compared with each electron being confined closer to its respective nucleus. These bonds exist between two particular identifiable atoms and have a direction in space, allowing them to be shown as single connecting lines between atoms in drawings, or modeled as sticks between spheres in models. In a polar covalent bond, one or more electrons are unequally shared between two nuclei. Covalent bonds often result in the formation of small collections of better-connected atoms called molecules, which in solids and liquids are bound to other molecules by forces that are often much weaker than the covalent bonds that hold the molecules internally together. Such weak intermolecular bonds give organic molecular substances, such as waxes and oils, their soft bulk character, and their low melting points (in liquids, molecules must cease most structured or oriented contact with each other). When covalent bonds link long chains of atoms in large molecules, however (as in polymers such as nylon), or when covalent bonds extend in networks through solids that are not composed of discrete molecules (such as diamond or quartz or the silicate minerals in many types of rock) then the structures that result may be both strong and tough, at least in the direction oriented correctly with networks of covalent bonds. Also, the melting points of such covalent polymers and networks increase greatly. In a simplified view of an ionic bond, the bonding electron is not shared at all, but transferred. In this type of bond, the outer atomic orbital of one atom has a vacancy which allows the addition of one or more electrons. These newly added electrons potentially occupy a lower energy-state (effectively closer to more nuclear charge) than they experience in a different atom. Thus, one nucleus offers a more tightly bound position to an electron than does another nucleus, with the result that one atom may transfer an electron to the other. This transfer causes one atom to assume a net positive charge, and the other to assume a net negative charge. The bond then results from electrostatic attraction between the positive and negatively charged ions. Ionic bonds may be seen as extreme examples of polarization in covalent bonds. Often, such bonds have no particular orientation in space, since they result from equal electrostatic attraction of each ion to all ions around them. Ionic bonds are strong (and thus ionic substances require high temperatures to melt) but also brittle, since the forces between ions are short-range and do not easily bridge cracks and fractures. This type of bond gives rise to the physical characteristics of crystals of classic mineral salts, such as table salt. A less often mentioned type of bonding is metallic bonding. In this type of bonding, each atom in a metal donates one or more electrons to a \"sea\" of electrons that reside between many metal atoms. In this sea, each electron is free (by virtue of its wave nature) to be associated with a great many atoms at once. The bond results because the metal atoms become somewhat positively charged due to loss of their electrons while the electrons remain attracted to many atoms, without being part of any given atom. Metallic bonding may be seen as an extreme example of delocalization of electrons over a large system of covalent bonds, in which every atom participates. This type of bonding is often very strong (resulting in the tensile strength of metals). However, metallic bonding is more collective in nature than other types, and so they allow metal crystals to more easily deform, because they are composed of atoms attracted to each other, but not in any particularly-oriented ways. This results in the malleability of metals. The cloud of electrons in metallic bonding causes the characteristically good electrical and thermal conductivity of metals, and also their shiny lustre that reflects most frequencies of white light. ## History Early speculations about the nature of the chemical bond, from as early as the 12th century, supposed that certain types of chemical species were joined by a type of chemical affinity. In 1704, Sir Isaac Newton famously outlined his atomic bonding theory, in \"Query 31\" of his Opticks, whereby atoms attach to each other by some \"force\". Specifically, after acknowledging the various popular theories in vogue at the time, of how atoms were reasoned to attach to each other, i.e. \"hooked atoms\", \"glued together by rest\", or \"stuck together by conspiring motions\", Newton states that he would rather infer from their cohesion, that \"particles attract one another by some force, which in immediate contact is exceedingly strong, at small distances performs the chemical operations, and reaches not far from the particles with any sensible effect.\" In 1819, on the heels of the invention of the voltaic pile, Jöns Jakob Berzelius developed a theory of chemical combination stressing the electronegative and electropositive characters of the combining atoms. By the mid 19th century, Edward Frankland, F.A. Kekulé, A.S. Couper, Alexander Butlerov, and Hermann Kolbe, building on the theory of radicals, developed the theory of valency, originally called \"combining power\", in which compounds were joined owing to an attraction of positive and negative poles. In 1904, Richard Abegg proposed his rule that the difference between the maximum and minimum valencies of an element is often eight. At this point, valency was still an empirical number based only on chemical properties. However the nature of the atom became clearer with Ernest Rutherford\'s 1911 discovery that of an atomic nucleus surrounded by electrons in which he quoted Nagaoka rejected Thomson\'s model on the grounds that opposite charges are impenetrable. In 1904, Nagaoka proposed an alternative planetary model of the atom in which a positively charged center is surrounded by a number of revolving electrons, in the manner of Saturn and its rings. Nagaoka\'s model made two predictions: - a very massive atomic center (in analogy to a very massive planet) - electrons revolving around the nucleus, bound by electrostatic forces (in analogy to the rings revolving around Saturn, bound by gravitational forces.) Rutherford mentions Nagaoka\'s model in his 1911 paper in which the atomic nucleus is proposed. At the 1911 Solvay Conference, in the discussion of what could regulate energy differences between atoms, Max Planck stated: \"The intermediaries could be the electrons.\" These nuclear models suggested that electrons determine chemical behavior. Next came Niels Bohr\'s 1913 model of a nuclear atom with electron orbits. In 1916, chemist Gilbert N. Lewis developed the concept of electron-pair bonds, in which two atoms may share one to six electrons, thus forming the single electron bond, a single bond, a double bond, or a triple bond; in Lewis\'s own words, \"An electron may form a part of the shell of two different atoms and cannot be said to belong to either one exclusively.\" Also in 1916, Walther Kossel put forward a theory similar to Lewis\' only his model assumed complete transfers of electrons between atoms, and was thus a model of ionic bonding. Both Lewis and Kossel structured their bonding models on that of Abegg\'s rule (1904). Niels Bohr also proposed a model of the chemical bond in 1913. According to his model for a diatomic molecule, the electrons of the atoms of the molecule form a rotating ring whose plane is perpendicular to the axis of the molecule and equidistant from the atomic nuclei. The dynamic equilibrium of the molecular system is achieved through the balance of forces between the forces of attraction of nuclei to the plane of the ring of electrons and the forces of mutual repulsion of the nuclei. The Bohr model of the chemical bond took into account the Coulomb repulsion -- the electrons in the ring are at the maximum distance from each other. In 1927, the first mathematically complete quantum description of a simple chemical bond, i.e. that produced by one electron in the hydrogen molecular ion, H~2~^+^, was derived by the Danish physicist Øyvind Burrau. This work showed that the quantum approach to chemical bonds could be fundamentally and quantitatively correct, but the mathematical methods used could not be extended to molecules containing more than one electron. A more practical, albeit less quantitative, approach was put forward in the same year by Walter Heitler and Fritz London. The Heitler--London method forms the basis of what is now called valence bond theory. In 1929, the linear combination of atomic orbitals molecular orbital method (LCAO) approximation was introduced by Sir John Lennard-Jones, who also suggested methods to derive electronic structures of molecules of F~2~ (fluorine) and O~2~ (oxygen) molecules, from basic quantum principles. This molecular orbital theory represented a covalent bond as an orbital formed by combining the quantum mechanical Schrödinger atomic orbitals which had been hypothesized for electrons in single atoms. The equations for bonding electrons in multi-electron atoms could not be solved to mathematical perfection (i.e., analytically), but approximations for them still gave many good qualitative predictions and results. Most quantitative calculations in modern quantum chemistry use either valence bond or molecular orbital theory as a starting point, although a third approach, density functional theory, has become increasingly popular in recent years. In 1933, H. H. James and A. S. Coolidge carried out a calculation on the dihydrogen molecule that, unlike all previous calculation which used functions only of the distance of the electron from the atomic nucleus, used functions which also explicitly added the distance between the two electrons. With up to 13 adjustable parameters they obtained a result very close to the experimental result for the dissociation energy. Later extensions have used up to 54 parameters and gave excellent agreement with experiments. This calculation convinced the scientific community that quantum theory could give agreement with experiment. However this approach has none of the physical pictures of the valence bond and molecular orbital theories and is difficult to extend to larger molecules. ## Bonds in chemical formulas {#bonds_in_chemical_formulas} Because atoms and molecules are three-dimensional, it is difficult to use a single method to indicate orbitals and bonds. In molecular formulas the chemical bonds (binding orbitals) between atoms are indicated in different ways depending on the type of discussion. Sometimes, some details are neglected. For example, in organic chemistry one is sometimes concerned only with the functional group of the molecule. Thus, the molecular formula of ethanol may be written in conformational form, three-dimensional form, full two-dimensional form (indicating every bond with no three-dimensional directions), compressed two-dimensional form (CH~3~--CH~2~--OH), by separating the functional group from another part of the molecule (C~2~H~5~OH), or by its atomic constituents (C~2~H~6~O), according to what is discussed. Sometimes, even the non-bonding valence shell electrons (with the two-dimensional approximate directions) are marked, e.g. for elemental carbon ~.~^\'^C^\'^. Some chemists may also mark the respective orbitals, e.g. the hypothetical ethene^−4^ anion (~\\~^/^C=C~/~^\\^ ^−4^) indicating the possibility of bond formation. ## Strong chemical bonds {#strong_chemical_bonds} +-------------------------------------+ \| Typical bond lengths in pm\ \| \| and bond energies in kJ/mol.\ \| \| Bond lengths can be converted to Å\ \| \| by division by 100 (1 Å = 100 pm).\ \| +-------------------------------------+ \| Bond \| +-------------------------------------+ \| H --- Hydrogen \| +-------------------------------------+ \| H--H \| +-------------------------------------+ \| H--O \| +-------------------------------------+ \| H--F \| +-------------------------------------+ \| H--Cl \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C --- Carbon \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C--H \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C--C \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C--C= \| +-------------------------------------+ \| =C--C≡ \| +-------------------------------------+ \| =C--C= \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C=C \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C≡C \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C--N \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C--O \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C=O \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C≡O \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C--F \| +-------------------------------------+ \| C--Cl \| +-------------------------------------+ \| N --- Nitrogen \| +-------------------------------------+ \| N--H \| +-------------------------------------+ \| N--N \| +-------------------------------------+ \| N≡N \| +-------------------------------------+ \| O --- Oxygen \| +-------------------------------------+ \| O--O \| +-------------------------------------+ \| O=O \| +-------------------------------------+ \| F, Cl, Br, I --- Halogens \| +-------------------------------------+ \| F--F \| +-------------------------------------+ \| Cl--Cl \| +-------------------------------------+ \| Br--H \| +-------------------------------------+ \| Br--Br \| +-------------------------------------+ \| I--H \| +-------------------------------------+ \| I--I \| +-------------------------------------+ Strong chemical bonds are the intramolecular forces that hold atoms together in molecules. A strong chemical bond is formed from the transfer or sharing of electrons between atomic centers and relies on the electrostatic attraction between the protons in nuclei and the electrons in the orbitals. The types of strong bond differ due to the difference in electronegativity of the constituent elements. Electronegativity is the tendency for an atom of a given chemical element to attract shared electrons when forming a chemical bond, where the higher the associated electronegativity then the more it attracts electrons. Electronegativity serves as a simple way to quantitatively estimate the bond energy, which characterizes a bond along the continuous scale from covalent to ionic bonding. A large difference in electronegativity leads to more polar (ionic) character in the bond. ### Ionic bond {#ionic_bond} Ionic bonding is a type of electrostatic interaction between atoms that have a large electronegativity difference. There is no precise value that distinguishes ionic from covalent bonding, but an electronegativity difference of over 1.7 is likely to be ionic while a difference of less than 1.7 is likely to be covalent. Ionic bonding leads to separate positive and negative ions. Ionic charges are commonly between −3e to +3e. Ionic bonding commonly occurs in metal salts such as sodium chloride (table salt). A typical feature of ionic bonds is that the species form into ionic crystals, in which no ion is specifically paired with any single other ion in a specific directional bond. Rather, each species of ion is surrounded by ions of the opposite charge, and the spacing between it and each of the oppositely charged ions near it is the same for all surrounding atoms of the same type. It is thus no longer possible to associate an ion with any specific other single ionized atom near it. This is a situation unlike that in covalent crystals, where covalent bonds between specific atoms are still discernible from the shorter distances between them, as measured via such techniques as X-ray diffraction. Ionic crystals may contain a mixture of covalent and ionic species, as for example salts of complex acids such as sodium cyanide, NaCN. X-ray diffraction shows that in NaCN, for example, the bonds between sodium cations (Na^+^) and the cyanide anions (CN^−^) are ionic, with no sodium ion associated with any particular cyanide. However, the bonds between the carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) atoms in cyanide are of the covalent type, so that each carbon is strongly bound to just one nitrogen, to which it is physically much closer than it is to other carbons or nitrogens in a sodium cyanide crystal. When such crystals are melted into liquids, the ionic bonds are broken first because they are non-directional and allow the charged species to move freely. Similarly, when such salts dissolve into water, the ionic bonds are typically broken by the interaction with water but the covalent bonds continue to hold. For example, in solution, the cyanide ions, still bound together as single CN^−^ ions, move independently through the solution, as do sodium ions, as Na^+^. In water, charged ions move apart because each of them are more strongly attracted to a number of water molecules than to each other. The attraction between ions and water molecules in such solutions is due to a type of weak dipole-dipole type chemical bond. In melted ionic compounds, the ions continue to be attracted to each other, but not in any ordered or crystalline way. ### Covalent bond {#covalent_bond} Covalent bonding is a common type of bonding in which two or more atoms share valence electrons more or less equally. The simplest and most common type is a single bond in which two atoms share two electrons. Other types include the double bond, the triple bond, one- and three-electron bonds, the three-center two-electron bond and three-center four-electron bond. In non-polar covalent bonds, the electronegativity difference between the bonded atoms is small, typically 0 to 0.3. Bonds within most organic compounds are described as covalent. The figure shows methane (CH~4~), in which each hydrogen forms a covalent bond with the carbon. See sigma bonds and pi bonds for LCAO descriptions of such bonding. Molecules that are formed primarily from non-polar covalent bonds are often immiscible in water or other polar solvents, but much more soluble in non-polar solvents such as hexane. A polar covalent bond is a covalent bond with a significant ionic character. This means that the two shared electrons are closer to one of the atoms than the other, creating an imbalance of charge. Such bonds occur between two atoms with moderately different electronegativities and give rise to dipole--dipole interactions. The electronegativity difference between the two atoms in these bonds is 0.3 to 1.7. #### Single and multiple bonds {#single_and_multiple_bonds} A single bond between two atoms corresponds to the sharing of one pair of electrons. The Hydrogen (H) atom has one valence electron. Two Hydrogen atoms can then form a molecule, held together by the shared pair of electrons. Each H atom now has the noble gas electron configuration of helium (He). The pair of shared electrons forms a single covalent bond. The electron density of these two bonding electrons in the region between the two atoms increases from the density of two non-interacting H atoms. A double bond has two shared pairs of electrons, one in a sigma bond and one in a pi bond with electron density concentrated on two opposite sides of the internuclear axis. A triple bond consists of three shared electron pairs, forming one sigma and two pi bonds. An example is nitrogen. Quadruple and higher bonds are very rare and occur only between certain transition metal atoms. #### Coordinate covalent bond (dipolar bond) {#coordinate_covalent_bond_dipolar_bond} A coordinate covalent bond is a covalent bond in which the two shared bonding electrons are from the same one of the atoms involved in the bond. For example, boron trifluoride (BF~3~) and ammonia (NH~3~) form an adduct or coordination complex F~3~B←NH~3~ with a B--N bond in which a lone pair of electrons on N is shared with an empty atomic orbital on B. BF~3~ with an empty orbital is described as an electron pair acceptor or Lewis acid, while NH~3~ with a lone pair that can be shared is described as an electron-pair donor or Lewis base. The electrons are shared roughly equally between the atoms in contrast to ionic bonding. Such bonding is shown by an arrow pointing to the Lewis acid. (In the Figure, solid lines are bonds in the plane of the diagram, wedged bonds point towards the observer, and dashed bonds point away from the observer.) Transition metal complexes are generally bound by coordinate covalent bonds. For example, the ion Ag^+^ reacts as a Lewis acid with two molecules of the Lewis base NH~3~ to form the complex ion Ag(NH~3~)~2~^+^, which has two Ag←N coordinate covalent bonds. ### Metallic bonding {#metallic_bonding} In metallic bonding, bonding electrons are delocalized over a lattice of atoms. By contrast, in ionic compounds, the locations of the binding electrons and their charges are static. The free movement or delocalization of bonding electrons leads to classical metallic properties such as luster (surface light reflectivity), electrical and thermal conductivity, ductility, and high tensile strength. ## Intermolecular bonding {#intermolecular_bonding} There are several types of weak bonds that can be formed between two or more molecules which are not covalently bound. Intermolecular forces cause molecules to attract or repel each other. Often, these forces influence physical characteristics (such as the melting point) of a substance. Van der Waals forces are interactions between closed-shell molecules. They include both Coulombic interactions between partial charges in polar molecules, and Pauli repulsions between closed electrons shells. Keesom forces are the forces between the permanent dipoles of two polar molecules.`{{r\|Atkins\|p=701}}`{=mediawiki} London dispersion forces are the forces between induced dipoles of different molecules.`{{r\|Atkins\|p=703}}`{=mediawiki} There can also be an interaction between a permanent dipole in one molecule and an induced dipole in another molecule.`{{r\|Atkins\|p=702}}`{=mediawiki} Hydrogen bonds of the form A\--H•••B occur when A and B are two highly electronegative atoms (usually N, O or F) such that A forms a highly polar covalent bond with H so that H has a partial positive charge, and B has a lone pair of electrons which is attracted to this partial positive charge and forms a hydrogen bond.`{{r\|Atkins\|p=702}}`{=mediawiki} Hydrogen bonds are responsible for the high boiling points of water and ammonia with respect to their heavier analogues. In some cases a similar halogen bond can be formed by a halogen atom located between two electronegative atoms on different molecules. At short distances, repulsive forces between atoms also become important.`{{r\|Atkins\|p=705-6}}`{=mediawiki} ## Theories of chemical bonding {#theories_of_chemical_bonding} In the (unrealistic) limit of \"pure\" ionic bonding, electrons are perfectly localized on one of the two atoms in the bond. Such bonds can be understood by classical physics. The force between the atoms depends on isotropic continuum electrostatic potentials. The magnitude of the force is in simple proportion to the product of the two ionic charges according to Coulomb\'s law. Covalent bonds are better understood by valence bond (VB) theory or molecular orbital (MO) theory. The properties of the atoms involved can be understood using concepts such as oxidation number, formal charge, and electronegativity. The electron density within a bond is not assigned to individual atoms, but is instead delocalized between atoms. In valence bond theory, bonding is conceptualized as being built up from electron pairs that are localized and shared by two atoms via the overlap of atomic orbitals. The concepts of orbital hybridization and resonance augment this basic notion of the electron pair bond. In molecular orbital theory, bonding is viewed as being delocalized and apportioned in orbitals that extend throughout the molecule and are adapted to its symmetry properties, typically by considering linear combinations of atomic orbitals (LCAO). Valence bond theory is more chemically intuitive by being spatially localized, allowing attention to be focused on the parts of the molecule undergoing chemical change. In contrast, molecular orbitals are more \"natural\" from a quantum mechanical point of view, with orbital energies being physically significant and directly linked to experimental ionization energies from photoelectron spectroscopy. Consequently, valence bond theory and molecular orbital theory are often viewed as competing but complementary frameworks that offer different insights into chemical systems. As approaches for electronic structure theory, both MO and VB methods can give approximations to any desired level of accuracy, at least in principle. However, at lower levels, the approximations differ, and one approach may be better suited for computations involving a particular system or property than the other. Unlike the spherically symmetrical Coulombic forces in pure ionic bonds, covalent bonds are generally directed and anisotropic. These are often classified based on their symmetry with respect to a molecular plane as sigma bonds and pi bonds. In the general case, atoms form bonds that are intermediate between ionic and covalent, depending on the relative electronegativity of the atoms involved. Bonds of this type are known as polar covalent bonds.	2025-06-20T00:00:00
6,001	Geography of the Comoros	The Comoros archipelago consists of four main islands aligned along a northwest--southeast axis at the north end of the Mozambique Channel, between Mozambique and the island of Madagascar. Still widely known by their French names, the islands officially have been called by their Swahili names by the Comorian government. They are Grande Comore (Njazidja), Mohéli (Mwali), Anjouan (Nzwani), and Mayotte (Mahoré). The islands\' distance from each other---Grande Comore is some 200 kilometers from Mayotte, forty kilometers from Mohéli, and eighty kilometers from Anjouan---along with a lack of good harbor facilities, make transportation and communication difficult. Comoros are sunny islands. ## Details The islands have a total land area of 2,236 square kilometers (including Mayotte), and claim territorial waters of 320 square kilometers. Mount Karthala (2316 m) on Grande Comore is an active volcano. From April 17 to 19, 2005, the volcano began spewing ash and gas, forcing as many as 10,000 people to flee. Comoros is located within the Somali Plate. ## Grande Comore {#grande_comore} Grande Comore is the largest island, sixty-seven kilometers long and twenty-seven kilometers wide, with a total area of 1,146 square kilometers. The most recently formed of the four islands in the archipelago, it is also of volcanic origin. Two volcanoes form the island\'s most prominent topographic features: La Grille in the north, with an elevation of 1,000 meters, is extinct and largely eroded; Kartala in the south, rising to a height of 2,361 meters, last erupted in 1977. A plateau averaging 600 to 700 meters high connects the two mountains. Because Grande Comore is geologically a relatively new island, its soil is thin and rocky and cannot hold water. As a result, water from the island\'s heavy rainfall must be stored in catchment tanks. There are no coral reefs along the coast, and the island lacks a good harbor for ships. One of the largest remnants of the Comoros\' once-extensive rain forests is on the slopes of Kartala. The national capital has been at Moroni since 1962. ## Anjouan Anjouan, triangular shaped and forty kilometers from apex to base, has an area of 424 square kilometers. Three mountain chains --- Sima, Nioumakele, and Jimilime---emanate from a central peak, Mtingui (1,575 m), giving the island its distinctive shape. Older than Grande Comore, Anjouan has deeper soil cover, but overcultivation has caused serious erosion. A coral reef lies close to shore; the island\'s capital of Mutsamudu is also its main port. ## Mohéli Mohéli is thirty kilometers long and twelve kilometers wide, with an area of 290 square kilometers. It is the smallest of the four islands and has a central mountain chain reaching 860 meters at its highest. Like Grande Comore, it retains stands of rain forest. Mohéli\'s capital is Fomboni. ## Mayotte Mayotte, geologically the oldest of the four islands, is thirty-nine kilometers long and twenty-two kilometers wide, totaling 375 square kilometers, and its highest points are between 500 and 600 meters above sea level. Because of greater weathering of the volcanic rock, the soil is relatively rich in some areas. A well-developed coral reef that encircles much of the island ensures protection for ships and a habitat for fish. Dzaoudzi, capital of the Comoros until 1962 and now Mayotte\'s administrative center, is situated on a rocky outcropping off the east shore of the main island. Dzaoudzi is linked by a causeway to le Pamanzi, which at ten kilometers in area is the largest of several islets adjacent to Mayotte. Islets are also scattered in the coastal waters of Mayotte just as in Grande Comore, Anjouan, and Mohéli. ## Flora and fauna {#flora_and_fauna} Comorian waters are the habitat of the coelacanth, a rare fish with limblike fins and a cartilaginous skeleton, the fossil remains of which date as far back as 400 million years and which was once thought to have become extinct about 70 million years ago. A live specimen was caught in 1938 off southern Africa; other coelacanths have since been found in the vicinity of the Comoro Islands. Several mammals are unique to the islands themselves. Livingstone\'s fruit bat, although plentiful when discovered by explorer David Livingstone in 1863, has been reduced to a population of about 120, entirely on Anjouan. The world\'s largest bat, the jet-black Livingstone fruit bat has a wingspan of nearly two meters. A British preservation group sent an expedition to the Comoros in 1992 to bring some of the bats to Britain to establish a breeding population. A hybrid of the common brown lemur (Eulemur fulvus) originally from Madagascar, was introduced by humans prior to European colonization and is found on Mayotte.`{{LoM3 Sfn\|p=400}}`{=mediawiki} The mongoose lemur (Eulemur mongoz), also introduced from Madagascar by humans, can be found on the islands of Mohéli and Anjouan.`{{LoM3 Sfn\|p=446}}`{=mediawiki} 22 species of bird are unique to the archipelago and 17 of these are restricted to the Union of the Comoros. These include the Karthala scops-owl, Anjouan scops-owl and Humblot\'s flycatcher. Partly in response to international pressures, Comorians in the 1990s have become more concerned about the environment. Steps are being taken not only to preserve the rare fauna, but also to counteract degradation of the environment, especially on densely populated Anjouan. Specifically, to minimize the cutting down of trees for fuel, kerosene is being subsidized, and efforts are being made to replace the loss of the forest cover caused by ylang-ylang distillation for perfume. The Community Development Support Fund, sponsored by the International Development Association (IDA, a World Bank affiliate) and the Comorian government, is working to improve water supply on the islands as well. ## Climate The climate is marine tropical, with two seasons: hot and humid from November to April, the result of the northeastern monsoon, and a cooler, drier season the rest of the year. Average monthly temperatures range from 23 to along the coasts. Although the average annual precipitation is 2000 mm, water is a scarce commodity in many parts of the Comoros. Mohéli and Mayotte possess streams and other natural sources of water, but Grande Comore and Anjouan, whose mountainous landscapes retain water poorly, are almost devoid of naturally occurring running water. Cyclones, occurring during the hot and wet season, can cause extensive damage, especially in coastal areas. On the average, at least twice each decade houses, farms, and harbor facilities are devastated by these great storms. ### Tropical cyclones {#tropical_cyclones} Due to their low latitude, the islands are rarely affected by tropical cyclones. However, several cyclones have had damaging and deadly effects. Cyclones in December 1905 and again in December 1906 led to a famine that killed 490 people between August 1905 and January 1906. A tropical cyclone in 1950 killed 585 people while moving through Anjouan and Moheli, injuring 70,000 others. The cyclone left 40,000 people homeless, and also caused ₣3.5 worth of damage to crops and infrastructure. ### Weather ## Extreme points {#extreme_points} This is a list of the extreme points of the Comoros, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location. This list excludes the French-administered island of Mayotte which is claimed by the Comorian government. - Northernmost point -- unnamed headland north-west of Bangoua Kouni, Grande Comore - Easternmost point -- unnamed peninsula east of Domoni, Anjouan - Southernmost point - unnamed headland on Île Canzouni, Mohéli - Westernmost point - unnamed headland west of Iconi, Grande Comore ## Statistics Area: 2,235 km^2^ Coastline: 340 km Climate: tropical marine; rainy season (November to May) Terrain: volcanic islands, interiors vary from steep mountains to low hills Elevation extremes:\ lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 m\ highest point: Karthala 2,360 m Natural resources: fish Land use:\ arable land: 47.29%\ permanent crops: 29.55%\ other: 23.16% (2012 est.) Irrigated land: 1.3 km^2^ (2003) Total renewable water resources: 1.2 km^3^ (2011) Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural):\ total: 0.01 km^3^/yr (48%/5%/47%)\ per capital: 16.86 m^3^/yr (1999) Natural hazards: cyclones possible during rainy season (December to April); volcanic activity on Grand Comore Environmental - current issues: soil degradation and erosion results from crop cultivation on slopes without proper terracing; deforestation	2025-06-20T00:00:00
6,002	Demographics of the Comoros	The Comorians (القمري) inhabiting Grande Comore, Anjouan, and Mohéli (86% of the population) share African-Arab origins. Islam is the dominant religion, and Quranic schools for children reinforce its influence. Although Islamic culture is firmly established throughout, a small minority are Christian. The most common language is Comorian, related to Swahili. French and Arabic also are spoken. About 89% of the population is literate. The Comoros have had eight censuses since World War II: - 1951 - 1956 - 1958-09-07: 183,133 - 1966-07-06 - Note: in 1974 Mayotte was removed from the Comoros - 1980-09-15: 335,150 - 1991-09-15: 446,817 - 2003-09-15: 575,660 - 2017-12-15: 758,316 The latest official estimate (for 1 July 2020) is 897,219. Population density figures conceal a great disparity between the republic\'s most crowded island, Nzwani, which had a density of 772 persons per square kilometer in 2017; Njazidja, which had a density of 331 persons per square kilometer in 2017; and Mwali, where the 2017 population density figure was 178 persons per square kilometer. By comparison, estimates of the population density per square kilometer of the Indian Ocean\'s other island microstates ranged from 241 (Seychelles) to 690 (Maldives) in 1993. Given the rugged terrain of Njazidja and Nzwani, and the dedication of extensive tracts to agriculture on all three islands, population pressures on the Comoros are becoming increasingly critical. The age structure of the population of the Comoros is similar to that of many developing countries, in that the republic has a very large proportion of young people. In 1989, 46.4 percent of the population was under fifteen years of age, an above-average proportion even for sub-Saharan Africa. The population\'s rate of growth was a relatively high 3.5 percent per annum in the mid-1980s, up substantially from 2.0 percent in the mid-1970s and 2.1 percent in the mid-1960s. In 1983 the Abdallah regime borrowed US\$2.85 million from the International Development Association to devise a national family planning program. However, Islamic reservations about contraception made forthright advocacy and implementation of birth control programs politically hazardous, and consequently little was done in the way of public policy. The Comorian population has become increasingly urbanized in recent years. In 1991 the percentage of Comorians residing in cities and towns of more than 5,000 persons was about 30 percent, up from 25 percent in 1985 and 23 percent in 1980. The Comoros\' largest cities were the capital, Moroni, with about 30,000 people, and the port city of Mutsamudu, on the island of Nzwani, with about 20,000 people. Migration among the various islands is important. Natives of Nzwani have settled in significant numbers on less crowded Mwali, causing some social tensions, and many Nzwani also migrate to Maore. In 1977 Maore expelled peasants from Ngazidja and Nzwani who had recently settled in large numbers on the island. Some were allowed to reenter starting in 1981 but solely as migrant labor. The number of Comorians living abroad has been estimated at between 80,000 and 100,000; during the colonial period, most of them lived in Tanzania, Madagascar, and other parts of Southeast Africa. The number of Comorians residing in Madagascar was drastically reduced after anti-Comorian rioting in December 1976 in Mahajanga, in which at least 1,400 Comorians were killed. As many as 17,000 Comorians left Madagascar to seek refuge in their native land in 1977 alone. About 100,000 Comorians live in France; many of them had gone there for a university education and never returned. Small numbers of Indians, Malagasy, South Africans, and Europeans (mostly French) live on the islands and play an important role in the economy. Most French left after independence in 1975. Some Persian Gulf countries started buying Comorian citizenship for their stateless Bedoon residents and deporting them to Comoros. ## Population ### UN population projections {#un_population_projections} ## Vital statistics {#vital_statistics} Statistics `{{as of\|2010\|lc=y}}`{=mediawiki}: Period Live births per year Deaths per year Natural change per year CBR\* CDR\* NC\* TFR\* IMR\* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------- ----------------- ------------------------- ------- ------- ------ ------- ------- 1950--1955 8 000 4 000 4 000 46.8 24.0 22.8 6.00 178 1955--1960 9 000 4 000 5 000 48.9 22.9 26.0 6.60 167 1960--1965 10 000 4 000 6 000 48.0 20.8 27.2 6.91 154 1965--1970 11 000 4 000 6 000 46.8 18.9 27.9 7.05 141 1970--1975 12 000 4 000 8 000 46.8 16.9 29.8 7.05 127 1975--1980 14 000 5 000 10 000 47.9 15.6 32.3 7.05 116 1980--1985 17 000 5 000 12 000 48.6 14.3 34.4 7.05 106 1985--1990 16 000 5 000 11 000 39.6 12.1 27.5 6.00 95 1990--1995 17 000 5 000 12 000 36.6 11.0 25.6 5.30 89 1995--2000 20 000 6 000 15 000 38.6 10.6 28.0 5.30 83 2000--2005 24 000 6 000 18 000 40.2 10.1 30.0 5.30 78 2005--2010 27 000 7 000 20 000 39.0 9.4 29.5 5.08 72 \* CBR = crude birth rate (per 1000); CDR = crude death rate (per 1000); NC = natural change (per 1000); IMR = infant mortality rate per 1000 births; TFR = total fertility rate (number of children per woman) ### Demographic and Health Surveys {#demographic_and_health_surveys} Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Year Total Urban ------ ------- ----------- ------- CBR TFR CBR TFR 1996 33.9 5.1 (3.7) 28.9 2012 32.3 4.3 (3.2) 27.7 Structure of the population (DHS 2012) (Males 11 088, Females 12 284 = 23 373) : Age Group Male (%) Female (%) Total (%) ----------- ---------- ------------ ----------- 0--4 15.5 13.6 14.5 5--9 15.0 13.8 14.4 10--14 13.9 11.8 12.8 15--19 10.1 11.2 10.7 20--24 6.8 8.6 7.8 25--29 5.4 7.8 6.7 30--34 5.8 6.5 6.2 35--39 6.0 5.4 5.7 40--44 4.5 4.0 4.2 45--49 3.2 2.5 2.9 50--54 2.9 4.9 3.9 55--59 1.7 2.2 2.0 60--64 3.3 2.6 2.9 65--69 1.5 1.3 1.4 70--74 2.3 1.7 2.0 75--79 0.8 0.8 0.8 80+ 1.2 1.3 1.3 Unknown 0.1 0.1 0.1 Age group Male (%) Female (%) Total (%) ----------- ---------- ------------ ----------- 0--14 44.4 39.2 41.7 15--64 49.7 55.6 52.7 65+ 5.8 5.1 5.5 Fertility data as of 2012 (DHS Program): Region Total fertility rate Percentage of women age 15-49 currently pregnant Mean number of children ever born to women age 40--49 --------------- ---------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Mohéli 5.0 6.8 6.3 Anjouan 5.2 6.7 5.8 Grande Comore 3.5 6.5 4.6 ## Languages : Arabic (official), French (official), Comorian (official) ## Religion Sunni Muslim 98%, other (including Shia Muslim, Roman Catholic, Jehovah\'s Witness, Protestant) 2% note: Sunni Islam is the state religion	2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,449

Geography of Cameroon

At 475440 km2, 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 472710 km2, with 2730 km2 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 {#natural_regions} `{{MapLibrary|Cameroon_sat.png|Cameroon}}`{=mediawiki} 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 10 to 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 km^2^ 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 1500 to. 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 3400 ft. 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 405 in. ## 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:** 6 N 12 E region:CM_type:country **Continent:** Africa **Area:**\ *total:* 475,440 km2\ *land:* 472,710 km2\ *water:* 2,730 km2\ *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 `{{sfrac|1|10}}`{=mediawiki} 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:* 12 nmi **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 km^2^ (2003) **Total renewable water resources:** 285.5 km^3^ (2011) **Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural):**\ *total:* 0.97 km^3^/yr (23%/10%/68%)\ *per capita:* 58.9 m^3^/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 {#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

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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 (*Peul* or *Peuhl*; *Fulɓe*) (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 `{{UN_Population|source}}`{=mediawiki} the total population was `{{UN_Population|Cameroon}}`{=mediawiki} in `{{UN_Population|Year}}`{=mediawiki}, 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. Total population Population aged 0--14 (%) Population aged 15--64 (%) Population aged 65+ (%) ------ ------------------ --------------------------- ---------------------------- ------------------------- 1950 4 466 000 39.6 56.9 3.5 1955 4 901 000 40.1 56.4 3.5 1960 5 409 000 40.6 55.9 3.6 1965 6 049 000 41.5 54.9 3.6 1970 6 842 000 42.4 54.0 3.6 1975 7 838 000 43.6 52.7 3.7 1980 9 110 000 44.6 51.8 3.6 1985 10 519 000 45.2 51.2 3.6 1990 12 181 000 45.2 51.3 3.6 1995 13 940 000 44.4 52.1 3.5 2000 15 678 000 42.8 53.7 3.5 2005 17 554 000 41.6 54.9 3.5 2010 19 599 000 40.6 55.9 3.5 Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (01.I.2010) (Data refer to national projections.): Age Group Male Female Total \% ----------- ----------- ----------- ------------ --------- Total 9 599 224 9 806 876 19 406 100 100 0--4 1 662 298 1 624 936 3 287 234 16.94 5--9 1 412 467 1 370 992 2 783 459 14.34 10--14 1 227 470 1 167 201 2 394 671 12.34 15--19 1 068 509 1 101 526 2 170 035 11.18 20--24 855 334 981 955 1 837 289 9.47 25--29 712 550 813 266 1 525 816 7.86 30--34 588 210 621 397 1 209 607 6.23 35--39 460 394 482 319 942 713 4.86 40--44 388 539 405 307 793 846 4.09 45--49 323 507 316 740 640 247 3.30 50--54 261 626 260 284 521 910 2.69 55--59 178 876 159 112 337 988 1.74 60--64 155 208 160 671 315 879 1.63 65--69 110 645 116 645 227 290 1.17 70--74 88 969 100 602 189 571 0.98 75--79 47 173 50 905 98 078 0.51 80--84 31 609 39 976 71 585 0.37 85--89 12 109 14 455 26 564 0.14 90--94 6 942 8 773 15 715 0.08 95+ 6 789 9 814 16 603 0.09 Age group Male Female Total Percent 0--14 4 302 235 4 163 129 8 465 364 43.62 15--64 4 992 753 5 302 577 10 295 330 53.05 65+ 304 236 341 170 645 406 3.33 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).): Age Group Male Female Total \% ----------- ------------ ------------ ------------ --------- Total 12 609 256 12 883 098 25 492 354 100 0--4 1 904 057 1 975 656 3 879 713 15.22 5--9 1 720 605 1 757 707 3 478 312 13.64 10--14 1 574 388 1 524 415 3 098 803 12.16 15--19 1 386 436 1 346 672 2 733 108 10.72 20--24 1 213 959 1 171 500 2 385 459 9.36 25--29 1 035 624 985 314 2 020 938 7.93 30--34 888 422 967 529 1 855 951 7.28 35--39 684 460 786 728 1 471 188 5.77 40--44 584 695 650 891 1 235 586 4.85 45--49 438 096 447 171 885 267 3.47 50--54 352 927 392 864 745 791 2.93 55--59 275 690 281 896 557 586 2.19 60--64 220 891 242 450 463 341 1.82 65--69 143 542 141 522 285 064 1.12 70--74 101 474 110 948 212 422 0.83 75--79 49 486 55 219 104 705 0.41 80+ 34 504 44 616 79 120 0.31 Age group Male Female Total Percent 0--14 5 199 050 5 257 778 10 456 828 41.02 15--64 7 130 686 7 273 015 14 403 701 56.50 65+ 279 520 352 305 631 825 2.48 ### Demographic and Health Surveys {#demographic_and_health_surveys} Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Year CBR (Total) TFR (Total) CBR (Urban) TFR (Urban) CBR (Rural) TFR (Rural) ------ ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- 1991 39 5.82 (5.17) 5.17 (4.52) 6.29 (5.66) 1998 37.4 5.2 (4.6) 31.5 3.9 (3.4) 40.1 5.8 (5.3) 2004 37.8 5.0 (4.5) 34.9 4.0 (3.7) 40.5 6.1 (5.6) 2011 38.1 5.1 (4.5) 34.6 4.0 41.3 6.4 2018 36.8 4.8 (4.3) 32.9 3.8 (3.4) 40.7 6.0 (5.5) Fertility data as of 2011 (DHS Program): Region Total fertility rate Percentage of women age 15--49 currently pregnant Mean number of children ever born to women age 40--49 -------------------------- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Adamaoua 5.2 8.6 6.5 Centre (except Yaoundé) 5.6 8.8 5.5 Douala 3.2 8.1 4.5 Est 5.4 12.0 5.6 Extrême-Nord 6.8 14.8 7.3 Littoral (except Douala) 4.6 8.4 5.1 Nord 6.5 12.4 7.1 Nord-Ouest 4.4 6.9 5.4 Ouest 6.0 10.1 5.8 Sud 4.6 9.6 5.2 Sud-Ouest 4.0 7.6 5.5 Yaoundé 3.5 6.5 4.4 ## Vital statistics {#vital_statistics} Registration of vital events is in Cameroon not complete. The Population Departement of the United Nations prepared the following estimates. Year Mid-year population Live births Deaths per Natural change CBR\* CDR\* NC\* IMR\* TFR\* Life expectancy (years) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------- ------------- ------------ ---------------- ------- ------- ------ ------- ------- ------------------------- 1950 4 316 000 187 000 121 000 66 000 43.2 28.1 15.2 194.2 5.54 34.46 1951 4 382 000 189 000 122 000 67 000 43.2 27.9 15.2 193.1 5.52 34.64 1952 4 450 000 192 000 123 000 68 000 43.0 27.7 15.4 190.9 5.49 35.01 1953 4 519 000 194 000 123 000 71 000 43.0 27.3 15.6 188.5 5.47 35.43 1954 4 592 000 197 000 122 000 76 000 42.9 26.5 16.5 182.7 5.47 36.42 1955 4 671 000 201 000 120 000 81 000 43.0 25.7 17.3 177.3 5.47 37.36 1956 4 754 000 205 000 119 000 86 000 43.1 25.0 18.1 172.0 5.49 38.35 1957 4 841 000 209 000 122 000 88 000 43.3 25.1 18.2 167.0 5.51 38.26 1958 4 932 000 214 000 121 000 94 000 43.5 24.5 19.0 162.4 5.55 39.10 1959 5 028 000 220 000 121 000 99 000 43.7 24.0 19.8 158.3 5.59 39.84 1960 5 118 000 226 000 147 000 80 000 44.2 28.6 15.5 154.8 5.65 34.82 1961 5 200 000 232 000 146 000 86 000 44.7 28.2 16.5 151.9 5.71 35.41 1962 5 304 000 239 000 118 000 121 000 45.1 22.3 22.8 149.6 5.77 42.52 1963 5 428 000 246 000 120 000 126 000 45.3 22.0 23.3 147.5 5.83 42.92 1964 5 556 000 252 000 121 000 131 000 45.4 21.8 23.6 145.3 5.89 43.31 1965 5 690 000 258 000 122 000 137 000 45.4 21.4 24.0 142.7 5.95 43.89 1966 5 830 000 265 000 122 000 142 000 45.4 21.0 24.4 139.6 6.00 44.44 1967 5 975 000 271 000 122 000 149 000 45.3 20.4 24.9 135.8 6.06 45.18 1968 6 127 000 277 000 121 000 156 000 45.2 19.8 25.4 131.7 6.11 45.98 1969 6 286 000 283 000 121 000 163 000 45.1 19.2 25.9 127.5 6.14 46.82 1970 6 453 000 291 000 120 000 171 000 45.1 18.6 26.5 123.4 6.20 47.58 1971 6 627 000 299 000 120 000 179 000 45.1 18.1 27.0 119.9 6.26 48.25 1972 6 809 000 306 000 120 000 186 000 45.0 17.6 27.3 117.0 6.28 48.90 1973 6 999 000 315 000 121 000 193 000 44.9 17.3 27.6 115.0 6.31 49.32 1974 7 195 000 323 000 123 000 200 000 44.9 17.1 27.7 113.8 6.34 49.57 1975 7 397 000 332 000 126 000 206 000 44.9 17.0 27.9 113.1 6.39 49.72 1976 7 598 000 344 000 129 000 215 000 45.2 16.9 28.3 112.6 6.45 49.88 1977 7 797 000 355 000 132 000 223 000 45.4 16.9 28.6 111.9 6.52 50.00 1978 8 013 000 365 000 134 000 232 000 45.6 16.7 28.9 110.9 6.56 50.28 1979 8 243 000 378 000 136 000 242 000 45.8 16.5 29.3 109.4 6.61 50.58 1980 8 520 000 390 000 137 000 253 000 45.9 16.2 29.8 107.3 6.66 51.04 1981 8 829 000 407 000 139 000 267 000 46.1 15.8 30.3 104.6 6.64 51.52 1982 9 047 000 421 000 141 000 281 000 46.2 15.4 30.8 101.6 6.62 52.09 1983 9 241 000 422 000 138 000 284 000 45.6 14.9 30.7 98.3 6.61 52.76 1984 9 509 000 431 000 138 000 293 000 45.3 14.5 30.8 95.1 6.59 53.22 1985 9 804 000 444 000 138 000 306 000 45.2 14.0 31.2 92.0 6.58 53.90 1986 10 113 000 459 000 140 000 318 000 45.3 13.9 31.5 89.6 6.59 54.04 1987 10 434 000 471 000 140 000 332 000 45.2 13.4 31.8 87.2 6.56 54.72 1988 10 760 000 482 000 142 000 340 000 44.7 13.2 31.5 85.9 6.50 54.93 1989 11 089 000 492 000 145 000 347 000 44.4 13.1 31.3 85.3 6.44 54.95 1990 11 431 000 505 000 150 000 355 000 44.1 13.1 31.0 85.5 6.39 54.87 1991 11 778 000 517 000 155 000 362 000 43.9 13.2 30.7 86.3 6.35 54.66 1992 12 129 000 528 000 160 000 368 000 43.5 13.2 30.3 87.4 6.29 54.48 1993 12 487 000 538 000 167 000 372 000 43.1 13.4 29.7 88.7 6.19 54.06 1994 12 849 000 549 000 174 000 374 000 42.7 13.6 29.1 89.9 6.08 53.53 1995 13 212 000 556 000 180 000 376 000 42.1 13.6 28.5 90.7 5.96 53.22 1996 13 575 000 564 000 187 000 377 000 41.5 13.8 27.7 91.4 5.83 52.82 1997 13 941 000 573 000 191 000 382 000 41.1 13.7 27.4 91.6 5.72 52.74 1998 14 315 000 588 000 197 000 391 000 41.1 13.7 27.3 91.5 5.67 52.58 1999 14 699 000 607 000 200 000 407 000 41.3 13.6 27.7 90.6 5.63 52.70 2000 15 092 000 620 000 203 000 417 000 41.0 13.4 27.6 89.4 5.53 52.93 2001 15 493 000 632 000 205 000 427 000 40.8 13.2 27.5 87.9 5.44 53.14 2002 15 914 000 652 000 208 000 445 000 41.0 13.0 27.9 86.1 5.46 53.42 2003 16 354 000 674 000 209 000 465 000 41.2 12.8 28.4 84.3 5.46 53.88 2004 16 809 000 694 000 211 000 483 000 41.3 12.6 28.7 82.5 5.45 54.18 2005 17 275 000 711 000 215 000 496 000 41.1 12.4 28.7 80.8 5.41 54.36 2006 17 751 000 728 000 215 000 513 000 41.0 12.1 28.9 79.1 5.35 54.86 2007 18 252 000 745 000 217 000 528 000 40.8 11.9 28.9 77.4 5.33 55.17 2008 18 777 000 762 000 218 000 544 000 40.6 11.6 29.0 75.5 5.28 55.66 2009 19 319 000 779 000 218 000 561 000 40.3 11.3 29.0 73.7 5.23 56.10 2010 19 878 000 795 000 219 000 576 000 40.0 11.0 29.0 71.4 5.16 56.58 2011 20 449 000 805 000 218 000 588 000 39.4 10.6 28.7 69.1 5.06 57.13 2012 21 033 000 815 000 215 000 600 000 38.8 10.2 28.5 66.6 4.99 57.79 2013 21 633 000 827 000 213 000 615 000 38.2 9.8 28.4 64.0 4.91 58.48 2014 22 300 000 842 000 212 000 629 000 37.8 9.5 28.3 61.6 4.86 58.94 2015 23 013 000 869 000 211 000 658 000 37.8 9.2 28.6 59.1 4.83 59.66 2016 23 712 000 895 000 211 000 684 000 37.7 8.9 28.9 56.9 4.82 60.23 2017 24 393 000 913 000 210 000 703 000 37.4 8.6 28.8 54.8 4.77 60.81 2018 25 077 000 921 000 210 000 711 000 36.7 8.4 28.3 53.0 4.69 61.18 2019 25 506 000 923 000 208 000 715 000 36.2 8.2 28.0 53.3 4.65 61.7 2020 26 211 000 929 000 212 000 716 000 35.4 8.1 27.3 51.8 4.56 61.7 2021 26 916 000 936 000 222 000 714 000 34.8 8.3 26.5 59.3 4.47 61.1 2022 27 633 000 947 000 212 000 735 000 34.3 7.7 26.6 48.8 4.40 62.4 2023 28 373 000 957 000 203 000 755 000 33.7 7.2 26.6 47.4 4.32 63.7 \* CBR = crude birth rate (per 1,000); CDR = crude death rate (per 1,000); NC = natural change (per 1,000); IMR = infant mortality rate per 1,000 births; TFR = total fertility rate (number of children per woman) ## Ethnic groups {#ethnic_groups} - Cameroon Highlanders 31% - Equatorial Bantu 19% - Kirdi 11% - Fulani 10% - Baggara Arabs (also called Arab Shuwa) - Hausa - Mafa - Kanuri - Northwestern Bantu 8% - Eastern Nigritic 7% - Other African 13% - Non-African less than 1% ## Languages *Main article: Languages of Cameroon* There are 24 major African language groups in Cameroon; additionally, English and French are official languages. Cameroonian Pidgin English is also widely spoken. Peoples concentrated in the Southwest and Northwest Provinces---around Buea and Bamenda---use standard English and Cameroonian Pidgin English, as well as their local languages. In the three northern provinces---Adamawa, North, and Far North---either French or Fulfulde (the language of the Fulani) is widely spoken. Elsewhere, French is the principal second language, although pidgin and some local languages such as Ewondo, the dialect of a Beti clan from the Yaoundé area, have a wide currency. In Far North Region the northernmost constituent province of Cameroon, Mafa Language Arab Shuwa (an Arab dialect) and is spoken by the Baggara Arabs (also called Arab Shuwa). 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.)

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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 {#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 {#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 {#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 {#political_parties_and_elections} ## Judicial branch {#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 {#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 {#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

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5,452

Economy of Cameroon

The **economy of Cameroon** was one of the most prosperous in Africa for a quarter of a century after independence. The drop in commodity prices for its principal exports -- petroleum, cocoa, coffee, and cotton -- in the mid-1980s, combined with an overvalued currency and economic mismanagement, led to a decade-long recession. Real per capita GDP fell by more than 60% from 1986 to 1994. The current account and fiscal deficits widened, and foreign debt grew. Yet because of its oil reserves and favorable agricultural conditions, Cameroon still has one of the best-endowed primary commodity economies in sub-Saharan Africa. ## Agriculture In 2018, Cameroon produced: - 5 million tons of cassava (13th largest producer in the world); - 3.9 million tonnes of plantain (3rd largest producer in the world, only behind Congo and Ghana); - 2.6 million tons of palm oil (7th largest producer in the world); - 2.3 million tons of maize; - 1.9 million tons of taro (3rd largest producer in the world, second only to Nigeria and China); - 1.4 million tons of sorghum; - 1.2 million tons of banana; - 1.2 million tons of sugarcane; - 1 million 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 {#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). Less than 5 percent of Cameroonians have access to a bank account. While the microfinance sector is consequently becoming increasingly important, its development is hampered by a loose regulatory and supervisory framework for microfinance institutions (MFIs). The banking sector is highly concentrated and dominated by foreign commercial banks. 6 out of the 11 largest commercial banks are foreign-owned, and the three largest banks hold more than 50 percent of total financial system assets. While foreign banks generally display good solvency ratios, small domestic banks are in a much weaker position. Their capitalization is well below the average of banks in the CEMAC region and their profits are close to 2 percent, compared to 20 percent for foreign banks in the country. This is partially explained by the high levels of non-performing loans, which reached 12 percent in 2007, leading to most banks holding large amounts of excess reserves as a percentage of deposits and large levels of unutilized liquidity. 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 {#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. thumb\|left\|upright=1.25\|Cameroonian exports in 2006 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](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2006/01/data/dbcselm.cfm?G=2001) by the International Monetary Fund with figures in millions of Central African CFA Francs. Year Gross Domestic Product US Dollar Exchange ------ ------------------------ -------------------- 1980 1,600,186 209.20 Francs 1985 4,355,977 471.12 Francs 1990 3,804,428 300.65 Francs 1995 4,686,286 518.62 Francs 2000 6,612,385 658.21 Francs 2005 8,959,279 527.29 Francs The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980--2022. Inflation below 5% is in green. Year GDP (in Bil. US\$PPP) GDP per capita (in US\$ PPP) GDP (in Bil. US\$nominal) GDP growth (real) Inflation rate (in Percent) Government debt (in % of GDP) ------ ----------------------- ------------------------------ --------------------------- ------------------- ----------------------------- ------------------------------- 1980 11.1 1,263 8.85 9.9% 7.7% n/a 1981 14.3 1,572 10.03 17.1% 7.5% n/a 1982 16.3 1,747 9.62 7.6% 15.3% n/a 1983 18.1 1,887 9.69 6.8% 20.5% n/a 1984 20.1 2,047 10.24 7.5% 12.1% n/a 1985 22.4 2,223 10.70 8.1% 4.2% n/a 1986 24.4 2,357 13.95 6.8% 4.3% n/a 1987 24.5 2,298 16.15 -2.2% 2.8% n/a 1988 23.4 2,129 16.40 -7.9% 1.7% n/a 1989 23.9 2,110 14.63 -1.8% 1.6% n/a 1990 23.2 1,992 14.64 -6.2% 1.5% n/a 1991 23.1 1,922 16.33 -3.8% -0.6% n/a 1992 22.9 1,850 14.96 -3.1% 1.9% n/a 1993 22.7 1,780 15.61 -3.2% -3.7% n/a 1994 22.6 1,722 10.62 -2.5% 12.7% n/a 1995 23.9 1,766 10.08 3.3% 25.8% n/a 1996 25.5 1,836 11.23 4.9% 3.9% n/a 1997 27.3 1,913 11.35 5.3% 4.8% n/a 1998 29.0 1,974 11.34 4.9% 3.2% 68% 1999 30.6 2,026 11.55 4.1% 1.8% 68% 2000 32.3 2,084 10.25 3.4% 1.2% 76% 2001 34.2 2,145 10.95 3.4% 4.5% 62% 2002 36.4 2,224 12.37 4.8% 2.8% 57% 2003 38.9 2,318 15.94 5.0% 0.6% 52% 2004 42.6 2,469 18.80 6.6% 0.3% 52% 2005 44.5 2,509 19.53 1.2% 2.0% 44% 2006 47.5 2,605 20.91 3.5% 4.9% 18% 2007 50.8 2,710 23.93 4.1% 1.1% 14% 2008 53.2 2,764 27.71 2.9% 5.3% 11% 2009 55.0 2,777 27.90 2.6% 3.0% 11% 2010 57.2 2,814 27.53 2.9% 1.3% 14% 2011 60.5 2,892 30.63 3.5% 3.0% 15% 2012 63.6 2,959 30.17 4.5% 2.4% 15% 2013 69.1 3,130 33.73 5.0% 2.1% 17% 2014 75.1 3,313 36.40 5.8% 1.9% 21% 2015 79.1 3,396 32.21 5.6% 2.7% 32% 2016 84.4 3,527 33.81 4.5% 0.9% 32% 2017 90.0 3,665 36.09 3.5% 0.6% 37% 2018 95.9 3,803 39.99 4.0% 1.1% 38% 2019 101.0 3,901 39.67 3.4% 2.5% 42% 2020 102.7 3,870 40.86 0.5% 2.5% 45% 2021 110.9 4,073 45.39 3.6% 2.3% 46% 2022 123.3 4,419 44.32 3.8% 4.6% 47% ## Mining ## Gallery <File:Douala.JPG>\|Douala <File:Limbe1.png%7CA> 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

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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_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); - 2 AM, 9 FM, and 3 shortwave stations (2001). - Television stations: - state-owned Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV), 2 private TV broadcasters (2007); - one station (2001). BBC World Service radio is available via local relays (98.4 FM in Yaounde, the capital). 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. Approximately 375 privately owned radio stations were operating in 2012, three-fourths of them in Yaounde and Douala. The government requires nonprofit rural radio stations to submit applications to broadcast, but they were exempt from licensing fees. Commercial radio and television broadcasters must submit a licensing application and pay an application fee and thereafter pay a high annual licensing fee. Several rural community radio stations function with foreign funding. The government prohibits these stations from discussing politics. In spite of the government\'s tight control, Reporters Without Borders reported in its 2011 field survey that \"\[i\]t is clear from the diversity of the media and the outspoken reporting style that press freedom is a reality\". ## Telephones - Calling code: +237 - International call prefix: 00 - Main lines: - 737,400 lines in use, 88th in the world (2012); - 130,700 lines in use (2006). - Mobile cellular: - 13.1 million lines, 64th in the world (2012); - 4.5 million lines (2007). - Telephone system: system includes cable, microwave radio relay, and tropospheric scatter; Camtel, the monopoly provider of fixed-line service, provides connections for only about 3 per 100 persons; equipment is old and outdated, and connections with many parts of the country are unreliable; mobile-cellular usage, in part a reflection of the poor condition and general inadequacy of the fixed-line network, has increased sharply, reaching a subscribership base of 50 per 100 persons (2011). - Communications cables: South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable (SAT-3/WASC) fiber-optic cable system provides connectivity to Europe and Asia (2011); Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), cable system connecting countries along the west coast of Africa to each other and to Portugal and France, is planned. - Satellite earth stations: 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2011). ## Internet - Top-level domain: .cm - Internet users: - 1.1 million users, 113th in the world; 5.7% of the population, 184th in the world (2012). - 985,565 users (2011); - 749,600 users, 106th in the world (2009). - Fixed broadband: 1,006 subscriptions, 180th in the world; less than 0.05% of the population, 190th in the world (2012). - Wireless broadband: Unknown (2012). - Internet hosts: - 10,207 hosts, 134th in the world (2012); - 69 hosts (2008). - IPv4: 137,728 addresses allocated, less than 0.05% of the world total, 6.8 addresses per 1000 people (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 {#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.

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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 *Main article: Rail transport in Cameroon* 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 {#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 {#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 {#airports___with_unpaved_runways} \ *total:* 24\ *1,524 to 2,437 m:* 4\ *914 to 1,523 m:* 14\ *under 914 m:* 6 (2008)

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5,455

Cameroon Armed Forces

The **Cameroon Armed Forces** (*Forces armées camerounaises (FAC)*) 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 Rapid Response Brigade (Cameroon) (*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 {#st_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 {#nd_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 - 21st BCS in Buéa - 21 BIM in Buéa - 22nd BIM at Mamfé - 23rd BIM at Loum - 24th BIM at Akwaya - 21st BA in Kumba - 201st Douala Air Base - 21st Air Transport Squadron - 211st Transport and Assault Transport Squadron - 212nd Transport and Assault Transport Squadron - 22nd Air Squadron - 221st Transport and Assault Transport Squadron - 222nd Reconnaissance Squadron ### Army equipment {#army_equipment} ## Cameroonian Air Force {#cameroonian_air_force} The air force has bases in Garoua, Koutaba, Yaoundé, Douala, and Bamenda. The Cameroonian Air Force was founded in 1960, the year of independence from France. There are under 400 troops in the air force. Cameroon\'s Air Force has 9 combat-capable aircraft. ## Cameroon Navy {#cameroon_navy} There are about 1,300 troops in the navy including naval infantry. ### History Around May 1999, Philip Njaru wrote a newspaper article where he alleged ill-treatment of civilians conducted by the 21st Navy Battalion based in Ekondo-Titi. In late May Njaru was approached by the local captain who asked Njaru \"to stop writing such articles and to disclose his sources\". Refusing to do this, Njaru five days later found his house encircled by armed soldiers, and escaped to Kumba. Here, he was assaulted by police in June 2001, with no particular reason stated. Njaru complained to the local authorities, but later learned that \"his complaint had not been received\". Cameroon\'s Marine Nationale République modernised and increased its capabilities during 2000 with the acquisition of a number of small Rodman patrol craft and the retirement of some small older craft. A number of small patrol boats have been acquired or ordered from France. Latest estimates indicate naval strength consists of two combat patrol vessels, three coastal patrol vessels and approximately 30 smaller inshore and river patrol craft allocated to both the navy and the local gendarmerie. These include two 135 tonne Yunnan-class landing craft, which are able to carry and launch smaller craft for troop insertions. Some effort has been made to assess equipment needs to bring L\'Audacieux P103 and Bakassi P104 to an effective combat status. This has resulted in weapons capabilities being reduced in favour of an increase in serviceability and the service is now effectively without missile attack capabilities. Bakassi (a Type P 48S missile patrol craft) completed a major refit at Lorient, France in August 1999. This included removing the Exocet missile system and EW equipment, and fitting a funnel aft of the mainmast to replace the waterline exhausts. New radars were also installed. Bakassi is now armed only with 40 mm cannon. Although the Bizerte (P48 large patrol craft) class L\'Audacieux is fitted for SS-12M missiles these are not embarked and its operational status is in some doubt, having not been reported at sea since 1995. The Quartier-Maître Alfred Moto patrol boat was listed as out of service in 1991 but has since been reactivated. ### Ships List of active ships. - 1: DIPIKAR patrol boat (former French navy \"Grèbe\", upgraded with LYNCEA PATROL CMS) (Gun) - 2: FRA P-48 (Gun) - 6: Rodman 101/46 (Gun) - 1: Quartier class (Gun) - 3: Boston Whaler patrol boats - 1: Bakassi class patrol boat (P48S type) - 1: L'Audacieux class missile FAC (P48 type) - 1: Alfred Motto class patrol craft - 20: Swiftships type river boats - 2: Yunnan landing craft utility - 8: Simoneau - 2: Aresa 2400 CPV Defender patrol boats - 1: Aresa 2300 landing craft - 6: Aresa 750 Commandos RIBs - 5: 1200 Stealth RIBs - 1: 1200 Defcon RIB - 2: P108 and P109 patrol boats ## Gendarmerie The Gendarmerie is a paramilitary force composed of about 9,000 soldiers as of 2016. It performs both law enforcement and national security responsibilities across the country. (See [Gendarmerie](https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/africa/cm-gendarmerie.htm)) ## Military education {#military_education} After an initial period of development, training requirements were formalized in an April 1967 per government decree. There was a shortage of Cameroonian instructors at that time. The two educational institutions of the nation are the following: - Combined Services Military Academy (Ecole Militaire Interarmes Camerounaises---EMIAC): It is the interforce academy for officers, being the educational center for future officers of the armed forces and the National Gendarmerie. It was established in 1959 and inaugurated on 18 January 1961. 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.

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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 `{{Historical populations |title=Census population |percentages=pagr |1940|181,740 |1950|149,984 |1960|199,902 |1970|270,999 |1980|295,703 |1990|341,491 |2000|431,989 |2010|491,875 |2021|491,233 |source = <ref>{{cite web|url=https://ine.cv/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/evolucao-da-populacao-residente-em-cabo-verde-1900-2010.pdf|title=Evolução da população residente em Cabo Verde por Ilha Concelho|website=ine.cv}}</ref> }}`{=mediawiki} According to `{{UN_Population|source}}`{=mediawiki} the total population was `{{UN_Population|Cabo Verde}}`{=mediawiki} in `{{UN_Population|Year}}`{=mediawiki}, 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. Year Total Ages 0--14 (%) Ages 15--64 (%) Ages 65+ (%) ------ --------- ---------------- ----------------- -------------- 1950 178,000 32.6 59.8 7.6 1955 195,000 35.8 57.9 6.2 1960 211,000 42.1 53.2 4.8 1965 240,000 48.5 47.3 4.2 1970 274,000 48.2 47.8 4 1975 311,000 45.8 49.6 4.6 1980 300,000 46.0 48.7 5.3 1985 328,000 44.5 50.5 5 1990 348,000 45.4 49.8 4.8 1995 395,000 44.5 50.5 5 2000 437,000 41.7 52.9 5.3 2005 473,000 37.0 57.2 5.8 2010 496,000 31.8 62.3 5.9 : Progression of the population Age Group Male Female Total \% ----------- --------- --------- --------- --------- Total 243 403 248 280 491 683 100 0--4 25 131 25 069 50 200 10.21 5--9 25 168 25 040 50 208 10.21 10--14 27 864 27 361 55 225 11.23 15--19 29 655 29 405 59 060 12.01 20--24 27 327 25 578 52 905 10.76 25--29 23 336 21 005 44 341 9.02 30--34 18 165 16 339 34 504 7.02 35--39 14 106 13 130 27 236 5.54 40--44 12 988 13 303 26 291 5.35 45--49 11 347 12 165 23 512 4.78 50--54 8 162 9 999 18 161 3.69 55--59 4 947 7 196 12 143 2.47 60--64 2 613 3 580 6 193 1.26 65--69 2 499 3 716 6 215 1.26 70--74 3 437 5 229 8 666 1.76 75--79 2 980 4 453 7 433 1.51 80--84 2 092 3 185 5 277 1.07 85--89 827 1 358 2 185 0.44 90--94 377 696 1 073 0.22 95+ 172 325 497 0.10 Age group Male Female Total Percent 0--14 78 163 77 470 155 633 31.65 15--64 152 646 151 700 304 346 61.90 65+ 12 384 18 962 31 346 6.38 Unknown 210 148 358 0.07 Age Group Male Female Total \% ----------- --------- --------- --------- --------- Total 281 533 275 324 556 857 100 0--4 26 739 25 524 52 264 9.39 5--9 26 162 24 973 51 135 9.18 10--14 25 262 25 389 50 651 9.10 15--19 23 734 23 483 47 218 8.48 20--24 23 955 22 461 46 416 8.34 25--29 28 159 26 015 54 173 9.73 30--34 28 603 24 995 53 597 9.62 35--39 24 111 20 484 44 595 8.01 40--44 18 738 15 923 34 660 6.22 45--49 14 043 12 780 26 822 4.82 50--54 12 282 12 693 24 974 4.48 55--59 10 437 11 557 21 994 3.95 60--64 7 125 9 226 16 351 2.94 65--69 4 080 6 402 10 482 1.88 70--74 2 050 2 955 5 006 0.90 75--79 1 722 2 772 4 494 0.81 80--84 2 037 3 496 5 533 0.99 85--89 1 443 2 389 3 833 0.69 90--94 682 1 249 1 931 0.35 95+ 170 560 730 0.13 Age group Male Female Total Percent 0--14 78 163 75 886 154 049 27.66 15--64 191 186 179 615 370 801 66.59 65+ 12 184 19 823 32 007 5.75 Age Group Male Female Total \% ----------- --------- --------- --------- --------- Total 246 363 244 870 491 233 100 0--4 23 111 22 429 45 540 9.27 5--9 23 533 23 086 46 619 9.49 10--14 23 809 22 771 46 580 9.48 15--19 21 903 20 401 42 304 8.61 20--24 20 391 18 159 38 550 7.85 25--29 22 481 21 665 44 146 8.99 30--34 22 552 21 681 44 233 9.00 35--39 19 217 18 105 37 322 7.60 40--44 15 820 14 259 30 079 6.12 45--49 12 269 11 347 23 616 4.81 50--54 11 257 11 224 22 481 4.58 55--59 10 001 10 682 20 683 4.21 60--64 7 536 8 765 16 301 3.32 65--69 4 496 6 510 11 006 2.24 70--74 2 347 3 279 5 626 1.15 75--79 1 685 2 842 4 527 0.92 80--84 1 839 3 404 5 243 1.07 85--89 1 257 2 473 3 730 0.76 90--94 648 1 316 1 964 0.40 95+ 211 472 683 1.39 Age group Male Female Total Percent 0--14 70 453 68 286 138 739 28.24 15--64 163 427 156 288 319 715 65.08 65+ 12 483 20 296 32 779 6.67 ## Vital statistics {#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. Period Live births per year Deaths per year Natural change per year CBR\* CDR\* NC\* TFR\* IMR\* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------- ----------------- ------------------------- ------- ------- ------ ------- ------- 1950--1955 9 000 4 000 5 000 49.0 22.6 26.3 6.57 139 1955--1960 10 000 4 000 5 000 48.0 21.1 26.9 6.76 132 1960--1965 10 000 4 000 6 000 45.0 18.7 26.3 6.97 125 1965--1970 11 000 4 000 6 000 41.4 16.4 25.0 6.97 117 1970--1975 12 000 4 000 8 000 41.1 13.4 27.7 6.86 96 1975--1980 13 000 4 000 9 000 41.6 11.6 30.0 6.62 78 1980--1985 13 000 3 000 10 000 41.3 10.3 31.0 6.10 65 1985--1990 14 000 3 000 11 000 40.9 9.2 31.7 5.63 54 1990--1995 14 000 3 000 11 000 36.5 7.9 28.6 4.93 44 1995--2000 13 000 3 000 10 000 31.6 6.7 24.9 4.15 37 2000--2005 12 000 3 000 9 000 26.2 5.8 20.5 3.28 28 2005--2010 11 000 3 000 8 000 21.9 5.2 16.7 2.60 21 \* CBR = crude birth rate (per 1000); CDR = crude death rate (per 1000); NC = natural change (per 1000); IMR = infant mortality rate per 1000 births; TFR = total fertility rate (number of children per woman) ### Registered births and deaths {#registered_births_and_deaths} Year Population Live births Deaths Natural increase Crude birth rate Crude death rate Rate of natural increase TFR ------ ------------ ------------- -------- ------------------ ------------------ ------------------ -------------------------- ------- 1948 3,756 1949 3,904 3,641 263 1950 5,322 2,562 2,760 1951 7,367 2,377 4,990 1952 7,647 2,455 5,192 1953 7,597 2,866 4,731 1954 8,697 3,305 5,392 1955 8,547 2,220 6,327 1956 8,377 2,200 6,177 1957 8,237 2,790 5,447 1958 9,026 2,552 6,474 1959 9,609 2,382 7,227 1960 8,954 3,127 5,827 1961 8,319 2,543 5,776 1962 8,952 2,452 6,500 1963 9,671 2,996 6,675 1964 9,783 2,315 7,468 1965 9,638 2,377 7,261 1966 9,621 2,167 7,454 1967 10,190 2,593 7,597 1968 10,131 2,397 7,734 1969 9,671 3,452 6,219 1970 9,379 2,883 6,496 1971 9,493 4,147 5,346 1972 8,966 2,779 6,187 1973 8,418 3,513 4,905 1974 8,492 2,576 5,916 1975 8,210 2,796 5,414 1976 9,863 2,869 6,994 1977 9,965 2,564 7,401 1978 10,060 3,207 6,853 1979 8,289 2,469 5,820 1980 9,650 2,080 7,570 1981 8,580 1982 11,066 2,169 8,897 1983 11,438 2,649 8,789 1984 11,696 2,863 8,833 1985 11,282 2,735 8,547 1986 12,636 1987 12,771 1988 12,443 1989 1990 9,669 2,505 7,164 1991 12,289 2,616 9,673 1992 9,671 2,843 6,828 1993 2,821 1994 1995 386,813 3,520 9.1 1996 393,478 2,715 6.9 1997 406,267 3,047 7.5 1998 413,382 15,460 2,811 12,649 6.8 1999 426,061 2,812 6.6 2000 436,821 12,746 2,433 10,313 29.2 5.6 23.6 4.00 2001 445,035 12,550 2,396 10,154 28.2 5.4 22.8 2002 452,198 12,345 2,395 9,950 27.3 5.3 22.0 2003 460,837 12,120 2,600 9,520 26.3 5.6 20.7 2004 468,854 11,862 2,522 9,340 25.3 5.4 19.9 2005 478,163 11,554 2,423 9,131 24.3 5.1 19.2 2006 487,121 9,765 2,612 7,153 20.7 5.4 15.3 2.443 2007 491,419 10,421 2,484 7,937 21.8 5.2 16.6 2.575 2008 499,796 10,165 2,683 7,482 21.0 5.5 15.5 2.429 2009 485,677 9,962 2,583 7,379 20.4 5.3 15.1 2.334 2010 477,859 10,568 2,352 8,216 22.1 4.9 17.2 2.535 2011 480,577 10,777 2,488 8,289 22.4 5.2 17.2 2.589 2012 483,285 10,050 2,610 7,440 20.8 5.4 15.4 2.419 2013 485,996 9,845 2,518 7,327 20.3 5.2 15.1 2.358 2014 488,719 9,868 2,528 7,340 20.2 5.2 15.0 2.356 2015 491,436 9,794 2,761 7,033 19.9 5.6 14.3 2.330 2016 493,465 9,980 2,591 7,389 20.2 5.3 14.9 2.389 2017 495,522 9,943 2,497 7,446 20.1 5.0 15.1 2.401 2018 497,558 9,551 2,836 6,715 19.2 5.7 13.5 2.327 2019 499,609 9,284 2,771 6,513 18.6 5.5 13.1 2.286 2020 501,657 9,211 2,959 6,252 18.4 5.9 12.5 2.280 2021 504,125 8,607 3,178 5,429 17.1 6.3 10.8 2.147 2022 506,595 7,981 3,032 4,949 15.8 6.0 9.8 2.008 2023 509,078 2024 511,534 ### Demographic and Health Surveys {#demographic_and_health_surveys} Total fertility rate (TFR) (wanted fertility rate) and crude birth rate (CBR): Year CBR (Total) TFR (Total) CBR (Urban) TFR (Urban) CBR (Rural) TFR (Rural) ------ ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- 2005 22 2,9 (2,8) 23 2,7 (2,7) 22 3,1 (3,0) Fertility data from 2005 (DHS Program): Region Total fertility rate Percentage of women age 15-49 currently pregnant Mean number of children ever born to women age 40--49 ---------------- ---------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Santo Antão 2.9 3.8 6.0 São Vicente 2.0 3.4 4.0 São Nicolau 3.3 4.4 4.2 Sal 3.2 7.0 3.9 Boa Vista 2.4 10.0 4.4 Maio 2.6 1.7 4.3 Santiago 3.1 5.4 4.5 Praia Urbano 3.2 5.1 4.5 Santiago Norte 2.7 6.2 4.3 Resto Santiago 3.3 4.6 4.8 Fogo 3.1 6.3 5.6 Brava 2.8 7.0 5.0 ### Life expectancy {#life_expectancy} +------------+---------------------+ | Period | Life expectancy in\ | | | Years | +============+=====================+ | 1950--1955 | 48.08 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1955--1960 | 48.77 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1960--1965 | 49.45 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1965--1970 | 52.43 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1970--1975 | 55.25 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1975--1980 | 60.52 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1980--1985 | 62.37 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1985--1990 | 64.10 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1990--1995 | 65.73 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1995--2000 | 67.94 | +------------+---------------------+ | 2000--2005 | 71.27 | +------------+---------------------+ | 2005--2010 | 71.77 | +------------+---------------------+ | 2010--2015 | 72.14 | +------------+---------------------+ ## Ethnic groups {#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 generations being substantially more likely to speak a non-creole language. Any non-creole languages Portuguese English French Spanish Italian --------------- -------------------------- ------------ ---------- ---------- --------- --------- **Total 12+** **72.8** **72.2** **16.5** **13.5** **3.0** **0.9** 12-14 84.8 84.7 8.5 7.0 0.0 0.1 15-24 88.6 88.1 25.0 19.5 1.2 0.3 25-44 79.8 78.8 20.5 15.8 4.3 1.6 45-64 54.6 54.4 7.2 7.8 4.6 0.6 65 + 26.4 26.3 2.6 4.5 1.8 1.1 : Percentage of population aged 12 or above by ability to speak various languages ## 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)

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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 {#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 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:* 10\ *ships by type:* chemical tanker 1, trawler/cargo ship 5, passenger/cargo 5\ *foreign 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 {#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 {#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 {#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 {#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 {#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 ```{=html}  ``` - 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

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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. Those living on the islands often partook in what is called \"wrecking\". Caymanians enticed passing ships by creating objects that piqued sailors\' interests. Often these objects did not look like other vessels. Caymanians made mules or donkeys with lanterns tied to their bodies to walk along the beaches or lit a large bonfire to attract sailors. Having very little knowledge of the area, sailors often became stuck on the reefs in the process of reaching a distance to where they could communicate with those on the island. Once the ships were stuck on the reefs, islanders took canoes to plunder and salvage the ships under the false pretense of providing assistance. ## British control {#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 {#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 {#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 {#hurricane_ivan} `{{See also|:Category:Natural disasters in the Cayman Islands|l1=Natural disasters in the Cayman Islands}}`{=mediawiki} 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.

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5,470

Geography of the Cayman Islands

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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 {#structure_of_the_population} Age group Male Female Total \% ----------- -------- -------- -------- ------- Total 27 106 28 585 55 691 100 0--14 4 512 4 831 9 343 16.78 15--24 2 873 2 916 5 789 10.39 25--34 4 727 5 043 9 771 17.55 35--44 5 746 5 955 11 701 21.01 45--54 4 836 5 070 9 907 17.79 55--64 2 530 2 744 5 274 9.47 65+ 1 881 2 025 3 907 7.02 Age Group Total \% ----------- -------- --------- Total 71 105 100 0--4 3 683 5.18 5--9 3 700 5.20 10--14 3 931 5.53 15--19 3 254 4.58 20--24 3 552 5.00 25--29 5 445 7.66 30--34 6 776 9.53 35--39 7 086 9.97 40--44 6 870 9.66 45--49 6 559 9.22 50--54 5 939 8.35 55--59 4 833 6.80 60--64 3 358 4.72 65+ 5 602 7.88 Age group Total Percent 0--14 11 314 15.91 15--64 53 674 75.49 65+ 5 602 7.88 unknown 515 0.72 ### District populations {#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 {#vital_statistics} Average population (x 1000) Live births Deaths Natural change Crude birth rate (per 1000) Crude death rate (per 1000) Natural change (per 1000) Infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births) ------ ----------------------------- ------------- -------- ---------------- ----------------------------- ----------------------------- --------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- 1950 6.4 198 58 140 30.9 9.0 21.8 1951 6.3 213 42 171 34.0 6.7 27.3 1952 6.2 197 46 151 31.5 7.4 24.2 1953 6.3 244 32 212 38.6 5.1 33.5 1954 6.5 237 48 189 36.6 7.4 29.2 1955 6.7 226 52 174 33.9 7.8 26.1 1956 6.9 235 62 173 34.0 9.0 25.0 1957 7.2 248 60 188 34.6 8.4 26.2 1958 7.4 207 66 141 27.9 8.9 19.0 1959 7.7 272 50 222 35.5 6.5 29.0 1960 7.9 264 54 210 33.6 6.9 26.7 1961 8.0 277 68 209 34.5 8.5 26.0 1962 8.1 290 51 239 35.6 6.3 29.4 1963 8.2 303 61 242 36.8 7.4 29.4 1964 8.3 270 73 197 32.5 8.8 23.7 1965 8.4 241 63 178 28.8 7.5 21.3 1966 8.4 267 67 200 31.6 7.9 23.7 1967 8.5 269 60 209 31.6 7.0 24.5 1968 8.6 282 54 228 32.7 6.3 26.4 1969 8.8 272 46 226 30.8 5.2 25.6 1970 9.1 313 71 242 34.2 7.8 26.5 1971 9.6 287 65 222 29.9 6.8 23.2 1972 10.1 351 68 283 34.6 6.7 27.9 1973 10.8 319 83 236 29.6 7.7 21.9 1974 11.5 281 84 197 24.4 7.3 17.1 1975 12.2 327 77 250 26.7 6.3 20.4 1976 13.3 282 81 201 21.7 6.2 15.4 1977 13.8 270 84 186 19.5 6.1 13.4 1978 14.7 273 78 195 18.6 5.3 13.3 1979 15.4 289 98 191 18.7 6.3 12.4 1980 16.2 326 105 221 20.2 6.5 13.7 1981 16.8 347 106 241 20.7 6.3 14.3 1982 17.4 339 107 232 19.5 6.2 13.4 1983 17.9 387 105 282 21.6 5.9 15.7 1984 18.5 414 114 300 22.3 6.1 16.2 1985 19.3 367 126 241 19.0 6.5 12.5 1986 20.3 360 141 219 17.8 7.0 10.8 1987 21.3 359 118 241 16.8 5.5 11.3 1988 22.5 380 124 256 16.9 5.5 11.4 1989 23.8 438 122 316 18.4 5.1 13.3 1990 25.0 490 120 370 19.6 4.8 14.8 1991 26.2 500 127 373 19.1 4.8 14.2 1992 27.4 520 128 392 19.0 4.7 14.3 1993 28.7 528 133 395 18.4 4.6 13.8 1994 30.1 531 149 382 17.7 5.0 12.7 1995 31.7 485 110 375 15.3 3.5 11.8 1996 33.5 560 125 435 16.7 3.7 13.0 1997 35.6 572 123 449 16.1 3.5 12.6 1998 37.7 545 117 428 14.4 3.1 11.3 1999 39.8 604 128 476 15.2 3.2 12.0 2000 41.7 619 137 482 14.8 3.3 11.6 2001 43.3 622 132 490 14.4 3.0 11.3 2002 44.7 583 120 463 13.0 2.7 10.3 13.7 2003 46.0 623 153 470 13.5 3.3 10.2 4.8 2004 47.3 611 165 446 12.9 3.5 9.4 6.4 2005 48.6 699 170 529 14.4 3.5 10.9 7.0 2006 52.229 710 182 528 13.4 3.4 10.0 8.7 2007 52.939 744 160 584 13.8 3.0 10.8 8.3 2008 55.448 793 166 627 14.2 3.0 11.2 2.5 2009 56.507 824 177 647 14.6 3.1 11.4 3.7 2010 55.521 821 164 657 14.8 3.0 11.8 2.5 2011 55.277 800 176 624 14.5 3.2 11.3 6.3 2012 56.124 759 172 587 13.6 3.3 10.3 4.0 2013 56.239 705 182 523 12.5 3.2 9.3 2.9 2014 56.993 711 163 548 12.5 2.9 9.6 2015 59.054 649 170 479 11.0 2.9 8.1 2016 61.331 660 193 467 10.8 3.1 7.7 2017 63.115 625 216 409 9.9 3.4 6.5 2018 64.420 640 214 426 9.9 3.3 6.6 2019 69.914 646 250 396 9.2 3.7 5.5 2020 65.786 817 215 602 12.4 3.3 9.1 2021 67.721 818 341 477 12.4 4.0 8.4 2022 78.554 798 310 488 10.2 3.9 6.3 2023 83.671 760 308 452 9.1 3.7 5.4 ## Ethnic groups {#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. Ports are closed on Sundays and Christian holidays. There are places of worship in George Town for Jehovah\'s Witnesses and followers of the Baháʼí Faith. The Cayman Islands also hosts a growing Jewish community. Year Percent of Hindus Increase ------ ------------------- ---------- 2000 0.25% 2008 1% +0.75% 2011 0.8% −0.2% 2021 2.4% +2.6% 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).

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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} 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.

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5,473

Economy of the Cayman Islands

The **economy of the Cayman Islands**, a British overseas territory located in the western Caribbean Sea, is mainly fueled by the tourism sector and by the financial services sector, together representing 50--60 percent of the country\'s gross domestic product (GDP). The Cayman Islands Investment Bureau, a government agency, has been established with the mandate of promoting investment and economic development in the territory. Because of the territory\'s strong economy and it being a popular banking destination for wealthy individuals and businesses, it is often dubbed the 'financial capital' of the Caribbean. 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 {#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 {#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 `{{as of|lc=y|June 2007}}`{=mediawiki}. In March 2017 there were 158 banks, 11 of which were licensed to conduct banking activities with domestic (Cayman-based) and international clients, and the remaining 147 were licensed to operate on an international basis with only limited domestic activity. 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. In June 2008, it passed 10,000 hedge fund registrations, and over the year ending June 2008 CIMA reported a net growth rate of 12% for hedge funds. 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. In 2004, under pressure from the UK, the Cayman Islands agreed in principle to implement the European Union Savings Directive (EUSD), but only after securing some important benefits for the financial services industry in the Cayman Islands. As the Cayman Islands is not subject to EU laws, the implementation of the EUSD is by way of bilateral agreements between each EU member state and the Cayman Islands. The government of the Cayman Islands agreed on a model agreement, which set out how the EUSD would be implemented with the Cayman Islands. 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 {#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 Model 1 Agreement recognizes: - 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 Great Britain and Northern Ireland provided a copy of the Letter of Entrustment which was sent to the Government of the Cayman Islands, to the Government of the United States of America \"via diplomatic note of October 16, 2013\". - The Letter of Entrustment dated 20 October 2013, The Govt of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, authorized the Govt of the Cayman Islands to sign an agreement on information exchange to facilitate the Implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act -- Page 1 -- Clause 10. On 26 March 2017, the US Treasury site disclosed that the Model 1 agreement and related agreement were \"In Force\" on 1 July 2014. #### Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act {#sanctions_and_anti_money_laundering_act} Under the UK Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2018, beneficial ownership of companies in British overseas territories such as the Cayman Islands must be publicly registered for disclosure by 31 December 2020. The Government of the Cayman Islands plans to challenge this law, arguing that it violates the Constitutional sovereignty granted to the islands. The British National Crime Agency said in September 2018 that the authorities in the Cayman Islands were not supplying information about the beneficial ownership of firms registered in the Cayman 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 {#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](http://www.digicelcayman.com) : *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.](https://lla.com/) 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:** `{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20010301173705/http://www.cayman27.com.ky/ Cayman27]}}`{=mediawiki} ## 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](https://lla.com) - [Digicel](https://www.digicelgroup.com/ky) - [Logic](https://www.logic.ky) - Fibre based service. Founded in 2004 as WestTel when it was granted a telecommunications license. Purchased TeleCayman in 2013 - [C3](https://www.c3.ky/) **Country code (Top-level domain):** .ky

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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 {#bilateral_relations} ### India ### United States {#united_states}

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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 1640 ft 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 3750 ft. At 622984 km2, 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. ## Extreme points {#extreme_points} This is a list of the extreme points of the Central African Republic, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location. - Northernmost point - unnamed location in the Aoukal river on the border with Chad, Vakaga Prefecture - Easternmost point - unnamed location immediately East of the tripoint with South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and south of the town of Ezo in South Sudan, Haut-Mbomou Prefecture - Southernmost point - the tripoint with Cameroon and the Republic of Congo, Sangha-Mbaéré Prefecture - Westernmost point - unnamed location on the border with Cameroon west of the town of Koundé in Central African Republic near Cameroon\'s Lokoti to Garoua Boulai road, Nana-Mambéré Prefecture

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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 `{{UN_Population|source}}`{=mediawiki} the total population was `{{UN_Population|Central African Republic}}`{=mediawiki} in `{{UN_Population|Year}}`{=mediawiki}, 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. Year Total 0--14 (%) 15--64 (%) 65+ (%) ------ ----------- ----------- ------------ --------- 1950 1 327 000 36.2 58.7 5.1 1955 1 399 000 37.0 58.3 4.7 1960 1 504 000 38.2 57.5 4.3 1965 1 649 000 39.6 56.2 4.2 1970 1 829 000 40.6 55.3 4.1 1975 2 017 000 41.7 54.2 4.1 1980 2 274 000 42.2 53.6 4.1 1985 2 627 000 42.4 53.6 4.0 1990 2 935 000 43.2 52.8 4.0 1995 3 328 000 42.5 53.5 4.0 2000 3 702 000 42.0 54.0 3.9 2005 4 018 000 41.6 54.5 4.0 2010 4 401 000 40.4 55.6 4.0 2015 4 410 000 40.8 55.8 4.0 : Population by age group ## Vital statistics {#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. <table> <thead> <tr class="header"> <th></th> <th>Population (thousands)</th> <th style="width:80pt;">Live births (thousands)</th> <th style="width:80pt;">Deaths (thousands)</th> <th style="width:80pt;">Natural change (thousands)</th> <th style="width:80pt;">CBR</th> <th style="width:80pt;">CDR</th> <th style="width:80pt;">NC</th> <th style="width:80pt;">TFR</th> <th style="width:80pt;">IMR</th> <th style="width:80pt;">Life expectancy (years)</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr class="odd"> <td>1950</td> <td>1 437</td> <td> 63</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 20</td> <td>43.6</td> <td>29.5</td> <td>14.0</td> <td style="color:red">5.74</td> <td>190.7</td> <td>35.39</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1951</td> <td> 1 457</td> <td> 63</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 21</td> <td>43.5</td> <td>29.4</td> <td>14.1</td> <td>5.75</td> <td>189.7</td> <td>35.59</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1952</td> <td> 1 478</td> <td> 64</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 21</td> <td>43.5</td> <td>29.0</td> <td>14.5</td> <td>5.76</td> <td>187.5</td> <td>36.00</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1953</td> <td> 1 500</td> <td> 65</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 22</td> <td>43.4</td> <td>28.6</td> <td>14.8</td> <td>5.76</td> <td>185.4</td> <td>36.40</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1954</td> <td> 1 522</td> <td> 66</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 23</td> <td>43.3</td> <td>28.2</td> <td>15.2</td> <td>5.77</td> <td>183.3</td> <td>36.80</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1955</td> <td> 1 546</td> <td> 67</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 24</td> <td>43.3</td> <td>27.7</td> <td>15.6</td> <td>5.78</td> <td>181.3</td> <td>37.19</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1956</td> <td> 1 570</td> <td> 68</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 25</td> <td>43.2</td> <td>27.3</td> <td>15.9</td> <td>5.78</td> <td>179.3</td> <td>37.58</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1957</td> <td> 1 596</td> <td> 69</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 26</td> <td>43.2</td> <td>26.8</td> <td>16.4</td> <td>5.79</td> <td>177.3</td> <td>37.97</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1958</td> <td> 1 623</td> <td> 70</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 27</td> <td>43.0</td> <td>26.4</td> <td>16.7</td> <td>5.80</td> <td>175.3</td> <td>38.35</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1959</td> <td> 1 650</td> <td> 71</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 28</td> <td>43.0</td> <td>25.9</td> <td>17.0</td> <td>5.81</td> <td>173.3</td> <td>38.74</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1960</td> <td> 1 680</td> <td> 72</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 29</td> <td>42.9</td> <td>25.4</td> <td>17.5</td> <td>5.81</td> <td>170.5</td> <td>39.24</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1961</td> <td> 1 710</td> <td> 73</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 31</td> <td>42.9</td> <td>24.9</td> <td>18.0</td> <td>5.83</td> <td>167.8</td> <td>39.74</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1962</td> <td> 1 743</td> <td> 75</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 32</td> <td>43.0</td> <td>24.4</td> <td>18.6</td> <td>5.85</td> <td>164.9</td> <td>40.26</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1963</td> <td> 1 776</td> <td> 76</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 34</td> <td>43.0</td> <td>23.9</td> <td>19.1</td> <td>5.87</td> <td>162.0</td> <td>40.78</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1964</td> <td> 1 812</td> <td> 78</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 36</td> <td>43.3</td> <td>23.4</td> <td>19.9</td> <td>5.91</td> <td>158.9</td> <td>41.35</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1965</td> <td> 1 849</td> <td> 80</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 38</td> <td>43.4</td> <td>22.9</td> <td>20.6</td> <td>5.94</td> <td>155.8</td> <td>41.93</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1966</td> <td> 1 889</td> <td> 83</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 40</td> <td>43.8</td> <td>22.4</td> <td>21.4</td> <td>5.98</td> <td>152.6</td> <td>42.53</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1967</td> <td> 1 931</td> <td> 85</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 43</td> <td>44.0</td> <td>21.9</td> <td>22.1</td> <td>6.02</td> <td>149.4</td> <td>43.16</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1968</td> <td> 1 975</td> <td> 87</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 45</td> <td>44.3</td> <td>21.4</td> <td>22.9</td> <td>6.06</td> <td>146.2</td> <td>43.80</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1969</td> <td> 2 022</td> <td> 89</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 47</td> <td>44.1</td> <td>20.9</td> <td>23.2</td> <td>6.04</td> <td>143.2</td> <td>44.44</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1970</td> <td> 2 067</td> <td> 90</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 48</td> <td>43.7</td> <td>20.3</td> <td>23.4</td> <td>6.00</td> <td>140.3</td> <td>45.07</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1971</td> <td> 2 111</td> <td> 92</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 50</td> <td>43.5</td> <td>19.8</td> <td>23.7</td> <td>5.99</td> <td>137.6</td> <td>45.69</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1972</td> <td> 2 154</td> <td> 93</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 51</td> <td>43.1</td> <td>19.2</td> <td>23.8</td> <td>5.96</td> <td>135.1</td> <td>46.29</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1973</td> <td> 2 196</td> <td> 94</td> <td style="color:blue">41</td> <td> 53</td> <td>42.6</td> <td>18.7</td> <td>23.9</td> <td>5.93</td> <td>132.8</td> <td>46.85</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1974</td> <td> 2 239</td> <td> 95</td> <td> 41</td> <td> 54</td> <td>42.3</td> <td>18.3</td> <td>24.0</td> <td>5.91</td> <td>130.6</td> <td>47.40</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1975</td> <td> 2 284</td> <td> 96</td> <td> 41</td> <td> 55</td> <td>41.9</td> <td>17.8</td> <td>24.1</td> <td>5.89</td> <td>128.5</td> <td>47.91</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1976</td> <td> 2 318</td> <td> 98</td> <td> 41</td> <td> 57</td> <td>42.0</td> <td>17.5</td> <td>24.5</td> <td>5.93</td> <td>126.6</td> <td>48.40</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1977</td> <td> 2 342</td> <td> 100</td> <td> 41</td> <td> 60</td> <td>42.4</td> <td>17.2</td> <td>25.2</td> <td>5.97</td> <td>124.8</td> <td>48.84</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1978</td> <td> 2 366</td> <td> 103</td> <td> 41</td> <td> 62</td> <td>43.0</td> <td>17.0</td> <td>26.0</td> <td>6.02</td> <td>123.0</td> <td>49.24</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1979</td> <td> 2 390</td> <td> 105</td> <td> 41</td> <td> 65</td> <td>43.6</td> <td>16.8</td> <td>26.8</td> <td>6.07</td> <td>121.4</td> <td>49.60</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1980</td> <td> 2 415</td> <td> 107</td> <td> 41</td> <td> 67</td> <td>44.1</td> <td>16.7</td> <td>27.4</td> <td>6.11</td> <td>120.0</td> <td>49.89</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1981</td> <td> 2 441</td> <td> 110</td> <td> 41</td> <td> 69</td> <td>44.6</td> <td>16.5</td> <td>28.1</td> <td>6.14</td> <td>118.8</td> <td>50.16</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1982</td> <td> 2 468</td> <td> 112</td> <td> 41</td> <td> 71</td> <td>44.9</td> <td>16.4</td> <td>28.5</td> <td style="color:blue">6.14</td> <td>117.8</td> <td>50.30</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1983</td> <td> 2 495</td> <td> 114</td> <td> 41</td> <td> 73</td> <td>45.2</td> <td>16.3</td> <td>28.9</td> <td>6.12</td> <td>117.0</td> <td>50.42</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1984</td> <td> 2 524</td> <td> 116</td> <td> 41</td> <td> 75</td> <td>45.5</td> <td>16.3</td> <td>29.3</td> <td>6.11</td> <td>116.3</td> <td>50.48</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1985</td> <td> 2 553</td> <td> 118</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 77</td> <td>45.9</td> <td>16.2</td> <td>29.7</td> <td>6.11</td> <td>115.7</td> <td>50.52</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1986</td> <td> 2 584</td> <td> 120</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 78</td> <td>46.2</td> <td>16.1</td> <td>30.0</td> <td>6.09</td> <td>115.1</td> <td>50.49</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1987</td> <td> 2 616</td> <td> 123</td> <td> 42</td> <td> 80</td> <td>46.5</td> <td>16.1</td> <td>30.4</td> <td>6.10</td> <td>114.7</td> <td>50.41</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1988</td> <td> 2 657</td> <td> 124</td> <td> 43</td> <td> 81</td> <td>46.5</td> <td>16.1</td> <td>30.4</td> <td>6.08</td> <td>114.5</td> <td>50.24</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1989</td> <td> 2 724</td> <td> 127</td> <td> 44</td> <td> 83</td> <td>style="color:blue|46.5</td> <td>16.1</td> <td>30.5</td> <td>6.06</td> <td>114.7</td> <td>49.99</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1990</td> <td> 2 809</td> <td> 130</td> <td> 45</td> <td> 85</td> <td>46.3</td> <td>16.1</td> <td>30.2</td> <td>6.05</td> <td>115.0</td> <td>49.64</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1991</td> <td> 2 898</td> <td> 133</td> <td> 47</td> <td> 86</td> <td>46.0</td> <td>16.1</td> <td>29.8</td> <td>6.03</td> <td>115.2</td> <td>49.25</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1992</td> <td> 2 992</td> <td> 136</td> <td> 48</td> <td> 87</td> <td>45.4</td> <td>16.2</td> <td>29.2</td> <td>5.98</td> <td>115.1</td> <td>48.79</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1993</td> <td> 3 089</td> <td> 139</td> <td> 50</td> <td> 88</td> <td>44.9</td> <td>16.3</td> <td>28.7</td> <td>5.94</td> <td>114.7</td> <td>48.35</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1994</td> <td> 3 188</td> <td> 142</td> <td> 52</td> <td> 90</td> <td>44.5</td> <td>16.4</td> <td>28.1</td> <td>5.93</td> <td>114.3</td> <td>47.85</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1995</td> <td> 3 277</td> <td> 146</td> <td> 54</td> <td> 92</td> <td>44.5</td> <td>16.6</td> <td>27.9</td> <td>5.97</td> <td>113.8</td> <td>47.35</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1996</td> <td> 3 364</td> <td> 149</td> <td> 56</td> <td> 92</td> <td>44.3</td> <td>16.8</td> <td>27.5</td> <td>5.99</td> <td>113.4</td> <td>46.83</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1997</td> <td> 3 458</td> <td> 151</td> <td> 59</td> <td> 93</td> <td>43.8</td> <td>17.0</td> <td>26.8</td> <td>5.96</td> <td>112.8</td> <td>46.32</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1998</td> <td> 3 555</td> <td> 155</td> <td> 61</td> <td> 94</td> <td>43.5</td> <td>17.1</td> <td>26.4</td> <td>5.93</td> <td>112.2</td> <td>46.03</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1999</td> <td> 3 655</td> <td> 159</td> <td> 63</td> <td> 96</td> <td>43.4</td> <td>17.2</td> <td>26.2</td> <td>5.93</td> <td>111.4</td> <td>45.75</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2000</td> <td> 3 759</td> <td> 162</td> <td> 65</td> <td> 97</td> <td>43.3</td> <td>17.3</td> <td>25.9</td> <td>5.92</td> <td>111.0</td> <td>45.41</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>2001</td> <td> 3 845</td> <td> 165</td> <td> 67</td> <td> 99</td> <td>42.8</td> <td>17.2</td> <td>25.6</td> <td>5.85</td> <td>110.1</td> <td>45.39</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2002</td> <td> 3 931</td> <td> 167</td> <td> 67</td> <td> 100</td> <td>42.6</td> <td>17.2</td> <td>25.5</td> <td>5.84</td> <td>109.1</td> <td>45.41</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>2003</td> <td> 4 027</td> <td> 173</td> <td> 68</td> <td> 104</td> <td>42.8</td> <td>16.9</td> <td>25.9</td> <td>5.85</td> <td>108.1</td> <td>45.76</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2004</td> <td> 4 115</td> <td> 175</td> <td style="color:red"> 69</td> <td> 107</td> <td>42.5</td> <td>16.7</td> <td>25.9</td> <td>5.83</td> <td>107.2</td> <td>46.04</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>2005</td> <td> 4 209</td> <td> 180</td> <td> 69</td> <td> 111</td> <td>42.6</td> <td>16.4</td> <td>26.3</td> <td>5.85</td> <td>106.2</td> <td>46.43</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2006</td> <td> 4 294</td> <td> 185</td> <td> 69</td> <td> 115</td> <td>42.8</td> <td>16.1</td> <td>26.7</td> <td>5.87</td> <td>104.8</td> <td>46.85</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>2007</td> <td> 4 376</td> <td> 188</td> <td> 69</td> <td> 119</td> <td>42.8</td> <td>15.7</td> <td>27.1</td> <td>5.89</td> <td>103.4</td> <td>47.43</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2008</td> <td> 4 467</td> <td> 192</td> <td> 69</td> <td> 124</td> <td>42.9</td> <td>15.3</td> <td>27.6</td> <td>5.91</td> <td>101.7</td> <td>48.02</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>2009</td> <td> 4 565</td> <td> 197</td> <td> 68</td> <td> 129</td> <td>43.0</td> <td>14.9</td> <td>28.1</td> <td>5.92</td> <td>99.5</td> <td>48.65</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2010</td> <td> 4 660</td> <td> 202</td> <td> 68</td> <td> 134</td> <td>43.2</td> <td>14.5</td> <td>28.7</td> <td>5.94</td> <td>97.3</td> <td>49.26</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>2011</td> <td> 4 732</td> <td> 206</td> <td> 67</td> <td> 139</td> <td>43.2</td> <td>14.1</td> <td>29.1</td> <td>5.96</td> <td>94.7</td> <td>49.95</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2012</td> <td> 4 773</td> <td> 208</td> <td> 66</td> <td> 142</td> <td>43.0</td> <td>13.6</td> <td>29.4</td> <td>6.01</td> <td>92.1</td> <td>50.69</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>2013</td> <td> 4 802</td> <td> 206</td> <td> 65</td> <td> 141</td> <td>42.4</td> <td>13.4</td> <td>29.0</td> <td>6.02</td> <td>89.9</td> <td>50.90</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2014</td> <td> 4 799</td> <td> 205</td> <td> 66</td> <td> 139</td> <td>41.9</td> <td>13.5</td> <td>28.4</td> <td>6.02</td> <td>89.1</td> <td>50.57</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>2015</td> <td> 4 819</td> <td> 199</td> <td> 59</td> <td> 140</td> <td style="color:red">41.0</td> <td>12.2</td> <td>28.9</td> <td>6.04</td> <td>84.7</td> <td>52.79</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2016</td> <td> 4 904</td> <td> 203</td> <td> 58</td> <td> 145</td> <td>41.2</td> <td>11.7</td> <td>29.5</td> <td>6.04</td> <td>81.6</td> <td>53.46</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>2017</td> <td> 4 997</td> <td> 209</td> <td> 58</td> <td> 151</td> <td>41.6</td> <td>11.5</td> <td>30.1</td> <td>6.05</td> <td>79.3</td> <td>53.72</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2018</td> <td> 5 095</td> <td> 214</td> <td> 58</td> <td> 157</td> <td>41.8</td> <td>11.2</td> <td>30.6</td> <td>6.04</td> <td>77.4</td> <td>54.37</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>2019</td> <td> 5 209</td> <td> 219</td> <td> 57</td> <td> 162</td> <td>41.9</td> <td style="color:blue">10.9</td> <td>31.0</td> <td>6.01</td> <td>74.6</td> <td>55.03</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>2020</td> <td> 5 343</td> <td> 226</td> <td> 59</td> <td> 167</td> <td>42.2</td> <td>11.0</td> <td>31.1</td> <td>5.99</td> <td>72.4</td> <td>54.60</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>2021</td> <td> 5 457</td> <td> 235</td> <td> 63</td> <td> 172</td> <td>42.7</td> <td>11.4</td> <td style="color:blue">31.3</td> <td>5.98</td> <td>71.4</td> <td>53.90</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td colspan="11" style="font-size:smaller; text-align:left"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Source: UN DESA, World Population Prospects, 2022 `{{GraphChart | width = 450 | height = 150 | xAxisTitle=year | yAxisTitle= million | yAxisMin= | yGrid= 0,1 | xGrid= 10 | legend= | type = line | x = 1950,1951,1952,1953,1954,1955,1956,1957,1958,1959,1960,1961,1962,1963,1964,1965,1966,1967,1968,1969,1970,1971,1972,1973,1974,1975,1976,1977,1978,1979,1980,1981,1982,1983,1984,1985,1986,1987,1988,1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 | y1= 1.44,1.46,1.48,1.5,1.52,1.55,1.57,1.6,1.62,1.65,1.68,1.71,1.74,1.78,1.81,1.85,1.89,1.93,1.98,2.02,2.07,2.11,2.15,2.2,2.24,2.28,2.32,2.34,2.37,2.39,2.42,2.44,2.47,2.5,2.52,2.55,2.58,2.62,2.66,2.72,2.81,2.9,2.99,3.09,3.19,3.28,3.36,3.46,3.56,3.66,3.76,3.85,3.93,4.03,4.12,4.21,4.29,4.38,4.47,4.57,4.66,4.73,4.77,4.8,4.8,4.82,4.9,5,5.09,5.21,5.34,5.46 | y1Title= population (million) }}`{=mediawiki} `{{GraphChart | width = 450 | height = 150 | xAxisTitle=years | yAxisTitle= ‰ | yAxisMin= | yGrid= 0,1 | xGrid= 10 | hAnnotatonsLine= | hAnnotatonsLabel= | legend= | type = line | x = 1950,1951,1952,1953,1954,1955,1956,1957,1958,1959,1960,1961,1962,1963,1964,1965,1966,1967,1968,1969,1970,1971,1972,1973,1974,1975,1976,1977,1978,1979,1980,1981,1982,1983,1984,1985,1986,1987,1988,1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 | y1= 14.0,14.1,14.5,14.8,15.2,15.6,15.9,16.4,16.7,17.0,17.5,18.0,18.6,19.1,19.9,20.6,21.4,22.1,22.9,23.2,23.4,23.7,23.8,23.9,24.0,24.1,24.5,25.2,26.0,26.8,27.4,28.1,28.5,28.9,29.3,29.7,30.0,30.4,30.4,30.5,30.2,29.8,29.2,28.7,28.1,27.9,27.5,26.8,26.4,26.2,25.9,25.6,25.5,25.9,25.9,26.3,26.7,27.1,27.6,28.1,28.7,29.1,29.4,29.0,28.4,28.9,29.5,30.1,30.6,31.0,31.1,31.3 | y1Title=Natural change (per 1000) }}`{=mediawiki} `{{GraphChart | width = 450 | height = 150 | xAxisTitle=years | yAxisTitle= ‰ | yAxisMin= | yGrid= 0,1 | xGrid= 10 | hAnnotatonsLine= | hAnnotatonsLabel= | legend= | type = line | x = 1950,1951,1952,1953,1954,1955,1956,1957,1958,1959,1960,1961,1962,1963,1964,1965,1966,1967,1968,1969,1970,1971,1972,1973,1974,1975,1976,1977,1978,1979,1980,1981,1982,1983,1984,1985,1986,1987,1988,1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 | y1= 190.7,189.7,187.5,185.4,183.3,181.3,179.3,177.3,175.3,173.3,170.5,167.8,164.9,162.0,158.9,155.8,152.6,149.4,146.2,143.2,140.3,137.6,135.1,132.8,130.6,128.5, 126.6,124.8,123.0,121.4,120.0,118.8,117.8,117.0,116.3,115.7,115.1,114.7,114.5,114.7,115.0,115.2,115.1,114.7,114.3,113.8,113.4,112.8,112.2,111.4,111.0,110.1,109.1,108.1,107.2,106.2,104.8,103.4,101.7,99.5,97.3,94.7,92.1,89.9,89.1,84.7,81.6,79.3,77.4,74.6,72.4,71.4 | y1Title=Infant Mortality (per 1000 live births) }}`{=mediawiki} `{{GraphChart | width = 450 | height = 150 | xAxisTitle=years | yAxisTitle= TFR | yAxisMin= | yGrid= 0,1 | xGrid= 10 | hAnnotatonsLine= | hAnnotatonsLabel= | legend= | type = line | x = 1950,1951,1952,1953,1954,1955,1956,1957,1958,1959,1960,1961,1962,1963,1964,1965,1966,1967,1968,1969,1970,1971,1972,1973,1974,1975,1976,1977,1978,1979,1980,1981,1982,1983,1984,1985,1986,1987,1988,1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 | y1= 5.74,5.75,5.76,5.76,5.77,5.78,5.78,5.79,5.80,5.81,5.81,5.83,5.85,5.87,5.91,5.94,5.98,6.02,6.06,6.04,6.00,5.99,5.96,5.93,5.91,5.89,5.93,5.97,6.02,6.07,6.11,6.14,6.14,6.12,6.11,6.11,6.09,6.10,6.08,6.06,6.05,6.03,5.98,5.94,5.93,5.97,5.99,5.96,5.93,5.93,5.92,5.85,5.84,5.85,5.83,5.85,5.87,5.89,5.91,5.92,5.94,5.96,6.01,6.02,6.02,6.04,6.04,6.05,6.04,6.01,5.99,5.98 | y1Title=Total Fertility Rate }}`{=mediawiki} ### Demographic and Health Surveys {#demographic_and_health_surveys} Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Year CBR (Total) TFR (Total) CBR (Urban) TFR (Urban) CBR (Rural) TFR (Rural) ---------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- 1994--95 38,0 5,07 (4,7) 37,9 4,86 (4,3) 37,9 5,23 (5,0) ### Life expectancy {#life_expectancy} +------------+---------------------+ | Period | Life expectancy in\ | | | Years | +============+=====================+ | 1950--1955 | 33.44 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1955--1960 | 35.50 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1960--1965 | 37.57 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1965--1970 | 40.16 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1970--1975 | 43.90 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1975--1980 | 47.62 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1980--1985 | 49.56 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1985--1990 | 49.49 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1990--1995 | 47.65 | +------------+---------------------+ | 1995--2000 | 44.96 | +------------+---------------------+ | 2000--2005 | 43.68 | +------------+---------------------+ | 2005--2010 | 45.99 | +------------+---------------------+ | 2010--2015 | 49.40 | +------------+---------------------+ ## Ethnic groups {#ethnic_groups} An approximate distribution of the ethnic groups is shown in the chart below: Ethnic group Percentage Population --------------- ------------ ------------ Baggara Arabs 2.4% 107,000 Baka 0.5% 20,000 Banda 27% 1,190,700 Bayaka ? ? Fula 4.5% 250,000 Gbaya 33% 1,300,000 Kara 2.3% 100,000 Kresh ? ? Mbaka 4% 176,400 Mandja 13% 573,300 Ngbandi ? ? Sara 10% 441,000 Vidiri ? ? Wodaabe 2.3% 100,000 Yakoma 4% 176,400 Yulu ? ? Zande 1.4% 62,000 Others ? ? : Ethnic groups in Central African Republic ## Languages : Sango (lingua franca and official language), French (official), tribal languages ## Religion : Christian 89%, Muslim 9%, folk religionist 1%, unaffiliated 1% (2020 est.) : Indigenous beliefs 35%, Protestant 25%, Roman Catholic 25%, Islam 15% note: animistic beliefs and practices strongly influence the Christian majority

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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 {#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 {#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 {#political_parties_and_elections} ## Judicial branch {#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 {#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 {#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

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5,483

Economy of the Central African Republic

The **economy of the Central African Republic** is \$2.321 billion by gross domestic product as of 2019, even lower than much smaller countries such as Barbados 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. The vast bulk of the population engages in subsistence farming and 55% of the country\'s GDP derives from agriculture. Subsistence agriculture, together with forestry, remains the backbone of the economy of the Central African Republic (CAR), with more than 70% of the population living in outlying areas. 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%. Central African Republic is a least developed country according to United Nations. ## Infrastructure `{{See also|List of power stations in the Central African Republic}}`{=mediawiki} Much of the country\'s limited electrical supply is provided by hydroelectric plants located in Boali. Fuel supplies must be barged in via the Oubangui River or trucked overland through Cameroon, resulting in frequent shortages of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The C.A.R.\'s transportation and communication network is limited. The country has only 429 kilometers of paved road, limited international, and no domestic air service, and does not possess a railroad. River traffic on the Oubangui River is impossible from April to July, and conflict in the region has sometimes prevented shipments from moving between Kinshasa and Bangui. The telephone system functions, albeit imperfectly. Four radio stations operate in the C.A.R., as well as one television station. Numerous newspapers and pamphlets are published on a regular basis, and one company provides Internet access. ## 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. According to a report from the UN Security Council, \"illegal artisanal exploitation surged in non-attributed forest areas\" under the Djotodia government, while logging trucks were \"systematically subjected to illegal tax levying\". In 2014, the same companies paid approximately €127,864 to Anti-balaka militias at road checkpoints. These illegal timber exploits continued in more recent years. The CEMAC banned raw timber exports in January 2022, but the Central African Republic failed to honor this ban. 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. ## Agriculture 74% (2013) of the population in the Central African Republic works in the agriculture industry, so Central African Republic\'s economy is dominated by the cultivation and sale of foodcrops such as yams, cassava, peanuts, maize, sorghum, millet, sesame, and plantains. The importance of foodcrops over exported cash crops is illustrated by the fact that the total production of cassava, the staple food of most Central Africans, ranges between c. 200,000 and 300,000 tons a year, while the production of cotton, the principal exported cash crop, ranges from c. 25,000 to 45,000 tons a year. Foodcrops are not exported in large quantities but they still constitute the principal cash crops of the country because Central Africans derive far more income from the periodic sale of surplus foodcrops than from exported cash crops such as cotton or coffee. Many rural and urban women also transform some foodcrops into alcoholic drinks such as sorghum beer or hard liquor and derive considerable income from the sale of these drinks. Much of the income derived from the sale of foods and alcohol is not \"on the books\" and thus is not considered in calculating per capita income, which is one reason why official figures for per capita income are not accurate in the case of the CAR. The per capita income of the CAR is often listed as being around \$400 a year, said to be one of the lowest in the world, but this figure is based mostly on reported sales of exports and largely ignores the more important but unregistered sale of foods, locally produced alcohol, diamonds, ivory, bushmeat, and traditional medicines, for example. The informal economy of the CAR is more important than the formal economy for most Central Africans. 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 {#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. In April 2022, the country announced that it will adopt the cryptocurrency bitcoin as legal tender. ## Economic aid and development {#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. Economic mismanagement, poor infrastructure, a limited tax base, scarce private investment, and adverse external conditions have led to deficits in both its budget and external trade. Its debt burden is considerable, and the country has seen a decline in per capita gross national product over the last 40 years. Important constraints to economic development include the CAR\'s landlocked position, a poor transportation system, a largely unskilled work force, and a legacy of misdirected macroeconomic policies. The 50% devaluation of the currencies of 14 Francophone African nations on 12 January 1994 had mixed effects on the CAR\'s economy. Diamond, timber, coffee, and cotton exports increased, leading an estimated rise of GDP of 7% in 1994 and nearly 5% in 1995. Military rebellions and social unrest in 1996 were accompanied by widespread destruction of property and a drop in GDP of 2%. Ongoing violence between the government and rebel military groups over pay issues, living conditions, and political representation has destroyed many businesses in the capital and reduced tax revenues for the government. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved an Extended Structure Adjustment Facility in 1998. The government has set targets of annual 5% growth and 25% inflation for 2000--2001. Structural adjustment programs with the World Bank and IMF and interest-free credits to support investments in the agriculture, livestock, and transportation sectors have had limited impact. The World Bank and IMF are now encouraging the government to concentrate exclusively on implementing much-needed economic reforms to jump-start the economy and defining its fundamental priorities with the aim of alleviating poverty. As a result, many of the state-owned business entities have been privatized and limited efforts have been made to standardize and simplify labor and investment codes and to address problems of corruption. The Central African Government is currently in the process of adopting new labor and investment codes. ## Macroeconomic The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980--2024. +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | Year | GDP (in bil. US\$ PPP) | GDP per capita (in US\$ PPP) | GDP (in bil. US\$ nominal) | GDP growth\ | Inflation\ | Government debt\ | | | | | | (real) | (in Percent) | (Percentage of GDP) | +==========+========================+==============================+============================+=============+==============+=====================+ | **1980** | 1.14 | 514 | 0.71 | | | | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **1985** | 1.72 | 680 | 0.88 | | | | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **1990** | 2.30 | 800 | 1.57 | | | | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **1995** | 2.81 | 839 | 1.12 | | | | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2000** | 3.06 | 797 | 0.87 | | | | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2005** | 3.61 | 841 | 1.41 | 2.9% | 2.9% | 103.0% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2006** | 3.90 | 890 | 1.54 | 4.8% | 6.9% | 46.8% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2007** | 4.16 | 933 | 1.76 | 4.0% | 0.9% | 47.9% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2008** | 4.35 | 955 | 2.03 | 2.6% | 9.3% | 35.8% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2009** | 4.50 | 995 | 2.06 | 2.8% | 3.6% | 20.3% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2010** | 4.77 | 1,062 | 2.14 | 4.6% | 1.5% | 19.9% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2011** | 5.07 | 1,111 | 2.44 | 4.2% | 1.2% | 19.7% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2012** | 5.43 | 1,177 | 2.51 | 5.1% | 5.9% | 31.5% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2013** | 3.51 | 756 | 1.69 | −36.4% | 4.0% | 51.8% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2014** | 3.58 | 773 | 1.90 | 0.1% | 17.8% | 62.2% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2015** | 3.77 | 813 | 1.70 | 4.3% | 1.4% | 59.8% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2016** | 3.98 | 845 | 1.83 | 4.8% | 4.9% | 53.9% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2017** | 4.24 | 884 | 2.07 | 4.5% | 4.2% | 50.3% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2018** | 4.53 | 929 | 2.28 | 3.8% | 1.6% | 50.0% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2019** | 5.00 | 1,010 | 2.28 | 3.0% | 2.8% | 48.2% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2020** | 5.49 | 1,093 | 2.39 | 1.0% | 0.9% | 44.4% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2021** | 5.92 | 1,159 | 2.59 | 1.0% | 4.3% | 48.5% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2022** | 6.38 | 1,251 | 2.46 | 0.5% | 5.6% | 51.0% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2023** | 6.65 | 1,291 | 2.63 | 0.7% | 3.0% | 57.6% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ | **2024** | 6.91 | 1,296 | 2.82 | 1.4% | 4.7% | 57.4% | +----------+------------------------+------------------------------+----------------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------------+ ## Exchange rates {#exchange_rates}

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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_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. - Radios: 283,000 (1997).`{{update after|2014|1|24}}`{=mediawiki} - Television stations: Government-owned network, *Télévision Centrafricaine* (TCF), provides domestic TV broadcasting; licenses for 2 private TV stations were pending (2007). - Television sets: 18,000 (1997).`{{update after|2014|1|24}}`{=mediawiki} In Bangui, UN-sponsored Radio *Ndeke Luka* (\"bird of luck\") provides balanced output, and rebroadcasts international news programming. Other radio and TV stations are run by the state-run *Radiodiffusion-Television Centrafricaine* and provide little coverage of the political opposition. There are about two dozen privately owned radio stations. Many, such as Radio Notre Dame, run by religious organisations. Starting 24 November 2011 *La Radio et la Télévision nationale centrafricaine (TVCA)* (Central African Radio (CAR) and National Television) are available via satellite. This move brought state-run national radio and television coverage to the entire country. ## Telephones - Calling code: +236 - International call prefix: 00 - Main lines: 5,600 lines in use, 209th in the world (2012). - Mobile cellular: 1.1 million lines, 157th in the world (2012). - Telephone system: The network consists principally of microwave radio relay and low-capacity, low-powered radiotelephone communication; limited telephone service with less than one fixed-line connection per 100 persons; spurred by the presence of multiple mobile-cellular service providers, cellular usage is increasing from a low base; most fixed-line and mobile-cellular telephone services are concentrated in the capital, Bangui (2011). - Satellite earth stations: 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2011). GSM coverage was for a long time limited to the capital area. But in June 2006 coverage was expanded at least to Berberati in the western part of the country. There are currently two GSM-900 mobile operators, Telecel CAR and NationLink Telecom RCA. A third network, Centrafrique Telecom Plus closed down in late 2005 after failing to attract more than 5,000 subscribers and failing to renew its license, in accordance with the then new Bozize government policies. ## Internet - Top-level domain: .cf - Internet users: - 151,716 users, 160th in the world; 3.0% of the population, 195th in the world (2012). - 22,600 users, 192nd in the world (2009). - Internet hosts: 20 hosts, 221st in the world (2012). - IPv4: 4,352 addresses allocated, less than 0.05% of the world total, 0.9 addresses per 1000 people (2012). - Internet Service Providers (ISPs): Moov, Orange, Socatel, and Telecel. ### Internet censorship and surveillance {#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.\" ## Postal system {#postal_system} L\'Office National de la Poste et de l\'Épargne (ONPE) is the government organization responsible for the postal service.

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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 `{{flagicon|Cameroon}}`{=mediawiki} 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 {#ports_and_harbors} There is only one river port. It is at the city of Bangui. ## Airports `{{multiple image | align = right | image1 = Djemah Airfield.jpeg | width1 = 250 | alt1 = | caption1 = | image2 = Obo Mission Airfield, Central Africa Republic.JPG | width2 = 250 | alt2 = | caption2 = | footer = Dirt runways in [[Djemah]] and [[Obo]], respectively. }}`{=mediawiki} ### Airports with paved runways {#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 {#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)

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5,486

Central African Armed Forces

The **Central African Armed Forces** (*Forces armées centrafricaines*; 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 {#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 {#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 {#army_mutinies_of_19961997} 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. After the mutinies, President Patassé suffered from a typical \"dictator\'s paranoia\", resulting in a period of cruel terror executed by the presidential guard and various militias within the FACA loyal to the president, such as the Karako. The violence was directed against the Yakoma tribe, of which it is estimated that 20,000 persons fled during this period. The oppression also targeted other parts of the society. The president accused his former ally France of supporting his enemies and sought new international ties. When he strengthened his presidential guard (creating the FORSIDIR, see below), Libya sent him 300 additional soldiers for his own personal safety. When former President Kolingba attempted a coup d\'état in 2001 (which was, according to Patassé, supported by France), the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC) of Jean-Pierre Bemba in DR Congo came to his rescue. 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 {#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 {#militarys_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 {#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 {#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. The majority of its arsenals were plundered during the fighting by the Séléka coalition and other armed groups. Thousands of the army\'s small arms were also distributed to civilian supporters of former President Bozizé in 2013. Prior to 2014, the army\'s stocks of arms and ammunition were primarily of French, Soviet, and Chinese origin. In 2018, the army\'s equipment stockpiles were partly revitalized by a donation of 900 pistols, 5,200 rifles, and 270 unspecified rocket launchers from Russia. ### Small arms {#small_arms} +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Name | Image | Caliber | Type | Origin | Notes | +=========================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================+========================================================================================================================================================================================================================================+==============+=============================+==============================+=============================================================+ | Pistols | | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | MAC 50 | | 9×19mm | Semi-automatic pistol | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Walther PP | | .25 ACP | Semi-automatic pistol | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Manurhin MR 73 | | .357 Magnum | Revolver | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submachine guns | | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Uzi | | 9×19mm | Submachine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Carl Gustaf m/45 | | 9×19mm | Submachine gun | Sweden | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Sten | | 9×19mm | Submachine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | MAS-38 | | 7.65×20mm | Submachine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | MAT-49 | | 9×19mm | Submachine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Rifles | | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | SKS | | 7.62×39mm | Semi-automatic rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | AKM | | 7.62×39mm | Assault rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Zastava M70 | | 7.62×39mm | Assault rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | PM md. 63 | | 7.62×39mm | Assault rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Type 56 | | 7.62×39mm | Assault rifle | | Some captured or inherited from Séléka stockpiles. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | IMI Galil | | 5.56×45mm | Assault rifle | | In service as of 2004; likely acquired from Zaire and Chad. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Vektor R4 | | 5.56×45mm | Assault rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | M14 | | 7.62×51mm | Battle rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | M16 | | 5.56×45mm | Assault rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | FAMAS | | 5.56×45mm | Bullpup | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Assault rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | FN FAL | | 7.62×51mm | Battle rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Heckler & Koch G3 | | 7.62×51mm | Battle rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | SIG SG 540 | | 7.62×51mm | Battle rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | MAS-36{{cite web\|title=The Central African Republic And Small Arms: A Regional Tinderbox\|last1=Berman\|first1=Eric\|last2=Lombard\|first2=Louisa\|url=<https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/95111/Central-African-Republic-Small-Arms.pdf%7Clocation=Geneva> | publisher=Small Arms Survey\|date=2008\|access-date=24 March 2017\|archive-url=<https://web.archive.org/web/20170324194711/https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/95111/Central-African-Republic-Small-Arms.pdf%7Carchive-date=24> March 2017}} | | 7.5×54mm | Bolt-action rifle | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Lee Enfield | | .303 British | Bolt-action rifle | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Sniper rifles | | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | SVD\ | | 7.62×54mmR | Designated marksman rifle\ | \ | | | Type 85 | | | Sniper rifle | `{{Flag|China}}`{=mediawiki} | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Machine guns | | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | SG-43 Goryunov | | 7.62×54mmR | Medium machine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | RP-46 | | 7.62×54mmR | Light machine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | RPD | | 7.62×39mm | Squad automatic weapon | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | RPK | | 7.62×39mm | Squad automatic weapon | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | PKM | | 7.62×54mmR | General-purpose machine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | DShK | | 12.7×108mm | Heavy machine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Type 67 | | \|7.62×54mmR | General-purpose machine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | FM 24/29 | | 7.5×54mm | Light machine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | AA-52 | | \|7.62×54mmR | General-purpose machine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | FN MAG | | 7.62×51mm | General-purpose machine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Browning M1919 | | 7.62×51mm | Medium machine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Browning M2 | | .50 BMG | Heavy machine gun | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Rocket propelled grenade launchers | | | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | RPG-7 | | 40mm | Rocket-propelled grenade | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ ### Anti-tank weapons {#anti_tank_weapons} +----------+--------------+------------------+--------+---------+-----------------+ | Name | Image | Type | Origin | Caliber | Notes | +==========+==============+==================+========+=========+=================+ | M40A1 | | Recoilless rifle | | 106mm | 14 in service. | +----------+--------------+------------------+--------+---------+-----------------+ ### Mortars +---------+-------------+---------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ | Name | Image | Type | Origin | Quantity | Status | Notes | +=========+=============+=========+========+==========+========+================+ | PM-43 | | Mortar | | 12 | | In store | +---------+-------------+---------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ | Type 67 | | Mortar | | Unknown | | | +---------+-------------+---------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ ### Vehicles #### Scout cars {#scout_cars} +----------------+-------------+------------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ | Name | Image | Type | Origin | Quantity | Status | Notes | +================+=============+==============================+========+==========+========+================+ | BRDM-2 | | Amphibious armored scout car | | 21 | | | +----------------+-------------+------------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ | Daimler Ferret | | Armored car Scout car | | 8 | | | +----------------+-------------+------------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ #### Infantry fighting vehicles {#infantry_fighting_vehicles} +----------+-------------+---------------------------+--------+----------+--------+---------------------------------+ | Name | Image | Type | Origin | Quantity | Status | Notes | +==========+=============+===========================+========+==========+========+=================================+ | Ratel-90 | | Infantry fighting vehicle | | 2 | | Original order for 18 canceled. | +----------+-------------+---------------------------+--------+----------+--------+---------------------------------+ #### Armored personnel carriers {#armored_personnel_carriers} +------------------+-------------+---------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ | Name | Image | Type | Origin | Quantity | Status | Notes | +==================+=============+===========================+========+==========+========+================+ | ACMAT TPK 420 BL | | Armored personnel carrier | | 25 | | | +------------------+-------------+---------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ | VAB | | Armored personnel carrier | | 10 | | | +------------------+-------------+---------------------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ #### Utility vehicles {#utility_vehicles} +--------------+-------------+-----------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ | Name | Image | Type | Origin | Quantity | Status | Notes | +==============+=============+=================+========+==========+========+================+ | Toyota Hilux | | Utility vehicle | | 57 | | | +--------------+-------------+-----------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ | CSK-131 | | Utility vehicle | | 12 | | | +--------------+-------------+-----------------+--------+----------+--------+----------------+ ## Foreign military presence in support of the Government {#foreign_military_presence_in_support_of_the_government} ### Peacekeeping and peace enforcing forces {#peacekeeping_and_peace_enforcing_forces} Since the mutinies, a number of peacekeeping and peace enforcing international missions have been present in Central African Republic. There has been discussion of the deployment of a regional United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force in both Chad and Central African Republic, in order to potentially shore up the ineffectual Darfur Peace Agreement. The missions deployed in the country during the last 10 years are the following: +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Mission Name | Organisation | Dates | Greatest Strength | Tasks | +===================================================================================+===========================================================+=================================+=================================================================================================================================================================================+========================================================================================================================================================================================================================================+ | **Inter-African Mission to Monitor the Implementation of the Bangui Agreements**\ | Burkina Faso, Chad, Gabon, Mali, Senegal and Togo | February 1997 to April 1998 | 820 | To monitor the fulfilling of the Bangui Agreements | | (*Mission interafricaine de surveillance des Accords de Bangui, MISAB*) | | | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | **UN Mission in the Central African Republic**\ | UN | April 1998 to February 2000 | 1,350 | Maintain peace and security; supervise disarmament; technical assistance during 1998 elections | | (*Mission des Nations Unies en République centrafricaine, MINURCA*) | | | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | **United Nations Peace-building Office**\ | UN | February 2000 to 1 January 2010 | Five military and six civilian police advisers to follow up on security-related reforms and to assist in the implementation of the training programmes for the national police. | Consolidate peace and national reconciliation; strengthen democratic institutions; facilitate international mobilization for national reconstruction and economic recovery. Succeeded by UN Integrated Peace-building Office (BINUCA). | | (*Bureau politique d\'observation des Nations Unies en Centrafrique, BONUCA*) | | | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | **Community of Sahel-Saharan States**\ | CEN-SAD | December 2001 to January 2003 | 300 | Enforce and restore peace | | (*CEN-SAD*) | | | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | **Multinational Force in the Central African Republic**\ | Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) | January 2003 to July 2008 | 380 | Ensure security; restructure FACA; and fight rebels in north-east. Replaced by MICOPAX. | | (*Force multinationale en Centrafrique, FOMUC*) | | | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ : International Peace Supporting Missions in Central African Republic ### 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. The CEMAC Force includes 121 Chadian soldiers. ### France There has been an almost uninterrupted French military presence in Central African Republic since independence, regulated through agreements between the two Governments. French troops were allowed to be based in the country and to intervene in cases of destabilisation. This was particularly important during the cold war era, when Francophone Africa was regarded as a natural French sphere of influence. Additionally, the strategic location of the country made it a more interesting location for military bases than its neighbours, and Bouar and Bangui were hence two of the most important French bases abroad. However, in 1997, following Lionel Jospin\'s expression \"Neither interference nor indifference\", France came to adopt new strategic principles for its presence in Africa. This included a reduced permanent presence on the continent and increased support for multilateral interventions. 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 {#components_and_units} ### Air Force {#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: Aircraft Type Versions In service Notes ---------------------------------- ---------------------- -------------------- ------------ ------------------------------- Aermacchi AL-60 Utility AL-60C-5 Conestoga 6--10 Eurocopter AS 350 Ecureuil Utility helicopter AS 350B 1 Mil Mi-8 Hip Transport helicopter Mi-8 2 Unconfirmed Lockheed C-130 Hercules Transport C-130 1 Unconfirmed \[Avion chaser to entraitment L- 39 Albatros\]: 10 \- \[Avion chaser Soukhoï-25\]:8 ### Garde républicaine (GR) {#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. However, post-civil leaders have been cautious in attempting to significantly reform the Republican Guard. ### New amphibious force {#new_amphibious_force} Bozizé has created an amphibious force. It is called the Second Battalion of the Ground Forces and it patrols the Ubangi river. The staff of the sixth region in Bouali (mainly made up of members of the former president\'s lifeguard) was transferred to the city of Mongoumba, located on the river. This city had previously been plundered by forces from the MLC, that had crossed the CAR/Congo border. The riverine patrol force has approximately one hundred personnel and operates seven patrol boats. ### Veteran soldiers {#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. ### Discontinued groups and units that are no longer part of FACA {#discontinued_groups_and_units_that_are_no_longer_part_of_faca} - **Séléka rebels**: the French document *Spécial investigation: Centrafrique, au cœur du chaos* envisions Séléka rebels as mercenaries under the command of the president. In the documentary the Séléka fighters seem to use a large number of M16 rifles in their fight against the Anti-balaka forces. - **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.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

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) {#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.\" The Inca Empire briefly extended their empire into what is now northern Chile, where they collected tribute from small groups of fishermen and oasis farmers but were not able to establish a strong cultural presence in the area. 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. The Chilean Patagonia located south of the Calle-Calle River in Valdivia was composed of many tribes, mainly Tehuelches, who were considered giants by Spaniards during Magellan\'s voyage of 1520. The name Patagonia comes from the word *patagón* 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) {#european_conquest_and_colonization_15401810} 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. thumb\|upright=1.4\|Picture \"The young Lautaro\" of Pedro Subercaseaux that show to genius military and hero of the Arauco war after the arrival of the Spanish to Chilean territory 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) {#independence_18101818} 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) {#republican_era_18181891} ### Constitutional organization (1818--1833) {#constitutional_organization_18181833} 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) {#conservative_era_18301861} 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) {#liberal_era_18611891} 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) {#parliamentary_era_18911925} 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. However, particularly when the authoritarian regime of Augusto Pinochet is taken into consideration, some scholars have in recent years reevaluated the Parliamentary Republic of 1891--1925. Without denying its shortcomings, they have lauded its democratic stability. They have also hailed its control of the armed forces, its respect for civil liberties, its expansion of suffrage and participation, and its gradual admission of new contenders, especially reformers, to the political arena. In particular, two young parties grew in importance -- the Democrat Party, with roots among artisans and urban workers, and the Radical Party, representing urban middle sectors and provincial elites. By the early 20th century, both parties were winning increasing numbers of seats in Congress. The more leftist members of the Democrat Party became involved in the leadership of labor unions and broke off to launch the Socialist Workers\' Party (*Partido Obrero Socialista* -- POS) in 1912. The founder of the POS and its best-known leader, Luis Emilio Recabarren, also founded the Communist Party of Chile (*Partido Comunista de Chile* -- PCCh) in 1922. ## Presidential era (1925--1973) {#presidential_era_19251973} By the 1920s, the emerging middle and working classes were powerful enough to elect a reformist president, Arturo Alessandri Palma. Alessandri appealed to those who believed the social question should be addressed, to those worried by the decline in nitrate exports during World War I, and to those weary of presidents dominated by Congress. Promising \"evolution to avoid revolution\", he pioneered a new campaign style of appealing directly to the masses with florid oratory and charisma. After winning a seat in the Senate representing the mining north in 1915, he earned the sobriquet \"Lion of Tarapacá.\" 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. Alessandri soon discovered that his efforts to lead would be blocked by the conservative Congress. Like Balmaceda, he infuriated the legislators by going over their heads to appeal to the voters in the congressional elections of 1924. His reform legislation was finally rammed through Congress under pressure from younger military officers, who were sick of the neglect of the armed forces, political infighting, social unrest, and galloping inflation, whose program was frustrated by a conservative congress. A double military coup set off a period of great political instability that lasted until 1932. First military right-wingers opposing Alessandri seized power in September 1924, and then reformers in favor of the ousted president took charge in January 1925. The *Saber noise* (ruido de sables) incident of September 1924, provoked by discontent of young officers, mostly lieutenants from middle and working classes, lead to the establishment of the September Junta led by General Luis Altamirano and the exile of Alessandri. However, fears of a conservative restoration in progressive sectors of the army led to another coup in January, which ended with the establishment of the January Junta as interim government while waiting for Alessandri\'s return. The latter group was led by two colonels, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo and Marmaduke Grove. They returned Alessandri to the presidency that March and enacted his promised reforms by decree. The latter re-assumed power in March, and a new Constitution encapsulating his proposed reforms was ratified in a plebiscite in September 1925. The new constitution gave increased powers to the presidency. Alessandri broke with the classical liberalism\'s policies of *laissez-faire* by creating a Central Bank and imposing a revenue tax. However, social discontents were also crushed, leading to the Marusia massacre in March 1925 followed by the La Coruña massacre. The longest lasting of the ten governments between 1924 and 1932 was that of General Carlos Ibáñez, who briefly held power in 1925 and then again between 1927 and 1931 in what was a *de facto* dictatorship. 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. The Seguro Obrero Massacre took place on September 5, 1938, in the midst of a heated three-way election campaign between the ultraconservative Gustavo Ross Santa María, the radical Popular Front\'s Pedro Aguirre Cerda, and the newly formed Popular Alliance candidate, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. The National Socialist Movement of Chile supported Ibáñez\'s candidacy, which had been announced on September 4. In order to preempt Ross\'s victory, the National Socialists mounted a coup d\'état that was intended to take down the rightwing government of Arturo Alessandri Palma and place Ibáñez in power. During the period of Radical Party dominance (1932--1952), the state increased its role in the economy. In 1952, voters returned Ibáñez to office for another 6 years. Jorge Alessandri succeeded Ibáñez in 1958. 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 accomplished many noteworthy objectives, but he had not fully achieved his party\'s ambitious goals. ### Popular Unity years {#popular_unity_years} In the 1970 presidential election, Senator Salvador Allende Gossens won a plurality of votes in a three-way contest. He was a Marxist physician and member of Chile\'s Socialist Party, who headed the \"Popular Unity\" (UP or \"Unidad Popular\") coalition of the Socialist, Communist, Radical, and Social-Democratic Parties, along with dissident Christian Democrats, the Popular Unitary Action Movement (MAPU), and the Independent Popular Action. Allende had two main competitors in the election --- Radomiro Tomic, representing the incumbent Christian Democratic party, who ran a left-wing campaign with much the same theme as Allende\'s, and the right-wing former president Jorge Alessandri. In the end, Allende received a plurality of the votes cast, getting 36% of the vote against Alessandri\'s 35% and Tomic\'s 28%. Despite pressure from the government of the United States, 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. In addition, the CIA\'s website reports that the agency aided three different Chilean opposition groups during that time period and \"sought to instigate a coup to prevent Allende from taking office\". The action plans to prevent Allende from coming to power were known as Track I and Track II. In the first year of Allende\'s term, the short-term economic results of Economics Minister Pedro Vuskovic\'s expansive monetary policy were unambiguously favorable: 12% industrial growth and an 8.6% increase in GDP, accompanied by major declines in inflation (down from 34.9% to 22.1%) and unemployment (down to 3.8%). Allende adopted measures including price freezes, wage increases, and tax reforms, which had the effect of increasing consumer spending and redistributing 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 administration\'s first year. However, these results were not sustainable and in 1972 the Chilean *escudo* had runaway inflation of 140%. An economic depression that had begun in 1967 peaked in 1972, exacerbated by capital flight, plummeting private investment, and withdrawal of bank deposits in response to Allende\'s socialist program. Production fell and unemployment rose. The combination of inflation and government-mandated price-fixing led to the rise of black markets in rice, beans, sugar, and flour, and a \"disappearance\" of such basic commodities from supermarket shelves. 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. For instance, in 1976, the New York Times published 66 articles on human rights abuses in Chile and only 4 on Cambodia, where the communist Khmer Rouge killed some 1.5 million people of 7.5 million people in the country. ## Military dictatorship (1973--1990) {#military_dictatorship_19731990} 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: Year 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 --------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ Inflation (%) 508.1 376.0 340.0 174.0 63.5 30.3 38.9 31.2 9.5 20.7 thumb\|upright=1.35\|Chilean (orange) and average Latin American (blue) rates of growth of GDP (1971--2007) 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. The central bank took over foreign debts. Critics ridiculed the economic policy of the Chicago Boys as \"Chicago way to socialism". 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. ## Transition to democracy (1990--) {#transition_to_democracy_1990} ### Aylwin, Frei, and Lagos {#aylwin_frei_and_lagos} Chileans elected a new president and the majority of members of a two-chamber congress on December 14, 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. 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 {#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 M~W~ 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 700 m 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 was elected president of Chile for a second term. He received 36% of the votes, the highest percentage among all 8 candidates. In the second round, Piñera faced Alejandro Guillier, a television news anchor who represented Bachelet\'s New Majority (Nueva Mayoría) coalition. Piñera won the elections with 54% of the votes. ### *Estallido Social* and Constitutional Referendum {#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- ) {#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.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

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). During the period 1896--1924, Chile enjoyed continuous free and fair elections. ### Parliamentary Republic {#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 {#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 {#legislative_branch} The bicameral National Congress *(Congreso Nacional)* consists of the Senate *(Senado)* and the Chamber of Deputies (*Cámara de Diputados*). 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 110 km 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 {#legal_system} thumb\|The Palacio de los Tribunales de Justicia de Santiago. 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 {#political_parties_and_elections} ## Pressure groups {#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 {#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. Other avenues of public policy advocacy include citizenship advocacy, union advocacy, and government advocacy. Unions have been especially successful at impacting public policy through strikes, collective bargaining, and legal mobilization. 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 {#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: 1. Colonial rule centralising decision-making with national government, which persisted after independence. 2. 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. 3. Lack of empowered demand for an alternative (e.g. federal) structure due to a historical lack of strong and autonomous subnational movements. 4. 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). 5. 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). 6. 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** ----------------------------------------- ----------- ------------------ **Aspect** **Chile** **OECD average** Local government expenditure (% of GDP) 3% 17% Total public expenditure (% of GDP) 13% 40% ----------------------------------------- ----------- ------------------ 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: 1. a presidential advisory commission for decentralisation defining a decentralisation agenda 2. 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. 3. 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: ```{=html}  ``` 1. 1. reducing the dominance of central government and strengthening regional governance 2. 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. Recent initiatives, for example, Carolina Gainza\'s work with universities as Undersecretary of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation (2022-2024) have helped focus on equity and equality. ## International organization participation {#international_organization_participation} Chile or Chilean organizations participate in the following international organizations:

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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.) - Pre-paid: 17,283,257 - Post-paid: 6,847,497 - 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 - Domestic: extensive microwave radio relay links; domestic satellite system with 3 earth stations - international: country code - 56; submarine cables provide links to the US and to Central and South America; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2007) ## Radio - Broadcast stations: 1,490 (175 AM; 1,315 FM) (2006) ## Television - Broadcast stations: 63 (plus 121 repeaters) (1997) - Broadcast television system: NTSC - Pay television: 4,158,874 (2012) ## Internet - Internet hosts: 847,215 (2008) - Internet users: 16,822,264 (2020 est.) - Internet mobile users: 4,921,587 - Internet country code: .cl ## Other technical details {#other_technical_details} - Electricity: 220 volts AC, 50 Hz

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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 {#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.)\< - Chile Freeway 6 - Chile Freeway 8 - Autopista del Sol - Autopista del Itata ### Buses Buses are now the main means of long-distance transportation in Chile, following the decline of the rail network. 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 *Main article: Rail transport in Chile* - *Total:* 6,782 km - *Broad gauge:* 3,743 km *`{{Track gauge|5ft6in|lk=on}}`{=mediawiki}* *gauge* (1,653 km electrified) - *Narrow gauge*: 116 km *`{{track gauge|3ft6in|lk=on}}`{=mediawiki} gauge*; 2,923 km *`{{Track gauge|1000mm|allk=on|engvar=en-US}}`{=mediawiki}* (40 km electrified) (1995) - *`{{Track gauge|sg|allk=on}}`{=mediawiki}* 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 `{{RailGauge|2ft6in}}`{=mediawiki} 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 {#rail_links_with_adjacent_countries} - Bolivia -- yes -- same gauge `{{RailGauge|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki} -- from Arica to La Paz, Bolivia - Argentina -- Central Trans-Andean Railway -- abandoned 1984 -- 100 km of mountain railway of `{{RailGauge|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki} gauge with rack railway sections -- break of gauge `{{RailGauge|1676mm}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{RailGauge|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki} at either end. Concession planned to re-open line. - Peru -- yes -- a single `{{RailGauge|1435mm}}`{=mediawiki} gauge connection between the northern Chilean city of Arica and Tacna in Southern Peru. ### Cities with Metros {#cities_with_metros} - Santiago (Metro de Santiago) [website](http://www.metrosantiago.cl/) - Valparaíso (Valparaíso Metro) [website](http://www.merval.cl/) ## Ports and merchant marine {#ports_and_merchant_marine} ### Ports +-----------------+---+------------------+---+-----------------+ | - Antofagasta | | - Iquique | | - San Vicente | | - Arica | | - Puerto Montt | | - Talcahuano | | - Chañaral | | - Punta Arenas | | - Tocopilla | | - Coquimbo | | - San Antonio | | - Valparaíso | | - Corral | | | | | +-----------------+---+------------------+---+-----------------+ ### Merchant marine {#merchant_marine} *total:* 45 ships (`{{GT|1,000|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} or over) totaling `{{GT|580,749}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{DWT|860,034|metric|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} *ships by type:* (1999 est.) +----------------------------+---+------------------------+ | - bulk carriers 11 | | - Passenger ships 3 | | - cargo ships 9 | | - petroleum tanker 4 | | - chemical tankers 8 | | - roll-on/roll-off 4 | | - container ships 2 | | - vehicle carrier 2 | | - gas carrying tankers 2 | | | +----------------------------+---+------------------------+ ## Aviation ### Airports -- with paved runways {#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 {#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 {#national_airlines} - LATAM Chile - Sky Airline - JetSmart - Latin American Wings (defunct) ## Bridges ### Chacao Channel {#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 {#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

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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 {#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 {#ethnic_groups} - Europeans - Cocos Malays ### Religions - Sunni Islam 80% - Other 20% ### Languages - Malay (Cocos dialect) - English

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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 780000 km², 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 {#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. The Coral Sea Islands became an Australian external territory in 1969 by the *Coral Sea Islands Act* and extended in 1997 to include Elizabeth Reef and Middleton Reef nearly 800 km further south. The two latter reefs are much closer to Lord Howe Island, New South Wales, (about 150 km) than to the southernmost island of the rest of the territory, Cato Island. The islands, cays and reefs of the Great Barrier Reef are not part of the territory, belonging to Queensland instead. The outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef is the boundary between Queensland and the Coral Sea Islands Territory. The territory is a possession or external territory of Australia, administered from Canberra. Previously it was administered by the Attorney-General\'s Department 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 200 nmi 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 989842 km2 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 100 x and an area of 2500 km2, which compares to a combined land area of the 18 individual islets of only 0.91 km2. 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 3 km2 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 {#northwestern_group} 1. Osprey Reef (submerged atoll roughly oval in shape, measuring 25 by, covering around 195 km2, with lagoon up to 30 m deep) 2. Shark Reef (small elongated submerged reef 15 km south of Osprey Reef, with a minimum depth of 7.8 m) 3. Bougainville Reef (small submerged atoll, 2.5 by, area 8 km2 with lagoon, dries at half tide) 4. East Holmes Reef (submerged atoll, about 14 by, area 125 km2 with lagoon) 5. West Holmes Reef (submerged atoll 6 km east of East Holmes Reef, about 18 by, area 125 km2 with lagoon that is open on the West side, two small cays) 6. Flora Reef (small submerged atoll, 5 by 4 km, about 12 km2) 7. Diane Bank (sunken atoll, depths of less than 10 m over an area of 65 by 25 km, or 1300 km2, along the northern edge 3 m deep, with Sand Cay in the Northwest, 3 m high) 8. North Moore Reef (small submerged atoll, 4 by 3 km, area 8 km2 including lagoon that is open on the Northwest side) 9. South Moore Reef (small submerged reef 5 km South of North Moore Reef) 10. Willis Islets (sunken atoll, bank 45 by 19 km, bank area more than 500 km2, 3 islets on the Northwestern side: North Cay, Mid Islet almost 8 m high, South Islet or Willis Island 10 m high) 11. Magdelaine Cays & Coringa Islets (one large, partially sunken atoll structure, almost 90 by 30 km, bank area about 1500 km2), 2 islets of the Magdelaine Cays in the North: North West Islet (area approximately 0.2 km2) and South East Cay (area 0.37 km2); 2 islets of the Coringa Islets 50 to 60 km further Southwest: Southwest Islet or Coringa Islet (area 0.173 km^2^), and Chilcott Islet (area 0.163 km^2^) 12. Herald Cays, Northeast Cay (encircled by a reef of 3 by 3 km, total area 6 km^2^, land area 0.34 km^2^) 13. Herald Cays, Southwest Cay (4 km Southwest of Northeast Cay, encircled by a reef of 2 by 2 km, total area 3 km^2^, land area 0.188 km^2^) 14. Lihou Reef and Cays (largest atoll in the coral sea, with a size of 2500 km^2^, land area 0.91 km^2^) 15. Diamond Islets & Tregosse Reefs (large, partially sunken atoll, 100 by 52 km, area of the bank over 3000 km^2^, 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) 16. North Flinders Reef (large atoll, 34 by 23 km, area 600 km^2^, with 2 islets, Flinders Cay being the larger one with a length of 200 m and a height of 3 m) 17. South Flinders Reef (atoll, 15 by 5 km, 60 km^2^) 18. Herald\'s Surprise (small submerged reef North of Flinders Reefs, 3 by 2 km) 19. Dart Reef (small submerged reef Northwest of Flinders Reefs, 3 by 3 km, area 6 km^2^ including small lagoon that is open to the North) 20. Malay Reef (small submerged reef, not clearly defined, no breakers, difficult to see) 21. Abington Reef (submerged reef, nearly awash, 4 by 2.5 km, area 7 km^2^) 22. 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 km^2^ 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 km^2^, for a total of 1.24 km^2^. - **Lihou Reef** was declared a Nature Reserve on 16 August 1982, with an area of 8440 km^2^. 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} 1. 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 km^2^. 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 `{{ship||Thames|1805 ship|2}}`{=mediawiki} on 5 April 1812. The `{{ship|French aviso|Duroc|852|6}}`{=mediawiki} wrecked on the reef on 16 August 1856. `{{HMS|Herald|1824|6}}`{=mediawiki} erected the first beacon on the cay, using wreckage from *Duroc*. ### Southeasterly Group {#southeasterly_group} 1. 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 km^2^. 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. 2. Kenn Reefs, submerged atoll of about 15 by 8 km, area 40 km^2^, islet Observatory Cay in the Southeast, 2 m high 3. 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 km^2^. There are two sand cays: North East Cay and South West Cay. 4. Wreck Reefs: atoll 25 by 5 km, area 75 km^2^, open on the North. Islets found on the reefs include Bird Islet, West Islet and Porpoise Cay. 5. Cato Reef: Cato bank 21 by 13 km, area 200 km^2^ of depths less than 17 m; Cato Reef encircles an area of 3.3 by 1.8 km, area 5 km^2^ including lagoon; Cato Island, in the West of the lagoon, 650 by 300 m, area 0.15 km^2^, 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 {#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 km^2^. 1. Elizabeth Reef, atoll about 8.2 km by 5.5 km, area 51 km^2^ including lagoon, one islet: Elizabeth Island (Elizabeth Cay), no vegetation, 600 m by 400 m (area 0.2 km^2^), highest point 0.8 m. At low tides, much of the reef flat is exposed. 2. Middleton Reef, atoll about 8.9 km by 6.3 km, area 37 km^2^ including lagoon, one islet: The Sound, 100 m by 70 m (area 5,000 m^2^), 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 {#overview_of_islets_and_cays} Complex Type Islets/cays West Holmes Reef Atoll 2 Diane Bank Atoll (mostly sunken) Diane Bank Cay Willis Group Atoll (partially sunken) South Islet (Willis Island), Mid Islet, North Cay Magdelaine Cays and Coringa Islets Atoll (partially sunken) Northwest Islet, Southeast Cay, Southwest, Chilcott Islets Herald Cays (North) Reef Northwest Cay Herald Cays (South) Reef Southeast Cay Lihou Reef and Cays Atoll 18 Diamond Islands and Tregosse Reefs Atoll (partially sunken) West Diamond, Central Diamond, East Diamond, Southwest Diamond Islets Flinders Reefs (North) Atoll Flinders, Main, Victoria Cays Marion Reef Atoll Paget, Carola, Brodie Cays Mellish Reef Atoll Heralds-Beacon Islet Frederick Reefs Atoll Observatory Cay Kenn Reef Atoll Observatory Cay Saumarez Reef Atoll Northeast, Southwest Cays Wreck Reef Atoll Bird, West Islets, Porpoise Cay Cato Reef Atoll Cato Island Middleton Reef Atoll The Sound Elizabeth Reef Atoll Elizabeth Island *Total number of islands/cays* --------- ------ ------------- ------------------ ------- --- ------------ ----------------------- ---------------- -------------- -------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ -------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------- ------ --------------- --------------------- ------ --------------- --------------------- ------- ---- ------------------------------------ -------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ ------- ------------------------------- ------------- ------- ---------------------------- -------------- ------- ---------------------- ----------------- ------- ----------------- ----------- ------- ----------------- --------------- ------- --------------------------- ------------ ------- --------------------------------- ----------- ------- ------------- ---------------- ------- ----------- ---------------- ------- ------------------ -------------------------------- -- ## Man-made structures {#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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5,553

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 km^2^ of which 40 km^2^ 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 {#political_and_human_geography} Costa Rica shares a 313 km border with Nicaragua to the north, and a 348-km border with Panama to the south. Costa Rica claims an exclusive economic zone of 574,725 km2 with 200 nmi and a territorial sea of 12 nmi. 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 {#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 {#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 km^2^. Rivers of Costa Rica all drain into the Caribbean or the Pacific. ### Extreme points {#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 (*verano*), and the rainy season, known locally as winter (*invierno*). 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 5000 mm. Humidity is also higher on the Caribbean side than on the Pacific side. The mean annual temperature on the coastal lowlands is around 27 °C, 20 °C in the main populated areas of the Cordillera Central, and below 10 °C on the summits of the highest mountains. `{{weather box | location = Costa Rica | source = <ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.costaricaguides.com/Climate.html |title=Costa Rica Weather |website=Costa Rica Guides}}</ref> | metric first = yes | single line = yes | Jan high C = 27 | Feb high C = 27 | Mar high C = 28 | Apr high C = 28 | May high C = 27 | Jun high C = 27 | Jul high C = 27 | Aug high C = 27 | Sep high C = 26 | Oct high C = 26 | Nov high C = 26 | Dec high C = 26 | Jan low C = 17 | Feb low C = 18 | Mar low C = 18 | Apr low C = 18 | May low C = 18 | Jun low C = 18 | Jul low C = 18 | Aug low C = 18 | Sep low C = 17 | Oct low C = 18 | Nov low C = 18 | Dec low C = 18 | Jan precipitation mm = 6.3 | Feb precipitation mm = 10.2 | Mar precipitation mm = 13.8 | Apr precipitation mm = 79.9 | May precipitation mm = 267.6 | Jun precipitation mm = 280.1 | Jul precipitation mm = 181.5 | Aug precipitation mm = 276.9 | Sep precipitation mm = 355.1 | Oct precipitation mm = 330.6 | Nov precipitation mm = 135.5 | Dec precipitation mm = 33.5 | precipitation colour = green | Jan percentsun = 40 | Feb percentsun = 37 | Mar percentsun = 39 | Apr percentsun = 33 | May percentsun = 25 | Jun percentsun = 20 | Jul percentsun = 21 | Aug percentsun = 22 | Sep percentsun = 20 | Oct percentsun = 22 | Nov percentsun = 25 | Dec percentsun = 34 }}`{=mediawiki} ### Climate change {#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. 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. 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 {#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. Deforestation in Costa Rica has been reduced from some of the worst rates in the world from 1973 to 1989, to almost zero by 2005. 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. Over 840 species of birds have been identified in Costa Rica. As is the case in much of Central America, the avian species in Costa Rica are a mix of North and South American species. The country\'s abundant fruit trees, many of which bear fruit year round, are hugely important to the birds, some of whom survive on diets that consist only of one or two types of fruit. Some of the country\'s most notable avian species include the resplendent quetzal, scarlet macaw, three-wattled bellbird, bare-necked umbrellabird, and the keel-billed toucan. 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*). ## 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

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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 {#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 April 2018, Carlos Alvarado won the presidential election. He became the new President of Costa Rica, succeeding President Guillermo Solís. Both Solis and Alvarado represented centre-left Citizens\' Action Party. 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 {#branches_of_government} ### Executive branch {#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_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 {#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. ### Institutional oversight {#institutional_oversight} A Comptroller General, Procurator General, and an Ombudsman oversee the government and operate autonomously. These institutions have the right to scrutinize, investigate and prosecute government contracts. In addition, they may impose procedural requirements on most political and governmental agencies. The actions of politicians and political parties are frequently researched by these institutions. ## Elections On the national level, the president, two vice-presidents and a legislature are elected for a four-year term. The Legislative Assembly has 57 members, elected by proportional representation in each of the country\'s seven provinces. The electoral process is supervised by an independent Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE for its Spanish initials). The TSE is a commission of three principal magistrates and six alternates selected by the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica. All elections are conducted by a secret ballot at local polling stations. Voting is mandatory for registered citizens under Article 93 of the Constitution of Costa Rica, but this is not enforced. On election days, political parties often organize caravans and marches to get supporters to polling stations. 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. Because the day of elections is a national holiday, most people have the day off. ## Political parties {#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. **Political parties in the Legislative Assembly, 2014--2018** --------------------------------------------------------------- Party name (English) National Liberation Party Citizens\' Action Party Broad Front Social Christian Unity Party Libertarian Movement Costa Rican Renewal Party National Restoration Party (Costa Rica) Accessibility without Exclusion Christian Democratic Alliance **Recent non-represented and defunct political parties** ---------------------------------------------------------- **Party name (English)** National Union Party National Rescue Party Union for Change Party Homeland First Party National Democrat Alliance Party National Integration Party ## Strength of institutions {#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. Elements such as economic development, a record of state-building, and external actors can contribute to institutional strength; understanding these factors is essential for enabling effective governance. Therefore, lawmakers and scholars must pay close watch to institutional strength when analyzing and formulating political strategies to advance stable and effective democracies that serve the interests of their citizens. ### Rule of law {#rule_of_law} The rule of law refers to the idea that all individuals and institutions, including the state, are subject to the same rules and limitations. In Costa Rica, the rule of law is generally considered robust, with a separate judiciary branch, effective law enforcement, and low indices of corruption. 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 {#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 {#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.

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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:* 278 km - *narrow gauge:* 278 km of `{{RailGauge|3ft6in}}`{=mediawiki} gauge (260 km electrified) ## Road transportation {#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:* 35330 km - *Paved:* 8621 km - *Unpaved:* 26709 km ### National road network {#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 242 km ## Ports and harbors {#ports_and_harbors} In 2016, the government pledged ₡93 million (\$166,000) for a new cruise ship terminal for Puerto Limón. ### Atlantic Ocean {#atlantic_ocean} - Port of Moín, operated by JAPDEVA. - Port of Limón, operated by JAPDEVA. - Moín Container Terminal, operated by APM Terminals. ### Pacific Ocean {#pacific_ocean} - Golfito - Puerto Quepos - Puntarenas (cruise ships only) - Caldera Port ## Merchant marine {#merchant_marine} - *total:* 2 ships (`{{GT|1000|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} or over) `{{GT|2,308}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{DWT|743|metric|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} - *ships by type:* - passenger/cargo ships 2 ## Airports `{{See also|List of airports in Costa Rica}}`{=mediawiki} *Total*: 161 `{{As of|2013|alt=(2013)}}`{=mediawiki} ### Airports - with paved runways {#airports___with_paved_runways} - *total*: 47 `{{As of|2013|alt=(2013)}}`{=mediawiki} - : 2 - : 2 - : 27 - under 914 m: 16 ### Airports - with unpaved runways {#airports___with_unpaved_runways} - *total:* 114 `{{As of|2013|alt=(2013)}}`{=mediawiki} - *:* 18 - *under* 914 m*:* 96

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5,565

Geography of Ivory Coast

`{{MapLibrary|Côte d'Ivoire sat.png|Côte d'Ivoire}}`{=mediawiki} **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_and_borders} Area - Total: 322463 km2 - *Country rank in the world:* 68th - Land: 318003 km2 - Water: 4460 km2 Area comparatives - Australia comparative: approximately `{{sfrac|2|5}}`{=mediawiki} larger than Victoria - Canada comparative: approximately half the size of Manitoba - United Kingdom comparative: approximately `{{sfrac|1|3}}`{=mediawiki} 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 778 km - Guinea to the northwest for 816 km - Mali to the north-northwest for 599 km - Burkina Faso to the north-northeast for 545 km - Ghana to the east for 720 km - Total: 3458 km Coastline - on Gulf of Guinea ## Maritime claims {#maritime_claims} Ivory Coast makes maritime claims of 200 nmi as an exclusive economic zone, 12 nmi of territorial sea, and a 200 nmi continental shelf. ## Terrain and topography {#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 500 m 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 300 km 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 1752 m 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 800 km, 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 25 and and range from 10 to. ## Natural hazards {#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} 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

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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 {#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\" [1](https://web.archive.org/web/20050714110654/http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/30/cotedi10404.htm) - *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 {#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 {#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 {#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 {#political_parties_and_elections} ### Presidential elections {#presidential_elections} {{#section-h:2020 Ivorian presidential election\|Results}} ### Parliamentary elections {#parliamentary_elections} {{#section-h:2021 Ivorian parliamentary election\|Results}} ## Administrative divisions {#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 {#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

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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 {#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. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Railway links with adjacent countries | Towns served by rail | Maps | +============================================================================================================================================+======================+=============================================================================+ | Burkina Faso - yes - `{{RailGauge|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki} | Abidjan | [UN Map](https://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/profile/cotedivoire.pdf) | | | | | | Ghana - no - break of gauge `{{RailGauge|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{RailGauge|1067mm}}`{=mediawiki} | Agboville | | | | | | | Mali - no - same gauge | Bouaké | | | | | | | Guinea - no - same gauge | Katiola | | | | | | | Liberia - no - break of gauge `{{RailGauge|1000mm}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{RailGauge|1435mm}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{RailGauge|1067mm}}`{=mediawiki} | Tafire | | | | | | | | Ouangolodougou | | | | | | | | Ferkessédougou | | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ## Road transport {#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 {#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 m^2^ area. Apart from those two major ports, there are also small ports at Sassandra, Aboisso, and Dabou. ## Air transport {#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).

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5,571

Armed Forces of the Republic of Ivory Coast

The **Armed Forces of Côte d\'Ivoire** (*Forces Armées de Cote 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. In 1950, the French government began the process of setting up a specific defence force for the colony, consisting of four infantry companies and a light armoured unit. The Ivory Coast became independent on 7 August 1960. In April 1961, the new government signed the Franco-Ivorian Technical Military Assistance Accord with France, which compelled the latter to assist with the formation of a new national military. It also authorised the continued presence of French troops based in Port-Bouët, and permitted the government to call on French military assistance in the event of external aggression or major internal unrest. 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. They were armed with old equipment donated by France, including two Max Holste Broussard monoplanes, a single Douglas DC-3 cargo aircraft, fifteen M8 Greyhound armoured cars, and even a SC-497-class submarine chaser. Conscription was instituted, although the large number of volunteers and low manpower requirements ensured it was only applied selectively. Some of the senior positions in the officer corps and Ministry of Defence continued to be held by French nationals. Since the Ivory Coast could ill afford to divert funds from its economic development programmes into the armed forces, and was already dependent on France for its external defence, the military establishment remained quite modest from 1961 to 1974. Defence spending increased between 1974 and 1987, and the armed forces increased to 14,920 men. During this period, the air force and navy embarked on a significant modernisation campaign. An international merchant marine training academy was built in Abidjan and trained personnel from several Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) governments. In 1997, a collapse in civil-military relations became evident when President Henri Konan Bédié dismissed popular general Robert Guéï on suspicion of disloyalty. 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. Guéï subsequently stood for office during a subsequent presidential election, although he attempted to annul the election results when Laurent Gbagbo secured the popular vote. This triggered a civil revolt in Abidjan and two days of street battles between Gbagbo supporters and soldiers loyal to Guéï. Most of the armed forces remained neutral until the third day, when the army\'s elite units and the gendarmerie announced they would recognise Gbagbo as president of the republic. Guéï conceded defeat, going into exile on 29 October 2000. In September 2002, the Ivory Coast endured a second army mutiny, this time by 750 Muslim soldiers who seized Bouaké, citing religious discrimination and grievances against the predominantly Christian government. 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. President Gbagbo repeatedly demanded France assist him in crushing the rebel forces. 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. In November 2004, an Ivorian pilot targeted a French base during an air strike on Bouaké, killing nine French soldiers. The French retaliated by launching a follow-up operation to destroy the Ivorian Air Force. In March 2011, a rebel coalition, the *Forces Nouvelles de Côte d\'Ivoire*, launched a renewed offensive on the south with French support, sparking a second civil war. The Ivorian army was quickly overwhelmed, and Gbagbo deposed by the rebels. The *Forces Nouvelles* established a new national military, known as the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast (FRCI). Integration problems arising from the incorporation of various rebel factions into the FRCI, as well as former Gbagbo loyalists, continue to persist. 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. A second mutiny occurred on 7 January 2017, with troops in Bouaké demanding higher salaries and improved living conditions; this resulted in a second financial settlement. ## Army ### Organization The Ivorian army had three infantry battalions, an armoured battalion, an artillery battery, and seven specialist companies in 1993. 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. It has always remained the largest branch of the armed forces. In 1987, the army was responsible for the country\'s five military regions, each of which was supervised by a colonel. The First Military Region controlled the concentration of forces in and around Abidjan, its principal units there being a rapid intervention battalion (airborne), an infantry battalion, an armored battalion, and an air defense artillery battalion. The Second Military Region was located in Daloa and comprised one infantry battalion. The Third Military Region was headquartered in Bouaké and was home to an artillery, an infantry, and an engineer battalion. The Fourth Military Region maintained only a Territorial Defense Company headquartered in Korhogo The Fifth Military Region was formerly known as the Western Operational Zone, a temporary command created to respond to the security threat caused by the First Liberian Civil War. By 2010, the system of military regions had been abolished. As of July 2011, General Soumaïla Bakayoko is the chief of staff of the army, and colonel-major Gervais Kouakou Kouassi is the Chief of the Gendarmerie. 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 -- (Bataillon Blinde), at Akouédo (new camp). The new camp at Akouedo had reportedly been almost completely destroyed. `{{Interlanguage link|Akouedo|fr|vertical-align=sup}}`{=mediawiki} 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 {#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. During Laurent Ghagbo\'s administration (2000--2011), large quantities of second-hand Soviet arms were acquired from Angola, Ukraine, and Belarus. ## Air Force {#air_force} After achieving independence from France in 1960, Ivory Coast maintained strong links with France through bilateral defence agreements. 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. Since then, the Air Force of Ivory Coast has been rebuilt. In 2007, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported a total of six aircraft in service: one Antonov An-32 tactical transport, one Cessna 421 Golden Eagle utility aircraft, two Eurocopter SA 365 Dauphin helicopters, one Gulfstream IV VIP aircraft, and one Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter. It is unknown whether any of these aircraft were truly operational. In addition, Deagel.com reported two Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 attack aircraft. ### Aircraft Aircraft Origin Type Variant In service Notes ----------------- --------------- ------------------ --------- ------------ ---------------------- Attack Sukhoi Su-25 Soviet Union Attack / Trainer 2 Utilised as trainers Reconnaissance King Air 90 United States Reconnaissance 90 1 Transport Antonov An-26 Soviet Union Transport 2 Beechcraft 1900 United States Utility 1 CASA C-295 Spain Transport 1 1 on order Helicopters Mil Mi-8 Soviet Union Utility 1 Mil Mi-24 Soviet Union Attack 1 UAV Delair DT26 France Surveillance 4 ## Navy Ivory Coast has a brown-water navy whose mission is coastal surveillance and security for the nation\'s 340-mile coastline. The operational capability of the navy was severely degraded due to the diversion of resources to the army and air force during the civil wars, and it remains incapable of conducting operations beyond the general vicinity of Abidjan. In 2014 they received three coastal defence vessels, and place an order for 30 inflatable boats and 10 patrol craft in 2018 from the Raidco Marine shipbuilders Vessel name Origin Builder Type In service Notes -------------- -------- ----------- --------------------------------- ------------ ------- L\'intrepide France Patra Large patrol craft 1978 L\'élephant France DCN Brest Batral-E Type LSM landing craft 1977 ### 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 {#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 (`{{Interlanguage link|43e bataillon d'infanterie de marine|fr|vertical-align=sup}}`{=mediawiki}) 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 {#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. However, it may also be deployed alongside the army to quell internal unrest. For a number of decades, the size of the Ivorian National Gendarmerie remained consistent at around 4,000 to 5,000 personnel, supervised by a commandant. It underwent a massive expansion following the outbreak of the First Ivorian Civil War, increasing to about 12,000 personnel commanded by a major general. Gendarmes undergo training as cadets at a National Gendarmerie Academy. The National Gendarmerie maintains an investigative branch, the *Brigades de Recherches*, which has been accused of various human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and unlawful detention.

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5,590

Transport in Cuba

**Transportation in Cuba** is the system of railways, roads, airports, waterways, ports and harbours in Cuba: ## Railways - *Total:* 8,285 km - *Standard gauge:* 8,125 km `{{RailGauge|sg}}`{=mediawiki} gauge (105 km electrified) - *Narrow gauge:* 160 km of `{{TrackGauge|2ft3.5in}}`{=mediawiki} gauge. Cuba built the first railway system in the Spanish empire, before the 1848 start in the Iberian peninsula. While the rail infrastructure dates from colonial and early republican times, passenger service along the principal Havana to Santiago corridor is increasingly reliable and popular with tourists who can purchase tickets in Cuban convertible pesos. As with most public transport in Cuba, many of the vehicles used are second hand. With the order of 12 new Chinese locomotives in 2006, built specifically for Cuban Railways at China Northern Locomotives and Rolling Stock Works, services have been improving in reliability. Those benefiting the most are long-distance freight services with the French train Havana-Santiago being the only passenger train using one of the new Chinese locomotives regularly. In 2019, the Cuban railways received the first delivery of new Chinese-built coaches, and new services with these began in July 2019. Metro systems are not present in the island, although a suburban rail network exists in Havana. Urban tramways were in operation between 1858 and 1954, initially as horse-drawn systems. In the early 20th century electric trolley or storage battery powered tramways were introduced in seven cities. Of these overhead wire systems were adopted in Havana, Guanabacoa, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Camagüey and Santiago de Cuba. ## Roads The total length of Cuba\'s highways is 60,858 km, including - *paved:* 29,820 km (including 915 km of expressways) - *unpaved:* 31,038 km (1999 est.) Expressways (autopistas) include: - the Autopista Nacional (A1) from Havana to Santa Clara and Sancti Spiritus, with additional short sections near Santiago and Guantanamo - the Autopista Este-Oeste (A4) from Havana to Pinar del Río - the Autopista del Mediodia from Havana to San Antonio de los Baños - an autopista from Havana to Melena del Sur - an autopista from Havana to Mariel - the Havana ring road (*links=no*), which starts at a tunnel under the entrance to Havana Harbor - the section of the Via Blanca from Matanzas to Varadero (toll road) - an autopista from Nueva Gerona to Santa Fe, in the Isla de la Juventud Older roads include the Carretera Central, and the Via Blanca from Havana to Matanzas. ## Long-distance and inter-municipality buses in Cuba {#long_distance_and_inter_municipality_buses_in_cuba} There are several national bus companies in Cuba. Viazul operates a fleet of modern and comfortable coaches on longer distance routes designed principally for tourists. Schedules, prices, and ticket booking can be done online, at any of the major international airports or National Terminals across Cuba. There are also other bus lines operated by tourism companies. AstroBus, a bus service in Cuban National Pesos, designed to bring comfortable air-conditioned coaches to Cuban locals at an affordable price. The AstroBus lines operate with modern Chinese Yutong buses, and are accessible to Cuban Residents of Cuba with their ID Card, and is payable in Cuba Pesos. Routes that have benefited most so far are those from Havana to each of the 13 provincial capitals of the country. ## Urban buses {#urban_buses} In Havana, urban transportation used to be provided by a colorful selection of buses imported from the Soviet Union or Canada. Many of these vehicles were second hand, such as the 1,500 decommissioned Dutch buses that the Netherlands donated to Cuba in the mid-1990s as well as GM fishbowl buses from Montreal. Despite the United States trade embargo, American-style yellow school buses (imported second-hand from Canada) are also increasingly common sights. Since 2008, service on seven key lines in and out of the city is provided by Chinese Zhengzhou Yutong Buses. These replaced the famous *camellos* (\"camels\" or \"dromedaries\", after their \"humps\") trailer buses that hauled as many as two hundred passengers in a passenger-carrying trailer. After the upgrading of Seville\'s public bus fleet to CNG-powered vehicles, many of the decommissioned ones were donated to the city of Havana. These bright orange buses still display the name of *Transportes Urbanos de Sevilla, S.A.M.*, their former owner, and Seville\'s coat of arms as a sign of gratitude. As of 2016, urban transport in Havana consists entirely of modern Yutong diesel buses. Seville and Ikarus buses are gone. ## Automobiles Since 2009, Cuba has imported sedans from Chinese automaker Geely to serve as police cars, taxis and rental vehicles. Previously, the Soviet Union supplied Volgas, Moskvichs, and Ladas, as well as heavy trucks like the ZIL and the KrAZ; and Cuba also bought cars from European and Asian companies. In 2004, it was estimated that there were some 173,000 cars in Cuba. ### Old American cars in Cuba {#old_american_cars_in_cuba} Most new vehicles came to Cuba from the United States until the 1960 United States embargo against Cuba ended importation of both cars and their parts. As many as 60,000 American vehicles are in use, nearly all in private hands. Of Cuba\'s vintage American cars, many have been modified with newer engines, disc brakes and other parts, often scavenged from Soviet cars, and most bear the marks of decades of use. Pre-1960 vehicles remain the property of their original owners and descendants, and can be sold to other Cubans providing the proper *traspaso* certificate is in place. However, the old American cars on the road today have \"relatively high inefficiencies\" due in large part to the lack of modern technology. This resulted in increased fuel consumption as well as adding to the economic plight of their owners. With these inefficiencies, noticeable drop in travel occurred from an \"average of nearly 3000 km/year in the mid-1980s to less than 800 km/year in 2000--2001\". As the Cuban people try to save as much money as possible, when traveling is done, the cars are usually loaded past the maximum allowable weight and travel on the decaying roads, resulting in even more abuse to the already under-maintained vehicles. ### Hitchhiking and carpooling {#hitchhiking_and_carpooling} As a result of the \"Special Period\" in 1991 (a period of food and energy shortages caused by the loss of the Soviet Union as a trading partner), hitchhiking and carpooling became important parts of Cuba\'s transportation system and society in general. In 1999, an article in *Time* magazine claimed \"In Cuba\[\...\] hitchhiking is custom. Hitchhiking is essential. Hitchhiking is what makes Cuba move.\" ### Changes in the 2000s {#changes_in_the_2000s} For many years, Cubans could only acquire new cars with special permission. In 2011, the Cuban government legalized the purchase and sale of used post-1959 autos. In December 2013, Cubans were allowed to buy new cars from state-run dealerships - previously this had not been permitted. In 2020, this was further extended with cars being sold in convertible currencies. ## Waterways - Cauto River - Sagua la Grande River ## Ports and harbors {#ports_and_harbors} - Cienfuegos - Havana - Manzanillo - Mariel - Matanzas - Nuevitas - Santiago de Cuba ## Merchant marine {#merchant_marine} : *Total:* 3 ships ### Ships by type {#ships_by_type} - Cargo ships (1) - Passenger ship (1) - Refrigerated cargo ships (1) : *Registered in other countries:* 5 ## Airlines Besides the state owned airline Cubana (Cubana de Aviación), only Aerogavitoa operates flights to and within Cuba. ## Airports - **Total:** 133 ### Airports with paved runways {#airports_with_paved_runways} - *total:* 64 - *over 3,047 m:* 7 - *2,438 to 3,047 m:* 10 - *1,524 to 2,437 m:* 16 - *914 to 1,523 m:* 4 - *under 914 m:* 27 ### Airports with unpaved runways {#airports_with_unpaved_runways} - *total:* 69 - *914 to 1,523 m:* 11 - *under 914 m:* 58 ## Gallery Image:DirkvdM yank tank yellow.jpg\|1952 Chevrolet in Havana Image:DirkvdM yank tank blue-red.jpg\|1958 Plymouth Belvedere in Havana <File:Antique> Ford Truck, Havana Jan 2014, image by Marjorie Kaufman.jpg\|Antique Ford Truck, Jan 2014 <File:Antique> car, Havana, Jan 2014, image by Marjorie Kaufman.jpg\|Edsel Pacer in Havana, Jan 2014 <File:Pink> Chevvy, Havana Jan 2014, image by Marjorie Kaufman.jpg\|Pink Chevy, Jan 2014 <File:Cuba> yank tank.jpg\|1956 Ford in Trinidad, Cuba. <File:Varadero_-_Cuba_(40276279854).jpg%7C1959> Cadillac in Varadero <File:Wołga,_Kuba.jpg%7CPurple> Volga station wagon, May 2018 <File:Skoda> Fabia Cuba 4575.JPG\|Škoda Fabia I (left) and Moskvitch-2141 \"Aleko\" (right), Feb 2009 <File:Classic_cars_in_Cuba,_Varadero_-_Laslovarga003.JPG%7CA> Buick car in Varadero <File:Hotel_Parque_Central,_Havana.jpg>\|Audi car in Havana, May 2018 <File:Automobile> à La Havane (14).jpg\|Mercedes-Benz W120 in Havana, Jan 2015 <File:Alter> Opel Rekord P1 auf Cuba - Flickr - 02ide.jpg\|Opel Rekord in Pinar de Río, Nov 2008 <File:AutoLaHabanaCuba-04678.jpg%7CSuzuki> Grand Vitara in Havana, Jan 2017 <File:Fiat> 125 - Havana.jpg\|Fiat 125 in Havana, May 2018 <File:Lada,_Trinidad.jpg%7CLada-2103> in Trinidad <File:KrAZ_255,_Cuba.jpg%7CKrAZ-255> truck, Dec 2016 <File:ZiŁ,_Cienfuegos.jpg%7CZiL-130> water tank truck in Cienfuegos <File:B176286.jpg%7CEx-NHZ> Holland Den Oudsten bodied DAF MB230 bus in Havana <File:Transport_(3055159679).jpg>\|GMC school bus, Oct 2008 <File:B107835.jpg%7CViazul> Yutong ZK6120A coach, Feb 2020 <File:MAZ105.jpg>\|MAZ-105 bus in Havana <File:Havana,_Cuba_city_bus.jpg%7CYutong> ZK6180HGC articulated bus in Havana <File:Cienfuegos> train station2.jpg\|Cienfuegos railroad station, Feb 2019 <File:Siguaney> Ferkeltaxi.jpg\|Ex-DB VT 2.09 railcar at Sigüaney

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,600

Transport in Cyprus

**Transport in Cyprus** consists of transport by land, water and air. Road transport is the primary mode of transport for most Cypriot citizens, and Cyprus\'s road transport systems are well-developed and extensively used across the island. Because Cyprus no longer has a working railway system, various other methods of transport are needed to ensure the proper delivery of any cargo, be it human or freight. As the last passenger railway was dismantled in 1952, the only remaining modes of transport are by road, sea, and air. ## Roads From the 12,118 km of roads in the areas controlled by the Republic of Cyprus in 2006, 7,850 km were paved, while 4,268 km were unpaved. In 1996, the Turkish Cypriot area showed a close, but smaller ratio of paved to unpaved with about 1,370 km out of 2,350 km paved and 980 km unpaved. As a legacy of British rule, Cyprus is one of only three EU nations in which vehicles drive on the left. ### Motorways - A1 Nicosia to Limassol - A2 connects A1 near Pera Chorio with A3 by Larnaca - A3 Larnaca Airport to Agia Napa, also serves as a circular road for Larnaca. - A5 connects A1 near Kofinou with A3 by Larnaca - A6 Pafos to Limassol - A7 Paphos to Polis (final plans) - A9 Nicosia to Astromeritis - A22 Dali industrial area to Anthoupolis, Lakatamia (Nicosia 3rd ring road, final plans) ## Public Transportation {#public_transportation} Nicosia\'s residents rely on private cars to go around the city. With more than 658 automobiles per 1,000 people, Cyprus has one of the highest car ownership rates in the world and the country uses very little public transportation. Only 3% of journeys in the Greater Nicosia urban region are made by public transportation. Cycling is considerably less common at 2%. The government of Cyprus and authorities of Nicosia have developed a public transportation plan to ensure access to more areas and provide more options, apart from private cars. ### Public Transportation Companies {#public_transportation_companies} In Cyprus, public transportation by bus is run by different companies based on the district. **Nicosia and Larnaca:** NPT (Nicosia Public Transport) and LPT (Larnaca Public Transport), operated by Cyprus Public Transport (CPT) **Limassol:** EMEL (Transport Company for Limassol Commuters) **Paphos:** OSYPA (Paphos Transport Organisation) **Famagusta:** OSEA (Famagusta District Transport Organisation) **INTERCITY BUSES:** Services transport between all major cities ### Public Buses {#public_buses} In 2006, extensive plans were announced to improve and expand bus services and restructure public transport throughout Cyprus, with the financial backing of the European Union Development Bank. In 2010, the new revised and expanded bus network was implemented into the system. In 2020, the transport companies for the districts of Nicosia and Larnaca were changed from OSEL (Nicosia District Transport Organisation) to NPT (Nicosia Public Transport) and from ZENON Larnaca Buses to LPT (Larnaca Public Transport) respectively. In 2022, Cyprus Public Transport made new plans for Nicosia\'s Public Transport by changing route numbers, adding new bus hubs and modernising buses and the all-out feel of the transport system. The plan has been introduced in two phases and is currently completed. ### Rail Cyprus currently has no functioning railway systems. The last of the narrow gauge systems in the country closed in 1974. There had been studies and preparatory work done to establish a modern system between the major cities, motivated by worsening traffic issues. Ιn October 2024, a company in England showed their interest to construct a new railway system in Cyprus. In 2018, Nicosia municipal authorities requested an opinion on the construction of a tram network in the city to the European Investment Bank\'s JASPERS strategists, who concluded a need for a phased approach. Relevant studies were also carried out in the past, but no concrete plans has materialised. ## Licensed Vehicles {#licensed_vehicles} Road transport is the dominant form of transport on the island. Figures released by the International Road Federation in 2007 show that Cyprus holds the highest car ownership rate in the world with 742 cars per 1,000 people. Vehicle Category 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 ------------------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ---------- ---------- **TOTAL OF CARS** 12,643.00 13,127.00 13,135.00 15,200.00 14,500.00 14,565.00 33,795.00 2,994.00 4,369.00 : Number of licensed vehicles Public transport in Cyprus is limited to privately run bus services (except in Nicosia and Larnaca), taxis, and interurban \'shared\' taxi services (locally referred to as service taxis). Thus, private car ownership in the country is the fifth highest per capita in the world. However, in 2006 extensive plans were announced to expand and improve bus services and restructure public transport throughout Cyprus, with the financial backing of the European Union Development Bank ## Sea Harbours and Ports {#sea_harbours_and_ports} The ports of Cyprus are operated and maintained by the Cyprus Ports Authority. Major harbours of the island are Limassol Harbour, and Larnaca Harbour, which service cargo, passenger, and cruise ships. Limassol is the larger of the two, and handles a large volume of both cargo and cruise vessels. Larnaca is primarily a cargo port but played a big part in the evacuation of foreign nationals from Lebanon in 2006, and in the subsequent humanitarian aid effort. A smaller cargo dock also exists at Vasilikos, near Zygi (a small town between Larnaca and Limassol). Smaller vessels and private yachts can dock at Marinas in Cyprus. ## Public Bicycle Sharing System {#public_bicycle_sharing_system} Nextbike is the latest transportation system in Cyprus, similar to programs employed successfully in various cities around the world. Bicycles can be found at stations in Nicosia and Limassol, as well as with 1 station in Larnaca. ## Merchant Marine {#merchant_marine} : *See full article on Cyprus Merchant Marine* **Total:** 1,414 ships (with a volume of `{{GT|1,000|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} or over) totaling `{{GT|23,497,776}}`{=mediawiki}/`{{DWT|37,331,506|metric|disp=long}}`{=mediawiki} ***Ships by Type:*** barge carrier 2, bulk carrier 442, cargo ship 495, chemical tanker 22, combination bulk 40, combination ore/oil 8, container ship 144, Liquified Gas Carrier 6, passenger ship 8, petroleum tanker 142, refrigerated cargo 41, roll-on/roll-off 45, short-sea passenger 13, specialized tanker 4, vehicle carrier 2 (1999 est.) ## Airports In 1999, Cyprus had 12 airports with paved runways. Of them, seven had runways of lengths between 2,438 and 3,047 metres, one had a length between 1,524 and 2,437 metres, three had lengths between 914 and 1524 metres, and one had a length less than 914 metres. Of the three airports with unpaved runways, two had lengths less than 914 metres and one had a length between 914 and 1524 metres. ### International airports {#international_airports} **Larnaca International Airport** is the island\'s main airport and flies to many locations worldwide. **Paphos International Airport** is the 2nd largest airport and mostly flies to Europe, via Ryanair; with occasional flights to other continents. **Nicosia International Airport** is an abandoned airport. It used to be the island\'s main airport until 1974. It remains closed to the public. **Ercan International Airport** is the main airport in the de facto state of Northern Cyprus. The airport\'s only destination is Turkey, serviced only by a few flight companies from Turkey. Flights to and from Ercan Airport are embargoed.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,636

Chemist

`{{TopicTOC-Chemistry}}`{=mediawiki} A **chemist** (from Greek *chēm(ía)* alchemy; replacing *chymist* from Medieval Latin *alchemist*) is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms. Chemists carefully measure substance proportions, chemical reaction rates, and other chemical properties. In Commonwealth English, pharmacists are often called chemists. Chemists use their knowledge to learn the composition and properties of unfamiliar substances, as well as to reproduce and synthesize large quantities of useful naturally occurring substances and create new artificial substances and useful processes. Chemists may specialize in any number of subdisciplines of chemistry. Materials scientists and metallurgists share much of the same education and skills with chemists. The work of chemists is often related to the work of chemical engineers, who are primarily concerned with the proper design, construction and evaluation of the most cost-effective large-scale chemical plants and work closely with industrial chemists on the development of new processes and methods for the commercial-scale manufacture of chemicals and related products. ## History of chemistry {#history_of_chemistry} The roots of chemistry can be traced to the phenomenon of burning. Fire was a mystical force that transformed one substance into another and thus was of primary interest to mankind. It was fire that led to the discovery of iron and glasses. After gold was discovered and became a precious metal, many people were interested to find a method that could convert other substances into gold. This led to the protoscience called alchemy. The word *chemist* is derived from the Neo-Latin noun *chimista*, an abbreviation of *alchimista* (alchemist). Alchemists discovered many chemical processes that led to the development of modern chemistry. Chemistry as we know it today, was invented by Antoine Lavoisier with his law of conservation of mass in 1783. The discoveries of the chemical elements has a long history culminating in the creation of the periodic table by Dmitri Mendeleev. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry created in 1901 gives an excellent overview of chemical discovery since the start of the 20th century. At the Washington Academy of Sciences during World War I, it was said that the side with the best chemists would win the war. ## Education ### Formal education {#formal_education} Jobs for chemists generally require at least a bachelor\'s degree in chemistry, which takes four years. However, many positions, especially those in research, require a Master of Science or a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD.). Most undergraduate programs emphasize mathematics and physics as well as chemistry, partly because chemistry is also known as \"the central science\", thus chemists ought to have a well-rounded knowledge about science. At the Master\'s level and higher, students tend to specialize in a particular field. Fields of specialization include biochemistry, nuclear chemistry, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, polymer chemistry, analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, theoretical chemistry, quantum chemistry, environmental chemistry, and thermochemistry. Postdoctoral experience may be required for certain positions. Workers whose work involves chemistry, but not at a complexity requiring an education with a chemistry degree, are commonly referred to as *chemical technicians*. Such technicians commonly do such work as simpler, routine analyses for quality control or in clinical laboratories, having an associate degree. A chemical technologist has more education or experience than a chemical technician but less than a chemist, often having a bachelor\'s degree in a different field of science with also an associate degree in chemistry (or many credits related to chemistry) or having the same education as a chemical technician but more experience. There are also degrees specific to become a chemical technologist, which are somewhat distinct from those required when a student is interested in becoming a professional chemist. A Chemical technologist is more involved in the management and operation of the equipment and instrumentation necessary to perform chemical analyzes than a chemical technician. They are part of the team of a chemical laboratory in which the quality of the raw material, intermediate products and finished products is analyzed. They also perform functions in the areas of environmental quality control and the operational phase of a chemical plant. ### Training In addition to all the training usually given to chemical technologists in their respective degree (or one given via an associate degree), a chemist is also trained to understand more details related to chemical phenomena so that the chemist can be capable of more planning on the steps to achieve a distinct goal via a chemistry-related endeavor. The higher the competency level achieved in the field of chemistry (as assessed via a combination of education, experience and personal achievements), the higher the responsibility given to that chemist and the more complicated the task might be. Chemistry, as a field, has so many applications that different tasks and objectives can be given to workers or scientists with these different levels of education or experience. The specific title of each job varies from position to position, depending on factors such as the kind of industry, the routine level of the task, the current needs of a particular enterprise, the size of the enterprise or hiring firm, the philosophy and management principles of the hiring firm, the visibility of the competency and individual achievements of the one seeking employment, economic factors such as recession or economic depression, among other factors, so this makes it difficult to categorize the exact roles of these chemistry-related workers as standard for that given level of education. Because of these factors affecting exact job titles with distinct responsibilities, some chemists might begin doing technician tasks while other chemists might begin doing more complicated tasks than those of a technician, such as tasks that also involve formal applied research, management, or supervision included within the responsibilities of that same job title. The level of supervision given to that chemist also varies in a similar manner, with factors similar to those that affect the tasks demanded for a particular chemist. It is important that those interested in a Chemistry degree understand the variety of roles available to them (on average), which vary depending on education and job experience. Those Chemists who hold a bachelor\'s degree are most commonly involved in positions related to either research assistance (working under the guidance of senior chemists in a research-oriented activity), or, alternatively, they may work on distinct (chemistry-related) aspects of a business, organization or enterprise including aspects that involve quality control, quality assurance, manufacturing, production, formulation, inspection, method validation, visitation for troubleshooting of chemistry-related instruments, regulatory affairs, \"on-demand\" technical services, chemical analysis for non-research purposes (e.g., as a legal request, for testing purposes, or for government or non-profit agencies); chemists may also work in environmental evaluation and assessment. Other jobs or roles may include sales and marketing of chemical products and chemistry-related instruments or technical writing. The more experience obtained, the more independence and leadership or management roles these chemists may perform in those organizations. Some chemists with relatively higher experience might change jobs or job position to become a manager of a chemistry-related enterprise, a supervisor, an entrepreneur or a chemistry consultant. Other chemists choose to combine their education and experience as a chemist with a distinct credential to provide different services (e.g., forensic chemists, chemistry-related software development, patent law specialists, environmental law firm staff, scientific news reporting staff, engineering design staff, etc.). In comparison, chemists who have obtained a Master of Science (M.S.) in chemistry or in a very related discipline may find chemist roles that allow them to enjoy more independence, leadership and responsibility earlier in their careers with less years of experience than those with a bachelor\'s degree as highest degree. Sometimes, M.S. chemists receive more complex tasks duties in comparison with the roles and positions found by chemists with a bachelor\'s degree as their highest academic degree and with the same or close-to-same years of job experience. There are positions that are open only to those that at least have a degree related to chemistry at the master\'s level. Although good chemists without a Ph.D. degree but with relatively many years of experience may be allowed some applied research positions, the general rule is that Ph.D. chemists are preferred for research positions and are typically the preferred choice for the highest administrative positions on big enterprises involved in chemistry-related duties. Some positions, especially research oriented, will only allow those chemists who are Ph.D. holders. Jobs that involve intensive research and actively seek to lead the discovery of completely new chemical compounds under specifically assigned monetary funds and resources or jobs that seek to develop new scientific theories require a Ph.D. more often than not. Chemists with a Ph.D. as the highest academic degree are found typically on the research-and-development department of an enterprise and can also hold university positions as professors. Professors for research universities or for big universities usually have a Ph.D., and some research-oriented institutions might require post-doctoral training. Some smaller colleges (including some smaller four-year colleges or smaller non-research universities for undergraduates) as well as community colleges usually hire chemists with a M.S. as professors too (and rarely, some big universities who need part-time or temporary instructors, or temporary staff), but when the positions are scarce and the applicants are many, they might prefer Ph.D. holders instead. ### Skills Skills that a chemist may need on the job include: - Knowledge of chemistry - Familiarity with product development - Using scientific rules, strategies, or concepts to solve problems - Putting together small parts using hands and fingers with dexterity ## Employment Most chemists begin their lives in research laboratories. Many chemists continue working at universities. Other chemists may start companies, teach at high schools or colleges, take samples outside (as environmental chemists), or work in medical examiner offices or police departments (as forensic chemists). Some software that chemists may find themselves using include: - ChemSW Buffer Maker - LabTrack Electronic Lab Notebook - Agilent ChemStation - Waters Empower Chromatography Data Software - Microsoft Excel Increasingly, chemists may also find themselves using artificial intelligence, such as for drug discovery. ### Subdisciplines Chemistry typically is divided into several major sub-disciplines. There are also several main cross-disciplinary and more specialized fields of chemistry. There is a great deal of overlap between different branches of chemistry, as well as with other scientific fields such as biology, medicine, physics, radiology, and several engineering disciplines. - Analytical chemistry is the analysis of material samples to gain an understanding of their chemical composition and structure. Analytical chemistry incorporates standardized experimental methods in chemistry. These methods may be used in all subdisciplines of chemistry, excluding purely theoretical chemistry. - Biochemistry is the study of the chemicals, chemical reactions and chemical interactions that take place in living organisms. Biochemistry and organic chemistry are closely related, for example, in medicinal chemistry. - Inorganic chemistry is the study of the properties and reactions of inorganic compounds. The distinction between organic and inorganic disciplines is not absolute and there is much overlap, most importantly in the sub-discipline of organometallic chemistry. The Inorganic chemistry is also the study of atomic and molecular structure and bonding. - Medicinal chemistry is the science involved with designing, synthesizing and developing pharmaceutical drugs. Medicinal chemistry involves the identification, synthesis and development of new chemical entities suitable for therapeutic use. It also includes the study of existing drugs, their biological properties, and their quantitative structure-activity relationships. - Organic chemistry is the study of the structure, properties, composition, mechanisms, and chemical reaction of carbon compounds. - Physical chemistry is the study of the physical fundamental basis of chemical systems and processes. In particular, the energetics and dynamics of such systems and processes are of interest to physical chemists. Important areas of study include chemical thermodynamics, chemical kinetics, electrochemistry, quantum chemistry, statistical mechanics, and spectroscopy. Physical chemistry has a large overlap with theoretical chemistry and molecular physics. Physical chemistry involves the use of calculus in deriving equations. - Theoretical chemistry is the study of chemistry via theoretical reasoning (usually within mathematics or physics). In particular, the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry is called quantum chemistry. Since the end of the Second World War, the development of computers has allowed a systematic development of computational chemistry, which is the art of developing and applying computer programs for solving chemical problems. Theoretical chemistry has large overlap with condensed matter physics and molecular physics. See reductionism. All the above major areas of chemistry employ chemists. Other fields where chemical degrees are useful include astrochemistry (and cosmochemistry), atmospheric chemistry, chemical engineering, chemo-informatics, electrochemistry, environmental science, forensic science, geochemistry, green chemistry, history of chemistry, materials science, medical science, molecular biology, molecular genetics, nanotechnology, nuclear chemistry, oenology, organometallic chemistry, petrochemistry, pharmacology, photochemistry, phytochemistry, polymer chemistry, supramolecular chemistry and surface chemistry. ## Professional societies {#professional_societies} Chemists may belong to professional societies specifically for professionals and researchers within the field of chemistry, such as the Royal Society of Chemistry in the United Kingdom, the American Chemical Society (ACS) in the United States, or the Institution of Chemists in India. ## Ethics The \"Global Chemists\' Code of Ethics\" suggests several ethical principles that all chemists should follow: - Promoting the general public\'s appreciation of chemistry - The importance of sustainability and protecting the environment - The importance of scientific research and publications - Respecting safety, such as by using proper personal protective equipment - Respecting chemical security throughout the chemical supply chain, especially for labs and industrial facilities This code of ethics was codified in a 2016 conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, run by the American Chemical Society. The points listed are inspired by the 2015 Hague Ethical Guidelines. ## Honors and awards {#honors_and_awards} The highest honor awarded to chemists is the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded since 1901, by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,642

Costume jewelry

thumb\|upright=1.2\|Swatch Bijoux Jewelry **Costume or fashion jewelry** includes a range of decorative items worn for personal adornment that are manufactured as less expensive ornamentation to complement a particular fashionable outfit or garment as opposed to \"real\" (fine) jewelry, which is more costly and which may be regarded primarily as collectibles, keepsakes, or investments. From the outset, costume jewelry --- also known as fashion jewelry --- paralleled the styles of its more precious fine counterparts. ## Terminology It is also known as **artificial jewellery**, **imitation jewellery**, **imitated jewelry**, **trinkets**, **fashion jewelry**, **junk jewelry**, **fake jewelry**, or **fallalery**. ## Etymology The term costume jewelry dates back to the early 20th century. It reflects the use of the word \"costume\" to refer to what is now called an \"outfit\". ## Components Originally, costume or fashion jewelry was made of inexpensive simulated gemstones, such as rhinestones or lucite, set in pewter, silver, nickel, or brass. During the depression years, some manufacturers even downgraded rhinestones to meet the cost of production. During the World War II era, sterling silver was often incorporated into costume jewelry designs primarily because: 1. The components used for base metal were needed for wartime production (i.e., military applications), and a ban was placed on their use in the private sector. 2. Base metal was originally popular because it could approximate platinum\'s color, sterling silver fulfilled the same function. This resulted in some years during which sterling silver costume jewelry was produced and some can still be found in today\'s vintage jewelry marketplace. Modern costume jewelry incorporates a wide range of materials. High-end crystals, cubic zirconia simulated diamonds, and some semi-precious stones are used in place of precious stones. Metals include gold- or silver-plated brass, and sometimes vermeil or sterling silver. Lower-priced jewelry may still use gold plating over pewter, nickel, or other metals; items made in countries outside the United States`{{Dubious|Lead contamination|date=December 2021}}`{=mediawiki} may contain lead. Some pieces incorporate plastic, acrylic, leather, or wood. ## Historical expression {#historical_expression} Costume jewelry can be characterized by the period in history in which it was made. ### Art Deco period (1920--1930s) {#art_deco_period_19201930s} The Art Deco movement attempted to combine the harshness of mass production with the sensitivity of art and design. The movement died with the onset of the Great Depression and the outbreak of World War II. According to Schiffer, some of the characteristics of the costume jewelry in the Art Deco period were: - Free-flowing curves were replaced with a harshly geometric and symmetrical theme - Long pendants, bangle bracelets, cocktail rings, and elaborate accessory items such as cigarette cases and holders ### Retro period (1935 to 1950) {#retro_period_1935_to_1950} In the Retro period, designers struggled with the art versus mass production dilemma. Natural materials merged with plastics. The retro period primarily included American-made jewelry with a distinctly American look. With the war in Europe, many European jewelry firms were forced to shut down. Many European designers emigrated to the U.S. since the economy was recovering. According to Schiffer, some of the characteristics of costume jewelry in the Retro period were: - Glamour, elegance, and sophistication - Flowers, bows, and sunburst designs with a Hollywood flair - Moonstones, horse motifs, military influence, and ballerinas - Bakelite and other plastic jewelry ### Art Modern period (1945 to 1960) {#art_modern_period_1945_to_1960} In the Art Modern period following World War II, jewelry designs became more traditional and understated. The big, bold styles of the Retro period went out of style and were replaced by the more tailored styles of the 1950s and 1960s. According to Schiffer, some of the characteristics of costume jewelry in the Art Modern period were: - Bold, lavish jewelry - Large, chunky bracelets, charm bracelets, Jade/opal, citrine and topaz - Poodle pins, Christmas tree pins, and other Christmas jewelry - Rhinestones With the advent of the Mod period came \"*Body Jewelry*\". Carl Schimel of Kim Craftsmen Jewelry was at the forefront of this style. While Kim Craftsmen closed in the early 1990s, many collectors still forage for their items at antique shows and flea markets. ## General history {#general_history} Costume jewelry has been part of the culture for almost 300 years. During the 18th century, jewelers began making pieces with inexpensive glass. In the 19th century, costume jewelry made of semi-precious material came into the market. Jewels made of semi-precious material were more affordable, allowing common people to own costume jewelry. However, the real golden era for costume jewelry began in the middle of the 20th century. The new middle class wanted beautiful, but affordable jewelry. The demand for jewelry of this type coincided with the machine age and the Industrial Revolution. The revolution made the production of carefully executed replicas of admired heirloom pieces possible. As the class structure in America changed, so did measures of real wealth. Women in all social stations, even working-class women, could own a small piece of costume jewelry. The average town and countrywoman could acquire and wear a considerable amount of this mass-produced jewelry that was both affordable and stylish. Costume jewelry was also made popular by various designers in the mid-20th century. Some of the most remembered names in costume jewelry include both the high and low priced brands: Crown Trifari, Dior, Chanel, Miriam Haskell, Sherman, Monet, Napier, Corocraft, Coventry, and Kim Craftsmen. A significant factor in the popularization of costume jewelry was Hollywood movies. The leading female stars of the 1940s and 1950s often wore and endorsed the pieces produced by various designers. If you admired a necklace worn by Bette Davis in *The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex*, you could buy a copy from Joseff of Hollywood, who made the original. Stars such as Vivien Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jane Russell appeared in adverts for the pieces and the availability of the collections in shops such as Woolworth made it possible for ordinary women to own and wear such jewelry. Coco Chanel greatly popularized the use of faux jewelry in her years as a fashion designer, bringing costume jewelry to life with gold and faux pearls. Chanel\'s designs drew from various historical styles, including Byzantine and Renaissance influences, often featuring crosses and intricate metalwork. Her collaboration with glassmakers, such as the Gripoix family, introduced richly colored glass beads and simulated gemstones, which added depth to her creations without the high cost of traditional precious stones. Kenneth Jay Lane has since the 1960s been known for creating unique pieces for Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Vreeland, and Audrey Hepburn. He is probably best known for his three-strand faux pearl necklace worn by Barbara Bush to her husband\'s inaugural ball. Celebrated names who wore Lane\'s creations include Jackie Kennedy, Babe Paley, the Duchess of Windsor, and Nancy Reagan. Elsa Schiaparelli brought surrealist influences into costume jewelry design, collaborating with artists such as Salvador Dalí. In many instances, high-end fashion jewelry has achieved a \"collectible\" status and increased value over time. Today, there is a substantial secondary market for vintage fashion jewelry. The main collecting market is for \'signed pieces\', which have the maker\'s mark, usually stamped on the reverse. Amongst the most sought after are Miriam Haskell, Sherman, Coro, Butler and Wilson, Crown Trifari, and Sphinx. However, there is also demand for good quality \'unsigned\' pieces, especially if they are of an unusual design. ## Business and industry {#business_and_industry} Costume jewelry is considered a discrete category of fashion accessory and displays many characteristics of a self-contained industry. Costume jewelry manufacturers are located throughout the world, with a particular concentration in parts of China and India, where the trade of these goods dominates entire citywide and region-wide economies. There has been considerable controversy in the United States and elsewhere about the lack of regulations in the manufacture of such jewelry---these range from human rights issues surrounding the treatment of labor, to the use of manufacturing processes in which small, but potentially harmful, amounts of toxic metals are added during production. In 2010, the Associated Press released the story that toxic levels of the metal cadmium were found in children\'s jewelry. An Associated Press investigation found some pieces contained more than 80 percent of cadmium. The broader issues surrounding imports, exports, trade laws, and globalization also apply to the costume jewelry trade. As part of the supply chain, wholesalers in the United States and other nations purchase costume jewelry from manufacturers. They typically import or export it to wholesale distributors and suppliers who deal directly with retailers. Wholesale costume jewelry merchants traditionally seek new suppliers at trade shows. The trade-show model has changed as the Internet has become increasingly important in global trade. Retailers can now select from many wholesalers with sites on the World Wide Web. The wholesalers purchase from international suppliers available on the Web from different parts of the world, like Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Thai, and Indian jewelry companies, with their wide range of products in bulk quantities. Some sites also market directly to consumers who can purchase costume jewelry at significantly reduced prices. Some websites categorize fashion jewelry separately, while others use this term instead of costume jewelry. The trend of jewelry-making at home by hobbyists for personal enjoyment or sale on sites like Etsy has resulted in the common practice of buying wholesale costume jewelry in bulk and using it for parts. There is a rise in demand for artificial or imitation jewelry by 85% due to the increase in gold prices, according to a 2011 report.

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Cult film

A **cult film**, also commonly referred to as a **cult classic**, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase, which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage in repeated viewings, dialogue-quoting, and audience participation. Inclusive definitions allow for major studio productions, especially box-office bombs, while exclusive definitions focus more on obscure, transgressive films shunned by the mainstream. The difficulty in defining the term and subjectivity of what qualifies as a cult film mirror classificatory disputes about art. The term *cult film* itself was first used in the 1970s to describe the culture that surrounded underground films and midnight movies, though *cult* was in common use in film analysis for decades prior to that. Cult films trace their origin back to controversial and suppressed films kept alive by dedicated fans. In some cases, reclaimed or rediscovered films have acquired cult followings decades after their original release, occasionally for their camp value. Other cult films have since become well-respected or reassessed as classics; there is debate as to whether these popular and accepted films are still cult films. After failing at the cinema, some cult films have become regular fixtures on cable television or profitable sellers on home video. Others have inspired their own film festivals. Cult films can both appeal to specific subcultures and form their own subcultures. Other media that reference cult films can easily identify which demographics they desire to attract and offer savvy fans an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge. Cult films frequently break cultural taboos, and many feature excessive displays of violence, gore, sexuality, profanity, or combinations thereof. This can lead to controversy, censorship, and outright bans; less transgressive films may attract similar amounts of controversy when critics call them frivolous or incompetent. Films that fail to attract requisite amounts of controversy may face resistance when labeled as cult films. Mainstream films and big budget blockbusters have attracted cult followings similar to more underground and lesser known films; fans of these films often emphasize the films\' niche appeal and reject the more popular aspects. Fans who like the films for the wrong reasons, such as perceived elements that represent mainstream appeal and marketing, will often be ostracized or ridiculed. Likewise, fans who stray from accepted subcultural scripts may experience similar rejection. Since the late 1970s, cult films have become increasingly popular. Films that once would have been limited to obscure cult followings are now capable of breaking into the mainstream, and showings of cult films have proved to be a profitable business venture. Overly broad usage of the term has resulted in controversy, as purists state it has become a meaningless descriptor applied to any film that is the slightest bit weird or unconventional; others accuse Hollywood studios of trying to artificially create cult films or use the term as a marketing tactic. Modern films are frequently stated to be an \"instant cult classic\", occasionally before they are released. Some films have acquired massive, quick cult followings, owing to advertisements and posts made by fans spreading virally through social media. Easy access to cult films via video on demand and peer-to-peer file sharing has led some critics to pronounce the death of cult films. ## Definition A cult film is any film that has a cult following, although the term is not easily defined and can be applied to a wide variety of films. Some definitions exclude films that have been released by major studios or have big budgets, that try specifically to become cult films, or become accepted by mainstream audiences and critics. Cult films are defined by audience reaction as much as by their content. This may take the form of elaborate and ritualized audience participation, film festivals, or cosplay. Over time, the definition has become more vague and inclusive as it drifts away from earlier, stricter views. Increasing use of the term by mainstream publications has resulted in controversy, as cinephiles argue that the term has become meaningless or \"elastic, a catchall for anything slightly maverick or strange\". Academic Mark Shiel has criticized the term itself as being a weak concept, reliant on subjectivity; different groups can interpret films in their own terms. According to feminist scholar Joanne Hollows, this subjectivity causes films with large female cult followings to be perceived as too mainstream and not transgressive enough to qualify as a cult film. Academic Mike Chopra‑Gant says that cult films become decontextualized when studied as a group, and Shiel criticizes this recontextualization as cultural commodification. In 2008, *Cineaste* asked a range of academics for their definition of a cult film. Several defined cult films primarily in terms of their opposition to mainstream films and conformism, explicitly requiring a transgressive element, though others disputed the transgressive potential, given the demographic appeal to conventional moviegoers and mainstreaming of cult films. Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock instead called them mainstream films with transgressive elements. Most definitions also required a strong community aspect, such as obsessed fans or ritualistic behavior. Citing misuse of the term, Mikel J. Koven took a self-described hard-line stance that rejected definitions that use any other criteria. Matt Hills instead stressed the need for an open-ended definition rooted in structuration, where the film and the audience reaction are interrelated and neither is prioritized. Ernest Mathijs focused on the accidental nature of cult followings, arguing that cult film fans consider themselves too savvy to be marketed to, while Jonathan Rosenbaum rejected the continued existence of cult films and called the term a marketing buzzword. Mathijs suggests that cult films help to understand ambiguity and incompleteness in life given the difficulty in even defining the term. That cult films can have opposing qualities -- such as good and bad, failure and success, innovative and retro -- helps to illustrate that art is subjective and never self-evident. This ambiguity leads critics of postmodernism to accuse cult films of being beyond criticism, as the emphasis is now on personal interpretation rather than critical analysis or metanarratives. These inherent dichotomies can lead audiences to be split between ironic and earnest fans. Writing in *Defining Cult Movies*, Jancovich et al. quote academic Jeffrey Sconce, who defines cult films in terms of paracinema, marginal films that exist outside critical and cultural acceptance in such varied genres as exploitation, beach party musicals, and softcore pornography. However, they reject cult films as having a single unifying feature; instead, they state that cult films are united in their \"subcultural ideology\" and opposition to mainstream tastes, itself a vague and undefinable term. Cult followings themselves can range from adoration to contempt, and they have little in common except for their celebration of nonconformity -- even the bad films ridiculed by fans are artistically nonconformist, albeit unintentionally. At the same time, they state that bourgeois, masculine tastes are frequently reinforced, which makes cult films more of an internal conflict within the bourgeoisie, rather than a rebellion against it. This results in an anti-academic bias despite the use of formal methodologies, such as defamiliarization. This contradiction exists in many subcultures, especially those dependent on defining themselves in terms of opposition to the mainstream. This nonconformity is eventually co-opted by the dominant forces, such as Hollywood, and marketed to the mainstream. Academic Xavier Mendik proposes that films can become cult by virtue of their genre or content, especially if it is transgressive. Due to their rejection of mainstream appeal, Mendik says cult films can be more creative and political; times of relative political instability produce more interesting films. ## General overview {#general_overview} Cult films have existed since the early days of cinema. Film critic Harry Alan Potamkin traces them back to 1910s France and the reception of Pearl White, William S. Hart, and Charlie Chaplin, which he described as \"a dissent from the popular ritual\". *Nosferatu* (1922) was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker\'s *Dracula*. Stoker\'s widow sued the production company, and all known copies in Germany were destroyed. Now illegal to distribute in many countries, *Nosferatu* became an early cult film. Academic Chuck Kleinhans identifies the Marx Brothers as making other early cult films. On their original release, some highly regarded classics from the Golden Age of Hollywood were panned by critics and audiences, relegated to cult status. *The Night of the Hunter* (1955) was a cult film for years, quoted often and championed by fans, before it was reassessed as an important and influential classic. During this time, American exploitation films and imported European art films were marketed similarly. Although critics Pauline Kael and Arthur Knight argued against arbitrary divisions into high and low culture, American films settled into rigid genres; European art films continued to push the boundaries of simple definitions, and these exploitative art films and artistic exploitation films influenced American cult films. Much like later cult films, these early exploitation films encouraged audience participation, influenced by live theater and vaudeville. Modern cult films grew from 1960s counterculture and underground films, popular among those who rejected mainstream Hollywood films. These underground film festivals led to the creation of midnight movies, which attracted cult followings. The term *cult film* itself was an outgrowth of this movement and was first used in the 1970s, though *cult* had been in use for decades in film analysis with both positive and negative connotations. These films were more concerned with cultural significance than the social justice sought by earlier avant-garde films. Midnight movies became more popular and mainstream by the 1970s, peaking with the release of *The Rocky Horror Picture Show* (1975), which finally found its audience several years after its release. Eventually, the rise of home video marginalized midnight movies once again, after which many directors joined the burgeoning independent film scene or went back underground. Home video gave a second life to box-office flops, as positive word-of-mouth or excessive replay on cable television led these films to develop an appreciative audience, as well as obsessive replay and study. For example, *The Beastmaster* (1982), despite its failure at the box office, became one of the most played films on American cable television and developed into a cult film. Home video and television broadcasts of cult films were initially greeted with hostility. Joanne Hollows states that they were seen as turning cult films mainstream -- in effect, feminizing them by opening them to distracted, passive audiences. Releases from major studios, such as *The Big Lebowski* (1998), which was distributed by Universal Studios, can become cult films when they fail at the box office and develop a cult following through reissues, such as midnight movies, festivals, and home video. Hollywood films, due to their nature, are more likely to attract this kind of attention, which leads to a mainstreaming effect of cult culture. With major studios behind them, even financially unsuccessful films can be re-released multiple times to seek an audience. The constant use of profanity and drugs in otherwise mainstream, Hollywood films, such as *The Big Lebowski*, can alienate critics and audiences yet lead to a large cult following among more open-minded demographics not often associated with cult films, such as Wall Street bankers and professional soldiers. Thus, even comparatively mainstream films can satisfy the traditional demands of a cult film, perceived by fans as transgressive, niche, and uncommercial. Discussing his reputation for making cult films, Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap said, \"I didn\'t set out to make cult films. I wanted to make box-office hits.\" Academics Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton state that this acceptance of mainstream culture and commercialism is not out of character, as cult audiences have a more complex relationship to these concepts: their opposition is to mainstream values and excessive commercialism. In a global context, popularity can vary widely by territory, especially with regard to limited releases. *Mad Max* (1979) was an international hit, except in America where it became an obscure cult favorite, ignored by critics and available for years only in a dubbed version though it earned over \$100M internationally. Foreign cinema can put a different spin on popular genres, such as Japanese horror, which was initially a cult favorite in America. Asian imports to the West are often marketed as exotic cult films and of interchangeable national identity. Foreign influence can affect fan response, especially on genres tied to a national identity; when they become more global in scope, questions of authenticity may arise. Filmmakers and films ignored in their own country can become the objects of cult adoration in another, producing perplexed reactions in their native country. Cult films can also establish an early viability for more mainstream films, both for filmmakers and national cinema. The early cult horror films of Peter Jackson were so strongly associated with his homeland that they affected the international reputation of New Zealand and its cinema. As more artistic films emerged, New Zealand was perceived as a legitimate competitor to Hollywood, which mirrored Jackson\'s career trajectory. *Heavenly Creatures* (1994) acquired its own cult following, became a part of New Zealand\'s national identity, and paved the way for big-budget, Hollywood-style epics, such as Jackson\'s *The Lord of the Rings* trilogy. Cult film fans often watch films obsessively or in idiosyncratic ways, such as speeding them up or slowing them down. Fan may watch marathons of horror films on Halloween, sentimental melodrama on Christmas, and romantic films on Valentine\'s Day. Christmas films in particular have a nostalgic factor. These films, ritually watched every season, give a sense of community and shared nostalgia. New films often have trouble making inroads against the institutions of *It\'s a Wonderful Life* (1946) and *Miracle on 34th Street* (1947). These films provide mild criticism of consumerism while encouraging family values. Halloween, on the other hand, allows for flaunting society\'s taboos and testing one\'s fears via horror films. Mathijs criticizes the commercialized nature of Halloween and horror films, which he states feels lacks community. Mathijs states that Halloween horror conventions can provide the missing community aspect. Despite their oppositional nature, cult films can produce celebrities. Like cult films themselves, authenticity is an important aspect of their popularity. Actors can become typecast as they become strongly associated with such iconic roles. Tim Curry, despite his acknowledged range as an actor, found casting difficult after he achieved fame in *The Rocky Horror Picture Show*. Even when discussing unrelated projects, interviewers frequently bring up the role, which causes him to tire of discussing it. Mary Woronov, known for her transgressive roles in cult films, eventually transitioned to mainstream films. She was expected to recreate the transgressive elements of her cult films within the confines of mainstream cinema. Instead of the complex gender deconstructions of her Andy Warhol films, she became typecast as a lesbian or domineering woman. Sylvia Kristel, after starring in *Emmanuelle* (1974), found herself highly associated with the film and the sexual liberation of the 1970s. Caught between the transgressive elements of her cult film and the mainstream appeal of soft-core pornography, she was unable to work in anything but exploitation films and *Emmanuelle* sequels. Despite her immense popularity and cult following, she rated only a footnote in most histories of European cinema if she was even mentioned. Similarly, Chloë Sevigny has struggled with her reputation as a cult independent film star famous for her daring roles in transgressive films. Cult films can also trap directors. Leonard Kastle, who directed *The Honeymoon Killers* (1969), never directed another film again. Despite his cult following, which included François Truffaut, he was unable to find financing for any of his other screenplays. Qualities that bring cult films to prominence -- such as an uncompromising, unorthodox vision -- caused Alejandro Jodorowsky to languish in obscurity for years. ## Transgression and censorship {#transgression_and_censorship} Transgressive films as a distinct artistic movement began in the 1970s. Unconcerned with genre distinctions, they drew inspiration equally from the nonconformity of European art cinema and experimental film, the gritty subject matter of Italian neorealism, and the shocking images of 1960s exploitation. Some used hardcore pornography and horror, occasionally at the same time. In the 1980s, filmmaker Nick Zedd identified this movement as the Cinema of Transgression and wrote a manifesto. Popular in midnight showings, they were mainly limited to large urban areas, which led academic Joan Hawkins to label them as \"downtown culture\". These films acquired a legendary reputation as they were discussed and debated in alternative weeklies, such as *The Village Voice*. Home video finally allowed general audiences to see them, which gave many people their first taste of underground film. Mathijs says that cult films often disrupt viewer expectations, such as giving characters transgressive motivations or focusing attention on elements outside the film. Cult films can also transgress national stereotypes and genre conventions, such as *Battle Royale* (2000), which broke many rules of teenage slasher films. The reverse -- when films based on cult properties lose their transgressive edge -- can result in derision and rejection by fans. Audience participation itself can be transgressive, such as breaking long-standing taboos against talking during films and throwing things at the screen. According to Mathijs, critical reception is important to a film\'s perception as cult, through topicality and controversy. Topicality, which can be regional (such as objection to government funding of the film) or critical (such as philosophical objections to the themes), enables attention and a contextual response. Cultural topics make the film relevant and can lead to controversy, such as a moral panic, which provides opposition. Cultural values transgressed in the film, such as sexual promiscuity, can be attacked by proxy through attacks on the film. These concerns can vary from culture to culture, and they need not be at all similar. However, Mathijs says the film must invoke metacommentary for it to be more than simply culturally important. While referencing previous arguments, critics may attack its choice of genre or its very right to exist. By taking stances on these varied issues, critics assure their own relevance while helping to elevate the film to cult status. Perceived racist and reductive remarks by critics can rally fans and raise the profile of cult films, such as Rex Reed\'s comments about Korean culture in his review of *Oldboy* (2003). Critics can also polarize audiences and lead debates, such as how Joe Bob Briggs and Roger Ebert dueled over *I Spit On Your Grave* (1978). Briggs later contributed a commentary track to the DVD release in which he describes it as a feminist film. Films which do not attract enough controversy may be ridiculed and rejected when suggested as cult films. Academic Peter Hutchings, noting the many definitions of a cult film that require transgressive elements, states that cult films are known in part for their excesses. Both subject matter and its depiction are portrayed in extreme ways that break taboos of good taste and aesthetic norms. Violence, gore, sexual perversity, and even the music can be pushed to stylistic excess far beyond that allowed by mainstream cinema. Film censorship can make these films obscure and make it difficult to find common criteria used to define cult films. Despite this, these films remain well-known and prized among collectors. Fans will occasionally express frustration with dismissive critics and conventional analysis, which they believe marginalizes and misinterprets paracinema. In marketing these films, young men are predominantly targeted. Horror films in particular can draw fans who seek the most extreme films. Audiences can also ironically latch on to offensive themes, such as misogyny, using these films as catharsis for the things that they hate most in life. Exploitative, transgressive elements can be pushed to excessive extremes for both humor and satire. Frank Henenlotter faced censorship and ridicule, but he found acceptance among audiences receptive to themes that Hollywood was reluctant to touch, such as violence, drug addiction, and misogyny. Lloyd Kaufman sees his films\' political statements as more populist and authentic than the hypocrisy of mainstream films and celebrities. Despite featuring an abundance of fake blood, vomit, and diarrhea, Kaufman\'s films have attracted positive attention from critics and academics. Excess can also exist in films that highlight the excesses of 1980s fashion and commercialism. Films that are influenced by unpopular styles or genres can become cult films. Director Jean Rollin worked within *cinéma fantastique*, an unpopular genre in modern France. Influenced by American films and early French fantasists, he drifted between art, exploitation, and pornography. His films were reviled by critics, but he retained a cult following drawn by the nudity and eroticism. Similarly, Jess Franco chafed under fascist censorship in Spain but became influential in Spain\'s horror boom of the 1960s. These transgressive films that straddle the line between art and horror may have overlapping cult followings, each with their own interpretation and reasons for appreciating it. The films that followed Jess Franco were unique in their rejection of mainstream art. Popular among fans of European horror for their subversiveness and obscurity, these later Spanish films allowed political dissidents to criticize the fascist regime within the cloak of exploitation and horror. Unlike most exploitation directors, they were not trying to establish a reputation. They were already established in the art-house world and intentionally chose to work within paracinema as a reaction against the New Spanish Cinema, an artistic revival supported by the fascists. As late as the 1980s, critics still cited Pedro Almodóvar\'s anti-macho iconoclasm as a rebellion against fascist mores, as he grew from countercultural rebel to mainstream respectability. Transgressive elements that limit a director\'s appeal in one country can be celebrated or highlighted in another. Takashi Miike has been marketed in the West as a shocking and avant-garde filmmaker despite his many family-friendly comedies, which have not been imported. The transgressive nature of cult films can lead to their censorship. During the 1970s and early 1980s, a wave of explicit, graphic exploitation films caused controversy. Called \"video nasties\" within the UK, they ignited calls for censorship and stricter laws on home video releases, which were largely unregulated. Consequently, the British Board of Film Classification banned many popular cult films due to issues of sex, violence, and incitement to crime. Released during the cannibal boom, *Cannibal Holocaust* (1980) was banned in dozens of countries and caused the director to be briefly jailed over fears that it was a real snuff film. Although opposed to censorship, director Ruggero Deodato later agreed with cuts made by the BBFC that removed unsimulated animal killings, which limited the film\'s distribution. Frequently banned films may introduce questions of authenticity as fans question whether they have seen a truly uncensored cut. Cult films have been falsely claimed to have been banned to increase their transgressive reputation and explain their lack of mainstream penetration. Marketing campaigns have also used such claims to raise interest among curious audiences. Home video has allowed cult film fans to import rare or banned films, finally giving them a chance to complete their collection with imports and bootlegs. Cult films previously banned are sometimes released with much fanfare, and the fans assumed to be already familiar with the controversy. Personal responsibility is often highlighted, and a strong anti-censorship message may be present. Previously lost scenes cut by studios can be re-added and restore a director\'s original vision, which draws similar fanfare and acclaim from fans. Imports are sometimes censored to remove elements that would be controversial, such as references to Islamic spirituality in Indonesian cult films. Academics have written of how transgressive themes in cult films can be regressive. David Church and Chuck Kleinhans describe an uncritical celebration of transgressive themes in cult films, including misogyny and racism. Church has also criticized gendered descriptions of transgressive content that celebrate masculinity. Joanne Hollows further identifies a gendered component to the celebration of transgressive themes in cult films, where male terms are used to describe films outside the mainstream while female terms are used to describe mainstream, conformist cinema. Jacinda Read\'s expansion states that cult films, despite their potential for empowerment of the marginalized, are more often used by politically incorrect males. Knowledgeable about feminism and multiculturalism, they seek a refuge from the academic acceptance of these progressive ideals. Their playful and ironic acceptance of regressive lad culture invites, and even dares, condemnation from academics and the uncool. Thus, cult films become a tool to reinforce mainstream values through transgressive content; Rebecca Feasy states that cultural hierarchies can also be reaffirmed through mockery of films perceived to be lacking masculinity. However, the sexploitation films of Doris Wishman took a feminist approach which avoids and subverts the male gaze and traditional goal-oriented methods. Wishman\'s subject matter, though exploitative and transgressive, was always framed in terms of female empowerment and the feminine spectator. Her use of common cult film motifs -- female nudity and ambiguous gender -- were repurposed to comment on feminist topics. Similarly, the films of Russ Meyer were a complicated combination of transgressive, mainstream, progressive, and regressive elements. They attracted both acclaim and denouncement from critics and progressives. Transgressive films imported from cultures that are recognizably different yet still relatable can be used to progressively examine issues in another culture. ## Subcultural appeal and fandom {#subcultural_appeal_and_fandom} Cult films can be used to help define or create groups as a form of subcultural capital; knowledge of cult films proves that one is \"authentic\" or \"non-mainstream\". They can be used to provoke an outraged response from the mainstream, which further defines the subculture, as only members could possibly tolerate such deviant entertainment. More accessible films have less subcultural capital; among extremists, banned films will have the most. By referencing cult films, media can identify desired demographics, strengthen bonds with specific subcultures, and stand out among those who understand the intertextuality. Popular films from previous eras may be reclaimed by genre fans long after they have been forgotten by the original audiences. This can be done for authenticity, such as horror fans who seek out now-obscure titles from the 1950s instead of the modern, well-known remakes. Authenticity may also drive fans to deny genre categorization to films perceived as too mainstream or accessible. Authenticity in performance and expertise can drive fan acclaim. Authenticity can also drive fans to decry the mainstream in the form of hostile critics and censors. Especially when promoted by enthusiastic and knowledgeable programmers, choice of venue can be an important part of expressing individuality. Besides creating new communities, cult films can link formerly disparate groups, such as fans and critics. As these groups intermix, they can influence each other, though this may be resisted by older fans, unfamiliar with these new references. In extreme cases, cult films can lead to the creation of religions, such as Dudeism. For their avoidance of mainstream culture and audiences, enjoyment of irony, and celebration of obscure subcultures, academic Martin Roberts compares cult film fans to hipsters. A film can become the object of a cult following within a particular region or culture if it has unusual significance. For example, Norman Wisdom\'s films, friendly to Marxist interpretation, amassed a cult following in Albania, as they were among the few Western films allowed by the country\'s Communist rulers. *The Wizard of Oz* (1939) and its star, Judy Garland, hold special significance to American and British gay culture, although it is a widely viewed and historically important film in greater American culture. Similarly, James Dean and his brief film career have become icons of alienated youth. Cult films can have such niche appeal that they are only popular within certain subcultures, such as *Reefer Madness* (1936) and *Hemp for Victory* (1942) among the stoner subculture. Beach party musicals, popular among American surfers, failed to find an equivalent audience when imported to the United Kingdom. When films target subcultures like this, they may seem unintelligible without the proper cultural capital. Films which appeal to teenagers may offer subcultural identities that are easily recognized and differentiate various subcultural groups. Films which appeal to stereotypical male activities, such as sports, can easily gain strong male cult followings. Sports metaphors are often used in the marketing of cult films to males, such as emphasizing the \"extreme\" nature of the film, which increases the appeal to youth subcultures fond of extreme sports. Matt Hills\' concept of the \"cult blockbuster\" involves cult followings inside larger, mainstream films. Although these are big budget, mainstream films, they still attract cult followings. The cult fans differentiate themselves from ordinary fans in several ways: longstanding devotion to the film, distinctive interpretations, and fan works. Hills identifies three different cult followings for *The Lord of the Rings*, each with their own fandom separate from the mainstream. Academic Emma Pett identifies *Back to the Future* (1985) as another example of a cult blockbuster. Although the film was an instant hit when released, it has also developed a nostalgic cult following over the years. The hammy acting by Christopher Lloyd and quotable dialogue have drawn a cult following, as they mimic traditional cult films. Blockbuster science fiction films that include philosophical subtexts, such as *The Matrix*, allow cult film fans to enjoy them on a higher level than the mainstream. *Star Wars*, with its large cult following in geek subculture, has been cited as both a cult blockbuster and a cult film. Although a mainstream epic, *Star Wars* has provided its fans with a spirituality and culture outside of the mainstream. Fans, in response to the popularity of these blockbusters, will claim elements for themselves while rejecting others. For example, in the *Star Wars* film series, mainstream criticism of Jar Jar Binks focused on racial stereotyping. Although cult film fans will use that to bolster their arguments, he is rejected because he represents mainstream appeal and marketing. Also, instead of valuing textual rarity, fans of cult blockbusters will value repeat viewings. They may also engage in behaviors more traditional for fans of cult television and other serial media, as cult blockbusters are often franchised, preconceived as a film series, or both. To reduce mainstream accessibility, a film series can be self-reflexive and full of in-jokes that only longtime fans can understand. Mainstream critics may ridicule commercially successful directors of cult blockbusters, such as James Cameron, Michael Bay, and Luc Besson, whose films have been called simplistic. This critical backlash may serve to embellish the filmmakers\' reception as cult auteurs. In the same way, critics may ridicule fans of cult blockbusters as immature or shallow. Cult films can create their own subculture. *Rocky Horror*, originally made to exploit the popularity of glam subculture, became what academic Gina Marchetti called a \"sub-subculture\", a variant that outlived its parent subculture. Although often described as primarily composed of obsessed fans, cult film fandom can include many newer, less experienced members. Familiar with the film\'s reputation and having watched clips on online video platforms, these fans may take the next step and enter the film\'s fandom. If they are the majority, they may alter or ignore long-standing traditions, such as audience participation rituals; rituals which lack perceived authenticity may be criticized, but accepted rituals bring subcultural capital to veteran fans who introduce them to the newer members. Newer fans may cite the film itself as their reason for attending a showing, but longtime fans often cite the community. Organized fandoms may spread and become popular as a way of introducing new people to the film. Fans of cult films, as in media fandom, are frequently producers and not simple consumers. Unconcerned with traditional views on intellectual property, these fan works are often unsanctioned, transformative, and ignore fictional canon. Like cult films themselves, magazines and websites dedicated to cult films revel in their self-conscious offensiveness. They maintain a sense of exclusivity by offending mainstream audiences with misogyny, gore, and racism. Obsessive trivia can be used to bore mainstream audiences while building up subcultural capital. Specialist stores on the fringes of society (or websites which prominently partner with hardcore pornographic sites) can be used to reinforce the outsider nature of cult film fandom, especially when they use erotic or gory imagery. By assuming a preexisting knowledge of trivia, non-fans can be excluded. Previous articles and controversies can also be alluded to without explanation. Casual readers and non-fans will thus be left out of discussions and debates, as they lack enough information to meaningfully contribute. When fans like a cult film for the wrong reasons, such as casting or characters aimed at mainstream appeal, they may be ridiculed. Thus, fandom can keep the mainstream at bay while defining themselves in terms of the \"Other\", a philosophical construct divergent from social norms. Commercial aspects of fandom (such as magazines or books) can also be defined in terms of \"otherness\" and thus valid to consume: consumers purchasing independent or niche publications are discerning consumers, but the mainstream is denigrated. Irony or self-deprecating humor can also be used. In online communities, different subcultures attracted to transgressive films can clash over values and criteria for subcultural capital. Even within subcultures, fans who break subcultural scripts, such as denying the affectivity of a disturbing film, will be ridiculed for their lack of authenticity. ## Types ### \"So bad it\'s good\" {#so_bad_its_good} thumb\|thumbtime=103\|upright=1.5\|`{{center|''Plan 9 from Outer Space'', full film; runtime 01:19:03}}`{=mediawiki} The critic Michael Medved characterized examples of the \"so bad it\'s good\" class of low-budget cult film through books such as *The Golden Turkey Awards*. These films include financially fruitless and critically scorned films that have become inadvertent comedies to film buffs, such as *Plan 9 from Outer Space* (1957), *Mommie Dearest* (1981), *The Room* (2003), and the Ugandan action comedy film *Who Killed Captain Alex?* (2010). Similarly, Paul Verhoeven\'s *Showgirls* (1995) bombed in theaters but developed a cult following on video. Catching on, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer capitalized on the film\'s ironic appeal and marketed it as a cult film. Sometimes, fans will impose their own interpretation of films which have attracted derision, such as reinterpreting an earnest melodrama as a comedy. `{{proper name|Jacob deNobel}}`{=mediawiki} of the *Carroll County Times* states that films can be perceived as nonsensical or inept when audiences misunderstand avant-garde filmmaking or misinterpret parody. Films such as *Rocky Horror* can be misinterpreted as \"weird for weirdness\' sake\" by people unfamiliar with the cult films that they parody. `{{proper name||deNobel}}`{=mediawiki} ultimately rejects the use of the label \"so bad it\'s good\" as mean-spirited and often misapplied. Alamo Drafthouse programmer Zack Carlson has further said that any film which succeeds in entertaining an audience is good regardless of irony. In francophone culture, \"so bad it\'s good\" films are known as `{{Interlanguage link|nanar|lt=nanars|Fr||WD=}}`{=mediawiki}. The rise of the Internet and on-demand films has led critics to question whether \"so bad it\'s good\" films have a future now that people have such diverse options in both availability and catalog, though fans eager to experience the worst films ever made can lead to lucrative showings for local theaters and merchandisers. ### Camp and guilty pleasures {#camp_and_guilty_pleasures} Chuck Kleinhans states that the difference between a guilty pleasure and a cult film can be as simple as the number of fans; David Church raises the question of how many people it takes to form a cult following, especially now that home video makes fans difficult to count. As these cult films become more popular, they can bring varied responses from fans that depend on different interpretations, such as camp, irony, genuine affection, or combinations thereof. Earnest fans, who recognize and accept the film\'s faults, can make minor celebrities of the film\'s cast, though the benefits are not always clear. Cult film stars known for their camp can inject subtle parody or signal when films should not be taken seriously. Campy actors can also provide comic book supervillains for serious, artistic-minded films. This can draw fan acclaim and obsession more readily than subtle, method-inspired acting. Mark Chalon Smith of the *Los Angeles Times* says technical faults may be forgiven if a film makes up for them in other areas, such as camp or transgressive content. Smith states that the early films of John Waters are amateurish and less influential than claimed, but Waters\' outrageous vision cements his place in cult cinema. Films such as *Myra Breckinridge* (1970) and *Beyond the Valley of the Dolls* (1970) can experience critical reappraisal later, once their camp excess and avant-garde filmmaking are better accepted, and films that are initially dismissed as frivolous are often reassessed as campy. Films that intentionally try to appeal to fans of camp may end up alienating them, as the films become perceived as trying too hard or not authentic. ### Nostalgia According to academic Brigid Cherry, nostalgia \"is a strong element of certain kinds of cult appeal.\" When Veoh added many cult films to their site, they cited nostalgia as a factor for their popularity. Academic I. Q. Hunter describes cult films as \"New Hollywood *in extremis*\" and a form of nostalgia for that period. Ernest Mathijs instead states that cult films use nostalgia as a form of resistance against progress and capitalistic ideas of a time-based economy. By virtue of the time travel plot, *Back to the Future* permits nostalgia for both the 1950s and 1980s. Many members of its nostalgic cult following are too young to have been alive during those periods, which Emma Pett interprets as fondness for retro aesthetics, nostalgia for when they saw the film rather than when it was released, and looking to the past to find a better time period. Similarly, films directed by John Hughes have taken hold in midnight movie venues, trading off of nostalgia for the 1980s and an ironic appreciation for their optimism. Mathijs and Sexton describe *Grease* (1978) as a film nostalgic about an imagined past that has acquired a nostalgic cult following. Other cult films, such as *Streets of Fire* (1984), create a new fictional world based on nostalgic views of the past. Cult films may also subvert nostalgia, such as *The Big Lebowski*, which introduces many nostalgic elements and then reveals them as fake and hollow. *Scott Pilgrim vs. the World* (2010) is another example, containing extensive nostalgia for the music and video gaming culture of the 2000s. Author China Miéville praises the use of satire in *Donnie Darko* for its avoidance of falling into facile and comforting nostalgia, but Nathan Lee of the *New York Sun* identifies the retro aesthetic and nostalgic pastiche as factors in its popularity among midnight movie crowds. ### Midnight movies {#midnight_movies} Author Tomas Crowder-Taraborrelli describes midnight movies as a reaction against the political and cultural conservatism in America, and Joan Hawkins identifies the movement as running the gamut from anarchist to libertarian, united in their anti-establishment attitude and punk aesthetic. These films are resistant to simple categorization and are defined by the fanaticism and ritualistic behaviors of their audiences. Midnight movies require a night life and an audience willing to invest themselves actively. Hawkins states that these films took a rather bleak point of view due to the living conditions of the artists and the economic prospects of the 1970s. Like the surrealists and dadaists, they not only satirically attacked society but also the very structure of film -- a counter-cinema that deconstructs narrative and traditional processes. In the late 1980s and 1990s, midnight movies transitioned from underground showings to home video viewings; eventually, a desire for community brought a resurgence, and *The Big Lebowski* kick-started a new generation. Demographics shifted, and more hip and mainstream audiences were drawn to them. Although studios expressed skepticism, large audiences were drawn to box-office flops, such as *The Warriors* (1979) gang movie from Walter Hill, *Office Space* (1999) and *Donnie Darko* (2001). Modern midnight movies retain their popularity and have been strongly diverging from mainstream films shown at midnight. Mainstream cinemas, eager to disassociate themselves from negative associations and increase profits, have begun abandoning midnight screenings. Although classic midnight movies have dropped off in popularity, they still bring reliable crowds. ### Art and exploitation {#art_and_exploitation} Although seemingly at odds with each other, art and exploitation films are frequently treated as equal and interchangeable in cult fandom, listed alongside each other and described in similar terms: their ability to provoke a response. The most exploitative aspects of art films are thus played up and their academic recognition ignored. This flattening of culture follows the popularity of post-structuralism, which rejects a hierarchy of artistic merit and equates exploitation and art. Mathijs and Sexton state that although cult films are not synonymous with exploitation, as is occasionally assumed, this is a key component; they write that exploitation, which exists on the fringes of the mainstream and deals with taboo subjects, is well-suited for cult followings. Academic David Andrews writes that cult softcore films are \"the most masculinized, youth-oriented, populist, and openly pornographic softcore area.\" The sexploitation films of Russ Meyer were among the first to abandon all hypocritical pretenses of morality and were technically proficient enough to gain a cult following. His persistent vision saw him received as an auteur worthy of academic study; director John Waters attributes this to Meyer\'s ability to create complicated, sexually charged films without resorting to explicit sex. Myrna Oliver described Doris Wishman\'s exploitation films as \"crass, coarse, and camp \... perfect fodder for a cult following.\" \"Sick films\", the most disturbing and graphically transgressive films, have their own distinct cult following; these films transcend their roots in exploitation, horror, and art films. In 1960s and 1970s America, exploitation and art films shared audiences and marketing, especially in New York City\'s grindhouse cinemas. ### B and genre films {#b_and_genre_films} Mathijs and Sexton state that genre is an important part of cult films; cult films will often mix, mock, or exaggerate the tropes associated with traditional genres. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror are known for their large and dedicated cult followings; as science fiction films become more popular, fans emphasize non-mainstream and less commercial aspects of it. B films, which are often conflated with exploitation, are as important to cult films as exploitation. Teodor Reljic of *Malta Today* states that cult B films are a realistic goal for Malta\'s burgeoning film industry. Genre films, B films that strictly adhere to genre limitations, can appeal to cult film fans: given their transgressive excesses, horror films are likely to become to cult films; films like *Galaxy Quest* (1999) highlight the importance of cult followings and fandom to science fiction; and authentic martial arts skills in Hong Kong action films can drive them to become cult favorites. Cult musicals can range from the traditional, such as *Singin\' in the Rain* (1952), which appeal to cult audiences through nostalgia, camp, and spectacle, to the more non-traditional, such as *Cry-Baby* (1990), which parodies musicals, and *Rocky Horror*, which uses a rock soundtrack. Romantic fairy tale *The Princess Bride* (1987) failed to attract audiences in its original release, as the studio did not know how to market it. The freedom and excitement associated with cars can be an important part of drawing cult film fans to genre films, and they can signify action and danger with more ambiguity than a gun. *Ad Week* writes that cult B films, when released on home video, market themselves and need only enough advertising to raise curiosity or nostalgia. ### Animation Animation can provide wide open vistas for stories. The French film *Fantastic Planet* (1973) explored ideas beyond the limits of traditional, live-action science fiction films. Ralph Bakshi\'s career has been marked with controversy: *Fritz the Cat* (1972), the first animated film to be rated \"X\" by the MPAA, provoked outrage for its racial caricatures and graphic depictions of sex, and *Coonskin* (1975) was decried as racist. Bakshi recalls that older animators had tired of \"kid stuff\" and desired edgier work, whereas younger animators hated his work for \"destroying the Disney images\". Eventually, his work was reassessed and cult followings, which include Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, developed around several of his films. *Heavy Metal* (1981) faced similar denunciations from critics. Donald Liebenson of the *Los Angeles Times* cites the violence and sexual imagery as alienating critics, who did not know what to make of the film. It became a popular midnight movie and was frequently bootlegged by fans, as licensing issues kept it from being released on video for many years. Phil Hoad of *The Guardian* identifies *Akira* (1988) as introducing violent, adult Japanese animation (known as anime) to the West and paving the way for later works. Anime, according to academic Brian Ruh, is not a cult genre, but the lack of individual fandoms inside anime fandom itself lends itself to a bleeding over of cult attention and can help spread works internationally. Anime, which is frequently presented as a series (with movies either rising from existing series, or spinning off series based on the film), provides its fans with alternative fictional canons and points of view that can drive fan activity. The *Ghost in the Shell* films, for example, provided Japanese fans with enough bonus material and spinoffs that it encouraged cult tendencies. Markets that did not support the sale of these materials saw less cult activity. ### Nonfiction Sensationalistic documentaries called mondo films replicate the most shocking and transgressive elements of exploitation films. They are usually modeled after \"sick films\" and cover similar subject matter. In *The Cult Film Reader*, academics Mathijs and Mendik write that these documentaries often present non-Western societies as \"stereotypically mysterious, seductive, immoral, deceptive, barbaric or savage\". Though they can be interpreted as racist, Mathijs and Mendik state that they also \"exhibit a liberal attitude towards the breaking of cultural taboos\". Mondo films like *Faces of Death* mix real and fake footage freely, and they gain their cult following through the outrage and debate over authenticity that results. Like \"so bad it\'s good\" cult films, old propaganda and government hygiene films may be enjoyed ironically by more modern audiences for the camp value of the outdated themes and outlandish claims made about perceived social threats, such as drug use. Academic Barry K. Grant states that Frank Capra\'s *Why We Fight* World War II propaganda films are explicitly not cult, because they are \"slickly made and have proven their ability to persuade an audience.\" The sponsored film *Mr. B Natural* became a cult hit when it was broadcast on the satirical television show *Mystery Science Theater 3000*; cast member Trace Beaulieu cited these educational shorts as his favorite to mock on the show. Mark Jancovich states that cult audiences are drawn to these films because of their \"very banality or incoherence of their political positions\", unlike traditional cult films, which achieve popularity through auteurist radicalism. ## Mainstream popularity {#mainstream_popularity} Mark Shiel explains the rising popularity of cult films as an attempt by cinephiles and scholars to escape the oppressive conformity and mainstream appeal of even independent film, as well as a lack of condescension in both critics and the films; Academic Donna de Ville says it is a chance to subvert the dominance of academics and cinephiles. According to Xavier Mendik, \"academics have been really interested in cult movies for quite a while now.\" Mendik has sought to bring together academic interest and fandom through Cine-Excess, a film festival. I. Q. Hunter states that \"it\'s much easier to be a cultist now, but it is also rather more inconsequential.\" Citing the mainstream availability of *Cannibal Holocaust*, Jeffrey Sconce rejects definitions of cult films based on controversy and excess, as they\'ve now become meaningless. Cult films have influenced such diverse industries as cosmetics, music videos, and fashion. Cult films have shown up in less expected places; as a sign of his popularity, a bronze statue of Ed Wood has been proposed in his hometown, and *L\'Osservatore Romano*, the official newspaper of the Holy See, has courted controversy for its endorsement of cult films and pop culture. When cities attempt to renovate neighborhoods, fans have called attempts to demolish iconic settings from cult films \"cultural vandalism\". Cult films can also drive tourism, even when it is unwanted. From Latin America, Alejandro Jodorowsky\'s film *El Topo* (1970) has attracted attention of rock musicians such as John Lennon, Mick Jagger, and Bob Dylan. As far back as the 1970s, *Attack of the Killer Tomatoes* (1978) was designed specifically to be a cult film, and *The Rocky Horror Picture Show* was produced by 20th Century Fox, a major Hollywood studio. Over its decades-long release, *Rocky Horror* became the seventh highest grossing R-rated film when adjusted for inflation; journalist Matt Singer has questioned whether *Rocky Horror*{{\'}}s popularity invalidates its cult status. Founded in 1974, Troma Entertainment, an independent studio, became known for both its cult following and cult films. In the 1980s, Danny Peary\'s *Cult Movies* (1981) influenced director Edgar Wright and film critic Scott Tobias of *The A.V. Club*. The rise of home video had a mainstreaming effect on cult films and cultish behavior, though some collectors would be unlikely to self-identify as cult film fans. Film critic Joe Bob Briggs began reviewing drive-in theater and cult films, though he faced much criticism as an early advocate of exploitation and cult films. Briggs highlights the mainstreaming of cult films by pointing out the respectful obituaries that cult directors have received from formerly hostile publications and acceptance of politically incorrect films at mainstream film festivals. This acceptance is not universal, though, and some critics have resisted this mainstreaming of paracinema. Beginning in the 1990s, director Quentin Tarantino had the greatest success in turning cult films mainstream. Tarantino later used his fame to champion obscure cult films that had influenced him and set up the short-lived Rolling Thunder Pictures, which distributed several of his favorite cult films. Tarantino\'s clout led Phil Hoad of *The Guardian* to call Tarantino the world\'s most influential director. As major Hollywood studios and audiences both become savvy to cult films, productions once limited to cult appeal have instead become popular hits, and cult directors have become hot properties known for more mainstream and accessible films. Remarking on the popular trend of remaking cult films, Claude Brodesser-Akner of *New York* magazine states that Hollywood studios have been superstitiously hoping to recreate past successes rather than trading on nostalgia. Their popularity brought some critics to proclaim the death of cult films now that they have finally become successful and mainstream, are too slick to attract a proper cult following, lack context, or are too easily found online. In response, David Church says that cult film fans have retreated to more obscure and difficult to find films, often using illegal distribution methods, which preserves the outlaw status of cult films. Virtual spaces, such as online forums and fan sites, replace the traditional fanzines and newsletters. Cult film fans consider themselves collectors, rather than consumers, as they associate consumers with mainstream, Hollywood audiences. This collecting can take the place of fetishization of a single film. Addressing concerns that DVDs have revoked the cult status of films like *Rocky Horror*, academic Mikel J. Koven states that small scale screenings with friends and family can replace midnight showings. Koven also identifies television shows, such as *Twin Peaks*, as retaining more traditional cult activities inside popular culture. Despite this, the Alamo Drafthouse has capitalized on cult films and the surrounding culture through inspiration drawn from *Rocky Horror* and retro promotional gimmickry. They sell out their shows regularly and have acquired a cult following of their own. Academic Bob Batchelor, writing in *Cult Pop Culture*, states that the internet has democratized cult culture and destroyed the line between cult and mainstream. Fans of even the most obscure films can communicate online with each other in vibrant communities. Although known for their big-budget blockbusters, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have criticized the current Hollywood system of gambling everything on the opening weekend of these productions. Geoffrey Macnab of *The Independent* instead suggests that Hollywood look to capitalize on cult films, which have exploded in popularity on the internet. The rise of social media has been a boon to cult films. Sites such as Twitter have displaced traditional venues for fandom and courted controversy from cultural critics who are unamused by campy cult films. After a clip from one of his films went viral, director-producer Roger Corman made a distribution deal with YouTube. Found footage which had originally been distributed as cult VHS collections eventually went viral on YouTube, which opened them to new generations of fans. Films such as *Birdemic* (2008) and *The Room* (2003) gained quick, massive popularity, as prominent members of social networking sites discussed them. Their rise as \"instant cult classics\" bypasses the years of obscurity that most cult films labor under. In response, critics have described the use of viral marketing as astroturfing and an attempt to manufacture cult films. I. Q. Hunter identifies a prefabricated cult film style which includes \"deliberately, insulting bad films\", \"slick exercises in dysfunction and alienation\", and mainstream films \"that sell themselves as worth obsessing over\". Writing for NPR, Scott Tobias states that Don Coscarelli, whose previous films effortlessly attracted cult followings, has drifted into this realm. Tobias criticizes Coscarelli as trying too hard to appeal to cult audiences and sacrificing internal consistency for calculated quirkiness. Influenced by the successful online hype of *The Blair Witch Project* (1999), other films have attempted to draw online cult fandom with the use of prefabricated cult appeal. *Snakes on a Plane* (2006) is an example that attracted massive attention from curious fans. Uniquely, its cult following preceded the film\'s release and included speculative parodies of what fans imagined the film might be. This reached the point of convergence culture when fan speculation began to impact on the film\'s production. Although it was proclaimed a cult film and major game-changer before it was released, it failed to win either mainstream audiences or maintain its cult following. In retrospect, critic Spencer Kornhaber called it a serendipitous novelty and a footnote to a \"more naive era of the Internet\". However, it became influential in both marketing and titling. This trend of \"instant cult classics\" which are hailed yet fail to attain a lasting following is described by Matt Singer, who states that the phrase is an oxymoron. Cult films are often approached in terms of auteur theory, which states that the director\'s creative vision drives a film. This has fallen out of favor in academia, creating a disconnect between cult film fans and critics. Matt Hills states that auteur theory can help to create cult films; fans that see a film as continuing a director\'s creative vision are likely to accept it as cult. According to academic Greg Taylor, auteur theory also helped to popularize cult films when middlebrow audiences found an accessible way to approach avant-garde film criticism. Auteur theory provided an alternative culture for cult film fans while carrying the weight of scholarship. By requiring repeated viewings and extensive knowledge of details, auteur theory naturally appealed to cult film fans. Taylor further states that this was instrumental in allowing cult films to break through to the mainstream. Academic Joe Tompkins states that this auteurism is often highlighted when mainstream success occurs. This may take the place of -- and even ignore -- political readings of the director. Cult films and directors may be celebrated for their transgressive content, daring, and independence, but Tompkins argues that mainstream recognition requires they be palatable to corporate interests who stand to gain much from the mainstreaming of cult film culture. While critics may champion revolutionary aspects of filmmaking and political interpretation, Hollywood studios and other corporate interests will instead highlight only the aspects that they wish to legitimize in their own films, such as sensational exploitation. Someone like George A. Romero, whose films are both transgressive and subversive, will have the transgressive aspects highlighted while the subversive aspects are ignored.

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Constantinople

*Konstantinoupolis* (newspaper)}} `{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2023}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Infobox ancient site | name = Constantinople | native_name = {{native name|grc|Κωνσταντινούπολις}} {{native name|la|Constantinopolis}} {{native name|ota|قسطنطينيه}} | image = Byzantine Constantinople-en.png | alt = | caption = Map of Constantinople in the Byzantine period, corresponding to the modern-day [[Fatih]] and [[Beyoğlu]] district of [[Istanbul]] | map_type = Istanbul#Turkey Marmara#Turkey | map_alt = A map of Byzantine Istanbul | map_size = 275 | map_caption = Constantinople was founded on the former site of the [[Greek colonisation|Greek colony]] of [[Byzantium]], which today is known as [[Istanbul]] in [[Turkey]]. | coordinates = {{Coord|41|00|45|N|28|58|48|E|type:city_region:TR|display=inline,title}} | location = [[Fatih]] and [[Beyoğlu]], [[Istanbul]], Turkey | region = [[Marmara Region]] | type = Imperial city | part_of = {{unbulleted list|[[Roman Empire]]|[[Byzantine Empire]]|[[Latin Empire]]|[[Ottoman Empire]]}} | length = | width = | area = {{cvt|6|km2}} enclosed within Constantinian Walls {{cvt|14|km2}} enclosed within Theodosian Walls  | height = | builder = [[Constantine the Great]] | material = | built = 11 May 330 | abandoned = | epochs = [[Late antiquity]] to [[Interwar period]] | cultures = {{unbulleted list| [[Greek culture|Greek]]|[[Culture of ancient Rome|Latin]]|[[Byzantine Empire#Culture|Byzantine]]{{Broken anchor|date=2024-07-19|bot=User:Cewbot/log/20201008/configuration|target_link=Byzantine Empire#Culture|reason= The anchor (Culture) [[Special:Diff/1189657321|has been deleted]].}}|[[Culture of the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]]}} | event = [[List of sieges of Constantinople|Sieges of Constantinople]], including fall of the city ([[Sack of Constantinople|1204]] and [[Fall of Constantinople|1453]]) | occupants = | designation1 = WHS | designation1_offname = [[Historic Areas of Istanbul]] | designation1_type = Cultural | designation1_criteria = (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) | designation1_date = 1985 (9th [[World Heritage Committee|session]]) | designation1_number = [https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/356 356bis] | designation1_free1name = Extension | designation1_free1value = 2017 | designation1_free2name = Area | designation1_free2value = 765.5 ha | designation1_free3name = UNESCO region | designation1_free3value = [[Lists of World Heritage Sites#Europe|Europe and North America]] |}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Timeline of Constantinople}}`{=mediawiki} **Constantinople** (see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman empires between its consecration in 330 until 1930, when it was renamed to Istanbul. Initially as New Rome, Constantinople was founded in 324 during the reign of Constantine the Great on the site of the existing settlement of Byzantium, and shortly thereafter in 330 became the capital of the Roman Empire. Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century, Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire; 330--1204 and 1261--1453), the Latin Empire (1204--1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453--1922). Following the Turkish War of Independence, the Turkish capital then moved to Ankara. Although the city had been known as Istanbul since 1453, it was officially renamed as Istanbul on 28 March 1930. The city is today the largest city in Europe, straddling the Bosporus strait and lying in both Europe and Asia, and the financial center of Turkey. In 324, following the reunification of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, the ancient city of Byzantium was selected to serve as the new capital of the Roman Empire, and the city was renamed Nova Roma, or \'New Rome\', by Emperor Constantine the Great. On 11 May 330, it was renamed Constantinople and dedicated to Constantine. Constantinople is generally considered to be the center and the \"cradle of Orthodox Christian civilization\". From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe. The city became famous for its architectural masterpieces, such as Hagia Sophia, the cathedral of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which served as the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate; the sacred Imperial Palace, where the emperors lived; the Hippodrome; the Golden Gate of the Land Walls; and opulent aristocratic palaces. The University of Constantinople was founded in the 5th century and contained artistic and literary treasures before it was sacked in 1204 and 1453, including its vast Imperial Library which contained the remnants of the Library of Alexandria and had 100,000 volumes. The city was the home of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and guardian of Christendom\'s holiest relics, such as the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross. thumb\|upright=1.3\|Aerial view of Byzantine Constantinople and the Propontis (Sea of Marmara) Constantinople was famous for its massive and complex fortifications, which ranked among the most sophisticated defensive architectures of antiquity. The Theodosian Walls consisted of a double wall lying about 2 km to the west of the first wall and a moat with palisades in front. Constantinople\'s location between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara reduced the land area that needed defensive walls. The city was built intentionally to rival Rome, and it was claimed that several elevations within its walls matched Rome\'s \'seven hills\'. The impenetrable defenses enclosed magnificent palaces, domes, and towers, the result of prosperity Constantinople achieved as the gateway between two continents (Europe and Asia) and two seas (the Mediterranean and the Black Sea). Although besieged on numerous occasions by various armies, the defenses of Constantinople proved impenetrable for nearly nine hundred years. In 1204, however, the armies of the Fourth Crusade took and devastated the city, and for six decades, its inhabitants resided under Latin occupation in a dwindling and depopulated city. In 1261, the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos liberated the city, and after the restoration under the Palaiologos dynasty, it enjoyed a partial recovery. With the advent of the Ottoman Empire in 1299, the Byzantine Empire began to lose territories, and the city began to lose population. By the early 15th century, the Byzantine Empire was reduced to just Constantinople and its environs, along with the territories of the despotate of Morea, in Peloponnese, Greece, making it an enclave inside the Ottoman Empire. The city was finally besieged and conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453, remaining under its control until the early 20th century, after which it was renamed Istanbul under the Empire\'s successor state, Turkey. ## Names ### Before Constantinople {#before_constantinople} According to Pliny the Elder in his *Natural History*, the first known name of a settlement on the site of Constantinople was *Lygos*, a settlement likely of Thracian origin founded between the 13th and 11th centuries BC. The site, according to the founding myth of the city, was abandoned by the time Greek settlers from the city-state of Megara founded *Byzantium* (*Βυζάντιον*, *Byzántion*) in around 657 BC, across from the town of Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. The origins of the name of *Byzantion*, more commonly known by the later Latin *Byzantium*, are not entirely clear, though some suggest it is of Thracian origin. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men, Byzas and Antes, though this was more likely just a play on the word Byzantion. The city was briefly renamed *Augusta Antonina* in the early 3rd century AD by the Emperor Septimius Severus (193--211), who razed the city to the ground in 196 for supporting a rival contender in the civil war. He then had it rebuilt in honour of his son Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (who succeeded him as Emperor), popularly known as Caracalla. The name appears to have been quickly forgotten and abandoned, and the city reverted to Byzantium/Byzantion after either the assassination of Caracalla in 217 or, at the latest, the fall of the Severan dynasty in 235. ### Names of Constantinople {#names_of_constantinople} Names of Constantinople}} Byzantium took on the name of Constantinople (*lit=city of Constantine*) after its refoundation under Roman emperor Constantine I, who transferred the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium in 330 and designated his new capital officially as *Nova Roma\]\]* (*Νέα Ῥώμη*) \'New Rome\'. During this time, the city was also called \'Second Rome\', \'Eastern Rome\', and *Roma Constantinopolitana* (Latin for \'Constantinopolitan Rome\'). As the city became the sole remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew, the city also came to have a multitude of nicknames. As the largest and wealthiest city in Europe during the 4th--13th centuries and a center of culture and education of the Mediterranean basin, Constantinople came to be known by prestigious titles such as *Basileuousa* (Queen of Cities) and *Megalopolis* (the Great City) and was, in colloquial speech, commonly referred to as just *Polis* (*ἡ Πόλις*) \'the City\' by Constantinopolitans and provincial Byzantines alike. In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently. The medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe (Varangians), used the Old Norse name *Miklagarðr* (from *mikill* \'big\' and *garðr* \'city\'), and later *Miklagard* and *Miklagarth*. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called *Rūmiyyat al-Kubra* (Great City of the Romans) and in Persian as *Takht-e Rum* (Throne of the Romans). In East and South Slavic languages, including in Kievan Rus\', Constantinople has been referred to as *Tsargrad* (*Царьград*) or *Carigrad*, \'City of the Caesar (Emperor)\', from the Slavonic words *tsar* (\'Caesar\' or \'King\') and *grad* (\'city\'). This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as *Βασιλέως Πόλις* (*Vasileos Polis*), \'the city of the emperor \[king\]\'. In Persian the city was also called *Asitane* (the Threshold of the State), and in Armenian, it was called *Gosdantnubolis* (City of Constantine). ### Modern names of the city {#modern_names_of_the_city} The modern Turkish name for the city, *İstanbul*, derives from the Greek phrase *eis tin Polin* (*εἰς τὴν πόλιν*), meaning \'(in)to the city\'. This name was used in colloquial speech in Turkish alongside *Kostantiniyye*, the more formal adaptation of the original *Constantinople*, during the period of Ottoman rule, while western languages mostly continued to refer to the city as Constantinople until the early 20th century. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script. After that, as part of the Turkification movement, Turkey started to urge other countries to use Turkish names for Turkish cities, instead of other transliterations to Latin script that had been used in Ottoman times and the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. The name *Constantinople* is still used by members of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the title of one of their most important leaders, the Orthodox patriarch based in the city, referred to as \"His Most Divine All-Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch\". In Greece today, the city is still called *Konstantinoúpoli(s)* (*Κωνσταντινούπολις/Κωνσταντινούπολη*) or simply just \"the City\" (*Η Πόλη*). ## History ### Foundation of Byzantium {#foundation_of_byzantium} Constantinople was founded by the Roman emperor Constantine I (272--337) in 324 on the site of an already-existing city, Byzantium, which was settled in the early days of Greek colonial expansion, in around 657 BC, by colonists of the city-state of Megara. This is the first major settlement that would develop on the site of later Constantinople, but the first known settlement was that of *Lygos*, referred to in Pliny\'s Natural Histories. Apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement. The site, according to the founding myth of the city, was abandoned by the time Greek settlers from the city-state of Megara founded Byzantium (*Byzántion*) in around 657 BC, across from the town of Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. Hesychius of Miletus wrote that some \"claim that people from Megara, who derived their descent from Nisos, sailed to this place under their leader Byzas, and invent the fable that his name was attached to the city\". Some versions of the founding myth say Byzas was the son of a local nymph, while others say he was conceived by one of Zeus\' daughters and Poseidon. Hesychius also gives alternate versions of the city\'s founding legend, which he attributed to old poets and writers: > It is said that the first Argives, after having received this prophecy from Pythia, > > ` Blessed are those who will inhabit that holy city,`\ > ` a narrow strip of the Thracian shore at the mouth of the Pontos,`\ > ` where two pups drink of the gray sea,`\ > ` where fish and stag graze on the same pasture,` > > set up their dwellings at the place where the rivers Kydaros and Barbyses have their estuaries, one flowing from the north, the other from the west, and merging with the sea at the altar of the nymph called Semestre\" The city maintained independence as a city-state until it was annexed by Darius I in 512 BC into the Persian Empire, who saw the site as the optimal location to construct a pontoon bridge crossing into Europe as Byzantium was situated at the narrowest point in the Bosphorus strait. Persian rule lasted until 478 BC when as part of the Greek counterattack to the Second Persian invasion of Greece, a Greek army led by the Spartan general Pausanias captured the city which remained an independent, yet subordinate, city under the Athenians, and later to the Spartans after 411 BC. A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c. 150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. This treaty would pay dividends retrospectively as Byzantium would maintain this independent status, and prosper under peace and stability in the Pax Romana, for nearly three centuries until the late 2nd century AD. Byzantium was never a major influential city-state like Athens, Corinth or Sparta, but the city enjoyed relative peace and steady growth as a prosperous trading city because of its fortunate location. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbor. Already then, in Greek and early Roman times, Byzantium was famous for the strategic geographic position that made it difficult to besiege and capture, and its position at the crossroads of the Asiatic-European trade route over land and as the gateway between the Mediterranean and Black Seas made it too valuable a settlement to abandon, as Emperor Septimius Severus later realized when he razed the city to the ground for supporting Pescennius Niger\'s claimancy. It was a move greatly criticized by the contemporary consul and historian Cassius Dio who said that Severus had destroyed \"a strong Roman outpost and a base of operations against the barbarians from Pontus and Asia\". He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed *Augusta Antonina*, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, the Severan Wall. ### 324--337: The refoundation as Constantinople {#the_refoundation_as_constantinople} Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Having restored the unity of the Empire, and, being in the course of major governmental reforms as well as of sponsoring the consolidation of the Christian church, he was well aware that Rome was an unsatisfactory capital. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, and it offered an undesirable playground for disaffected politicians. Yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Nevertheless, Constantine identified the site of Byzantium as the right place: a place where an emperor could sit, readily defended, with easy access to the Danube or the Euphrates frontiers, his court supplied from the rich gardens and sophisticated workshops of Roman Asia, his treasuries filled by the wealthiest provinces of the Empire. Constantinople was built over six years, and consecrated on 11 May 330. Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis. Yet, at first, Constantine\'s new Rome did not have all the dignities of old Rome. It possessed a proconsul, rather than an urban prefect. It had no praetors, tribunes, or quaestors. Although it did have senators, they held the title *clarus*, not *clarissimus*, like those of Rome. It also lacked the panoply of other administrative offices regulating the food supply, police, statues, temples, sewers, aqueducts, or other public works. The new programme of building was carried out in great haste: columns, marbles, doors, and tiles were taken wholesale from the temples of the empire and moved to the new city. In similar fashion, many of the greatest works of Greek and Roman art were soon to be seen in its squares and streets. The emperor stimulated private building by promising householders gifts of land from the imperial estates in Asiana and Pontica and on 18 May 332 he announced that, as in Rome, free distributions of food would be made to the citizens. At the time, the amount is said to have been 80,000 rations a day, doled out from 117 distribution points around the city. Constantine laid out a new square at the centre of old Byzantium, naming it the Augustaeum. The new senate-house (or Curia) was housed in a basilica on the east side. On the south side of the great square was erected the Great Palace of the Emperor with its imposing entrance, the Chalke, and its ceremonial suite known as the Palace of Daphne. Nearby was the vast Hippodrome for chariot-races, seating over 80,000 spectators, and the famed Baths of Zeuxippus. At the western entrance to the Augustaeum was the Milion, a vaulted monument from which distances were measured across the Eastern Roman Empire. From the Augustaeum led a great street, the Mese, lined with colonnades. As it descended the First Hill of the city and climbed the Second Hill, it passed on the left the Praetorium or law-court. Then it passed through the oval Forum of Constantine where there was a second Senate-house and a high column with a statue of Constantine himself in the guise of Helios, crowned with a halo of seven rays and looking toward the rising sun. From there, the Mese passed on and through the Forum Tauri and then the Forum Bovis, and finally up the Seventh Hill (or Xerolophus) and through to the Golden Gate in the Constantinian Wall. After the construction of the Theodosian Walls in the early 5th century, it was extended to the new Golden Gate, reaching a total length of seven Roman miles. After the construction of the Theodosian Walls, Constantinople consisted of an area approximately the size of Old Rome within the Aurelian walls, or some 1,400 ha. ### 337--529: Constantinople during the Barbarian Invasions and the fall of the West {#constantinople_during_the_barbarian_invasions_and_the_fall_of_the_west} The importance of Constantinople increased, but it was gradual. From the death of Constantine in 337 to the accession of Theodosius I, emperors had been resident only in the years 337--338, 347--351, 358--361, 368--369. Its status as a capital was recognized by the appointment of the first known Urban Prefect of the City Honoratus, who held office from 11 December 359 until 361. The urban prefects had concurrent jurisdiction over three provinces each in the adjacent dioceses of Thrace (in which the city was located), Pontus and Asia comparable to the 100-mile extraordinary jurisdiction of the prefect of Rome. The emperor Valens, who hated the city and spent only one year there, nevertheless built the Palace of Hebdomon on the shore of the Propontis near the Golden Gate, probably for use when reviewing troops. All the emperors up to Zeno and Basiliscus were crowned and acclaimed at the Hebdomon. Theodosius I founded the Church of John the Baptist to house the skull of the saint (today preserved at the Topkapı Palace), put up a memorial pillar to himself in the Forum of Taurus, and turned the ruined temple of Aphrodite into a coach house for the Praetorian Prefect; Arcadius built a new forum named after himself on the Mese, near the walls of Constantine. After the shock of the Battle of Adrianople in 378, in which Valens and the flower of the Roman armies were destroyed by the Visigoths within a few days\' march, the city looked to its defences, and in 413--414 Theodosius II built the 18-metre (60-foot)-tall triple-wall fortifications, which were not to be breached until the coming of gunpowder. Theodosius also founded a University near the Forum of Taurus, on 27 February 425. Uldin, a prince of the Huns, appeared on the Danube about this time and advanced into Thrace, but he was deserted by many of his followers, who joined with the Romans in driving their king back north of the river. Subsequent to this, new walls were built to defend the city and the fleet on the Danube improved. thumb\|left\|upright=1.15\|Mosaics of the Great Palace of Constantinople, now in Great Palace Mosaic Museum in Istanbul After the barbarians overran the Western Roman Empire, Constantinople became the indisputable capital city of the Roman Empire. Emperors were no longer peripatetic between various court capitals and palaces. They remained in their palace in the Great City and sent generals to command their armies. The wealth of the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia flowed into Constantinople. ### 527--565: Constantinople in the Age of Justinian {#constantinople_in_the_age_of_justinian} The emperor Justinian I (527--565) was known for his successes in war, for his legal reforms and for his public works. It was from Constantinople that his expedition for the reconquest of the former Diocese of Africa set sail on or about 21 June 533. Before their departure, the ship of the commander Belisarius was anchored in front of the Imperial palace, and the Patriarch offered prayers for the success of the enterprise. After the victory, in 534, the Temple treasure of Jerusalem, looted by the Romans in AD 70 and taken to Carthage by the Vandals after their sack of Rome in 455, was brought to Constantinople and deposited for a time, perhaps in the Church of St Polyeuctus, before being returned to Jerusalem in either the Church of the Resurrection or the New Church. Chariot-racing had been important in Rome for centuries. In Constantinople, the hippodrome became over time increasingly a place of political significance. It was where (as a shadow of the popular elections of old Rome) the people by acclamation showed their approval of a new emperor, and also where they openly criticized the government, or clamoured for the removal of unpopular ministers. It played a crucial role during the riots and in times of political unrest. The Hippodrome provided a space for a crowd to be responded to positively or where the acclamations of a crowd were subverted, resorting to the riots that would ensue in coming years. In the time of Justinian, public order in Constantinople became a critical political issue. Throughout the late Roman and early Byzantine periods, Christianity was resolving fundamental questions of identity, and the dispute between the Chalcedonians and the non-Chalcedonians became the cause of serious disorder, expressed through allegiance to the chariot-racing parties of the Blues and the Greens. The partisans of the Blues and the Greens were said to affect untrimmed facial hair, head hair shaved at the front and grown long at the back, and wide-sleeved tunics tight at the wrist; and to form gangs to engage in night-time muggings and street violence. At last these disorders took the form of a major rebellion of 532, known as the \"Nika\" riots (from the battle-cry of \"Conquer!\" of those involved). The Nika Riots began in the Hippodrome and finished there with the onslaught of over 30,000 people according to Procopius, those in the blue and green factions, innocent and guilty. This came full circle on the relationship within the Hippodrome between the power and the people during the time of Justinian. Fires started by the Nika rioters consumed the Theodosian basilica of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), the city\'s cathedral, which lay to the north of the Augustaeum and had itself replaced the Constantinian basilica founded by Constantius II to replace the first Byzantine cathedral, Hagia Irene (Holy Peace). Justinian commissioned Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus to replace it with a new and incomparable Hagia Sophia. This was the great cathedral of the city, whose dome was said to be held aloft by God alone, and which was directly connected to the palace so that the imperial family could attend services without passing through the streets. \"The architectural form of the building was meant to reflect Justinian programmatic harmony: the circular dome (a symbol of secular authority in classical Roman architecture) would be harmoniously combined with the rectangular form (typical for Christian and pre-Christian temples).\" The dedication took place on 26 December 537 in the presence of the emperor, who was later reported to have exclaimed, \"O Solomon, I have outdone thee!\" Hagia Sophia was served by 600 people including 80 priests, and cost 20,000 pounds of gold to build. Justinian also had Anthemius and Isidore demolish and replace the original Church of the Holy Apostles and Hagia Irene built by Constantine with new churches under the same dedication. The Justinianic Church of the Holy Apostles was designed in the form of an equal-armed cross with five domes, and ornamented with beautiful mosaics. This church was to remain the burial place of the emperors from Constantine himself until the 11th century. When the city fell to the Turks in 1453, the church was demolished to make room for the tomb of Mehmet II the Conqueror. Justinian was also concerned with other aspects of the city\'s built environment, legislating against the abuse of laws prohibiting building within 100 ft of the sea front, in order to protect the view. During Justinian I\'s reign, the city\'s population reached about 500,000 people. However, the social fabric of Constantinople was also damaged by the onset of the Plague of Justinian between 541 and 542 AD, It killed perhaps 40% of the city\'s inhabitants. Lasting two months, the plague is noted to have caused widespread civil disruption, including the inability of the population to bury the dead and attend relatives funerals. ### Survival, 565--717: Constantinople during the Byzantine Dark Ages {#survival_565717_constantinople_during_the_byzantine_dark_ages} In the early 7th century, the Avars and later the Bulgars overwhelmed much of the Balkans, threatening Constantinople with attack from the west. Simultaneously, the Persian Sassanids overwhelmed the Prefecture of the East and penetrated deep into Anatolia. Heraclius, son of the exarch of Africa, set sail for the city and assumed the throne. He found the military situation so dire that he is said to have contemplated withdrawing the imperial capital to Carthage, but relented after the people of Constantinople begged him to stay. The citizens lost their right to free grain in 618 when Heraclius realized that the city could no longer be supplied from Egypt as a result of the Persian wars: the population fell substantially as a result. While the city withstood a siege by the Sassanids and Avars in 626, Heraclius campaigned deep into Persian territory and briefly restored the *status quo* in 628, when the Persians surrendered all their conquests. However, further sieges followed the Arab conquests, first from 674 to 678 and then in 717 to 718. The Theodosian Walls kept the city impenetrable from the land, while a newly discovered incendiary substance known as Greek fire allowed the Byzantine navy to destroy the Arab fleets and keep the city supplied. In the second siege, the second ruler of Bulgaria, Khan Tervel, rendered decisive help. He was called *Saviour of Europe*. ### 717--1025: Constantinople during the Macedonian Renaissance {#constantinople_during_the_macedonian_renaissance} In the 730s Leo III carried out extensive repairs of the Theodosian walls, which had been damaged by frequent and violent attacks; this work was financed by a special tax on all the subjects of the Empire. Theodora, widow of the Emperor Theophilus (died 842), acted as regent during the minority of her son Michael III, who was said to have been introduced to dissolute habits by her brother Bardas. When Michael assumed power in 856, he became known for excessive drunkenness, appeared in the hippodrome as a charioteer and burlesqued the religious processions of the clergy. He removed Theodora from the Great Palace to the Carian Palace and later to the monastery of Gastria, but, after the death of Bardas, she was released to live in the palace of St Mamas; she also had a rural residence at the Anthemian Palace, where Michael was assassinated in 867. In 860, an attack was made on the city by a new principality set up a few years earlier at Kiev by Askold and Dir, two Varangian chiefs: Two hundred small vessels passed through the Bosporus and plundered the monasteries and other properties on the suburban Princes\' Islands. Oryphas, the admiral of the Byzantine fleet, alerted the emperor Michael, who promptly put the invaders to flight; but the suddenness and savagery of the onslaught made a deep impression on the citizens. In 980, the emperor Basil II received an unusual gift from Prince Vladimir of Kiev: 6,000 Varangian warriors, which Basil formed into a new bodyguard known as the Varangian Guard. They were known for their ferocity, honour, and loyalty. It is said that, in 1038, they were dispersed in winter quarters in the Thracesian Theme when one of their number attempted to violate a countrywoman, but in the struggle she seized his sword and killed him; instead of taking revenge, however, his comrades applauded her conduct, compensated her with all his possessions, and exposed his body without burial as if he had committed suicide. However, following the death of an Emperor, they became known also for plunder in the Imperial palaces. Later in the 11th century the Varangian Guard became dominated by Anglo-Saxons who preferred this way of life to subjugation by the new Norman kings of England. thumb\|upright=1.15\|One of the most famous of the surviving Byzantine mosaics of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople -- the image of Christ Pantocrator on the walls of the upper southern gallery, Christ being flanked by the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist; circa 1261 The *Book of the Eparch*, which dates to the 10th century, gives a detailed picture of the city\'s commercial life and its organization at that time. The corporations in which the tradesmen of Constantinople were organised were supervised by the Eparch, who regulated such matters as production, prices, import, and export. Each guild had its own monopoly, and tradesmen might not belong to more than one. It is an impressive testament to the strength of tradition how little these arrangements had changed since the office, then known by the Latin version of its title, had been set up in 330 to mirror the urban prefecture of Rome. In the 9th and 10th centuries, Constantinople had a population of between 500,000 and 800,000. #### Iconoclast controversy in Constantinople {#iconoclast_controversy_in_constantinople} In the 8th and 9th centuries, the iconoclast movement caused serious political unrest throughout the Empire. The emperor Leo III issued a decree in 726 against images, and ordered the destruction of a statue of Christ over one of the doors of the Chalke, an act that was fiercely resisted by the citizens. Constantine V convoked a church council in 754, which condemned the worship of images, after which many treasures were broken, burned, or painted over with depictions of trees, birds or animals: One source refers to the church of the Holy Virgin at Blachernae as having been transformed into a \"fruit store and aviary\". Following the death of her husband Leo IV in 780, the empress Irene restored the veneration of images through the agency of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. The iconoclast controversy returned in the early 9th century, only to be resolved once more in 843 during the regency of Empress Theodora, who restored the icons. These controversies contributed to the deterioration of relations between the Western and the Eastern Churches. ### 1025--1081: Constantinople after Basil II {#constantinople_after_basil_ii} In the late 11th century catastrophe struck with the unexpected and calamitous defeat of the imperial armies at the Battle of Manzikert in Armenia in 1071. The Emperor Romanus Diogenes was captured. The peace terms demanded by Alp Arslan, sultan of the Seljuk Turks, were not excessive, and Romanus accepted them. On his release, however, Romanus found that enemies had placed their own candidate on the throne in his absence; he surrendered to them and suffered death by torture, and the new ruler, Michael VII Ducas, refused to honour the treaty. In response, the Turks began to move into Anatolia in 1073. The collapse of the old defensive system meant that they met no opposition, and the empire\'s resources were distracted and squandered in a series of civil wars. Thousands of Turkoman tribesmen crossed the unguarded frontier and moved into Anatolia. By 1080, a huge area had been lost to the Empire, and the Turks were within striking distance of Constantinople. ### 1081--1185: Constantinople under the Komneni {#constantinople_under_the_komneni} Under the Komnenian dynasty (1081--1185), Byzantium staged a remarkable recovery. In 1090--91, the nomadic Pechenegs reached the walls of Constantinople, where Emperor Alexius I with the aid of the Kipchaks annihilated their army. In response to a call for aid from Alexius, the First Crusade assembled at Constantinople in 1096, but declining to put itself under Byzantine command set out for Jerusalem on its own account. John II built the monastery of the Pantocrator (Almighty) with a hospital for the poor of 50 beds. With the restoration of firm central government, the empire became fabulously wealthy. The population was rising (estimates for Constantinople in the 12th century vary from some 100,000 to 500,000), and towns and cities across the realm flourished. Meanwhile, the volume of money in circulation dramatically increased. This was reflected in Constantinople by the construction of the Blachernae palace, the creation of brilliant new works of art, and general prosperity at this time: an increase in trade, made possible by the growth of the Italian city-states, may have helped the growth of the economy. It is certain that the Venetians and others were active traders in Constantinople, making a living out of shipping goods between the Crusader Kingdoms of Outremer and the West, while also trading extensively with Byzantium and Egypt. The Venetians had factories on the north side of the Golden Horn, and large numbers of westerners were present in the city throughout the 12th century. Toward the end of Manuel I Komnenos\'s reign, the number of foreigners in the city reached about 60,000--80,000 people out of a total population of about 400,000 people. In 1171, Constantinople also contained a small community of 2,500 Jews. In 1182, most Latin (Western European) inhabitants of Constantinople were massacred. In artistic terms, the 12th century was a very productive period. There was a revival in the mosaic art, for example: Mosaics became more realistic and vivid, with an increased emphasis on depicting three-dimensional forms. There was an increased demand for art, with more people having access to the necessary wealth to commission and pay for such work. ### 1185--1261: Constantinople during the Imperial Exile {#constantinople_during_the_imperial_exile} On 25 July 1197, Constantinople was struck by a severe fire which burned the Latin Quarter and the area around the Gate of the Droungarios (*Odun Kapısı*) on the Golden Horn. Nevertheless, the destruction wrought by the 1197 fire paled in comparison with that brought by the Crusaders. In the course of a plot between Philip of Swabia, Boniface of Montferrat and the Doge of Venice, the Fourth Crusade was, despite papal excommunication, diverted in 1203 against Constantinople, ostensibly promoting the claims of Alexios IV Angelos brother-in-law of Philip, son of the deposed emperor Isaac II Angelos. The reigning emperor Alexios III Angelos had made no preparation. The Crusaders occupied Galata, broke the defensive chain protecting the Golden Horn, and entered the harbour, where on 27 July they breached the sea walls: Alexios III fled. But the new Alexios IV Angelos found the Treasury inadequate, and was unable to make good the rewards he had promised to his western allies. Tension between the citizens and the Latin soldiers increased. In January 1204, the *protovestiarius* Alexios Murzuphlos provoked a riot, it is presumed, to intimidate Alexios IV, but whose only result was the destruction of the great statue of Athena Promachos, the work of Phidias, which stood in the principal forum facing west. In February 1204, the people rose again: Alexios IV was imprisoned and executed, and Murzuphlos took the purple as Alexios V Doukas. He made some attempt to repair the walls and organise the citizenry, but there had been no opportunity to bring in troops from the provinces and the guards were demoralised by the revolution. An attack by the Crusaders on 6 April failed, but a second from the Golden Horn on 12 April succeeded, and the invaders poured in. Alexios V fled. The Senate met in Hagia Sophia and offered the crown to Theodore Lascaris, who had married into the Angelos dynasty, but it was too late. He came out with the Patriarch to the Golden Milestone before the Great Palace and addressed the Varangian Guard. Then the two of them slipped away with many of the nobility and embarked for Asia. By the next day the Doge and the leading Franks were installed in the Great Palace, and the city was given over to pillage for three days. Sir Steven Runciman, historian of the Crusades, wrote that the sack of Constantinople is \"unparalleled in history\". For the next half-century, Constantinople was the seat of the Latin Empire. Under the rulers of the Latin Empire, the city declined, both in population and the condition of its buildings. Alice-Mary Talbot cites an estimated population for Constantinople of 400,000 inhabitants; after the destruction wrought by the Crusaders on the city, about one third were homeless, and numerous courtiers, nobility, and higher clergy, followed various leading personages into exile. \"As a result Constantinople became seriously depopulated,\" Talbot concludes. The Latins took over at least 20 churches and 13 monasteries, most prominently the Hagia Sophia, which became the cathedral of the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople. It is to these that E.H. Swift attributed the construction of a series of flying buttresses to shore up the walls of the church, which had been weakened over the centuries by earthquake tremors. However, this act of maintenance is an exception: for the most part, the Latin occupiers were too few to maintain all of the buildings, either secular and sacred, and many became targets for vandalism or dismantling. Bronze and lead were removed from the roofs of abandoned buildings and melted down and sold to provide money to the chronically under-funded Empire for defense and to support the court; Deno John Geanokoplos writes that \"it may well be that a division is suggested here: Latin laymen stripped secular buildings, ecclesiastics, the churches.\" Buildings were not the only targets of officials looking to raise funds for the impoverished Latin Empire: the monumental sculptures which adorned the Hippodrome and fora of the city were pulled down and melted for coinage. \"Among the masterpieces destroyed, writes Talbot, \"were a Herakles attributed to the fourth-century B.C. sculptor Lysippos, and monumental figures of Hera, Paris, and Helen.\" The Nicaean emperor John III Vatatzes reportedly saved several churches from being dismantled for their valuable building materials; by sending money to the Latins \"to buy them off\" (*exonesamenos*), he prevented the destruction of several churches. According to Talbot, these included the churches of Blachernae, Rouphinianai, and St. Michael at Anaplous. He also granted funds for the restoration of the Church of the Holy Apostles, which had been seriously damaged in an earthquake. The Byzantine nobility scattered, many going to Nicaea, where Theodore Lascaris set up an imperial court, or to Epirus, where Theodore Angelus did the same; others fled to Trebizond, where one of the Comneni had already with Georgian support established an independent seat of empire. Nicaea and Epirus both vied for the imperial title, and tried to recover Constantinople. In 1261, Constantinople was captured from its last Latin ruler, Baldwin II, by the forces of the Nicaean emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos under the command of Caesar Alexios Strategopoulos. ### 1261--1453: Palaiologan Era and the Fall of Constantinople {#palaiologan_era_and_the_fall_of_constantinople} Although Constantinople was retaken by Michael VIII Palaiologos, the Empire had lost many of its key economic resources, and struggled to survive. The palace of Blachernae in the north-west of the city became the main Imperial residence, with the old Great Palace on the shores of the Bosporus going into decline. When Michael VIII captured the city, its population was 35,000 people, but, by the end of his reign, he had succeeded in increasing the population to about 70,000 people. The Emperor achieved this by summoning former residents who had fled the city when the crusaders captured it, and by relocating Greeks from the recently reconquered Peloponnese to the capital. Military defeats, civil wars, earthquakes and natural disasters were joined by the Black Death, which in 1347 spread to Constantinople, exacerbated the people\'s sense that they were doomed by God. Castilian traveler and writer Ruy González de Clavijo, who saw Constantinople in 1403, wrote that the area within the city walls included small neighborhoods separated by orchards and fields. The ruins of palaces and churches could be seen everywhere. The aqueducts and the most densely inhabited neighborhoods were along the coast of the Marmara Sea and Golden Horn. Only the coastal areas, in particular the commercial areas facing the Golden Horn, had a dense population. Although the Genoese colony in Galata was small, it was overcrowded and had magnificent mansions. By May 1453, the city no longer possessed the treasure troves of Aladdin that the Ottoman troops longingly imagined as they stared up at the walls. Gennadios Scholarios, Patriarch of Constantinople from 1454 to 1464, was saying that the capital of the Empire, that was once the \"city of wisdom\", became \"the city of ruins\". When the Ottoman Turks captured the city (1453) it contained approximately 50,000 people. Tedaldi of Florence estimated the population at 30,000 to 36,000, while in Chronica Vicentina, the Italian Andrei di Arnaldo estimated it at 50,000. The plague epidemic of 1435 must have caused the population to drop. The population decline also had a huge impact upon the Constantinople\'s defense capabilities. At the end of March 1453, emperor Constantine XI ordered a census of districts to record how many able-bodied men were in the city and whatever weapons each possessed for defense. George Sphrantzes, the faithful chancellor of the last emperor, recorded that \"in spite of the great size of our city, our defenders amounted to 4,773 Greeks, as well as just 200 foreigners\". In addition there were volunteers from outside, the \"Genoese, Venetians and those who came secretly from Galata to help the defense\", who numbered \"hardly as many as three thousand\", amounting to something under 8,000 men in total to defend a perimeter wall of twelve miles. Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453. Mehmed II intended to complete his father\'s mission and conquer Constantinople for the Ottomans. In 1452 he reached peace treaties with Hungary and Venice. He also began the construction of the Boğazkesen (later called the Rumelihisarı), a fortress at the narrowest point of the Bosphorus Strait, in order to restrict passage between the Black and Mediterranean seas. Mehmed then tasked the Hungarian gunsmith Urban with both arming Rumelihisarı and building cannon powerful enough to bring down the walls of Constantinople. By March 1453 Urban\'s cannon had been transported from the Ottoman capital of Edirne to the outskirts of Constantinople. In April, having quickly seized Byzantine coastal settlements along the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara, Ottoman troops in Rumelia and Anatolia assembled outside the Byzantine capital. Their fleet moved from Gallipoli to nearby Diplokionion, and the sultan himself set out to meet his army. The Ottomans were commanded by 21-year-old Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. The conquest of Constantinople followed a seven-week siege which had begun on 6 April 1453. The Empire fell on 29 May 1453. The number of people captured by the Ottomans after the fall of the city was around 33,000. The small number of people left in the city indicates that there could not have been many residents there. The primary concern of Mehmed II in the early years of his reign was the construction and settlement of the city. However, since an insufficient number of Muslims accepted his invitation, the settlement of 30 abandoned neighborhoods with the inhabitants of formerly conquered areas became necessary. ### 1453--1930: Ottoman and Republican Kostantiniyye {#ottoman_and_republican_kostantiniyye} The Christian Orthodox city of Constantinople was now under Ottoman control. As tradition followed for the region, Ottoman soldiers had three days to pillage the city. When Mehmed II on the second day entered Constantinople through the Gate of Charisius (today known as Edirnekapı or Adrianople Gate), it is said that first thing he did was ride his horse to Hagia Sophia, which was not in good shape even though it was avoided in the pillage by strict orders. Displeased by the pillaging, Mehmed II ordered it to end, for it will be the capital of his empire. He then ordered that an imam meet him in Hagia Sophia in order to chant the adhan thus transforming the Orthodox cathedral into a Muslim mosque, solidifying Islamic rule in Constantinople. Mehmed\'s main concern with Constantinople had to do with consolidating control over the city and rebuilding its defenses. After 45,000 captives were marched from the city, building projects were commenced immediately after the conquest, which included the repair of the walls, construction of the citadel, and building a new palace. Mehmed issued orders across his empire that Muslims, Christians, and Jews should resettle the city, with Christians and Jews required to pay *jizya* and Muslims pay Zakat; he demanded that five thousand households needed to be transferred to Constantinople by September. From all over the Islamic empire, prisoners of war and deported people were sent to the city: these people were called \"Sürgün\" in Turkish (*σουργούνιδες*). Two centuries later, Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi gave a list of groups introduced into the city with their respective origins. Even today, many quarters of Istanbul, such as Aksaray, Çarşamba, bear the names of the places of origin of their inhabitants. However, many people escaped again from the city, and there were several outbreaks of plague, so that in 1459 Mehmed allowed the deported Greeks to come back to the city. ## Culture Constantinople was the largest and richest urban center in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea during the late Eastern Roman Empire, mostly as a result of its strategic position commanding the trade routes between the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. It would remain the capital of the eastern, Greek-speaking empire for over a thousand years and in some ways is the nexus of Byzantine art production. At its peak, roughly corresponding to the Middle Ages, it was one of the richest and largest cities in Europe. It exerted a powerful cultural pull and dominated much of the economic life in the Mediterranean. Visitors and merchants were especially struck by the beautiful monasteries and churches of the city, in particular the Hagia Sophia, or the Church of Holy Wisdom. According to Russian 14th-century traveler Stephen of Novgorod: \"There is much that amazes one there, which the human mind cannot express\". It was especially important for preserving in its libraries manuscripts of Greek and Latin authors throughout a period when instability and disorder caused their mass-destruction in western Europe and north Africa: On the city\'s fall, thousands of these were brought by refugees to Italy, and played a key part in stimulating the Renaissance, and the transition to the modern world. The cumulative influence of the city on the west, over the many centuries of its existence, is incalculable. In terms of technology, art and culture, as well as sheer size, Constantinople was without parallel anywhere in Europe for a thousand years. Many languages were spoken in Constantinople. A 16th century Chinese geographical treatise specifically recorded that there were translators living in the city, indicating it was multilingual, multicultural, and cosmopolitan. ### Women in literature {#women_in_literature} Constantinople was home to the first known Western Armenian journal published and edited by a woman (Elpis Kesaratsian). Entering circulation in 1862, *Kit\'arr* or *Guitar* stayed in print for only seven months. Female writers who openly expressed their desires were viewed as immodest, but this changed slowly as journals began to publish more \"women\'s sections\". In the 1880s, Matteos Mamurian invited Srpouhi Dussap to submit essays for *Arevelian Mamal*. According to Zaruhi Galemkearian\'s autobiography, she was told to write about women\'s place in the family and home after she published two volumes of poetry in the 1890s. By 1900, several Armenian journals had started to include works by female contributors including the Constantinople-based *Tsaghik*. ### Markets Even before Constantinople was founded, the markets of Byzantion were mentioned first by Xenophon and then by Theopompus who wrote that Byzantians \"spent their time at the market and the harbour\". In Justinian\'s age the *Mese* street running across the city from east to west was a daily market. Procopius claimed \"more than 500 prostitutes\" did business along the market street. Ibn Batutta who traveled to the city in 1325 wrote of the bazaars \"Astanbul\" in which the \"majority of the artisans and salespeople in them are women\". ### Architecture and coinage {#architecture_and_coinage} The Byzantine Empire used Roman and Greek architectural models and styles to create its own unique type of architecture. The influence of Byzantine architecture and art can be seen in the copies taken from it throughout Europe. Particular examples include St Mark\'s Basilica in Venice, the basilicas of Ravenna, and many churches throughout the Slavic East. Also, alone in Europe until the 13th-century Italian florin, the Empire continued to produce sound gold coinage, the solidus of Diocletian becoming the bezant prized throughout the Middle Ages. Its city walls were much imitated (for example, see Caernarfon Castle) and its urban infrastructure was moreover a marvel throughout the Middle Ages, keeping alive the art, skill and technical expertise of the Roman Empire. In the Ottoman period Islamic architecture and symbolism were used. Great bathhouses were built in Byzantine centers such as Constantinople and Antioch. ### Religion Constantine\'s foundation gave prestige to the Bishop of Constantinople, who eventually came to be known as the Ecumenical Patriarch, and made it a prime center of Christianity alongside Rome. This contributed to cultural and theological differences between Eastern and Western Christianity eventually leading to the Great Schism that divided Western Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy from 1054 onwards. Constantinople is also of great religious importance to Islam, as the conquest of Constantinople is one of the signs of the End time in Islam. ### Education There were many institutions in ancient Constantinople such as the Imperial University of Constantinople, sometimes known as the University of the Palace Hall of Magnaura (*Πανδιδακτήριον τῆς Μαγναύρας*), an Eastern Roman educational institution that could trace its corporate origins to 425 AD, when the emperor Theodosius II founded the Pandidacterium (*Πανδιδακτήριον*). ### Media #### Film The first film shown in Constantinople (and the Ottoman Empire) was, *L\'Arrivée d\'un train en gare de La Ciotat*, by the Lumière Brothers in 1896. The first film made in Constantinople (and the Ottoman Empire) was, *Ayastefanos\'taki Rus Abidesinin Yıkılışı,* by Fuat Uzkınay in 1914. #### Newspaper In the past the Bulgarian newspapers in the late Ottoman period were *Makedoniya*, *Napredŭk*, and *Pravo*. Between 1908 (after the Young Turk Revolution) and 1914 (start of World War I) the \"*Kurdistan* Newspaper\" was published in Constantinople by Mikdad Midhad Bedir Khan, before that it was published in exile in Cairo, Egypt. ## International status {#international_status} The city acted as a defence for the eastern provinces of the old Roman Empire against the barbarian invasions of the 5th century. The 18-meter-tall walls built by Theodosius II were, in essence, impregnable to the barbarians coming from south of the Danube river, who found easier targets to the west rather than the richer provinces to the east in Asia. From the 5th century, the city was also protected by the Anastasian Wall, a 60-kilometer chain of walls across the Thracian peninsula. Many scholars`{{Who|date=January 2010}}`{=mediawiki} argue that these sophisticated fortifications allowed the east to develop relatively unmolested while Ancient Rome and the west collapsed. Constantinople\'s fame was such that it was described even in contemporary Chinese histories, the *Old* and *New Book of Tang*, which mentioned its massive walls and gates as well as a purported clepsydra mounted with a golden statue of a man. The Chinese histories even related how the city had been besieged in the 7th century by Mu\'awiya I and how he exacted tribute in a peace settlement.

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5,653

Clarke's three laws

British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated three adages that are known as **Clarke\'s three laws**, of which the third law is the best known and most widely cited. They are part of his ideas in his extensive writings about the future. ## The laws {#the_laws} [The laws](https://www.newscientist.com/definition/clarkes-three-laws/) are: 1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ## Origins One account stated that Clarke\'s laws were developed after the editor of his works in French started numbering the author\'s assertions. All three laws appear in Clarke\'s essay \"Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination\", first published in *Profiles of the Future* (1962); however, they were not all published at the same time. Clarke\'s first law was proposed in the 1962 edition of the essay, as \"Clarke\'s Law\" in *Profiles of the Future*. The second law is offered as a simple observation in the same essay but its status as Clarke\'s second law was conferred by others. It was initially a derivative of the first law and formally became Clarke\'s second law where the author proposed the third law in the 1973 revision of *Profiles of the Future*, which included an acknowledgement. It was also here that Clarke wrote about the third law in these words: \"As three laws were good enough for Newton, I have modestly decided to stop there\". The third law is the best known and most widely cited. It was published in a 1968 letter to *Science* magazine and eventually added to the 1973 revision of the \"Hazards of Prophecy\" essay. ## Variants of the third law {#variants_of_the_third_law} The third law has inspired many snowclones and other variations: - Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God. (Shermer\'s last law) - Any sufficiently advanced act of benevolence is indistinguishable from malevolence (referring to artificial intelligence) - Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice (Grey\'s law) - Any sufficiently advanced garbage is indistinguishable from magic. (Sterling\'s corollary to Clarke\'s law) This idea also underlies the setting of the novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, in which human *stalkers* try to navigate the location of an alien \"visitation\", trying to make sense of technically advanced items discarded by the aliens. - Any sufficiently advanced garbage is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. ## Corollaries and follow-ups {#corollaries_and_follow_ups} Isaac Asimov\'s follow-up to Clarke\'s First Law: > \"When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervour and emotion -- the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.\" A contrapositive of the third law is \"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.\" (Gehm\'s corollary)

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5,661

Centime

**Centime** (from *centesimus*) is French for \"cent\", and is used in English as the name of the fraction currency in several Francophone countries (including Switzerland, Algeria, Belgium, Morocco and France). In France, the usage of *centime* goes back to the introduction of the decimal monetary system under Napoleon. This system aimed at replacing non-decimal fractions of older coins. A five-centime coin was known as a *sou*, i.e. a solidus or shilling. In Francophone Canada `{{frac|1|100}}`{=mediawiki} of a Canadian dollar is officially known as a *cent* (pronounced /sɛnt/) in both English and French. However, in practice, the form of *cenne* (pronounced /sɛn/) has completely replaced the official *cent*. Spoken and written use of the official form *cent* in Francophone Canada is exceptionally uncommon. In the Canadian French vernacular *sou*, *sou noir* (*noir* means \"black\" in French), *cenne*, and *cenne noire* are all widely known, used, and accepted monikers when referring to either `{{frac|1|100}}`{=mediawiki} of a Canadian dollar or the 1¢ coin (colloquially known as a \"penny\" in North American English). ## Subdivision of euro: cent or centime? {#subdivision_of_euro_cent_or_centime} In the European community, *cent* is the official name for one hundredth of a euro. However, in French-speaking countries, the word *centime*is the preferred term. The Superior Council of the French language of Belgium recommended in 2001 the use of *centime*, since *cent* is also the French word for \"hundred\". An analogous decision was published in the *Journal officiel* in France (2 December 1997). In Morocco, dirhams are divided into 100 *centime*s and one may find prices in the country quoted in *centime*s rather than in dirhams. Sometimes *centime*s are known as francs or, in former Spanish areas, pesetas. ## Usage A centime is one-hundredth of the following basic monetary units: ### Current - Algerian dinar - Burundian franc - CFP franc - CFA franc - Comorian franc - Congolese franc - Djiboutian franc - Ethiopian birr (as santim) - Guinean franc - Haitian gourde - Moroccan dirham - Rwandan franc - Swiss franc (by French and English speakers only; Italian speakers use centesimo. See Rappen) ### Obsolete `{{Incomplete list|date=August 2008}}`{=mediawiki} - Algerian franc - Belgian franc (Dutch: *centiem*) - Cambodian franc - French Camerounian franc - French Guianan franc - French franc - Guadeloupe franc - Katangese franc - Latvian lats (Latvian: santīms) - Luxembourgish franc - Malagasy franc - Malian franc - Martinique franc - Monegasque franc - Moroccan franc - New Hebrides franc - Réunion franc - Spanish Peseta - Tunisian franc - Westphalian frank

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5,662

Calendar year

A **calendar year** begins on the New Year\'s Day of the given calendar system and ends on the day before the following New Year\'s Day, and thus consists of a whole number of days. The Gregorian calendar year, which is in use as civil calendar in most of the world, begins on January 1 and ends on December 31. It has a length of 365 days in an ordinary year but, in order to reconcile the calendar year with the astronomical cycle, it has 366 days in a leap year. With 97 leap years every 400 years, the Gregorian calendar year has an average length of 365.2425 days. Other formula-based calendars can have lengths which are further out of step with the solar cycle: for example, the Julian calendar has an average length of 365.25 days, and the Hebrew calendar has an average length of 365.2468 days. The Lunar Hijri calendar (\"Islamic calendar\") is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days. The astronomer\'s mean tropical year, which is averaged over equinoxes and solstices, is currently 365.24219 days, slightly shorter than the average length of the calendar year in most calendars. A year can also be measured by starting on any other named day of the calendar, and ending on the day before this named day in the following year. This may be termed a \"year\'s time\", but is not a \"calendar year\". ## Quarter year {#quarter_year} The calendar year can be divided into four quarters, often abbreviated as Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. Since they are three months each, they are also called trimesters. In the Gregorian calendar: - First quarter, Q1: January 1 -- March 31 (90 days or 91 days in leap years) - Second quarter, Q2: April 1 -- June 30 (91 days) - Third quarter, Q3: July 1 -- September 30 (92 days) - Fourth quarter, Q4: October 1 -- December 31 (92 days) In some domains, weeks are preferred over months for scheduling and reporting, so they use quarters of exactly 13 weeks each, often following ISO week date conventions. One in five to six years has a 53rd week which is usually appended to the last quarter. It is then 98 days instead of 91 days long, which complicates comparisons. In the Chinese calendar, the quarters are traditionally associated with the 4 seasons of the year: - Spring: 1st to 3rd month - Summer: 4th to 6th month - Autumn: 7th to 9th month - Winter: 10th to 12th month ## Quadrimester The calendar year can also be divided into quadrimesters (from French *quadrimestre*), lasting for four months each. They can also be called the early, middle, or late parts of the year. In the Gregorian calendar: - First quadrimester, early year: January 1 -- April 30 (120 days or 121 days in leap years) - Second quadrimester, mid-year: May 1 -- August 31 (123 days) - Third quadrimester, late year: September 1 -- December 31 (122 days) ## Semester The calendar year can also be divided into semesters, lasting six months each and often being abbreviated as S1 and S2. In the Gregorian calendar: - First semester, S1: January 1 -- June 30 (181 days or 182 days in leap years) - Second semester, S2: July 1 -- December 31 (184 days)

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5,668

Calcium

**Calcium** is a chemical element; it has symbol **Ca** and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to its heavier homologues strontium and barium. It is the fifth most abundant element in Earth\'s crust, and the third most abundant metal, after iron and aluminium. The most common calcium compound on Earth is calcium carbonate, found in limestone and the fossils of early sea life; gypsum, anhydrite, fluorite, and apatite are also sources of calcium. The name comes from Latin *calx* \"lime\", which was obtained from heating limestone. Some calcium compounds were known to the ancients, though their chemistry was unknown until the seventeenth century. Pure calcium was isolated in 1808 via electrolysis of its oxide by Humphry Davy, who named the element. Calcium compounds are widely used in many industries: in foods and pharmaceuticals for calcium supplementation, in the paper industry as bleaches, as components in cement and electrical insulators, and in the manufacture of soaps. On the other hand, the metal in pure form has few applications due to its high reactivity; still, in small quantities it is often used as an alloying component in steelmaking, and sometimes, as a calcium--lead alloy, in making automotive batteries. Calcium is the most abundant metal and the fifth-most abundant element in the human body. As electrolytes, calcium ions (Ca^2+^) play a vital role in the physiological and biochemical processes of organisms and cells: in signal transduction pathways where they act as a second messenger; in neurotransmitter release from neurons; in contraction of all muscle cell types; as cofactors in many enzymes; and in fertilization. Calcium ions outside cells are important for maintaining the potential difference across excitable cell membranes, protein synthesis, and bone formation. ## Characteristics ### Classification Calcium is a very ductile silvery metal (sometimes described as pale yellow) whose properties are very similar to the heavier elements in its group, strontium, barium, and radium. A calcium atom has 20 electrons, with electron configuration \[Ar\]4s`{{sup|2}}`{=mediawiki}. Like the other elements in group 2 of the periodic table, calcium has two valence electrons in the outermost s-orbital, which are very easily lost in chemical reactions to form a dipositive ion with the stable electron configuration of a noble gas, in this case argon. Hence, calcium is almost always divalent in its compounds, which are usually ionic. Hypothetical univalent salts of calcium would be stable with respect to their elements, but not to disproportionation to the divalent salts and calcium metal, because the enthalpy of formation of MX`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki} is much higher than those of the hypothetical MX. This occurs because of the much greater lattice energy afforded by the more highly charged Ca`{{sup|2+}}`{=mediawiki} cation compared to the hypothetical Ca`{{sup|+}}`{=mediawiki} cation. Calcium, strontium, barium, and radium are always considered to be alkaline earth metals; the lighter beryllium and magnesium, also in group 2 of the periodic table, are often included as well. Nevertheless, beryllium and magnesium differ significantly from the other members of the group in their physical and chemical behavior: they behave more like aluminium and zinc respectively and have some of the weaker metallic character of the post-transition metals, which is why the traditional definition of the term \"alkaline earth metal\" excludes them. ### Physical properties {#physical_properties} Calcium metal melts at 842 °C and boils at 1494 °C; these values are higher than those for magnesium and strontium, the neighbouring group 2 metals. It crystallises in the face-centered cubic arrangement like strontium and barium; above 443 C, it changes to body-centered cubic. Its density of 1.526 g/cm`{{sup|3}}`{=mediawiki} (at 20 °C) is the lowest in its group. Calcium is harder than lead but can be cut with a knife with effort. While calcium is a poorer conductor of electricity than copper or aluminium by volume, it is a better conductor by mass than both due to its very low density. While calcium is infeasible as a conductor for most terrestrial applications as it reacts quickly with atmospheric oxygen, its use as such in space has been considered. ### Chemical properties {#chemical_properties} The chemistry of calcium is that of a typical heavy alkaline earth metal. For example, calcium spontaneously reacts with water more quickly than magnesium but less quickly than strontium to produce calcium hydroxide and hydrogen gas. It also reacts with the oxygen and nitrogen in air to form a mixture of calcium oxide and calcium nitride. When finely divided, it spontaneously burns in air to produce the nitride. Bulk calcium is less reactive: it quickly forms a hydration coating in moist air, but below 30% relative humidity it may be stored indefinitely at room temperature. Besides the simple oxide CaO, calcium peroxide, CaO`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki}, can be made by direct oxidation of calcium metal under a high pressure of oxygen, and there is some evidence for a yellow superoxide Ca(O`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki})`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki}.Calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki}, is a strong base, though not as strong as the hydroxides of strontium, barium or the alkali metals. All four dihalides of calcium are known. Calcium carbonate (CaCO`{{sub|3}}`{=mediawiki}) and calcium sulfate (CaSO`{{sub|4}}`{=mediawiki}) are particularly abundant minerals. Like strontium and barium, as well as the alkali metals and the divalent lanthanides europium and ytterbium, calcium metal dissolves directly in liquid ammonia to give a dark blue solution. Due to the large size of the calcium ion (Ca`{{sup|2+}}`{=mediawiki}), high coordination numbers are common, up to 24 in some intermetallic compounds such as CaZn`{{sub|13}}`{=mediawiki}. Calcium is readily complexed by oxygen chelates such as EDTA and polyphosphates, which are useful in analytic chemistry and removing calcium ions from hard water. In the absence of steric hindrance, smaller group 2 cations tend to form stronger complexes, but when large polydentate macrocycles are involved the trend is reversed. #### Organocalcium compounds {#organocalcium_compounds} In contrast to organomagnesium compounds, organocalcium compounds are not similarly useful, with one major exception, calcium carbide, CaC~2~. This material, which has historic significance, is prepared by heating calcium oxide with carbon. According to X-ray crystallography, calcium carbide can be described as Ca^2+^ derivative of acetylide, C~2~^2-^, although it is not a salt. Several million tons of calcium carbide are produced annually. Hydrolysis gives acetylene, which is used in welding and a chemical precursor. Reaction with nitrogen gas converts calcium carbide to calcium cyanamide. A dominant theme in molecular organocalcium chemistry is the large radius of calcium, which often leads to high coordination numbers. For example, dimethylcalcium appears to be a 3-dimensional polymer, whereas dimethylmagnesium is a linear polymer with tetrahedral Mg centers. Bulky ligands are often required to disfavor polymeric species. For example, calcium dicyclopentadienyl, `{{chem2|Ca(C5H5)2}}`{=mediawiki} has a polymeric structure and thus is nonvolatile and insoluble in solvents. Replacing the `{{chem2|C5H5}}`{=mediawiki} ligand with the bulkier `{{chem2|C5(CH3)5}}`{=mediawiki} (pentamethylcyclopentadienyl) gives a soluble complex that sublimes and forms well-defined adducts with ethers. Organocalcium compounds tend to be more similar to organoytterbium compounds due to the similar ionic radii of Yb`{{sup|2+}}`{=mediawiki} (102 pm) and Ca`{{sup|2+}}`{=mediawiki} (100 pm). Organocalcium compounds have been well investigated. Some such complexes exhibit catalytic properties, although none have been commercialized. ### Isotopes Natural calcium is a mixture of five stable isotopes---`{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, `{{sup|42}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, `{{sup|43}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, `{{sup|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, and `{{sup|46}}`{=mediawiki}Ca---and `{{sup|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, whose half-life of 4.3 × 10`{{sup|19}}`{=mediawiki} years is so long that it can be considered stable all practical purposes stable. Calcium is the first (lightest) element to have six naturally occurring isotopes. By far the most common isotope is `{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, which makes up 96.941% of natural calcium. It is produced in the silicon-burning process from fusion of alpha particles and is the heaviest stable nuclide with equal proton and neutron numbers; its occurrence is also supplemented slowly by the decay of primordial `{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}K. Adding another alpha particle leads to unstable `{{sup|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ti, which decays via two successive electron captures to stable `{{sup|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca; this makes up 2.806% of natural calcium and is the second-most common isotope. The other four natural isotopes, `{{sup|42, 43, 46, 48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, are significantly rarer, each comprising less than 1% of natural calcium. The four lighter isotopes are mainly products of oxygen-burning and silicon-burning, leaving the two heavier ones to be produced via neutron capture. `{{sup|46}}`{=mediawiki}Ca is mostly produced in a \"hot\" s-process, as its formation requires a rather high neutron flux to allow short-lived `{{sup|45}}`{=mediawiki}Ca to capture a neutron. `{{sup|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca is produced by electron capture in the r-process in type Ia supernovae, where high neutron excess and low enough entropy ensures its survival. Ca and `{{sup|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca are the first \"classically stable\" nuclides with a 6-neutron or 8-neutron excess respectively. Though extremely neutron-rich for such a light element, `{{sup|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca is very stable because it is a doubly magic nucleus, with 20 protons and 28 neutrons arranged in closed shells. Its beta decay to `{{sup|48}}`{=mediawiki}Sc is very hindered by the gross mismatch of nuclear spin: `{{sup|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca has zero nuclear spin, being even--even, while `{{sup|48}}`{=mediawiki}Sc has spin 6+, so the decay is forbidden by conservation of angular momentum. While two excited states of `{{sup|48}}`{=mediawiki}Sc are available for decay as well, they are also forbidden due to their high spins. As a result, when `{{sup|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca does decay, it does so by double beta decay to `{{sup|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ti instead, being the lightest nuclide known to undergo double beta decay.`{{NUBASE2016|ref}}`{=mediawiki} Ca can also theoretically double-beta-decay to `{{sup|46}}`{=mediawiki}Ti, but this has never been observed. The most common isotope `{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca is also doubly magic and could undergo double electron capture to `{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ar, but this has likewise never been observed. Calcium is the only element with two primordial doubly magic isotopes. The experimental lower limits for the half-lives of `{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca and `{{sup|46}}`{=mediawiki}Ca are 5.9 × 10`{{sup|21}}`{=mediawiki} years and 2.8 × 10`{{sup|15}}`{=mediawiki} years respectively.`{{NUBASE2016|ref}}`{=mediawiki} Excluding `{{sup|48}}`{=mediawiki}Ca, the longest lived radioisotope of calcium is `{{sup|41}}`{=mediawiki}Ca. It decays by electron capture to stable `{{sup|41}}`{=mediawiki}K with a half-life of about 10`{{sup|5}}`{=mediawiki} years. Its existence in the early Solar System as an extinct radionuclide has been inferred from excesses of `{{sup|41}}`{=mediawiki}K. Traces of `{{sup|41}}`{=mediawiki}Ca also still exist today, as it is a cosmogenic nuclide, continuously produced through neutron activation of natural `{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca. Many other calcium radioisotopes are known, ranging from `{{sup|35}}`{=mediawiki}Ca to `{{sup|60}}`{=mediawiki}Ca. They are all much shorter-lived than `{{sup|41}}`{=mediawiki}Ca; the most stable are `{{sup|45}}`{=mediawiki}Ca (half-life 163 days) and `{{sup|47}}`{=mediawiki}Ca (half-life 4.54 days). Isotopes lighter than `{{sup|42}}`{=mediawiki}Ca usually undergo beta plus decay to isotopes of potassium, and those heavier than `{{sup|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca usually undergo beta minus decay to scandium; though near the nuclear drip lines, proton emission and neutron emission begin to be significant decay modes as well.`{{NUBASE2016|ref}}`{=mediawiki} Like other elements, a variety of processes alter the relative abundance of calcium isotopes. The best studied of these processes is the mass-dependent fractionation of calcium isotopes that accompanies the precipitation of calcium minerals such as calcite, aragonite and apatite from solution. Lighter isotopes are preferentially incorporated into these minerals, leaving the surrounding solution enriched in heavier isotopes at a magnitude of roughly 0.025% per atomic mass unit (amu) at room temperature. Mass-dependent differences in calcium isotope composition are conventionally expressed by the ratio of two isotopes (usually `{{sup|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca/`{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca) in a sample compared to the same ratio in a standard reference material. `{{sup|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca/`{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca varies by about 1--2‰ among organisms on Earth. ## History thumb\|upright=0.4\|One of the \'Ain Ghazal Statues, made from lime plaster Calcium compounds were known for millennia, though their chemical makeup was not understood until the 17th century. Lime as a building material and as plaster for statues was used as far back as around 7000 BC. The first dated lime kiln dates back to 2500 BC and was found in Khafajah, Mesopotamia. About the same time, dehydrated gypsum (CaSO`{{sub|4}}`{=mediawiki}·2H`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki}O) was being used in the Great Pyramid of Giza. This material would later be used for the plaster in the tomb of Tutankhamun. The ancient Romans instead used lime mortars made by heating limestone (CaCO`{{sub|3}}`{=mediawiki}). The name \"calcium\" itself derives from the Latin word *calx* \"lime\". Vitruvius noted that the lime that resulted was lighter than the original limestone, attributing this to the boiling of the water. In 1755, Joseph Black proved that this was due to the loss of carbon dioxide, which as a gas had not been recognised by the ancient Romans. In 1789, Antoine Lavoisier suspected that lime might be an oxide of an element. In his table of the elements, Lavoisier listed five \"salifiable earths\" (i.e., ores that could be made to react with acids to produce salts (*salis* = salt, in Latin): *chaux* (calcium oxide), *magnésie* (magnesia, magnesium oxide), *baryte* (barium sulfate), *alumine* (alumina, aluminium oxide), and *silice* (silica, silicon dioxide)). About these \"elements\", Lavoisier reasoned: `{{blockquote|We are probably only acquainted as yet with a part of the metallic substances existing in nature, as all those which have a stronger affinity to oxygen than carbon possesses, are incapable, hitherto, of being reduced to a metallic state, and consequently, being only presented to our observation under the form of oxyds, are confounded with earths. It is extremely probable that barytes, which we have just now arranged with earths, is in this situation; for in many experiments it exhibits properties nearly approaching to those of metallic bodies. It is even possible that all the substances we call earths may be only metallic oxyds, irreducible by any hitherto known process.<ref>Lavoisier, Antoine; Kerr, Robert (translator) (1799) ''Elements of Chemistry'', 4th ed. Edinburgh, Scotland: William Creech. [https://books.google.com/books?id=cbFjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA218 p. 218]. The original passage appears in: Lavoisier, Antoine (1789) ''[[Traité Élémentaire de Chimie]]''. Paris, France: Cuchet. Vol. 1. [https://books.google.com/books?id=hZch3yOrayUC&pg=PA174 p. 174].</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} Calcium, along with its congeners magnesium, strontium, and barium, was first isolated by Humphry Davy in 1808. Following the work of Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Magnus Martin of Pontin on electrolysis, Davy isolated calcium and magnesium by putting a mixture of the respective metal oxides with mercury(II) oxide on a platinum plate which was used as the anode, the cathode being a platinum wire partially submerged into mercury. Electrolysis then gave calcium--mercury and magnesium--mercury amalgams, and distilling off the mercury gave the metal. However, pure calcium cannot be prepared in bulk by this method and a workable commercial process for its production was not found until over a century later. ## Occurrence and production {#occurrence_and_production} At 3%, calcium is the fifth most abundant element in the Earth\'s crust, and the third most abundant metal behind aluminium and iron. It is also the fourth most abundant element in the lunar highlands. Sedimentary calcium carbonate deposits pervade the Earth\'s surface as fossilised remains of past marine life; they occur in two forms, the rhombohedral calcite (more common) and the orthorhombic aragonite (forming in more temperate seas). Minerals of the first type include limestone, dolomite, marble, chalk, and Iceland spar; aragonite beds make up the Bahamas, the Florida Keys, and the Red Sea basins. Corals, sea shells, and pearls are mostly made up of calcium carbonate. Among the other important minerals of calcium are gypsum (CaSO`{{sub|4}}`{=mediawiki}·2H`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki}O), anhydrite (CaSO`{{sub|4}}`{=mediawiki}), fluorite (CaF`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki}), and apatite (\[Ca`{{sub|5}}`{=mediawiki}(PO`{{sub|4}}`{=mediawiki})`{{sub|3}}`{=mediawiki}X\], X = OH, Cl, or F) The major producers of calcium are China (about 10000 to 12000 tonnes per year), Russia (about 6000 to 8000 tonnes per year), and the United States (about 2000 to 4000 tonnes per year). Canada and France are among the minor producers. In 2005, about 24000 tonnes of calcium were produced; about half of the world\'s extracted calcium is used by the United States, with about 80% of the output used each year. In Russia and China, Davy\'s method of electrolysis is still used, but is instead applied to molten calcium chloride. Since calcium is less reactive than strontium or barium, the oxide--nitride coating that results in air is stable and lathe machining and other standard metallurgical techniques are suitable for calcium. In the U.S. and Canada, calcium is instead produced by reducing lime with aluminium at high temperatures. In this process, powdered high-calcium lime and powdered aluminum are mixed and compacted into briquettes for a high degree of contact, which are then placed in a sealed retort which has been evacuated and heated to \~1200°C. The briquettes release calcium vapor into the vacuum for about 8 hours, which then condenses in the cooled ends of the retorts to form 24-34 kg pieces of calcium metal, as well as some residue of calcium aluminate. High-purity calcium can be obtained by distilling low-purity calcium at high temperatures. ### Geochemical cycling {#geochemical_cycling} Calcium cycling provides a link between tectonics, climate, and the carbon cycle. In the simplest terms, mountain-building exposes calcium-bearing rocks such as basalt and granodiorite to chemical weathering and releases Ca`{{sup|2+}}`{=mediawiki} into surface water. These ions are transported to the ocean where they react with dissolved CO`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki} to form limestone (CaCO`{{sub|3}}`{=mediawiki}), which in turn settles to the sea floor where it is incorporated into new rocks. Dissolved CO`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki}, along with carbonate and bicarbonate ions, are termed \"dissolved inorganic carbon\" (DIC). The actual reaction is more complicated and involves the bicarbonate ion (HCO`{{su|b=3|p=−}}`{=mediawiki}) that forms when CO`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki} reacts with water at seawater pH: : At seawater pH, most of the dissolved CO`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki} is immediately converted back into `{{chem|HCO|3|-}}`{=mediawiki}. The reaction results in a net transport of one molecule of CO`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki} from the ocean/atmosphere into the lithosphere. The result is that each Ca`{{sup|2+}}`{=mediawiki} ion released by chemical weathering ultimately removes one CO`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki} molecule from the surficial system (atmosphere, ocean, soil and living organisms), storing it in carbonate rocks where it is likely to stay for hundreds of millions of years. The weathering of calcium from rocks thus scrubs CO`{{sub|2}}`{=mediawiki} from the ocean and air, exerting a strong long-term effect on climate. ## Applications The largest use of metallic calcium is in steelmaking, due to its strong chemical affinity for oxygen and sulfur. Its oxides and sulfides, once formed, give liquid lime aluminate and sulfide inclusions in steel which float out; on treatment, these inclusions disperse throughout the steel and become small and spherical, improving castability, cleanliness and general mechanical properties. Calcium is also used in maintenance-free automotive batteries, in which the use of 0.1% calcium--lead alloys instead of the usual antimony--lead alloys leads to lower water loss and lower self-discharging. Due to the risk of expansion and cracking, aluminium is sometimes also incorporated into these alloys. These lead--calcium alloys are also used in casting, replacing lead--antimony alloys. Calcium is also used to strengthen aluminium alloys used for bearings, for the control of graphitic carbon in cast iron, and to remove bismuth impurities from lead. Calcium metal is found in some drain cleaners, where it functions to generate heat and calcium hydroxide that saponifies the fats and liquefies the proteins (for example, those in hair) that block drains. Besides metallurgy, the reactivity of calcium is exploited to remove nitrogen from high-purity argon gas and as a getter for oxygen and nitrogen. It is also used as a reducing agent in the production of chromium, zirconium, thorium, vanadium and uranium. It can also be used to store hydrogen gas, as it reacts with hydrogen to form solid calcium hydride, from which the hydrogen can easily be re-extracted. Calcium isotope fractionation during mineral formation has led to several applications of calcium isotopes. In particular, the 1997 observation by Skulan and DePaolo that calcium minerals are isotopically lighter than the solutions from which the minerals precipitate is the basis of analogous applications in medicine and in paleoceanography. In animals with skeletons mineralised with calcium, the calcium isotopic composition of soft tissues reflects the relative rate of formation and dissolution of skeletal mineral. In humans, changes in the calcium isotopic composition of urine have been shown to be related to changes in bone mineral balance. When the rate of bone formation exceeds the rate of bone resorption, the `{{sup|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca/`{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca ratio in soft tissue rises and vice versa. Because of this relationship, calcium isotopic measurements of urine or blood may be useful in the early detection of metabolic bone diseases like osteoporosis. A similar system exists in seawater, where `{{sup|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca/`{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca tends to rise when the rate of removal of Ca`{{sup|2+}}`{=mediawiki} by mineral precipitation exceeds the input of new calcium into the ocean. In 1997, Skulan and DePaolo presented the first evidence of change in seawater `{{sup|44}}`{=mediawiki}Ca/`{{sup|40}}`{=mediawiki}Ca over geologic time, along with a theoretical explanation of these changes. More recent papers have confirmed this observation, demonstrating that seawater Ca`{{sup|2+}}`{=mediawiki} concentration is not constant, and that the ocean is never in a \"steady state\" with respect to calcium input and output. This has important climatological implications, as the marine calcium cycle is closely tied to the carbon cycle. Many calcium compounds are used in food, as pharmaceuticals, and in medicine, among others. For example, calcium and phosphorus are supplemented in foods through the addition of calcium lactate, calcium diphosphate, and tricalcium phosphate. The last is also used as a polishing agent in toothpaste and in antacids. Calcium lactobionate is a white powder that is used as a suspending agent for pharmaceuticals. In baking, calcium phosphate is used as a leavening agent. Calcium sulfite is used as a bleach in papermaking and as a disinfectant, calcium silicate is used as a reinforcing agent in rubber, and calcium acetate is a component of liming rosin and is used to make metallic soaps and synthetic resins. Calcium is on the World Health Organization\'s List of Essential Medicines. ## Biological and pathological role {#biological_and_pathological_role} Age Calcium (mg/day) -------------- ------------------ 1--3 years 700 4--8 years 1000 9--18 years 1300 19--50 years 1000 \>51 years 1000 Pregnancy 1000 Lactation 1000 : Age-adjusted daily calcium recommendations (from U.S. Institute of Medicine RDAs) thumb\|upright=1.4\|Global dietary calcium intake among adults (mg/day). `{{Div col|small=yes|colwidth=10em}}`{=mediawiki} `{{legend|#f51d1e|<400}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend|#aa2b2c|400–500}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend|#fa7929|500–600}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend|#a46e2c|600–700}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend|#fee940|700–800}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend|#829d29|800–900}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend|#84fc5a|900–1000}}`{=mediawiki}`{{legend|#2d621d|>1000}}`{=mediawiki} `{{div col end}}`{=mediawiki} ### Function Calcium is an essential element needed in large quantities. The Ca^2+^ ion acts as an electrolyte and is vital to the health of the muscular, circulatory, and digestive systems; is indispensable to the building of bone in the form of hydroxyapatite; and supports synthesis and function of blood cells. For example, it regulates the contraction of muscles, nerve conduction, and the clotting of blood. As a result, intra- and extracellular calcium levels are tightly regulated by the body. Calcium can play this role because the Ca^2+^ ion forms stable coordination complexes with many organic compounds, especially proteins; it also forms compounds with a wide range of solubilities, enabling the formation of the skeleton. ### Binding Calcium ions may be complexed by proteins through binding the carboxyl groups of glutamic acid or aspartic acid residues; through interacting with phosphorylated serine, tyrosine, or threonine residues; or by being chelated by γ-carboxylated amino acid residues. Trypsin, a digestive enzyme, uses the first method; osteocalcin, a bone matrix protein, uses the third. Some other bone matrix proteins such as osteopontin and bone sialoprotein use both the first and the second. Direct activation of enzymes by binding calcium is common; some other enzymes are activated by noncovalent association with direct calcium-binding enzymes. Calcium also binds to the phospholipid layer of the cell membrane, anchoring proteins associated with the cell surface. ### Solubility As an example of the wide range of solubility of calcium compounds, monocalcium phosphate is very soluble in water, 85% of extracellular calcium is as dicalcium phosphate with a solubility of 2.00 mM, and the hydroxyapatite of bones in an organic matrix is tricalcium phosphate with a solubility of 1000 μM. ### Nutrition Calcium is a common constituent of multivitamin dietary supplements, but the composition of calcium complexes in supplements may affect its bioavailability which varies by solubility of the salt involved: calcium citrate, malate, and lactate are highly bioavailable, while the oxalate is less. Other calcium preparations include calcium carbonate, calcium citrate malate, and calcium gluconate. The intestine absorbs about one-third of calcium eaten as the free ion, and plasma calcium level is then regulated by the kidneys. ### Hormonal regulation of bone formation and serum levels {#hormonal_regulation_of_bone_formation_and_serum_levels} Parathyroid hormone and vitamin D promote the formation of bone by allowing and enhancing the deposition of calcium ions there, allowing rapid bone turnover without affecting bone mass or mineral content. When plasma calcium levels fall, cell surface receptors are activated and the secretion of parathyroid hormone occurs; it then proceeds to stimulate the entry of calcium into the plasma pool by taking it from targeted kidney, gut, and bone cells, with the bone-forming action of parathyroid hormone being antagonised by calcitonin, whose secretion increases with increasing plasma calcium levels. ### Abnormal serum levels {#abnormal_serum_levels} Excess intake of calcium may cause hypercalcemia. However, because calcium is absorbed rather inefficiently by the intestines, high serum calcium is more likely caused by excessive secretion of parathyroid hormone (PTH) or possibly by excessive intake of vitamin D, both of which facilitate calcium absorption. All these conditions result in excess calcium salts being deposited in the heart, blood vessels, or kidneys. Symptoms include anorexia, nausea, vomiting, memory loss, confusion, muscle weakness, increased urination, dehydration, and metabolic bone disease. Chronic hypercalcaemia typically leads to calcification of soft tissue and its serious consequences: for example, calcification can cause loss of elasticity of vascular walls and disruption of laminar blood flow---and thence to plaque rupture and thrombosis. Conversely, inadequate calcium or vitamin D intakes may result in hypocalcemia, often caused also by inadequate secretion of parathyroid hormone or defective PTH receptors in cells. Symptoms include neuromuscular excitability, which potentially causes tetany and disruption of conductivity in cardiac tissue. ### Bone disease {#bone_disease} As calcium is required for bone development, many bone diseases can be traced to the organic matrix or the hydroxyapatite in molecular structure or organization of bone. Osteoporosis is a reduction in mineral content of bone per unit volume, and can be treated by supplementation of calcium, vitamin D, and bisphosphonates. Inadequate amounts of calcium, vitamin D, or phosphates can lead to softening of bones, called osteomalacia. ## Safety ### Metallic calcium {#metallic_calcium} Because calcium reacts exothermically with water and acids, calcium metal coming into contact with bodily moisture results in severe corrosive irritation. When swallowed, calcium metal has the same effect on the mouth, oesophagus, and stomach, and can be fatal. However, long-term exposure is not known to have distinct adverse effects.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

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College

upright=1.35\|thumb\| Corpus Christi College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge in England A **college** (Latin: *collegium*) may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary school. In most of the world, a college may be a high school or secondary school, a college of further education, a training institution that awards trade qualifications, a higher-education provider that does not have university status (often without its own degree-awarding powers), or a constituent part of a university. In the United States, a college may offer undergraduate programs -- either as an independent institution or as the undergraduate program of a university -- or it may be a residential college of a university or a community college, referring to (primarily public) higher education institutions that aim to provide affordable and accessible education, usually limited to two-year associate degrees. The word \"college\" is generally also used as a synonym for a university in the US, and as used in phrases such as \"college students\" and \"going to college\" it is understood to mean any degree granting institution, whether denominated a school, an institute, a college, or a university. Colleges in countries such as France, Belgium, and Switzerland provide secondary education. ## Etymology The word \"college\" is from the Latin verb *lego, legere, legi, lectum*, \"to collect, gather together, pick\", plus the preposition *cum*, \"with\", thus meaning \"selected together\". Thus \"colleagues\" are literally \"persons who have been selected to work together\". In ancient Rome a *collegium* was a \"body, guild, corporation united in colleagueship; of magistrates, praetors, tribunes, priests, augurs; a political club or trade guild\". Thus a college was a form of corporation or corporate body, an artificial legal person (body/corpus) with its own legal personality, with the capacity to enter into legal contracts, to sue and be sued. In mediaeval England there were colleges of priests, for example in chantry chapels; modern survivals include the Royal College of Surgeons in England (originally the Guild of Surgeons Within the City of London), the College of Arms in London (a body of heralds enforcing heraldic law), an electoral college (to elect representatives); all groups of persons \"selected in common\" to perform a specified function and appointed by a monarch, founder or other person in authority. As for the modern \"college of education\", it was a body created for that purpose, for example Eton College was founded in 1440 by letters patent of King Henry VI for the constitution of a college *of Fellows, priests, clerks, choristers, poor scholars, and old poor men, with one master or governor*, whose duty it shall be to instruct these scholars and any others who may resort thither from any part of England in the knowledge of letters, and especially of grammar, without payment\". ## Overview ### Higher education {#higher_education} Within higher education, the term can be used to refer to: - A constituent part of a collegiate university, for example King\'s College, Cambridge, or of a federal university, for example King\'s College London. - A liberal arts college, an independent institution of higher education focusing on undergraduate education, such as Williams College or Amherst College. - A liberal arts division of a university whose undergraduate program does not otherwise follow a liberal arts model, such as the Yuanpei College at Peking University. - An institute providing specialised training, such as a college of further education, for example Belfast Metropolitan College, a teacher training college, or an art college. - A Catholic higher education institute which includes universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher education privately run by the Catholic Church, typically by religious institutes. Those tied to the Holy See are specifically called pontifical universities. - In the United States, college is sometimes but rarely a synonym for a research university, such as Dartmouth College, one of the eight universities in the Ivy League. - In the United States, the undergraduate college of a university which also confers graduate degrees, such as Yale College, the undergraduate college within Yale University. ### Further education {#further_education} A sixth form college or college of further education is an educational institution in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Belize, the Caribbean, Malta, Norway, Brunei, and Southern Africa, among others, where students aged 16 to 19 typically study for advanced school-level qualifications, such as A-levels, BTEC, HND or its equivalent and the International Baccalaureate Diploma, or school-level qualifications such as GCSEs. In Singapore and India, this is known as a junior college. The municipal government of the city of Paris uses the phrase \"sixth form college\" as the English name for a lycée. ### Secondary education {#secondary_education} In some national education systems, secondary schools may be called \"colleges\" or have \"college\" as part of their title. In Australia the term \"college\" is applied to any private or independent (non-government) primary and, especially, secondary school as distinct from a state school. Melbourne Grammar School, Cranbrook School, Sydney and The King\'s School, Parramatta are considered colleges. There has also been a recent trend to rename or create government secondary schools as \"colleges\". In the state of Victoria, some state high schools are referred to as *secondary colleges*, although the pre-eminent government secondary school for boys in Melbourne is still named Melbourne High School. In Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory, \"college\" is used in the name of all state high schools built since the late 1990s, and also some older ones. In New South Wales, some high schools, especially multi-campus schools resulting from mergers, are known as \"secondary colleges\". In Queensland some newer schools which accept primary and high school students are styled *state college*, but state schools offering only secondary education are called \"State High School\". In Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, \"college\" refers to the final two years of high school (years 11 and 12), and the institutions which provide this. In this context, \"college\" is a system independent of the other years of high school. Here, the expression is a shorter version of *matriculation college*. In a number of Canadian cities, many government-run secondary schools are called \"collegiates\" or \"collegiate institutes\" (C.I.), a complicated form of the word \"college\" which avoids the usual \"post-secondary\" connotation. This is because these secondary schools have traditionally focused on academic, rather than vocational, subjects and ability levels (for example, collegiates offered Latin while vocational schools offered technical courses). Some private secondary schools (such as Upper Canada College, Vancouver College) choose to use the word \"college\" in their names nevertheless. Some secondary schools elsewhere in the country, particularly ones within the separate school system, may also use the word \"college\" or \"collegiate\" in their names. In New Zealand the word \"college\" normally refers to a secondary school for ages 13 to 17 and \"college\" appears as part of the name especially of private or integrated schools. \"Colleges\" most frequently appear in the North Island, whereas \"high schools\" are more common in the South Island. In the Netherlands, \"college\" is equivalent to HBO (Higher professional education). It is oriented towards professional training with a clear occupational outlook, unlike universities which are scientifically oriented. In South Africa, some secondary schools, especially private schools on the English public school model, have \"college\" in their title, including six of South Africa\'s Elite Seven high schools. A typical example of this category would be St John\'s College. Private schools that specialize in improving children\'s marks through intensive focus on examination needs are informally called \"cram-colleges\". In Sri Lanka the word \"college\" (known as *Vidyalaya* in *Sinhala*) normally refers to a secondary school, which usually signifies above the 5th standard. During the British colonial period a limited number of exclusive secondary schools were established based on English public school model (Royal College Colombo, S. Thomas\' College, Mount Lavinia, Trinity College, Kandy) these along with several Catholic schools (St. Joseph\'s College, Colombo, St Anthony\'s College) traditionally carry their name as colleges. Following the start of free education in 1931 large group of central colleges were established to educate the rural masses. Since Sri Lanka gained Independence in 1948, many schools that have been established have been named as \"college\". ### Other As well as an educational institution, the term, in accordance with its etymology, may also refer to any formal group of colleagues set up under statute or regulation; often under a Royal Charter. Examples include an electoral college, the College of Arms, a college of canons, and the College of Cardinals. Other collegiate bodies include professional associations, particularly in medicine and allied professions. In the UK these include the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Physicians. Examples in the United States include the American College of Physicians, the American College of Surgeons, and the American College of Dentists. An example in Australia is the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. ## College by country {#college_by_country} The different ways in which the term \"college\" is used to describe educational institutions in various regions of the world is listed below: ## Americas ### Canada In Canadian English, the term \"college\" usually refers to a trades school, applied arts/science/technology/business/health school or community college. These are post-secondary institutions granting certificates, diplomas, associate degrees and (in some cases) bachelor\'s degrees. The French acronym specific to public institutions within Quebec\'s particular system of pre-university and technical education is CEGEP (*Collège d\'enseignement général et professionnel*, \"college of general and professional education\"). They are collegiate-level institutions that a student typically enrols in if they wish to continue onto university in the Quebec education system,`{{notetag|Exceptions are made for "mature" student, meaning 21 years of age or over, and out of the educational system for at least 2 years.}}`{=mediawiki} or to learn a trade. In Ontario and Alberta, there are also institutions that are designated university colleges, which only grant undergraduate degrees. This is to differentiate between universities, which have both undergraduate and graduate programs and those that do not. In Canada, there is a strong distinction between \"college\" and \"university\". In conversation, one specifically would say either \"they are going to university\" (i.e., studying for a three- or four-year degree at a university) or \"they are going to college\" (i.e., studying at a technical/career training). #### Usage in a university setting {#usage_in_a_university_setting} The term *college* also applies to distinct entities that formally act as an affiliated institution of the university, formally referred to as federated college, or affiliated colleges. A university may also formally include several constituent colleges, forming a collegiate university. Examples of collegiate universities in Canada include Trent University, and the University of Toronto. These types of institutions act independently, maintaining their own endowments, and properties. However, they remain either affiliated, or federated with the overarching university, with the overarching university being the institution that formally grants the degrees. For example, Trinity College was once an independent institution, but later became federated with the University of Toronto. Several centralized universities in Canada have mimicked the collegiate university model; although constituent colleges in a centralized university remains under the authority of the central administration. Centralized universities that have adopted the collegiate model to a degree includes the University of British Columbia, with Green College and St. John\'s College; and the Memorial University of Newfoundland, with Sir Wilfred Grenfell College. Occasionally, \"college\" refers to a subject specific faculty within a university that, while distinct, are neither *federated* nor *affiliated*---College of Education, College of Medicine, College of Dentistry, College of Biological Science among others. The Royal Military College of Canada is a military college which trains officers for the Canadian Armed Forces. The institution is a full-fledged university, with the authority to issue graduate degrees, although it continues to word the term *college* in its name. The institution\'s sister schools, Royal Military College Saint-Jean also uses the term college in its name, although it academic offering is akin to a CEGEP institution in Quebec. A number of post-secondary art schools in Canada formerly used the word *college* in their names, despite formally being universities. However, most of these institutions were renamed, or re-branded in the early 21st century, omitting the word *college* from its name. #### Usage in secondary education {#usage_in_secondary_education} The word *college* continues to be used in the names public separate secondary schools in Ontario. A number of independent schools across Canada also use the word *college* in its name. Public secular school boards in Ontario also refer to their secondary schools as *collegiate institutes*. However, usage of the word *collegiate institute* varies between school boards. *Collegiate institute* is the predominant name for secondary schools in Lakehead District School Board, and Toronto District School Board, although most school boards in Ontario use *collegiate institute* alongside *high school*, and *secondary school* in the names of their institutions. Similarly, secondary schools in Regina, and Saskatoon are referred to as *Collegiate*. ### Chile Officially, since 2009, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile incorporated the term \"college\" as the name of a tertiary education program as a bachelor\'s degree. The program features a *Bachelor of Natural Sciences and Mathematics*, a *Bachelor of Social Science* and a *Bachelor of Arts and Humanities*. It has the same system as the American universities, it combines majors and minors and finally, it let the students continue a higher degree in the same university once the program it is completed. But in Chile, the term \"college\" is not usually used for tertiary education, but is used mainly in the name of some private bilingual schools, corresponding to levels 0, 1 and 2 of the ISCED 2011. Some examples are they Santiago College, Saint George\'s College, among others. ### United States {#united_states} In the United States, there were 5,916 post-secondary institutions (universities and colleges) `{{as of|2020|alt=as of 2020–21|post=,}}`{=mediawiki} having peaked at 7,253 in 2012--13 and fallen every year since. A \"college\" in the US can refer to a constituent part of a university (which can be a residential college, the sub-division of the university offering undergraduate courses, or a school of the university offering particular specialized courses), an independent institution offering bachelor\'s-level courses, or an institution offering instruction in a particular professional, technical or vocational field. In popular usage, the word \"college\" is the generic term for any post-secondary undergraduate education. Americans \"go to college\" after high school, regardless of whether the specific institution is formally a college or a university. Some students choose to dual-enroll, by taking college classes while still in high school. The word and its derivatives are the standard terms used to describe the institutions and experiences associated with American post-secondary undergraduate education. Students must pay for college before taking classes. Some borrow the money via loans, and some students fund their educations with cash, scholarships, grants, or some combination of these payment methods. In 2011, the state or federal government subsidized \$8,000 to \$100,000 for each undergraduate degree. For state-owned schools (called \"public\" universities), the subsidy was given to the college, with the student benefiting from lower tuition. The state subsidized on average 50% of public university tuition. Colleges vary in terms of size, degree, and length of stay. Two-year colleges, also known as junior or community colleges, usually offer an associate degree, and four-year colleges usually offer a bachelor\'s degree. Often, these are entirely undergraduate institutions, although some have graduate school programs. Four-year institutions in the U.S. that emphasize a liberal arts curriculum are known as liberal arts colleges. Until the 20th century, liberal arts, law, medicine, theology, and divinity were about the only form of higher education available in the United States. These schools have traditionally emphasized instruction at the undergraduate level, although advanced research may still occur at these institutions. While there is no national standard in the United States, the term \"university\" primarily designates institutions that provide undergraduate and graduate education. A university typically has as its core and its largest internal division an undergraduate college teaching a liberal arts curriculum, also culminating in a bachelor\'s degree. What often distinguishes a university is having, in addition, one or more graduate schools engaged in both teaching graduate classes and in research. Often these would be called a School of Law or School of Medicine, (but may also be called a college of law, or a faculty of law). An exception is Vincennes University, Indiana, which is styled and chartered as a \"university\" even though almost all of its academic programs lead only to two-year associate degrees. Some institutions, such as Dartmouth College and The College of William & Mary, have retained the term \"college\" in their names for historical reasons. In one unique case, Boston College and Boston University, the former located in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts and the latter located in Boston, Massachusetts, are completely separate institutions. Usage of the terms varies among the states. In 1996, for example, Georgia changed all of its four-year institutions previously designated as colleges to universities, and all of its vocational technology schools to technical colleges. The terms \"university\" and \"college\" do not exhaust all possible titles for an American institution of higher education. Other options include \"institute\" (Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology), \"academy\" (United States Military Academy), \"union\" (Cooper Union), \"conservatory\" (New England Conservatory), and \"school\" (Juilliard School). In colloquial use, the institutions are still referred to as \"college\" when referring to undergraduate studies. The term *college* is also, as in the United Kingdom, used for a constituent semi-autonomous part of a larger university but generally organized on academic rather than residential lines. For example, at many institutions, the undergraduate portion of the university can be briefly referred to as **the college** (such as The College of the University of Chicago, Harvard College at Harvard, or Columbia College at Columbia) while at others, such as the University of California, Berkeley, \"colleges\" are collections of academic programs and other units that share some common characteristics, mission, or disciplinary focus (the \"college of engineering\", the \"college of nursing\", and so forth). There exist other variants for historical reasons, including some uses that exist because of mergers and acquisitions; for example, Duke University, which was called Trinity College until the 1920s, still calls its main undergraduate subdivision Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. #### Residential colleges {#residential_colleges} Some American universities, such as Princeton, Rice, and Yale have established residential colleges (sometimes, as at Harvard, the first to establish such a system in the 1930s, known as houses) along the lines of Oxford or Cambridge. Unlike the Oxbridge colleges, but similarly to Durham, these residential colleges are not autonomous legal entities nor are they typically much involved in education itself, being primarily concerned with room, board, and social life. At the University of Michigan, University of California, San Diego and the University of California, Santa Cruz, each residential college teaches its own core writing courses and has its own distinctive set of graduation requirements. Many American universities have placed increased emphasis on their residential colleges in recent years. This is exemplified by the creation of new colleges at Ivy League schools such as Yale University and Princeton University, and efforts to strengthen the contribution of the residential colleges to student education, including through a 2016 taskforce at Princeton on residential colleges. #### Origin of the American usage {#origin_of_the_american_usage} The founders of the first institutions of higher education in the United States were graduates of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. The small institutions they founded would not have seemed to them like universities -- they were tiny and did not offer the higher degrees in medicine and theology. Furthermore, they were not composed of several small colleges. Instead, the new institutions felt like the Oxford and Cambridge colleges they were used to -- small communities, housing and feeding their students, with instruction from residential tutors (as in the United Kingdom, described above). When the first students graduated, these \"colleges\" assumed the right to confer degrees upon them, usually with authority---for example, The College of William & Mary has a royal charter from the British monarchy allowing it to confer degrees while Dartmouth College has a charter permitting it to award degrees \"as are usually granted in either of the universities, or any other college in our realm of Great Britain.\" The leaders of Harvard College (which granted America\'s first degrees in 1642) might have thought of their college as the first of many residential colleges that would grow up into a New Cambridge university. However, over time, few new colleges were founded there, and Harvard grew and added higher faculties. Eventually, it changed its title to university, but the term \"college\" had stuck and \"colleges\" have arisen across the United States. In American English, the word \"college\" not only embodies a particular type of school, but has historically been used to refer to the general concept of undergraduate education when it is not necessary to specify a school, as in \"going to college\" or \"college savings accounts\" offered by banks. In a survey of more than 2,000 college students in 33 states and 156 different campuses, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group found the average student spends as much as \$1,200 each year on textbooks and supplies alone. By comparison, the group says that\'s the equivalent of 39 percent of tuition and fees at a community college, and 14 percent of tuition and fees at a four-year public university. #### Morrill Land-Grant Act {#morrill_land_grant_act} In addition to private colleges and universities, the U.S. also has a system of government funded, public universities. Many were founded under the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862. A movement had arisen to bring a form of more practical higher education to the masses, as \"\...many politicians and educators wanted to make it possible for all young Americans to receive some sort of advanced education.\" The Morrill Act \"\...made it possible for the new western states to establish colleges for the citizens.\" Its goal was to make higher education more easily accessible to the citizenry of the country, specifically to improve agricultural systems by providing training and scholarship in the production and sales of agricultural products, and to provide formal education in \"\...agriculture, home economics, mechanical arts, and other professions that seemed practical at the time.\" The act was eventually extended to allow all states that had remained with the Union during the American Civil War, and eventually all states, to establish such institutions. Most of the colleges established under the Morrill Act have since become full universities, and some are among the elite of the world. #### Benefits of college {#benefits_of_college} Selection of a four-year college as compared to a two-year junior college, even by marginal students such as those with a C+ grade average in high school and SAT scores in the mid 800s, increases the probability of graduation and confers substantial economic and social benefits. ## Asia ### Bangladesh In Bangladesh, educational institutions offering higher secondary (11th--12th grade) education are known as colleges. ### Hong Kong {#hong_kong} In Hong Kong, the term \'college\' is used by tertiary institutions as either part of their names or to refer to a constituent part of the university, such as the colleges in the collegiate The Chinese University of Hong Kong; or to a residence hall of a university, such as St. John\'s College, University of Hong Kong. Many older secondary schools have the term \'college\' as part of their names. ### India The modern system of education was heavily influenced by the British starting in 1835. In India, the term \"college\" is commonly reserved for institutions that offer high school diplomas at year 12 (\"*Junior College*\", similar to American *high schools*), and those that offer the bachelor\'s degree; some colleges, however, offer programmes up to PhD level. Generally, colleges are located in different parts of a state and all of them are affiliated to a regional university. The colleges offer programmes leading to degrees of that university. Colleges may be either Autonomous or non-autonomous. Autonomous Colleges are empowered to establish their own syllabus, and conduct and assess their own examinations; in non-autonomous colleges, examinations are conducted by the university, at the same time for all colleges under its affiliation. There are several hundred universities and each university has affiliated colleges, often a large number. The first liberal arts and sciences college in India was \"Cottayam College\" or the \"Syrian College\", Kerala in 1815. The First inter linguistic residential education institution in Asia was started at this college. At present it is a Theological seminary which is popularly known as Orthodox Theological Seminary or Old Seminary. After that, CMS College, Kottayam, established in 1817, and the Presidency College, Kolkata, also 1817, initially known as Hindu College. The first college for the study of Christian theology and ecumenical enquiry was Serampore College (1818). The first Missionary institution to impart Western style education in India was the Scottish Church College, Calcutta (1830). The first commerce and economics college in India was Sydenham College, Mumbai (1913). In India a new term has been introduced that is Autonomous Institutes & Colleges. An autonomous Colleges are colleges which need to be affiliated to a certain university. These colleges can conduct their own admission procedure, examination syllabus, fees structure etc. However, at the end of course completion, they cannot issue their own degree or diploma. The final degree or diploma is issued by the affiliated university. Also, some significant changes can pave way under the NEP (New Education Policy 2020) which may affect the present guidelines for universities and colleges. Implemented in the 2023--2024 academic year, the new education policy is said to fill the gaps and cover the drawbacks of the Indian education system. ### Israel thumb\|upright=0.75\|Braude College of Engineering In Israel, any non-university higher-learning facility is called a college. Institutions accredited by the Council for Higher Education in Israel (CHE) to confer a bachelor\'s degree are called \"academic colleges\" (*Mikhlala*; plural *Mikhlalot*). These colleges (at least 4 for 2012) may also offer master\'s degrees and act as research facilities. There are also over twenty teacher training colleges or seminaries, most of which may award only a Bachelor of Education (BEd) degree. - Academic colleges: Any educational facility that had been approved to offer at least bachelor\'s degree is entitled by CHE to use the term \"academic college\" in its name. - Engineering academic college: Any academic facility that offers at least a bachelor\'s degree and most of it faculties are providing an engineering degree and engineering license. - Educational academic college: After an educational facility that had been approved for \"teachers seminar\" status is then approved to provide a Bachelor of Education, its name is changed to include \"educational academic college.\" - Technical college: A \"technical college\" (*מכללה טכנולוגית*) is an educational facility that is approved to allow to provide P.E. degree (*הנדסאי*; 14\'th class) or technician (*טכנאי*; 13\'th class) diploma and licenses. - Training College: A \"training college\" (*מכללה להכשרה* or *מכללה מקצועית*) is an educational facility that provides basic training allowing a person to receive a working permit in a field such as alternative medicine, cooking, art, mechanic, electrician and other professions. A trainee could receive the right to work in certain professions as apprentice (j. mechanic, j. electrician etc.). After working in the training field for enough time, an apprentice can receive a license to operate as mechanic or electrician) This educational facility is mostly used to provide basic training for low tech jobs and for job seekers without any training that are provided by the nation\'s Employment Service (שירות התעסוקה). ### Macau Following the Portuguese usage, the term \"college\" (*colégio*) in Macau has traditionally been used in the names for private (and non-governmental) pre-university educational institutions, which correspond to form one to form six level tiers. Such schools are usually run by the Roman Catholic church or missionaries in Macau. Examples include Chan Sui Ki Perpetual Help College, Yuet Wah College, and Sacred Heart Canossian College. ### Philippines In the Philippines, colleges usually refer to institutions of learning that grant degrees but whose scholastic fields are not as diverse as that of a university (University of Santo Tomas, University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, Far Eastern University, and AMA University), such as the San Beda College which specializes in law, AMA Computer College whose campuses are spread all over the Philippines which specializes in information and computing technologies, and the Mapúa Institute of Technology which specializes in engineering, or to component units within universities that do not grant degrees but rather facilitate the instruction of a particular field, such as a College of Science and College of Engineering, among many other colleges of the University of the Philippines. A state college may not have the word \"college\" on its name, but may have several component colleges, or departments. Thus, the Eulogio Amang Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology is a state college by classification. Usually, the term \"college\" is also thought of as a hierarchical demarcation between the term \"university\", and quite a number of colleges seek to be recognized as universities as a sign of improvement in academic standards (Colegio de San Juan de Letran, San Beda College), and increase in the diversity of the offered degree programs (called \"courses\"). For private colleges, this may be done through a survey and evaluation by the Commission on Higher Education and accrediting organizations, as was the case of Urios College which is now the Fr. Saturnino Urios University. For state colleges, it is usually done by a legislation by the Congress or Senate. In common usage, \"going to college\" simply means attending school for an undergraduate degree, whether it\'s from an institution recognized as a college or a university. When it comes to referring to the level of education, *college* is the term more used to be synonymous to tertiary or higher education. A student who is or has studied his/her undergraduate degree at either an institution with *college* or *university* in its name is considered to be going to or have gone to *college*. ### Singapore The term \"college\" in Singapore is generally only used for pre-university educational institutions called \"Junior Colleges\", which provide the final two years of secondary education (equivalent to sixth form in British terms or grades 11--12 in the American system). Since 1 January 2005, the term also refers to the three campuses of the Institute of Technical Education with the introduction of the \"collegiate system\", in which the three institutions are called ITE College East, ITE College Central, and ITE College West respectively. The term \"university\" is used to describe higher-education institutions offering locally conferred degrees. Institutions offering diplomas are called \"polytechnics\", while other institutions are often referred to as \"institutes\" and so forth. ### Sri Lanka {#sri_lanka} There are several professional and vocational institutions that offer post-secondary education without granting degrees that are referred to as \"colleges\". This includes the Sri Lanka Law College, the many Technical Colleges and Teaching Colleges. ### Turkey In Turkey, the term \"kolej\" (college) refers to a private high school, typically preceded by one year of preparatory language education. Notable Turkish colleges include Robert College, Uskudar American Academy, American Collegiate Institute and Tarsus American College. ## Africa ### South Africa {#south_africa} Although the term \"college\" is hardly used in any context at any university in South Africa, some non-university tertiary institutions call themselves colleges. These include teacher training colleges, business colleges and wildlife management colleges. See: List of universities in South Africa#Private colleges and universities; List of post secondary institutions in South Africa. ### Zimbabwe The term college is mainly used by private or independent secondary schools with Advanced Level (Upper 6th formers) and also Polytechnic Colleges which confer diplomas only. A student can complete secondary education (International General Certificate of Secondary Education, IGCSE) at 16 years and proceed straight to a poly-technical college or they can proceed to Advanced level (16 to 19 years) and obtain a General Certificate of Education (GCE) certificate which enables them to enroll at a university, provided they have good grades. Alternatively, with lower grades, the GCE certificate holders will have an added advantage over their GCSE counterparts if they choose to enroll at a polytechnical college. Some schools in Zimbabwe choose to offer the International Baccalaureate studies as an alternative to the IGCSE and GCE. ## Europe ### Greece ***Kollegio*** (in Greek Κολλέγιο) refers to the Centers of Post-Lyceum Education (in Greek Κέντρο Μεταλυκειακής Εκπαίδευσης, abbreviated as KEME), which are principally private and belong to the Greek post-secondary education system. Some of them have links to EU or US higher education institutions or accreditation organizations, such as the NEASC. *Kollegio* (or *Kollegia* in plural) may also refer to private non-tertiary schools, such as the Athens College. ### Ireland thumb\|upright=1.25\|right\|Parliament Square, Trinity College Dublin in Ireland In Ireland the term \"college\" is normally used to describe an institution of tertiary education. University students often say they attend \"college\" rather than \"university\". Until 1989, no university provided teaching or research directly; they were formally offered by a constituent college of the university. There are number of secondary education institutions that traditionally used the word \"college\" in their names: these are either older, private schools (such as Belvedere College, Gonzaga College, Castleknock College, and St. Michael\'s College) or what were formerly a particular kind of secondary school. These secondary schools, formerly known as \"technical colleges,\" were renamed \"community colleges,\" but remain secondary schools. The country\'s only ancient university is the University of Dublin. Created during the reign of Elizabeth I, it is modelled on the collegiate universities of Cambridge and Oxford. However, only one constituent college was ever founded, hence the curious position of Trinity College Dublin today; although both are usually considered one and the same, the university and college are completely distinct corporate entities with separate and parallel governing structures. Among more modern foundations, the National University of Ireland, founded in 1908, consisted of constituent colleges and recognised colleges until 1997. The former are now referred to as constituent universities -- institutions that are essentially universities in their own right. The National University can trace its existence back to 1850 and the creation of the Queen\'s University of Ireland and the creation of the Catholic University of Ireland in 1854. From 1880, the degree awarding roles of these two universities was taken over by the Royal University of Ireland, which remained until the creation of the National University in 1908 and Queen\'s University Belfast. The state\'s two new universities, Dublin City University and University of Limerick, were initially National Institute for Higher Education institutions. These institutions offered university level academic degrees and research from the start of their existence and were awarded university status in 1989 in recognition of this. Third level technical education in the state has been carried out in the Institutes of Technology, which were established from the 1970s as Regional Technical Colleges. These institutions have *delegated authority* which entitles them to give degrees and diplomas from Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) in their own names. A number of private colleges exist such as Dublin Business School, providing undergraduate and postgraduate courses validated by QQI and in some cases by other universities. Other types of college include colleges of education, such as the Church of Ireland College of Education. These are specialist institutions, often linked to a university, which provide both undergraduate and postgraduate academic degrees for people who want to train as teachers. A number of state-funded further education colleges exist -- which offer vocational education and training in a range of areas from business studies and information and communications technology to sports injury therapy. These courses are usually one, two or less often three years in duration and are validated by QQI at Levels 5 or 6, or for the BTEC Higher National Diploma award, which is a Level 6/7 qualification, validated by Edexcel. There are numerous private colleges (particularly in Dublin and Limerick) which offer both further and higher education qualifications. These degrees and diplomas are often certified by foreign universities/international awarding bodies and are aligned to the National Framework of Qualifications at Levels 6, 7 and 8. ### Netherlands In the Netherlands there are 3 main educational routes after high school. - MBO (middle-level applied education), which is the equivalent of junior college. Designed to prepare students for either skilled trades and technical occupations and workers in support roles in professions such as engineering, accountancy, business administration, nursing, medicine, architecture, and criminology or for additional education at another college with more advanced academic material. - HBO (higher professional education), which is the equivalent of college and has a professional orientation. After HBO (typically 4--6 years), pupils can enroll in a (professional) master\'s program (1--2 years) or enter the job market. The HBO is taught in vocational universities (hogescholen), of which there are over 40 in the Netherlands, each of which offers a broad variety of programs, with the exception of some that specialize in arts or agriculture. Note that the hogescholen are not allowed to name themselves university in Dutch. This also stretches to English and therefore HBO institutions are known as universities of applied sciences. - WO (Scientific education), which is the equivalent to university level education and has an academic orientation. HBO graduates can be awarded two titles, which are Baccalaureus (bc.) and Ingenieur (ing.). At a WO institution, many more bachelor\'s and master\'s titles can be awarded. Bachelor\'s degrees: Bachelor of Arts (BA), Bachelor of Science (BSc) and Bachelor of Laws (LLB). Master\'s degrees: Master of Arts (MA), Master of Laws (LLM) and Master of Science (MSc). The PhD title is a research degree awarded upon completion and defense of a doctoral thesis. ### Portugal Presently in Portugal, the term *colégio* (college) is normally used as a generic reference to a private (non-government) school that provides from basic to secondary education. Many of the private schools include the term *colégio* in their name. Some special public schools -- usually of the boarding school type -- also include the term in their name, with a notable example being the *Colégio Militar* (Military College). The term *colégio interno* (literally \"internal college\") is used specifically as a generic reference to a boarding school. Until the 19th century, a *colégio* was usually a secondary or pre-university school, of public or religious nature, where the students usually lived together. A model for these colleges was the Royal College of Arts and Humanities, founded in Coimbra by King John III of Portugal in 1542. ### United Kingdom {#united_kingdom} #### Secondary education and further education {#secondary_education_and_further_education} Further education (FE) colleges and sixth form colleges are institutions providing further education to students over 16. Some of these also provide higher education courses (see below). In the context of secondary education, \'college\' is used in the names of some private schools, e.g. Eton College and Winchester College. #### Higher education {#higher_education_1} In higher education, a college is normally a provider that does not hold university status, although it can also refer to a constituent part of a collegiate or federal university or a grouping of academic faculties or departments within a university. Traditionally the distinction between colleges and universities was that colleges did not award degrees while universities did, but this is no longer the case with NCG having gained taught degree awarding powers (the same as some universities) on behalf of its colleges, and many of the colleges of the University of London holding full degree awarding powers and being effectively universities. Most colleges, however, do not hold their own degree awarding powers and continue to offer higher education courses that are validated by universities or other institutions that can award degrees. In England, `{{as of|2016|August|lc=y}}`{=mediawiki}, over 60% of the higher education providers directly funded by HEFCE (208/340) are sixth-form or further education colleges, often termed colleges of further and higher education, along with 17 colleges of the University of London, one university college, 100 universities, and 14 other providers (six of which use \'college\' in their name). Overall, this means over two-thirds of state-supported higher education providers in England are colleges of one form or another. Many private providers are also called colleges, e.g. the New College of the Humanities and St Patrick\'s College, London. Colleges within universities vary immensely in their responsibilities. The large constituent colleges of the University of London are effectively universities in their own right; colleges in some universities, including those of the University of the Arts London and smaller colleges of the University of London, run their own degree courses but do not award degrees; those at the University of Roehampton provide accommodation and pastoral care as well as delivering the teaching on university courses; those at Oxford and Cambridge deliver some teaching on university courses as well as providing accommodation and pastoral care; and those in Durham, Kent, Lancaster and York provide accommodation and pastoral care but do not normally participate in formal teaching. The legal status of these colleges also varies widely, with University of London colleges being independent corporations and recognised bodies, Oxbridge colleges, colleges of the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) and some Durham colleges being independent corporations and listed bodies, most Durham colleges being owned by the university but still listed bodies, and those of other collegiate universities not having formal recognition. When applying for undergraduate courses through UCAS, University of London colleges are treated as independent providers, colleges of Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and UHI are treated as locations within the universities that can be selected by specifying a \'campus code\' in addition to selecting the university, and colleges of other universities are not recognised. The UHI and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) both include further education colleges. However, while the UHI colleges integrate FE and HE provision, UWTSD maintains a separation between the university campuses (Lampeter, Carmarthen and Swansea) and the two colleges (*Coleg Sir Gâr* and *Coleg Ceredigion*; n.b. *coleg* is Welsh for college), which although part of the same group are treated as separate institutions rather than colleges within the university. A university college is an independent institution with the power to award taught degrees, but which has not been granted university status. University College is a protected title that can only be used with permission, although note that University College London, University College, Oxford and University College, Durham are colleges within their respective universities and not university colleges (in the case of UCL holding full degree awarding powers that set it above a university college), while University College Birmingham is a university in its own right and also not a university college. ## Oceania ### Australia In Australia a college may be an institution of tertiary education that is smaller than a university, run independently or as part of a university. Following a reform in the 1980s many of the formerly independent colleges now belong to a larger universities. Referring to parts of a university, there are *residential colleges* which provide residence for students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, called university colleges. These colleges often provide additional tutorial assistance, and some host theological study. Many colleges have strong traditions and rituals, so are a combination of dormitory style accommodation and fraternity or sorority culture. Most technical and further education institutions (TAFEs), which offer certificate and diploma vocational courses, are styled \"TAFE colleges\" or \"Colleges of TAFE\". In some places, such as Tasmania, college refers to a type of school for Year 10, 11 and 12 students, e.g. Don College. ### New Zealand {#new_zealand} The constituent colleges of the former University of New Zealand (such as Canterbury University College) have become independent universities. Some halls of residence associated with New Zealand universities retain the name of \"college\", particularly at the University of Otago (which although brought under the umbrella of the University of New Zealand, already possessed university status and degree awarding powers). The institutions formerly known as \"Teacher-training colleges\" now style themselves \"College of education\". Some universities, such as the University of Canterbury, have divided their university into constituent administrative \"Colleges\" -- the College of Arts containing departments that teach Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Science containing Science departments, and so on. This is largely modelled on the Cambridge model, discussed above. Like the United Kingdom some professional bodies in New Zealand style themselves as \"colleges\", for example, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. In some parts of the country, secondary school is often referred to as college and the term is used interchangeably with high school. This sometimes confuses people from other parts of New Zealand. But in all parts of the country many secondary schools have \"College\" in their name, such as Rangitoto College, New Zealand\'s largest secondary.

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Civil Rights Memorial

The **Civil Rights Memorial** is an American memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, created by Maya Lin. The names of 41 people are inscribed on the granite fountain as martyrs who were killed in the civil rights movement. The memorial is sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center. ## Design The names included in the memorial belong to those who were killed between 1955 and 1968. The dates chosen represent a time when legalized segregation was prominent. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in *Brown v. Board of Education* that racial segregation in schools was unlawful and 1968 is the year of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The monument was created by Maya Lin, who also created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Civil Rights Memorial was dedicated in 1989. The concept of Lin\'s design is based on the soothing and healing effect of water. It was inspired by a passage from King\'s 1963 \"I Have a Dream\" speech \"\...we will not be satisfied \"until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream\...\" The quotation in the passage, which is inscribed on the memorial, is a direct paraphrase of Amos 5:24, as translated in the American Standard Version of the Bible. The memorial is a fountain in the form of an asymmetric inverted stone cone. A film of water flows over the base of the cone, which contains the 41 names included. It is possible to touch the smooth film of water and to alter it temporarily, which quickly returns to smoothness. The memorial is designed in a timeline manner. It begins with Brown v. Board in 1954, and ends with Martin Luther King Jr.\'s assassination in 1968. ## Tours and location {#tours_and_location} The memorial is in downtown Montgomery, at 400 Washington Avenue, in an open plaza in front of the Civil Rights Memorial Center, which was the offices of the Southern Poverty Law Center until it moved across the street into a new building in 2001. The memorial may be visited freely 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Civil Rights Memorial Center offers guided group tours, lasting approximately one hour. Tours are available by appointment, Monday to Saturday. The memorial is only a few blocks from other historic sites, including the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, the Alabama State Capitol, the Alabama Department of Archives and History, the corners where Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks boarded buses in 1955 on which they would later refuse to give up their seats, and the Rosa Parks Library and Museum. ## Names included {#names_included} ### \"Civil Rights Martyrs\" {#civil_rights_martyrs} The 41 names included in the Civil Rights Memorial are those of: - Louis Allen - Willie Brewster - Benjamin Brown - Johnnie Mae Chappell - James Chaney - Addie Mae Collins - Vernon Dahmer - Jonathan Daniels - Henry Hezekiah Dee - Roman Ducksworth Jr. - Willie Edwards - Medgar Evers - Andrew Goodman - Paul Guihard - Samuel Hammond Jr. - Jimmie Lee Jackson - Wharlest Jackson - Martin Luther King Jr. - Bruce W. Klunder - George W. Lee - Herbert Lee - Viola Liuzzo - Denise McNair - Delano Herman Middleton - Charles Eddie Moore - Oneal Moore - William Lewis Moore - Mack Charles Parker - Lemuel Penn - James Reeb - John Earl Reese - Carole Robertson - Michael Schwerner - Henry Ezekial Smith - Lamar Smith - Emmett Till - Clarence Triggs - Virgil Lamar Ware - Cynthia Wesley - Ben Chester White - Sammy Younge Jr. ### \"The Forgotten\" {#the_forgotten} \"The Forgotten\" are 74 people who are identified in a display at the Civil Rights Memorial Center. These names were not inscribed on the Memorial because there was insufficient information about their deaths at the time the Memorial was created. However, it is thought that these people were killed as a result of racially motivated violence between 1952 and 1968. - Andrew Lee Anderson - Frank Andrews - Isadore Banks - Larry Bolden - James Brazier - Thomas Brewer - Hilliard Brooks - Charles Brown - Jessie Brown - Carrie Brumfield - Eli Brumfield - Silas (Ernest) Caston - Clarence Cloninger - Willie Countryman - Vincent Dahmon - Woodrow Wilson Daniels - Joseph Hill Dumas - Pheld Evans - J. E. Evanston - Mattie Greene - Jasper Greenwood - Jimmie Lee Griffith - A. C. Hall - Rogers Hamilton - Collie Hampton - Alphonso Harris - Izell Henry - Arthur James Hill - Ernest Hunter - Luther Jackson - Ernest Jells - Joe Franklin Jeter - Marshall Johnson - John Lee - Willie Henry Lee - Richard Lillard - George Love - Robert McNair - Maybelle Mahone - Sylvester Maxwell - Clinton Melton - James Andrew Miller - Booker T. Mixon - Nehemiah Montgomery - Frank Morris - James Earl Motley - Sam O\'Quinn - Hubert Orsby - Larry Payne - C. H. Pickett - Albert Pitts - David Pitts - Ernest McPharland - Jimmy Powell - William Roy Prather - Johnny Queen - Donald Rasberry - Fred Robinson - Johnny Robinson - Willie Joe Sanford - Marshall Scott Jr. - Jessie James Shelby - W. G. Singleton - Ed Smith - Eddie James Stewart - Isaiah Taylor - Freddie Lee Thomas - Saleam Triggs - Hubert Varner - Clifton Walker - James Waymers - John Wesley Wilder - Rodell Williamson - Archie Wooden

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,704

Comic strip

}} `{{Globalize|1=article|2=United States|date=December 2023}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Comics navbar|title=Comic strip|image=Little Nemo 1907-09-29.jpg|caption=[[Winsor McCay]]'s ''[[Little Nemo]]'' (1905), an American [[Sunday strip|Sunday comic strip]] featuring a heightened use of perspective, a sequential narrative in panel tiers, and dream-like plots}}`{=mediawiki} A **comic strip** is a sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics. Most strips are written and drawn by a comics artist, known as a cartoonist. As the word \"comic\" implies, strips are frequently humorous. Examples of these gag-a-day strips are *Blondie*, *Bringing Up Father*, *Marmaduke*, and *Pearls Before Swine*. In the late 1920s, comic strips expanded from their mirthful origins to feature adventure stories, as seen in *Popeye*, *Captain Easy*, *Buck Rogers*, *Tarzan*, and *Terry and the Pirates*. In the 1940s, soap-opera-continuity strips such as *Judge Parker* and *Mary Worth* gained popularity. Because \"comic\" strips are not always funny, cartoonist Will Eisner has suggested that sequential art would be a better genre-neutral name. Comic strips have appeared inside American magazines such as *Liberty* and *Boys\' Life*, but also on the front covers, such as the *Flossy Frills* series on *The American Weekly* Sunday newspaper supplement. In the UK and the rest of Europe, comic strips are also serialized in *comic book magazines*, with a strip\'s story sometimes continuing over three pages. ## History Storytelling using a sequence of pictures has existed through history. One medieval European example in textile form is the Bayeux Tapestry. Printed examples emerged in 19th-century Germany and in mid 18th-century England, where some of the first satirical or humorous sequential narrative drawings were produced. William Hogarth\'s 18th-century English caricature include both narrative sequences, such as *A Rake\'s Progress*, and single panels. The *Biblia pauperum* (\"Paupers\' Bible\"), a tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the Late Middle Ages, sometimes depicted Biblical events with words spoken by the figures in the miniatures written on scrolls coming out of their mouths---which makes them to some extent ancestors of the modern cartoon strips. In China, with its traditions of block printing and of the incorporation of text with image, experiments with what became *lianhuanhua* date back to 1884. The origin of the modern English language comic strip can be traced to the efflorescence of caricature in late 18th century London. English caricaturists such as Richard Newton and George Woodward developed sophisticated caricature styles using strips of expressive comic figures with captions that could be read left to right to cumulative effect, as well as business models for advertising and selling cheap comic illustration on regular subscription. Other leading British caricaturists produced strips as well; for example James Gillray in *Democracy;-or-a Sketch of the Life of Buonaparte*. His contemporary Thomas Rowlandson used strips as early as 1784 for example in *The Loves of the Fox and the Badger*. Rowlandson may also be credited with inventing the first internationally recognized comic strip character: *Doctor Syntax* whose picaresque journeys through England were told through a series of comic etchings, accompanied by verse. Original published in parts between 1809 and 1811 in Rudolf Ackermann\'s *Poetical Magazine*, in book form *The Tour of Doctor Syntax in search of the picturesque* ran to 9 editions between 1812 and 1819, spun off two sequels, a prequel, numerous pirate imitations and copies including French, German, Danish and translations. His image was available on pottery, textiles wallpaper and other merchandise. The Caricature Magazine or Hudibrastic Mirror, an influential English comic series published in London between 1807 and 1819 by Thomas Tegg included some satirical stories in comic strip format such as *The Adventures of Johnny Newcome*. ## Newspapers The first newspaper comic strips appeared in North America in the late 19th century. *The Yellow Kid* is usually credited as one of the first **newspaper strips** . However, the art form combining words and pictures developed gradually and there are many examples which led up to the comic strip. *The Glasgow Looking Glass* was the first mass-produced publication to tell stories using illustrations and is regarded as the world\'s first comic strip. It satirised the political and social life of Scotland in the 1820s. It was conceived and illustrated by William Heath. Swiss author and caricature artist Rodolphe Töpffer (Geneva, 1799--1846) is considered the father of the modern comic strips. His illustrated stories such as *Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois* (1827), first published in the US in 1842 as *The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck* or *Histoire de Monsieur Jabot* (1831), inspired subsequent generations of German and American comic artists. In 1865, German painter, author, and caricaturist Wilhelm Busch created the strip *Max and Moritz*, about two trouble-making boys, which had a direct influence on the American comic strip. *Max and Moritz* was a series of seven severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children\'s stories such as *Struwwelpeter* (\"Shockheaded Peter\"). In the story\'s final act, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill, and consumed by a flock of geese (without anybody mourning their demise). *Max and Moritz* provided an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks, who created the *Katzenjammer Kids* in 1897---a strip starring two German-American boys visually modelled on *Max and Moritz*. Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, sawing logs for snoring, speech balloons, and thought balloons originated in Dirks\' strip. Hugely popular, *Katzenjammer Kids* occasioned one of the first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left William Randolph Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Joseph Pulitzer, it was an unusual move, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst. In a highly unusual court decision, Hearst retained the rights to the name \"Katzenjammer Kids\", while creator Dirks retained the rights to the characters. Hearst promptly hired Harold Knerr to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version *Hans and Fritz* (later, *The Captain and the Kids*). Thus, two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks\' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate, ran until 1979. In the United States, the great popularity of comics sprang from the newspaper war (1887 onwards) between Pulitzer and Hearst. *The Little Bears* (1893--96) was the first American comic strip with recurring characters, while the first color comic supplement was published by the *Chicago Inter-Ocean* sometime in the latter half of 1892, followed by the *New York Journal*{{\'}}s first color Sunday comic pages in 1897. On January 31, 1912, Hearst introduced the nation\'s first full daily comic page in his *New York Evening Journal*. The history of this newspaper rivalry and the rapid appearance of comic strips in most major American newspapers is discussed by Ian Gordon. Numerous events in newspaper comic strips have reverberated throughout society at large, though few of these events occurred in recent years, owing mainly to the declining use of continuous storylines on newspaper comic strips, which since the 1970s had been waning as an entertainment form. From 1903 to 1905 Gustave Verbeek, wrote his comic series \"The UpsideDowns of Old Man Muffaroo and Little Lady Lovekins\". These comics were made in such a way that one could read the 6 panel comic, flip the book and keep reading. He made 64 such comics in total. The longest-running American comic strips are: 1. *The Katzenjammer Kids* (1897--2006; 109 years) 2. *Gasoline Alley* (1918--present) 3. *Ripley\'s Believe It or Not!* (1918--present) 4. *Barney Google and Snuffy Smith* (1919--present) 5. *Thimble Theater/Popeye* (1919--present) 6. *Blondie* (1930--present) 7. *Dick Tracy* (1931--present) 8. *Alley Oop* (1932--present) 9. *Bringing Up Father* (1913--2000; 87 years) 10. *Little Orphan Annie* (1924--2010; 86 years) Most newspaper comic strips are syndicated; a syndicate hires people to write and draw a strip and then distributes it to many newspapers for a fee. Some newspaper strips begin or remain exclusive to one newspaper. For example, the *Pogo* comic strip by Walt Kelly originally appeared only in the *New York Star* in 1948 and was not picked up for syndication until the following year. Newspaper comic strips come in two different types: daily strips and Sunday strips. In the United States, a daily strip appears in newspapers on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays. Daily strips usually are printed in black and white, and Sunday strips are usually in color. However, a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers have published Sunday strips in black and white. ## Popularity Making his first appearance in the British magazine *Judy* by writer and fledgling artist Charles H. Ross in 1867, Ally Sloper is one of the earliest comic strip characters and he is regarded as the first recurring character in comics. The highly popular character was spun off into his own comic, *Ally Sloper\'s Half Holiday*, in 1884. While in the early 20th century comic strips were a frequent target for detractors of \"yellow journalism\", by the 1920s the medium became wildly popular. While radio, and later, television surpassed newspapers as a means of entertainment, most comic strip characters were widely recognizable until the 1980s, and the \"funny pages\" were often arranged in a way they appeared at the front of Sunday editions. In 1931, George Gallup\'s first poll had the comic section as the most important part of the newspaper, with additional surveys pointing out that the comic strips were the second most popular feature after the picture page. During the 1930s, many comic sections had between 12 and 16 pages, although in some cases, these had up to 24 pages. The popularity and accessibility of strips meant they were often clipped and saved; authors including John Updike and Ray Bradbury have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Often posted on bulletin boards, clipped strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were faxed, photocopied or mailed. *The Baltimore Sun*{{\'}}s Linda White recalled, \"I followed the adventures of *Winnie Winkle*, *Moon Mullins* and *Dondi*, and waited each fall to see how Lucy would manage to trick Charlie Brown into trying to kick that football. (After I left for college, my father would clip out that strip each year and send it to me just to make sure I didn\'t miss it.)\" ## Production and format {#production_and_format} The two conventional formats for newspaper comics are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. A horizontal strip can also be used for a single panel with a single gag, as seen occasionally in Mike Peters\' *Mother Goose and Grimm*. Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches high. Initially, a newspaper page included only a single daily strip, usually either at the top or the bottom of the page. By the 1920s, many newspapers had a comics page on which many strips were collected together. During the 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high. Over decades, the daily strips became smaller and smaller, until by 2000, four standard daily strips could fit in an area once occupied by a single daily strip. As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced. Proof sheets were the means by which syndicates provided newspapers with black-and-white line art for the reproduction of strips (which they arranged to have colored in the case of Sunday strips). Michigan State University Comic Art Collection librarian Randy Scott describes these as \"large sheets of paper on which newspaper comics have traditionally been distributed to subscribing newspapers. Typically each sheet will have either six daily strips of a given title or one Sunday strip. Thus, a week of *Beetle Bailey* would arrive at the *Lansing State Journal* in two sheets, printed much larger than the final version and ready to be cut apart and fitted into the local comics page.\" Comic strip historian Allan Holtz described how strips were provided as mats (the plastic or cardboard trays in which molten metal is poured to make plates) or even plates ready to be put directly on the printing press. He also notes that with electronic means of distribution becoming more prevalent printed sheets \"are definitely on their way out.\" NEA Syndicate experimented briefly with a two-tier daily strip, *Star Hawks*, but after a few years, *Star Hawks* dropped down to a single tier. In Flanders, the two-tier strip is the standard publication style of most daily strips like *Spike and Suzy* and *Nero*. They appear Monday through Saturday; until 2003 there were no Sunday papers in Flanders. In the last decades, they have switched from black and white to color. ### Cartoon panels {#cartoon_panels} right\|thumb\|upright=1.6\|Jimmy Hatlo\'s *They\'ll Do It Every Time* was often drawn in the two-panel format as seen in this 1943 example. Single panels usually, but not always, are not broken up and lack continuity. The daily *Peanuts* is a strip, and the daily *Dennis the Menace* is a single panel. J. R. Williams\' long-run *Out Our Way* continued as a daily panel even after it expanded into a Sunday strip, *Out Our Way with the Willets*. Jimmy Hatlo\'s *They\'ll Do It Every Time* was often displayed in a two-panel format with the first panel showing some deceptive, pretentious, unwitting or scheming human behavior and the second panel revealing the truth of the situation. ## Sunday comics {#sunday_comics} right\|thumb\|upright=1.85\|Gene Ahern\'s *The Squirrel Cage* (January 3, 1937), an example of a topper strip which is better remembered than the strip it accompanied, Ahern\'s *Room and Board*. right\|thumb\|upright=1.5\|Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells\' *New Adventures of Flossy Frills* (January 26, 1941), an example of comic strips on Sunday magazines. Sunday newspapers traditionally included a special color section. Early Sunday strips (known colloquially as \"the funny pages/papers\", shortened to \"the funnies\"), such as *Thimble Theatre* and *Little Orphan Annie*, filled an entire newspaper page, a format known to collectors as full page. Sunday pages during the 1930s and into the 1940s often carried a secondary strip by the same artist as the main strip. No matter whether it appeared above or below a main strip, the extra strip was known as the topper, such as *The Squirrel Cage* which ran along with *Room and Board*, both drawn by Gene Ahern. During the 1930s, the original art for a Sunday strip was usually drawn quite large. For example, in 1930, Russ Westover drew his *Tillie the Toiler* Sunday page at a size of 17\" × 37\". In 1937, the cartoonist Dudley Fisher launched the innovative *Right Around Home*, drawn as a huge single panel filling an entire Sunday page. Full-page strips were eventually replaced by strips half that size. Strips such as *The Phantom* and *Terry and the Pirates* began appearing in a format of two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the *New Orleans Times Picayune*, or with one strip on a tabloid page, as in the *Chicago Sun-Times*. When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to allow for rearranged, cropped or dropped panels. During World War II, because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller because of increased paper and printing costs. The last full-page comic strip was the *Prince Valiant* strip for 11 April 1971. Comic strips have also been published in Sunday newspaper magazines. Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells\' *New Adventures of Flossy Frills* was a continuing strip series seen on Sunday magazine covers. Beginning January 26, 1941, it ran on the front covers of Hearst\'s *American Weekly* newspaper magazine supplement, continuing until March 30 of that year. Between 1939 and 1943, four different stories featuring Flossy appeared on *American Weekly* covers. Sunday comics sections employed offset color printing with multiple print runs imitating a wide range of colors. Printing plates were created with four or more colors---traditionally, the CMYK color model: cyan, magenta, yellow and \"K\" for black. With a screen of tiny dots on each printing plate, the dots allowed an image to be printed in a halftone that appears to the eye in different gradations. The semi-opaque property of ink allows halftone dots of different colors to create an optical effect of full-color imagery. ## Underground comic strips {#underground_comic_strips} The decade of the 1960s saw the rise of underground newspapers, which often carried comic strips, such as *Fritz the Cat* and *The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers*. *Zippy the Pinhead* initially appeared in underground publications in the 1970s before being syndicated. *Bloom County* and *Doonesbury* began as strips in college newspapers under different titles, and later moved to national syndication. Underground comic strips covered subjects that are usually taboo in newspaper strips, such as sex and drugs. Many underground artists, notably Vaughn Bode, Dan O\'Neill, Gilbert Shelton, and Art Spiegelman went on to draw comic strips for magazines such as *Playboy*, *National Lampoon*, and Pete Millar\'s *CARtoons*. Jay Lynch graduated from undergrounds to alternative weekly newspapers to *Mad* and children\'s books. ## Webcomics *Webcomics*, also known as *online comics* and *internet comics*, are comics that are available to read on the Internet. Many are exclusively published online, but the majority of traditional newspaper comic strips have some Internet presence. King Features Syndicate and other syndicates often provide archives of recent strips on their websites. Some, such as Scott Adams, creator of *Dilbert*, include an email address in each strip. ## Conventions and genres {#conventions_and_genres} Most comic strip characters do not age throughout the strip\'s life, but in some strips, like Lynn Johnston\'s award-winning *For Better or For Worse*, the characters age as the years pass. The first strip to feature aging characters was *Gasoline Alley*. The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include *The Phantom*, *Prince Valiant*, *Dick Tracy*, *Mary Worth*, *Modesty Blaise*, *Little Orphan Annie*, *Flash Gordon*, and *Tarzan*. Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books, for example *Superman*, *Batman*, and *The Amazing Spider-Man*. A number of strips have featured animals as main characters. Some are non-verbal (*Marmaduke*, *The Angriest Dog in the World*), some have verbal thoughts but are not understood by humans, (*Garfield*, Snoopy in *Peanuts*), and some can converse with humans (*Bloom County*, *Calvin and Hobbes*, *Mutts*, *Citizen Dog*, *Buckles*, *Get Fuzzy*, *Pearls Before Swine*, and *Pooch Cafe*). Other strips are centered entirely on animals, as in *Pogo* and *Donald Duck*. Gary Larson\'s *The Far Side* was unusual, as there were no central characters. Instead *The Far Side* used a wide variety of characters including humans, monsters, aliens, chickens, cows, worms, amoebas, and more. John McPherson\'s *Close to Home* also uses this theme, though the characters are mostly restricted to humans and real-life situations. Wiley Miller not only mixes human, animal, and fantasy characters, but also does several different comic strip continuities under one umbrella title, *Non Sequitur*. Bob Thaves\'s *Frank & Ernest* began in 1972 and paved the way for some of these strips, as its human characters were manifest in diverse forms---as animals, vegetables, and minerals. ## Social and political influence {#social_and_political_influence} The comics have long held a distorted mirror to contemporary society, and almost from the beginning have been used for political or social commentary. This ranged from the conservative slant of Harold Gray\'s *Little Orphan Annie* to the unabashed liberalism of Garry Trudeau\'s *Doonesbury*. Al Capp\'s *Li\'l Abner* espoused liberal opinions for most of its run, but by the late 1960s, it became a mouthpiece for Capp\'s repudiation of the counterculture of the 1960s. *Pogo* used animals to particularly devastating effect, caricaturing many prominent politicians of the day as animal denizens of Pogo\'s Okeefenokee Swamp. In a fearless move, Pogo\'s creator Walt Kelly took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, caricaturing him as a bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a megalomaniac who was bent on taking over the characters\' birdwatching club and rooting out all undesirables. Kelly also defended the medium against possible government regulation in the McCarthy era. At a time when comic books were coming under fire for supposed sexual, violent, and subversive content, Kelly feared the same would happen to comic strips. Going before the Congressional subcommittee, he proceeded to charm the members with his drawings and the force of his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire. During the early 20th century, comic strips were widely associated with publisher William Randolph Hearst, whose papers had the largest circulation of strips in the United States. Hearst was notorious for his practice of yellow journalism, and he was frowned on by readers of *The New York Times* and other newspapers which featured few or no comic strips. Hearst\'s critics often assumed that all the strips in his papers were fronts for his own political and social views. Hearst did occasionally work with or pitch ideas to cartoonists, most notably his continued support of George Herriman\'s *Krazy Kat*. An inspiration for Bill Watterson and other cartoonists, *Krazy Kat* gained a considerable following among intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s. Some comic strips, such as *Doonesbury* and *Mallard Fillmore*, may be printed on the editorial or op-ed page rather than the comics page because of their regular political commentary. For example, the August 12, 1974 *Doonesbury* strip was awarded a 1975 Pulitzer Prize for its depiction of the Watergate scandal. *Dilbert* is sometimes found in the business section of a newspaper instead of the comics page because of the strip\'s commentary about office politics, and *Tank McNamara* often appears on the sports page because of its subject matter. Lynn Johnston\'s *For Better or For Worse* created an uproar when Lawrence, one of the strip\'s supporting characters, came out of the closet. ## Publicity and recognition {#publicity_and_recognition} The world\'s longest comic strip is 88.9 m long and on display at Trafalgar Square as part of the London Comedy Festival. The London Cartoon Strip was created by 15 of Britain\'s best known cartoonists and depicts the history of London. The Reuben, named for cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is the most prestigious award for U.S. comic strip artists. Reuben awards are presented annually by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS). In 1995, the United States Postal Service issued a series of commemorative stamps, Comic Strip Classics, marking the comic-strip centennial. Today\'s strip artists, with the help of the NCS, enthusiastically promote the medium, which since the 1970s (and particularly the 1990s) has been considered to be in decline due to numerous factors such as changing tastes in humor and entertainment, the waning relevance of newspapers in general and the loss of most foreign markets outside English-speaking countries. One particularly humorous example of such promotional efforts is the Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie, held in 1997 on April Fool\'s Day, an event in which dozens of prominent artists took over each other\'s strips. *Garfield*{{\'}}s Jim Davis, for example, switched with *Blondie*{{\'}}s Stan Drake, while Scott Adams (*Dilbert*) traded strips with Bil Keane (*The Family Circus*). While the 1997 Switcheroonie was a one-time publicity stunt, an artist taking over a feature from its originator is an old tradition in newspaper cartooning (as it is in the comic book industry). In fact, the practice has made possible the longevity of the genre\'s more popular strips. Examples include *Little Orphan Annie* (drawn and plotted by Harold Gray from 1924 to 1944 and thereafter by a succession of artists including Leonard Starr and Andrew Pepoy), and *Terry and the Pirates*, started by Milton Caniff in 1934 and picked up by George Wunder. A business-driven variation has sometimes led to the same feature continuing under a different name. In one case, in the early 1940s, Don Flowers\' *Modest Maidens* was so admired by William Randolph Hearst that he lured Flowers away from the Associated Press and to King Features Syndicate by doubling the cartoonist\'s salary, and renamed the feature *Glamor Girls* to avoid legal action by the AP. The latter continued to publish *Modest Maidens*, drawn by Jay Allen in Flowers\' style. ## Issues in U.S. newspaper comic strips {#issues_in_u.s._newspaper_comic_strips} As newspapers have declined, the changes have affected comic strips. Jeff Reece, lifestyle editor of *The Florida Times-Union*, wrote, \"Comics are sort of the \'third rail\' of the newspaper.\" ### Size In the early decades of the 20th century, all Sunday comics received a full page, and daily strips were generally the width of the page. The competition between papers for having more cartoons than the rest from the mid-1920s, the growth of large-scale newspaper advertising during most of the thirties, paper rationing during World War II, the decline on news readership (as television newscasts began to be more common) and inflation (which has caused higher printing costs) beginning during the fifties and sixties led to Sunday strips being published on smaller and more diverse formats. As newspapers have reduced the page count of Sunday comic sections since the late 1990s (by the 2010s, most sections have only four pages, with the back page not always being destined for comics) has also led to further downsizes. Daily strips have suffered as well. Before the mid-1910s, there was not a \"standard\" size\", with strips running the entire width of a page or having more than one tier. By the 1920s, strips often covered six of the eight columns occupied by a traditional broadsheet paper. During the 1940s, strips were reduced to four columns wide (with a \"transition\" width of five columns). As newspapers became narrower beginning in the 1970s, strips have gotten even smaller, often being just three columns wide, a similar width to the one most daily panels occupied before the 1940s. In an issue related to size limitations, Sunday comics are often bound to rigid formats that allow their panels to be rearranged in several different ways while remaining readable. Such formats usually include throwaway panels at the beginning, which some newspapers will omit for space. As a result, cartoonists have less incentive to put great efforts into these panels. *Garfield* and *Mutts* were known during the mid-to-late 80s and 1990s respectively for their throwaways on their Sunday strips, however both strips now run \"generic\" title panels. Some cartoonists have complained about this, with Walt Kelly, creator of *Pogo,* openly voicing his discontent about being forced to draw his Sunday strips in such rigid formats from the beginning. Kelly\'s heirs opted to end the strip in 1975 as a form of protest against the practice. Since then, *Calvin and Hobbes* creator Bill Watterson has written extensively on the issue, arguing that size reduction and dropped panels reduce both the potential and freedom of a cartoonist. After a lengthy battle with his syndicate, Watterson won the privilege of making half page-sized Sunday strips where he could arrange the panels any way he liked. Many newspaper publishers and a few cartoonists objected to this, and some papers continued to print *Calvin and Hobbes* at small sizes. *Opus* won that same privilege years after *Calvin and Hobbes* ended, while Wiley Miller circumvented further downsizes by making his *Non Sequitur* Sunday strip available only in a vertical arrangement. Most strips created since 1990, however, are drawn in the unbroken \"third-page\" format. Few newspapers still run half-page strips, as with *Prince Valiant* and *Hägar the Horrible* in the front page of the *Reading Eagle* Sunday comics section until the mid-2010s. ### Format With the success of *The Gumps* during the 1920s, it became commonplace for strips (comedy- and adventure-laden alike) to have lengthy stories spanning weeks or months. The \"Monarch of Medioka\" story in Floyd Gottfredson\'s *Mickey Mouse* comic strip ran from September 8, 1937, to May 2, 1938. Between the 1960s and the late 1980s, as television news relegated newspaper reading to an occasional basis rather than daily, syndicators were abandoning long stories and urging cartoonists to switch to simple daily gags, or week-long \"storylines\" (with six consecutive (mostly unrelated) strips following a same subject), with longer storylines being used mainly on adventure-based and dramatic strips. Strips begun during the mid-1980s or after (such as *Get Fuzzy*, *Over the Hedge*, *Monty*, and others) are known for their heavy use of storylines, lasting between one and three weeks in most cases. The writing style of comic strips changed as well after World War II. With an increase in the number of college-educated readers, there was a shift away from slapstick comedy and towards more cerebral humor. Slapstick and visual gags became more confined to Sunday strips, because as *Garfield* creator Jim Davis put it, \"Children are more likely to read Sunday strips than dailies.\" ### Second author {#second_author} Many older strips are no longer drawn by the original cartoonist, who has either died or retired. Such strips are known as \"zombie strips\". A cartoonist, paid by the syndicate or sometimes a relative of the original cartoonist, continues writing the strip, a tradition that became commonplace in the early half of the 20th century. *Hägar the Horrible* and *Frank and Ernest* are both drawn by the sons of the creators. Some strips which are still in affiliation with the original creator are produced by small teams or entire companies, such as Jim Davis\' *Garfield*, however there is some debate if these strips fall in this category. This act is commonly criticized by modern cartoonists including Watterson and *Pearls Before Swine*\'s Stephan Pastis. The issue was addressed in six consecutive *Pearls* strips in 2005. Charles Schulz, of *Peanuts* fame, requested that his strip not be continued by another cartoonist after his death. He also rejected the idea of hiring an inker or letterer, comparing it to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts. Schulz\'s family has honored his wishes and refused numerous proposals by syndicators to continue *Peanuts* with a new author. #### Assistants Since the consolidation of newspaper comics by the first quarter of the 20th century, most cartoonists have used a group of assistants (with usually one of them credited). However, quite a few cartoonists (e.g.: George Herriman and Charles Schulz, among others) have done their strips almost completely by themselves; often criticizing the use of assistants for the same reasons most have about their editors hiring anyone else to continue their work after their retirement. ### Rights to the strips {#rights_to_the_strips} Historically, syndicates owned the creators\' work, enabling them to continue publishing the strip after the original creator retired, left the strip, or died. This practice led to the term \"legacy strips\", or more pejoratively \"zombie strips\". Most syndicates signed creators to 10- or even 20-year contracts. (There have been exceptions, however, such as Bud Fisher\'s *Mutt and Jeff* being an early---if not the earliest---case in which the creator retained ownership of his work.) Both these practices began to change with the 1970 debut of Universal Press Syndicate, as the company gave cartoonists a 50-percent ownership share of their work. Creators Syndicate, founded in 1987, granted artists full rights to the strips, something that Universal Press did in 1990, followed by King Features in 1995. By 1999 both Tribune Media Services and United Feature had begun granting ownership rights to creators (limited to new and/or hugely popular strips). ### Censorship Starting in the late 1940s, the national syndicates which distributed newspaper comic strips subjected them to very strict censorship. *Li\'l Abner* was censored in September 1947 and was pulled from the Pittsburgh Press by Scripps-Howard. The controversy, as reported in *Time*, centered on Capp\'s portrayal of the U.S. Senate. Said Edward Leech of Scripps, \"We don\'t think it is good editing or sound citizenship to picture the Senate as an assemblage of freaks and crooks\... boobs and undesirables.\" As comics are easier for children to access compared to other types of media, they have a significantly more rigid censorship code than other media. Stephan Pastis has lamented that the \"unwritten\" censorship code is still \"stuck somewhere in the 1950s\". Generally, comics are not allowed to include such words as \"damn\", \"sucks\", \"screwed\", and \"hell\", although there have been exceptions such as the September 22, 2010 *Mother Goose and Grimm* in which an elderly man says, \"This nursing home food sucks,\" and a pair of *Pearls Before Swine* comics from January 11, 2011, with a character named Ned using the word \"crappy\". Naked backsides and shooting guns cannot be shown, according to *Dilbert* cartoonist Scott Adams. Such comic strip taboos were detailed in Dave Breger\'s book *But That\'s Unprintable* (Bantam, 1955). Many issues such as sex, narcotics, and terrorism cannot or can very rarely be openly discussed in strips, although there are exceptions, usually for satire, as in *Bloom County*. This led some cartoonists to resort to double entendre or dialogue children do not understand, as in Greg Evans\' *Luann*. Another example of wordplay to get around censorship is a July 27, 2016 Pearls Before Swine strip that features Pig talking to his sister, and says the phrase \"I SIS!\" repeatedly after correcting his sister\'s grammar. The strip then cuts to a scene of a NSA wiretap agent, following a scene of Pig being arrested by the FBI saying \"Never correct your sister\'s grammar\", implying that the CIA mistook the phrase \"I SIS\" with \"ISIS\". Younger cartoonists have claimed commonplace words, images, and issues should be allowed in the comics, considering that the pressure on \"clean\" humor has been a chief factor for the declining popularity of comic strips since the 1990s (Aaron McGruder, creator of *The Boondocks*, decided to end his strip partly because of censorship issues, while the *Popeye* daily comic strip ended in 1994 after newspapers objected to a storyline they considered to be a satire on abortion). Some of the taboo words and topics are mentioned daily on television and other forms of visual media. Webcomics and comics distributed primarily to college newspapers are much freer in this respect.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,706

Çevik Bir

**Çevik Bir** (born 1939) is a Turkish retired army general. He was a member of the Turkish General Staff in the 1990s. He took a major part in several important international missions in the Middle East and North Africa. He was born in Buca, İzmir Province, in 1939 and is married with one child. He graduated from the Turkish Military Academy as an engineer officer in 1958, from the Army Staff College in 1970 and from the Armed Forces College in 1971. He graduated from NATO Defense College, Rome, Italy in 1973. From 1983 to 1985, he served at SHAPE, NATO\'s headquarters in Belgium. He was promoted to brigadier general and commanded an armed brigade and division in Turkey. From 1987 to 1991, he served as major general, and then was promoted to lieutenant general. After the dictator Siad Barre's ousting, conflicts between the General Mohammed Farah Aidid party and other clans in Somalia had led to famine and lawlessness throughout the country. An estimated 300,000 people had died from starvation. A combined military force of United States and United Nations (under the name \"UNOSOM\") were deployed to Mogadishu, to monitor the ceasefire and deliver food and supplies to the starving people of Somali. Çevik Bir, who was then a lieutenant-general of Turkey, became the force commander of UNOSOM II in April 1993. Despite the retreat of US and UN forces after several deaths due to local hostilities mainly led by Aidid, the introduction of a powerful military force opened the transportation routes, enabling the provision of supplies and ended the famine quickly. He was succeeded as Force Commander by a Malaysian general in January 1994. He became a four-star general and served three years as vice chairman of the Turkish Armed Forces, then appointed commander of the Turkish First Army, in Istanbul. While he was vice chairman of the TAF, he signed the Turkish-Israeli Military Coordination agreement in 1996. Çevik Bir became the Turkish army\'s deputy chief of general staff shortly after the Somali operation and played a vital role in establishing a Turkish-Israeli entente. He retired from the army on 30 August 1999. He is a former member of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). On 12 April 2012, Bir and 30 other officers were taken in custody for their role in the 1997 military memorandum that forced the then Turkish government, led by the Refah Partisi (Welfare Party), to step down. On 11 September 2021, the General Staff Personnel Presidency reported to the Ankara 5th High Criminal Court, where the case was heard, that the administrative action was taken to demolish the 13 retired generals convicted in the February 28 trial. Thus, Çevik Bir was demoted. Çevik Bir, one of the generals who planned the process, said \"In Turkey we have a marriage of Islam and democracy. (...) The child of this marriage is secularism. Now this child gets sick from time to time. The Turkish Armed Forces is the doctor which saves the child. Depending on how sick the kid is, we administer the necessary medicine to make sure the child recuperates\". ## Distinctions - United Nations Medal (1994) - US Medal of Merit (1994) - Turkish Armed Forces Medal of Distinguished Service (1995) - German Medal of Honor (1996) - Turkish Armed Forces Medal of Merit (1996) - United Kingdom Distinguished Achievement Medal (1997) - United Kingdom Distinguished Service Medal (1997) - Jordanian Medal of Istihkak (1998) - French Medal of Merit (1999)

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,714

Cornish Nationalist Party

The **Cornish Nationalist Party** (**CNP**; *An Parti Kenethlegek Kernow*) is a political party founded in 1975. It initially campaigned for independence for Cornwall but later supported devolved powers under central UK control. The CNP should not be confused other Cornish nationalist parties, including Mebyon Kernow (MK) from which the CNP split in 1975, or the similarly named Cornish National Party, which split from MK in 1969. ## History The party was formed on 28 May 1975 by people who left Mebyon Kernow, Cornwall\'s main nationalist party, and was first led by James Whetter. The split with Mebyon Kernow was based on two main debates. First was whether to be a centre-left party, appealing to the electorate on a social democratic line, or whether to appeal emotionally on a centre-right cultural line. At the time, the same debate was occurring in most political parties campaigning for autonomy from the United Kingdom, including the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. Second was whether to embrace devolution as a first step to full independence (or as the sole step if this was what the electorate wished) or for independence to be \"all or nothing\". The CNP represented a more right-wing outlook based on the belief that cultural arguments were more likely to win votes than economic`{{specify|date=August 2024}}`{=mediawiki} ones. The CNP worked to preserve the Celtic identity of Cornwall, and encouraged links with Cornish people overseas and with other regions with distinct identities. It also gave support to the Cornish language and commemorated Thomas Flamank, a leader of the Cornish Rebellion in 1497, at an annual ceremony at Bodmin on 27 June each year. It also worked to improve Cornwall\'s economy.`{{clarify|date=August 2024}}`{=mediawiki} Since the death of founder James Whetter in 2018, the CNP has been led by Androw Hawke. ### Electoral and campaign activity {#electoral_and_campaign_activity} Throughout its history, the CNP has been sporadically registered with the Electoral Commission, fielding candidates for some elections but not others. When not participating in elections it has often continued to act as a campaign group or pressure group, although its visibility and influence within Cornwall is negligible. It stood for national elections twice, in 1979 and 1983. In April 2009, a news story reported that the party had re-formed following a conference in Bodmin; however, it did not contest any elections that year. A newspaper article and a revamp of the party website in October 2014 state that the party planned to contest elections once more. The reformed party was registered with the Electoral Commission in 2014, but ceased to be registered in 2017. ### Indian office {#indian_office} In 1983 the party opened an office in India. The Indian office was established by Gagan Narayan Dua and published a periodical entitled *Cornish India*. ### Publications Whetter was the founder and editor of the CNP quarterly journal,`{{verify source|date=August 2024}}`{=mediawiki} *The Cornish Banner* (*An Baner Kernewek*), within the actions of the Roseland Institute. ## Elections and results {#elections_and_results} Year Election Constituency Candidate Votes \% Ref ------ ------------------------------ ----------------------- --------------- ------- ------ ----- 1979 UK general election Truro James Whetter 227 0.4 1983 UK general election North Cornwall James Whetter 364 0.67 1984 European Parliament election Cornwall and Plymouth James Whetter 1892 1.0 At the 1984 European Parliament election, the CNP was affiliated to the now defunct European Federalist Party (1974-1995). The CNP had one parish councillor, leader Androw Hawke who was elected to Polperro Community Council for the second time on 4 May 2017.`{{failed verification|date=August 2024}}`{=mediawiki} ## Policy ### Original policies {#original_policies} The Policy Statement of the CNP was published in 1975. The 1977 *Programme of the Cornish Nationalist Party* was laid out under multiple key points. World and continental government : The party promotes international federalism in which power is decentaralised \"to the true, natural identities and units\" to free Celtic nations from their \"imperialist overlords\". It will work to achieve autonomy for Cornwall to the degree \"necessary for her total fulfilment as a Celtic nation. It believes \"internationalism is based on strong nationalisms.\" Celtic confederation : The party will work to establish a confederation of the six Celtic countries with shared institutions, within a united Europe. The Cornish state : A Cornish state should have sovereign authority inside its traditional border and over its surrounding sea. Its national flag will be the flag of Saint Piran. The Isles of Scilly may have a referendum to decide on membership. Devolved powers may be an acceptable step towards this ultimate goal. Democratic government : Power within the Cornish state should also be decentralised to smaller units and these should be based on traditional hundred, parish and town boundaries. Legal system : Transition from the English legal system to \"Celtic Confederation Courts\", European courts, and UN courts. New court procedures will introduce the verdict \'not proven\' as in Scotland and treat crime against persons as more serious than property crime. Punishment will focus on rehabilitation. Language : Cornish will be the official language, the language of government, and eventually of education, via a process modelled on the revival of the Hebrew language in Israel. Mass communication : The Cornish state will have a free press. Publications and programming promoting Cornish and Celtic culture will be supported by the state. Aid will be given to the promotion of the party\'s *Cornish Banner* periodical. Social organisation and welfare : The party supports continuing welfare for the old, sick and young. For others it will \"encourage self-reliance and self-sufficiency\" instead of \"hand-outs\". Men and women will be equal but \"encouraged in their loyalties to old-established and traditional nuclear families\" as well as to local communities and to Cornwall. Housing : The party would end second homes and build housing to be bought affordably. Economy : Property rights will be respected and registered in the Cornish state. The economy will be based on a mixture of capitalist and socialist systems. Small businesses will be encouraged, while new industry will emerge \"naturally\" from \"market conditions\". English \"class antagnoism\" will be avoided in larger businesses via profit sharing and worker representation on boards. Farming will be encouraged and fishermen will have sole rights to seas within 50 miles. Cooperatives and unions will be formed. The state has rights to all natural resources in its territory, and extraction companies will pay a proportion of their value to the state. Tourism will be controlled in volume, given better amenities, and refocused on Cornish culture. Transport and communication : Improvements will avoid widening roads and removing hedgerows. Energy : The Cornish state will use existing resources and develop new ones, prioritising natural sources. Environment and ecology : The environment is unique and should be protected via education. People should be encouraged to build new buildings in a traditional Celtic style. Planning control will be minimal to ensure freedom. Sport : Cornish sports and sports that the Cornish are good at will be encouraged in schools and at the national or Celtic level. Culture and recreation : Traditional festivals, dances, literature and folklore will be promoted. Religion : Education should focus on Christianity and ancient Celtic religion. People should have freedom of religion. Youth : The party will develop a Cornish Youth Movement based on the Welsh Urdd Gobaith Cymru. Defence : The Cornish state will have a \"home defence force, linked to local communities and civil units of administration\". It will have no offence force but will contribute to Celtic, European and UN forces. Water rights will be protected by fishery protection vessels and gun boats. Rights may be leased to England for naval use. Foreign policy and ambassadorial recognition : The Cornish state will support international co-operation and justice as well as Celtic unity. Ambassadorial recognition of all but the most closely-linked stated will happen at the Celtic level. ### Other policies {#other_policies} Other policies have included:`{{when|date=August 2023}}`{=mediawiki} - Better job prospects for Cornish people. - Reduction of unemployment to an acceptable level (2.5%). - The protection of the self-employed and small businesses in Cornwall. - Cheaper housing and priority for Cornish people. - The Cornish state will have control over the number and nature of immigrants. - The establishment of a Cornish economic department to aid the basic industries of farming, fishing, china clay and mining and secondary industries developing from these. - Improved transport facilities in Cornwall with greater scope for private enterprise to operate. - Existing medical and welfare services for Cornish people will be developed and improved. - Protection of Cornish natural resources, including offshore resources. - Courses on Cornish language and history should be made available in schools for those who want them. - The rule of law will be upheld by the Cornish state and the judiciary will be separate from the legislative and executive functions of the state. More recent policies include:`{{when|date=August 2023}}`{=mediawiki} - A far greater say in government for Cornish people (by referendums if necessary) and the decentralisation of considerable powers to a Cornish nation within a united Europe - special links being established with our Celtic brothers and sisters in Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Wales and Brittany. - Calling for more legislative powers to be given to Cornwall Council. The authority should effectively become the Cornish government, with town and parish councils acting as local government. - Cornwall council should have a reduction in councillors, with standardisation of electoral areas and constituencies in throughout Cornwall. - The Westminster government should appoint a Minister for Cornwall and confirm there will be no further plans to have any parliamentary constituency covering part of Cornwall and Devon. - John Le Bretton, vice-chairman of the party, stated: \"The CNP supports the retention of Cornwall Council as a Cornwall-wide authority running Cornish affairs and we call for the British government in Westminster to devolve powers to the council so that decisions affecting Cornwall can be made in Cornwall\". ## Image The CNP has had image problems, having been seen as similarly styled to nativist and far-right parties, the British National Party (BNP) and National Front (NF). During the 1970s, the party magazine *The Cornish Banner / An Baner Kernewek* published letters sympathetic to the NF and critical of \"Zionist\" politicians. In around 1976, CNP formed a controversial uniformed wing, for which it received criticism from members of the Celtic League and MK. The group, known as the \"Greenshirts\", was led by the CNP Youth Movement leader and public relations officer Wallace Simmons. Simmons also founded the Cornish Front, which supported the NF. A notable political difference is that CNP and Cornish Front were sympathetic to Irish republicanism while the NF was largely supportive of Ulster loyalism, though there were exceptions within the NF, including former leading figure Patrick Harrington who is of Irish Catholic heritage.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,715

Cryptanalysis

thumb\|upright=1.5\|Reconstruction of the appearance of cyclometer, a device used to break the encryption of an early version of the Enigma machine. Based on sketches in Marian Rejewski\'s memoirs. **Cryptanalysis** (from the Greek *kryptós*, \"hidden\", and *analýein*, \"to analyze\") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic security systems and gain access to the contents of encrypted messages, even if the cryptographic key is unknown. In addition to mathematical analysis of cryptographic algorithms, cryptanalysis includes the study of side-channel attacks that do not target weaknesses in the cryptographic algorithms themselves, but instead exploit weaknesses in their implementation. Even though the goal has been the same, the methods and techniques of cryptanalysis have changed drastically through the history of cryptography, adapting to increasing cryptographic complexity, ranging from the pen-and-paper methods of the past, through machines like the British Bombes and Colossus computers at Bletchley Park in World War II, to the mathematically advanced computerized schemes of the present. Methods for breaking modern cryptosystems often involve solving carefully constructed problems in pure mathematics, the best-known being integer factorization. ## Overview In encryption, confidential information (called the *\"plaintext\"*) is sent securely to a recipient by the sender first converting it into an unreadable form (*\"ciphertext\"*) using an encryption algorithm. The ciphertext is sent through an insecure channel to the recipient. The recipient decrypts the ciphertext by applying an inverse decryption algorithm, recovering the plaintext. To decrypt the ciphertext, the recipient requires a secret knowledge from the sender, usually a string of letters, numbers, or bits, called a *cryptographic key*. The concept is that even if an unauthorized person gets access to the ciphertext during transmission, without the secret key they cannot convert it back to plaintext. Encryption has been used throughout history to send important military, diplomatic and commercial messages, and today is very widely used in computer networking to protect email and internet communication. The goal of cryptanalysis is for a third party, a cryptanalyst, to gain as much information as possible about the original (*\"plaintext\"*), attempting to \"break\" the encryption to read the ciphertext and learning the secret key so future messages can be decrypted and read. A mathematical technique to do this is called a *cryptographic attack*. Cryptographic attacks can be characterized in a number of ways: ### Amount of information available to the attacker {#amount_of_information_available_to_the_attacker} Cryptanalytical attacks can be classified based on what type of information the attacker has available. As a basic starting point it is normally assumed that, for the purposes of analysis, the general algorithm is known; this is Shannon\'s Maxim \"the enemy knows the system\" -- in its turn, equivalent to Kerckhoffs\'s principle. This is a reasonable assumption in practice -- throughout history, there are countless examples of secret algorithms falling into wider knowledge, variously through espionage, betrayal and reverse engineering. (And on occasion, ciphers have been broken through pure deduction; for example, the German Lorenz cipher and the Japanese Purple code, and a variety of classical schemes): - *Ciphertext-only*: the cryptanalyst has access only to a collection of ciphertexts or codetexts. - *Known-plaintext*: the attacker has a set of ciphertexts to which they know the corresponding plaintext. - *Chosen-plaintext* (*chosen-ciphertext*): the attacker can obtain the ciphertexts (plaintexts) corresponding to an arbitrary set of plaintexts (ciphertexts) of their own choosing. - *Adaptive chosen-plaintext*: like a chosen-plaintext attack, except the attacker can choose subsequent plaintexts based on information learned from previous encryptions, similarly to the *Adaptive chosen ciphertext attack*. - *Related-key attack*: Like a chosen-plaintext attack, except the attacker can obtain ciphertexts encrypted under two different keys. The keys are unknown, but the relationship between them is known; for example, two keys that differ in the one bit. ### Computational resources required {#computational_resources_required} Attacks can also be characterised by the resources they require. Those resources include: - Time -- the number of *computation steps* (e.g., test encryptions) which must be performed. - Memory -- the amount of *storage* required to perform the attack. - Data -- the quantity and type of *plaintexts and ciphertexts* required for a particular approach. It is sometimes difficult to predict these quantities precisely, especially when the attack is not practical to actually implement for testing. But academic cryptanalysts tend to provide at least the estimated *order of magnitude* of their attacks\' difficulty, saying, for example, \"SHA-1 collisions now 2^52^.\" Bruce Schneier notes that even computationally impractical attacks can be considered breaks: \"Breaking a cipher simply means finding a weakness in the cipher that can be exploited with a complexity less than brute force. Never mind that brute-force might require 2^128^ encryptions; an attack requiring 2^110^ encryptions would be considered a break\...simply put, a break can just be a certificational weakness: evidence that the cipher does not perform as advertised.\" ### Partial breaks {#partial_breaks} The results of cryptanalysis can also vary in usefulness. Cryptographer Lars Knudsen (1998) classified various types of attack on block ciphers according to the amount and quality of secret information that was discovered: - *Total break* -- the attacker deduces the secret key. - *Global deduction* -- the attacker discovers a functionally equivalent algorithm for encryption and decryption, but without learning the key. - *Instance (local) deduction* -- the attacker discovers additional plaintexts (or ciphertexts) not previously known. - *Information deduction* -- the attacker gains some Shannon information about plaintexts (or ciphertexts) not previously known. - *Distinguishing algorithm* -- the attacker can distinguish the cipher from a random permutation. Academic attacks are often against weakened versions of a cryptosystem, such as a block cipher or hash function with some rounds removed. Many, but not all, attacks become exponentially more difficult to execute as rounds are added to a cryptosystem, so it\'s possible for the full cryptosystem to be strong even though reduced-round variants are weak. Nonetheless, partial breaks that come close to breaking the original cryptosystem may mean that a full break will follow; the successful attacks on DES, MD5, and SHA-1 were all preceded by attacks on weakened versions. In academic cryptography, a *weakness* or a *break* in a scheme is usually defined quite conservatively: it might require impractical amounts of time, memory, or known plaintexts. It also might require the attacker be able to do things many real-world attackers can\'t: for example, the attacker may need to choose particular plaintexts to be encrypted or even to ask for plaintexts to be encrypted using several keys related to the secret key. Furthermore, it might only reveal a small amount of information, enough to prove the cryptosystem imperfect but too little to be useful to real-world attackers. Finally, an attack might only apply to a weakened version of cryptographic tools, like a reduced-round block cipher, as a step towards breaking the full system. ## History Cryptanalysis has coevolved together with cryptography, and the contest can be traced through the history of cryptography---new ciphers being designed to replace old broken designs, and new cryptanalytic techniques invented to crack the improved schemes. In practice, they are viewed as two sides of the same coin: secure cryptography requires design against possible cryptanalysis. ### Classical ciphers {#classical_ciphers} `{{See also|Frequency analysis|Index of coincidence|Kasiski examination}}`{=mediawiki} Although the actual word \"*cryptanalysis*\" is relatively recent (it was coined by William Friedman in 1920), methods for breaking codes and ciphers are much older. David Kahn notes in *The Codebreakers* that Arab scholars were the first people to systematically document cryptanalytic methods. The first known recorded explanation of cryptanalysis was given by Al-Kindi (c. 801--873, also known as \"Alkindus\" in Europe), a 9th-century Arab polymath, in *Risalah fi Istikhraj al-Mu\'amma* (*A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages*). This treatise contains the first description of the method of frequency analysis. Al-Kindi is thus regarded as the first codebreaker in history. His breakthrough work was influenced by Al-Khalil (717--786), who wrote the *Book of Cryptographic Messages*, which contains the first use of permutations and combinations to list all possible Arabic words with and without vowels. Frequency analysis is the basic tool for breaking most classical ciphers. In natural languages, certain letters of the alphabet appear more often than others; in English, \"E\" is likely to be the most common letter in any sample of plaintext. Similarly, the digraph \"TH\" is the most likely pair of letters in English, and so on. Frequency analysis relies on a cipher failing to hide these statistics. For example, in a simple substitution cipher (where each letter is simply replaced with another), the most frequent letter in the ciphertext would be a likely candidate for \"E\". Frequency analysis of such a cipher is therefore relatively easy, provided that the ciphertext is long enough to give a reasonably representative count of the letters of the alphabet that it contains. Al-Kindi\'s invention of the frequency analysis technique for breaking monoalphabetic substitution ciphers was the most significant cryptanalytic advance until World War II. Al-Kindi\'s *Risalah fi Istikhraj al-Mu\'amma* described the first cryptanalytic techniques, including some for polyalphabetic ciphers, cipher classification, Arabic phonetics and syntax, and most importantly, gave the first descriptions on frequency analysis. He also covered methods of encipherments, cryptanalysis of certain encipherments, and statistical analysis of letters and letter combinations in Arabic. An important contribution of Ibn Adlan (1187--1268) was on sample size for use of frequency analysis. In Europe, Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta (1535--1615) was the author of a seminal work on cryptanalysis, *De Furtivis Literarum Notis*. Successful cryptanalysis has undoubtedly influenced history; the ability to read the presumed-secret thoughts and plans of others can be a decisive advantage. For example, in England in 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was tried and executed for treason as a result of her involvement in three plots to assassinate Elizabeth I of England. The plans came to light after her coded correspondence with fellow conspirators was deciphered by Thomas Phelippes. In Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries, the idea of a polyalphabetic substitution cipher was developed, among others by the French diplomat Blaise de Vigenère (1523--96). For some three centuries, the Vigenère cipher, which uses a repeating key to select different encryption alphabets in rotation, was considered to be completely secure (*le chiffre indéchiffrable*---\"the indecipherable cipher\"). Nevertheless, Charles Babbage (1791--1871) and later, independently, Friedrich Kasiski (1805--81) succeeded in breaking this cipher. During World War I, inventors in several countries developed rotor cipher machines such as Arthur Scherbius\' Enigma, in an attempt to minimise the repetition that had been exploited to break the Vigenère system. ### Ciphers from World War I and World War II {#ciphers_from_world_war_i_and_world_war_ii} In World War I, the breaking of the Zimmermann Telegram was instrumental in bringing the United States into the war. In World War II, the Allies benefitted enormously from their joint success cryptanalysis of the German ciphers -- including the Enigma machine and the Lorenz cipher -- and Japanese ciphers, particularly \'Purple\' and JN-25. \'Ultra\' intelligence has been credited with everything between shortening the end of the European war by up to two years, to determining the eventual result. The war in the Pacific was similarly helped by \'Magic\' intelligence. Cryptanalysis of enemy messages played a significant part in the Allied victory in World War II. F. W. Winterbotham, quoted the western Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, at the war\'s end as describing Ultra intelligence as having been \"decisive\" to Allied victory. Sir Harry Hinsley, official historian of British Intelligence in World War II, made a similar assessment about Ultra, saying that it shortened the war \"by not less than two years and probably by four years\"; moreover, he said that in the absence of Ultra, it is uncertain how the war would have ended. In practice, frequency analysis relies as much on linguistic knowledge as it does on statistics, but as ciphers became more complex, mathematics became more important in cryptanalysis. This change was particularly evident before and during World War II, where efforts to crack Axis ciphers required new levels of mathematical sophistication. Moreover, automation was first applied to cryptanalysis in that era with the Polish Bomba device, the British Bombe, the use of punched card equipment, and in the Colossus computers -- the first electronic digital computers to be controlled by a program. #### Indicator With reciprocal machine ciphers such as the Lorenz cipher and the Enigma machine used by Nazi Germany during World War II, each message had its own key. Usually, the transmitting operator informed the receiving operator of this message key by transmitting some plaintext and/or ciphertext before the enciphered message. This is termed the *indicator*, as it indicates to the receiving operator how to set his machine to decipher the message. Poorly designed and implemented indicator systems allowed first Polish cryptographers and then the British cryptographers at Bletchley Park to break the Enigma cipher system. Similar poor indicator systems allowed the British to identify *depths* that led to the diagnosis of the Lorenz SZ40/42 cipher system, and the comprehensive breaking of its messages without the cryptanalysts seeing the cipher machine. #### Depth Sending two or more messages with the same key is an insecure process. To a cryptanalyst the messages are then said to be *\"in depth.\"* This may be detected by the messages having the same *indicator* by which the sending operator informs the receiving operator about the key generator initial settings for the message. Generally, the cryptanalyst may benefit from lining up identical enciphering operations among a set of messages. For example, the Vernam cipher enciphers by bit-for-bit combining plaintext with a long key using the \"exclusive or\" operator, which is also known as \"modulo-2 addition\" (symbolized by ⊕ ): : : Plaintext ⊕ Key = Ciphertext Deciphering combines the same key bits with the ciphertext to reconstruct the plaintext: : : Ciphertext ⊕ Key = Plaintext (In modulo-2 arithmetic, addition is the same as subtraction.) When two such ciphertexts are aligned in depth, combining them eliminates the common key, leaving just a combination of the two plaintexts: : : Ciphertext1 ⊕ Ciphertext2 = Plaintext1 ⊕ Plaintext2 The individual plaintexts can then be worked out linguistically by trying *probable words* (or phrases), also known as *\"cribs,\"* at various locations; a correct guess, when combined with the merged plaintext stream, produces intelligible text from the other plaintext component: : : Cyphertext1 ⊕ Cyphertext2 ⊕ Plaintext1 = Plaintext2 The recovered fragment of the second plaintext can often be extended in one or both directions, and the extra characters can be combined with the merged plaintext stream to extend the first plaintext. Working back and forth between the two plaintexts, using the intelligibility criterion to check guesses, the analyst may recover much or all of the original plaintexts. (With only two plaintexts in depth, the analyst may not know which one corresponds to which ciphertext, but in practice this is not a large problem.) When a recovered plaintext is then combined with its ciphertext, the key is revealed: : : Plaintext1 ⊕ Ciphertext1 = Key Knowledge of a key then allows the analyst to read other messages encrypted with the same key, and knowledge of a set of related keys may allow cryptanalysts to diagnose the system used for constructing them. ### Development of modern cryptography {#development_of_modern_cryptography} Governments have long recognized the potential benefits of cryptanalysis for intelligence, both military and diplomatic, and established dedicated organizations devoted to breaking the codes and ciphers of other nations, for example, GCHQ and the NSA, organizations which are still very active today. Even though computation was used to great effect in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher and other systems during World War II, it also made possible new methods of cryptography orders of magnitude more complex than ever before. Taken as a whole, modern cryptography has become much more impervious to cryptanalysis than the pen-and-paper systems of the past, and now seems to have the upper hand against pure cryptanalysis. The historian David Kahn notes: Kahn goes on to mention increased opportunities for interception, bugging, side channel attacks, and quantum computers as replacements for the traditional means of cryptanalysis. In 2010, former NSA technical director Brian Snow said that both academic and government cryptographers are \"moving very slowly forward in a mature field.\" However, any postmortems for cryptanalysis may be premature. While the effectiveness of cryptanalytic methods employed by intelligence agencies remains unknown, many serious attacks against both academic and practical cryptographic primitives have been published in the modern era of computer cryptography: - The block cipher Madryga, proposed in 1984 but not widely used, was found to be susceptible to ciphertext-only attacks in 1998. - FEAL-4, proposed as a replacement for the DES standard encryption algorithm but not widely used, was demolished by a spate of attacks from the academic community, many of which are entirely practical. - The A5/1, A5/2, CMEA, and DECT systems used in mobile and wireless phone technology can all be broken in hours, minutes or even in real-time using widely available computing equipment. - Brute-force keyspace search has broken some real-world ciphers and applications, including single-DES (see EFF DES cracker), 40-bit \"export-strength\" cryptography, and the DVD Content Scrambling System. - In 2001, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), a protocol used to secure Wi-Fi wireless networks, was shown to be breakable in practice because of a weakness in the RC4 cipher and aspects of the WEP design that made related-key attacks practical. WEP was later replaced by Wi-Fi Protected Access. - In 2008, researchers conducted a proof-of-concept break of SSL using weaknesses in the MD5 hash function and certificate issuer practices that made it possible to exploit collision attacks on hash functions. The certificate issuers involved changed their practices to prevent the attack from being repeated. Thus, while the best modern ciphers may be far more resistant to cryptanalysis than the Enigma, cryptanalysis and the broader field of information security remain quite active. ## Symmetric ciphers {#symmetric_ciphers} - Boomerang attack - Brute-force attack - Davies\' attack - Differential cryptanalysis - Harvest now, decrypt later - Impossible differential cryptanalysis - Improbable differential cryptanalysis - Integral cryptanalysis - Linear cryptanalysis - Meet-in-the-middle attack - Mod-n cryptanalysis - Related-key attack - Sandwich attack - Slide attack - XSL attack ## Asymmetric ciphers {#asymmetric_ciphers} Asymmetric cryptography (or public-key cryptography) is cryptography that relies on using two (mathematically related) keys; one private, and one public. Such ciphers invariably rely on \"hard\" mathematical problems as the basis of their security, so an obvious point of attack is to develop methods for solving the problem. The security of two-key cryptography depends on mathematical questions in a way that single-key cryptography generally does not, and conversely links cryptanalysis to wider mathematical research in a new way. Asymmetric schemes are designed around the (conjectured) difficulty of solving various mathematical problems. If an improved algorithm can be found to solve the problem, then the system is weakened. For example, the security of the Diffie--Hellman key exchange scheme depends on the difficulty of calculating the discrete logarithm. In 1983, Don Coppersmith found a faster way to find discrete logarithms (in certain groups), and thereby requiring cryptographers to use larger groups (or different types of groups). RSA\'s security depends (in part) upon the difficulty of integer factorization -- a breakthrough in factoring would impact the security of RSA. In 1980, one could factor a difficult 50-digit number at an expense of 10^12^ elementary computer operations. By 1984 the state of the art in factoring algorithms had advanced to a point where a 75-digit number could be factored in 10^12^ operations. Advances in computing technology also meant that the operations could be performed much faster. Moore\'s law predicts that computer speeds will continue to increase. Factoring techniques may continue to do so as well, but will most likely depend on mathematical insight and creativity, neither of which has ever been successfully predictable. 150-digit numbers of the kind once used in RSA have been factored. The effort was greater than above, but was not unreasonable on fast modern computers. By the start of the 21st century, 150-digit numbers were no longer considered a large enough key size for RSA. Numbers with several hundred digits were still considered too hard to factor in 2005, though methods will probably continue to improve over time, requiring key size to keep pace or other methods such as elliptic curve cryptography to be used. Another distinguishing feature of asymmetric schemes is that, unlike attacks on symmetric cryptosystems, any cryptanalysis has the opportunity to make use of knowledge gained from the public key. ## Attacking cryptographic hash systems {#attacking_cryptographic_hash_systems} - Birthday attack - Hash function security summary - Rainbow table ## Side-channel attacks {#side_channel_attacks} - Black-bag cryptanalysis - Man-in-the-middle attack - Power analysis - Replay attack - Rubber-hose cryptanalysis - Timing analysis ## Quantum computing applications for cryptanalysis {#quantum_computing_applications_for_cryptanalysis} Quantum computers, which are still in the early phases of research, have potential use in cryptanalysis. For example, Shor\'s Algorithm could factor large numbers in polynomial time, in effect breaking some commonly used forms of public-key encryption. By using Grover\'s algorithm on a quantum computer, brute-force key search can be made quadratically faster. However, this could be countered by doubling the key length.

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5,719

Cutaway (filmmaking)

In film and video, a **cutaway** is the interruption of a continuously filmed action by inserting a view of something else. It is usually followed by a cut back to the first shot. A **cutaway scene** is the interruption of a scene with the insertion of another scene, generally unrelated or only peripherally related to the original scene. The interruption is usually quick, and is usually, although not always, ended by a return to the original scene. The effect is of commentary to the original scene and creates variety. ## Usage The most common use of cutaway shots in dramatic films is to adjust the pace of the main action, to conceal the deletion of some unwanted part of the main shot, or to allow the joining of parts of two versions of that shot. For example, a scene may be improved by cutting a few frames out of an actor\'s pause; a brief view of a listener can help conceal the break. Or the actor may fumble some of his lines in a group shot; rather than discarding a good version of the shot, the director may just have the actor repeat the lines for a new shot, and cut to that alternate view when necessary. Cutaways are also used often in older horror films in place of special effects. For example, a shot of a zombie getting its head cut off may, for instance, start with a view of an axe being swung through the air, followed by a close-up of the actor swinging it, then followed by a cut back to the now severed head. George A. Romero, creator of the *Dead Series*, and Tom Savini pioneered effects that removed the need for cutaways in horror films. In news broadcasting and documentary work, the cutaway is used much as it would be in fiction. On location, there is usually just one camera to film an interview, and it is usually trained on the interviewee. Often, there is also only one microphone. After the interview, the interviewer usually repeats his questions while he is being filmed, with pauses that act as if the answers are listened to. These shots can be used as cutaways. Cutaways to the interviewer, called noddies, can also be used to cover cuts. The cutaway does not necessarily contribute any dramatic content of its own, but is used to help the editor assemble a longer sequence. For that reason, editors choose cutaways related to the main action, such as another action or object in the same location. For example, if the main shot is of a man walking down an alley, possible cutaways may include a shot of a cat on a nearby dumpster or a shot of a person watching from a window overhead. The animated series *Family Guy* is noted for its use of cutaway gags.

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5,722

Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game)

***Call of Cthulhu*** is a horror fiction role-playing game based on H. P. Lovecraft\'s story of the same name and the associated Cthulhu Mythos. The game, often abbreviated as *CoC*, is published by Chaosium; it was first released in 1981 and is in its seventh edition, with licensed foreign language editions available as well. Its game system is based on Chaosium\'s Basic Role-Playing (BRP) with additions for the horror genre. These include special rules for sanity and luck. ## Gameplay ### Setting *Call of Cthulhu* is set in a darker version of our world based on H. P. Lovecraft\'s observation (from his essay, \"Supernatural Horror in Literature\") that \"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.\" The original edition, first published in 1981, uses Basic Role-Playing as its basis and is set in the 1920s, the setting of many of Lovecraft\'s stories. The *Cthulhu by Gaslight* supplement blends the occult and Holmesian mystery and is mostly set in England during the 1890s. *Cthulhu Now* and *Delta Green* are set in a modern/1980s era and deal with conspiracies. Recent settings include 1000 AD (*Cthulhu: Dark Ages*), the 23rd century (*Cthulhu Rising*) and Ancient Rome (*Cthulhu Invictus*). The protagonists may also travel to places that are not of this earth, such as the Dreamlands (which can be accessed through dreams as well as being physically connected to the earth), other planets, or the voids of space. In keeping with the Lovecraftian theme, the gamemaster is called the Keeper of Arcane Lore (\"the keeper\"), while player characters are called Investigators of the Unknown (\"investigators\"). While predominantly focused on Lovecraftian fiction and horror, playing in the Cthulhu Mythos is not required. The system also includes ideas for non-Lovecraft games, such as using folk horror or the settings of other authors and horror movies, or with entirely custom settings and creatures by the gamemaster and/or players. ### Mechanics *CoC* uses the Basic Role-Playing system first developed for *RuneQuest* and used in other Chaosium games. It is skill-based, with player characters getting better with their skills by succeeding at using them for as long as they stay functionally healthy and sane. They do not, however, gain hit points and do not become significantly harder to kill. The game does not use levels. *CoC* uses percentile dice (with results ranging from 1 to 100) to determine success or failure. Every player statistic is intended to be compatible with the notion that there is a probability of success for a particular action given what the player is capable of doing. For example, an artist may have a 75% chance of being able to draw something (represented by having 75 in Art skill), and thus rolling a number under 75 would yield a success. Rolling `{{fract|1|5}}`{=mediawiki} or less of the skill level (1--15 in the example) would be a \"special success\" (or an \"impale\" for combat skills) and would yield some extra bonus to be determined by the keeper. For example, the artist character might draw especially well or especially fast, or catch some unapparent detail in the drawing. The players take the roles of ordinary people drawn into the realm of the mysterious: detectives, criminals, scholars, artists, war veterans, etc. Often, happenings begin innocently enough, until more and more of the workings behind the scenes are revealed. As the characters learn more of the true horrors of the world and the irrelevance of humanity, their sanity (represented by \"Sanity Points\", abbreviated SAN) inevitably withers away. The game includes a mechanism for determining how damaged a character\'s sanity is at any given point; encountering the horrific beings usually triggers a loss of SAN points. To gain the tools they need to defeat the horrors -- mystic knowledge and magic -- the characters may end up losing some of their sanity, though other means such as pure firepower or simply outsmarting one\'s opponents also exist. *CoC* has a reputation as a game in which it is quite common for a player character to die in gruesome circumstances or end up in a mental institution. Eventual triumph of the players is not guaranteed. ## History The original conception of *Call of Cthulhu* was *Dark Worlds*, a game commissioned by the publisher Chaosium but never published. Sandy Petersen contacted them regarding writing a supplement for their popular fantasy game *RuneQuest* set in Lovecraft\'s Dreamlands. He took over the writing of *Call of Cthulhu*, and the game was released in 1981. Petersen oversaw the first four editions with only minor changes to the system. Once he left, development was continued by Lynn Willis, who was credited as co-author in the fifth and sixth editions. After the death of Willis, Mike Mason became *Call of Cthulhu* line editor in 2013, continuing its development with Paul Fricker. Together they made the most significant rules alterations than in any previous edition, culminating in the release of the 7th edition in 2014. ### Editions +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Edition | Published | Format | Notes | +==========================+===========+==========================================+======================================================================================================================================+ | 1st edition | 1981 | Boxed set | Includes 16-page *Basic Role-Playing* booklet in addition to main rulebook. | +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 2nd edition | 1983 | Boxed set | Includes a single rulebook; minor rules changes. | +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 3rd edition | 1986 | Boxed set | Divides rules into separate *Investigator\'s Book* and *Keeper\'s Book* booklets. | +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 4th edition | 1989 | Softcover | Includes content from the *Cthulhu Companion* and *Fragments of Fear: The Second Cthulhu Companion* supplements. | +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 5th edition | 1992 | Softcover | First version to credit Lynn Willis as co-author. | +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Edition 5.5 | 1998 | Softcover | Reorganized and updated version of the 5th edition, with new cover art; \"Edition 5.5\" designator appears on title page. | +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Edition 5.6 | 1999 | Hardcover | Corrected revised printing; \"Edition 5.6\" designator appears on title page. | +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Edition 5.6.1 | 2001 | Hardcover | Corrected revised printing; \"Edition 5.6.1\" designator appears on title page. | +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 20th Anniversary Edition | 2001 | Leather-bound hardcover book | Limited edition bound in green leather, with new \"ancient tome\" layout. | +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 6th edition | 2004 | Hardcover, softcover, or electronic file | Same layout and content as 20th Anniversary Edition. | +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 7th edition | 2014 | Hardcover, softcover, or electronic file | Rules significantly revised by Paul Fricker and Mike Mason. New cover art and full-color layout. Print version released spring 2016. | +--------------------------+-----------+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ### Early releases {#early_releases} For those grounded in the RPG tradition, the very first release of *Call of Cthulhu* created a brand new framework for table-top gaming. Rather than the traditional format established by *Dungeons & Dragons*, which often involved the characters wandering through caves or tunnels and fighting different types of monsters, Sandy Petersen introduced the concept of the *Onion Skin*: Interlocking layers of information and nested clues that lead the player characters from seemingly minor investigations into a missing person to discovering mind-numbingly awful, global conspiracies to destroy the world. Unlike its predecessor games, *CoC* assumed that most investigators would not survive, alive or sane, and that the only safe way to deal with the vast majority of nasty things described in the rule books was to run away. A well-run *CoC* campaign should engender a sense of foreboding and inevitable doom in its players. The style and setting of the game, in a relatively modern time period, created an emphasis on real-life settings, character research, and thinking one\'s way around trouble. The first book of *Call of Cthulhu* adventures was *Shadows of Yog-Sothoth*. In this work, the characters come upon a secret society\'s foul plot to destroy mankind, and pursue it first near to home and then in a series of exotic locations. This template was to be followed in many subsequent campaigns, including *Fungi from Yuggoth* (later known as *Curse of Cthulhu* and *Day of the Beast*), *Spawn of Azathoth*, and possibly the most highly acclaimed, *Masks of Nyarlathotep*. *Shadows of Yog-Sothoth* is important not only because it represents the first published addition to the boxed first edition of *Call of Cthulhu*, but because its format defined a new way of approaching a campaign of linked RPG scenarios involving actual clues for the would-be detectives amongst the players to follow and link in order to uncover the dastardly plots afoot. Its format has been used by every other campaign-length *Call of Cthulhu* publication. The standard of *CoC* scenarios was well received by independent reviewers. *The Asylum and Other Tales*, a series of stand alone articles released in 1983, rated an overall 9/10 in Issue 47 of *White Dwarf* magazine. The standard of the included \'clue\' material varies from scenario to scenario, but reached its zenith in the original boxed versions of the *Masks of Nyarlathotep* and *Horror on the Orient Express* campaigns. Inside these one could find matchbooks and business cards apparently defaced by non-player characters, newspaper cuttings and (in the case of *Orient Express*) period passports to which players could attach their photographs, increasing the sense of immersion. Indeed, during the period that these supplements were produced, third party campaign publishers strove to emulate the quality of the additional materials, often offering separately-priced \'deluxe\' clue packages for their campaigns. Additional milieux were provided by Chaosium with the release of *Dreamlands*, a boxed supplement containing additional rules needed for playing within the Lovecraft Dreamlands, a large map and a scenario booklet, and *Cthulhu By Gaslight*, another boxed set which moved the action from the 1920s to the 1890s. ### *Cthulhu Now* {#cthulhu_now} In 1987, Chaosium issued the supplement titled *Cthulhu Now*, a collection of rules, supplemental source materials and scenarios for playing *Call of Cthulhu* in the present day. This proved to be a very popular alternative milieu, so much so that much of the supplemental material is now included in the core rule book. ### *Lovecraft Country* {#lovecraft_country} *Lovecraft Country* was a line of supplements for *Call of Cthulhu* released in 1990. These supplements were overseen by Keith Herber and provided backgrounds and adventures set in Lovecraft\'s fictional towns of Arkham, Kingsport, Innsmouth, Dunwich, and their environs. The intent was to give investigators a common base, as well as to center the action on well-drawn characters with clear motivations. ### `{{anchor}}`{=mediawiki}*Terror Australis* {#terror_australis} In 1987, *Terror Australis: Call of Cthulhu in the Land Down Under* was published. In 2018, a revised and updated version of the 1987 game was reissued, with about triple the content and two new games. It requires the *Call of Cthulhu Keeper\'s Rulebook* (7th Edition) and is usable with *Pulp Cthulhu*. ### `{{anchor}}`{=mediawiki}*Harlem Unbound* {#harlem_unbound} In 2020, Chaosium released the 2nd edition of *Harlem Unbound,* a Call of Cthulhu supplement set in the Harlem Renaissance. *Harlem Unbound* received three Gold ENNIE Awards and an Indie Game Developer Network award. ### Recent history {#recent_history} In the years since the collapse of the *Mythos* collectible card game (production ceased in 1997), the release of *CoC* books has been very sporadic, with up to a year between releases. Chaosium struggled with near bankruptcy for many years before finally starting their upward climb again. 2005 was Chaosium\'s busiest year for many years, with 10 releases for the game. Chaosium took to marketing \"monographs\"---short books by individual writers with editing and layout provided out-of-house---directly to the consumer, allowing the company to gauge market response to possible new works. The range of times and places in which the horrors of the Mythos can be encountered was also expanded in late 2005 onward with the addition of *Cthulhu Dark Ages* by Stéphane Gesbert, which gives a framework for playing games set in 11th century Europe, *Secrets of Japan* by Michael Dziesinski for gaming in modern-day Japan, and *Secrets of Kenya* by David Conyers for gaming in interwar period Africa. In July 2011, Chaosium announced it would re-release a 30th anniversary edition of the *CoC* 6th edition role-playing game. This 320-page book features thick (3 mm) leatherette hardcovers with the front cover and spine stamped with gold foil. The interior pages are printed in black ink, on 90 gsm matte art paper. The binding is thread sewn, square backed. Chaosium offered a one-time printing of this Collector\'s Edition. On May 28, 2013, a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for the 7th edition of *Call of Cthulhu* was launched with a goal of \$40,000; it ended on June 29 of the same year having collected \$561,836. It included many more major revisions than any previous edition, and also split the core rules into two books, a Player\'s Guide and Keeper\'s Guide. Problems and delays fulfilling the Kickstarters for the 7th edition of *Call of Cthulhu* led Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen (who had both left in 1998) to return to an active role at Chaosium in June 2015. The print version of 7th edition became available in September 2016. The available milieux were also expanded with the release of Cthulhu Through the Ages, a supplement containing additional rules needed for playing within the Roman Empire, Mythic Iceland, a futuristic micro-setting, and the End Times, where the monsters of the mythos attempt to subjugate or destroy the world. ## Licenses Chaosium has licensed other publishers to create supplements, video, card and board games using the setting and the *Call of Cthulhu* brand. Many, such as *Delta Green* by Pagan Publishing and Arkham Horror by Fantasy Flight, have moved away completely from *Call of Cthulhu*. Other licensees have included Infogrames, Miskatonic River Press, Theater of the Mind Enterprises, Triad Entertainment, Games Workshop, RAFM, Goodman Games, Grenadier Models Inc. and Yog-Sothoth.com. These supplements may be set in different time frames or even different game universes from the original game. ### *Trail of Cthulhu* {#trail_of_cthulhu} In February 2008, Pelgrane Press published *Trail of Cthulhu*, a stand-alone game created by Kenneth Hite using the GUMSHOE System developed by Robin Laws. GUMSHOE is specifically designed to be used in investigative games. ### *Shadows of Cthulhu* {#shadows_of_cthulhu} In September 2008, Reality Deviant Publications published *Shadows of Cthulhu*, a supplement that brings Lovecraftian gaming to Green Ronin\'s True20 system. ### *Realms of Cthulhu* {#realms_of_cthulhu} In October 2009, Reality Blurs published *Realms of Cthulhu*, a supplement for Pinnacle Entertainment\'s Savage Worlds system. ### *Delta Green* {#delta_green} Pagan Publishing published *Delta Green*, a series of supplements originally set in the 1990s, although later supplements add support for playing closer to the present day. In these, player characters are agents of a secret agency known as Delta Green, which fights against creatures from the Mythos and conspiracies related to them. Arc Dream Publishing released a new version of *Delta Green* in 2016 as a standalone game, partially using the mechanics from *Call of Cthulhu*. ### *d20 Call of Cthulhu* {#d20_call_of_cthulhu} In 2001, a stand-alone version of *Call of Cthulhu* was released by Wizards of the Coast, for the d20 system. Intended to preserve the feeling of the original game, the d20 conversion of the game rules were supposed to make the game more accessible to the large *D&D* player base. The d20 system also made it possible to use *Dungeons & Dragons* characters in *Call of Cthulhu*, as well as to introduce the Cthulhu Mythos into *Dungeons & Dragons* games. The d20 version of the game is no longer supported by Wizards as per their contract with Chaosium. Chaosium included d20 stats as an appendix in three releases (see Lovecraft Country), but have since dropped the \"dual stat\" idea. ### Card games {#card_games} *Mythos* was a collectible card game (CCG) based on the Cthulhu Mythos that Chaosium produced and marketed during the mid-1990s. While generally praised for its fast gameplay and unique mechanics, it ultimately failed to gain a very large market presence. It bears mention because its eventual failure brought the company to hard times that affected its ability to produce material for *Call of Cthulhu*. *Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game* is a second collectible card game, produced by Fantasy Flight Games. ### Miniatures The first licensed *Call of Cthulhu* 25 mm gaming miniatures were sculpted by Andrew Chernack and released by Grenadier Models in boxed sets and blister packs in 1983. The license was later transferred to RAFM. As of 2011, RAFM still produce licensed C*all of Cthulhu* models sculpted by Bob Murch. Both lines include investigator player character models and the iconic monsters of the Cthulhu mythos. As of July 2015, Reaper Miniatures started its third \"Bones Kickstarter\", a Kickstarter intended to help the company migrate some miniatures from metal to plastic, and introducing some new ones. Among the stretch goals was the second \$50 expansion, devoted to the Mythos, with miniatures such as Cultists, Deep Ones, Mi\'Go, and an extra \$15 Shub-Niggurath \"miniature\" (it is, at least, 6x4 squares). It is expected for those miniatures to remain in the Reaper Miniatures catalogue after the Kickstarter project finishes. In 2020 Chaosium announced a license agreement with Ardacious for *Call of Cthulhu* virtual miniatures to be released on their augmented reality app Ardent Roleplay. ### Video games {#video_games} #### *Shadow of the Comet* {#shadow_of_the_comet} *Shadow of the Comet* (later repackaged as *Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet*) is an adventure game developed and released by Infogrames in 1993. The game is based on H. P. Lovecraft\'s Cthulhu Mythos and uses many elements from Lovecraft\'s *The Dunwich Horror* and *The Shadow Over Innsmouth*. A follow-up game, *Prisoner of Ice*, is not a direct sequel. #### *Prisoner of Ice* {#prisoner_of_ice} *Prisoner of Ice* (also *Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice*) is an adventure game developed and released by Infogrames for the PC and Macintosh computers in 1995 in America and Europe. It is based on H. P. Lovecraft\'s Cthulhu Mythos, particularly *At the Mountains of Madness*, and is a follow-up to Infogrames\' earlier *Shadow of the Comet*. In 1997, the game was ported to the Sega Saturn and PlayStation exclusively in Japan. #### *Dark Corners of the Earth* {#dark_corners_of_the_earth} A licensed first-person shooter adventure game by Headfirst Productions, based on *Call of Cthulhu* campaign *Escape from Innsmouth* and released by Bethesda Softworks in 2005/2006 for the PC and Xbox. #### *The Wasted Land* {#the_wasted_land} In April 2011, Chaosium and new developer Red Wasp Design announced a joint project to produce a mobile video game based on the *Call of Cthulhu* RPG, entitled *Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land*. The game was released on January 30, 2012. #### *Cthulhu Chronicles* {#cthulhu_chronicles} In 2018, Metarcade produced *Cthulhu Chronicles*, a game for iOS with a campaign of nine mobile interactive fiction stories set in 1920s England based on *Call of Cthulhu*. The first five stories were released on July 10, 2018. #### *Call of Cthulhu* {#call_of_cthulhu} *Call of Cthulhu* is a survival horror role-playing video game developed by Cyanide and published by Focus Home Interactive for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows. The game features a semi-open world environment and incorporates themes of Lovecraftian and psychological horror into a story which includes elements of investigation and stealth. It is inspired by H. P. Lovecraft\'s short story \"The Call of Cthulhu\". ## Reception Steve Peterson reviewed *Call of Cthulhu* for *Different Worlds* magazine and stated that \"*Call of Cthulhu* is an excellent game, well worth your money if you are at all interested in horror of the 1920\'s . This game can add much to any role-playing campaign.\" Multiple reviews of various editions appeared in *Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer*. - In the March 1982 edition (No. 49), William A. Barton noted that there were some shortcomings resulting from an assumption by the designers that players would have access to rules from *RuneQuest* that were not in *Call of Cthulhu*, but otherwise Barton called the game \"an excellent piece of work\.... The worlds of H. P. Lovecraft are truly open for the fantasy gamer.\" - In the October--November 1987 edition (No. 80), Lisa Cohen reviewed the 3rd edition, saying, \"\"This book can be for collectors of art, players, or anyone interested in knowledge about old time occult. It is the one reprint that is worth the money.\" Multiple reviews of various editions appeared in *White Dwarf*. - In the August 1982 edition (Issue 32), Ian Bailey admired much about the first edition of the game; his only criticism was that the game was too \"U.S. orientated and consequently any Keeper\... who wants to set his game in the UK will have a lot of research to do.\" Bailey gave the game an above average rating of 9 out of 10, saying, \"*Call of Cthulhu* is an excellent game and a welcome addition to the world of role-playing.\" - In the August 1986 edition (Issue 80), Ashley Shepherd thought the inclusion of much material in the 3rd edition that had been previously published as supplementary books \"makes the game incredibly good value.\" He concluded, \"This package is going to keep *Call of Cthulhu* at the front of the fantasy game genre.\" Several reviews of various editions and supplements also appeared in *Dragon*. - In the May 1982 edition (Issue 61), David Cook thought the rules were too complex for new gamers, but said, \"It is a good game for experienced role-playing gamers and ambitious judges, especially if they like Lovecraft's type of story.\" - In the August 1987 edition (Issue 124), Ken Rolston reviewed the *Terror Australis* supplement for 3rd edition that introduced an Australian setting in the 1920s. Bambra thought that \"Literate, macabre doom shambles from each page. Good reading, and a good campaign setting for COC adventures.\" - In the October 1988 edition (Issue 138), Ken Rolston gave an overview of the 3rd edition, and placed it ahead of its competitors due to superior campaign setting, tone and atmosphere, the player characters as investigators, and the use of realistic player handouts such as authentic-looking newspaper clippings. Rolston concluded, \"*CoC* is one of role-playing's acknowledged classics. Its various supplements over the years have maintained an exceptional level of quality; several, including *Shadows of Yog-Sothoth* and *Masks of Nyarlathotep*, deserve consideration among the greatest pinnacles of the fantasy role-playing game design.\" - In the June 1990 edition (Issue 158), Jim Bambra liked the updated setting of the 4th edition, placing the game firmly in Lovecraft\'s 1920s. He also liked the number of adventures included in the 192-page rulebook: \"The fourth edition contains enough adventures to keep any group happily entertained and sanity blasted.\" However, while Cook questioned whether owners of the 2nd or 3rd edition would get good value for their money --- \"You lack only the car-chase rules and the improved layout of the three books in one. The rest of the material has received minor editing but no substantial changes\" --- Cook strongly recommended the new edition to newcomers, saying, \"If you don't already play *CoC*, all I can do is urge you to give it a try\.... discover for yourself why it has made so many converts since its release.\" - In the October 1992 edition (Issue 186), Rick Swan admitted that he was skeptical that the 5th edition would offer anything new, but instead found that the new edition benefited from \"fresh material, judicious editing, and thorough polishes.\" He concluded, \"Few RPGs exceed the *CoC* game's scope or match its skillful integration of background and game systems. And there's no game more fun.\" In his 1990 book *The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games*, game critic Rick Swan gave the game a top rating of 4 out of 4, calling it \"a masterpiece, easily the best horror RPG ever published and possibly the best RPG, period \... breathtaking in scope and as richly textured as a fine novel. All role-players owe it to themselves to experience this truly remarkable game.\" In Issue 68 of *Challenge*, Craig Sheeley reviewed the fifth edition and liked the revisions. \"The entire character generation process is highly streamlined and easily illustrated on a two-page flowchart.\" DeJong also liked the inclusion of material from all three of *CoC*{{\'}}s settings (1890s, 1920s, 1990s), calling it \"One of the best features of this edition.\" And he was very impressed with the layout of the book, commenting, \"The organization and format of this book deserve special mention. I hold that every game company should study this book to learn what to do right.\" DeJong concluded, \"I am seriously impressed with this product. From cover to cover, it's well done.\" In a reader poll conducted by UK magazine *Arcane* in 1996 to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time, *Call of Cthulhu* was ranked 1st. Editor Paul Pettengale commented: \"*Call of Cthulhu* is fully deserved of the title as the most popular roleplaying system ever - it\'s a game that doesn\'t age, is eminently playable, and which hangs together perfectly. The system, even though it\'s over ten years old, it still one of the very best you\'ll find in any roleplaying game. Also, there\'s not a referee in the land who could say they\'ve read every Lovecraft inspired book or story going, so there\'s a pretty-well endless supply of scenario ideas. It\'s simply marvellous.\" Scott Taylor for *Black Gate* in 2013 rated *Call of Cthulhu* as #4 in the top ten role-playing games of all time, saying \"With various revisions, but never a full rewrite of its percentile-based system, *Call of Cthulhu* might be antiquated by today\'s standards, but remember it is supposed to be set in the 1920s, so to me that seems more than appropriate.\" *Call of Cthulhu* has been reported to be the second-most popular game played on the virtual table top platform Roll20 in 2021 (the most popular being *Dungeons & Dragons*). It has also been reported to have found success especially in Korea and Japan, and to have overtaken D&D in Japan. In his 2023 book *Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground*, RPG historian Stu Horvath noted up to this point in time, \"roleplaying games are united in one way: In some fashion, they are all power fantasies. Characters go someplace, kill some things, find some loot, and maybe gain enough experience points to unlock their hidden personal potential in the form of new spells or a new power.\" Horvath then pointed out that this game, as the first horror RPG, had an essential difference: \"Horror, as a genre, is generally concerned with powerlessness \... In a complete inversion of other RPGs, characters in *Call of Cthulhu* are doomed.\" About the game itself, Horvath commented, \"I find *Call of Cthulhu* unabashedly fun, despite the scares and the despair \... The slumbering god is certainly one of the strangest of pop culture canonizations, but there seems to be an endless appetite --- and deep wallets --- for all things Cthulhu. So long as that remains true, the Great Old One will continue to loom large over RPGs.\" ## Awards The game has won multiple awards: - 1982, Origins Awards, *Best Role Playing Game* - 1981, Game Designer\'s Guild, *Select Award* - 1985, Games Day Award, *Best Role Playing Game* - 1986, Games Day Award, *Best Contemporary Role Playing Game* - 1987, Games Day Award, *Best Other Role Playing Game* - 1993, Leeds Wargame Club, *Best Role Playing Game* - 1994, Gamer\'s Choice Award, *Hall of Fame* - 1995, Origins Award, *Hall of Fame* - 2001, Origins Award, *Best Graphic Presentation of a Book Product* (for *Call of Cthulhu* 20th anniversary edition) - 2002 Gold Ennie Award for \"Best Graphic Design and Layout\". - 2003, GamingReport.com readers voted it as the number-one Gothic/Horror RPG - 2014, ENNIE Awards - Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Quickstart - \'Best Free Product (Silver)\' - 2016, UK Games Expo Awards - \'Best Roleplaying Game\' - 2017, Beasts of War Awards - \'Best RPG\' - 2017, Dragon Con Awards - \'Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures/Collectible Card/Role Playing Game\' (for Pulp Cthulhu rules) - 2017, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Supplement (Gold)\' (for Pulp Cthulhu rules) - 2017, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Cover Art (Gold)\' (for Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook) - 2017, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Cartography (Gold)\' (for Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen Pack) - 2017, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Aid/Accessory (Gold)\' (for Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen Pack) - 2017, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Production Values (Gold)\' (for Call of Cthulhu Slipcase Set) - 2018, Tabletop Gaming Magazine \'Top 150 Greatest Games of All Time\' - Call of Cthulhu - Ranked #3 (Reader Poll) - 2019, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Rules (Gold)\' (for Call of Cthulhu Starter Set) - 2024, ENNIE Awards - \'Best Writing (Gold)\' and \'Best Adventure -- Long Form (Silver)\' for *Call of Cthulhu: Alone Against the Static*

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,723

Constellations (journal)

***Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory*** is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal of critical post-Marxist and democratic theory and successor of *Praxis International*. *Constellations* is committed to publishing the best of contemporary critical theory and democratic theory in philosophy, politics, social theory, and law. The journal aims to expanding the global possibilities for radical politics and social criticism. ## Editorial team {#editorial_team} Nadia Urbinati, Amy Allen, Jean L.Cohen, and Andreas Kalyvas are former co-editors. It is currently edited by Simone Chambers, Cristina Lafont, and Hubertus Buchstein. Ertug Tombus is the managing editor of the journal since 2009. Seyla Benhabib, Nancy Fraser and Andrew Arato are the co-founding former editors. With an international editorial contribution, it is based at the New School in New York.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,726

Crane shot

In filmmaking and video production, a **crane shot** is a shot taken by a camera on a moving crane or jib. Filmmaker D. W. Griffith created the first crane for his 1916 epic film *Intolerance*, with famed special effects pioneer Eiji Tsuburaya later constructing the first iron camera crane which is still adapted worldwide today. Most cranes accommodate both the camera and an operator, but some can be moved by remote control. Crane shots are often found in what are supposed to be emotional or suspenseful scenes. One example of this technique is the shots taken by remote cranes in the car-chase sequence of the 1985 film *To Live and Die in L.A*. Some filmmakers place the camera on a boom arm simply to make it easier to move around between ordinary set-ups. ## History D. W. Griffith designed the first camera crane for his 1916 epic film *Intolerance*. His crane measured 140 feet tall and ascended on six four-wheeled railroad trucks. In 1929, future special effects pioneer Eiji Tsuburaya constructed a smaller replica of Griffith\'s wooden camera crane without blueprints or manuals. Although his wooden crane collapsed shortly after its completion, Tsuburaya created the first-ever iron shooting crane in October 1934, and an adaptation of this crane is still used worldwide today. ## Camera crane types {#camera_crane_types} Camera cranes may be small, medium, or large, depending on the load capacity and length of the loading arm. Historically, the first camera crane provided for lifting the camera together with the operator, and sometimes an assistant. The range of motion of the boom was restricted because of the high load capacity and the need to ensure operator safety. In recent years`{{When|date=April 2021}}`{=mediawiki} a camera crane boom tripod with a remote control has become popular. It carries on the boom only a movie or television camera without an operator and allows shooting from difficult positions as a small load capacity makes it possible to achieve a long reach of the crane boom and relative freedom of movement. The operator controls the camera from the ground through a motorized panoramic head, using remote control and video surveillance by watching the image on the monitor. A separate category consists of telescopic camera cranes. These devices allow setting an arbitrary trajectory of the camera, eliminating the characteristic jib crane radial displacement that comes with traditional spanning shots. Large camera cranes are almost indistinguishable from the usual boom-type cranes, with the exception of special equipment for smoothly moving the boom and controlling noise. Small camera cranes and crane-trucks have a lightweight construction, often without a mechanical drive. The valves are controlled manually by balancing the load-specific counterweight, facilitating manipulation. To improve usability and repeatability of movement of the crane in different takes, the axis of rotation arrows are provided with limbs and a pointer. In some cases, the camera crane is mounted on a dolly for even greater camera mobility. Such devices are called crane trolleys. In modern films robotic cranes allow use of multiple actuators for high-accuracy repeated movement of the camera in trick photography. These devices are called tap-robots; some sources use the term motion control. ## Manufacturers The major supplier of cranes in the cinema of the United States throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s was the Chapman Company (later Chapman-Leonard of North Hollywood), supplanted by dozens of similar manufacturers around the world. The traditional design provided seats for both the director and the camera operator, and sometimes a third seat for the cinematographer as well. Large weights on the back of the crane compensate for the weight of the people riding the crane and must be adjusted carefully to avoid the possibility of accidents. During the 1960s, the tallest crane was the Chapman Titan crane, a massive design over 20 feet high that won an Academy Scientific & Engineering award. During the last few years, camera cranes have been miniaturized and costs have dropped so dramatically that most aspiring film makers have access to these tools. What was once a \"Hollywood\" effect is now available for under \$400. Manufacturers of camera cranes include ABC-Products, Cambo, Filmotechnic, Polecam, Panther and Matthews Studio Equipment, Sevenoak, and Newton Nordic. ## Camera crane technique {#camera_crane_technique} Most such cranes were manually operated, requiring an experienced boom operator who knew how to vertically raise, lower, and \"crab\" the camera alongside actors while the crane platform rolled on separate tracks. The crane operator and camera operator had to precisely coordinate their moves so that focus, pan, and camera position all started and stopped at the same time, requiring great skill and rehearsal. On the back of the crane is a counter weight. This allows the crane to smooth action while in motion with minimal effort. ## Notable usage {#notable_usage} - D. W. Griffith\'s *Intolerance* (1916) featured the first ever crane shot for a film. - Atsuo Tomioka\'s 1935 film *The Chorus of a Million* featured the first iron camera crane, which was created and employed in the film in 1934 by Eiji Tsuburaya. - Leni Riefenstahl had a cameraman shoot a half-circle pan shot from a crane for the 1935 Nazi propaganda film *Triumph of the Will*. - A crane shot was used in Orson Welles\' 1941 film *Citizen Kane*. Welles also used a crane camera during the iconic opening of *Touch of Evil* (1958). The camera perched on a Chapman crane begins on a close-up of a ticking time bomb and ends three-plus minutes later with a blinding explosion. - The Western *High Noon* (1952) had a famous crane shot. The shot backs up and rises, in order to show Marshal Will Kane totally alone and isolated on the street. - The 1964 film by Mikhail Kalatozov, *I Am Cuba* contains two of the most astonishing tracking shots ever attempted. - In his film *Sympathy for the Devil*, Jean-Luc Godard used a crane for almost every shot in the movie, giving each scene a 360-degree tour of the tableau Godard presented to the viewer. In the final scene, he even shows the crane he was able to rent on his limited budget by including it in the scene. This was one of his traits as a filmmaker --- showing off his budget --- as he did with Brigitte Bardot in *Le Mepris* (*Contempt*). - The closing take of Richard Attenborough\'s film version of *Oh! What a Lovely War* begins with a single war grave, gradually pulling back to reveal hundreds of identical crosses. - The 1980 comedy-drama film *The Stunt Man* featured a crane throughout the production of the fictitious film-within-a-film (with the director played by Peter O\'Toole). - The television comedy *Second City Television* (*SCTV*) uses the concept of the crane shot as comedic material. After using a crane shot in one of the first NBC-produced episodes, the network complained about the exorbitant cost of renting the crane. SCTV writers responded by making the \"crane shot\" a ubiquitous symbol of production excess while also lampooning network executives who care nothing about artistic vision and everything about the bottom line. At the end of the second season, an inebriated Johnny LaRue (John Candy) is given his very own crane by Santa Claus, implying he would be able to have a crane shot whenever he wanted it. - Director Dario Argento included an extensive scene in *Tenebrae* where the camera seemingly crawled over the walls and up a house wall, all in one seamless take. Due to its length, the tracking shot ended up being the production\'s most difficult and complex part to complete. - The 2004 Johnnie To film *Breaking News* opens with an elaborate seven-minute single-take crane shot. - Director Dennis Dugan frequently uses top-to-bottom crane shots in his comedy films. - A camera crane panoramic master interior live shot opens *The Late Late Show with James Corden* after the pre-recorded exterior aerial-shot. - *Jeopardy!* uses a crane to pan the camera over the audience.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,734

Consequentialism

In moral philosophy, **consequentialism** is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one\'s conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (including omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome. Consequentialism, along with eudaimonism, falls under the broader category of **teleological ethics**, a group of views which claim that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value. Consequentialists hold in general that an act is right *if and only if* the act (or in some views, the rule under which it falls) will produce, will probably produce, or is intended to produce, a greater balance of good over evil than any available alternative. Different consequentialist theories differ in how they define moral goods, with chief candidates including pleasure, the absence of pain, the satisfaction of one\'s preferences, and broader notions of the \"general good\". Consequentialism is usually contrasted with deontological ethics (or deontology): deontology, in which rules and moral duty are central, derives the rightness or wrongness of one\'s conduct from the character of the behaviour itself, rather than the outcomes of the conduct. It is also contrasted with both virtue ethics, which focuses on the character of the agent rather than on the nature or consequences of the act (or omission) itself, and pragmatic ethics, which treats morality like science: advancing collectively as a society over the course of many lifetimes, such that any moral criterion is subject to revision. Some argue that consequentialist theories (such as utilitarianism) and deontological theories (such as Kantian ethics) are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, T. M. Scanlon advances the idea that human rights, which are commonly considered a \"deontological\" concept, can only be justified with reference to the consequences of having those rights. Similarly, Robert Nozick argued for a theory that is mostly consequentialist, but incorporates inviolable \"side-constraints\" which restrict the sort of actions agents are permitted to do. Derek Parfit argued that, in practice, when understood properly, rule consequentialism, Kantian deontology, and contractualism would all end up prescribing the same behavior. ## Etymology The term *consequentialism* was coined by G. E. M. Anscombe in her essay \"Modern Moral Philosophy\" in 1958. However, the meaning of the word has changed over the time since Anscombe used it: in the sense she coined it, she had explicitly placed J. S. Mill in the nonconsequentialist and W. D. Ross in the consequentialist camp, whereas, in the contemporary sense of the word, they would be classified the other way round. This is due to changes in the meaning of the word, not due to changes in perceptions of W. D. Ross\'s and J. S. Mill\'s views. ## Classification One common view is to classify consequentialism, together with virtue ethics, under a broader label of \"teleological ethics\". Proponents of teleological ethics (Greek: *telos*, \'end, purpose\' and *logos*, \'science\') argue that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value, meaning that an act is right *if and only if* it, or the rule under which it falls, produces, will probably produce, or is intended to produce, a greater balance of good over evil than any alternative act. This concept is exemplified by the famous aphorism, \"the end justifies the means,\" variously attributed to Machiavelli or Ovid i.e. if a goal is morally important enough, any method of achieving it is acceptable. Teleological ethical theories are contrasted with deontological ethical theories, which hold that acts themselves are *inherently* good or bad, rather than good or bad because of extrinsic factors (such as the act\'s consequences or the moral character of the person who acts). ## Forms of consequentialism {#forms_of_consequentialism} ### Utilitarianism In summary, Jeremy Bentham states that people are driven by their interests and their fears, but their interests take precedence over their fears; their interests are carried out in accordance with how people view the consequences that might be involved with their interests. *Happiness*, in this account, is defined as the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. It can be argued that the existence of phenomenal consciousness and \"qualia\" is required for the experience of pleasure or pain to have an ethical significance. Historically, *hedonistic utilitarianism* is the paradigmatic example of a consequentialist moral theory. This form of utilitarianism holds that what matters is to aggregate happiness; the happiness of everyone, and not the happiness of any particular person. John Stuart Mill, in his exposition of hedonistic utilitarianism, proposed a hierarchy of pleasures, meaning that the pursuit of certain kinds of pleasure is more highly valued than the pursuit of other pleasures. However, some contemporary utilitarians, such as Peter Singer, are concerned with maximizing the satisfaction of preferences, hence *preference utilitarianism*. Other contemporary forms of utilitarianism mirror the forms of consequentialism outlined below. ### Rule consequentialism {#rule_consequentialism} In general, consequentialist theories focus on actions. However, this need not be the case. Rule consequentialism is a theory that is sometimes seen as an attempt to reconcile consequentialism with deontology, or rules-based ethics---and in some cases, this is stated as a criticism of rule consequentialism. Like deontology, rule consequentialism holds that moral behavior involves following certain rules. However, rule consequentialism chooses rules based on the consequences that the selection of those rules has. Rule consequentialism exists in the forms of rule utilitarianism and rule egoism. Various theorists are split as to whether the rules are the only determinant of moral behavior or not. For example, Robert Nozick held that a certain set of minimal rules, which he calls \"side-constraints,\" are necessary to ensure appropriate actions. There are also differences as to how absolute these moral rules are. Thus, while Nozick\'s side-constraints are absolute restrictions on behavior, Amartya Sen proposes a theory that recognizes the importance of certain rules, but these rules are not absolute. That is, they may be violated if strict adherence to the rule would lead to much more undesirable consequences. One of the most common objections to rule-consequentialism is that it is incoherent, because it is based on the consequentialist principle that what we should be concerned with is maximizing the good, but then it tells us not to act to maximize the good, but to follow rules (even in cases where we know that breaking the rule could produce better results). In *Ideal Code, Real World*, Brad Hooker avoids this objection by not basing his form of rule-consequentialism on the ideal of maximizing the good. He writes: > \[T\]he best argument for rule-consequentialism is not that it derives from an overarching commitment to maximise the good. The best argument for rule-consequentialism is that it does a better job than its rivals of matching and tying together our moral convictions, as well as offering us help with our moral disagreements and uncertainties. Derek Parfit described Hooker\'s book as the \"best statement and defence, so far, of one of the most important moral theories.\" ### State consequentialism {#state_consequentialism} *State consequentialism*, also known as *Mohist consequentialism*, is an ethical theory that evaluates the moral worth of an action based on how much it contributes to the welfare of a state. According to the *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy*, Mohist consequentialism, dating back to the 5th century BCE, is the \"world\'s earliest form of consequentialism, a remarkably sophisticated version based on a plurality of intrinsic goods taken as constitutive of human welfare.\" Unlike utilitarianism, which views utility as the sole moral good, \"the basic goods in Mohist consequentialist thinking are\...order, material wealth, and increase in population.\" The word \"order\" refers to Mozi\'s stance against warfare and violence, which he viewed as pointless and a threat to social stability; \"material wealth\" of Mohist consequentialism refers to basic needs, like shelter and clothing; and \"increase in population\" relates to the time of Mozi, war and famine were common, and population growth was seen as a moral necessity for a harmonious society. In *The Cambridge History of Ancient China*, Stanford sinologist David Shepherd Nivison writes that the moral goods of Mohism \"are interrelated: more basic wealth, then more reproduction; more people, then more production and wealth\...if people have plenty, they would be good, filial, kind, and so on unproblematically.\" The Mohists believed that morality is based on \"promoting the benefit of all under heaven and eliminating harm to all under heaven.\" In contrast to Jeremy Bentham\'s views, state consequentialism is not utilitarian because it is not hedonistic or individualistic. The importance of outcomes that are good for the community outweigh the importance of individual pleasure and pain. The term *state consequentialism* has also been applied to the political philosophy of the Confucian philosopher Xunzi. On the other hand, \"legalist\" Han Fei \"is motivated almost totally from the ruler\'s point of view.\" ### Ethical egoism {#ethical_egoism} Ethical egoism can be understood as a consequentialist theory according to which the consequences for the individual agent are taken to matter more than any other result. Thus, egoism will prescribe actions that may be beneficial, detrimental, or neutral to the welfare of others. Some, like Henry Sidgwick, argue that a certain degree of egoism *promotes* the general welfare of society for two reasons: because individuals know how to please themselves best, and because if everyone were an austere altruist then general welfare would inevitably decrease. ### Ethical altruism {#ethical_altruism} Ethical altruism can be seen as a consequentialist theory which prescribes that an individual take actions that have the best consequences for everyone, not necessarily including themselves (similar to selflessness). This was advocated by Auguste Comte, who coined the term *altruism*, and whose ethics can be summed up in the phrase \"Live for others.\" ### Two-level consequentialism {#two_level_consequentialism} The two-level approach involves engaging in critical reasoning and considering all the possible ramifications of one\'s actions before making an ethical decision, but reverting to generally reliable moral rules when one is not in a position to stand back and examine the dilemma as a whole. In practice, this equates to adhering to rule consequentialism when one can only reason on an intuitive level, and to act consequentialism when in a position to stand back and reason on a more critical level. This position can be described as a reconciliation between *act consequentialism*---in which the morality of an action is determined by that action\'s effects---and *rule consequentialism*---in which moral behavior is derived from following rules that lead to positive outcomes. The two-level approach to consequentialism is most often associated with R. M. Hare and Peter Singer. ### Motive consequentialism {#motive_consequentialism} Another consequentialist application view is motive consequentialism, which looks at whether the state of affairs that results from the motive to choose an action is better or at least as good as each alternative state of affairs that would have resulted from alternative actions. This version gives relevance to the motive of an act and links it to its consequences. An act can therefore not be wrong if the decision to act was based on a right motive. A possible inference is that one can not be blamed for mistaken judgments if the motivation was to do good. ### Negative consequentialism {#negative_consequentialism} Most consequentialist theories focus on *promoting* some sort of good consequences. However, negative utilitarianism lays out a consequentialist theory that focuses solely on minimizing bad consequences. One major difference between these two approaches is the agent\'s responsibility. *Positive* consequentialism demands that we bring about good states of affairs, whereas *negative* consequentialism requires that we avoid bad ones. Stronger versions of negative consequentialism will require active intervention to prevent bad and ameliorate existing harm. In weaker versions, simple forbearance from acts tending to harm others is sufficient. An example of this is the slippery-slope argument, which encourages others to avoid a specified act on the grounds that it may ultimately lead to undesirable consequences. Often \"negative\" consequentialist theories assert that reducing suffering is more important than increasing pleasure. Karl Popper, for example, claimed that \"from the moral point of view, pain cannot be outweighed by pleasure.\" (While Popper is not a consequentialist per se, this is taken as a classic statement of negative utilitarianism.) When considering a theory of justice, negative consequentialists may use a statewide or global-reaching principle: the reduction of suffering (for the disadvantaged) is more valuable than increased pleasure (for the affluent or luxurious). ### Acts and omissions {#acts_and_omissions} Since pure consequentialism holds that an action is to be judged solely by its result, most consequentialist theories hold that a deliberate action is no different from a deliberate decision not to act. This contrasts with the \"*acts and omissions doctrine*\", which is upheld by some medical ethicists and some religions: it asserts there is a significant moral distinction between acts and deliberate non-actions which lead to the same outcome. This contrast is brought out in issues such as voluntary euthanasia. ### Actualism and possibilism {#actualism_and_possibilism} The normative status of an action depends on its consequences according to consequentialism. The consequences of the actions of an agent may include other actions by this agent. **Actualism and possibilism** disagree on how later possible actions impact the normative status of the current action by the same agent. Actualists assert that it is only relevant what the agent *would* actually do later for assessing the value of an alternative. Possibilists, on the other hand, hold that we should also take into account what the agent *could* do, even if she would not do it. For example, assume that Gifre has the choice between two alternatives, eating a cookie or not eating anything. Having eaten the first cookie, Gifre could stop eating cookies, which is the best alternative. But after having tasted one cookie, Gifre would freely decide to continue eating cookies until the whole bag is finished, which would result in a terrible stomach ache and would be the worst alternative. Not eating any cookies at all, on the other hand, would be the second-best alternative. Now the question is: should Gifre eat the first cookie or not? Actualists are only concerned with the actual consequences. According to them, Gifre should not eat any cookies at all since it is better than the alternative leading to a stomach ache. Possibilists, however, contend that the best possible course of action involves eating the first cookie and this is therefore what Gifre should do. One counterintuitive consequence of actualism is that agents can avoid moral obligations simply by having an imperfect moral character. For example, a lazy person might justify rejecting a request to help a friend by arguing that, due to her lazy character, she would not have done the work anyway, even if she had accepted the request. By rejecting the offer right away, she managed at least not to waste anyone\'s time. Actualists might even consider her behavior praiseworthy since she did what, according to actualism, she ought to have done. This seems to be a very easy way to \"get off the hook\" that is avoided by possibilism. But possibilism has to face the objection that in some cases it sanctions and even recommends what actually leads to the worst outcome. Douglas W. Portmore has suggested that these and other problems of actualism and possibilism can be avoided by constraining what counts as a genuine alternative for the agent. On his view, it is a requirement that the agent has rational control over the event in question. For example, eating only one cookie and stopping afterward only is an option for Gifre if she has the rational capacity to repress her temptation to continue eating. If the temptation is irrepressible then this course of action is not considered to be an option and is therefore not relevant when assessing what the best alternative is. Portmore suggests that, given this adjustment, we should prefer a view very closely associated with *possibilism* called *maximalism*. ## Issues ### Action guidance {#action_guidance} One important characteristic of many normative moral theories such as consequentialism is the ability to produce practical moral judgements. At the very least, any moral theory needs to define the standpoint from which the goodness of the consequences are to be determined. What is primarily at stake here is the *responsibility* of the agent. #### The ideal observer {#the_ideal_observer} One common tactic among consequentialists, particularly those committed to an altruistic (selfless) account of consequentialism, is to employ an ideal, neutral observer from which moral judgements can be made. John Rawls, a critic of utilitarianism, argues that utilitarianism, in common with other forms of consequentialism, relies on the perspective of such an ideal observer. The particular characteristics of this ideal observer can vary from an omniscient observer, who would grasp all the consequences of any action, to an ideally informed observer, who knows as much as could reasonably be expected, but not necessarily all the circumstances or all the possible consequences. Consequentialist theories that adopt this paradigm hold that right action is the action that will bring about the best consequences from this ideal observer\'s perspective. #### The real observer {#the_real_observer} In practice, it is very difficult, and at times arguably impossible, to adopt the point of view of an ideal observer. Individual moral agents do not know everything about their particular situations, and thus do not know all the possible consequences of their potential actions. For this reason, some theorists have argued that consequentialist theories can only require agents to choose the best action in line with what they know about the situation. However, if this approach is naïvely adopted, then moral agents who, for example, recklessly fail to reflect on their situation, and act in a way that brings about terrible results, could be said to be acting in a morally justifiable way. Acting in a situation without first informing oneself of the circumstances of the situation can lead to even the most well-intended actions yielding miserable consequences. As a result, it could be argued that there is a moral imperative for agents to inform themselves as much as possible about a situation before judging the appropriate course of action. This imperative, of course, is derived from consequential thinking: a better-informed agent is able to bring about better consequences. ### Consequences for whom {#consequences_for_whom} Moral action always has consequences for certain people or things. Varieties of consequentialism can be differentiated by the beneficiary of the good consequences. That is, one might ask \"Consequences for whom?\" #### Agent-focused or agent-neutral {#agent_focused_or_agent_neutral} A fundamental distinction can be drawn between theories which require that agents act for ends perhaps disconnected from their own interests and drives, and theories which permit that agents act for ends in which they have some personal interest or motivation. These are called \"agent-neutral\" and \"agent-focused\" theories respectively. **Agent-neutral** consequentialism ignores the specific value a state of affairs has for any particular agent. Thus, in an agent-neutral theory, an actor\'s personal goals do not count any more than anyone else\'s goals in evaluating what action the actor should take. **Agent-focused** consequentialism, on the other hand, focuses on the particular needs of the moral agent. Thus, in an agent-focused account, such as one that Peter Railton outlines, the agent might be concerned with the general welfare, but the agent is *more* concerned with the immediate welfare of herself and her friends and family. These two approaches could be reconciled by acknowledging the tension between an agent\'s interests as an individual and as a member of various groups, and seeking to somehow optimize among all of these interests. For example, it may be meaningful to speak of an action as being good for someone as an individual, but bad for them as a citizen of their town. #### Non-humans {#non_humans} Many consequentialist theories may seem primarily concerned with human beings and their relationships with other human beings. However, some philosophers argue that we should not limit our ethical consideration to the interests of human beings alone. Jeremy Bentham, who is regarded as the founder of utilitarianism, argues that animals can experience pleasure and pain, thus demanding that \'non-human animals\' should be a serious object of moral concern. More recently, Peter Singer has argued that it is unreasonable that we do not give equal consideration to the interests of animals as to those of human beings when we choose the way we are to treat them. Such equal consideration does not necessarily imply identical treatment of humans and non-humans, any more than it necessarily implies identical treatment of all humans. ### Value of consequences {#value_of_consequences} One way to divide various consequentialisms is by the types of consequences that are taken to matter most, that is, which consequences count as good states of affairs. According to utilitarianism, a good action is one that results in an increase in pleasure, and the best action is one that results in the most pleasure for the greatest number. Closely related is eudaimonic consequentialism, according to which a full, flourishing life, which may or may not be the same as enjoying a great deal of pleasure, is the ultimate aim. Similarly, one might adopt an aesthetic consequentialism, in which the ultimate aim is to produce beauty. However, one might fix on non-psychological goods as the relevant effect. Thus, one might pursue an increase in material equality or political liberty instead of something like the more ephemeral \"pleasure\". Other theories adopt a package of several goods, all to be promoted equally. As the consequentialist approach contains an inherent assumption that the outcomes of a moral decision can be quantified in terms of \"goodness\" or \"badness,\" or at least put in order of increasing preference, it is an especially suited moral theory for a probabilistic and decision theoretical approach. ### Virtue ethics {#virtue_ethics} Consequentialism can also be contrasted with aretaic moral theories such as virtue ethics. Whereas consequentialist theories posit that consequences of action should be the primary focus of our thinking about ethics, virtue ethics insists that it is the character rather than the consequences of actions that should be the focal point. Some virtue ethicists hold that consequentialist theories totally disregard the development and importance of moral character. For example, Philippa Foot argues that consequences in themselves have no ethical content, unless it has been provided by a virtue such as benevolence. However, consequentialism and virtue ethics need not be entirely antagonistic. Iain King has developed an approach that reconciles the two schools. Other consequentialists consider effects on the character of people involved in an action when assessing consequence. Similarly, a consequentialist theory may aim at the maximization of a particular virtue or set of virtues. Finally, following Foot\'s lead, one might adopt a sort of consequentialism that argues that virtuous activity ultimately produces the best consequences.`{{Clarify|What issue in consequentialism is being discussed here?|date=February 2012}}`{=mediawiki} ### Ultimate end {#ultimate_end} The *ultimate end* is a concept in the moral philosophy of Max Weber, in which individuals act in a faithful, rather than rational, manner. ## Criticisms G. E. M. Anscombe objects to the consequentialism of Sidgwick on the grounds that the moral worth of an action is premised on the predictive capabilities of the individual, relieving them of the responsibility for the \"badness\" of an act should they \"make out a case for not having foreseen\" negative consequences. Immanuel Kant makes a similar argument against consequentialism in the case of the inquiring murder. The example asks whether or not it would be right to give false statement to an inquiring murderer in order to misdirect the individual away from the intended victim. He argues, in On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives, that lying from \"benevolent motives,\" here the motive to maximize the good consequences by protecting the intended victim, should then make the liar responsible for the consequences of the act. For example, it could be that by misdirecting the inquiring murder away from where one thought the intended victim was actually directed the murder to the intended victim. That such an act is immoral mirrors Anscombe\'s objection to Sidgwick that his consequentialism would problematically absolve the consequentalist of moral responsibility when the consequentalist fails to foresee the true consequences of an act. The future amplification of the effects of small decisions is an important factor that makes it more difficult to predict the ethical value of consequences, even though most would agree that only predictable consequences are charged with a moral responsibility. Bernard Williams has argued that consequentialism is alienating because it requires moral agents to put too much distance between themselves and their own projects and commitments. Williams argues that consequentialism requires moral agents to take a strictly impersonal view of all actions, since it is only the consequences, and not who produces them, that are said to matter. Williams argues that this demands too much of moral agents---since (he claims) consequentialism demands that they be willing to sacrifice any and all personal projects and commitments in any given circumstance in order to pursue the most beneficent course of action possible. He argues further that consequentialism fails to make sense of intuitions that it can matter whether or not someone is personally the author of a particular consequence. For example, that participating in a crime can matter, even if the crime would have been committed anyway, or would even have been worse, without the agent\'s participation. Some consequentialists---most notably Peter Railton---have attempted to develop a form of consequentialism that acknowledges and avoids the objections raised by Williams. Railton argues that Williams\'s criticisms can be avoided by adopting a form of consequentialism in which moral decisions are to be determined by the sort of life that they express. On his account, the agent should choose the sort of life that will, on the whole, produce the best overall effects. ## Notable consequentialists {#notable_consequentialists} - R. M. Adams (born 1937) - Jonathan Baron (born 1944) - Jeremy Bentham (1748--1832) - Richard B. Brandt (1910--1997) - John Dewey (1857--1952) - Julia Driver (1961- ) - Milton Friedman (1912--2006) - David Friedman (born 1945) - William Godwin (1756--1836) - R. M. Hare (1919--2002) - John Harsanyi (1920--2000) - Brad Hooker (born 1957) - Francis Hutcheson (1694--1746) - Shelly Kagan (born 1963) - Niccolò Machiavelli (1469--1527) - James Mill (1773--1836) - John Stuart Mill (1806--1873) - G. E. Moore (1873--1958) - Mozi (470--391 BCE) - Philip Pettit (born 1945) - Peter Railton (born 1950) - Henry Sidgwick (1838--1900) - Peter Singer (born 1946) - J. J. C. Smart (1920--2012)

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5,736

Catherine Coleman

**Catherine Grace** \"**Cady**\" **Coleman** (born December 14, 1960) is an American chemist, engineer, former United States Air Force colonel, and retired NASA astronaut. She is a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions, and departed the International Space Station on May 23, 2011, as a crew member of Expedition 27 after logging 159 days in space. ## Education Coleman graduated from Wilbert Tucker Woodson High School, Fairfax, Virginia, in 1978. In 1978--1979, she was an exchange student at Røyken Upper Secondary School in Norway with the AFS Intercultural Programs. She received a B.S. degree in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1983 and was commissioned as graduate of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (Air Force ROTC)., then received a Ph.D. degree in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1991. She was advised by Professor Thomas J. McCarthy on her doctorate. As an undergraduate, she was a member of the intercollegiate rowing crew and was a resident of Baker House. ## Military career {#military_career} Coleman continued to pursue her PhD at the University of Massachusetts Amherst as a second lieutenant. In 1988, she entered active duty at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as a research chemist. During her work, she participated as a surface analysis consultant on the NASA Long Duration Exposure Facility experiment. In 1991, she received her doctorate in polymer science and engineering. She retired from the Air Force in November 2009 as a colonel. ## NASA career {#nasa_career} Coleman was selected by NASA in 1992 to join the NASA Astronaut Corps. In 1995, she was a member of the STS-73 crew on the scientific mission USML-2 with experiments including biotechnology, combustion science, and the physics of fluids. STS-93 was Coleman\'s second space flight in 1999. She was mission specialist in charge of deploying the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its Inertial Upper Stage out of the shuttle\'s cargo bay. Coleman served as Chief of Robotics for the Astronaut Office, to include robotic arm operations and training for all Space Shuttle and International Space Station missions. In October 2004, Coleman served as an aquanaut during the NEEMO 7 mission aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory, living and working underwater for eleven days. Coleman was assigned as a backup U.S. crew member for Expeditions 19, 20 and 21 and served as a backup crew member for Expeditions 24 and 25 as part of her training for Expedition 26. Coleman launched on December 15, 2010 (December 16, 2010 Baikonur time), aboard Soyuz TMA-20 to join the Expedition 26 mission aboard the International Space Station. She retired from NASA on December 1, 2016. ### Spaceflight experience {#spaceflight_experience} STS-73 on Space Shuttle *Columbia* (October 20 to November 5, 1995) was the second United States Microgravity Laboratory (USML-2) mission. The mission focused on materials science, biotechnology, combustion science, the physics of fluids, and numerous scientific experiments housed in the pressurized Spacelab module. In completing her first space flight, Coleman orbited the Earth 256 times, traveled over 6 million miles, and logged a total of 15 days, 21 hours, 52 minutes and 21 seconds in space. STS-93 on *Columbia* (July 22 to 27, 1999) was a five-day mission during which Coleman was the lead mission specialist for the deployment of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Designed to conduct comprehensive studies of the universe, the telescope will enable scientists to study exotic phenomena such as exploding stars, quasars, and black holes. Mission duration was 118 hours and 50 minutes. Soyuz TMA-20 / Expedition 26/27 (December 15, 2010, to May 23, 2011) was an extended duration mission to the International Space Station. ## Personal Coleman is married to glass artist Josh Simpson who lives in Massachusetts. They have two sons. She is part of the band Bandella, which also includes fellow NASA astronaut Stephen Robinson, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, and Micki Pettit (wife of the astronaut Donald Pettit). Coleman is a flute player and has taken several flutes with her to the ISS, including a pennywhistle from Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains, an old Irish flute from Matt Molloy of The Chieftains, and a flute from Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull (band). On February 15, 2011, she played one of the instruments live from orbit on National Public Radio. On April 12, 2011, she played a duet with Ian Anderson to honour Yuri Gagarin\'s 50th anniversary of his flight. She first recorded her part, which later on Anderson joined while on tour in Perm. On May 13 of that year, Coleman delivered a taped commencement address to the class of 2011 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As do many other astronauts, Coleman holds an amateur radio license (callsign: KC5ZTH). As of 2015, she is also known to be working as a guest speaker at the Baylor College of Medicine, for the children\'s program \"Saturday Morning Science\". In 2018, she gave a graduation address to Carter Lynch, the sole graduate of Cuttyhunk Elementary School, on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts. In 2019 the Irish postal service An Post issued a set of commemorative stamps for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landings, Catherine Coleman is featured alongside fellow astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Eileen Collins.

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5,739

Compiler

Compilation}} `{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Program execution}}`{=mediawiki} In computing, a **compiler** is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the *source* language) into another language (the *target* language). The name \"compiler\" is primarily used for programs that translate source code from a high-level programming language to a low-level programming language (e.g. assembly language, object code, or machine code) to create an executable program. There are many different types of compilers which produce output in different useful forms. A *cross-compiler* produces code for a different CPU or operating system than the one on which the cross-compiler itself runs. A *bootstrap compiler* is often a temporary compiler, used for compiling a more permanent or better optimised compiler for a language. Related software include *decompilers*, programs that translate from low-level languages to higher level ones; programs that translate between high-level languages, usually called *source-to-source compilers* or *transpilers*; language *rewriters*, usually programs that translate the form of expressions without a change of language; and *compiler-compilers*, compilers that produce compilers (or parts of them), often in a generic and reusable way so as to be able to produce many differing compilers. A compiler is likely to perform some or all of the following operations, often called phases: preprocessing, lexical analysis, parsing, semantic analysis (syntax-directed translation), conversion of input programs to an intermediate representation, code optimization and machine specific code generation. Compilers generally implement these phases as modular components, promoting efficient design and correctness of transformations of source input to target output. Program faults caused by incorrect compiler behavior can be very difficult to track down and work around; therefore, compiler implementers invest significant effort to ensure compiler correctness. ## Comparison with interpreter {#comparison_with_interpreter} With respect to making source code runnable, an interpreter provides a similar function as a compiler, but via a different mechanism. An interpreter executes code without converting it to machine code. Some interpreters execute source code while others execute an intermediate form such as bytecode. A program compiled to native code tends to run faster than if interpreted. Environments with a bytecode intermediate form tend toward intermediate speed. Just-in-time compilation allows for native execution speed with a one-time startup processing time cost. Low-level programming languages, such as assembly and C, are typically compiled, especially when speed is a significant concern, rather than cross-platform support. For such languages, there are more one-to-one correspondences between the source code and the resulting machine code, making it easier for programmers to control the use of hardware. In theory, a programming language can be used via either a compiler or an interpreter, but in practice, each language tends to be used with only one or the other. Nonetheless, it is possible to write a compiler for a language that is commonly interpreted. For example, Common Lisp can be compiled to Java bytecode (then interpreted by the Java virtual machine), C code (then compiled to native machine code), or directly to native code. ## History upright=1.5\|thumb \|A diagram of the operation of a typical multi-language, multi-target compiler Theoretical computing concepts developed by scientists, mathematicians, and engineers formed the basis of digital modern computing development during World War II. Primitive binary languages evolved because digital devices only understand ones and zeros and the circuit patterns in the underlying machine architecture. In the late 1940s, assembly languages were created to offer a more workable abstraction of the computer architectures. Limited memory capacity of early computers led to substantial technical challenges when the first compilers were designed. Therefore, the compilation process needed to be divided into several small programs. The front end programs produce the analysis products used by the back end programs to generate target code. As computer technology provided more resources, compiler designs could align better with the compilation process. It is usually more productive for a programmer to use a high-level language, so the development of high-level languages followed naturally from the capabilities offered by digital computers. High-level languages are formal languages that are strictly defined by their syntax and semantics which form the high-level language architecture. Elements of these formal languages include: - *Alphabet*, any finite set of symbols; - *String*, a finite sequence of symbols; - *Language*, any set of strings on an alphabet. The sentences in a language may be defined by a set of rules called a grammar. Backus--Naur form (BNF) describes the syntax of \"sentences\" of a language. It was developed by John Backus and used for the syntax of Algol 60. The ideas derive from the context-free grammar concepts by linguist Noam Chomsky. \"BNF and its extensions have become standard tools for describing the syntax of programming notations. In many cases, parts of compilers are generated automatically from a BNF description.\" Between 1942 and 1945, Konrad Zuse designed the first (algorithmic) programming language for computers called *\[\[Plankalkül\]\]* (\"Plan Calculus\"). Zuse also envisioned a *Planfertigungsgerät* (\"Plan assembly device\") to automatically translate the mathematical formulation of a program into machine-readable punched film stock. While no actual implementation occurred until the 1970s, it presented concepts later seen in APL designed by Ken Iverson in the late 1950s. APL is a language for mathematical computations. Between 1949 and 1951, Heinz Rutishauser proposed Superplan, a high-level language and automatic translator. His ideas were later refined by Friedrich L. Bauer and Klaus Samelson. High-level language design during the formative years of digital computing provided useful programming tools for a variety of applications: - FORTRAN (Formula Translation) for engineering and science applications is considered to be one of the first actually implemented high-level languages and first optimizing compiler.`{{third-party inline|date=October 2024}}`{=mediawiki} - COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) evolved from A-0 and FLOW-MATIC to become the dominant high-level language for business applications. - LISP (List Processor) for symbolic computation. Compiler technology evolved from the need for a strictly defined transformation of the high-level source program into a low-level target program for the digital computer. The compiler could be viewed as a front end to deal with the analysis of the source code and a back end to synthesize the analysis into the target code. Optimization between the front end and back end could produce more efficient target code. Some early milestones in the development of compiler technology: - *May 1952*: Grace Hopper\'s team at Remington Rand wrote the compiler for the A-0 programming language (and coined the term *compiler* to describe it), although the A-0 compiler functioned more as a loader or linker than the modern notion of a full compiler. - *1952, before September*: An Autocode compiler developed by Alick Glennie for the Manchester Mark I computer at the University of Manchester is considered by some to be the first compiled programming language. - *1954--1957*: A team led by John Backus at IBM developed FORTRAN which is usually considered the first high-level language. In 1957, they completed a FORTRAN compiler that is generally credited as having introduced the first unambiguously complete compiler. - *1959*: The Conference on Data Systems Language (CODASYL) initiated development of COBOL. The COBOL design drew on A-0 and FLOW-MATIC. By the early 1960s COBOL was compiled on multiple architectures. - *1958--1960*: Algol 58 was the precursor to ALGOL 60. It introduced code blocks, a key advance in the rise of structured programming. ALGOL 60 was the first language to implement nested function definitions with lexical scope. It included recursion. Its syntax was defined using BNF. ALGOL 60 inspired many languages that followed it. Tony Hoare remarked: \"\... it was not only an improvement on its predecessors but also on nearly all its successors.\" - *1958--1962*: John McCarthy at MIT designed LISP. The symbol processing capabilities provided useful features for artificial intelligence research. In 1962, LISP 1.5 release noted some tools: an interpreter written by Stephen Russell and Daniel J. Edwards, a compiler and assembler written by Tim Hart and Mike Levin. Early operating systems and software were written in assembly language. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the use of high-level languages for system programming was still controversial due to resource limitations. However, several research and industry efforts began the shift toward high-level systems programming languages, for example, BCPL, BLISS, B, and C. BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language) designed in 1966 by Martin Richards at the University of Cambridge was originally developed as a compiler writing tool. Several compilers have been implemented, Richards\' book provides insights to the language and its compiler. BCPL was not only an influential systems programming language that is still used in research but also provided a basis for the design of B and C languages. BLISS (Basic Language for Implementation of System Software) was developed for a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-10 computer by W. A. Wulf\'s Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) research team. The CMU team went on to develop BLISS-11 compiler one year later in 1970. Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), a time-sharing operating system project, involved MIT, Bell Labs, General Electric (later Honeywell) and was led by Fernando Corbató from MIT. Multics was written in the PL/I language developed by IBM and IBM User Group. IBM\'s goal was to satisfy business, scientific, and systems programming requirements. There were other languages that could have been considered but PL/I offered the most complete solution even though it had not been implemented. For the first few years of the Multics project, a subset of the language could be compiled to assembly language with the Early PL/I (EPL) compiler by Doug McIlory and Bob Morris from Bell Labs. EPL supported the project until a boot-strapping compiler for the full PL/I could be developed. Bell Labs left the Multics project in 1969, and developed a system programming language B based on BCPL concepts, written by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson. Ritchie created a boot-strapping compiler for B and wrote Unics (Uniplexed Information and Computing Service) operating system for a PDP-7 in B. Unics eventually became spelled Unix. Bell Labs started the development and expansion of C based on B and BCPL. The BCPL compiler had been transported to Multics by Bell Labs and BCPL was a preferred language at Bell Labs. Initially, a front-end program to Bell Labs\' B compiler was used while a C compiler was developed. In 1971, a new PDP-11 provided the resource to define extensions to B and rewrite the compiler. By 1973 the design of C language was essentially complete and the Unix kernel for a PDP-11 was rewritten in C. Steve Johnson started development of Portable C Compiler (PCC) to support retargeting of C compilers to new machines. Object-oriented programming (OOP) offered some interesting possibilities for application development and maintenance. OOP concepts go further back but were part of LISP and Simula language science. Bell Labs became interested in OOP with the development of C++. C++ was first used in 1980 for systems programming. The initial design leveraged C language systems programming capabilities with Simula concepts. Object-oriented facilities were added in 1983. The Cfront program implemented a C++ front-end for C84 language compiler. In subsequent years several C++ compilers were developed as C++ popularity grew. In many application domains, the idea of using a higher-level language quickly caught on. Because of the expanding functionality supported by newer programming languages and the increasing complexity of computer architectures, compilers became more complex. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) sponsored a compiler project with Wulf\'s CMU research team in 1970. The Production Quality Compiler-Compiler PQCC design would produce a Production Quality Compiler (PQC) from formal definitions of source language and the target. PQCC tried to extend the term compiler-compiler beyond the traditional meaning as a parser generator (e.g., Yacc) without much success. PQCC might more properly be referred to as a compiler generator. PQCC research into code generation process sought to build a truly automatic compiler-writing system. The effort discovered and designed the phase structure of the PQC. The BLISS-11 compiler provided the initial structure. The phases included analyses (front end), intermediate translation to virtual machine (middle end), and translation to the target (back end). TCOL was developed for the PQCC research to handle language specific constructs in the intermediate representation. Variations of TCOL supported various languages. The PQCC project investigated techniques of automated compiler construction. The design concepts proved useful in optimizing compilers and compilers for the (since 1995, object-oriented) programming language Ada. The Ada *STONEMAN* document formalized the program support environment (APSE) along with the kernel (KAPSE) and minimal (MAPSE). An Ada interpreter NYU/ED supported development and standardization efforts with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Standards Organization (ISO). Initial Ada compiler development by the U.S. Military Services included the compilers in a complete integrated design environment along the lines of the *STONEMAN* document. Army and Navy worked on the Ada Language System (ALS) project targeted to DEC/VAX architecture while the Air Force started on the Ada Integrated Environment (AIE) targeted to IBM 370 series. While the projects did not provide the desired results, they did contribute to the overall effort on Ada development. Other Ada compiler efforts got underway in Britain at the University of York and in Germany at the University of Karlsruhe. In the U. S., Verdix (later acquired by Rational) delivered the Verdix Ada Development System (VADS) to the Army. VADS provided a set of development tools including a compiler. Unix/VADS could be hosted on a variety of Unix platforms such as DEC Ultrix and the Sun 3/60 Solaris targeted to Motorola 68020 in an Army CECOM evaluation. There were soon many Ada compilers available that passed the Ada Validation tests. The Free Software Foundation GNU project developed the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) which provides a core capability to support multiple languages and targets. The Ada version GNAT is one of the most widely used Ada compilers. GNAT is free but there is also commercial support, for example, AdaCore, was founded in 1994 to provide commercial software solutions for Ada. GNAT Pro includes the GNU GCC based GNAT with a tool suite to provide an integrated development environment. High-level languages continued to drive compiler research and development. Focus areas included optimization and automatic code generation. Trends in programming languages and development environments influenced compiler technology. More compilers became included in language distributions (PERL, Java Development Kit) and as a component of an IDE (VADS, Eclipse, Ada Pro). The interrelationship and interdependence of technologies grew. The advent of web services promoted growth of web languages and scripting languages. Scripts trace back to the early days of Command Line Interfaces (CLI) where the user could enter commands to be executed by the system. User Shell concepts developed with languages to write shell programs. Early Windows designs offered a simple batch programming capability. The conventional transformation of these language used an interpreter. While not widely used, Bash and Batch compilers have been written. More recently sophisticated interpreted languages became part of the developers tool kit. Modern scripting languages include PHP, Python, Ruby and Lua. (Lua is widely used in game development.) All of these have interpreter and compiler support. \"When the field of compiling began in the late 50s, its focus was limited to the translation of high-level language programs into machine code \... The compiler field is increasingly intertwined with other disciplines including computer architecture, programming languages, formal methods, software engineering, and computer security.\" The \"Compiler Research: The Next 50 Years\" article noted the importance of object-oriented languages and Java. Security and parallel computing were cited among the future research targets. ## Compiler construction {#compiler_construction} A compiler implements a formal transformation from a high-level source program to a low-level target program. Compiler design can define an end-to-end solution or tackle a defined subset that interfaces with other compilation tools e.g. preprocessors, assemblers, linkers. Design requirements include rigorously defined interfaces both internally between compiler components and externally between supporting toolsets. In the early days, the approach taken to compiler design was directly affected by the complexity of the computer language to be processed, the experience of the person(s) designing it, and the resources available. Resource limitations led to the need to pass through the source code more than once. A compiler for a relatively simple language written by one person might be a single, monolithic piece of software. However, as the source language grows in complexity the design may be split into a number of interdependent phases. Separate phases provide design improvements that focus development on the functions in the compilation process. ### One-pass vis-à-vis multi-pass compilers`{{anchor|Single-pass}}`{=mediawiki} {#one_pass_vis_à_vis_multi_pass_compilers} Classifying compilers by number of passes has its background in the hardware resource limitations of computers. Compiling involves performing much work and early computers did not have enough memory to contain one program that did all of this work. As a result, compilers were split up into smaller programs which each made a pass over the source (or some representation of it) performing some of the required analysis and translations. The ability to compile in a single pass has classically been seen as a benefit because it simplifies the job of writing a compiler and one-pass compilers generally perform compilations faster than multi-pass compilers. Thus, partly driven by the resource limitations of early systems, many early languages were specifically designed so that they could be compiled in a single pass (e.g., Pascal). In some cases, the design of a language feature may require a compiler to perform more than one pass over the source. For instance, consider a declaration appearing on line 20 of the source which affects the translation of a statement appearing on line 10. In this case, the first pass needs to gather information about declarations appearing after statements that they affect, with the actual translation happening during a subsequent pass. The disadvantage of compiling in a single pass is that it is not possible to perform many of the sophisticated optimizations needed to generate high quality code. It can be difficult to count exactly how many passes an optimizing compiler makes. For instance, different phases of optimization may analyse one expression many times but only analyse another expression once. Splitting a compiler up into small programs is a technique used by researchers interested in producing provably correct compilers. Proving the correctness of a set of small programs often requires less effort than proving the correctness of a larger, single, equivalent program. ### Three-stage compiler structure {#three_stage_compiler_structure} thumb\|center\|upright=2.5\|Compiler design Regardless of the exact number of phases in the compiler design, the phases can be assigned to one of three stages. The stages include a front end, a middle end, and a back end. - The *front end* scans the input and verifies syntax and semantics according to a specific source language. For statically typed languages it performs type checking by collecting type information. If the input program is syntactically incorrect or has a type error, it generates error and/or warning messages, usually identifying the location in the source code where the problem was detected; in some cases the actual error may be (much) earlier in the program. Aspects of the front end include lexical analysis, syntax analysis, and semantic analysis. The front end transforms the input program into an intermediate representation (IR) for further processing by the middle end. This IR is usually a lower-level representation of the program with respect to the source code. - The *middle end* performs optimizations on the IR that are independent of the CPU architecture being targeted. This source code/machine code independence is intended to enable generic optimizations to be shared between versions of the compiler supporting different languages and target processors. Examples of middle end optimizations are removal of useless (dead-code elimination) or unreachable code (reachability analysis), discovery and propagation of constant values (constant propagation), relocation of computation to a less frequently executed place (e.g., out of a loop), or specialization of computation based on the context, eventually producing the \"optimized\" IR that is used by the back end. - The *back end* takes the optimized IR from the middle end. It may perform more analysis, transformations and optimizations that are specific for the target CPU architecture. The back end generates the target-dependent assembly code, performing register allocation in the process. The back end performs instruction scheduling, which re-orders instructions to keep parallel execution units busy by filling delay slots. Although most optimization problems are NP-hard, heuristic techniques for solving them are well-developed and implemented in production-quality compilers. Typically the output of a back end is machine code specialized for a particular processor and operating system. This front/middle/back-end approach makes it possible to combine front ends for different languages with back ends for different CPUs while sharing the optimizations of the middle end. Practical examples of this approach are the GNU Compiler Collection, Clang (LLVM-based C/C++ compiler), and the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, which have multiple front-ends, shared optimizations and multiple back-ends. #### Front end {#front_end} The front end analyzes the source code to build an internal representation of the program, called the intermediate representation (IR). It also manages the symbol table, a data structure mapping each symbol in the source code to associated information such as location, type and scope. While the frontend can be a single monolithic function or program, as in a scannerless parser, it was traditionally implemented and analyzed as several phases, which may execute sequentially or concurrently. This method is favored due to its modularity and separation of concerns. Most commonly, the frontend is broken into three phases: lexical analysis (also known as lexing or scanning), syntax analysis (also known as scanning or parsing), and semantic analysis. Lexing and parsing comprise the syntactic analysis (word syntax and phrase syntax, respectively), and in simple cases, these modules (the lexer and parser) can be automatically generated from a grammar for the language, though in more complex cases these require manual modification. The lexical grammar and phrase grammar are usually context-free grammars, which simplifies analysis significantly, with context-sensitivity handled at the semantic analysis phase. The semantic analysis phase is generally more complex and written by hand, but can be partially or fully automated using attribute grammars. These phases themselves can be further broken down: lexing as scanning and evaluating, and parsing as building a concrete syntax tree (CST, parse tree) and then transforming it into an abstract syntax tree (AST, syntax tree). In some cases additional phases are used, notably *line reconstruction* and *preprocessing,* but these are rare. The main phases of the front end include the following: - *`{{visible anchor|Line reconstruction}}`{=mediawiki}* converts the input character sequence to a canonical form ready for the parser. Languages which strop their keywords or allow arbitrary spaces within identifiers require this phase. The top-down, recursive-descent, table-driven parsers used in the 1960s typically read the source one character at a time and did not require a separate tokenizing phase. Atlas Autocode and Imp (and some implementations of ALGOL and Coral 66) are examples of stropped languages whose compilers would have a *Line Reconstruction* phase. - *Preprocessing* supports macro substitution and conditional compilation. Typically the preprocessing phase occurs before syntactic or semantic analysis; e.g. in the case of C, the preprocessor manipulates lexical tokens rather than syntactic forms. However, some languages such as Scheme support macro substitutions based on syntactic forms. - *Lexical analysis* (also known as *lexing* or *tokenization*) breaks the source code text into a sequence of small pieces called *lexical tokens*. This phase can be divided into two stages: the *scanning*, which segments the input text into syntactic units called *lexemes* and assigns them a category; and the *evaluating*, which converts lexemes into a processed value. A token is a pair consisting of a *token name* and an optional *token value*. Common token categories may include identifiers, keywords, separators, operators, literals and comments, although the set of token categories varies in different programming languages. The lexeme syntax is typically a regular language, so a finite-state automaton constructed from a regular expression can be used to recognize it. The software doing lexical analysis is called a lexical analyzer. This may not be a separate step---it can be combined with the parsing step in scannerless parsing, in which case parsing is done at the character level, not the token level. - *Syntax analysis* (also known as *parsing*) involves parsing the token sequence to identify the syntactic structure of the program. This phase typically builds a parse tree, which replaces the linear sequence of tokens with a tree structure built according to the rules of a formal grammar which define the language\'s syntax. The parse tree is often analyzed, augmented, and transformed by later phases in the compiler. - *Semantic analysis* adds semantic information to the parse tree and builds the symbol table. This phase performs semantic checks such as type checking (checking for type errors), or object binding (associating variable and function references with their definitions), or definite assignment (requiring all local variables to be initialized before use), rejecting incorrect programs or issuing warnings. Semantic analysis usually requires a complete parse tree, meaning that this phase logically follows the parsing phase, and logically precedes the code generation phase, though it is often possible to fold multiple phases into one pass over the code in a compiler implementation. #### Middle end {#middle_end} The middle end, also known as *optimizer,* performs optimizations on the intermediate representation in order to improve the performance and the quality of the produced machine code. The middle end contains those optimizations that are independent of the CPU architecture being targeted. The main phases of the middle end include the following: - Analysis: This is the gathering of program information from the intermediate representation derived from the input; data-flow analysis is used to build use-define chains, together with dependence analysis, alias analysis, pointer analysis, escape analysis, etc. Accurate analysis is the basis for any compiler optimization. The control-flow graph of every compiled function and the call graph of the program are usually also built during the analysis phase. - Optimization: the intermediate language representation is transformed into functionally equivalent but faster (or smaller) forms. Popular optimizations are inline expansion, dead-code elimination, constant propagation, loop transformation and even automatic parallelization. Compiler analysis is the prerequisite for any compiler optimization, and they tightly work together. For example, dependence analysis is crucial for loop transformation. The scope of compiler analysis and optimizations vary greatly; their scope may range from operating within a basic block, to whole procedures, or even the whole program. There is a trade-off between the granularity of the optimizations and the cost of compilation. For example, peephole optimizations are fast to perform during compilation but only affect a small local fragment of the code, and can be performed independently of the context in which the code fragment appears. In contrast, interprocedural optimization requires more compilation time and memory space, but enable optimizations that are only possible by considering the behavior of multiple functions simultaneously. Interprocedural analysis and optimizations are common in modern commercial compilers from HP, IBM, SGI, Intel, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems. The free software GCC was criticized for a long time for lacking powerful interprocedural optimizations, but it is changing in this respect. Another open source compiler with full analysis and optimization infrastructure is Open64, which is used by many organizations for research and commercial purposes. Due to the extra time and space needed for compiler analysis and optimizations, some compilers skip them by default. Users have to use compilation options to explicitly tell the compiler which optimizations should be enabled. #### Back end {#back_end} The back end is responsible for the CPU architecture specific optimizations and for code generation. The main phases of the back end include the following: - *Machine dependent optimizations*: optimizations that depend on the details of the CPU architecture that the compiler targets. A prominent example is peephole optimizations, which rewrites short sequences of assembler instructions into more efficient instructions. - *Code generation*: the transformed intermediate language is translated into the output language, usually the native machine language of the system. This involves resource and storage decisions, such as deciding which variables to fit into registers and memory and the selection and scheduling of appropriate machine instructions along with their associated addressing modes (see also Sethi--Ullman algorithm). Debug data may also need to be generated to facilitate debugging. ### Compiler correctness {#compiler_correctness} Compiler correctness is the branch of software engineering that deals with trying to show that a compiler behaves according to its language specification. Techniques include developing the compiler using formal methods and using rigorous testing (often called compiler validation) on an existing compiler. ## Compiled vis-à-vis interpreted languages {#compiled_vis_à_vis_interpreted_languages} Higher-level programming languages usually appear with a type of translation in mind: either designed as compiled language or interpreted language. However, in practice there is rarely anything about a language that *requires* it to be exclusively compiled or exclusively interpreted, although it is possible to design languages that rely on re-interpretation at run time. The categorization usually reflects the most popular or widespread implementations of a language -- for instance, BASIC is sometimes called an interpreted language, and C a compiled one, despite the existence of BASIC compilers and C interpreters. Interpretation does not replace compilation completely. It only hides it from the user and makes it gradual. Even though an interpreter can itself be interpreted, a set of directly executed machine instructions is needed somewhere at the bottom of the execution stack (see machine language). Furthermore, for optimization compilers can contain interpreter functionality, and interpreters may include ahead of time compilation techniques. For example, where an expression can be executed during compilation and the results inserted into the output program, then it prevents it having to be recalculated each time the program runs, which can greatly speed up the final program. Modern trends toward just-in-time compilation and bytecode interpretation at times blur the traditional categorizations of compilers and interpreters even further. Some language specifications spell out that implementations *must* include a compilation facility; for example, Common Lisp. However, there is nothing inherent in the definition of Common Lisp that stops it from being interpreted. Other languages have features that are very easy to implement in an interpreter, but make writing a compiler much harder; for example, APL, SNOBOL4, and many scripting languages allow programs to construct arbitrary source code at runtime with regular string operations, and then execute that code by passing it to a special evaluation function. To implement these features in a compiled language, programs must usually be shipped with a runtime library that includes a version of the compiler itself. ## Types One classification of compilers is by the platform on which their generated code executes. This is known as the *target platform.* A *native* or *hosted* compiler is one whose output is intended to directly run on the same type of computer and operating system that the compiler itself runs on. The output of a cross compiler is designed to run on a different platform. Cross compilers are often used when developing software for embedded systems that are not intended to support a software development environment. The output of a compiler that produces code for a virtual machine (VM) may or may not be executed on the same platform as the compiler that produced it. For this reason, such compilers are not usually classified as native or cross compilers. The lower level language that is the target of a compiler may itself be a high-level programming language. C, viewed by some as a sort of portable assembly language, is frequently the target language of such compilers. For example, Cfront, the original compiler for C++, used C as its target language. The C code generated by such a compiler is usually not intended to be readable and maintained by humans, so indent style and creating pretty C intermediate code are ignored. Some of the features of C that make it a good target language include the `#line` directive, which can be generated by the compiler to support debugging of the original source, and the wide platform support available with C compilers. While a common compiler type outputs machine code, there are many other types: - Source-to-source compilers are a type of compiler that takes a high-level language as its input and outputs a high-level language. For example, an automatic parallelizing compiler will frequently take in a high-level language program as an input and then transform the code and annotate it with parallel code annotations (e.g. OpenMP) or language constructs (e.g. Fortran\'s `DOALL` statements). Other terms for a source-to-source compiler are transcompiler or transpiler. - Bytecode compilers compile to assembly language of a theoretical machine, like some Prolog implementations - This Prolog machine is also known as the Warren Abstract Machine (or WAM). - Bytecode compilers for Java, Python are also examples of this category. - Just-in-time compilers (JIT compiler) defer compilation until runtime. JIT compilers exist for many modern languages including Python, JavaScript, Smalltalk, Java, Microsoft .NET\'s Common Intermediate Language (CIL) and others. A JIT compiler generally runs inside an interpreter. When the interpreter detects that a code path is \"hot\", meaning it is executed frequently, the JIT compiler will be invoked and compile the \"hot\" code for increased performance. - For some languages, such as Java, applications are first compiled using a bytecode compiler and delivered in a machine-independent intermediate representation. A bytecode interpreter executes the bytecode, but the JIT compiler will translate the bytecode to machine code when increased performance is necessary.`{{primary source inline|date=March 2017}}`{=mediawiki} - Hardware compilers (also known as synthesis tools) are compilers whose input is a hardware description language and whose output is a description, in the form of a netlist or otherwise, of a hardware configuration. - The output of these compilers target computer hardware at a very low level, for example a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) or structured application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).`{{primary source inline|date=March 2017}}`{=mediawiki} Such compilers are said to be hardware compilers, because the source code they compile effectively controls the final configuration of the hardware and how it operates. The output of the compilation is only an interconnection of transistors or lookup tables. - An example of hardware compiler is XST, the Xilinx Synthesis Tool used for configuring FPGAs.`{{primary source inline|date=March 2017}}`{=mediawiki} Similar tools are available from Altera,`{{primary source inline|date=March 2017}}`{=mediawiki} Synplicity, Synopsys and other hardware vendors. - Research systems compile subsets of high level serial languages, such as Python or C++, directly into parallelized digital logic. This is typically easier to do for functional languages or functional subsets of multi-paradigm languages. - A program that translates from a low-level language to a higher level one is a decompiler. - A program that translates into an object code format that is not supported on the compilation machine is called a cross compiler and is commonly used to prepare code for execution on embedded software applications.`{{better source needed|date=March 2023}}`{=mediawiki} - A program that rewrites object code back into the same type of object code while applying optimisations and transformations is a binary recompiler. *Assemblers,* which translate human readable assembly language to the machine code instructions executed by hardware, are not considered compilers. (The inverse program that translates machine code to assembly language is called a disassembler.)

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,743

Counting-out game

A **counting-out game** or **counting-out rhyme** is a simple method of \'randomly\' selecting a person from a group, often used by children for the purpose of playing another game. It usually requires no materials, and is achieved with spoken words or hand gestures. The historian Henry Carrington Bolton suggested in his 1888 book *Counting Out Rhymes of Children* that the custom of counting out originated in the \"superstitious practices of divination by lots.\" Many such methods involve one person pointing at each participant in a circle of players while reciting a rhyme. A new person is pointed at as each word is said. The player who is selected at the conclusion of the rhyme is \"it\" or \"out\". In an alternate version, the circle of players may each put two feet in and at the conclusion of the rhyme, that player removes one foot and the rhyme starts over with the next person. In this case, the first player that has both feet removed is \"it\" or \"out\". In theory the result of a counting rhyme is determined entirely by the starting selection (and would result in a modulo operation), but in practice they are often accepted as random selections because the number of words has not been calculated beforehand, so the result is unknown until someone is selected. A variant of counting-out game, known as the Josephus problem, represents a famous theoretical problem in mathematics and computer science. ## Examples Several simple games can be played to select one person from a group, either as a straightforward winner, or as someone who is eliminated. Rock, Paper, Scissors, Odd or Even and Blue Shoe require no materials and are played using hand gestures, although with the former it is possible for a player to win or lose through skill rather than luck. Coin flipping and drawing straws are fair methods of randomly determining a player. Fizz Buzz is a spoken word game where if a player slips up and speaks a word out of sequence, they are eliminated. ### Common rhymes {#common_rhymes} (These rhymes may have many local or regional variants.) - Eeny, meeny, miny, moe - 10 Little Indians - Five Little Ducks - Ip dip - One, Two, Three, Four, Five - Tinker, Tailor (traditionally played in England) - Yan Tan Tethera - Inky Pinky Ponky - One potato, two potato - Ink-a-dink - - En Den Dino

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,759

Complex analysis

Complexity theory}} `{{More footnotes|date=March 2021}}`{=mediawiki} `{{Complex analysis sidebar}}`{=mediawiki} **Complex analysis**, traditionally known as the **theory of functions of a complex variable**, is the branch of mathematical analysis that investigates functions of complex numbers. It is helpful in many branches of mathematics, including algebraic geometry, number theory, analytic combinatorics, and applied mathematics, as well as in physics, including the branches of hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and twistor theory. By extension, use of complex analysis also has applications in engineering fields such as nuclear, aerospace, mechanical and electrical engineering. As a differentiable function of a complex variable is equal to the sum function given by its Taylor series (that is, it is analytic), complex analysis is particularly concerned with analytic functions of a complex variable, that is, *holomorphic functions*. The concept can be extended to functions of several complex variables. Complex analysis is contrasted with real analysis, which deals with the study of real numbers and functions of a real variable. ## History Complex analysis is one of the classical branches in mathematics, with roots in the 18th century and just prior. Important mathematicians associated with complex numbers include Euler, Gauss, Riemann, Cauchy, Weierstrass, and many more in the 20th century. Complex analysis, in particular the theory of conformal mappings, has many physical applications and is also used throughout analytic number theory. In modern times, it has become very popular through a new boost from complex dynamics and the pictures of fractals produced by iterating holomorphic functions. Another important application of complex analysis is in string theory which examines conformal invariants in quantum field theory. ## Complex functions {#complex_functions} A complex function is a function from complex numbers to complex numbers. In other words, it is a function that has a (not necessarily proper) subset of the complex numbers as a domain and the complex numbers as a codomain. Complex functions are generally assumed to have a domain that contains a nonempty open subset of the complex plane. For any complex function, the values $z$ from the domain and their images $f(z)$ in the range may be separated into real and imaginary parts: : $z=x+iy \quad \text{ and } \quad f(z) = f(x+iy)=u(x,y)+iv(x,y),$ where $x,y,u(x,y),v(x,y)$ are all real-valued. In other words, a complex function $f:\mathbb{C}\to\mathbb{C}$ may be decomposed into : $u:\mathbb{R}^2\to\mathbb{R} \quad$ and $\quad v:\mathbb{R}^2\to\mathbb{R},$ i.e., into two real-valued functions ($u$, $v$) of two real variables ($x$, $y$). Similarly, any complex-valued function `{{mvar|f}}`{=mediawiki} on an arbitrary set `{{mvar|X}}`{=mediawiki} (is isomorphic to, and therefore, in that sense, it) can be considered as an ordered pair of two real-valued functions: `{{math|(Re ''f'', Im ''f'')}}`{=mediawiki} or, alternatively, as a vector-valued function from `{{mvar|X}}`{=mediawiki} into $\mathbb R^2.$ Some properties of complex-valued functions (such as continuity) are nothing more than the corresponding properties of vector valued functions of two real variables. Other concepts of complex analysis, such as differentiability, are direct generalizations of the similar concepts for real functions, but may have very different properties. In particular, every differentiable complex function is analytic (see next section), and two differentiable functions that are equal in a neighborhood of a point are equal on the intersection of their domain (if the domains are connected). The latter property is the basis of the principle of analytic continuation which allows extending every real analytic function in a unique way for getting a complex analytic function whose domain is the whole complex plane with a finite number of curve arcs removed. Many basic and special complex functions are defined in this way, including the complex exponential function, complex logarithm functions, and trigonometric functions. ## Holomorphic functions {#holomorphic_functions} Complex functions that are differentiable at every point of an open subset $\Omega$ of the complex plane are said to be *holomorphic on* `{{nowrap|<math>\Omega</math>.}}`{=mediawiki} In the context of complex analysis, the derivative of $f$ at $z_0$ is defined to be : $f'(z_0) = \lim_{z \to z_0} \frac{f(z)-f(z_0)}{z-z_0}.$ Superficially, this definition is formally analogous to that of the derivative of a real function. However, complex derivatives and differentiable functions behave in significantly different ways compared to their real counterparts. In particular, for this limit to exist, the value of the difference quotient must approach the same complex number, regardless of the manner in which we approach $z_0$ in the complex plane. Consequently, complex differentiability has much stronger implications than real differentiability. For instance, holomorphic functions are infinitely differentiable, whereas the existence of the *n*th derivative need not imply the existence of the (*n* + 1)th derivative for real functions. Furthermore, all holomorphic functions satisfy the stronger condition of analyticity, meaning that the function is, at every point in its domain, locally given by a convergent power series. In essence, this means that functions holomorphic on $\Omega$ can be approximated arbitrarily well by polynomials in some neighborhood of every point in $\Omega$. This stands in sharp contrast to differentiable real functions; there are infinitely differentiable real functions that are *nowhere* analytic; see `{{slink|Non-analytic smooth function|A smooth function which is nowhere real analytic}}`{=mediawiki}. Most elementary functions, including the exponential function, the trigonometric functions, and all polynomial functions, extended appropriately to complex arguments as functions `{{nowrap|<math>\mathbb{C}\to\mathbb{C}</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} are holomorphic over the entire complex plane, making them *entire functions*, while rational functions $p/q$, where *p* and *q* are polynomials, are holomorphic on domains that exclude points where *q* is zero. Such functions that are holomorphic everywhere except a set of isolated points are known as *meromorphic functions*. On the other hand, the functions `{{nowrap|<math>z\mapsto \Re(z)</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} `{{nowrap|<math>z\mapsto |z|</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} and $z\mapsto \bar{z}$ are not holomorphic anywhere on the complex plane, as can be shown by their failure to satisfy the Cauchy--Riemann conditions (see below). An important property of holomorphic functions is the relationship between the partial derivatives of their real and imaginary components, known as the Cauchy--Riemann conditions. If $f:\mathbb{C}\to\mathbb{C}$, defined by `{{nowrap|<math>f(z) = f(x + iy) = u(x, y) + iv(x, y)</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} where `{{nowrap|<math>x, y, u(x, y),v(x, y) \in \R</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} is holomorphic on a region `{{nowrap|<math>\Omega</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} then for all $z_0\in \Omega$, $$\frac{\partial f}{\partial\bar{z}}(z_0) = 0,\ \text{where } \frac\partial{\partial\bar{z}} \mathrel{:=} \frac12\left(\frac\partial{\partial x} + i\frac\partial{\partial y}\right).$$ In terms of the real and imaginary parts of the function, *u* and *v*, this is equivalent to the pair of equations $u_x = v_y$ and $u_y=-v_x$, where the subscripts indicate partial differentiation. However, the Cauchy--Riemann conditions do not characterize holomorphic functions, without additional continuity conditions (see Looman--Menchoff theorem). Holomorphic functions exhibit some remarkable features. For instance, Picard\'s theorem asserts that the range of an entire function can take only three possible forms: `{{nowrap|<math>\mathbb{C}</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} `{{nowrap|<math>\mathbb{C}\setminus\{z_0\}</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} or $\{z_0\}$ for some `{{nowrap|<math>z_0\in\mathbb{C}</math>.}}`{=mediawiki} In other words, if two distinct complex numbers $z$ and $w$ are not in the range of an entire function `{{nowrap|<math>f</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} then $f$ is a constant function. Moreover, a holomorphic function on a connected open set is determined by its restriction to any nonempty open subset. ## Conformal map {#conformal_map} ## Major results {#major_results} One of the central tools in complex analysis is the line integral. The line integral around a closed path of a function that is holomorphic everywhere inside the area bounded by the closed path is always zero, as is stated by the Cauchy integral theorem. The values of such a holomorphic function inside a disk can be computed by a path integral on the disk\'s boundary (as shown in Cauchy\'s integral formula). Path integrals in the complex plane are often used to determine complicated real integrals, and here the theory of residues among others is applicable (see methods of contour integration). A \"pole\" (or isolated singularity) of a function is a point where the function\'s value becomes unbounded, or \"blows up\". If a function has such a pole, then one can compute the function\'s residue there, which can be used to compute path integrals involving the function; this is the content of the powerful residue theorem. The remarkable behavior of holomorphic functions near essential singularities is described by Picard\'s theorem. Functions that have only poles but no essential singularities are called meromorphic. Laurent series are the complex-valued equivalent to Taylor series, but can be used to study the behavior of functions near singularities through infinite sums of more well understood functions, such as polynomials. A bounded function that is holomorphic in the entire complex plane must be constant; this is Liouville\'s theorem. It can be used to provide a natural and short proof for the fundamental theorem of algebra which states that the field of complex numbers is algebraically closed. If a function is holomorphic throughout a connected domain then its values are fully determined by its values on any smaller subdomain. The function on the larger domain is said to be analytically continued from its values on the smaller domain. This allows the extension of the definition of functions, such as the Riemann zeta function, which are initially defined in terms of infinite sums that converge only on limited domains to almost the entire complex plane. Sometimes, as in the case of the natural logarithm, it is impossible to analytically continue a holomorphic function to a non-simply connected domain in the complex plane but it is possible to extend it to a holomorphic function on a closely related surface known as a Riemann surface. All this refers to complex analysis in one variable. There is also a very rich theory of complex analysis in more than one complex dimension in which the analytic properties such as power series expansion carry over whereas most of the geometric properties of holomorphic functions in one complex dimension (such as conformality) do not carry over. The Riemann mapping theorem about the conformal relationship of certain domains in the complex plane, which may be the most important result in the one-dimensional theory, fails dramatically in higher dimensions. A major application of certain complex spaces is in quantum mechanics as wave functions.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,776

Caving

**Caving**, also known as **spelunking** (United States and Canada) and **potholing** (United Kingdom and Ireland), is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology is the scientific study of caves and the cave environment. The challenges involved in caving vary according to the cave being visited; in addition to the total absence of light beyond the entrance, negotiating pitches, squeezes, and water hazards can be difficult. Cave diving is a distinct, and more hazardous, sub-speciality undertaken by a small minority of technically proficient cavers. In an area of overlap between recreational pursuit and scientific study, the most devoted and serious-minded cavers become accomplished at the surveying and mapping of caves and the formal publication of their efforts. These are usually published freely and publicly, especially in the UK and other European countries, although in the US they are generally more private. Although caving is sometimes categorized as an \"extreme sport,\" cavers do not commonly use this terminology and typically dislike the term being used in reference to caving, as it implies a disregard for safety. Though caving is a fairly safe sport compared to other activities that are sometimes classified as \"extreme sports\", incidents do occur. These tend to be related to flooding, hypothermia, rock falls, caver falls, SRT accidents, or some combination of these. Many caving skills overlap with those involved in canyoning and mine and urban exploration. ## Motivation Caving is often undertaken for the enjoyment of the outdoor activity or for physical exercise, as well as original exploration, similar to mountaineering or diving. Physical or biological science is also an important goal for some cavers, while others are engaged in cave photography. Virgin cave systems comprise some of the last unexplored regions on Earth and much effort is put into trying to locate, enter and survey them. In well-explored regions (such as most developed nations), the most accessible caves have already been explored, and gaining access to new caves often requires cave digging or cave diving. Caving, in certain areas, has also been utilized as a form of eco and adventure tourism, for example in New Zealand. Tour companies have established an industry leading and guiding tours into and through caves. Depending on the type of cave and the type of tour, the experience could be adventure-based or ecological-based. There are tours led through lava tubes by a guiding service (e.g. Lava River Cave, the oceanic islands of Tenerife, [Iceland](http://cave.is/caves-in-iceland/leidarendi-cave/) and [Hawaii](https://web.archive.org/web/20080218044937/http://www.nps.gov/havo/planyourvisit/craterrimtour_tube.htm)). Caving has also been described as an \"individualist\'s team sport\" by some, as cavers can often make a trip without direct physical assistance from others but will generally go in a group for companionship or to provide emergency help if needed. Some however consider the assistance cavers give each other as a typical team sport activity. ## Etymology The term *potholing* refers to the act of exploring *potholes*, a word originating in the north of England for predominantly vertical caves. Clay Perry, an American caver of the 1940s, wrote about a group of men and boys who explored and studied caves throughout New England. This group referred to themselves as *spelunkers*, a term derived from the Latin **spēlunca** (\"cave, cavern, den\"). This is regarded as the first use of the word in the Americas. Throughout the 1950s, *spelunking* was the general term used for exploring caves in US English. It was used freely, without any positive or negative connotations, although only rarely outside the US. In the 1960s, the terms *spelunking* and *spelunker* began to be considered déclassé among experienced enthusiasts. In 1985, Steve Knutson -- editor of the National Speleological Society (NSS) publication *American Caving Accidents* -- made the following distinction: This sentiment is exemplified by bumper stickers and T-shirts displayed by some cavers: \"Cavers rescue spelunkers\". Nevertheless, outside the caving community, \"spelunking\" and \"spelunkers\" predominately remain neutral terms referring to the practice and practitioners, without any respect to skill level. ## History In the mid-19th century, John Birkbeck explored potholes in England, notably Gaping Gill in 1842 and Alum Pot in 1847--8, returning there in the 1870s. In the mid-1880s, Herbert E. Balch began exploring Wookey Hole Caves and in the 1890s, Balch was introduced to the caves of the Mendip Hills. One of the oldest established caving clubs, Yorkshire Ramblers\' Club, was founded in 1892. Caving as a specialized pursuit was pioneered by Édouard-Alfred Martel (1859--1938), who first achieved the descent and exploration of the Gouffre de Padirac, in France, as early as 1889 and the first complete descent of a 110-metre wet vertical shaft at Gaping Gill in 1895. He developed his own techniques based on ropes and metallic ladders. Martel visited Kentucky and notably Mammoth Cave National Park in October 1912. In the 1920s famous US caver Floyd Collins made important explorations in the area and in the 1930s, as caving became increasingly popular, small exploration teams both in the Alps and in the karstic high plateaus of southwest France (Causses and Pyrenees) transformed cave exploration into both a scientific and recreational activity. Robert de Joly, Guy de Lavaur and Norbert Casteret were prominent figures of that time, surveying mostly caves in Southwest France. During World War II, an alpine team composed of Pierre Chevalier, Fernand Petzl, Charles Petit-Didier and others explored the Dent de Crolles cave system near Grenoble, which became the deepest explored system in the world (-658m) at that time. The lack of available equipment during the war forced Pierre Chevalier and the rest of the team to develop their own equipment, leading to technical innovation. The scaling-pole (1940), nylon ropes (1942), use of explosives in caves (1947) and mechanical rope-ascenders (Henri Brenot\'s \"monkeys\", first used by Chevalier and Brenot in a cave in 1934) can be directly associated to the exploration of the Dent de Crolles cave system. In 1941, American cavers organized themselves into the National Speleological Society (NSS) to advance the exploration, conservation, study and understanding of caves in the United States. American caver Bill Cuddington, known as \"Vertical Bill\", further developed the single-rope technique (SRT) in the late 1950s. In 1958, two Swiss alpinists, Juesi and Marti teamed together, creating the first rope ascender known as the Jumar. In 1968 Bruno Dressler asked Fernand Petzl, who worked as a metals machinist, to build a rope-ascending tool, today known as the Petzl Croll, that he had developed by adapting the Jumar to vertical caving. Pursuing these developments, Petzl started in the 1970s a caving equipment manufacturing company named Petzl. The development of the rappel rack and the evolution of mechanical ascension systems extended the practice and safety of vertical exploration to a wider range of cavers. ## Practice and equipment {#practice_and_equipment} Hard hats are worn to protect the head from bumps and falling rocks. The caver\'s primary light source is usually mounted on the helmet in order to keep the hands free. Electric LED lights are most common. Many cavers carry two or more sources of light -- one as primary and the others as backup in case the first fails. More often than not, a second light will be mounted to the helmet for quick transition if the primary fails. Carbide lamp systems are an older form of illumination, inspired by miner\'s equipment, and are still used by some cavers, particularly on remote expeditions where electric charging facilities are not available. The type of clothes worn underground varies according to the environment of the cave being explored, and the local culture. In cold caves, the caver may wear a warm base layer that retains its insulating properties when wet, such as a fleece (\"furry\") suit or polypropylene underwear, and an oversuit of hard-wearing (e.g., cordura) or waterproof (e.g., PVC) material. Lighter clothing may be worn in warm caves, particularly if the cave is dry, and in tropical caves thin polypropylene clothing is used, to provide some abrasion protection while remaining as cool as possible. Wetsuits may be worn if the cave is particularly wet or involves stream passages. On the feet boots are worn -- hiking-style boots in drier caves, or rubber boots (such as wellies) often with neoprene socks (\"wetsocks\") in wetter caves. Knee-pads (and sometimes elbow-pads) are popular for protecting joints during crawls. Depending on the nature of the cave, gloves are sometimes worn to protect the hands against abrasion or cold. In pristine areas and for restoration, clean oversuits and powder-free, non-latex surgical gloves are used to protect the cave itself from contaminants. Ropes are used for descending or ascending pitches (single rope technique or SRT) or for protection. Knots commonly used in caving are the figure-of-eight- (or figure-of-nine-) loop, bowline, alpine butterfly, and Italian hitch. Ropes are usually rigged using bolts, slings, and carabiners. In some cases cavers may choose to bring and use a flexible metal ladder. In addition to the equipment already described, cavers frequently carry packs containing first-aid kits, emergency equipment, and food. Containers for securely transporting urine are also commonly carried. On longer trips, containers for securely transporting feces out of the cave are carried. During very long trips, it may be necessary to camp in the cave -- some cavers have stayed underground for many days, or in particularly extreme cases, for weeks at a time. This is particularly the case when exploring or mapping extensive cave systems, where it would be impractical to retrace the route back to the surface regularly. Such long trips necessitate the cavers carrying provisions, sleeping, and cooking equipment. ## Safety `{{See also|Cave rescue}}`{=mediawiki} Caves can be dangerous places; hypothermia, falling, flooding, falling rocks and physical exhaustion are the main risks. Rescuing people from underground is difficult and time-consuming, and requires special skills, training, and equipment. Full-scale cave rescues often involve the efforts of dozens of rescue workers (often other long-time cavers who have participated in specialized courses, as normal rescue staff are not sufficiently experienced in cave environments), who may themselves be put in jeopardy in effecting the rescue. This said, caving is not necessarily a high-risk sport (especially if it does not involve difficult climbs or diving). As in all physical sports, knowing one\'s limitations is key. Caving in warmer climates carries the risk of contracting histoplasmosis, a fungal infection that is contracted from bird or bat droppings. It can cause pneumonia and can disseminate in the body to cause continued infections. In many parts of the world, leptospirosis, a type of bacterial infection spread by animals including rats, is a distinct threat. The presence of rat urine in rainwater or precipitation that enters the cave\'s water system is the primary vector of infection. Complications are uncommon, but can be serious. These safety risks while caving can be minimized by using a number of techniques: - Checking that there is no danger of flooding during the expedition. Rainwater funneled underground can flood a cave very quickly, trapping people in cut-off passages and drowning them. In the UK, drowning accounts for almost half of all caving fatalities (see List of UK caving fatalities). - Using teams of several cavers, preferably at least four. If an injury occurs, one caver stays with the injured person while the other two go out for help, providing assistance to each other on their way out. - Notifying people outside the cave as to the intended return time. After an appropriate delay without a return, these will then organize a search party (usually made up by other cavers trained in cave rescues, as even professional emergency personnel are unlikely to have the skills to effect a rescue in difficult conditions). - Use of helmet-mounted lights (hands-free) with extra batteries. American cavers recommend a minimum of three independent sources of light per person, but two lights is common practice among European cavers. - Sturdy clothing and footwear, as well as a helmet, are necessary to reduce the impact of abrasions, falls, and falling objects. Synthetic fibers and woolens, which dry quickly, shed water, and are warm when wet, are vastly preferred to cotton materials, which retain water and increase the risk of hypothermia. It is also helpful to have several layers of clothing, which can be shed (and stored in the pack) or added as needed. In watery cave passages, polypropylene thermal underwear or wetsuits may be required to avoid hypothermia. - Cave passages look different from different directions. In long or complex caves, even experienced cavers can become lost. To reduce the risk of becoming lost, it is necessary to memorize the appearance of key navigational points in the cave as they are passed by the exploring party. Each member of a cave party shares responsibility for being able to remember the route out of the cave. In some caves it may be acceptable to mark a small number of key junctions with small stacks or \"cairns\" of rocks, or to leave a non-permanent mark such as high-visibility flagging tape tied to a projection. - Vertical caving uses ladders or single rope technique (SRT) to avoid the need for climbing passages that are too difficult. SRT is a complex skill and requires proper training and well-maintained equipment. Some drops that are abseiled down may be as deep as several hundred meters (for example Harwoods Hole). ## Cave conservation {#cave_conservation} Many cave environments are very fragile. Many speleothems can be damaged by even the slightest touch and some by impacts as slight as a breath. Research suggests that increased carbon dioxide levels can lead to \"a higher equilibrium concentration of calcium within the drip waters feeding the speleothems, and hence causes dissolution of existing features.\" In 2008, researchers found evidence that respiration from cave visitors may generate elevated carbon dioxide concentrations in caves, leading to increased temperatures of up to 3 °C and a dissolution of existing features. Pollution is also of concern. Since water that flows through a cave eventually comes out in streams and rivers, any pollution may ultimately end up in someone\'s drinking water, and can even seriously affect the surface environment, as well. Even minor pollution such as dropping organic material can have a dramatic effect on the cave biota. Cave-dwelling species are also very fragile. Often, a particular species found in a cave may live within that cave alone, and be found nowhere else in the world; an example is the Alabama cave shrimp. Cave-dwelling species are accustomed to a near-constant climate of temperature and humidity, and any disturbance can be disruptive to the species\' life cycles. Though cave wildlife may not always be immediately visible, it is typically nonetheless present in most caves. Bats are one such fragile species of cave-dwelling animal. Bats which hibernate are most vulnerable during the winter season, when no food supply exists on the surface to replenish the bat\'s store of energy should it be awakened from hibernation. Bats which migrate are most sensitive during the summer months when they are raising their young. For these reasons, visiting caves inhabited by hibernating bats is discouraged during cold months; and visiting caves inhabited by migratory bats is discouraged during the warmer months when they are most sensitive and vulnerable. Due to an affliction affecting bats in the northeastern US known as white nose syndrome (WNS), the US Fish & Wildlife Service has called for a moratorium effective March 26, 2009, on caving activity in states known to have hibernacula (MD, NY, VT, NH, MA, CT, NJ, PA, VA, and WV) affected by WNS, as well as adjoining states. Some cave passages may be marked with flagging tape or other indicators to show biologically, aesthetically, or archaeologically sensitive areas. Marked paths may show ways around notably fragile areas such as a pristine floor of sand or silt which may be thousands of years old, dating from the last time water flowed through the cave. Such deposits may easily be spoiled forever by a single misplaced step. Active formations such as flowstone can be similarly marred with a muddy footprint or handprint, and ancient human artifacts, such as fiber products, may even crumble to dust under all but the most gentle touch. In 1988, concerned that cave resources were becoming increasingly damaged through unregulated use, Congress enacted the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act, giving land management agencies in the United States expanded authority to manage cave conservation on public land. ## Caving organizations {#caving_organizations} Cavers in many countries have created organizations for the administration and oversight of caving activities within their nations. The oldest of these is the French Federation of Speleology (originally Société de spéléologie) founded by Édouard-Alfred Martel in 1895, which produced the first periodical journal in speleology, *Spelunca*. The first University-based speleological institute in the world was founded in 1920 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, by Emil Racovita, a Romanian biologist, zoologist, speleologist and explorer of Antarctica. The British Speleological Association was established in 1935. In the United States, the National Speleological Society in the US was founded in 1941; however, it was originally formed as the Speleological Society of the District of Columbia on May 6, 1939. An international speleological congress was proposed at a meeting in Valence-sur-Rhone, France in 1949 and first held in 1953 in Paris. The International Union of Speleology (UIS) was founded in 1965.

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5,785

Crime

In ordinary language, a **crime** is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term *crime* does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition, though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or **offence** (or **criminal offence**) is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state (\"a public wrong\"). Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law. The notion that acts such as murder, rape, and theft are to be prohibited exists worldwide. What precisely is a criminal offence is defined by the criminal law of each relevant jurisdiction. While many have a catalogue of crimes called the criminal code, in some common law nations no such comprehensive statute exists. The state (government) has the power to severely restrict one\'s liberty for committing certain crimes. In most modern societies, there are procedures to which investigations and trials must adhere. If found guilty, an offender may be sentenced to a form of reparation such as a community sentence, or, depending on the nature of their offence, to undergo imprisonment, life imprisonment or, in some jurisdictions, death. Usually, to be classified as a crime, the \"act of doing something criminal\" (*actus reus*) must`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}with certain exceptions`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}be accompanied by the \"intention to do something criminal\" (*mens rea*). While every crime violates the law, not every violation of the law counts as a crime. Breaches of private law (torts and breaches of contract) are not automatically punished by the state, but can be enforced through civil procedure. ## Definition The exact definition of crime is a philosophical issue without an agreed upon answer. Fields such as law, politics, sociology, and psychology define crime in different ways. Crimes may be variously considered as wrongs against individuals, against the community, or against the state. The criminality of an action is dependent on its context; acts of violence will be seen as crimes in many circumstances but as permissible or desirable in others. Crime was historically seen as a manifestation of evil, but this has been superseded by modern criminal theories. ### Legalism Legal and political definitions of crime consider actions that are banned by authorities or punishable by law. Crime is defined by the criminal law of a given jurisdiction, including all actions that are subject to criminal procedure. There is no limit to what can be considered a crime in a legal system, so there may not be a unifying principle used to determine whether an action should be designated as a crime. From a legal perspective, crimes are generally wrong actions that are severe enough to warrant punishment that infringes on the perpetrator\'s liberties. English criminal law and the related common law of Commonwealth countries can define offences that the courts alone have developed over the years, without any actual legislation: common law offences. The courts used the concept of *malum in se* to develop various common law offences. ### Sociology As a sociological concept, crime is associated with actions that cause harm and violate social norms. Under this definition, crime is a type of social construct, and societal attitudes determine what is considered criminal. In legal systems based on legal moralism, the predominant moral beliefs of society determine the legal definition as well as the social definition of crime. This system is less prominent in liberal democratic societies that prioritize individualism and multiculturalism over other moral beliefs. Paternalism defines crime not only as harm to others or to society, but also as harm to the self. ### Psychology Psychological definitions consider the state of mind of perpetrators and their relationship with their environment. ## History ### Early history {#early_history} Restrictions on behavior existed in all prehistoric societies. Crime in early human society was seen as a personal transgression and was addressed by the community as a whole rather than through a formal legal system, often through the use of custom, religion, or the rule of a tribal leader. Some of the oldest extant writings are ancient criminal codes. The earliest known criminal code was the Code of Ur-Nammu (`{{c.|lk=no|2100|2050 BC}}`{=mediawiki}), and the first known criminal code that incorporated retaliatory justice was the Code of Hammurabi. The latter influenced the conception of crime across several civilizations over the following millennia. The Romans systematized law and applied their system across the Roman Empire. The initial rules of Roman law regarded assaults as a matter of private compensation. The most significant Roman law concept involved *dominion*. Most acts recognized as crimes in ancient societies, such as violence and theft, have persisted to the modern era. The criminal justice system of Imperial China existed unbroken for over 2,000 years. Many of the earliest conceptions of crime are associated with sin and corresponded to acts that were believed to invoke the anger of a deity. This idea was further popularized with the development of the Abrahamic religions. The understanding of crime and sin were closely associated with one another for much of history, and conceptions of crime took on many of the ideas associated with sin. Islamic law developed its own system of criminal justice as Islam spread in the seventh and eighth centuries. ### Post-classical era {#post_classical_era} In post-classical Europe and East Asia, central government was limited and crime was defined locally. Towns established their own criminal justice systems, while crime in the countryside was defined by the social hierarchies of feudalism. In some places, such as the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, feudal justice survived into the 19th century. Common law first developed in England under the rule of Henry II in the 12th century. He established a system of traveling judges that tried accused criminals in each region of England by applying precedent from previous rulings. Legal developments in 12th century England also resulted in the earliest known recording of official crime data. ### Modern era {#modern_era} In the modern era, crime came to be seen as an issue affecting society rather than conflicts between individuals. Writers such as Thomas Hobbes saw crime as a societal issue as early as the 17th century. Imprisonment developed as a long-term penalty for crime in the 18th century. Increasing urbanization and industrialization in the 19th century caused crime to become an immediate issue that affected society, prompting government intervention in crime and the establishment of criminology as its own field. Anthropological criminology was popularized by Cesare Lombroso in the late-19th century. This was a biological determinist school of thought based in social darwinism, arguing that certain people are naturally born as criminals. The eugenics movement of the early-20th century similarly held that crime was caused primarily by genetic factors. The concept of crime underwent a period of change as modernism was widely accepted in the years following World War II. Crime increasingly came to be seen as a societal issue, and criminal law was seen as a means to protect the public from antisocial behavior. This idea was associated with a larger trend in the western world toward social democracy and centre-left politics. Through most of history, reporting of crime was generally local. The advent of mass media through radio and television in the mid-20th century allowed for the sensationalism of crime. This created well-known stories of criminals such as Jeffrey Dahmer, and it allowed for dramatization that perpetuates misconceptions about crime. Forensic science was popularized in the 1980s, establishing DNA profiling as a new method to prevent and analyze crime. ## Criminal law {#criminal_law} Virtually all countries in the 21st century have criminal law grounded in civil law, common law, Islamic law, or socialist law. Historically, criminal codes have often divided criminals by class or caste, prescribing different penalties depending on status. In some tribal societies, an entire clan is recognized as liable for a crime. In many cases, disputes over a crime in this system lead to a feud that lasts over several generations. ### Criminalization The state determines what actions are considered criminal in the scope of the law. Criminalization has significant human rights considerations, as it can infringe on rights of autonomy and subject individuals to unjust punishment. ### Law enforcement {#law_enforcement} The enforcement of criminal law seeks to prevent crime and sanction crimes that do occur. This enforcement is carried out by the state through law enforcement agencies, such as police, which are empowered to arrest suspected perpetrators of crimes. Law enforcement may focus on policing individual crimes, or it may focus on bringing down overall crime rates. One common variant, community policing, seeks to prevent crime by integrating police into the community and public life. ### Criminal procedure {#criminal_procedure} When the perpetrator of a crime is found guilty of the crime, the state delivers a sentence to determine the penalty for the crime. ### Liability If a crime is committed, the individual responsible is considered to be liable for the crime. For liability to exist, the individual must be capable of understanding the criminal process and the relevant authority must have legitimate power to establish what constitutes a crime. ### International criminal law {#international_criminal_law} International criminal law typically addresses serious offenses, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. As with all international law, these laws are created through treaties and international custom, and they are defined through the consensus of the involved states. International crimes are not prosecuted through a standard legal system, though international organizations may establish tribunals to investigate and rule on egregious offenses such as genocide. ## Types ### White-collar crime {#white_collar_crime} White-collar crime refers to financially motivated, nonviolent or non-directly violent crime committed by individuals, businesses and government professionals. The crimes are believed to be committed by middle- or upper-class individuals for financial gains. Typical white-collar crimes could include wage theft, fraud, bribery, Ponzi schemes, insider trading, labor racketeering, embezzlement, cybercrime, copyright infringement, money laundering, identity theft, and forgery. ### Blue-collar crime {#blue_collar_crime} Blue-collar crime is any crime committed by an individual from a lower social class as opposed to white-collar crime which is associated with crime committed by someone of a higher-level social class. These crimes are primarily small scale, for immediate beneficial gain to the individual or group involved in them. Examples of blue-collar crime include Narcotic production or distribution, sexual assault, theft, burglary, assault or murder. ### Violent crime {#violent_crime} Violent crime is crime that involves an act of violent aggression against another person. Common examples of violent crime include homicide, assault, sexual assault, and robbery. Some violent crimes, such as assault, may be committed with the intention of causing harm. Other violent crimes, such as robbery, may use violence to further another goal. Violent crime is distinct from noncriminal types of violence, such as self-defense, use of force, and acts of war. Acts of violence are most often perceived as deviant when they are committed as an overreaction or a disproportionate response to provocation. ### Property crime {#property_crime} Common examples of property crime include burglary, theft, and vandalism. Examples of financial crimes include counterfeiting, smuggling, tax evasion, and bribery. The scope of financial crimes has expanded significantly since the beginning of modern economics in the 17th century. In occupational crime, the complexity and anonymity of computer systems may help criminal employees camouflage their operations. The victims of the most costly scams include banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, and other large financial institutions. ### Public order crime {#public_order_crime} Public order crime is crime that violates a society\'s norms about what constitutes socially acceptable behavior. Examples of public order crimes include gambling, drug-related crime, public intoxication, prostitution, loitering, breach of the peace, panhandling, vagrancy, street harassment, excessive noise, and littering. Public order crime is associated with the broken windows theory, which posits that public order crimes increase the likelihood of other types of crime. Some public order crimes are considered victimless crimes in which no specific victim can be identified. Most nations in the Western world have moved toward decriminalization of victimless crimes in the modern era. Adultery, fornication, blasphemy, apostasy, and invoking the name of God are commonly recognized as crimes in theocratic societies or those heavily influenced by religion. ### Political crime {#political_crime} Political crime is crime that directly challenges or threatens the state. Examples of political crimes include subversion, rebellion, treason, mutiny, espionage, sedition, terrorism, riot, and unlawful assembly. Political crimes are associated with the political agenda of a given state, and they are necessarily applied against political dissidents. Due to their unique relation to the state, political crimes are often encouraged by one nation against another, and it is political alignment rather than the act itself that determines criminality. State crime that is carried out by the state to repress law-abiding citizens may also be considered political crime. ### Inchoate crime {#inchoate_crime} Inchoate crime is crime that is carried out in anticipation of other illegal actions but does not cause direct harm. Examples of inchoate crimes include attempt and conspiracy. Inchoate crimes are defined by substantial action to facilitate a crime with the intention of the crime\'s occurrence. This is distinct from simple preparation for or consideration of criminal activity. They are unique in that renunciation of criminal intention is generally enough to absolve the perpetrator of criminal liability, as their actions are no longer facilitating a potential future crime. ## Participants ### Criminal A criminal is an individual who commits a crime. What constitutes a criminal can vary depending on the context and the law, and it often carries a pejorative connotation. Criminals are often seen as embodying certain stereotypes or traits and are seen as a distinct type of person from law-abiding citizens. Despite this, no mental or physical trend is identifiable that differentiates criminals from non-criminals. Public response to criminals may be indignant or sympathetic. Indignant responses involve resentment and a desire for vengeance, wishing to see criminals removed from society or made to suffer for harm that they cause. Sympathetic responses involve compassion and understanding, seeking to rehabilitate or forgive criminals and absolve them of blame. In the modern era, a criminal is a human being. Historically, from ancient times until the 19th century, many societies believed that non-human animals were capable of committing crimes, and prosecuted and punished them accordingly. Prosecutions of animals gradually dwindled during the 19th century, although a few were recorded as late as the 1910s and 1920s. ### Victim A victim is an individual who has been treated unjustly or made to suffer. In the context of crime, the victim is the individual that is harmed by a violation of criminal law. Victimization is associated with post-traumatic stress and a long-term decrease in quality of life. Victimology is the study of victims, including their role in crime and how they are affected. Several factors affect an individual\'s likelihood of becoming a victim. Some factors may cause victims of crime to experience short-term or long-term \"repeat victimization\". Common long-term victims are those that have close relationships with the criminal, manifesting in crimes such as domestic violence, embezzlement, child abuse, and bullying. Repeat victimization may also occur when a potential victim appears to be a viable target, such as when indicating wealth in a less affluent region. Many of the traits that indicate criminality also indicate victimality; victims of crime are more likely to engage in unlawful behavior and respond to provocation. Overall demographic trends of victims and criminals are often similar, and victims are more likely to have engaged in criminal activities themselves. The victims may only want compensation for the injuries suffered, while remaining indifferent to a possible desire for deterrence. Victims, on their own, may lack the economies of scale that could allow them to administer a penal system, let alone to collect any fines levied by a court. ## Crime statistics {#crime_statistics} Information and statistics about crime in a given jurisdiction are collected as crime estimates, typically produced by national or international agencies. Methods to collect crime statistics may vary, even between jurisdictions within the same nation. Under-reporting of crime is common, particularly in developing nations, resulting in the dark figure of crime. Victim studies may be used to determine the frequency of crime in a given population. The gap to official statistics is generally smaller with higher severity of the crime. Clearance rate measures the fraction of crimes where a criminal charge has been laid or the responsible person convicted. Fear of crime can be distinct from crime probability. ### Public perception {#public_perception} Crime is often a high priority political issue in developed countries, regardless of the country\'s crime rates. People that are not regularly exposed to crime most often experience it through media, including news reporting and crime fiction. Exposure of crime through news stories is associated with alarmism and inaccurate perceptions of crime trends. Selection bias in new stories about criminals significantly over-represent the prevalence of violent crime, and news reporting will often overemphasize a specific type of crime for a period of time, creating a \"crime wave\" effect. As public opinion of morality changes over time, actions that were once condemned as crimes may be considered justifiable. ## Criminal justice {#criminal_justice} ### Natural-law theory {#natural_law_theory} Justifying the state\'s use of force to coerce compliance with its laws has proven a consistent theoretical problem. One of the earliest justifications involved the theory of natural law. This posits that the nature of the world or of human beings underlies the standards of morality or constructs them. Thomas Aquinas wrote in the 13th century: \"the rule and measure of human acts is the reason, which is the first principle of human acts\". He regarded people as by nature rational beings, concluding that it becomes morally appropriate that they should behave in a way that conforms to their rational nature. Thus, to be valid, any law must conform to natural law and coercing people to conform to that law is morally acceptable. In the 1760s, William Blackstone described the thesis: : \"This law of nature, being co-eval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.\" But John Austin (1790--1859), an early positivist, applied utilitarianism in accepting the calculating nature of human beings and the existence of an objective morality. He denied that the legal validity of a norm depends on whether its content conforms to morality. Thus, in Austinian terms, a moral code can objectively determine what people ought to do, the law can embody whatever norms the legislature decrees to achieve social utility, but every individual remains free to choose what to do. Similarly, H.L.A. Hart saw the law as an aspect of sovereignty, with lawmakers able to adopt any law as a means to a moral end. Thus the necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of a proposition of law involved internal logic and consistency, and that the state\'s agents used state power with responsibility. Ronald Dworkin rejects Hart\'s theory and proposes that all individuals should expect the equal respect and concern of those who govern them as a fundamental political right. He offers a theory of compliance overlaid by a theory of deference (the citizen\'s duty to obey the law) and a theory of enforcement, which identifies the legitimate goals of enforcement and punishment. Legislation must conform to a theory of legitimacy, which describes the circumstances under which a particular person or group is entitled to make law, and a theory of legislative justice, which describes the law they are entitled or obliged to make. There are natural-law theorists who have accepted the idea of enforcing the prevailing morality as a primary function of the law. This view entails the problem that it makes any moral criticism of the law impossible: if conformity with natural law forms a necessary condition for legal validity, all valid law must, by definition, count as morally just. Thus, on this line of reasoning, the legal validity of a norm necessarily entails its moral justice. ### Corrections and punishment {#corrections_and_punishment} Authorities may respond to crime through corrections, carrying out punishment as a means to censure the criminal act. Punishment is generally reserved for serious offenses. Individuals regularly engage in activity that could be scrutinized under criminal law but are deemed inconsequential. Retributive justice seeks to create a system of accountability and punish criminals in a way that knowingly causes suffering. This may arise out of a feeling that criminals deserve to suffer and that punishment should exist for its own sake. The existence of punishment also creates an effect of deterrence that discourages criminal action for fear of punishment. Rehabilitation seeks to understand and mitigate the causes of a criminal\'s unlawful action to prevent recidivism. Different criminological theories propose different methods of rehabilitation, including strengthening social networks, reducing poverty, influencing values, and providing therapy for physical and mental ailments. Rehabilitative programs may include counseling or vocational education. Developed nations are less likely to use physical punishments. Instead, they will impose financial penalties or imprisonment. In places with widespread corruption or limited rule of law, crime may be punished extralegally through mob rule and lynching. Whether a crime can be resolved through financial compensation varies depending on the culture and the specific context of the crime. Historically, many societies have absolved acts of homicide through compensation to the victim\'s relatives. ## Criminology The study of crime is called *criminology*. Criminology is a subfield of sociology that addresses issues of social norms, social order, deviance, and violence. It includes the motivations and consequences of crime and its perpetrators, as well as preventative measures, either studying criminal acts on an individual level or the relationship of crime and the community. Due to the wide range of concepts associated with crime and the disagreement on a precise definition, the focus of criminology can vary considerably. Various theories within criminology provide different descriptions and explanations for crime, including social control theory, subcultural theory, strain theory, differential association, and labeling theory. Subfields of criminology and related fields of study include crime prevention, criminal law, crime statistics, anthropological criminology, criminal psychology, criminal sociology, criminal psychiatry, victimology, penology, and forensic science. Besides sociology, criminology is often associated with law and psychology. ## Causes and correlates {#causes_and_correlates} Criminal behavior determinants include cost--benefit analysis, opportunity or crime of passion. A person that commits a criminal act typically believes that its benefits will outweigh the risk of being caught and punished. Negative economic factors, such as unemployment and income inequality, can increase the incentive to commit crime, while severe punishments can deter crime in some cases. Social factors similarly affect the likelihood of criminal activity. Crime corresponds heavily with social integration; groups that are less integrated with society or that are forcibly integrated with society are more likely to engage in crime. Involvement in the community, such as through a church, decreases the likelihood of crime, while associating with criminals increases the likelihood of becoming a criminal as well. There is no known genetic cause of crime. Some genes have been found to affect traits that may incline individuals toward criminal activity, but no biological or physiological trait has been found to directly cause or compel criminal actions. One biological factor is the disparity between men and women, as men are significantly more likely to commit crimes than women in virtually all cultures. Crimes committed by men also tend to be more severe than those committed by women. Crime distribution shows a long tail with a small fraction of individuals re-offending many times due to high recidivism, while onset of crime at younger age predicts a longer criminal career.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,794

Central tendency

In statistics, a **central tendency** (or **measure of central tendency**) is a central or typical value for a probability distribution. Colloquially, measures of central tendency are often called *averages.* The term *central tendency* dates from the late 1920s. The most common measures of central tendency are the arithmetic mean, the median, and the mode. A middle tendency can be calculated for either a finite set of values or for a theoretical distribution, such as the normal distribution. Occasionally authors use central tendency to denote \"the tendency of quantitative data to cluster around some central value.\" The central tendency of a distribution is typically contrasted with its *dispersion* or *variability*; dispersion and central tendency are the often characterized properties of distributions. Analysis may judge whether data has a strong or a weak central tendency based on its dispersion. ## Measures The following may be applied to one-dimensional data. Depending on the circumstances, it may be appropriate to transform the data before calculating a central tendency. Examples are squaring the values or taking logarithms. Whether a transformation is appropriate and what it should be, depend heavily on the data being analyzed. Arithmetic mean or simply, mean: the sum of all measurements divided by the number of observations in the data set.\ Median: the middle value that separates the higher half from the lower half of the data set. The median and the mode are the only measures of central tendency that can be used for ordinal data, in which values are ranked relative to each other but are not measured absolutely.\ Mode: the most frequent value in the data set. This is the only central tendency measure that can be used with nominal data, which have purely qualitative category assignments.\ Generalized mean: A generalization of the Pythagorean means, specified by an exponent.\ Geometric mean: the *n*th root of the product of the data values, where there are *n* of these. This measure is valid only for data that are measured on a strictly positive scale.\ Harmonic mean: the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of the reciprocals of the data values. This measure is valid only for data that are measured either on a strictly positive or a strictly negative scale.\ Weighted arithmetic mean: an arithmetic mean that incorporates weighting to certain data elements.\ Truncated mean or trimmed mean: the arithmetic mean of data values after a certain number or proportion of the highest and lowest data values have been discarded.\ Interquartile mean: a truncated mean based on data within the interquartile range.\ Midrange: the arithmetic mean of the maximum and minimum values of a data set.\ Midhinge: the arithmetic mean of the first and third quartiles.\ Quasi-arithmetic mean: A generalization of the generalized mean, specified by a continuous injective function.\ Trimean: the weighted arithmetic mean of the median and two quartiles.\ Winsorized mean: an arithmetic mean in which extreme values are replaced by values closer to the median. Any of the above may be applied to each dimension of multi-dimensional data, but the results may not be invariant to rotations of the multi-dimensional space. Geometric median: the point minimizing the sum of distances to a set of sample points. This is the same as the median when applied to one-dimensional data, but it is not the same as taking the median of each dimension independently. It is not invariant to different rescaling of the different dimensions.\ Quadratic mean (often known as the root mean square): useful in engineering, but not often used in statistics. This is because it is not a good indicator of the center of the distribution when the distribution includes negative values.\ Simplicial depth: the probability that a randomly chosen simplex with vertices from the given distribution will contain the given center\ Tukey median: a point with the property that every halfspace containing it also contains many sample points ## Solutions to variational problems {#solutions_to_variational_problems} Several measures of central tendency can be characterized as solving a variational problem, in the sense of the calculus of variations, namely minimizing variation from the center. That is, given a measure of statistical dispersion, one asks for a measure of central tendency that minimizes variation: such that variation from the center is minimal among all choices of center. In a quip, \"dispersion precedes location\". These measures are initially defined in one dimension, but can be generalized to multiple dimensions. This center may or may not be unique. In the sense of `{{math|{{var|L}}{{var|p}}}}`{=mediawiki} spaces, the correspondence is: dispersion central tendency -- ---------------------------- --------------------------- variation ratio mode average absolute deviation median (geometric median) standard deviation mean (centroid) maximum deviation midrange The associated functions are called `{{math|{{var|p}}}}`{=mediawiki}-norms: respectively 0-\"norm\", 1-norm, 2-norm, and ∞-norm. The function corresponding to the `{{var|L}}`{=mediawiki}^0^ space is not a norm, and is thus often referred to in quotes: 0-\"norm\". In equations, for a given (finite) data set `{{math|X}}`{=mediawiki}, thought of as a vector `{{math|{{strong|x}} {{=}}`{=mediawiki} (`{{var|x}}`{=mediawiki}`{{sub|1}}`{=mediawiki},...,`{{var|x}}`{=mediawiki}`{{sub|{{var|n}}}}`{=mediawiki})}}, the dispersion about a point `{{math|{{strong|c}}}}`{=mediawiki} is the \"distance\" from `{{math|{{strong|x}}}}`{=mediawiki} to the constant vector `{{math|{{strong|c}} {{=}}`{=mediawiki} (`{{var|c}}`{=mediawiki},...,`{{var|c}}`{=mediawiki})}} in the `{{var|p}}`{=mediawiki}-norm (normalized by the number of points `{{var|n}}`{=mediawiki}): $$f_p(c) = \left\| \mathbf{x} - \mathbf{c} \right\|_p := \bigg( \frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^n \left| x_i - c\right| ^p \bigg) ^{1/p}$$ For `{{math|{{var|p}} {{=}}`{=mediawiki} 0}} and `{{math|{{var|p {{=}} ∞}}`{=mediawiki}}} these functions are defined by taking limits, respectively as `{{math|{{var|p}} → 0}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math|{{var|p}} → ∞}}`{=mediawiki}. For `{{math|{{var|p}} {{=}}`{=mediawiki} 0}} the limiting values are `{{math|00 {{=}}`{=mediawiki} 0}} and `{{math|{{var|a}}0 {{=}}`{=mediawiki} 1}} for `{{math|{{var|a}} ≠ 0}}`{=mediawiki}, so the difference becomes simply equality, so the 0-norm counts the number of *unequal* points. For `{{math|{{var|p}} {{=}}`{=mediawiki} ∞}} the largest number dominates, and thus the ∞-norm is the maximum difference. ### Uniqueness The mean (*L*^2^ center) and midrange (*L*^∞^ center) are unique (when they exist), while the median (*L*^1^ center) and mode (*L*^0^ center) are not in general unique. This can be understood in terms of convexity of the associated functions (coercive functions). The 2-norm and ∞-norm are strictly convex, and thus (by convex optimization) the minimizer is unique (if it exists), and exists for bounded distributions. Thus standard deviation about the mean is lower than standard deviation about any other point, and the maximum deviation about the midrange is lower than the maximum deviation about any other point. The 1-norm is not *strictly* convex, whereas strict convexity is needed to ensure uniqueness of the minimizer. Correspondingly, the median (in this sense of minimizing) is not in general unique, and in fact any point between the two central points of a discrete distribution minimizes average absolute deviation. The 0-\"norm\" is not convex (hence not a norm). Correspondingly, the mode is not unique -- for example, in a uniform distribution *any* point is the mode. ### Clustering Instead of a single central point, one can ask for multiple points such that the variation from these points is minimized. This leads to cluster analysis, where each point in the data set is clustered with the nearest \"center\". Most commonly, using the 2-norm generalizes the mean to *k*-means clustering, while using the 1-norm generalizes the (geometric) median to *k*-medians clustering. Using the 0-norm simply generalizes the mode (most common value) to using the *k* most common values as centers. Unlike the single-center statistics, this multi-center clustering cannot in general be computed in a closed-form expression, and instead must be computed or approximated by an iterative method; one general approach is expectation--maximization algorithms. ### Information geometry {#information_geometry} The notion of a \"center\" as minimizing variation can be generalized in information geometry as a distribution that minimizes divergence (a generalized distance) from a data set. The most common case is maximum likelihood estimation, where the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) maximizes likelihood (minimizes expected surprisal), which can be interpreted geometrically by using entropy to measure variation: the MLE minimizes cross-entropy (equivalently, relative entropy, Kullback--Leibler divergence). A simple example of this is for the center of nominal data: instead of using the mode (the only single-valued \"center\"), one often uses the empirical measure (the frequency distribution divided by the sample size) as a \"center\". For example, given binary data, say heads or tails, if a data set consists of 2 heads and 1 tails, then the mode is \"heads\", but the empirical measure is 2/3 heads, 1/3 tails, which minimizes the cross-entropy (total surprisal) from the data set. This perspective is also used in regression analysis, where least squares finds the solution that minimizes the distances from it, and analogously in logistic regression, a maximum likelihood estimate minimizes the surprisal (information distance). ## Relationships between the mean, median and mode {#relationships_between_the_mean_median_and_mode} For unimodal distributions the following bounds are known and are sharp: : $\frac{| \theta - \mu |}{ \sigma } \le \sqrt{ 3 } ,$ ```{=html}  ``` : $\frac{| \nu - \mu |}{ \sigma } \le \sqrt{ 0.6 } ,$ ```{=html}  ``` : $\frac{| \theta - \nu |}{ \sigma } \le \sqrt{ 3 } ,$ where *μ* is the mean, *ν* is the median, *θ* is the mode, and *σ* is the standard deviation. For every distribution, : $\frac{| \nu - \mu |}{ \sigma } \le 1.$

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,796

Celebrity

**Celebrity** is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group due to the attention given to them by mass media. The word is also used to refer to famous individuals. A person may attain celebrity status by having great wealth, participation in sports or the entertainment industry, their position as a political figure, or even their connection to another celebrity. \'Celebrity\' usually implies a favorable public image, as opposed to the neutrals \'famous\' or \'notable\', or the negatives \'infamous\' and \'notorious\'. ## History In his 2020 book *Dead Famous: An Unexpected History Of Celebrity*, British historian Greg Jenner uses the definition: `{{blockquote|Celebrity (noun): a unique persona made widely known to the public via media coverage, and whose life is publicly consumed as dramatic entertainment, and whose commercial brand is made profitable for those who exploit their popularity, and perhaps also for themselves.<ref name="jenner">{{cite book |last1=Jenner |first1=Greg |title=Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen |date=2020 |isbn=978-0297869801 |url=https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Famous-Celebrity-Greg-Jenner/dp/0297869809/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_g5447869900?_encoding=UTF8&%2AVersion%2A=1&%2Aentries%2A=0&ie=UTF8#reader_B07VTMZGGQ |access-date=24 May 2020 |chapter=Introduction|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson }}</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} Although his book is subtitled \"from Bronze Age to Silver Screen\", and despite the fact that \"Until very recently, sociologists argued that *celebrity* was invented just over 100 years ago, in the flickering glimmer of early Hollywood\" and the suggestion that some medieval saints might qualify, Jenner asserts that the earliest celebrities lived in the early 1700s, his first example being Henry Sacheverell. Over time, the invention of more types of mass media has broadened the ways in which people have become famous. Athletes in Ancient Greece were welcomed home as heroes, had songs and poems written in their honor, and received free food and gifts from those seeking celebrity endorsement. Ancient Rome similarly lauded actors and notorious gladiators, and Julius Caesar appeared on a coin in his own lifetime (a departure from the usual depiction of battles and divine lineage). In the early 12th century, Thomas Becket became famous following his murder, the first possible case of posthumous popularity. The Christian Church promoted him as a martyr, and images of him and scenes from his life became widespread in just a few years. In a pattern often repeated, what started as an explosion of popularity (often referred to with the suffix \'mania\') turned into long-lasting fame: pilgrimages to Canterbury Cathedral, where he was killed, became instantly fashionable, and the fascination with his life and death inspired plays and films. The cult of personality (particularly in the west) can be traced back to the Romantics in the 18th century, whose livelihood as artists and poets depended on the currency of their reputation. Lord Byron became a celebrity in 1812 after the publication of the first two cantos of *Childe Harold\'s Pilgrimage*. \"I awoke one morning and found myself famous,\" he said. According to McGann: \"He rapidly became the most brilliant star in the dazzling world of Regency London.\" Establishing cultural hot spots became important in generating fame, such as in London and Paris in the 18th and 19th centuries. Newspapers started including \"gossip\" columns, and certain clubs and events became places to be seen to receive publicity. David Lodge called Charles Dickens the \"first writer to feel the intense pressure of being simultaneously an artist and an object of unrelenting public interest and adulation\", and Juliet John backed up the claim for Dickens \"to be called the first self-made global media star of the age of mass culture.\" Theatrical actors were often considered celebrities. Restaurants near theaters, where actors would congregate, began putting up caricatures or photographs of actors on celebrity walls in the late 19th century. The subject of widespread public and media interest, Lillie Langtry, made her West End theatre debut in 1881 causing a sensation in London by becoming the first socialite to appear on stage. The following year she became the poster-girl for Pears Soap, becoming the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product. In 1895, poet and playwright Oscar Wilde became the subject of \"one of the first celebrity trials\". Another example of celebrities in the entertainment industry was in music, beginning in the mid-19th century. Never seen before in music, many people engaged in an immense fan frenzy called Lisztomania that began in 1841. This created the basis for the behavior fans have around their favorite musicians in modern society. The movie industry spread around the globe in the first half of the 20th century, creating the first film celebrities. The term celebrity was not always tied to actors in films however, especially when cinema was starting as a medium. As Paul McDonald states in *The Star System: Hollywood\'s Production of Popular Identities*, \"In the first decade of the twentieth century, American film production companies withheld the names of film performers, despite requests from audiences, fearing that public recognition would drive performers to demand higher salaries.\" Public fascination went well beyond the on-screen exploits of movie stars, and their private lives became headline news: for example, in Hollywood the marriages of Elizabeth Taylor and in Bollywood the affairs of Raj Kapoor in the 1950s. Like theatrical actors before them, movie actors were the subjects of celebrity walls in restaurants they frequented, near movie studios, most notably at Sardi\'s in Hollywood. The second half of the century saw television and popular music bring new forms of celebrity, such as the rock star and the pop group, epitomised by Elvis Presley and the Beatles, respectively. John Lennon\'s highly controversial 1966 quote: \"We\'re more popular than Jesus now\", which he later insisted was not a boast, and that he was not in any way comparing himself with Christ, gives an insight into both the adulation and notoriety that fame can bring. Unlike movies, television created celebrities who were not primarily actors; for example, presenters, talk show hosts, and newsreaders. However, most of these are only famous within the regions reached by their particular broadcaster, and only a few such as Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Springer, or David Frost could be said to have broken through into wider stardom. Television also gave exposure to sportspeople, notably Pelé after his emergence at the 1958 FIFA World Cup, with Barney Ronay in *The Guardian* stating, \"What is certain is that Pelé invented this game, the idea of individual global sporting superstardom, and in a way that is unrepeatable now.\" In the \'60s and early \'70s, the book publishing industry began to persuade major celebrities to put their names on autobiographies and other titles in a genre called celebrity publishing. In most cases, the book was not written by the celebrity but by a ghostwriter, but the celebrity would then be available for a book tour and appearances on talk shows. ## Wealth ### *Forbes* Celebrity 100 {#forbes_celebrity_100} *Forbes* magazine releases an annual *Forbes* Celebrity 100 list of the highest-paid celebrities in the world. The total earnings for all top celebrity 100 earners totaled \$4.5 billion in 2010 alone. For instance, *Forbes* ranked media mogul and talk show host, Oprah Winfrey as the top earner \"Forbes magazine\'s annual ranking of the most powerful celebrities\", with earnings of \$290 million in the past year. Forbes cites that Lady Gaga reportedly earned over \$90 million in 2010. In 2011, golfer Tiger Woods was one of highest-earning celebrity athletes, with an income of \$74 million and is consistently ranked one of the highest-paid athletes in the world. In 2013, Madonna was ranked as the fifth most powerful and the highest-earning celebrity of the year with earnings of \$125 million. She has consistently been among the most powerful and highest-earning celebrities in the world, occupying the third place in Forbes Celebrity 100 2009 with \$110 million of earnings, and getting the tenth place in the 2011 edition of the list with annual earnings equal to \$58 million. Beyoncé has also appeared in the top ten in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2017, and topped the list in 2014 with earnings of \$115 million. Cristiano Ronaldo followed by Lionel Messi in 2020 became the first two athletes in a team sport to surpass \$1 billion in earnings during their careers. *Forbes* also lists the top-earning deceased celebrities, with singer Michael Jackson, fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien and children\'s author Roald Dahl each topping the annual list with earnings of \$500 million over the course of a year. ### Entrepreneurship and endorsements {#entrepreneurship_and_endorsements} Celebrity endorsements have proven very successful around the world where, due to increasing consumerism, a person owns a \"status symbol\" by purchasing a celebrity-endorsed product. Although it has become commonplace for celebrities to place their name with endorsements onto products just for quick money, some celebrities have gone beyond merely using their names and have put their entrepreneurial spirit to work by becoming entrepreneurs by attaching themselves in the business aspects of entertainment and building their own business brand beyond their traditional salaried activities. Along with investing their salaried wages into growing business endeavors, several celebrities have become innovative business leaders in their respective industries. Numerous celebrities have ventured into becoming business moguls and established themselves as entrepreneurs, idolizing many well known business leaders such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Warren Buffett. For instance, former basketball player Michael Jordan became an entrepreneur involved with many sports-related ventures including investing a minority stake in the Charlotte Bobcats, Paul Newman started his own salad dressing business after leaving behind a distinguished acting career, and rap musician Birdman started his own record label, clothing line, and an oil business while maintaining a career as a rap artist. In 2014, David Beckham became co-owner of new Major League Soccer team Inter Miami, which began playing in 2020. Former Brazil striker and World Cup winner Ronaldo became the majority owner of La Liga club Real Valladolid in 2018. Other celebrities such as Tyler Perry, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg have become successful entrepreneurs through starting their own film production companies and running their own movie studios beyond their traditional activities. Tabloid magazines and talk TV shows bestow a great deal of attention to celebrities. To stay in the public eye and build wealth in addition to their salaried labor, numerous celebrities have begun participating and branching into various business ventures and endorsements, which include: animation, publishing, fashion designing, cosmetics, consumer electronics, household items and appliances, cigarettes, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages, hair care, hairdressing, jewelry design, fast food, credit cards, video games, writing, and toys. In addition to these, some celebrities have been involved with some business and investment-related ventures also include: sports team ownership, fashion retailing, establishments such as restaurants, cafes, hotels, and casinos, movie theaters, advertising and event planning, management-related ventures such as sports management, financial services, model management, and talent management, record labels, film production, television production, publishing books and music, massage therapy, salons, health and fitness, and real estate. Although some celebrities have achieved additional financial success from various business ventures, the vast majority of celebrities are not successful businesspeople and still rely on salaried labored wages to earn a living. Not all celebrities eventually succeed with their businesses and other related side ventures. Some celebrities either went broke or filed for bankruptcy as a result of dabbling with such side businesses or endorsements. ## Famous for being famous {#famous_for_being_famous} *Famous for being famous*, in popular culture terminology, refers to someone who attains celebrity status for no particular identifiable reason, or who achieves fame through association with a celebrity. The term is a pejorative, suggesting the target has no particular talents or abilities. British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge made the first known usage of the phrase in the introduction to his book *Muggeridge Through The Microphone: BBC Radio and Television* (1967) in which he wrote: > In the past if someone was famous or notorious, it was for something---as a writer or an actor or a criminal; for some talent or distinction or abomination. Today one is famous for being famous. People who come up to one in the street or in public places to claim recognition nearly always say: \"I\'ve seen you on the telly!\" The coinages \"famesque\" and \"celebutante\" are of similar pejorative gist. This shift has sparked criticism for promoting superficial recognition over substantive achievements and reflects broader changes in how fame and success are perceived in modern culture. ## Mass media phenomena {#mass_media_phenomena} Mass media has dramatically reshaped the concept of celebrity by amplifying visibility and extending fame globally. With the rise of television, social media, and reality TV, individuals can achieve stardom not just through traditional talents but also through their personal lives and online presence. This heightened visibility brings intense public scrutiny, where every detail of a celebrity\'s life is subject to constant media coverage. Celebrities often become brands themselves, influencing trends and consumer behavior while navigating the pressures of privacy erosion and mental health challenges. Celebrities may be resented for their accolades, and the public may have a love/hate relationship with celebrities. Due to the high visibility of celebrities\' private lives, their successes and shortcomings are often made very public. Celebrities are alternately portrayed as glowing examples of perfection, when they garner awards, or as decadent or immoral if they become associated with a scandal. When seen in a positive light, celebrities are frequently portrayed as possessing skills and abilities beyond average people; for example, celebrity actors are routinely celebrated for acquiring new skills necessary for filming a role within a very brief time, and to a level that amazes the professionals who train them. Similarly, some celebrities with very little formal education can sometimes be portrayed as experts on complicated issues. Some celebrities have been very vocal about their political views. For example, Matt Damon expressed his displeasure with 2008 US vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, as well as with the 2011 United States debt-ceiling crisis. ## Internet Also known as being *internet famous*. ### Social networking and video hosting {#social_networking_and_video_hosting} Most high-profile celebrities participate in social networking services and photo or video hosting platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Social networking services allow celebrities to communicate directly with their fans, removing the \"traditional\" media. Through social media, many people outside of the entertainment and sports sphere become a celebrity in their own sphere. Social media humanizes celebrities in a way that arouses public fascination as evident by the success of magazines such as *Us Weekly* and *People Weekly*. Celebrity blogging has also spawned stars such as Perez Hilton who is known for not only blogging but also outing celebrities. Social media and the rise of the smartphone has changed how celebrities are treated and how people gain the platform of fame. Websites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube allow people to become a celebrity in a different manner. For example, Justin Bieber got his start on YouTube by posting videos of him singing. His fans were able to directly contact him through his content and were able to interact with him on several social media platforms. The internet, as said before, also allows fans to connect with their favorite celebrity without ever meeting them in person. Social media sites have also contributed to the fame of certain celebrities, such as Tila Tequila who became known through MySpace. ### Asia A report by the BBC highlighted a longtime trend of Asian internet celebrities called Wanghong in Chinese. According to the BBC, there are two kinds of online celebrities in China---those who create original content, such as Papi Jiang, who is regularly censored by Chinese authorities for cursing in her videos, and Wanghongs fall under the second category, as they have clothing and cosmetics businesses on Taobao, China\'s equivalent of Amazon. ## Access restriction {#access_restriction} Access to celebrities is strictly controlled by the celebrities entourage of staff which includes managers, publicists, agents, personal assistants, and bodyguards. Journalists may even have difficulty accessing celebrities for interviews. Writer and actor Michael Musto said, \"You have to go through many hoops just to talk to a major celebrity. You have to get past three different sets of publicists: the publicist for the event, the publicist for the movie, and then the celebrity\'s personal publicist. They all have to approve you.\" Celebrities also typically have security staff at their home or properties, to protect them and their belongs from similar threats. ## \"Fifteen minutes of fame\" {#fifteen_minutes_of_fame} \"15 minutes of fame\" is a phrase often used as slang to short-lived publicity. Certain \"15 minutes of fame\" celebrities can be average people seen with an A-list celebrity, who are sometimes noticed on entertainment news channels such as E! News. These are ordinary people becoming celebrities, often based on the ridiculous things they do. \"In fact, many reality show contestants fall into this category: the only thing that qualifies them to be on TV is that they\'re real.\" ## Health implications {#health_implications} Common threats such as stalking have spawned celebrity worship syndrome where a person becomes overly involved with the details of a celebrity\'s personal life. Psychologists have indicated that though many people obsess over glamorous film, television, sport and music stars, the disparity in salaries in society seems to value professional athletes and entertainment industry-based professionals. One study found that singers, musicians, actors and athletes die younger on average than writers, composers, academics, politicians and businesspeople, with a greater incidence of cancer and especially lung cancer. However, it was remarked that the reasons for this remained unclear, with theories including innate tendencies towards risk-taking as well as the pressure or opportunities of particular types of fame. Fame might have negative psychological effects. An academic study on the subject said that fame has an addictive quality to it. When a celebrity\'s fame recedes over time, the celebrity may find it difficult to adjust psychologically. Recently, there has been more attention toward the impact celebrities have on health decisions of the population at large. It is believed that the public will follow celebrities\' health advice to some extent. This can have positive impacts when the celebrities give solid, evidence-informed health advice, however, it can also have detrimental effects if the health advice is not accurate enough.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,797

Cluster sampling

thumb\|upright=1.3\|Cluster sampling. A group of twelve people are divided into pairs, and two pairs are then selected at random. In statistics, **cluster sampling** is a sampling plan used when mutually homogeneous yet internally heterogeneous groupings are evident in a statistical population. It is often used in marketing research. In this sampling plan, the total population is divided into these groups (known as clusters) and a simple random sample of the groups is selected. The elements in each cluster are then sampled. If all elements in each sampled cluster are sampled, then this is referred to as a \"one-stage\" cluster sampling plan. If a simple random subsample of elements is selected within each of these groups, this is referred to as a \"two-stage\" cluster sampling plan. A common motivation for cluster sampling is to reduce the total number of interviews and costs given the desired accuracy. For a fixed sample size, the expected random error is smaller when most of the variation in the population is present internally within the groups, and not between the groups. ## Cluster elemental {#cluster_elemental} The population within a cluster should ideally be as heterogeneous as possible, but there should be homogeneity between clusters. Each cluster should be a small-scale representation of the total population. The clusters should be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. A random sampling technique is then used on any relevant clusters to choose which clusters to include in the study. In single-stage cluster sampling, all the elements from each of the selected clusters are sampled. In two-stage cluster sampling, a random sampling technique is applied to the elements from each of the selected clusters. The main difference between cluster sampling and stratified sampling is that in cluster sampling the cluster is treated as the sampling unit so sampling is done on a population of clusters (at least in the first stage). In stratified sampling, the sampling is done on elements within each stratum. In stratified sampling, a random sample is drawn from each of the strata, whereas in cluster sampling only the selected clusters are sampled. A common motivation for cluster sampling is to reduce costs by increasing sampling efficiency. This contrasts with stratified sampling where the motivation is to increase precision. There is also multistage cluster sampling, where at least two stages are taken in selecting elements from clusters. ## When clusters are of different sizes {#when_clusters_are_of_different_sizes} Without modifying the estimated parameter, cluster sampling is unbiased when the clusters are approximately the same size. In this case, the parameter is computed by combining all the selected clusters. When the clusters are of different sizes there are several options: One method is to sample clusters and then survey all elements in that cluster. Another method is a two-stage method of sampling a fixed proportion of units (be it 5% or 50%, or another number, depending on cost considerations) from within each of the selected clusters. Relying on the sample drawn from these options will yield an unbiased estimator. However, the sample size is no longer fixed upfront. This leads to a more complicated formula for the standard error of the estimator, as well as issues with the optics of the study plan (since the power analysis and the cost estimations often relate to a specific sample size). A third possible solution is to use probability proportionate to size sampling. In this sampling plan, the probability of selecting a cluster is proportional to its size, so a large cluster has a greater probability of selection than a small cluster. The advantage here is that when clusters are selected with probability proportionate to size, the same number of interviews should be carried out in each sampled cluster so that each unit sampled has the same probability of selection. ## Applications of cluster sampling {#applications_of_cluster_sampling} An example of cluster sampling is area sampling or geographical cluster sampling. Each cluster is a geographical area in an area sampling frame. Because a geographically dispersed population can be expensive to survey, greater economy than simple random sampling can be achieved by grouping several respondents within a local area into a cluster. It is usually necessary to increase the total sample size to achieve equivalent precision in the estimators, but cost savings may make such an increase in sample size feasible. For the organization of a population census, the first step is usually dividing the overall geographic area into enumeration areas or census tracts for the field work organization. Enumeration areas may be also useful as first-stage units for cluster sampling in many types of surveys. When a population census is outdated, the list of individuals should not be directly used as sampling frame for a socio-economic survey. Updating the whole census is economically unfeasible. A good alternative may be keeping the old enumeration areas, with some update in highly dynamic areas, such as urban suburbs, selecting a sample of enumeration areas and updating the list of individuals or households only in the selected enumeration areas. Cluster sampling is used to estimate low mortalities in cases such as wars, famines and natural disasters. ### Fisheries science {#fisheries_science} It is almost impossible to take a simple random sample of fish from a population, which would require that individuals are captured individually and at random. This is because fishing gears capture fish in groups (or clusters). In commercial fisheries sampling, the costs of operating at sea are often too large to select hauls individually and at random. Therefore, observations are further clustered by either vessel or fishing trip. ### Economics The World Bank has applied adaptive cluster sampling to study informal businesses in developing countries in a cost efficient manner, as the informal sector is not captured by official records and too expensive to be studied through simple random sampling. The approach follows a two-stage sampling whereby adaptive cluster sampling is used to generate an estimate of the universe of informal businesses in operations, while the second stage to obtain a random sample about the characteristics of those businesses. ## Advantages - Can be cheaper than other sampling plans -- e.g. fewer travel expenses, and administration cost. - Feasibility: This sampling plan takes large populations into account. Since these groups are so small, deploying any other sampling plan would be very costly. - Economy: The regular two major concerns of expenditure, i.e., traveling and listing, are greatly reduced in this method. For example: Compiling research information about every household in a city would be very costly, whereas compiling information about various blocks of the city will be more economical. Here, traveling as well as listing efforts will be greatly reduced. - Reduced variability: in the rare case of a negative intraclass correlation between subjects within a cluster, the estimators produced by cluster sampling will yield more accurate estimates than data obtained from a simple random sample (i.e. the design effect will be larger than 1). This is not a commonplace scenario. Major use: when the sampling frame of all elements is not available we can resort only to cluster sampling. ## Disadvantages - Higher sampling error, which can be expressed by the design effect: the ratio between the variance of an estimator made from the samples of the cluster study and the variance of an estimator obtained from a sample of subjects in an equally reliable, randomly sampled unclustered study. The larger the intraclass correlation is between subjects within a cluster the worse the design effect becomes (i.e. the larger it gets from 1. Indicating a larger expected increase in the variance of the estimator). In other words, the more there is heterogeneity between clusters and more homogeneity between subjects within a cluster, the less accurate our estimators become. This is because in such cases we are better on sampling as many clusters as we can and making do with a small sample of subjects from within each cluster (i.e. two-stage cluster sampling). - Complexity. Cluster sampling is more sophisticated and requires more attention with how to plan and how to analyze (i.e.: to take into account the weights of subjects during the estimation of parameters, confidence intervals, etc.) ## More on cluster sampling {#more_on_cluster_sampling} ### Two-stage cluster sampling {#two_stage_cluster_sampling} Two-stage cluster sampling, a simple case of multistage sampling, is obtained by selecting cluster samples in the first stage and then selecting a sample of elements from every sampled cluster. Consider a population of *N* clusters in total. In the first stage, *n* clusters are selected using the ordinary cluster sampling method. In the second stage, simple random sampling is usually used. It is used separately in every cluster and the numbers of elements selected from different clusters are not necessarily equal. The total number of clusters *N*, the number of clusters selected *n*, and the numbers of elements from selected clusters need to be pre-determined by the survey designer. Two-stage cluster sampling aims at minimizing survey costs and at the same time controlling the uncertainty related to estimates of interest. This method can be used in health and social sciences. For instance, researchers used two-stage cluster sampling to generate a representative sample of the Iraqi population to conduct mortality surveys. Sampling in this method can be quicker and more reliable than other methods, which is why this method is now used frequently. ### Inference when the number of clusters is small {#inference_when_the_number_of_clusters_is_small} Cluster sampling methods can lead to significant bias when working with a small number of clusters. For instance, it can be necessary to cluster at the state or city-level, units that may be small and fixed in number. Microeconometrics methods for panel data often use short panels, which is analogous to having few observations per clusters and many clusters. The small cluster problem can be viewed as an incidental parameter problem. While the point estimates can be reasonably precisely estimated, if the number of observations per cluster is sufficiently high, we need the number of clusters $G\rightarrow \infty$ for the asymptotics to kick in. If the number of clusters is low the estimated covariance matrix can be downward biased. Small numbers of clusters are a risk when there is serial correlation or when there is intraclass correlation as in the Moulton context. When having few clusters, we tend to underestimate serial correlation across observations when a random shock occurs, or the intraclass correlation in a Moulton setting. Several studies have highlighted the consequences of serial correlation and highlighted the small-cluster problem. In the framework of the Moulton factor, an intuitive explanation of the small cluster problem can be derived from the formula for the Moulton factor. Assume for simplicity that the number of observations per cluster is fixed at *n*. Below, $V_{c}(\beta)$ stands for the covariance matrix adjusted for clustering, $V(\beta)$ stands for the covariance matrix not adjusted for clustering, and ρ stands for the intraclass correlation: : $\frac{V_{c}(\hat\beta)}{V(\hat\beta)}=1+(n-1)\rho$ The ratio on the left-hand side indicates how much the unadjusted scenario overestimates the precision. Therefore, a high number means a strong downward bias of the estimated covariance matrix. A small cluster problem can be interpreted as a large n: when the data is fixed and the number of clusters is low, the number of data within a cluster can be high. It follows that inference, when the number of clusters is small, will not have the correct coverage. Several solutions for the small cluster problem have been proposed. One can use a bias-corrected cluster-robust variance matrix, make T-distribution adjustments, or use bootstrap methods with asymptotic refinements, such as the percentile-t or wild bootstrap, that can lead to improved finite sample inference. Cameron, Gelbach and Miller (2008) provide microsimulations for different methods and find that the wild bootstrap performs well in the face of a small number of clusters.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,808

Casey at the Bat

\"**Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888**\" is a mock-heroic poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. It was first published in *The San Francisco Examiner* (then called *The Daily Examiner*) on June 3, 1888, under the pen name \"Phin\", based on Thayer\'s college nickname, \"Phinney\". Featuring a dramatic narrative about a baseball game, the poem was later popularized by DeWolf Hopper in many vaudeville performances. It has become one of the best-known poems in American literature. ## Synopsis A baseball team from the fictional town of \"Mudville\" (the home team) is losing by two runs in its last inning. Both the team and its fans, a crowd of 5,000, believe that they can win if Casey, Mudville\'s star player, gets to bat. However, Casey is scheduled to be the fifth batter of the inning, and the first two batters (Cooney and Barrows) fail to get on base. The next two batters (Flynn and Jimmy Blake) are perceived to be weak hitters with little chance of reaching base to allow Casey a chance to bat. Surprisingly, Flynn hits a single, and Blake follows with a double that allows Flynn to reach third base. Both runners are now in scoring position and Casey represents the potential winning run. Casey is so sure of his abilities that he does not swing at the first two pitches, both called strikes. On the last pitch, the overconfident Casey strikes out swinging, ending the game and sending the crowd home unhappy. ## Text The text is filled with references to baseball as it was in 1888, which in many ways is not far removed from today\'s version. As a work, the poem encapsulates much of the appeal of baseball, including the involvement of the crowd. It also has a fair amount of baseball jargon that can pose challenges for the uninitiated. This is the complete poem as it originally appeared in *The Daily Examiner*. After publication, various versions with minor changes were produced. ## Inspiration Thayer said he chose the name \"Casey\" after a non-player of Irish ancestry he once knew named Daniel H. Casey; it is open to debate whom, if anyone, he modeled the character after. It has been reported that Thayer\'s best friend Samuel Winslow, who played baseball at Harvard, was the inspiration for Casey. Another classmate of Thayer at Harvard---Edward Terry Sanford---also has been put forward as a possible model for Casey, in part on the ground that Thayer and Sanford were both members of a student group at Harvard (the OK Society) that played some baseball in the mid-1880s. Sanford would go on to a distinguished career in the law, culminating in his appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1923. Another candidate is National League player Mike \"King\" Kelly, who became famous when Boston paid Chicago a record \$10,000 for him. He had a personality that fans liked to cheer or jeer. After the 1887 season, Kelly went on a playing tour to San Francisco. Thayer, who wrote \"Casey\" in 1888, covered the San Francisco leg for the *San Francisco Examiner*. Thayer, in a letter he wrote in 1905, mentions Kelly as showing \"impudence\" in claiming to have written the poem. The author of the 2004 definitive biography of Kelly---which included a close tracking of his vaudeville career---did not find Kelly claiming to have been the author. ## Composition and publication history {#composition_and_publication_history} \"Casey at the Bat\" was first published in *The Daily Examiner* on June 3, 1888. A month after the poem was published, it was reprinted as \"Kelly at the Bat\" in the *New York Sporting Times*. Aside from omitting the first five verses, the only changes from the original are substitutions of Kelly for Casey, and Boston for Mudville. King Kelly, then of the Boston Beaneaters, was one of baseball\'s two biggest stars at the time (along with Cap Anson).`{{r|rosenberg|page1=9}}`{=mediawiki} In 1897, the magazine *Current Literature* noted the two versions and said, \"The locality, as originally given, is Mudville, not Boston; the latter was substituted to give the poem local color.\" ## Live performances {#live_performances} left\|thumb\|upright=1.1\|1909 theatrical poster with DeWolf Hopper in A Matinee Idol DeWolf Hopper gave the poem\'s first stage recitation on August 14, 1888, at New York\'s Wallack Theatre as part of the comic opera *Prinz Methusalem* in the presence of the Chicago White Stockings and New York Giants baseball teams; August 14, 1888 was also Thayer\'s 25th birthday. Hopper became known as an orator of the poem, and recited it more than 10,000 times (by his count---some tabulations are as much as four times higher) before his death. `{{Quote_box |width=20% |align=right |quote="It is as perfect an [[epitome]] of our national game today as it was when every player drank his coffee from a [[mustache cup]]. There are one or more Caseys in every [[Baseball league|league]], [[Bush league|bush]] or big, and there is no day in the playing season that this same supreme [[tragedy]], as stark as [[Aristophanes]] for the moment, does not befall on some field."<ref name=Gardner />}}`{=mediawiki} On stage in the early 1890s, baseball star Kelly recited the original \"Casey\" a few dozen times and not the parody. For example, in a review in 1893 of a variety show he was in, the *Indianapolis News* said, \"Many who attended the performance had heard of Kelly\'s singing and his reciting, and many had heard De Wolf Hopper recite \'Casey at the Bat\' in his inimitable way. Kelly recited this in a sing-song, school-boy fashion.\" Upon Kelly\'s death, a writer would say he gained \"considerable notoriety by his ludicrous rendition of \'Casey at the Bat,\' with which he concluded his \'turn\' \[act\] at each performance.\"`{{r|rosenberg|page1=229}}`{=mediawiki} During the 1980s, the magic/comedy team Penn & Teller performed a version of \"Casey at the Bat\" with Teller (the \"silent\" partner) struggling to escape a straitjacket while suspended upside-down over a platform of sharp steel spikes. The set-up was that Penn Jillette would leap off his chair upon finishing the poem, releasing the rope which supported Teller, and send Teller to a gruesome death if Teller had failed to free himself by that time. Jillette enhanced the drama of the performance by drastically accelerating the pace of his recital after the first few stanzas, greatly reducing the time that Teller had left to work free from his bonds. ## Recordings The first recorded version of \"Casey at the Bat\" was made by Russell Hunting, speaking in a broad Irish accent, in 1893; an [1898 cylinder recording of the text made for the Columbia Graphophone label by Hunting](http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=@attr+1=1020&num=1&start=1&query=cylinder5348) can be accessed from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library. DeWolf Hopper\'s more famous recorded recitation was released in October 1906. In 1946, Walt Disney released a recording of the narration of the poem by Jerry Colonna, which accompanied the studio\'s animated cartoon adaptation of the poem (see below). In 1973, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra commissioned its former Composer-in-Residence, Frank Proto, to create a work to feature Baseball Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bench with the orchestra. The result \"Casey At The Bat -- an American Folk Tale for Narrator and Orchestra\" was an immediate hit and recorded by Bench and the orchestra. It has since been performed more than 800 times by nearly every major and Metropolitan orchestra in the U.S. and Canada. In 1980, baseball pitcher Tug McGraw recorded *Casey at The Bat---an American Folk Tale for Narrator and Orchestra* by Frank Proto with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops. In 1996, actor James Earl Jones recorded the poem with arranger/composer Steven Reineke and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. On a 1997 CD set with memorable moments and stories from the game of baseball titled *Take Me Out to the Ball Game* produced by Jerry Hoffman and Douglas Duer, a Vincent Price oration of the poem is a slightly altered version of the original. In 1998, actor Sir Derek Jacobi recorded the poem with composer/arranger Randol Alan Bass and the National Symphony of London, with the composer conducting. This work, titled \"Casey at the Bat\", has been recorded by the Boston Pops Orchestra, Keith Lockhart conducting. In 2013, Dave Jageler and Charlie Slowes, both radio announcers for the Washington Nationals, each made recordings of the poem for the Library of Congress to mark the 125th anniversary of its first publication. ## Mudville A rivalry of sorts has developed between two cities claiming to be the Mudville described in the poem. Residents of Holliston, Massachusetts, where there is a neighborhood called Mudville, claim it as the Mudville described in the poem. Thayer grew up in nearby Worcester, Massachusetts, where he wrote the poem in 1888; his family owned a wool mill less than 1 mi from Mudville\'s baseball field. However, residents of Stockton, California---which was known for a time as Mudville prior to incorporation in 1850---also lay claim to being the inspiration for the poem. In 1887, Thayer covered baseball for *The Daily Examiner*---owned by his Harvard classmate William Randolph Hearst---and is said to have covered the local California League team, the Stockton Ports. For the 1902 season, after the poem became popular, Stockton\'s team was renamed the Mudville Nine. The team reverted to the Mudville Nine moniker for the 2000 and 2001 seasons. The Visalia Rawhide, another California League team, currently keeps Mudville alive playing in Mudville jerseys on June 3 each year. Despite the towns\' rival claims, Thayer himself told the *Syracuse Post-Standard* that \"the poem has no basis in fact.\" ## Adaptations The poem has been adapted to diverse types of media: ### Books - Ralph Andreano\'s 1965 book, *No Joy in Mudville*, laments the death of heroes in modern baseball. - In the book *Faithful* by Steward O\'Nan and Stephen King, describing the 2004 season of the Boston Red Sox, a chapter contributed by King is named \"The Gloom is gone from Mudville\". - Wallace Tripp illustrated a popular 1978 book of the poem. - Kurtis Scaletta\'s 2009 children\'s novel, *Mudville*, is about a town where it has been raining for 22 years, delaying a baseball game between two rival towns. ### Comics - Marvel Comics published a spoof in August 1969, in the 9th issue of *Not Brand Echh*, featuring parodies of their popular heroes and villains, and the Bulk (parody of the Hulk) as Casey. - DC Comics\' series *Fables* from the Vertigo Comics imprint featured an adaptation titled \"Out to the Ball Game\", which features a similar baseball match, with Weyland Smith playing the part of Casey against a team of goblins. ### Film - In 1922, Lee De Forest recorded DeWolf Hopper reciting the poem in DeForest\'s Phonofilm sound-on-film process. - In 1927, a feature-length silent film *Casey at the Bat* was released, starring Wallace Beery, Ford Sterling, and ZaSu Pitts. At least three other films based on Thayer\'s poem preceded this 1927 release: an Edison short in 1899, another short starring Harry T. Morey in 1913, and a five-reel feature starring DeWolf Hopper in 1916. - Walt Disney Productions produced an Animated Segment adaptation of the poem for the film *Make Mine Music* (1946) and uses the original text, but is set in 1902 according to the opening song\'s lyrics, instead of 1888. This version is recited by Jerry Colonna. It was later released as an individual short on July 16, 1954. A sequel short was also produced *Casey Bats Again* and released on June 18, 1954. - A 1976 animated short adaptation, featuring narration by Paul Frees, was released in 1976 by Fine Arts Films. - In 1986, Elliott Gould starred as \"Casey\" in the *Shelley Duvall\'s Tall Tales and Legends* adaptation of the story, which also starred Carol Kane, Howard Cosell, Bob Uecker, Bill Macy and Rae Dawn Chong. The screenplay, adapted from the poem, was written by Andy Borowitz and the production was directed by David Steinberg. - In *The Dream Team* (1989), Michael Keaton\'s character announces that \"there is no joy in Mudville\" after giving a fellow mental patient three \"strikes\" for psychotic behavior. - In 1993 the last paragraph is quoted in the film *Short Cuts* (by Robert Altman), when Lyle Lovett as Andy Bitkower is calling anonymously Andie MacDowell as Ann Finnigan in minute 01:34:58. ### Radio - The poem was adapted for an episode of *On Stage* that aired on CBS on April 16, 1953. It was written by E. Jack Neuman and starred Elliott Lewis, Cathy Lewis, Hy Averback, Herb Butterfield, Byron Kane, Peter Leeds, Hal March, Howard McNear, and Sidney Miller. - Radio personality Casey Kasem self-identified on-air as \"Casey at the mic.\" ### Television - Jackie Gleason in his \"Reginald Van Gleason III\" persona (in full Mudville baseball uniform) performed a recitation of the poem on his *And Awaaaay We Go!* album. - Season 1, episode 35 of *The Twilight Zone*, \"The Mighty Casey\", concerns a baseball player who is actually a robot (June 17, 1960). - In the *Northern Exposure* episode \"The Graduate\", Chris Stevens gains his Master\'s degree in Comparative literature by subjecting his assessors to a spirited re-enactment of the poem. - In *General Hospital*, Steve Hardy performs the poem during the 1994 Nurses\' Ball while dressed in a Mudville baseball uniform. He concludes by telling the audience not to worry because Casey is married to the Mudville owner\'s daughter. - In *How I Met Your Mother*, the episode \"Bedtime Stories\" (which is done entirely in rhymes) features a subplot called \"Mosby At The Bat\". The start of that section of the episode begins with \"The outlook wasn\'t brilliant for poor Ted\'s romantic life\", a line based on the opening of the original poem. - In *One Tree Hill*, season 8 episode \"The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul\" was a flashback-heavy episode revolving around a baseball game with Jamie Scott narrating the poem throughout. ### Music - Art-song composer Sidney Homer turned the poem into a song. Sheet music was published by G. Schirmer in 1920 as part of *Six Cheerful Songs to Poems of American Humor.* - William Schuman composed an opera, *The Mighty Casey* (1953), based on the poem. - The song \"No Joy in Mudville\" from Death Cab for Cutie\'s album *We Have the Facts and We\'re Voting Yes* directly references the poem. - The song \"Centerfield\" by John Fogerty includes the line \"Well, I spent some time in the Mudville Nine, watchin\' it from the bench. You know I took some lumps when the Mighty Casey struck out.\" - The song \"No Joy In Pudville\" by Steroid Maximus is a reference to this poem. - Joe Walsh\'s 1973 song \"Rocky Mountain Way\" features the lyrics \"Bases are loaded/ And Casey\'s at bat/ Playin\' it play-by-play/ Time to change the batter.\" - In 2008 American composer Randol Alan Bass used the song \"Take Me Out to the Ball Game\" by Alfred Von Tilzer and Jack Norworth in *Casey at the Bat*, a setting of the poem for concert band and narrator. ### Theatre - \"Casey at the Bat\" was adapted into a 1953 opera by American composer William Schuman. - An orchestral adaptation by composer Frank Proto has been recorded by the Cincinnati Pops orchestra conducted by Erich Kunzel with baseball star Johnny Bench narrating. - The Dallas Symphony commissioned an arrangement of \"Casey\" by Randol Alan Bass in 2001, which he later arranged for concert band. ## Derivations For a relatively short poem apparently dashed off quickly (and denied by its author for years), \"Casey at the Bat\" had a profound effect on American popular culture. It has been recited, re-enacted, adapted, dissected, parodied, and subjected to just about every other treatment one could imagine. ### Sequels - \"Casey\'s Revenge\", by Grantland Rice (1907), gives Casey another chance against the pitcher who had struck him out in the original story. It was written in 1906, and its first known publication was in the quarterly magazine *The Speaker* in June 1907, under the pseudonym of James Wilson. In this version, Rice cites the nickname \"Strike-Out Casey\", hence the influence on Casey Stengel\'s name. Casey\'s team is down *three* runs by the last of the ninth, and once again Casey is down to two strikes---with the bases full this time. However, he connects, and hits the ball so far that it is never found. - \"Casey - Twenty Years Later\", by Clarence P. McDonald (1908), imagines a different redemption for Casey, long after his retirement. The poem, which was indeed published twenty years after the original, in the San Francisco Examiner, sees Casey attending a championship game between the fictional team of \"Bugville\" and an unspecified opponent. In a losing effort, Bugville\'s players are benched and injured throughout the game, until the captain is forced to call for a volunteer from the attendees. An aged Casey answers the call and fills the role surprisingly well, culminating with him hitting the game-winning home run, in his first swing at bat. He then reveals his identity to the joyous fans and players. - In response to the popularity of the 1946 Walt Disney animated adaptation, Disney made a sequel, *Casey Bats Again* (1954), in which Casey\'s nine daughters redeem his reputation. - In 1988, on the 100th anniversary of the poem, *Sports Illustrated* writer Frank Deford constructed a fanciful story (later expanded to book form) for what happened before and after the famous ball game. ### Parodies Of the many parodies made of the poem, some of the notable ones include: - *Mad* magazine republished the original version of the poem in the 1950s with artwork by Jack Davis and no alterations to the text. Later lampoons in *Mad* included \"\'Cool\' Casey at the Bat\" (1960), an interpretation of the poem in beatnik style, with artwork by Don Martin although the ending still has Casey striking out; \"Casey at the Dice\" in 1969, about a professional gambler; \"Casey at the Contract Talks\" in 1974 (which ends with the owner telling Casey to \"practice hard at home this year \'cause now you\'ve struck out twice\"); Casey at the Talks\" in 1977, a \"modern\" version of the famed poem in which Mudville tries unsuccessfully to sign free agent Casey \[the last line of which is \"Mighty Casey has held out\"\]; \"Baseball at the Bat\", a satire on baseball itself, \"Howard at the Mike\", about Howard Cosell; \"Casey at the Byte\" (1985), a tale of a cocky young computer expert who accidentally erases the White House Budget Plan; \"Clooney as the Bat\", a mockery of George Clooney\'s role as Batman in *Batman and Robin*; and in 2006 as \"Barry at the Bat\", poking fun at Barry Bonds\' alleged involvement in the BALCO scandal; in 2001, \"Jordan at the Hoop\", satirizing Michael Jordan\'s return to the NBA and his time with the Washington Wizards; and in 2012, \"Casey at the Trial\", satirizing Casey Anthony\'s acquittal in the case of the death of her daughter Caylee. It also includes a \"Poetry Round Robin\" where famous poems are rewritten in the style of the next poet in line, featured Casey at the Bat as written by Edgar Allan Poe. - Sportswriter Leonard Koppett claimed in a 1979 tongue-in-cheek article that the published poem omits 18 lines penned by Thayer, which changed the overall theme of the poem. Koppett added lines, claiming to have transcribed them off an old phonograph recording, that take the pitch count on Casey to full. Meanwhile, his uncle Arnold stirs up wagering action in the stands, before a wink passes between them. Casey throws the game. - Foster Brooks (\"the Lovable Lush\" from the *Dean Martin Show*) wrote \"Riley on the Mound\", which recounts the story from the pitcher\'s perspective. [1](https://www.chicagotribune.com/1988/06/03/for-a-guy-who-struck-out-100-years-ago-mighty-casey-is-still/) - In his 1987 Baseball Abstract, Bill James published \"Casey Chases A Knuckler\", which employed a five-line stanza and AAAAB structure, about former MLB knuckleball pitcher Charlie Hough - Author Phil Bolsta penned a parody entitled \"Hrbek at the Bat\" about Twins slugger Kent Hrbek which was published in 1987 in the Minneapolis Review of Baseball. - Radio performer Garrison Keillor\'s parodic version of the poem reimagines the game as a road game, instead of a home game, for the Mudville team. The same events occur with Casey striking out in the ninth inning as in the original poem, but with everything told from the perspective of other team. - An episode of *Tiny Toon Adventures* featured a short titled \"Buster at the Bat\", where Sylvester provides narration as Buster goes up to bat. The poem was parodied again for an episode of *Animaniacs*, this time with Wakko as the title character and Yakko narrating. Both versions end on a happier note with the main character hitting a home run. - In the fourth season of *Garfield and Friends* the episode entitled \"Mind Over Matter/Orson at the Bat/Multiple Choice Cartoon\" features Wade Duck narrating a parody of the poem as Orson Pig experiences it in a dream sequence. - In *The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius* episode \"Return of the Nanobots\", Cindy\'s poem is identical to the ending of \"Casey at the Bat\" but replaces Mudville with Retroville and the last famed line with \"cause Jimmy is an idiot!\" - The New York Times published a parody by Hart Seely and Frank Cammuso in which the poem was narrated by Phil Rizzuto, a New York Yankees announcer who was known to veer off on tangents while calling the game. The poem was later published in Seely and Cammuso\'s book, *2007 Eleven And Other American Comedies*. - David Pogue penned a parody version titled \'A Desktop Critic: Steven Saves the Mac\' for Macworld magazine that ran in their October 1999 issue. It tells the story of Steve Jobs\' triumphant return to a struggling Apple Inc and his early efforts to reverse the company\'s fortunes. - Dick Flavin wrote a version titled Teddy at the Bat, after Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams died in July 2002. Flavin performed the poem at Fenway Park during the night-long tribute to Williams done at the park later that month. The poem replaced Flynn and Blake with Bobby Doerr and Johnny Pesky, the batters who preceded Williams in the 1946 Red Sox lineup. - In 2000, Michael J. Farrand adapted the rhyming scheme, tone, and theme of the poem---while reversing the outcome---to create his poem \"The Man Who Gave All the Dreamers in Baseball Land Bigger Dreams to Dream\" about Kirk Gibson\'s home run off Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. The poem appears at the Baseball Almanac. - Norman Jackman wrote a reversed-outcome version in 1951 called \"Bobby Thomson at the Bat,\" which went unknown for over 60 years until the San Francisco Giants published it in 2012. It\'s about Thomson\'s famous home run in a 1951 Giant-Dodger playoff game. In 2016, the poem was accepted into the poetry files of the National Baseball Library and Archive of the Hall of Fame. - The New York Times best-selling author and poet laureate of The Ringer, Shea Serrano, penned a loving tribute to NBA player Gordon Hayward in the vein of \"Casey at the Bat\" in 2017. - Canadian comedy duo Wayne and Shuster created \"Shakespearean Baseball\", featuring William Shakespeare-esque characters and dialogue in a skit based upon the poem. They performed the play on *The Ed Sullivan Show* and on Canadian TV numerous times between the 1950s and 1980s. - Baseball writer and Villanova professor Mitchell Nathanson updated the poem for contemporary times in 2019, publishing \"Casey @ the Bat\" in *The Washington Post*. ### Translations There are three known translations of the poem into a foreign language, one in French, written in 2007 by French Canadian linguist Paul Laurendeau, with the title *Casey au bâton*, and two in Hebrew. One by the sports journalist Menachem Less titled \"התור של קייסי לחבוט\" \[Hator Shel Casey Lachbot\], and the other more recent and more true to the original cadence and style by Jason H. Elbaum called קֵיסִי בַּמַּחְבֵּט \[Casey BaMachbayt\]. ### Names Casey Stengel describes in his autobiography how his original nickname \"K.C.\" (for his hometown, Kansas City, Missouri) evolved into \"Casey\". It was influenced not just by the name of the poem, which was widely popular in the 1910s, but also because he tended to strike out frequently in his early career so fans and writers started calling him \"strikeout Casey\". ## Contemporary culture {#contemporary_culture} `{{In popular culture|date=May 2021}}`{=mediawiki} ### Video games {#video_games} - The poem is referenced in the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game *EarthBound*, where a weapon is named the Casey Bat, which is the strongest weapon in the game, but will only hit 25% of the time. ### Television {#television_1} - A recurring character in the *Pokémon* anime, a girl who is a very enthusiastic fan of baseball, is named \"Casey\" in the English version in reference to the poem. - Season 1, episode 35 of *The Twilight Zone* was named \"The Mighty Casey\" in reference to the poem\'s lead character, though the plot is unrelated. - The title of Season 3, episode 17 of *The Simpsons*, \"Homer at the Bat\", is a reference to the poem. - A third-season episode of *Storm Chasers* was titled \"Sean Casey At Bat\". The episode featured Casey (a chaser) intercepting a tornado for the first time in TIV 2. - In the show *Friends*, Ross clarifies how to spell \"Casey\" as in \"at the bat\" in the Season 2, episode 14 titled \"The One with the Prom Video.\" - In the show *Containment*, Season 1, episode 6 takes its name, \"He Stilled the Rising Tumult\", from the poem. - In the show *Black Mirror*, Season 6, episode 3, \"Beyond the Sea\" quotes the poem.`{{Explain|date=February 2024}}`{=mediawiki} ### Theme parks {#theme_parks} - Casey\'s Corner is a baseball-themed restaurant in Walt Disney World\'s Magic Kingdom, which serves primarily hotdogs. Pictures of Casey and the pitcher from the Disney animated adaptation are hanging on the walls, and a life-size statue of a baseball player identified as \"Casey\" stands just outside the restaurant. Additionally, the scoreboard in the restaurant shows that Mudville lost to the visitors by two runs. - A hot dog restaurant featuring the Disney character can be found at Disneyland Paris\' Disneyland Park since its opening in 1992, under the name Casey\'s Corner. - A game called Casey at the Bat is in the Games of the Boardwalk at the Disneyland Resort\'s Disney California Adventure. ### Theatre {#theatre_1} - In *Cabaret* (1993) Clifford Bradshaw recites the end of \"Mighty Casey\" to Sally Bowles. ### Postage stamp {#postage_stamp} On July 11, 1996, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp depicting \"Mighty Casey.\" The stamp was part of a set commemorating American folk heroes. Other stamps in the set depicted Paul Bunyan, John Henry, and Pecos Bill.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,814

Chinese dominoes

**Chinese dominoes** are used in several tile-based games, namely, tien gow, pai gow, tiu u and kap tai shap. In Cantonese they are called `{{zh|cy=gwāt pái|labels=no}}`{=mediawiki} (`{{zh|c=骨牌|labels=no}}`{=mediawiki}), which literally means \"bone tiles\"; it is also the name of a northern Chinese game, where the rules are quite different from the southern Chinese version of tien gow. ## History Ming author Xie Zhaozhe (1567--1624) records the legend of dominoes having been presented to Song Emperor Huizong in 1112. However the contemporary Li Qingzhao (1084 -- c. 1155) made no mention of dominoes in her compendium of games. In China, early \"domino\" tiles were functionally identical to playing cards. An identifiable version of Chinese dominoes developed in the 12th or 13th century. The oldest confirmed written mention of dominoes in China comes from the *Former Events in Wulin* (i.e. the capital Hangzhou) written by the Yuan Dynasty (1271--1368) author Zhou Mi (1232--1298), who listed \"*pupai*\" (gambling plaques or dominoes) as well as dice as items sold by peddlers during the reign of Song Emperor Xiaozong (`{{reign|1162|1189}}`{=mediawiki}). Andrew Lo asserts that Zhou Mi meant dominoes when referring to *pupai*, since the Ming author Lu Rong (1436--1494) explicitly defined *pupai* as dominoes (in regards to a story of a suitor who won a maiden\'s hand by drawing out four winning *pupai* from a set). Tiles dating from the 12th to 14th centuries have survived. Unlike most modern tiles they are white with black and red pips. The earliest known manual written about dominoes is the *Manual of the Xuanhe Period* (*《宣和牌譜》*) written by Qu You (1341--1427), but some Chinese scholars believe this manual is a forgery from a later time. In the *Encyclopedia of a Myriad of Treasures*, Zhang Pu (1602--1641) described the game of laying out dominoes as *pupai*, although the character for *pu* had changed,`{{clarify|date=August 2022}}`{=mediawiki} yet retained a similar pronunciation. During the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), the suits known as \"Chinese\" and \"barbarian\" were renamed to \"civil\" and \"military\" respectively to avoid offending the ruling Manchus. Tiles with blank ends, like those found in Western \"double-six\" dominoes, once existed during the 17th century. These games employed two sets of \"double-six\" tiles. It is possible that these were the types of dominoes that made it to Europe the following century. However, the 32-piece Chinese domino set, made to represent each possible face of two thrown dice and thus have no blank faces, differs from the 28-piece domino set found in the West during the mid 18th century. Chinese dominoes with blank faces were known during the 17th century. Each domino originally represented one of the 21 results of throwing two six-sided dice (2d6). One half of each domino is set with the pips from one die and the other half contains the pips from the second die. Chinese sets also introduce duplicates of some throws and divide the tiles into two suits: military and civil. Chinese dominoes are also longer than typical European ones. Traditional Chinese domino games include *Tien Gow, Pai Gow, Che Deng*, and others. ## Deck composition and ranking {#deck_composition_and_ranking} Civil suit (文子) ------------------- ------------------------------------------------ ----- Rank Roll / Domino 1 (high) frameless\|upright=0.15frameless\|upright=0.15 6-6 2 frameless\|upright=0.15frameless\|upright=0.15 1-1 3 frameless\|upright=0.15frameless\|upright=0.15 4-4 4 frameless\|upright=0.15frameless\|upright=0.15 3-1 5 frameless\|upright=0.15frameless\|upright=0.15 5-5 6 frameless\|upright=0.15frameless\|upright=0.15 3-3 7 frameless\|upright=0.15frameless\|upright=0.15 2-2 8 frameless\|upright=0.15frameless\|upright=0.15 5-6 9 frameless\|upright=0.15frameless\|upright=0.15 4-6 10 frameless\|upright=0.15frameless\|upright=0.15 1-6 11 frameless\|upright=0.15frameless\|upright=0.15 1-5 : Dice combinations and domino equivalents Each tile pattern in the Chinese domino set is equivalent to a single outcome when two six-sided dice are thrown. Each combination is only used once, so there are 21 unique possible patterns. Eleven of these 21 unique patterns are repeated to make a total of 32 tiles in a Chinese dominoes set. The 32-tile set is divided into two \"suits\" or groups called \"military\" and \"civil\". There are no markings on the tiles to distinguish these suits; a player must simply remember which tiles belong to which group. There are two each of the eleven civil suit tiles (6-6, 1-1, 4-4, 1-3, 5-5, 3-3, 2-2, 5-6, 4-6, 1-6, 1-5) and one each of the ten military suit tiles (3-6, 4-5; 2-6, 3-5; 2-5, 3-4; 2-4; 1-4, 2-3; 1-2). ### Civil suit {#civil_suit} Each civil tile also has a Chinese name. Here are the Cantonese names and rough English translations: - 6-6 is *tin* (*天* heaven) - 1-1 is *dei* (*地* earth) - 4-4 is *yan* (*人* man) - 1-3 is *ngo* (*鵝* goose or *和* harmony) - 5-5 is *mui* (*梅* plum flower) - 3-3 is *cheung* (*長* long) - 2-2 is *ban* (*板* board) - 5-6 is *fu* (*斧* hatchet) - 4-6 is *ping* (*屏* partition) - 1-6 is *tsat* (*七* long leg seven) - 1-5 is *luk* (*六* big head six) The civil tiles are ranked according to the Chinese cultural significance of the tile names, and must be memorized. The hendiatris of Three talents (*天地人*) dates back for over two thousand years while the harmony (*和*) of the three have been in dice and domino games since at least the Ming dynasty. Remembering the suits and rankings of the tiles is easier if one understands the Chinese names of the tiles and the symbolism behind them. ### Military suit {#military_suit} The military tiles are named and ranked according to the total pips or points on the tiles. For example, the \"nines\" (3-6 and 4-5) rank higher than the \"eights\" (2-6 and 3-5). The rankings of the individual tiles are similar in most games. However, the ranking of combinations of tiles is slightly different in Pai Gow and Tien Gow. Since there is only one of each military tile, these are usually grouped in four mixed \"pairs\" of equivalent total points: nines, eights, sevens, and fives; for example, the 3-6 and 4-5 tiles \"match\" because they have same total points (nine) and both are in the military suit. Among the military tiles, individual tiles of the same pair rank equally, such as 1-4 and 2-3, each totaling five. The 2-4 (six) and 1-2 (three) military tiles also are paired together in many games despite the nominal difference in total points. They are the only tiles in the entire set that have no corresponding tile in the military suit, considering sums. In Pai Gow both of these tiles may be scored as three or six, depending on which is more advantageous. This pair when played together is considered a suit on its own, called the *gi jun* (*至尊* supreme). It is the highest ranking pair in the game of Pai Gow, though the tiles rank low individually (in their normal order). When either tile of this pair is played individually in the game of Tien Gow, each takes its regular ranking according to the total points among the other military suit tiles. ### Physical characteristics {#physical_characteristics} Stewart Culin stated that traditional dominoes are made of Chinese ebony with measurements of 2+5/8 in long, 7/8 in wide, and 3/8 in thick. Values are marked with white and red pips. Using the same coloring scheme as traditional Chinese dice, every half-domino with 1 or 4 pips has those pips colored red; for example, the 4-5 domino has four red pips and five white pips. The only exception is the pair of 6-6 tiles. Half of the pips on the 6-6 domino are colored red to make them stand out as the top ranking tiles. Typically, one of the short edges is marked with a single red pip, and the backs may be marked with three pips, arrayed diagonally white-red-white. ### Variants <File:挖花牌.JPG%7CHalf> of a Digging Flowers set. The other half is identical. <File:골패> 骨牌 삼재도 三才圖.jpg\|Dominoes from Korea There are also sets with where the tiles have Xiangqi characters next to the pips. As Xiangqi also has 32 pieces, these dual use sets can be used to play Giog. Variant sets include the Digging Flowers (*挖花*) game, which use the same 21 patterns generated by the 2d6 combination; some tiles have flowers or frames printed on them while others have their values duplicated. In addition, a Digging Flowers set may include several bonus tiles from mahjong, including flower, season, and blank tiles. Dominoes from Korea also come in a set of 32 and bear markings schematically identical to Chinese dominoes, based on the throw of two dice, although the tiles are closer in size and shape to those used in mahjong, measuring 3/4 ×, and the pip size may vary, especially for the 1- and 4-pip halves. The pairings for the \"military\" suit also differ: 1-2 and 4-5; 1-4 and 2-3, 2-4 and 3-4, 2-5 and 3-5, and 2-6 and 3-6. <table> <caption>Dice throws / tile names (Korean)</caption> <thead> <tr class="header"> <th>Value (Qty)</th> <th>Image</th> <th>Name</th> <th style="background:#aaa;"> </th> <th>Value (Qty)</th> <th>Image</th> <th>Name</th> <th style="background:#aaa;"> </th> <th>Value (Qty)</th> <th>Image</th> <th>Name</th> <th style="background:#aaa;"> </th> <th>Value (Qty)</th> <th>Image</th> <th>Name</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr class="odd"> <td>1-1 (2)</td> <td>frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td>smallest syo-syo (소소)</td> <td>2-2 (2)</td> <td>frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td>superior two tjoun-a (진이)</td> <td>3-3 (2)</td> <td>frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td>long three tjyang-sam (장삼)</td> <td>4-4 (2)</td> <td>frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td>superior red tjoun-hong (직흥)</td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td style="background:#fdd;">1-2 (1)</td> <td style="background:#fdd;">frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td style="background:#fdd;">rat nose tjoui-hko (쥐코)</td> <td style="background:#fed;">2-3 (1)</td> <td style="background:#fed;">frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td style="background:#fed;">two, three a-sam (이삼)</td> <td style="background:#ffd;">3-4 (1)</td> <td style="background:#ffd;">frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td style="background:#ffd;">three, four sam-sa (삼사)</td> <td style="background:#fdd;">4-5 (1)</td> <td style="background:#fdd;">frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td style="background:#fdd;">four, five sa-o (사오)</td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1-3 (2)</td> <td>frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td>small, three syo-sam (소삼)</td> <td style="background:#ffd;">2-4 (1)</td> <td style="background:#ffd;">frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td style="background:#ffd;">two, four a-sa (이사)</td> <td style="background:#dfd;">3-5 (1)</td> <td style="background:#dfd;">frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td style="background:#dfd;">three, five sam-o (삼오)</td> <td>4-6 (2)</td> <td>frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td>four, six sa-ryouk (사육)</td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td style="background:#fed;">1-4 (1)</td> <td style="background:#fed;">frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td style="background:#fed;">white, four paik-sa (백사)</td> <td style="background:#dfd;">2-5 (1)</td> <td style="background:#dfd;">frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td style="background:#dfd;">sovereign two koan-i (관이)</td> <td style="background:#ddf;">3-6 (1)</td> <td style="background:#ddf;">frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td style="background:#ddf;">three, six sam-ryouk (삼육)</td> <td>5-5 (2)</td> <td>frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td>superior five tjoun-o (준오)</td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>1-5 (2)</td> <td>frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td>white, five paik-o (백오)</td> <td style="background:#ddf;">2-6 (1)</td> <td style="background:#ddf;">frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td style="background:#ddf;">two, six a-ryouk (이육)</td> <td colspan="3" style="background:#aaa;"> </td> <td>5-6 (2)</td> <td>frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td>five, six o-ryouk (오육)</td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>1-6 (2)</td> <td>frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td>white, six paik-ryouk (백육)</td> <td colspan="3" style="background:#aaa;"> </td> <td colspan="3" style="background:#aaa;"> </td> <td>6-6 (2)</td> <td>frameless|upright=0.15</td> <td>superior six tjoun-ryouk (주륙)</td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> : Dice throws / tile names (Korean) Chinese Dominoes may also appear in a card format (:zh:纸骨牌). 15 Lake Cards (`{{cjkv|c=十五湖牌}}`{=mediawiki}) have the 21 patterns (from the 2d6 combinations) quadruplicated to form an 84-card deck. Si Chuan Cards (`{{cjkv|c=四川長牌}}`{=mediawiki}) may have the 21 patterns plus two additional cards (the \"listen - use\" and the \"god of wealth\") duplicated up to 5 times to form a 115-card deck. ## Bone tiles game {#bone_tiles_game} The eponymous game of Bone Tiles (*gǔpái* in Mandarin) is played in northern and central China and as far south as Hunan. The name suggests that it is or became the default game played with dominoes in those regions. It is a trick-taking game similar to Tien Gow but has been simplified. In single-tile tricks, the civil and military suits have been merged into a single suit. In double-tile tricks, there is a new ranking order similar to Pai Gow. Triple-tile and quadruple-tile tricks are not allowed as in older versions of Tien Gow. Scoring has been simplified to number of stacks won.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,826

Complex number

thumb\|upright=1.15\|right\|A complex number can be visually represented as a pair of numbers `{{math|(''a'', ''b'')}}`{=mediawiki} forming a vector on a diagram called an Argand diagram, representing the complex plane. *Re* is the real axis, *Im* is the imaginary axis, and `{{mvar|i}}`{=mediawiki} is the \"imaginary unit\", that satisfies `{{math|1=''i''2 = −1}}`{=mediawiki}. In mathematics, a **complex number** is an element of a number system that extends the real numbers with a specific element denoted `{{mvar|i}}`{=mediawiki}, called the imaginary unit and satisfying the equation $i^{2}= -1$; every complex number can be expressed in the form $a + bi$, where `{{mvar|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar|b}}`{=mediawiki} are real numbers. Because no real number satisfies the above equation, `{{mvar|i}}`{=mediawiki} was called an imaginary number by René Descartes. For the complex number `{{nowrap|<math>a+bi</math>,}}`{=mediawiki} `{{mvar|a}}`{=mediawiki} is called the **`{{visible anchor|real part}}`{=mediawiki}**, and `{{mvar|b}}`{=mediawiki} is called the **`{{visible anchor|imaginary part}}`{=mediawiki}**. The set of complex numbers is denoted by either of the symbols $\mathbb C$ or `{{math|'''C'''}}`{=mediawiki}. Despite the historical nomenclature, \"imaginary\" complex numbers have a mathematical existence as firm as that of the real numbers, and they are fundamental tools in the scientific description of the natural world. Complex numbers allow solutions to all polynomial equations, even those that have no solutions in real numbers. More precisely, the fundamental theorem of algebra asserts that every non-constant polynomial equation with real or complex coefficients has a solution which is a complex number. For example, the equation $(x+1)^2 = -9$ has no real solution, because the square of a real number cannot be negative, but has the two nonreal complex solutions $-1+3i$ and $-1-3i$. Addition, subtraction and multiplication of complex numbers can be naturally defined by using the rule $i^{2}=-1$ along with the associative, commutative, and distributive laws. Every nonzero complex number has a multiplicative inverse. This makes the complex numbers a field with the real numbers as a subfield. Because of these properties, `{{tmath|1=a + bi = a + ib}}`{=mediawiki}, and which form is written depends upon convention and style considerations. The complex numbers also form a real vector space of dimension two, with $\{1,i\}$ as a standard basis. This standard basis makes the complex numbers a Cartesian plane, called the complex plane. This allows a geometric interpretation of the complex numbers and their operations, and conversely some geometric objects and operations can be expressed in terms of complex numbers. For example, the real numbers form the real line, which is pictured as the horizontal axis of the complex plane, while real multiples of $i$ are the vertical axis. A complex number can also be defined by its geometric polar coordinates: the radius is called the absolute value of the complex number, while the angle from the positive real axis is called the argument of the complex number. The complex numbers of absolute value one form the unit circle. Adding a fixed complex number to all complex numbers defines a translation in the complex plane, and multiplying by a fixed complex number is a similarity centered at the origin (dilating by the absolute value, and rotating by the argument). The operation of complex conjugation is the reflection symmetry with respect to the real axis. The complex numbers form a rich structure that is simultaneously an algebraically closed field, a commutative algebra over the reals, and a Euclidean vector space of dimension two. `{{TOC limit|3}}`{=mediawiki} ## Definition and basic operations {#definition_and_basic_operations} A complex number is an expression of the form `{{math|1=''a'' + ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}, where `{{mvar|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar|b}}`{=mediawiki} are real numbers, and `{{math|''i''}}`{=mediawiki} is an abstract symbol, the so-called imaginary unit, whose meaning will be explained further below. For example, `{{math|2 + 3''i''}}`{=mediawiki} is a complex number. For a complex number `{{math|''a'' + ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}, the real number `{{mvar|a}}`{=mediawiki} is called its *real part*, and the real number `{{mvar|b}}`{=mediawiki} (not the complex number `{{math|''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}) is its *imaginary part*. The real part of a complex number `{{mvar|z}}`{=mediawiki} is denoted `{{math|Re(''z'')}}`{=mediawiki}, $\mathcal{Re}(z)$, or $\mathfrak{R}(z)$; the imaginary part is `{{math|Im(''z'')}}`{=mediawiki}, $\mathcal{Im}(z)$, or $\mathfrak{I}(z)$: for example, $\operatorname{Re}(2 + 3i) = 2$, $\operatorname{Im}(2 + 3i) = 3$. A complex number `{{mvar|z}}`{=mediawiki} can be identified with the ordered pair of real numbers $(\Re (z),\Im (z))$, which may be interpreted as coordinates of a point in a Euclidean plane with standard coordinates, which is then called the *complex plane* or *Argand diagram.* The horizontal axis is generally used to display the real part, with increasing values to the right, and the imaginary part marks the vertical axis, with increasing values upwards. A real number `{{mvar|a}}`{=mediawiki} can be regarded as a complex number `{{math|''a'' + 0''i''}}`{=mediawiki}, whose imaginary part is 0. A purely imaginary number `{{math|''bi''}}`{=mediawiki} is a complex number `{{math|0 + ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}, whose real part is zero. It is common to write `{{math|1=''a'' + 0''i'' = ''a''}}`{=mediawiki}, `{{math|1=0 + ''bi'' = ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}, and `{{math|1=''a'' + (−''b'')''i'' = ''a'' − ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}; for example, `{{math|1=3 + (−4)''i'' = 3 − 4''i''}}`{=mediawiki}. The set of all complex numbers is denoted by $\Complex$ (blackboard bold) or `{{math|'''C'''}}`{=mediawiki} (upright bold). In some disciplines such as electromagnetism and electrical engineering, `{{mvar|j}}`{=mediawiki} is used instead of `{{mvar|i}}`{=mediawiki}, as `{{mvar|i}}`{=mediawiki} frequently represents electric current, and complex numbers are written as `{{math|''a'' + ''bj''}}`{=mediawiki} or `{{math|''a'' + ''jb''}}`{=mediawiki}. ### Addition and subtraction {#addition_and_subtraction} Two complex numbers $a =x+yi$ and $b =u+vi$ are added by separately adding their real and imaginary parts. That is to say: $a + b =(x+yi) + (u+vi) = (x+u) + (y+v)i.$ Similarly, subtraction can be performed as $a - b =(x+yi) - (u+vi) = (x-u) + (y-v)i.$ The addition can be geometrically visualized as follows: the sum of two complex numbers `{{mvar|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar|b}}`{=mediawiki}, interpreted as points in the complex plane, is the point obtained by building a parallelogram from the three vertices `{{mvar|O}}`{=mediawiki}, and the points of the arrows labeled `{{mvar|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar|b}}`{=mediawiki} (provided that they are not on a line). Equivalently, calling these points `{{mvar|A}}`{=mediawiki}, `{{mvar|B}}`{=mediawiki}, respectively and the fourth point of the parallelogram `{{mvar|X}}`{=mediawiki} the triangles `{{mvar|OAB}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar|XBA}}`{=mediawiki} are congruent. ### Multiplication`{{anchor|Multiplication|Square}}`{=mediawiki} The product of two complex numbers is computed as follows: $$(a+bi) \cdot (c+di) = ac - bd + (ad+bc)i.$$ For example, $(3+2i)(4-i) = 3 \cdot 4 - (2 \cdot (-1)) + (3 \cdot (-1) + 2 \cdot 4)i = 14 +5i.$ In particular, this includes as a special case the fundamental formula $$i^2 = i \cdot i = -1.$$ This formula distinguishes the complex number *i* from any real number, since the square of any (negative or positive) real number is always a non-negative real number. With this definition of multiplication and addition, familiar rules for the arithmetic of rational or real numbers continue to hold for complex numbers. More precisely, the distributive property, the commutative properties (of addition and multiplication) hold. Therefore, the complex numbers form an algebraic structure known as a *field*, the same way as the rational or real numbers do. ### Complex conjugate, absolute value, argument and division {#complex_conjugate_absolute_value_argument_and_division} right\|thumb\|upright=0.8\|Geometric representation of `{{mvar|z}}`{=mediawiki} and its conjugate `{{mvar|{{overline|z}}}}`{=mediawiki} in the complex plane. The *complex conjugate* of the complex number `{{math|1=''z'' = ''x'' + ''yi''}}`{=mediawiki} is defined as $\overline z = x-yi.$ It is also denoted by some authors by $z^*$. Geometrically, `{{mvar|{{overline|z}}}}`{=mediawiki} is the \"reflection\" of `{{mvar|z}}`{=mediawiki} about the real axis. Conjugating twice gives the original complex number: $\overline{\overline{z}}=z.$ A complex number is real if and only if it equals its own conjugate. The unary operation of taking the complex conjugate of a complex number cannot be expressed by applying only the basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. For any complex number `{{math|1=''z'' = ''x'' + ''yi''}}`{=mediawiki} , the product $$z \cdot \overline z = (x+iy)(x-iy) = x^2 + y^2$$ is a *non-negative real* number. This allows to define the *absolute value* (or *modulus* or *magnitude*) of *z* to be the square root $|z|=\sqrt{x^2+y^2}.$ By Pythagoras\' theorem, $|z|$ is the distance from the origin to the point representing the complex number *z* in the complex plane. In particular, the circle of radius one around the origin consists precisely of the numbers *z* such that $|z| = 1$. If $z = x = x + 0i$ is a real number, then $|z|= |x|$: its absolute value as a complex number and as a real number are equal. Using the conjugate, the reciprocal of a nonzero complex number $z = x + yi$ can be computed to be $\frac{1}{z} = \frac{\bar{z}}{z\bar{z}} = \frac{\bar{z}}{|z|^2} = \frac{x - yi}{x^2 + y^2} = \frac{x}{x^2 + y^2} - \frac{y}{x^2 + y^2}i.$ More generally, the division of an arbitrary complex number $w = u + vi$ by a non-zero complex number $z = x + yi$ equals $\frac{w}{z} = \frac{w\bar{z}}{|z|^2} = \frac{(u + vi)(x - iy)}{x^2 + y^2} = \frac{ux + vy}{x^2 + y^2} + \frac{vx - uy}{x^2 + y^2}i.$ This process is sometimes called \"rationalization\" of the denominator (although the denominator in the final expression may be an irrational real number), because it resembles the method to remove roots from simple expressions in a denominator. The *argument* of `{{mvar|z}}`{=mediawiki} (sometimes called the \"phase\" `{{mvar|φ}}`{=mediawiki}) is the angle of the radius `{{mvar|Oz}}`{=mediawiki} with the positive real axis, and is written as `{{math|arg ''z''}}`{=mediawiki}, expressed in radians in this article. The angle is defined only up to adding integer multiples of $2\pi$, since a rotation by $2\pi$ (or 360°) around the origin leaves all points in the complex plane unchanged. One possible choice to uniquely specify the argument is to require it to be within the interval $(-\pi,\pi]$, which is referred to as the principal value. The argument can be computed from the rectangular form `{{mvar|x + yi}}`{=mediawiki} by means of the arctan (inverse tangent) function. ### Polar form`{{anchor|Polar form}}`{=mediawiki} {#polar_form} For any complex number *z*, with absolute value $r = |z|$ and argument $\varphi$, the equation $$z=r(\cos\varphi +i\sin\varphi)$$ holds. This identity is referred to as the polar form of *z*. It is sometimes abbreviated as $z = r \operatorname\mathrm{cis} \varphi$. In electronics, one represents a phasor with amplitude `{{mvar|r}}`{=mediawiki} and phase `{{mvar|φ}}`{=mediawiki} in angle notation:$z = r \angle \varphi .$ If two complex numbers are given in polar form, i.e., `{{math|1=''z''1 = ''r''1(cos ''φ''1 + ''i'' sin ''φ''1)}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math|1=''z''2 = ''r''2(cos ''φ''2 + ''i'' sin ''φ''2)}}`{=mediawiki}, the product and division can be computed as $z_1 z_2 = r_1 r_2 (\cos(\varphi_1 + \varphi_2) + i \sin(\varphi_1 + \varphi_2)).$ $\frac{z_1}{z_2} = \frac{r_1}{r_2} \left(\cos(\varphi_1 - \varphi_2) + i \sin(\varphi_1 - \varphi_2)\right), \text{if }z_2 \ne 0.$ (These are a consequence of the trigonometric identities for the sine and cosine function.) In other words, the absolute values are *multiplied* and the arguments are *added* to yield the polar form of the product. The picture at the right illustrates the multiplication of $(2+i)(3+i)=5+5i.$ Because the real and imaginary part of `{{math|5 + 5''i''}}`{=mediawiki} are equal, the argument of that number is 45 degrees, or `{{math|''π''/4}}`{=mediawiki} (in radian). On the other hand, it is also the sum of the angles at the origin of the red and blue triangles are arctan(1/3) and arctan(1/2), respectively. Thus, the formula $\frac{\pi}{4} = \arctan\left(\frac{1}{2}\right) + \arctan\left(\frac{1}{3}\right)$ holds. As the arctan function can be approximated highly efficiently, formulas like this -- known as Machin-like formulas -- are used for high-precision approximations of `{{pi}}`{=mediawiki}: $\frac{\pi}{4} = 4 \arctan\left(\frac{1}{5}\right) - \arctan\left(\frac{1}{239}\right)$ ### Powers and roots {#powers_and_roots} The *n*-th power of a complex number can be computed using de Moivre\'s formula, which is obtained by repeatedly applying the above formula for the product: $z^{n}=\underbrace{z \cdot \dots \cdot z}_{n \text{ factors}} = (r(\cos \varphi + i\sin \varphi ))^n = r^n \, (\cos n\varphi + i \sin n \varphi).$ For example, the first few powers of the imaginary unit *i* are $i, i^2 = -1, i^3 = -i, i^4 = 1, i^5 = i, \dots$. The `{{mvar|n}}`{=mediawiki} `{{mvar|n}}`{=mediawiki}th roots of a complex number `{{mvar|z}}`{=mediawiki} are given by $z^{1/n} = \sqrt[n]r \left( \cos \left(\frac{\varphi+2k\pi}{n}\right) + i \sin \left(\frac{\varphi+2k\pi}{n}\right)\right)$ for `{{math|0 ≤ ''k'' ≤ ''n'' − 1}}`{=mediawiki}. (Here $\sqrt[n]r$ is the usual (positive) `{{mvar|n}}`{=mediawiki}th root of the positive real number `{{mvar|r}}`{=mediawiki}.) Because sine and cosine are periodic, other integer values of `{{mvar|k}}`{=mediawiki} do not give other values. For any $z \ne 0$, there are, in particular *n* distinct complex *n*-th roots. For example, there are 4 fourth roots of 1, namely $$z_1 = 1, z_2 = i, z_3 = -1, z_4 = -i.$$ In general there is *no* natural way of distinguishing one particular complex `{{mvar|n}}`{=mediawiki}th root of a complex number. (This is in contrast to the roots of a positive real number *x*, which has a unique positive real *n*-th root, which is therefore commonly referred to as *the* *n*-th root of *x*.) One refers to this situation by saying that the `{{mvar|n}}`{=mediawiki}th root is a `{{mvar|n}}`{=mediawiki}-valued function of `{{mvar|z}}`{=mediawiki}. ### Fundamental theorem of algebra {#fundamental_theorem_of_algebra} The fundamental theorem of algebra, of Carl Friedrich Gauss and Jean le Rond d\'Alembert, states that for any complex numbers (called coefficients) `{{math|''a''0, ..., ''a''''n''}}`{=mediawiki}, the equation $a_n z^n + \dotsb + a_1 z + a_0 = 0$ has at least one complex solution *z*, provided that at least one of the higher coefficients `{{math|''a''1, ..., ''a''''n''}}`{=mediawiki} is nonzero. This property does not hold for the field of rational numbers $\Q$ (the polynomial `{{math|''x''2 − 2}}`{=mediawiki} does not have a rational root, because `{{math|√2}}`{=mediawiki} is not a rational number) nor the real numbers $\R$ (the polynomial `{{math|''x''2 + 4}}`{=mediawiki} does not have a real root, because the square of `{{mvar|x}}`{=mediawiki} is positive for any real number `{{mvar|x}}`{=mediawiki}). Because of this fact, $\Complex$ is called an algebraically closed field. It is a cornerstone of various applications of complex numbers, as is detailed further below. There are various proofs of this theorem, by either analytic methods such as Liouville\'s theorem, or topological ones such as the winding number, or a proof combining Galois theory and the fact that any real polynomial of *odd* degree has at least one real root. ## History The solution in radicals (without trigonometric functions) of a general cubic equation, when all three of its roots are real numbers, contains the square roots of negative numbers, a situation that cannot be rectified by factoring aided by the rational root test, if the cubic is irreducible; this is the so-called *casus irreducibilis* (\"irreducible case\"). This conundrum led Italian mathematician Gerolamo Cardano to conceive of complex numbers in around 1545 in his *Ars Magna*, though his understanding was rudimentary; moreover, he later described complex numbers as being \"as subtle as they are useless\". Cardano did use imaginary numbers, but described using them as \"mental torture.\" This was prior to the use of the graphical complex plane. Cardano and other Italian mathematicians, notably Scipione del Ferro, in the 1500s created an algorithm for solving cubic equations which generally had one real solution and two solutions containing an imaginary number. Because they ignored the answers with the imaginary numbers, Cardano found them useless. Work on the problem of general polynomials ultimately led to the fundamental theorem of algebra, which shows that with complex numbers, a solution exists to every polynomial equation of degree one or higher. Complex numbers thus form an algebraically closed field, where any polynomial equation has a root. Many mathematicians contributed to the development of complex numbers. The rules for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and root extraction of complex numbers were developed by the Italian mathematician Rafael Bombelli. A more abstract formalism for the complex numbers was further developed by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton, who extended this abstraction to the theory of quaternions. The earliest fleeting reference to square roots of negative numbers can perhaps be said to occur in the work of the Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD, where in his *Stereometrica* he considered, apparently in error, the volume of an impossible frustum of a pyramid to arrive at the term $\sqrt{81 - 144}$ in his calculations, which today would simplify to $\sqrt{-63} = 3i\sqrt{7}$. Negative quantities were not conceived of in Hellenistic mathematics and Hero merely replaced the negative value by its positive $\sqrt{144 - 81} = 3\sqrt{7}.$ The impetus to study complex numbers as a topic in itself first arose in the 16th century when algebraic solutions for the roots of cubic and quartic polynomials were discovered by Italian mathematicians (Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia and Gerolamo Cardano). It was soon realized (but proved much later) that these formulas, even if one were interested only in real solutions, sometimes required the manipulation of square roots of negative numbers. In fact, it was proved later that the use of complex numbers is unavoidable when all three roots are real and distinct. However, the general formula can still be used in this case, with some care to deal with the ambiguity resulting from the existence of three cubic roots for nonzero complex numbers. Rafael Bombelli was the first to address explicitly these seemingly paradoxical solutions of cubic equations and developed the rules for complex arithmetic, trying to resolve these issues. The term \"imaginary\" for these quantities was coined by René Descartes in 1637, who was at pains to stress their unreal nature: `{{blockquote|... sometimes only imaginary, that is one can imagine as many as I said in each equation, but sometimes there exists no quantity that matches that which we imagine. [''... quelquefois seulement imaginaires c'est-à-dire que l'on peut toujours en imaginer autant que j'ai dit en chaque équation, mais qu'il n'y a quelquefois aucune quantité qui corresponde à celle qu'on imagine.'']}}`{=mediawiki} A further source of confusion was that the equation $\sqrt{-1}^2 = \sqrt{-1}\sqrt{-1} = -1$ seemed to be capriciously inconsistent with the algebraic identity $\sqrt{a}\sqrt{b} = \sqrt{ab}$, which is valid for non-negative real numbers `{{mvar|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar|b}}`{=mediawiki}, and which was also used in complex number calculations with one of `{{mvar|a}}`{=mediawiki}, `{{mvar|b}}`{=mediawiki} positive and the other negative. The incorrect use of this identity in the case when both `{{mvar|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar|b}}`{=mediawiki} are negative, and the related identity $\frac{1}{\sqrt{a}} = \sqrt{\frac{1}{a}}$, even bedeviled Leonhard Euler. This difficulty eventually led to the convention of using the special symbol `{{math|''i''}}`{=mediawiki} in place of $\sqrt{-1}$ to guard against this mistake. Even so, Euler considered it natural to introduce students to complex numbers much earlier than we do today. In his elementary algebra text book, *Elements of Algebra*, he introduces these numbers almost at once and then uses them in a natural way throughout. In the 18th century complex numbers gained wider use, as it was noticed that formal manipulation of complex expressions could be used to simplify calculations involving trigonometric functions. For instance, in 1730 Abraham de Moivre noted that the identities relating trigonometric functions of an integer multiple of an angle to powers of trigonometric functions of that angle could be re-expressed by the following de Moivre\'s formula: $(\cos \theta + i\sin \theta)^{n} = \cos n \theta + i\sin n \theta.$ thumb \|upright=1.5 \|Euler\'s formula relates the complex exponential function of an imaginary argument, which can be thought of as describing uniform circular motion in the complex plane, to the cosine and sine functions, geometrically its projections onto the real and imaginary axes, respectively. In 1748, Euler went further and obtained Euler\'s formula of complex analysis: $e ^{i\theta } = \cos \theta + i\sin \theta$ by formally manipulating complex power series and observed that this formula could be used to reduce any trigonometric identity to much simpler exponential identities. The idea of a complex number as a point in the complex plane was first described by Danish--Norwegian mathematician Caspar Wessel in 1799, although it had been anticipated as early as 1685 in Wallis\'s *A Treatise of Algebra*. Wessel\'s memoir appeared in the Proceedings of the Copenhagen Academy but went largely unnoticed. In 1806 Jean-Robert Argand independently issued a pamphlet on complex numbers and provided a rigorous proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra. Carl Friedrich Gauss had earlier published an essentially topological proof of the theorem in 1797 but expressed his doubts at the time about \"the true metaphysics of the square root of −1\". It was not until 1831 that he overcame these doubts and published his treatise on complex numbers as points in the plane, largely establishing modern notation and terminology: > If one formerly contemplated this subject from a false point of view and therefore found a mysterious darkness, this is in large part attributable to clumsy terminology. Had one not called +1, −1, $\sqrt{-1}$ positive, negative, or imaginary (or even impossible) units, but instead, say, direct, inverse, or lateral units, then there could scarcely have been talk of such darkness. In the beginning of the 19th century, other mathematicians discovered independently the geometrical representation of the complex numbers: Buée, Mourey, Warren, Français and his brother, Bellavitis. The English mathematician G.H. Hardy remarked that Gauss was the first mathematician to use complex numbers in \"a really confident and scientific way\" although mathematicians such as Norwegian Niels Henrik Abel and Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi were necessarily using them routinely before Gauss published his 1831 treatise. Augustin-Louis Cauchy and Bernhard Riemann together brought the fundamental ideas of complex analysis to a high state of completion, commencing around 1825 in Cauchy\'s case. The common terms used in the theory are chiefly due to the founders. Argand called `{{math|cos ''φ'' + ''i'' sin ''φ''}}`{=mediawiki} the *direction factor*, and $r = \sqrt{a^2 + b^2}$ the *modulus*; + \\tfrac{b}{\\sqrt{a\^2 + b\^2}} \\sqrt{-1} \], whose module is unity \[1\], would represent its direction.\]}} Cauchy (1821) called `{{math|cos ''φ'' + ''i'' sin ''φ''}}`{=mediawiki} the *reduced form* (l\'expression réduite) and apparently introduced the term *argument*; Gauss used `{{math|''i''}}`{=mediawiki} for $\sqrt{-1}$, introduced the term *complex number* for `{{math|''a'' + ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki}, and called `{{math|''a''2 + ''b''2}}`{=mediawiki} the *norm*. The expression *direction coefficient*, often used for `{{math|cos ''φ'' + ''i'' sin ''φ''}}`{=mediawiki}, is due to Hankel (1867), and *absolute value,* for *modulus,* is due to Weierstrass. Later classical writers on the general theory include Richard Dedekind, Otto Hölder, Felix Klein, Henri Poincaré, Hermann Schwarz, Karl Weierstrass and many others. Important work (including a systematization) in complex multivariate calculus has been started at beginning of the 20th century. Important results have been achieved by Wilhelm Wirtinger in 1927. ## Abstract algebraic aspects {#abstract_algebraic_aspects} While the above low-level definitions, including the addition and multiplication, accurately describe the complex numbers, there are other, equivalent approaches that reveal the abstract algebraic structure of the complex numbers more immediately. ### Construction as a quotient field {#construction_as_a_quotient_field} One approach to $\C$ is via polynomials, i.e., expressions of the form $p(X) = a_nX^n+\dotsb+a_1X+a_0,$ where the coefficients `{{math|''a''0, ..., ''a''''n''}}`{=mediawiki} are real numbers. The set of all such polynomials is denoted by $\R[X]$. Since sums and products of polynomials are again polynomials, this set $\R[X]$ forms a commutative ring, called the polynomial ring (over the reals). To every such polynomial *p*, one may assign the complex number $p(i) = a_n i^n + \dotsb + a_1 i + a_0$, i.e., the value obtained by setting $X = i$. This defines a function $$\R[X] \to \C$$ This function is surjective since every complex number can be obtained in such a way: the evaluation of a linear polynomial $a+bX$ at $X = i$ is $a+bi$. However, the evaluation of polynomial $X^2 + 1$ at *i* is 0, since $i^2 + 1 = 0.$ This polynomial is irreducible, i.e., cannot be written as a product of two linear polynomials. Basic facts of abstract algebra then imply that the kernel of the above map is an ideal generated by this polynomial, and that the quotient by this ideal is a field, and that there is an isomorphism $$\R[X] / (X^2 + 1) \stackrel \cong \to \C$$ between the quotient ring and $\C$. Some authors take this as the definition of $\C$. Accepting that $\Complex$ is algebraically closed, because it is an algebraic extension of $\mathbb{R}$ in this approach, $\Complex$ is therefore the algebraic closure of $\R.$ ### Matrix representation of complex numbers {#matrix_representation_of_complex_numbers} Complex numbers `{{math|''a'' + ''bi''}}`{=mediawiki} can also be represented by `{{math|2 × 2}}`{=mediawiki} matrices that have the form $\begin{pmatrix} a & -b \\ b & \;\; a \end{pmatrix}.$ Here the entries `{{mvar|a}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar|b}}`{=mediawiki} are real numbers. As the sum and product of two such matrices is again of this form, these matrices form a subring of the ring of `{{math|2 × 2}}`{=mediawiki} matrices. A simple computation shows that the map $a+ib\mapsto \begin{pmatrix} a & -b \\ b & \;\; a \end{pmatrix}$ is a ring isomorphism from the field of complex numbers to the ring of these matrices, proving that these matrices form a field. This isomorphism associates the square of the absolute value of a complex number with the determinant of the corresponding matrix, and the conjugate of a complex number with the transpose of the matrix. The polar form representation of complex numbers explicitly gives these matrices as scaled rotation matrices. $r (\cos \theta + i \sin \theta)\mapsto \begin{pmatrix} r \cos \theta & -r \sin \theta \\ r \sin \theta & \;\; r \cos \theta \end{pmatrix}$ In particular, the case of `{{math|1=''r'' = 1}}`{=mediawiki}, which is $|a + ib| = \sqrt{a^2+b^2} = 1$, gives (unscaled) rotation matrices. ## Complex analysis {#complex_analysis} The study of functions of a complex variable is known as *complex analysis* and has enormous practical use in applied mathematics as well as in other branches of mathematics. Often, the most natural proofs for statements in real analysis or even number theory employ techniques from complex analysis (see prime number theorem for an example). Unlike real functions, which are commonly represented as two-dimensional graphs, complex functions have four-dimensional graphs and may usefully be illustrated by color-coding a three-dimensional graph to suggest four dimensions, or by animating the complex function\'s dynamic transformation of the complex plane. ### Convergence The notions of convergent series and continuous functions in (real) analysis have natural analogs in complex analysis. A sequence of complex numbers is said to converge if and only if its real and imaginary parts do. This is equivalent to the (ε, δ)-definition of limits, where the absolute value of real numbers is replaced by the one of complex numbers. From a more abstract point of view, $\mathbb{C}$, endowed with the metric $\operatorname{d}(z_1, z_2) = |z_1 - z_2|$ is a complete metric space, which notably includes the triangle inequality $|z_1 + z_2| \le |z_1| + |z_2|$ for any two complex numbers `{{math|''z''1}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math|''z''2}}`{=mediawiki}. ### Complex exponential {#complex_exponential} Like in real analysis, this notion of convergence is used to construct a number of elementary functions: the *exponential function* `{{math|exp ''z''}}`{=mediawiki}, also written `{{math|''e''''z''}}`{=mediawiki}, is defined as the infinite series, which can be shown to converge for any *z*: $\exp z:= 1+z+\frac{z^2}{2\cdot 1}+\frac{z^3}{3\cdot 2\cdot 1}+\cdots = \sum_{n=0}^{\infty} \frac{z^n}{n!}.$ For example, $\exp (1)$ is Euler\'s number $e \approx 2.718$. *Euler\'s formula* states: $\exp(i\varphi) = \cos \varphi + i\sin \varphi$ for any real number `{{mvar|φ}}`{=mediawiki}. This formula is a quick consequence of general basic facts about convergent power series and the definitions of the involved functions as power series. As a special case, this includes Euler\'s identity $\exp(i \pi) = -1.$ ### Complex logarithm {#complex_logarithm} For any positive real number *t*, there is a unique real number *x* such that $\exp(x) = t$. This leads to the definition of the natural logarithm as the inverse $\ln \colon \R^+ \to \R ; x \mapsto \ln x$ of the exponential function. The situation is different for complex numbers, since $$\exp(z+2\pi i) = \exp z \exp (2 \pi i) = \exp z$$ by the functional equation and Euler\'s identity. For example, `{{math|1=''e''{{sup|''iπ''}} = ''e''{{sup|3''iπ''}} = −1}}`{=mediawiki} , so both `{{mvar|iπ}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math|3''iπ''}}`{=mediawiki} are possible values for the complex logarithm of `{{math|−1}}`{=mediawiki}. In general, given any non-zero complex number *w*, any number *z* solving the equation $$\exp z = w$$ is called a complex logarithm of `{{mvar|w}}`{=mediawiki}, denoted $\log w$. It can be shown that these numbers satisfy $z = \log w = \ln|w| + i\arg w,$ where $\arg$ is the argument defined above, and $\ln$ the (real) natural logarithm. As arg is a multivalued function, unique only up to a multiple of `{{math|2''π''}}`{=mediawiki}, log is also multivalued. The principal value of log is often taken by restricting the imaginary part to the interval `{{open-closed|−''π'', ''π''}}`{=mediawiki}. This leads to the complex logarithm being a bijective function taking values in the strip $\R^+ + \; i \, \left(-\pi, \pi\right]$ (that is denoted $S_0$ in the above illustration) $\ln \colon \; \Complex^\times \; \to \; \; \; \R^+ + \; i \, \left(-\pi, \pi\right] .$ If $z \in \Complex \setminus \left( -\R_{\ge 0} \right)$ is not a non-positive real number (a positive or a non-real number), the resulting principal value of the complex logarithm is obtained with `{{math|−''π'' < ''φ'' < ''π''}}`{=mediawiki}. It is an analytic function outside the negative real numbers, but it cannot be prolongated to a function that is continuous at any negative real number $z \in -\R^+$, where the principal value is `{{math|1=ln ''z'' = ln(−''z'') + ''iπ''}}`{=mediawiki}. Complex exponentiation `{{math|''z''''ω''}}`{=mediawiki} is defined as $z^\omega = \exp(\omega \ln z),$ and is multi-valued, except when `{{mvar|ω}}`{=mediawiki} is an integer. For `{{math|1=''ω'' = 1 / ''n''}}`{=mediawiki}, for some natural number `{{mvar|n}}`{=mediawiki}, this recovers the non-uniqueness of `{{mvar|n}}`{=mediawiki}th roots mentioned above. If `{{math|''z'' > 0}}`{=mediawiki} is real (and `{{mvar|ω}}`{=mediawiki} an arbitrary complex number), one has a preferred choice of $\ln x$, the real logarithm, which can be used to define a preferred exponential function. Complex numbers, unlike real numbers, do not in general satisfy the unmodified power and logarithm identities, particularly when naïvely treated as single-valued functions; see failure of power and logarithm identities. For example, they do not satisfy $a^{bc} = \left(a^b\right)^c.$ Both sides of the equation are multivalued by the definition of complex exponentiation given here, and the values on the left are a subset of those on the right. ### Complex sine and cosine {#complex_sine_and_cosine} The series defining the real trigonometric functions `{{math|sin}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math|cos}}`{=mediawiki}, as well as the hyperbolic functions `{{math|sinh}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{math|cosh}}`{=mediawiki}, also carry over to complex arguments without change. For the other trigonometric and hyperbolic functions, such as `{{math|tan}}`{=mediawiki}, things are slightly more complicated, as the defining series do not converge for all complex values. Therefore, one must define them either in terms of sine, cosine and exponential, or, equivalently, by using the method of analytic continuation. The value of a trigonometric or hyperbolic function of a complex number can be expressed in terms of those functions evaluated on real numbers, via angle-addition formulas. For `{{math|1=''z'' = ''x'' + ''iy''}}`{=mediawiki}, $\sin{z} = \sin{x} \cosh{y} + i \cos{x} \sinh{y}$ $\cos{z} = \cos{x} \cosh{y} - i \sin{x} \sinh{y}$ $\tan{z} = \frac{\tan{x} + i \tanh{y}}{1 - i \tan{x} \tanh{y}}$ $\cot{z} = -\frac{1 + i \cot{x} \coth{y}}{\cot{x} -i \coth{y}}$ $\sinh{z} = \sinh{x} \cos{y} + i \cosh{x} \sin{y}$ $\cosh{z} = \cosh{x} \cos{y} + i \sinh{x} \sin{y}$ $\tanh{z} = \frac{\tanh{x} + i \tan{y}}{1 + i \tanh{x} \tan{y}}$ $\coth{z} = \frac{1 - i \coth{x} \cot{y}}{\coth{x} - i \cot{y}}$ Where these expressions are not well defined, because a trigonometric or hyperbolic function evaluates to infinity or there is division by zero, they are nonetheless correct as limits. ### Holomorphic functions {#holomorphic_functions} A function $f: \mathbb{C}$ → $\mathbb{C}$ is called holomorphic or *complex differentiable* at a point $z_0$ if the limit $$\lim_{z \to z_0} {f(z) - f(z_0) \over z - z_0 }$$ exists (in which case it is denoted by $f'(z_0)$). This mimics the definition for real differentiable functions, except that all quantities are complex numbers. Loosely speaking, the freedom of approaching $z_0$ in different directions imposes a much stronger condition than being (real) differentiable. For example, the function $$f(z) = \overline z$$ is differentiable as a function $\R^2 \to \R^2$, but is *not* complex differentiable. A real differentiable function is complex differentiable if and only if it satisfies the Cauchy--Riemann equations, which are sometimes abbreviated as $$\frac{\partial f}{\partial \overline z} = 0.$$ Complex analysis shows some features not apparent in real analysis. For example, the identity theorem asserts that two holomorphic functions `{{mvar|f}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar|g}}`{=mediawiki} agree if they agree on an arbitrarily small open subset of $\mathbb{C}$. Meromorphic functions, functions that can locally be written as `{{math|''f''(''z'')/(''z'' − ''z''0)''n''}}`{=mediawiki} with a holomorphic function `{{mvar|f}}`{=mediawiki}, still share some of the features of holomorphic functions. Other functions have essential singularities, such as `{{math|sin(1/''z'')}}`{=mediawiki} at `{{math|1=''z'' = 0}}`{=mediawiki}. ## Applications Complex numbers have applications in many scientific areas, including signal processing, control theory, electromagnetism, fluid dynamics, quantum mechanics, cartography, and vibration analysis. Some of these applications are described below. Complex conjugation is also employed in inversive geometry, a branch of geometry studying reflections more general than ones about a line. In the network analysis of electrical circuits, the complex conjugate is used in finding the equivalent impedance when the maximum power transfer theorem is looked for. ### Geometry #### Shapes Three non-collinear points $u, v, w$ in the plane determine the shape of the triangle $\{u, v, w\}$. Locating the points in the complex plane, this shape of a triangle may be expressed by complex arithmetic as $S(u, v, w) = \frac {u - w}{u - v}.$ The shape $S$ of a triangle will remain the same, when the complex plane is transformed by translation or dilation (by an affine transformation), corresponding to the intuitive notion of shape, and describing similarity. Thus each triangle $\{u, v, w\}$ is in a similarity class of triangles with the same shape. #### Fractal geometry {#fractal_geometry} The Mandelbrot set is a popular example of a fractal formed on the complex plane. It is defined by plotting every location $c$ where iterating the sequence $f_c(z)=z^2+c$ does not diverge when iterated infinitely. Similarly, Julia sets have the same rules, except where $c$ remains constant. #### Triangles Every triangle has a unique Steiner inellipse -- an ellipse inside the triangle and tangent to the midpoints of the three sides of the triangle. The foci of a triangle\'s Steiner inellipse can be found as follows, according to Marden\'s theorem: Denote the triangle\'s vertices in the complex plane as `{{math|1=''a'' = ''x''''A'' + ''y''''A''''i''}}`{=mediawiki}, `{{math|1=''b'' = ''x''''B'' + ''y''''B''''i''}}`{=mediawiki}, and `{{math|1=''c'' = ''x''''C'' + ''y''''C''''i''}}`{=mediawiki}. Write the cubic equation $(x-a)(x-b)(x-c)=0$, take its derivative, and equate the (quadratic) derivative to zero. Marden\'s theorem says that the solutions of this equation are the complex numbers denoting the locations of the two foci of the Steiner inellipse. ### Algebraic number theory {#algebraic_number_theory} As mentioned above, any nonconstant polynomial equation (in complex coefficients) has a solution in $\mathbb{C}$. *A fortiori*, the same is true if the equation has rational coefficients. The roots of such equations are called algebraic numbers -- they are a principal object of study in algebraic number theory. Compared to $\overline{\mathbb{Q}}$, the algebraic closure of $\mathbb{Q}$, which also contains all algebraic numbers, $\mathbb{C}$ has the advantage of being easily understandable in geometric terms. In this way, algebraic methods can be used to study geometric questions and vice versa. With algebraic methods, more specifically applying the machinery of field theory to the number field containing roots of unity, it can be shown that it is not possible to construct a regular nonagon using only compass and straightedge -- a purely geometric problem. Another example is the Gaussian integers; that is, numbers of the form `{{math|''x'' + ''iy''}}`{=mediawiki}, where `{{mvar|x}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar|y}}`{=mediawiki} are integers, which can be used to classify sums of squares. ### Analytic number theory {#analytic_number_theory} Analytic number theory studies numbers, often integers or rationals, by taking advantage of the fact that they can be regarded as complex numbers, in which analytic methods can be used. This is done by encoding number-theoretic information in complex-valued functions. For example, the Riemann zeta function `{{math|ζ(''s'')}}`{=mediawiki} is related to the distribution of prime numbers. ### Improper integrals {#improper_integrals} In applied fields, complex numbers are often used to compute certain real-valued improper integrals, by means of complex-valued functions. Several methods exist to do this; see methods of contour integration. ### Dynamic equations {#dynamic_equations} In differential equations, it is common to first find all complex roots `{{mvar|r}}`{=mediawiki} of the characteristic equation of a linear differential equation or equation system and then attempt to solve the system in terms of base functions of the form `{{math|1=''f''(''t'') = ''e''''rt''}}`{=mediawiki}. Likewise, in difference equations, the complex roots `{{mvar|r}}`{=mediawiki} of the characteristic equation of the difference equation system are used, to attempt to solve the system in terms of base functions of the form `{{math|1=''f''(''t'') = ''r''''t''}}`{=mediawiki}. ### Linear algebra {#linear_algebra} Since $\C$ is algebraically closed, any non-empty complex square matrix has at least one (complex) eigenvalue. By comparison, real matrices do not always have real eigenvalues, for example rotation matrices (for rotations of the plane for angles other than 0° or 180°) leave no direction fixed, and therefore do not have any *real* eigenvalue. The existence of (complex) eigenvalues, and the ensuing existence of eigendecomposition is a useful tool for computing matrix powers and matrix exponentials. Complex numbers often generalize concepts originally conceived in the real numbers. For example, the conjugate transpose generalizes the transpose, hermitian matrices generalize symmetric matrices, and unitary matrices generalize orthogonal matrices. ### In applied mathematics {#in_applied_mathematics} #### Control theory {#control_theory} In control theory, systems are often transformed from the time domain to the complex frequency domain using the Laplace transform. The system\'s zeros and poles are then analyzed in the *complex plane*. The root locus, Nyquist plot, and Nichols plot techniques all make use of the complex plane. In the root locus method, it is important whether zeros and poles are in the left or right half planes, that is, have real part greater than or less than zero. If a linear, time-invariant (LTI) system has poles that are - in the right half plane, it will be unstable, - all in the left half plane, it will be stable, - on the imaginary axis, it will have marginal stability. If a system has zeros in the right half plane, it is a nonminimum phase system. #### Signal analysis {#signal_analysis} Complex numbers are used in signal analysis and other fields for a convenient description for periodically varying signals. For given real functions representing actual physical quantities, often in terms of sines and cosines, corresponding complex functions are considered of which the real parts are the original quantities. For a sine wave of a given frequency, the absolute value `{{math|{{!}}`{=mediawiki}*z*{{!}}}} of the corresponding `{{mvar|z}}`{=mediawiki} is the amplitude and the argument `{{math|arg ''z''}}`{=mediawiki} is the phase. If Fourier analysis is employed to write a given real-valued signal as a sum of periodic functions, these periodic functions are often written as complex-valued functions of the form $x(t) = \operatorname{Re} \{X( t ) \}$ and $X( t ) = A e^{i\omega t} = a e^{ i \phi } e^{i\omega t} = a e^{i (\omega t + \phi) }$ where ω represents the angular frequency and the complex number *A* encodes the phase and amplitude as explained above. This use is also extended into digital signal processing and digital image processing, which use digital versions of Fourier analysis (and wavelet analysis) to transmit, compress, restore, and otherwise process digital audio signals, still images, and video signals. Another example, relevant to the two side bands of amplitude modulation of AM radio, is: $\begin{align} \cos((\omega + \alpha)t) + \cos\left((\omega - \alpha)t\right) & = \operatorname{Re}\left(e^{i(\omega + \alpha)t} + e^{i(\omega - \alpha)t}\right) \\ & = \operatorname{Re}\left(\left(e^{i\alpha t} + e^{-i\alpha t}\right) \cdot e^{i\omega t}\right) \\ & = \operatorname{Re}\left(2\cos(\alpha t) \cdot e^{i\omega t}\right) \\ & = 2 \cos(\alpha t) \cdot \operatorname{Re}\left(e^{i\omega t}\right) \\ & = 2 \cos(\alpha t) \cdot \cos\left(\omega t\right). \end{align}$ ### In physics {#in_physics} #### Electromagnetism and electrical engineering {#electromagnetism_and_electrical_engineering} In electrical engineering, the Fourier transform is used to analyze varying electric currents and voltages. The treatment of resistors, capacitors, and inductors can then be unified by introducing imaginary, frequency-dependent resistances for the latter two and combining all three in a single complex number called the impedance. This approach is called phasor calculus. In electrical engineering, the imaginary unit is denoted by `{{mvar|j}}`{=mediawiki}, to avoid confusion with `{{mvar|I}}`{=mediawiki}, which is generally in use to denote electric current, or, more particularly, `{{mvar|i}}`{=mediawiki}, which is generally in use to denote instantaneous electric current. Because the voltage in an AC circuit is oscillating, it can be represented as $V(t) = V_0 e^{j \omega t} = V_0 \left (\cos\omega t + j \sin\omega t \right ),$ To obtain the measurable quantity, the real part is taken: $v(t) = \operatorname{Re}(V) = \operatorname{Re}\left [ V_0 e^{j \omega t} \right ] = V_0 \cos \omega t.$ The complex-valued signal `{{math|''V''(''t'')}}`{=mediawiki} is called the analytic representation of the real-valued, measurable signal `{{math|''v''(''t'')}}`{=mediawiki}. #### Fluid dynamics {#fluid_dynamics} In fluid dynamics, complex functions are used to describe potential flow in two dimensions. #### Quantum mechanics {#quantum_mechanics} The complex number field is intrinsic to the mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics, where complex Hilbert spaces provide the context for one such formulation that is convenient and perhaps most standard. The original foundation formulas of quantum mechanics -- the Schrödinger equation and Heisenberg\'s matrix mechanics -- make use of complex numbers. #### Relativity In special relativity and general relativity, some formulas for the metric on spacetime become simpler if one takes the time component of the spacetime continuum to be imaginary. (This approach is no longer standard in classical relativity, but is used in an essential way in quantum field theory.) Complex numbers are essential to spinors, which are a generalization of the tensors used in relativity. ## Characterizations, generalizations and related notions {#characterizations_generalizations_and_related_notions} ### Algebraic characterization {#algebraic_characterization} The field $\Complex$ has the following three properties: - First, it has characteristic 0. This means that `{{math|1=1 + 1 + ⋯ + 1 ≠ 0}}`{=mediawiki} for any number of summands (all of which equal one). - Second, its transcendence degree over $\Q$, the prime field of $\Complex,$ is the cardinality of the continuum. - Third, it is algebraically closed (see above). It can be shown that any field having these properties is isomorphic (as a field) to $\Complex.$ For example, the algebraic closure of the field $\Q_p$ of the `{{mvar|p}}`{=mediawiki}-adic number also satisfies these three properties, so these two fields are isomorphic (as fields, but not as topological fields). Also, $\Complex$ is isomorphic to the field of complex Puiseux series. However, specifying an isomorphism requires the axiom of choice. Another consequence of this algebraic characterization is that $\Complex$ contains many proper subfields that are isomorphic to $\Complex$. ### Characterization as a topological field {#characterization_as_a_topological_field} The preceding characterization of $\Complex$ describes only the algebraic aspects of $\Complex.$ That is to say, the properties of nearness and continuity, which matter in areas such as analysis and topology, are not dealt with. The following description of $\Complex$ as a topological field (that is, a field that is equipped with a topology, which allows the notion of convergence) does take into account the topological properties. $\Complex$ contains a subset `{{math|''P''}}`{=mediawiki} (namely the set of positive real numbers) of nonzero elements satisfying the following three conditions: - is closed under addition, multiplication and taking inverses. - If `{{mvar|x}}`{=mediawiki} and `{{mvar|y}}`{=mediawiki} are distinct elements of `{{math|''P''}}`{=mediawiki}, then either `{{math|''x'' − ''y''}}`{=mediawiki} or `{{math|''y'' − ''x''}}`{=mediawiki} is in `{{math|''P''}}`{=mediawiki}. - If `{{mvar|S}}`{=mediawiki} is any nonempty subset of `{{math|''P''}}`{=mediawiki}, then `{{math|1=''S'' + ''P'' = ''x'' + ''P''}}`{=mediawiki} for some `{{mvar|x}}`{=mediawiki} in $\Complex.$ Moreover, $\Complex$ has a nontrivial involutive automorphism `{{math|''x'' ↦ ''x''*}}`{=mediawiki} (namely the complex conjugation), such that `{{math|''x x''*}}`{=mediawiki} is in `{{math|''P''}}`{=mediawiki} for any nonzero `{{mvar|x}}`{=mediawiki} in $\Complex.$ Any field `{{mvar|F}}`{=mediawiki} with these properties can be endowed with a topology by taking the sets `{{math|1= ''B''(''x'', ''p'') = { ''y'' {{!}}`{=mediawiki} *p* − (*y* − *x*)(*y* − *x*)\* ∈ *P* } }} as a base, where `{{mvar|x}}`{=mediawiki} ranges over the field and `{{mvar|p}}`{=mediawiki} ranges over `{{math|''P''}}`{=mediawiki}. With this topology `{{mvar|F}}`{=mediawiki} is isomorphic as a *topological* field to $\Complex.$ The only connected locally compact topological fields are $\R$ and $\Complex.$ This gives another characterization of $\Complex$ as a topological field, because $\Complex$ can be distinguished from $\R$ because the nonzero complex numbers are connected, while the nonzero real numbers are not. ### Other number systems {#other_number_systems} rational numbers $\Q$ real numbers $\R$ complex numbers $\C$ quaternions $\mathbb H$ octonions $\mathbb O$ sedenions $\mathbb S$ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------- ------------------- ---------------------- ------------------------- ----------------------- ----------------------- complete dimension as an $\R$-vector space \[does not apply\] 1 2 4 8 16 ordered multiplication commutative `{{nowrap|1=(<math>xy=yx</math>)}}`{=mediawiki} multiplication associative `{{nowrap|1=(<math>(xy)z=x(yz)</math>)}}`{=mediawiki} normed division algebra `{{nowrap|1=(over <math>\R</math>)}}`{=mediawiki} \[does not apply\] : Number systems The process of extending the field $\mathbb R$ of reals to $\mathbb C$ is an instance of the *Cayley--Dickson construction*. Applying this construction iteratively to $\C$ then yields the quaternions, the octonions, the sedenions, and the trigintaduonions. This construction turns out to diminish the structural properties of the involved number systems. Unlike the reals, $\Complex$ is not an ordered field, that is to say, it is not possible to define a relation `{{math|''z''1 < ''z''2}}`{=mediawiki} that is compatible with the addition and multiplication. In fact, in any ordered field, the square of any element is necessarily positive, so `{{math|1=''i''2 = −1}}`{=mediawiki} precludes the existence of an ordering on $\Complex.$ Passing from $\C$ to the quaternions $\mathbb H$ loses commutativity, while the octonions (additionally to not being commutative) fail to be associative. The reals, complex numbers, quaternions and octonions are all normed division algebras over $\mathbb R$. By Hurwitz\'s theorem they are the only ones; the sedenions, the next step in the Cayley--Dickson construction, fail to have this structure. The Cayley--Dickson construction is closely related to the regular representation of $\mathbb C,$ thought of as an $\mathbb R$-algebra (an $\mathbb{R}$-vector space with a multiplication), with respect to the basis `{{math|(1, ''i'')}}`{=mediawiki}. This means the following: the $\mathbb R$-linear map $\begin{align} \mathbb{C} &\rightarrow \mathbb{C} \\ z &\mapsto wz \end{align}$ for some fixed complex number `{{mvar|w}}`{=mediawiki} can be represented by a `{{math|2 × 2}}`{=mediawiki} matrix (once a basis has been chosen). With respect to the basis `{{math|(1, ''i'')}}`{=mediawiki}, this matrix is $\begin{pmatrix} \operatorname{Re}(w) & -\operatorname{Im}(w) \\ \operatorname{Im}(w) & \operatorname{Re}(w) \end{pmatrix},$ that is, the one mentioned in the section on matrix representation of complex numbers above. While this is a linear representation of $\mathbb C$ in the 2 × 2 real matrices, it is not the only one. Any matrix $J = \begin{pmatrix}p & q \\ r & -p \end{pmatrix}, \quad p^2 + qr + 1 = 0$ has the property that its square is the negative of the identity matrix: `{{math|1=''J''2 = −''I''}}`{=mediawiki}. Then $\{ z = a I + b J : a,b \in \mathbb{R} \}$ is also isomorphic to the field $\mathbb C,$ and gives an alternative complex structure on $\mathbb R^2.$ This is generalized by the notion of a linear complex structure. Hypercomplex numbers also generalize $\mathbb R,$ $\mathbb C,$ $\mathbb H,$ and $\mathbb{O}.$ For example, this notion contains the split-complex numbers, which are elements of the ring $\mathbb R[x]/(x^2-1)$ (as opposed to $\mathbb R[x]/(x^2+1)$ for complex numbers). In this ring, the equation `{{math|1=''a''2 = 1}}`{=mediawiki} has four solutions. The field $\mathbb R$ is the completion of $\mathbb Q,$ the field of rational numbers, with respect to the usual absolute value metric. Other choices of metrics on $\mathbb Q$ lead to the fields $\mathbb Q_p$ of `{{mvar|p}}`{=mediawiki}-adic numbers (for any prime number `{{mvar|p}}`{=mediawiki}), which are thereby analogous to $\mathbb{R}$. There are no other nontrivial ways of completing $\mathbb Q$ than $\mathbb R$ and $\mathbb Q_p,$ by Ostrowski\'s theorem. The algebraic closures $\overline {\mathbb{Q}_p}$ of $\mathbb Q_p$ still carry a norm, but (unlike $\mathbb C$) are not complete with respect to it. The completion $\mathbb{C}_p$ of $\overline {\mathbb{Q}_p}$ turns out to be algebraically closed. By analogy, the field is called `{{mvar|p}}`{=mediawiki}-adic complex numbers. The fields $\mathbb R,$ $\mathbb Q_p,$ and their finite field extensions, including $\mathbb C,$ are called local fields.

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Cryptozoology

**Cryptozoology** is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti, the chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, or the Mokele-mbembe. Cryptozoologists refer to these entities as *cryptids*, a term coined by the subculture. Because it does not follow the scientific method, cryptozoology is considered a pseudoscience by mainstream science: it is neither a branch of zoology nor of folklore studies. It was originally founded in the 1950s by zoologists Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson. Scholars have noted that the subculture rejected mainstream approaches from an early date, and that adherents often express hostility to mainstream science. Scholars studying cryptozoologists and their influence (including cryptozoology\'s association with Young Earth creationism) noted parallels in cryptozoology and other pseudosciences such as ghost hunting and ufology, and highlighted uncritical media propagation of cryptozoologist claims. ## Terminology, history, and approach {#terminology_history_and_approach} As a field, cryptozoology originates from the works of Bernard Heuvelmans, a Belgian zoologist, and Ivan T. Sanderson, a Scottish zoologist. Notably, Heuvelmans published *On the Track of Unknown Animals* (French: *Sur la piste des bêtes ignorées*) in 1955, a landmark work among cryptozoologists that was followed by numerous other similar works. In addition, Sanderson published a series of books that contributed to the developing hallmarks of cryptozoology, including *Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life* (1961). Heuvelmans himself traced cryptozoology to the work of Anthonie Cornelis Oudemans, who theorized that a large unidentified species of seal was responsible for sea serpent reports. *Cryptozoology* is \'the study of hidden animals\' (from Ancient Greek: κρυπτός, *kryptós* \"hidden, secret\"; Ancient Greek ζῷον, *zōion* \"animal\", and λόγος, *logos*, i.e. \"knowledge, study\"). The term dates from 1959 or before--- Heuvelmans attributes the coinage of the term *cryptozoology* to Sanderson. Following *cryptozoology*, the term *cryptid* was coined in 1983 by cryptozoologist J. E. Wall in the summer issue of the International Society of Cryptozoology newsletter. According to Wall \"\[It has been\] suggested that new terms be coined to replace sensational and often misleading terms like \'monster\'. My suggestion is \'cryptid\', meaning a living thing having the quality of being hidden or unknown \... describing those creatures which are (or may be) subjects of cryptozoological investigation.\" The *Oxford English Dictionary* defines the noun *cryptid* as \"an animal whose existence or survival to the present day is disputed or unsubstantiated; any animal of interest to a cryptozoologist\". While used by most cryptozoologists, the term *cryptid* is not used by academic zoologists. In a textbook aimed at undergraduates, academics Caleb W. Lack and Jacques Rousseau note that the subculture\'s focus on what it deems to be \"cryptids\" is a pseudoscientific extension of older belief in monsters and other similar entities from the folkloric record, yet with a \"new, more scientific-sounding name: cryptids\". While biologists regularly identify new species, cryptozoologists often focus on creatures from the folkloric record. Most famously, these include the Loch Ness Monster, Champ (folklore), Bigfoot, the chupacabra, as well as other \"imposing beasts that could be labeled as monsters\". In their search for these entities, cryptozoologists may employ devices such as motion-sensitive cameras, night-vision equipment, and audio-recording equipment. While there have been attempts to codify cryptozoological approaches, unlike biologists, zoologists, botanists, and other academic disciplines, however, \"there are no accepted, uniform, or successful methods for pursuing cryptids\". Some scholars have identified precursors to modern cryptozoology in certain medieval approaches to the folkloric record, and the psychology behind the cryptozoology approach has been the subject of academic study. Few cryptozoologists have a formal science education, and fewer still have a science background directly relevant to cryptozoology. Adherents often misrepresent the academic backgrounds of cryptozoologists. According to writer Daniel Loxton and paleontologist Donald Prothero, \"\[c\]ryptozoologists have often promoted \'Professor Roy Mackal, PhD.\' as one of their leading figures and one of the few with a legitimate doctorate in biology. What is rarely mentioned, however, is that he had no training that would qualify him to undertake competent research on exotic animals. This raises the specter of \'credential mongering\', by which an individual or organization feints a person\'s graduate degree as proof of expertise, even though his or her training is not specifically relevant to the field under consideration.\" Besides Heuvelmans, Sanderson, and Mackal, other notable cryptozoologists with academic backgrounds include Grover Krantz, Karl Shuker, and Richard Greenwell. In a 2025 interview with science writer Sharon Hill \"Cryptids have become cutified\" \... The reason why cryptids are seeing a resurgence are because of the Internet, for example, the Flatwoods monster is seen in over 33 video games, but the real reason according to Hill is because for a while cryptids were thought to be real animals that some people had assigned magical powers to, and with some investigation the hope was that the magic could be stripped away and they would discover a real, perhaps unknown animal. "One of the reasons why I think that fell apart completely was because the International Society of Cryptozoology fell apart completely, so there were no longer any gatekeepers as of the early 1990's to say 'a cryptid is these animals that we are studying because we think it's got a zoological basis', those people were gone \... they were quite old, they died and there was nobody there to take over that gatekeeping aspect although some people tried. \... Then you saw an explosion of amateurs in the 2000s \... they became researchers that connected via the Internet. Now they start making media they can publish themselves \... it started to hit a younger and younger generation \... who love these creatures \... now everything can be a cryptid." Historically, notable cryptozoologists have often identified instances featuring \"irrefutable evidence\" (such as Sanderson and Krantz), only for the evidence to be revealed as the product of a hoax. This may occur during a closer examination by experts or upon confession of the hoaxer. ### Expeditions Cryptozoologists have often led unsuccessful expeditions to find evidence of cryptids. Bigfoot researcher René Dahinden led searches into caves to find evidence of sasquatch, as early sasquatch legends claimed they lived in rocky areas. Despite the failure of these searches, he spent years trying to find proof of bigfoot. Lensgrave Adam Christoffer Knuth led an expedition into Lake Tele in the Congo to find the Mokele-mbembe in 2018. While the expedition was a failure, they discovered a new species of green algae. ### Young Earth creationism {#young_earth_creationism} A subset of cryptozoology promotes the pseudoscience of Young Earth creationism, rejecting conventional science in favor of a literal Biblical interpretation and promoting concepts such as \"living dinosaurs\". Science writer Sharon Hill observes that the Young Earth creationist segment of cryptozoology is \"well-funded and able to conduct expeditions with a goal of finding a living dinosaur that they think would invalidate evolution\". Anthropologist Jeb J. Card says that \"\[\[Creationism\|\[c\]reationists\]\] have embraced cryptozoology and some cryptozoological expeditions are funded by and conducted by creationists hoping to disprove evolution.\" In a 2013 interview, paleontologist Donald Prothero notes an uptick in creationist cryptozoologists. He observes that \"\[p\]eople who actively search for Loch Ness monsters or Mokele Mbembe do it entirely as creationist ministers. They think that if they found a dinosaur in the Congo it would overturn all of evolution. It wouldn\'t. It would just be a late-occurring dinosaur, but that\'s their mistaken notion of evolution.\" Citing a 2013 exhibit at the Petersburg, Kentucky-based Creation Museum, which claimed that dragons were once biological creatures who walked the earth alongside humanity and is broadly dedicated to Young Earth creationism, religious studies academic Justin Mullis notes that \"\[c\]ryptozoology has a long and curious history with Young Earth Creationism, with this new exhibit being just one of the most recent examples\". Academic Paul Thomas analyzes the influence and connections between cryptozoology in his 2020 study of the Creation Museum and the creationist theme park Ark Encounter. Thomas comments that, \"while the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter are flirting with pseudoarchaeology, coquettishly whispering pseudoarchaeological rhetoric, they are each fully in bed with cryptozoology\" and observes that \"\[y\]oung-earth creationists and cryptozoologists make natural bed fellows. As with pseudoarchaeology, both young-earth creationists and cryptozoologists bristle at the rejection of mainstream secular science and lament a seeming conspiracy to prevent serious consideration of their claims.\" ### Lack of critical media coverage {#lack_of_critical_media_coverage} Media outlets have often uncritically disseminated information from cryptozoologist sources, including newspapers that repeat false claims made by cryptozoologists or television shows that feature cryptozoologists as monster hunters (such as the popular and purportedly nonfiction American television show *MonsterQuest*, which aired from 2007 to 2010). Media coverage of purported \"cryptids\" often fails to provide more likely explanations, further propagating claims made by cryptozoologists. ## Reception and pseudoscience {#reception_and_pseudoscience} There is a broad consensus among academics that cryptozoology is a pseudoscience. The subculture is regularly criticized for reliance on anecdotal information and because in the course of investigating animals that most scientists believe are unlikely to have existed, cryptozoologists do not follow the scientific method. No academic course of study nor university degree program grants the status of *cryptozoologist* and the subculture is primarily the domain of individuals without training in the natural sciences. Anthropologist Jeb J. Card summarizes cryptozoology in a survey of pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology: `{{blockquote|Cryptozoology purports to be the study of previously unidentified animal species. At first glance, this would seem to differ little from zoology. New species are discovered by field and museum zoologists every year. Cryptozoologists cite these discoveries as justification of their search but often minimize or omit the fact that the discoverers do not identify as cryptozoologists and are academically trained zoologists working in an ecological paradigm rather than organizing expeditions to seek out supposed examples of unusual and large creatures.<ref name="CARD-23-32">Card (2016: 23–32).</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} Card notes that \"cryptozoologists often show their disdain and even hatred for professional scientists, including those who enthusiastically participated in cryptozoology\", which he traces back to Heuvelmans\'s early \"rage against critics of cryptozoology\". He finds parallels with cryptozoology and other pseudosciences, such as ghost hunting and ufology, and compares the approach of cryptozoologists to colonial big-game hunters, and to aspects of European imperialism. According to Card, \"\[m\]ost cryptids are framed as the subject of indigenous legends typically collected in the heyday of comparative folklore, though such legends may be heavily modified or worse. Cryptozoology\'s complicated mix of sympathy, interest, and appropriation of indigenous culture (or non-indigenous construction of it) is also found in New Age circles and dubious \"Indian burial grounds\" and other legends \[\...\] invoked in hauntings such as the \"Amityville\" hoax \[\...\]\". In a 2011 foreword for *The American Biology Teacher*, then National Association of Biology Teachers president Dan Ward uses cryptozoology as an example of \"technological pseudoscience\" that may confuse students about the scientific method. Ward says that \"Cryptozoology \[\...\] is not valid science or even science at all. It is monster hunting.\" Historian of science Brian Regal includes an entry for cryptozoology in his *Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia* (2009). Regal says that \"as an intellectual endeavor, cryptozoology has been studied as much as cryptozoologists have sought hidden animals\". In a 1992 issue of *Folklore*, folklorist Véronique Campion-Vincent says: `{{blockquote|Unexplained appearances of mystery animals are reported all over the world today. Beliefs in the existence of fabulous and supernatural animals are ubiquitous and timeless. In the continents discovered by Europe indigenous beliefs and tales have strongly influenced the perceptions of the conquered confronted by a new natural environment. In parallel with the growing importance of the scientific approach, these traditional mythical tales have been endowed with sometimes highly artificial precision and have given birth to contemporary legends solidly entrenched in their territories. The belief self-perpetuates today through multiple observations enhanced by the media and encouraged (largely with the aim of gain for touristic promotion) by the local population, often genuinely convinced of the reality of this profitable phenomenon."<ref name="CAMPION-VINCENT-173">Campion-Vincent (1992: 160–183).</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} Campion-Vincent says that \"four currents can be distinguished in the study of mysterious animal appearances\": \"Forteans\" (\"compiler\[s\] of anomalies\" such as via publications like the *Fortean Times*), \"occultists\" (which she describes as related to \"Forteans\"), \"folklorists\", and \"cryptozoologists\". Regarding cryptozoologists, Campion-Vincent says that \"this movement seems to deserve the appellation of parascience, like parapsychology: the same corpus is reviewed; many scientists participate, but for those who have an official status of university professor or researcher, the participation is a private hobby\". In her *Encyclopedia of American Folklore*, academic Linda Watts says that \"folklore concerning unreal animals or beings, sometimes called monsters, is a popular field of inquiry\" and describes cryptozoology as an example of \"American narrative traditions\" that \"feature many monsters\". In his analysis of cryptozoology, folklorist Peter Dendle says that \"cryptozoology devotees consciously position themselves in defiance of mainstream science\" and that: `{{blockquote|The psychological significance of cryptozoology in the modern world [...] serves to channel guilt over the decimation of species and destruction of the natural habitat; to recapture a sense of mysticism and danger in a world now perceived as fully charted and over-explored; and to articulate resentment of and defiance against a scientific community perceived as monopolising the pool of culturally acceptable beliefs.<ref name="DENDLE-2006-190-206">Dendle (2006: 190–206).</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} In a paper published in 2013, Dendle refers to cryptozoologists as \"contemporary monster hunters\" that \"keep alive a sense of wonder in a world that has been very thoroughly charted, mapped, and tracked, and that is largely available for close scrutiny on Google Earth and satellite imaging\" and that \"on the whole the devotion of substantial resources for this pursuit betrays a lack of awareness of the basis for scholarly consensus (largely ignoring, for instance, evidence of evolutionary biology and the fossil record).\" According to historian Mike Dash, few scientists doubt there are thousands of unknown animals, particularly invertebrates, awaiting discovery; however, cryptozoologists are largely uninterested in researching and cataloging newly discovered species of ants or beetles, instead focusing their efforts towards \"more elusive\" creatures that have often defied decades of work aimed at confirming their existence. Paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson (1984) lists cryptozoology among examples of human gullibility, along with creationism: `{{blockquote|Humans are the most inventive, deceptive, and gullible of all animals. Only those characteristics can explain the belief of some humans in creationism, in the arrival of UFOs with extraterrestrial beings, or in some aspects of cryptozoology. [...] In several respects the discussion and practice of cryptozoology sometimes, although not invariably, has demonstrated both deception and gullibility. An example seems to merit the old Latin saying 'I believe because it is incredible,' although Tertullian, its author, applied it in a way more applicable to the present day creationists.<ref name="SIMPSON-1984-1-16">Simpson (1984: 1–19).</ref>}}`{=mediawiki} Paleontologist Donald Prothero (2007) cites cryptozoology as an example of pseudoscience and categorizes it, along with Holocaust denial and UFO abductions claims, as aspects of American culture that are \"clearly baloney\". In *Scientifical Americans: The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers* (2017), Hill surveys the field and discusses aspects of the subculture, noting internal attempts at creating more scientific approaches and the involvement of Young Earth creationists and a prevalence of hoaxes. She concludes that many cryptozoologists are \"passionate and sincere in their belief that mystery animals exist. As such, they give deference to every report of a sighting, often without critical questioning. As with the ghost seekers, cryptozoologists are convinced that they will be the ones to solve the mystery and make history. With the lure of mystery and money undermining diligent and ethical research, the field of cryptozoology has serious credibility problems.\" ## Organizations There have been several organizations, of varying types, dedicated or related to cryptozoology. These include: - International Fortean Organization -- a network of professional Fortean researchers and writers based in the United States - International Society of Cryptozoology -- an American organisation that existed from 1982 to 1998 - Kosmopoisk -- a Russian organisation whose interests include cryptozoology and Ufology - The Centre for Fortean Zoology- an English organization centered around hunting for unknown animals ## Museums and exhibitions {#museums_and_exhibitions} The zoological and cryptozoological collection and archive of Bernard Heuvelmans is held at the Musée Cantonal de Zoologie in Lausanne and consists of around \"1,000 books, 25,000 files, 25,000 photographs, correspondence, and artifacts\". In 2006, the Bates College Museum of Art held the \"Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale\" exhibition, which compared cryptozoological creatures with recently extinct animals like the thylacine and extant taxa like the coelacanth, once thought long extinct (living fossils). The following year, the American Museum of Natural History put on a mixed exhibition of imaginary and extinct animals, including the elephant bird *Aepyornis maximus* and the great ape *Gigantopithecus blacki*, under the name \"Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids\". In 2003, cryptozoologist Loren Coleman opened the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. The museum houses more than 3000 cryptozoology related artifacts.

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5,836

Geography of Colombia

The Republic of Colombia is situated largely in the north-west of South America, with some territories falling within the boundaries of Central America. It is bordered to the north-west by Panama; to the east by Brazil and Venezuela; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; and it shares maritime limits with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. Colombia has a land size of 1141748 km2 and it is the 25th largest nation in the world and the fourth-largest country in South America (after Brazil, Argentina, and Peru). Colombia\'s population is not evenly distributed, and most of the people live in the mountainous western portion of the country as well as along the northern coastline; the highest number live in or near the capital city of Bogotá. The southern and eastern portions of the country are sparsely inhabited, consisting of tropical rainforest, and inland tropical plains that contain large estates or large livestock farms, oil and gas production facilities, small farming communities, and indigenous tribes with their territories. Colombia has the 35th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of 808,158 km2. ## Main Colombia usually classifies its geography into five natural regions, from the Andes mountain range, a region shared with Ecuador, Venezuela; the Pacific Ocean coastal region, shared with Panama and Ecuador; the Caribbean Sea coastal region, shared with Venezuela and Panama; the *Llanos* (plains), shared with Venezuela; to the Amazon Rainforest region shared with Venezuela, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador. Colombia is one of only two South American countries that have coastline on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the other being Chile. *The World Factbook* does not differentiate between the Amazon region of Colombia (predominantly jungle) and the Orinoquia region of Colombia (predominantly plains). It suggests dividing the country into four geographic regions: the Andean highlands, consisting of the three Andean ranges and intervening valley lowlands; the Caribbean lowlands coastal region; the Pacific lowlands coastal region, separated from the Caribbean lowlands by swamps at the base of the Isthmus of Panama; and eastern Colombia, the great plain that lies to the east of the Andes Mountains. The chief western mountain range, the Cordillera Occidental, is a moderately high range with peaks reaching up to about 15,000 ft (4,670 m). The Cauca River Valley, an important agricultural region with several large cities on its borders, separates the Cordillera Occidental from the massive Cordillera Central. Several snow-clad volcanoes in the Cordillera Central have summits that rise above 17000 ft. The valley of the slow-flowing and muddy Magdalena River, a major transportation artery, separates the Cordillera Central from the main eastern range, the Cordillera Oriental. The peaks of the Cordillera Oriental are moderately high. This range differs from Colombia\'s other mountain ranges in that it contains several large basins. In the east, the sparsely populated, flat to gently rolling eastern lowlands called *llanos* cover almost 60 percent of the country\'s total land area. This cross section of the republic does not include two of Colombia\'s regions: the Caribbean coastal lowlands and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, both in the northern part of the country. The lowlands in the west are mostly swampy; the reed-filled marshes of the area are called *ciénagas* by the people of Colombia. The Guajira Peninsula in the east is semiarid and is occupied primarily by indigenous peoples. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a spectacular triangular snowcapped block of rock that towers over the eastern part of this lowland. Here can be found the highest peak of the country, named Pico Cristobal Colon (5775 m). ### Andean region {#andean_region} Near the Ecuadorian frontier, the Andes Mountains divide into three distinct, roughly parallel chains, called cordilleras, that extend northeastward almost to the Caribbean Sea. Altitudes reach more than 18700 ft, and mountain peaks are permanently covered with snow. The elevated basins and plateaus of these ranges have a moderate climate that provides pleasant living conditions and in many places enables farmers to harvest twice a year. Torrential rivers on the slopes of the mountains produce a large hydroelectric power potential and add their volume to the navigable rivers in the valleys. In the late 1980s, approximately 78 percent of the country\'s population lived in the Andean highlands. The Cordillera Occidental in the west, the Cordillera Central in the center, and the Cordillera Oriental in the east have different characteristics. Geologically, the Cordillera Occidental and the Cordillera Central form the western and eastern sides of a massive crystalline arch that extends from the Caribbean lowlands to the southern border of Ecuador. The Cordillera Oriental, however, is composed of folded stratified rocks overlying a crystalline core. The Cordillera Occidental is relatively low and is the least populated of the three cordilleras. Summits are only about 9840 ft above sea level and do not have permanent snows. Few passes exist, although one that is about 4985 ft above sea level provides the major city of Cali with an outlet to the Pacific Ocean. The relatively low elevation of the cordillera permits dense vegetation, which on the western slopes is truly tropical. The Cordillera Occidental is separated from the Cordillera Central by the deep rift of the Cauca Valley. The Río Cauca rises within 124 mi of the border with Ecuador and flows through some of the best farmland in the country. After the two cordilleras converge, the Cauca Valley becomes a deep gorge reaching to the Caribbean lowlands. The Cordillera Central is the loftiest of the mountain systems. Its crystalline rocks form a towering wall dotted with snow-covered volcanoes that is 500 mi long. There are no plateaus in this range and no passes under 10825 ft. The highest peak in this range, the Nevado del Huila, reaches 17602 ft above sea level. The second highest peak is a volcano, Nevado del Ruiz, which erupted violently on November 13, 1985. Toward its northern end, this cordillera separates into several branches that descend toward the Caribbean coast. Between the Cordillera Central and the Cordillera Oriental flows the Magdalena River. This 1600 km river rises near a point some 180 km north of the border with Ecuador, where the Cordillera Oriental and the Cordillera Central diverge. Its spacious drainage area is fed by numerous mountain torrents originating high in the snowfields. The Magdalena River is generally navigable from the Caribbean Sea as far as the town of Neiva, deep in the interior, but it is interrupted midway by rapids. The valley floor is very deep; nearly 800 km from the river\'s mouth the elevation is no more than about 300 m. In the Cordillera Oriental, at elevations between 2500 and, three large fertile basins and a number of small ones provide suitable areas for settlement and intensive economic production. In the basin of Cundinamarca, where the Spanish encountered the regional Chibcha Indians, the European invaders established the town of Santa Fe de Bogotá (present-day Bogotá) at an elevation of 2650 m above sea level. To the north of Bogotá, in the densely populated basins of Chiquinquirá and Boyacá, are fertile fields, rich mines, and large industrial establishments that produce much of the national wealth. Still farther north, where the Cordillera Oriental makes an abrupt turn to the northwest near the border with Venezuela, the Sierra Nevada de Cocuy, the highest point of this range, rises to 5493 m above sea level. In the department of Santander, the valleys on the western slopes are more spacious, and agriculture is intensive in the area around Bucaramanga. The northernmost region of the range around Cúcuta is so rugged that historically it has been easier for residents here to maintain communications and transportation with Venezuela than with the adjacent parts of Colombia. The basic plantation of Colombia is grassy and is near the equator which allows many tropical-like plants. ### Caribbean region {#caribbean_region} The Caribbean lowlands consist of all of Colombia north of an imaginary line extending northeastward from the Golfo de Urabá to the Venezuelan frontier at the northern extremity of the Cordillera Oriental. The semiarid Guajira Peninsula and Guajira--Barranquilla xeric scrub, in the extreme north, bear little resemblance to the rest of the region. In the southern part rises the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, an isolated mountain system with peaks reaching heights over 5700 m and slopes generally too steep for cultivation. The Caribbean lowlands region is in roughly the shape of a triangle, the longest side of which is the coastline. Most of the country\'s commerce moves through the cities of Cartagena, Barranquilla, Santa Marta, and the other ports located along this important coast. Inland from these cities are swamps, hidden streams, and shallow lakes that support banana and cotton plantations for major commodity crops, countless small farms, and, in higher places, cattle ranches. The city of Cartagena is a petrochemical, seaport (#1 in the country), and tourist city (#1 in the country). Santa Marta is also a seaport and tourist city but it is smaller scale city in comparison. Barranquilla is located some 25 mi from the Caribbean coastline but it is a more developed city, with a greater number of industries and commercial places, widely known for its skilled workers in producing all forms of metalwork and accomplishing construction. Its inhabitants have the highest education level of the region. The city is famous as the starting point and focus of the region and the country\'s development: it was the first city in the nation to install and use telephones, public lighting, air mail, planes, and industrial works. The Caribbean region merges next to and is connected with the Andean highlands through the two great river valleys. After the Andean highlands, it is the second-most important region in terms of economic activity. Approximately 17% of the country\'s population lived in this region in the late 1980s. The region also includes the peninsular archipelago of San Andres Island and the Insular Territories of Colombia, which are disputed in part by Nicaragua. However, the Colombian Navy protects such territories with the use of force when necessary to avoid foreign invasion. The islands are fortified with two important bases for defense and custom controls. These were formerly used for research of classified projects with civilian assistance; the local universities often conduct research in the areas of oceanography and marine biology but also in the fields of biochemistry, genetics and immunology. Colombia is known for its advances in medical fields in experimental surgery, breast implant development, or prosthetics, and immunology. These facilities serve as containment and secure experimentation labs to complement those in Barranquilla and other undisclosed locations within the coast territories. The **Insular Region** is considered by some as a geopolitical region of Colombia. It comprises the areas outside the continental territories of Colombia and includes the San Andrés y Providencia Department in the Caribbean Sea and the Malpelo and Gorgona islands in the Pacific Ocean. Its subregions include other groups of islands: - Archipiélago de San Bernardo (in the Morrosquillo Gulf, Caribbean). - Islas del Rosario (Caribbean) - Isla Fuerte (Caribbean) - Isla Barú (Caribbean) - Isla Tortuguilla (Caribbean) - Isla Tierra Bomba (Caribbean) ### Pacific region {#pacific_region} The western third of the country is the most geographically complex. Starting at the shore of the Pacific Ocean in the west and moving eastward at a latitude of 5 degrees north, a diverse sequence of features is encountered. In the extreme west are the very narrow and discontinuous Pacific coastal lowlands, which are backed by the Serranía de Baudó, the lowest and narrowest of Colombia\'s mountain ranges. Next is the broad region of the Río Atrato/Río San Juan lowland. In 1855, William Kennish, an engineer and veteran of the British Royal Navy, who had immigrated to the United States and was working for a New York City firm, studied the area and proposed an inter-oceanic river aqueduct and tunnel to connect the Rio Atrato, with its mouth at the Atlantic Ocean, with tributaries and through a tunnel and aqueduct through Nerqua Pass, to flow into Bahía Humboldt at the Pacific Ocean. This was his alternative to the canal that was eventually built further west on the isthmus of what became Panama after it gained independence in the early 20th century. Although the US sent an expedition to explore Kennish\'s proposal, the concept was not developed at the time. Colombia refused a later US offer to build a canal. After independence, in 1903 Panama made a treaty with the US to support construction of the Panama Canal. Colombia occupies most of the Andes mountain range northern extremity, sharing a bit with Venezuela; the range splits into three branches between the Colombia-Ecuador border. In the 1980s, only three percent of all Colombians resided in the Pacific lowlands, a region of jungle and swamp with considerable but little-exploited potential in minerals and other resources. Later in the 20th century, it was threatened by mining-related deforestation, as gold mining proceeded by both major companies and artisan miners. Buenaventura is the only port of any size on the coast. To the east, the Pacific lowlands are bounded by the Cordillera Occidental, from which numerous streams run. Most of the streams flow westward to the Pacific, but the largest, the navigable Río Atrato, flows northward to the Golfo de Urabá. Its river settlements have access to the major Atlantic ports and consequently are commercially related primarily to the Caribbean lowlands hinterland. To the west of the Río Atrato rises the Serranía de Baudó, an isolated chain of low mountains that occupies a large part of the region. Its highest elevation is less than 1,800 meters, and its vegetation resembles that of the surrounding tropical forest. The Atrato Swamp, in Chocó Department adjoining the border with Panama, is a deep muck sixty-five kilometers in width. For years it has challenged engineers seeking to complete the Pan-American Highway. This stretch, near Turbo, where the highway is interrupted, is known as the Tapón del Chocó (Chocon Plug). A second major transportation project in Chocó Department has been proposed. A second inter-oceanic canal would be constructed by dredging the Río Atrato and tributary streams and digging short access canals. Completion of either of these projects would do much to transform this region, although it could have devastating consequences on the fragile, tropical forest environment. ### Orinoquía region {#orinoquía_region} The area east of the Andes includes about 699,300 square kilometers or three-fifths of the country\'s total area, but Colombians view it almost as an alien land. The entire area, known as the eastern plains, was home to only two percent of the country\'s population in the late 1980s. The Spanish term for plains (*llanos*) can be applied only to the open plains in the northern part, particularly the Piedmont areas near the Cordillera Oriental, where extensive cattle raising is practiced. The region is unbroken by highlands except in Meta Department, where the Serranía de la Macarena, an outlier of the Andes has unique vegetation and wildlife believed to be reminiscent of those that once existed throughout the Andes. ### Amazon region {#amazon_region} Many of the numerous large rivers of eastern Colombia are navigable. The Río Guaviare and the streams to its north flow eastward and drain into the basin of the Río Orinoco, a river that crosses into Venezuela and flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Those south of the Río Guaviare flows into the Amazon Basin. The Río Guaviare divides eastern Colombia into the llanos subregion in the north and the tropical rainforest, or selva, subregion in the south. ## Climate The striking variety in temperature and precipitation results principally from differences in elevation. Temperatures range from very hot at sea level to relatively cold at higher elevations but vary little with the season. At Bogotá, for example, the average annual temperature is 15 °C, and the difference between the average of the coldest and the warmest months is less than 1 °C (1.8 °F). More significant, however, is the daily variation in temperature, from 5 °C at night to 17 °C during the day. Colombians customarily describe their country in terms of the climatic zones: the area under 900 m in elevation is called the hot zone (tierra caliente), elevations between 900 and are the temperate zone (tierra templada), and elevations from 1980 m to about 3500 m constitute the cold zone (tierra fría). The upper limit of the cold zone marks the tree line and the approximate limit of human habitation. The treeless regions adjacent to the cold zone and extending to approximately 4500 m are high, bleak areas (usually referred to as the páramos), above which begins the area of permanent snow (nevado). About 86% of the country\'s total area lies in the hot zone. Included in the hot zone and interrupting the temperate area of the Andean highlands are the long and narrow extension of the Magdalena Valley and a small extension in the Cauca Valley. Temperatures, depending on elevation, vary between 24 and, and there are alternating dry and wet seasons corresponding to summer and winter, respectively. Breezes on the Caribbean coast, however, reduce both heat and precipitation. Rainfall in the hot zone is heaviest in the Pacific lowlands and in parts of eastern Colombia, where rain is almost a daily occurrence and rain forests predominate. Precipitation exceeds 7600 mm annually in most of the Pacific lowlands, making this one of the wettest regions in the world. The highest average annual precipitation in the world is estimated to be in Lloro, Colombia, with 13299 mm. In eastern Colombia, it decreases from 6350 mm in portions of the Andean Piedmont to 2540 mm eastward. Extensive areas of the Caribbean interior are permanently flooded, more because of poor drainage than because of the moderately heavy precipitation during the rainy season from May through October. The temperate zone covers about 8% of the country. This zone includes the lower slopes of the Cordillera Oriental and the Cordillera Central and most of the intermontane valleys. The important cities of Medellín (1487 m) and Cali (1030 m) are located in this zone, where rainfall is moderate and the mean annual temperature varies between 19 and, depending on the elevation. In the higher elevations of this zone, farmers benefit from two wet and two dry seasons each year; January through March and July through September are the dry seasons. The cold or cool zone constitutes about 6% of the total area, including some of the most densely populated plateaus and terraces of the Colombian Andes; this zone supports about one fourth of the country\'s total population. The mean temperature ranges between 10 and, and the wet seasons occur in April and May and from September to December, as in the high elevations of the temperate zone. Precipitation is moderate to heavy in most parts of the country; the heavier rainfall occurs in the low-lying hot zone. Considerable variations occur because of local conditions that affect wind currents, however, and areas on the leeward side of the Guajira Peninsula receive generally light rainfall; the annual rainfall of 350 mm recorded at the Uribia station there is the lowest in Colombia. Considerable year-to-year variations have been recorded, and Colombia sometimes experiences droughts. Colombia\'s geographic and climatic variations have combined to produce relatively well-defined \"ethnocultural\" groups among different regions of the country: the Costeño from the Caribbean coast; the Caucano in the Cauca region and the Pacific coast; the Antioqueño in Antioquia, Caldas, Risaralda, and Valle del Cauca departments; the Tolimense in Tolima and Huila departments; the Cundiboyacense in the interior departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá in the Cordillera Oriental; the Santandereano in Norte de Santander and Santander departments; and the Llanero in the eastern plains. Each group has distinctive characteristics, accents, customs, social patterns, and forms of cultural adaptation to climate and topography that differentiates it from other groups. Even with rapid urbanization and modernization, regionalism and regional identification continued to be important reference points, although they were somewhat less prominent in the 1980s than in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Colombia\'s proximity to the equator influences its climates. The lowland areas are continuously hot. Altitude affects temperature greatly. Temperatures decrease about 3.5 F-change for every 1000 ft increase in altitude above sea level. Rainfall varies by location in Colombia, tending to increase as one travels southward. This is especially true in the eastern lowlands. For example, rainfall in parts of the Guajira Peninsula seldom exceeds 30 in per year. Colombia\'s rainy southeast, however, is often drenched by more than 200 in of rain per year. Rainfall in most of the rest of the country runs between these two extremes. ## Vegetation Altitude affects not only temperature, but also vegetation. In fact, altitude is one of the most important influences on vegetation patterns in Colombia. The mountainous parts of the country can be divided into several vegetation zones according to altitude, although the altitude limits of each zone may vary somewhat depending on the latitude. The \"tierra caliente\" (hot land), below 1000 m, is the zone of tropical crops such as bananas. The tierra templada (temperate land), extending from an altitude of 1000 to, is the zone of coffee and maize. Wheat and potatoes dominate in the \"tierra fría\" (cold land), at altitudes from 2000 to. In the \"zona forestada\" (forested zone), which is located between 3200 and, many of the trees have been cut for firewood. Treeless pastures dominate the páramos, or alpine grasslands, at altitudes of 4000 to. Above 4500 m, where temperatures are below freezing, is the \"tierra helada\", a zone of permanent snow and ice. Vegetation also responds to rainfall patterns. A scrub woodland of scattered trees and bushes dominates the semiarid northeast. To the south, savannah (tropical grassland) vegetation covers the Colombian portion of the llanos. The rainy areas in the southeast are blanketed by tropical rainforest. In the mountains, the spotty patterns of precipitation in alpine areas complicate vegetation patterns. The rainy side of a mountain may be lush and green, while the other side, in the rain shadow, may be parched. ## Relief The Andean range is located in Colombia from the southwest (Ecuador border) toward the northeast (Venezuela border) and is divided in the Colombian Massif (*Macizo Colombiano*) in three ranges (East Andes, Central Andes and West Andes) that form two long valleys, Magdalena and Cauca follow by the rivers of the same name. The eastern half of Colombia, comprising more than half its territory, is plain and composed by savanna and rainforest, crossed by rivers belonging to the Amazon and Orinoco basins. The northern part, called the Llanos, is a savanna region, mostly in the Orinoco basin (therefore called also Orinoquía). The southern part is covered by the Amazon rain forest and belongs mostly to the Amazon basin. It is usually called Amazonía. At the north and west of the Andes range there are some coastal plains. The Caribbean plains at the north and the Pacific plains at the west. A recent global remote sensing analysis suggested that there were 553km² of tidal flats in Colombia, making it the 46th ranked country in terms of tidal flat area. Colombian Pacific Plains are among the most rainy parts in the world, chiefly at the north (Chocó). The highest mountain in Colombia is not in the Andes but in the Caribbean plain: Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta with its highest points named Pico Cristobal Colon (5775 m) and Pico Simon Bolivar (same elevation). Other mountains in the Caribbean plain include the Montes de María and the Serranía de San Lucas. In the Pacific Plains there are other mountain formations, chiefly the Serranía del Darién and the Serranía del Baudó. In the eastern Region, there is the Serranía de la Macarena and there are formations belonging to the Guyana Shield. ## Protected areas {#protected_areas} ## Environmental issues {#environmental_issues} The main environmental issues affecting Colombia are deforestation; soil and water quality damage from overuse of pesticides; air pollution, especially in Bogota, from vehicle emissions and other main cities. The collateral damaged produced by attacks against oil pipeline infrastructure by rebel guerrillas in the Colombian armed conflict has produced long term damage to the environment. The armed groups also deforest large areas to cultivate illegal crops and open unauthorized highways in protected areas. ## Extreme points {#extreme_points} Highest points: Snowfields and glaciers in Colombia are limited to the highest peaks and ranges in the Cordillera Central and Cordillera Oriental and above the 4700 m elevation on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The total area of snowfields and glaciers was estimated to be about 104 square kilometers in the early 1970s. Historical, geographical, and pictorial records point toward a consistent and progressive depletion of ice-and-snow masses in the Colombian Andes since the end of the \"Little Ice Age\" in the late 1800s. Many glaciers have disappeared during the 20th century, and others are expected to disappear in the coming decades. ## Facts Land size: total: 1138910 km2 Land boundaries: total: 6,672 km Coastline: 3,208 km (Caribbean Sea 1,760 km, North Pacific Ocean 1,448 km) Exclusive Economic Zone: total: 808,158 km2 Climate: tropical along coast and eastern plains; cooler in highlands Terrain: flat coastal lowlands, central highlands, high Andes Mountains, eastern lowland plains Elevation extremes: lowest point: Pacific Ocean 0 m highest point: Pico Cristobal Colon 5,975 m note: nearby Pico Simon Bolivar also has the same elevation Natural resources: petroleum, natural gas, coal, iron ore, nickel, gold, copper, emeralds, hydropower Land use: arable land: 1.43% permanent crops: 1.68% other: 96.89% (2012) Irrigated land: 10,870 km^2^ (2011) Total renewable water resources: 2,132 km^3^ (2011) Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural): total: 12.65 km^3^ (55%/4%/41%) per capita: 308 m^3^/yr (2010) Natural hazards: highlands subject to volcanic eruptions; occasional earthquakes; periodic droughts Environment - international agreements: party to: Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands signed, but not ratified: Law of the Sea ## Hydrology Colombia has four main drainage systems: the Pacific drain, the Caribbean drain, the Orinoco Basin and the Amazon Basin. The Orinoco and Amazon Rivers mark limits with Colombia to Venezuela and Peru respectively. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ | Caribbean Drain | Pacific Drain | Orinoco Basin | Amazon Basin | +======================================================================+=================+=================+====================+ | ### Rivers confined to Colombia {#rivers_confined_to_colombia} | | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ | - Atrato | - Baudó | - Guaviare | - Apaporis | | - Cauca | - Patía | - Inírida | - Caguán | | - Magdalena | - San Juan | - Meta | | | - Nechí | | - Vichada | | | - Sinú | | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ | ### Rivers originating in Colombia {#rivers_originating_in_colombia} | | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ | - Catatumbo | | - Arauca | - Caquetá | | | | | - Guainía | | | | | - Putumayo River | | | | | - Vaupés | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------------+--------------------+ ### Lakes - Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta - La Cocha Lagoon - Lake Tota

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5,838

Politics of Colombia

Colombia is a presidential representative democratic republic with a multi-party system, where the President of Colombia is both head of state and head of government. The national government has separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The legislative power is held by the two chambers of the Congress of Colombia, the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, with the four high courts for each jurisdiction of law: the Constitutional Court of Colombia, Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia, Council of State, and Superior Council of Judicature. ## Constitution The current Colombian Constitution of 1991, enacted on July 5, 1991, strengthened the administration of justice with the provision for introduction of an adversarial system, which entirely replaced the existing Napoleonic Code. Other significant reforms under the new constitution included civil divorce, dual nationality, the office of Vice President of Colombia, and the election of Departmental Governors. Additionally, the constitution expanded citizens\' fundamental rights, including the right of \"tutela,\" which allows individuals to request immediate court action if they feel their constitutional rights are being violated and if no other legal recourse is available. ## Executive branch {#executive_branch} The President of Colombia is elected to a single four-year term. The 1991 constitution reestablished the position of the Vice President of Colombia, who is elected on the same ticket as the president. By law, the vice president will succeed in the event of the president\'s resignation, illness, or death. Since 2015, the president has been barred from running for reelection, even for a nonconsecutive term. ## Legislative branch {#legislative_branch} Colombia\'s bicameral congress consists of a 108-member senate and a 172-member chamber of representatives. Senators are elected on the basis of a nationwide ballot, while representatives are elected in multi member districts co-located within the 32 national departments. The country\'s capital is a separate capital district and elects its own representatives. Members may be re-elected indefinitely, and, in contrast to the pre-1991 constitution system, there are no alternate congressmen. Congress meets twice a year, and the president has the power to call it into special session when needed. ## Judicial branch {#judicial_branch} The civilian judiciary is a separate and independent branch of government. Guidelines and the general structure for Colombia\'s administration of justice are set out in Law 270 of March 7, 1996. After the 1991 Constitution, Colombia\'s legal system began incorporating elements of an oral, accusatory system. The judicial branch\'s general structure comprises four distinct jurisdictions: ordinary, administrative, constitutional, and special. Colombia\'s highest judicial organs are the Supreme Court, the Council of State, the Constitutional Court, and the Superior Judicial Council. Although all the high courts technically oversee separate jurisdictions, the Constitutional Court has a broad spectrum of judicial oversight, often allowing it to rule on issues overseen by different jurisdictions and even weigh in directly on the rulings of other high courts. ## Elections ### Recent elections {#recent_elections} #### 2022 presidential election {#presidential_election} #### 2022 parliamentary election {#parliamentary_election} ##### Senate ##### Chamber of Representatives {#chamber_of_representatives} ## Political parties {#political_parties} ## Corruption ## International organization participation {#international_organization_participation} ### Global United Nations `{{Columns-list|colwidth=10em| * [[Food and Agriculture Organization|FAO]] * [[International Atomic Energy Agency|IAEA]] * [[ICAO]] * [[International Trade Union Confederation|ITUC]] * [[IFAD]] * [[International Labour Organization|ILO]] * [[International Monetary Fund|IMF]] * [[International Maritime Organization|IMO]] * [[International Organization for Migration|IOM]] * [[ITU]] * [[Union of South American Nations|UNASUR]] * [[UNCTAD]] * [[UNESCO]] * [[UNHCR]] * [[United Nations Industrial Development Organization|UNIDO]] * [[UPU]] * [[WHO]] * [[WIPO]] * [[WMO]] * [[WToO]] }}`{=mediawiki}World Bank `{{Columns-list|colwidth=10em| * [[International Development Association|IDA]] * [[International Bank for Reconstruction and Development|IBRD]] * [[International Finance Corporation|IFC]] * [[MIGA]] }}`{=mediawiki} Other `{{Columns-list|colwidth=10em| *[[Group of 24|G-24]] *[[Group of 77|G-77]] *[[International Chamber of Commerce|ICC]] *[[International Criminal Court|ICCt]] *[[International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement|ICRM]] *[[IFRCS]] *[[IHO]] *[[Interpol (organization)|Interpol]] *[[IOC]] *[[International Organization for Standardization|ISO]] *[[Non-Aligned Movement|NAM]] *[[OPCW]] *[[Permanent Court of Arbitration|PCA]] *[[World Customs Organization|WCO]] *[[World Federation of Trade Unions|WFTU]] *[[World Trade Organization|WTO]] *[[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development|OECD]] }}`{=mediawiki} ### Regional

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5,840

Communications in Colombia

Since being liberalized in 1991, the **Colombian telecommunications sector** has added new services, expanded coverage, improved efficiency, and lowered costs. The sector has had the second largest (after energy) investment in infrastructure (54 percent) since 1997. However, the economic downturn between 1999 and 2002 adversely affected telecommunications. During this period, Colombia\'s telecommunications industry lost US\$2 billion despite a profit of US\$1 billion in local service. In June 2003, the government liquidated the state-owned and heavily indebted National Telecommunications Company (Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones---Telecom) and replaced it with Colombia Telecomunicaciones (Colombia Telecom). The measure enabled the industry to expand rapidly, and in 2004 it constituted 2.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Telefónica of Spain acquired 50 percent plus one share of the company in 2006. As a result of increasing competition, Colombia has a relatively modern telecommunications infrastructure that primarily serves larger towns and cities. Colombia\'s telecommunication system includes access to 8 different international Submarine cable systems, Intelsat, 11 domestic satellite Earth stations, and a nationwide microwave radio relay system. ## Telephones The country\'s teledensity (the density of telephone lines in a community) is relatively high for Latin America (17 percent in 2006). However, there is a steep imbalance between rural and urban areas, with some regions below 10 percent and the big cities exceeding 30 percent. Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali account for about 50 percent of telephone lines in use. By the end of 2005, the number of telephone main lines in use totaled 7,851,649. Colombia Telecom accounted for only about 31 percent of these lines; 27 other operators accounted for the rest. Colombia\'s mobile market is one of the fastest-growing businesses in the country. In 1993, the first mobile phone call was made. In mid-2004 mobile telephones overtook fixed lines in service for the first time. By 2005 Colombia had the highest mobile phone density (90 percent) in Latin America, as compared with the region\'s average density of 70 percent. The number of mobile telephone subscribers totaled an estimated 31 million in 2007, as compared to 21.8 million in 2005 and 6.8 million in 2001. ## Radio and television {#radio_and_television} In late 2004, Radio Televisión Nacional de Colombia (RTVC) replaced the liquidated Inravisión (Instituto Nacional de Radio y Televisión) as the government-run radio and television broadcasting service, which oversees three national television stations and five radio companies (which operate about a dozen principal networks). Colombia has about 60 television stations, including seven low-power stations. In 2000 the population had about 11.9 million television receivers in use. Of the approximately 515 radio stations, 454 are AM; 34, FM; and 27, shortwave. ## Undersea Cables {#undersea_cables} As of 2016, Colombia has access to the following international Submarine cable systems: SAC/LAN, Maya-1, AMX-1, Pan Am, SAm-1, ARCOS-1, CFX-1, and PCCS. These cables land at 4 locations in the Caribbean: Barranquilla, Cartagena, Riohacha, and Tolu. One cable lands on the Pacific Ocean coast at Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca. ## Internet Colombia is still far behind Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina in terms of online usage. It had an estimated total of 900,000 Internet subscribers by the end of 2005, a figure that equated to 4,739,000 Internet users, or 11.5 percent of the 2005 population (10.9 per 100 inhabitants). By late 2009 39% of households had internet access Colombia had 581,877 Internet hosts in 2006. Although as many as 70 percent of Colombians accessed the Internet over their ordinary telephone lines, dial-up access is losing ground to broadband. In 2005 Colombia had 345,000 broadband subscriber lines, or one per 100 inhabitants. In 2006 the number of personal computers per 1,000 people increased to an estimated 87 per 1,000 inhabitants, a rate still below that in other large Latin American economies. The internet country code is .co.

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5,841

Transport in Colombia

**Transport in Colombia** is regulated by the Ministry of Transport. Road travel is the main means of transport; 69 percent of cargo is transported by road, as compared with 27 percent by railroad, 3 percent by internal waterways, and 1 percent by air. ## History ### Indigenous peoples influence {#indigenous_peoples_influence} The indigenous peoples in Colombia used and some continue to use the waterways as the way of transportation using rafts and canoes. ### Spanish influence {#spanish_influence} With the arrival of the Europeans the Spaniards brought the horses, mules and donkey (which developed into the *Paso Fino*) used by them in ranching duties later in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Horses contributed greatly to the transport of the Spanish conquerors and colonizers. They also introduced the wheel, and brought wooden carts and carriages to facilitate their transport. The Spaniards also developed the first roads, rudimentary and most of these in the Caribbean region. Due to the rough terrain of Colombia communications between regions was difficult and affected the effectiveness of the central government creating isolation in some regions. Maritime navigation developed locally after Spain lifted its restrictions on ports within the Spanish Empire inducing mercantilism. Spanish also transported African slaves and forcedly migrated many indigenous tribes throughout Colombia. ### Post-independence {#post_independence} With the independence and the influences of the European Industrial Revolution the main way of transport in Colombia became the navigation mainly through the Magdalena River which connected Honda in inland Colombia, with Barranquilla by the Caribbean Sea to the trade with the United States and Europe. This also brought a large wave of immigrants from European and Middle Eastern countries. The industrialization process and transportation in Colombia were affected by the internal civil wars that surged after the independence from Spain and that continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. ### Standardization During the late 19th century European and American companies introduced railways to carry to the ports the local production of raw materials intended for exports and also imports from Europe. Steam ships began carrying Colombians, immigrants and goods from Europe and the United States over the Magdalena River. The Ministry of Transport was created in 1905 during the presidency of Rafael Reyes under the name of *Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transporte* or Ministry of Public Works and Transport with the main function of taking care of national assets issues, including mines, oil (fuel), patents and trade marks, railways, roads, bridges, national buildings and land without landowners. In the early 20th century roads and highways maintenance and construction regulations were established. Rivers were cleaned, dragged and channeled and the navigational industry was organized. The Public works districts were created, as well as the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Colombia (National Railways of Colombia). Among other major projects developed were the aqueduct of Bogotá, La Regadera Dam and the Vitelma Water Treatment Plant. The Ministry also created the National Institute of Transit (from the Spanish *Instituto Nacional de Tránsito*), (INTRA) under the Transport and tariffs Directorate and was in charge of designing the first National roads plan with the support of many foreign multinational construction companies. Aviation was born in Barranquilla with the creation of SCADTA in 1919 a joint venture between Colombians and Germans that delivered mail to the main cities of Colombia which later merged with SACO to form Avianca. ## Infrastructure ### Railways Colombia has 3,034 km of rail lines, 150 km of which are `{{RailGauge|1435mm}}`{=mediawiki} gauge and 3,154 km of which are `{{RailGauge|914mm}}`{=mediawiki} gauge. However, only 2,611 km of lines are still in use. Rail transport in Colombia remains underdeveloped. The national railroad system, once the country\'s main mode of transport for freight, has been neglected in favor of road development and now accounts for only about a quarter of freight transport. Passenger-rail use was suspended in 1992 resumed at the end of the 1990s, and as of 2017 it is considered abandoned (at least for long distances). Fewer than 165,000 passenger journeys were made in 1999, as compared with more than 5 million in 1972, and the figure was only 160,130 in 2005. The two still-functioning passenger trains are: one between Puerto Berrío and García Cadena, and another one between Bogotá and Zipaquirá. Short sections of railroad, mainly the Bogotá-Atlantic rim, are used to haul goods, mostly coal, to the Caribbean and Pacific ports. In 2005 a total of 27.5 million metric tons of cargo were transported by rail. Although the nation\'s rail network links seven of the country\'s 10 major cities, very little of it has been used regularly because of security concerns, lack of maintenance, and the power of the road transport union. During 2004--6, approximately 2,000 kilometers of the country\'s rail lines underwent refurbishment. This upgrade involved two main projects: the 1,484-kilometer line linking Bogotá to the Caribbean Coast and the 499-kilometer Pacific coastal network that links the industrial city of Cali and the surrounding coffee-growing region to the port of Buenaventura. ### Roads The three main north--south highways are the Caribbean, Eastern, and Central Trunk Highways (troncales). Estimates of the length of Colombia\'s road system in 2004 ranged from 115,000 kilometers to 145,000 kilometers, of which fewer than 15 percent were paved. However, according to 2005 data reported by the Colombian government, the road network totaled 163,000 kilometers, 68 percent of which were paved and in good condition. The increase may reflect some newly built roads. President Uribe has vowed to pave more than 2,500 kilometers of roads during his administration, and about 5,000 kilometers of new secondary roads were being built in the 2003--6 period. Despite serious terrain obstacles, almost three-quarters of all cross-border dry cargo is now transported by road, 105,251 metric tons in 2005. Highways are managed by the Colombian Ministry of Transport through the National Roads Institute. The security of the highways in Colombia is managed by the Highway Police unit of the Colombian National Police. Colombia is crossed by the Panamerican Highway. ### Ports, waterways, and merchant marine {#ports_waterways_and_merchant_marine} Seaports handle around 80 percent of international cargo. In 2005 a total of 105,251 metric tons of cargo were transported by water. Colombia\'s most important ocean terminals are Barranquilla, Cartagena, and Santa Marta on the Caribbean Coast and Buenaventura and Tumaco on the Pacific Coast. Exports mostly pass through the Caribbean ports of Cartagena and Santa Marta, while 65 percent of imports arrive at the port of Buenaventura. Other important ports and harbors are Bahía de Portete, Leticia, Puerto Bolívar, San Andrés, Santa Marta, and Turbo. Since privatization was implemented in 1993, the efficiency of port handling has increased greatly. Privatization, however, has had negative impacts as well. In Buenaventura, for example, privatization of the harbor has increased unemployment and social issues. There are plans to construct a deep-water port at Bahía Solano. The main inland waterways total about 18,200 kilometers, 11,000 kilometers of which are navigable by riverboats. A well-developed and important form of transport for both cargo and passengers, inland waterways transport approximately 3.8 million metric tons of freight and more than 5.5 million passengers annually. Main inland waterways are the Magdalena--Cauca River system, which is navigable for 1,500 kilometers; the Atrato, which is navigable for 687 kilometers; the Orinoco system of more than five navigable rivers, which total more than 4,000 kilometers of potential navigation (mainly through Venezuela); and the Amazonas system, which has four main rivers totaling 3,000 navigable kilometers (mainly through Brazil). The government is planning an ambitious program to more fully utilize the main rivers for transport. In addition, the navy\'s riverine brigade has been patrolling waterways more aggressively in order to establish safer river transport in the more remote areas in the south and east of the country. The merchant marine totals 17 ships (1,000 gross registered tons or more), including four bulk, 13 cargo, one container, one liquefied gas, and three petroleum tanker ships. Colombia also has seven ships registered in other countries (Antigua and Barbuda, two; Panama, five). ### Civil Aviation {#civil_aviation} 180px\|thumb\|Vehicles on the El Dorado Airport platform The Special Administrative Unit of Civil Aeronautics is responsible of regulating and controlling the use of air space by civil aviation. The customs/immigration issues are controlled by the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS). Colombia has well-developed air routes and an estimated total of 984 airports, 100 of which have paved runways, plus two heliports. Of the 74 main airports, 20 can accommodate jet aircraft. Two airports are more than 3,047 meters in length, nine are 2,438--3,047 meters, 39 are 1,524--2,437 meters, 38 are 914--1,523 meters, 12 are shorter than 914 meters, and 880 have unpaved runways. The government has been selling its stake in local airports in order to allow their privatization. The country has 40 regional airports, and the cities of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Cartagena, Cúcuta, Leticia, Pereira, Armenia, San Andrés, and Santa Marta have international airports. Bogotá\'s El Dorado International Airport handles 550 million metric tons of cargo and 22 million passengers a year, making it the largest airport in Latin America in terms of cargo and the third largest in passenger numbers. ### Urban transport {#urban_transport} Urban transport systems have been developed in Barranquilla, Bogotá, Cali, and Medellín. Traffic congestion in Bogotá had been greatly exacerbated by a lack of rail transport; however, this problem was alleviated, to a degree, by the formation of one of the world\'s most expansive and highest-capacity bus rapid transit (BRT) systems---known as the TransMilenio (opened 2000)---and the restriction of vehicles through a daily, rotating ban on private cars (depending on plate numbers). Bogotá\'s BRT consists of bus and minibus services managed by both private- and public-sector enterprises. Since 1995, Medellín has had a modern urban railway, the Metro de Medellín, utilizing two train lines with 27 stations. The Metro also connects with the cities of Itagüí, Envigado, and Bello. An elevated gondola-cablecar system, the *Metrocable*, opened in 2004 to improve Metro accessibility for some of the city\'s more isolated, dense *barrios*. The gondola design was specifically chosen due to the mountainous geography of the city, with most of the neighborhoods served being reasonably higher in elevation from the city center. A BRT line called Transmetro began operating in 2011, with a second line added in 2013. Other Colombian cities have also installed BRT systems, such as Cali, with a six-line system (opened 2008), Barranquilla with two lines (opened 2010), Bucaramanga with one line (opened 2010), Cartagena with one line (opened 2015) and Pereira, with three lines (opened 2006). A future light rail line in Barranquilla is planned. ### Pipelines Colombia has 4,350 kilometers of gas pipelines, 6,134 kilometers of oil pipelines, and 3,140 kilometers of refined-products pipelines. The country has five major oil pipelines, four of which connect with the Caribbean export terminal at Puerto Coveñas. Until at least September 2005, the United States funded efforts to help protect a major pipeline, the 769-kilometer-long Caño Limón--Puerto Coveñas pipeline, which carries about 20 percent of Colombia\'s oil production to Puerto Coveñas from the guerrilla-infested Arauca region in the eastern Andean foothills and Amazonian jungle. The number of attacks against pipelines began declining substantially in 2002. In 2004 there were only 17 attacks against the Caño Limón--Puerto Coveñas pipeline, down from 170 in 2001. However, a bombing in February 2005 shut the pipeline for several weeks, and attacks against the electrical gird system that provides energy to the Caño Limón oilfield have continued. New oil pipeline projects with Brazil and Venezuela are underway. In addition, the already strong cross-border trade links between Colombia and Venezuela were solidified in July 2004 with an agreement to build a US\$320 million natural gas pipeline between the two countries, to be completed in 2008.

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5,843

Military Forces of Colombia

The **Military Forces of Colombia** (*links=no*) are the unified armed forces of the Republic of Colombia. They consist of the Colombian Army, the Colombian Navy and the Colombian Aerospace Force. The National Police of Colombia, although technically not part of the military, is controlled and administered by the Ministry of National Defence, and national conscription also includes service in the National Police, thus making it a *de facto* gendarmerie and a branch of the military. The President of Colombia is the military\'s commander in chief, and helps formulate defense policy through the Ministry of National Defence, which is in charge of day-to-day operations. The Military Forces of Colombia have their roots in the Army of the Commoners (*Ejército de los Comuneros*), which was formed on 7 August 1819 -- before the establishment of the present day Colombia -- to meet the demands of the Revolutionary War against the Spanish Empire. After their triumph in the war, the Army of the Commoners disbanded, and the Congress of Angostura created the Gran Colombian Army to replace it, thus establishing the first military service branch of the country. The Colombian military was operationally involved in World War II and was the only Latin American country to send troops to the Korean War. Ever since the advent of the Colombian Conflict, the Colombian military has been involved in combat, pacification, counter-insurgency, and drug interdiction operations all over the country\'s national territory. Recently it has participated in counter-piracy efforts in the Horn of Africa under Operation Ocean Shield and Operation Atalanta. The military of Colombia is the third largest in the Western Hemisphere in terms of active personnel and has the fourth largest expenditure in the Americas, behind the United States Armed Forces, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Brazilian Armed Forces respectively. ## Services The Colombian Constitution includes two overlapping definitions of what could be defined as \'armed forces\' in English: - The Public Force (*La Fuerza Pública*): Includes the Military Forces proper **and** the National Police (Title VII, chapter VII, Art. 216) - The Military Forces (*Las Fuerzas Militares*): Includes only the 3 major military service branches: Army, Navy and Aerospace Force (Title VII, chapter VII, Art. 217) This is a subtle yet important distinction, both in terms of emphasizing the civil nature of the National Police, but also adapting the national police to function as a paramilitary force which can perform military duties as a result of the Colombian Conflict. This has led to some of the most important police units adopting military training and conducting special operations alongside the Colombian Army, Aerospace Force, and Navy. Therefore, the functions of the Colombian Police in practical terms are similar to those of a gendarmerie, like the Spanish Civil Guard and the Carabineros de Chile, which maintain military ranks for all police personnel. ## Personnel The Colombian armed forces consist of:\ Military Forces: - Colombian Army - Colombian Navy -- and attached services Marines and Colombian Coast Guard - Colombian Aerospace Force And, - National Police of Colombia Public Force strength as of April 2014. ----------- --------------------------- -------------- ----------- **Force** **Service** **Officers** **Total** Military Colombian Army 10,094 246,325 Military Colombian Navy 2,481 33,824 Military Colombian Aerospace Force 2,679 13,928 Public Colombian National Police 6,924 176,557 Total 22,178 470, 634 ----------- --------------------------- -------------- ----------- ### Dependencies - Military Medical Corps (\'*Sanidad Militar*\') -- Medical and Nurse Corps - Indumil (*Industrias Militares -- INDUMIL*) -- Military Industry Depot - Military Sports Federation (*Federación Deportiva Militar -- FEDECODEMIL*) - Military Printing (*Imprenta Militar*) - Military Museum (*Museo Militar*) -- History of the Armed Forces of Colombia - Superior War College (Escuela Superior de Guerra (Colombia) ESDEGUE) ## Funding In 2000, Colombia assigned 3.9% of its GDP to defense. By 2008 this figure had risen to 4.8%, ranking it 14th in the world. The armed forces number about 250,000 uniformed personnel: 145,000 military and 105,000 police. These figures do not include assistance personnel such as cooks, medics, mechanics, and so on. This makes the Colombian military one of the largest and most well-equipped in Latin America. Many Colombian military personnel have received military training assistance directly in Colombia and also in the United States. The United States has provided equipment and financing to the Colombian military and police through the military assistance program, foreign military sales, and the international narcotics control program, all currently united under the auspices of Plan Colombia. ## Rank Insignia {#rank_insignia} : <File:Colombian> Air Force Sikorsky UH-60L Arpía III (S-70A-41) Ramírez-1.jpg\|Colombian Aerospace Force Sikorsky UH-60L Arpía III (S-70A-41) just after having launched several flares. <File:Infantes> de marina colombia.JPG\|Colombian Marines <File:Arc> fragata caldas.jpg\|Colombian Navy Frigate ARC Caldas <File:Special> Forces Colombia.jpg\|Colombian Special Forces soldiers <File:ARC> Almirante Padilla.jpg\|A vessel of the Colombian Navy

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5,844

History of Colombia

The **history of Colombia** includes its settlement by indigenous peoples and the establishment of agrarian societies, notably the Muisca Confederation, Quimbaya Civilization, and Tairona Chiefdoms. The Spanish arrived in 1499 and initiated a period of annexation and colonization, ultimately creating the Viceroyalty of New Granada, with its capital at Bogotá. Independence from Spain was won in 1819, but by 1830 the resulting \"Gran Colombia\" Federation was dissolved. What is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada. The new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation (1858) and then the United States of Colombia (1863) before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. A period of constant political violence ensued, and Panama seceded in 1903. Since the 1960s, the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict which escalated in the 1990s but decreased from 2005 onward. The legacy of Colombia\'s history has resulted in a rich cultural heritage, and Colombia\'s geographic and climatic variations have contributed to the development of strong regional identities. ## Pre-Colombian {#pre_colombian} From approximately 12,000 years BP onwards, hunter-gatherer societies existed near present-day Bogotá (at El Abra and Tequendama), and they traded with one another and with cultures living in the Magdalena River valley. Due to its location, the present territory of Colombia was a corridor of early human migration from Mesoamerica and the Caribbean to the Andes and the Amazon basin. The oldest archaeological finds are from the Pubenza archaeological site and El Totumo archaeological site in the Magdalena Valley 100 km southwest of Bogotá. These sites date from the Paleoindian period (18.000--8000 BCE). At Puerto Hormiga archaeological site and other sites, traces from the Archaic period in South America (\~8000--2000 BCE) have been found. Vestiges indicate that there was also early occupation in the regions of El Abra, Tibitó and Tequendama in Cundinamarca. The oldest pottery discovered in the Americas, found at the San Jacinto archaeological site, dates to 5000--4000 BCE. Indigenous people inhabited the territory that is now Colombia by 10.500 BCE. Nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes at the El Abra and Tequendama sites near present-day Bogotá traded with one another and with other cultures from the Magdalena River Valley. Serranía de la Lindosa, a mountainous region of Guaviare Department, is known for an extensive prehistoric rock art site which stretches for nearly eight miles. Some authors have argued that the site depicts now extinct animals such as horses, gomphotheres and ground sloths and that it was painted around 12,600 years ago, but other authors have argued that the drawings depict modern (including domestic) animals and were created in the last 500 years after European contact. Between 5000 and 1000 BCE, hunter-gatherer tribes transitioned to agrarian societies; fixed settlements were established, and pottery appeared. Beginning in the 1st millennium BCE, groups of Amerindians including the Muisca, Quimbaya, Tairona, Calima, Zenú, Tierradentro, San Agustín, Tolima and Urabá became skilled in farming, mining and metalcraft; and some developed the political system of *cacicazgos* with a pyramidal structure of power headed by caciques. The Muisca inhabited mainly the area of what is now the Departments of Boyacá and Cundinamarca high plateau (*Altiplano Cundiboyacense*) where they formed the Muisca Confederation. The Muisca had one of the most developed political systems (Muisca Confederation) in South America, surpassed only by the Incas. They farmed maize, potato, quinoa and cotton, and traded gold, emeralds, blankets, ceramic handicrafts, coca and especially salt with neighboring nations. The Tairona inhabited northern Colombia in the isolated Andes mountain range of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The Quimbaya inhabited regions of the Cauca River Valley between the Western and Central Ranges. The Incas expanded their empire on the southwest part of the country. During the 1200s, Malayo-Polynesians and Native Americans in Colombia made contact, thereby spreading Native American genetics from Precolonial Colombia to some Pacific Ocean islands. Muisca raft Legend of El Dorado Offerings of gold.jpg\|The *zipa* used to cover his body in gold, and. from his Muisca raft. He offered treasures to the *Guatavita* goddess in the middle of the sacred lake. This old Muisca tradition became the origin of the *El Dorado* legend. Museo del Oro Zenú Bogota mod.jpg\|A lowland Zenú cast-gold bird ornament that served as a staff head. dated 490 CE. This culture used alloys with a high gold content. The crest of the bird consists of the typical Zenú semi-filigree. Regular filigree is braided wire, but the Zenú cast theirs. Taironapendants metropolitan 2006.jpg\|Tairona figure pendants in gold Cacique Quimbaya de oro (M. América, Madrid) 01.jpg\|Golden statuette of a Quimbaya *cacique* Parque Arqueológico de San Agustín - tomb of a deity with supporting warriors.jpg\|San Agustín Archaeological Park (UNESCO World Heritage Site) contains the largest collection of religious monuments and megalithic sculptures in Latin America, and is considered the world\'s largest necropolis. Lost City Ruins.jpg\|Ciudad Perdida is a major settlement believed to have been founded around 800 CE. It consists of a series of 169 terraces carved into the mountainside, a net of tiled roads and several small circular plazas. The entrance can only be accessed by a climb up some 1,200 stone steps through dense jungle. Villa de Leyva el infiernito.jpg\|El Infiernito, a pre-Columbian archaeoastronomical site located on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the outskirts of Villa de Leyva ## Colonial Period {#colonial_period} ### Pre-Columbian history {#pre_columbian_history} *Main article: Spanish conquest of New Granada, Spanish conquest of the Muisca* Europeans first visited the territory that became Colombia in 1499 when the first expedition of Alonso de Ojeda arrived at the Cabo de la Vela. The Spanish made several attempts to settle along the north coast of today\'s Colombia in the early 16th century, but their first permanent settlement, at Santa Marta, dates from 1525. The Spanish commander Pedro de Heredia founded Cartagena on June 1, 1533, in the former location of the indigenous Caribbean Calamarí village. Cartagena grew rapidly, fueled first by the gold in the tombs of the Sinú culture, and later by trade. The thirst for gold and land lured Spanish explorers to visit Chibchan-speaking areas; resulting in the Spanish conquest of the Chibchan Nations - the conquest by the Spanish monarchy of the Chibcha language-speaking nations, mainly the Muisca and Tairona who inhabited present-day Colombia, beginning the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The Spanish advance inland from the Caribbean coast began independently from three different directions, under Jimenéz de Quesáda, Sebastián de Benalcázar (known in Colombia as Belalcázar), and Nikolaus Federmann. Although the Indian treasures drew all three, none intended to reach the Muisca territory where they finally met. In August 1538, Quesáda founded Santa Fe de Bogotá on the site of Muisca village of Bacatá. In 1549, the institution of the Spanish Royal Audiencia in Bogotá gave that city the status of capital of New Granada, which comprised in large part what is now the territory of Colombia. As early as the 1500s, however, secret anti-Spanish discontentment was already brewing for Colombians since Spain prohibited direct trade between the Viceroyalty of Peru, which included Colombia, and the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which included the Philippines, the source of Asian products like silk and porcelain which was in demand in the Americas. Illegal trade between Peruvians, Filipinos, and Mexicans continued in secret, as smuggled Asian goods ended up in Córdoba, Colombia, the distribution center for illegal Asian imports, due to the collusion between these peoples against the authorities in Spain. They settled and traded with each other while disobeying the forced Spanish monopoly in more expensive silks and porcelain made in homeland Spain. In 1717, the Viceroyalty of New Granada was originally created, and then it was temporarily removed, to finally be reestablished in 1739. Felipe Salonga a rebel Filipino who mixed Christianity with Islam and was from the formerly Muslim kingdom Manila and who was implicated in the Tondo Conspiracy, was presumably exiled to the location of what is now the Viceroyalty of New Granada (Named after a formerly Islamic kingdom in Spain) in the Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada he fomented opposition against Spain among the oppressed Native Americas. The viceroyalty had Santa Fé de Bogotá as its capital. This viceroyalty included some other provinces of northwestern South America which had previously been under the jurisdiction of the viceroyalties of New Spain or Peru and correspond mainly to today\'s Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. Bogotá became one of the principal administrative centers of the Spanish possessions in the New World, along with Lima and Mexico City. ## Gran Colombia: independence re-claimed {#gran_colombia_independence_re_claimed} From then on, the long independence struggle was led mainly by Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander in neighboring Venezuela. Bolívar returned to New Granada only in 1819 after establishing himself as leader of the pro-independence forces in the Venezuelan *llanos*. From there he led an army over the Andes and captured New Granada after a quick campaign that ended at the Battle of Boyacá on August 7, 1819. (*For more information. see Military career of Simón Bolívar*.) That year, the Congress of Angostura established the Republic of Gran Colombia, which included all territories under the jurisdiction of the former Viceroyalty of New Granada. Bolívar was elected the first president of Gran Colombia and Santander, vice president. As the Federation of Gran Colombia was dissolved in 1830, the Department of Cundinamarca (as established in Angostura) became a new country, the Republic of New Granada. Colombia was the first nation in the Andean area to believe that racial inferiority was the cause of many of its initial problems. Creoles in the country believed that non-white citizens, mainly Indians and Africans, were lazy and holding the nation back. This led to an attempt to make a homogenous society that reflected the so-called good qualities of white people. These ideals led to a long-lasting racial and geographical segregation. However, Colombia demonstrated a notable commitment to civil rights during the nineteenth century. The Colombian Constitution of 1863 made liberal promises for a broad range of civil rights, reflecting principles similar to those found in the United States Constitution, such as freedom of association, press, speech, religion, and due process. Colombia also abolished the death penalty during this time. Lastly, Colombian society embraced inclusivity, emphasizing that rights should be granted \"universally without notice of sex nor differences of color nor unjust preferences of fortune, nor distinctions of age\". ## The Republic: Liberal and Conservative conflict {#the_republic_liberal_and_conservative_conflict} In 1863 the name of the republic was changed officially to \"United States of Colombia,\" and in 1886 the country adopted its present name: \"Republic of Colombia\". Two political parties grew out of conflicts between the followers of Bolívar and Santander and their political visions---the Conservatives and the Liberals -- and have since dominated Colombian politics. Bolívar\'s supporters, who later formed the nucleus of the Conservative Party, sought strong centralized government, alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, and a limited franchise. Santander\'s followers, forerunners of the Liberals, wanted a decentralized government, state rather than church control over education and other civil matters, and a broadened suffrage. During the mid-19th century, Colombia embraced a vision of \"American republican modernity,\" which emphasized democratic republicanism, universal male suffrage, and civil rights as markers of progress, positioning the country as a leader in the Atlantic World. This period saw Colombia enact significant political reforms, such as the 1853 Constitution, which eliminated property and literacy requirements for voting, making it one of the most democratic nations of its time. However, by the 1880s, Colombia shifted toward Western industrial modernity, prioritizing economic development and state centralization over the earlier focus on political rights, leading to the adoption of the 1886 Constitution and the end of its republican experiment. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, each party held the presidency for roughly equal periods of time. Colombia maintained a tradition of civilian government and regular, free elections. The military has seized power three times in Colombia\'s history: in 1830, after the dissolution of Great Colombia; again in 1854 (by General José María Melo); and from 1953 to 1957 (under General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla). Civilian rule was restored within one year in the first two instances. Notwithstanding the country\'s commitment to democratic institutions, Colombia\'s history has also been characterized by widespread, violent conflict. Two civil wars resulted from bitter rivalry between the Conservative and Liberal parties. The Thousand Days\' War (1899--1902) cost an estimated 100.000 lives, and up to 300.000 people died during \"La Violencia\" of the late 1940s and 1950s, a bipartisan confrontation which erupted after the assassination of Liberal popular candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. United States activity to influence the area (especially the Panama Canal construction and control) led to a military uprising in the Isthmus Department in 1903, which resulted in the separation and independence of Panama. A military coup in 1953 toppled the right-wing government of Conservative Laureano Gómez and brought General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla to power. Initially, Rojas enjoyed considerable popular support, due largely to his success in reducing \"La Violencia.\" When he did not restore democratic rule and occasionally engaged in open repression, however, he was overthrown by the military in 1957 with the backing of both political parties, and a provisional government was installed. ## The National Front regime (1958--1974) {#the_national_front_regime_19581974} In July 1957, former Conservative President Laureano Gómez (1950--1953) and former Liberal President Alberto Lleras (1945--1946. 1958--1962) issued the \"Declaration of Sitges,\" in which they proposed a \"National Front,\" whereby the Liberal and Conservative parties would govern jointly. The presidency would be determined by an alternating conservative and liberal president every 4 years for 16 years; the two parties would have parity in all other elective offices. The National Front ended \"La Violencia,\" and National Front administrations attempted to institute far-reaching social and economic reforms in cooperation with the Alliance for Progress. In particular, the Liberal president Alberto Lleras Camargo (1958--1962) created the Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (INCORA), and Carlos Lleras Restrepo (1966--1970) further developed land entitlement. In 1968 and 1969 alone, the INCORA issued more than 60.000 land titles to farmers and workers. In the end, the contradictions between each successive Liberal and Conservative administration made the results decidedly mixed. Despite the progress in certain sectors, many social and political injustices continued. The National Front system itself eventually began to be seen as a form of political repression by dissidents and even many mainstream voters, and many protesters were victimized during this period. Especially after what was later confirmed as the fraudulent election of Conservative candidate Misael Pastrana in 1970, which resulted in the defeat of the relatively populist candidate and former president (dictator) Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. The M-19 guerrilla movement, \"Movimiento 19 de Abril\" (19 April Movement), would eventually be founded in part as a response to this particular event. The FARC was formed in 1964 by Manuel Marulanda Vélez and other Marxist--Leninist supporters after a military attack on the community of Marquetalia. Although the system established by the Sitges agreement was phased out by 1974, the 1886 Colombian constitution --- in effect until 1991---required that the losing political party be given adequate and equitable participation in the government, which, according to many observers and later analysis, eventually resulted in some increase in corruption and legal relaxation. The current 1991 constitution does not have that requirement, but subsequent administrations have tended to include members of opposition parties. ## Post-National Front {#post_national_front} From 1974 until 1982, different presidential administrations chose to focus on ending the persistent insurgencies that sought to undermine Colombia\'s traditional political system. Both groups claimed to represent the poor and weak against the rich and powerful classes of the country, demanding the completion of true land and political reform from an openly Communist perspective. By 1974, another challenge to the state\'s authority and legitimacy had come from 19th of April Movement (M-19), a mostly urban guerrilla group founded in response to an alleged electoral fraud during the final National Front election of Misael Pastrana Borrero (1970--1974) and the defeat of former dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Initially, the M-19 attracted a degree of attention and sympathy from mainstream Colombians that the FARC and National Liberation Army (ELN) had found largely elusive earlier due to extravagant and daring operations, such as stealing a sword that had belonged to Colombia\'s Independence hero Simon Bolívar. At the same time, its larger profile soon made it the focus of the state\'s counterinsurgency efforts. The ELN guerrilla had been seriously crippled by military operations in the region of Anorí by 1974, but it managed to reconstitute itself and escape destruction, in part due to the administration of Alfonso López Michelsen (1974--1978) allowing it to escape encirclement, hoping to initiate a peace process with the group. By 1982, the perceived passivity of the FARC, together with the relative success of the government\'s efforts against the M-19 and ELN, enabled the administration of the Liberal Party\'s Julio César Turbay (1978--1982) to lift a state-of-siege decree that had been in effect, on and off, for most of the previous 30 years. Under the latest such decree, president Turbay had implemented security policies that, though of some military value against the M-19 in particular, were considered highly questionable both inside and outside Colombian circles due to numerous accusations of military human rights abuses against suspects and captured guerrillas. Citizen exhaustion due to the conflict\'s newfound intensity led to the election of president Belisario Betancur (1982--1986), a Conservative who won 47% of the popular vote, directed peace feelers at all the insurgents, and negotiated a 1984 cease-fire with the FARC and M-19 after a 1982 release of many guerrillas imprisoned during the previous effort to overpower them. The ELN rejected entering any negotiation and continued to recover itself through the use of extortions and threats, in particular against foreign oil companies of European and U.S. origin. As these events were developing, the growing illegal drug trade and its consequences were also increasingly becoming a matter of widespread importance to all participants in the Colombian conflict. Guerrillas and newly wealthy drug lords had mutually uneven relations, and thus numerous incidents occurred between them. Eventually, the kidnapping of drug cartel family members by guerrillas led to the creation of the 1981 *Muerte a Secuestradores* (MAS) death squad (\"Death to Kidnappers\"). Pressure from the U.S. government and critical sectors of Colombian society was met with further violence, as the Medellín Cartel and its hitmen bribed or murdered numerous public officials, politicians and others who stood in its way by supporting the implementation of extradition of Colombian nationals to the U.S. Victims of cartel violence included Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara, whose assassination in 1984 made the Betancur administration begin to directly oppose the drug lords. The first negotiated cease-fire with the M-19 ended when the guerrillas resumed fighting in 1985, claiming that the cease-fire had not been fully respected by official security forces, saying that several of its members had suffered threats and assaults, and also questioning the government\'s real willingness to implement any accords. The Betancur administration, in turn, questioned the M-19\'s actions and its commitment to the peace process, as it continued to advance high-profile negotiations with the FARC, which led to the creation of the Patriotic Union (Colombia) (UP), a legal and non-clandestine political organization. On November 6, 1985, the M-19 stormed the Colombian Palace of Justice and held the Supreme Court magistrates hostage, intending to put president Betancur on trial. In the ensuing crossfire that followed the military\'s reaction, scores of people lost their lives, as did most of the guerrillas, including several high-ranking operatives. Both sides blamed each other for the outcome. Meanwhile, individual FARC members initially joined the UP leadership in representation of the guerrilla command, though most of the guerrilla\'s chiefs and militiamen did not demobilize nor disarm, as that was not a requirement of the process at that point in time. Tension soon significantly increased as both sides began to accuse each other of not respecting the cease-fire. Political violence against FARC and UP members (including presidential candidate Jaime Pardo) was blamed on drug lords and also on members of the security forces (to a much lesser degree on the argued inaction of Betancur administration). Members of the government and security authorities increasingly accused the FARC of continuing to recruit guerrillas. as well as kidnapping, extorting and politically intimidating voters even as the UP was already participating in politics. The Virgilio Barco (1986--1990) administration, in addition to continuing to handle the difficulties of the complex negotiations with the guerrillas, also inherited a particularly chaotic confrontation against the drug lords, who were engaged in a campaign of terrorism and murder in response to government moves in favor of their extradition overseas. The UP also suffered an increasing number of losses during this term (including the assassination of presidential candidate Bernardo Jaramillo), which stemmed both from private proto-paramilitary organizations, increasingly powerful drug lords and a number of would-be paramilitary-sympathizers within the armed forces. ## Post-1990 {#post_1990} Following administrations had to contend with the guerrillas, paramilitaries, narcotics traffickers and the violence and corruption that they all perpetuated, both through force and negotiation. Narcoterrorists assassinated three presidential candidates before César Gaviria was elected in 1990. Since the death of Medellín cartel leader Pablo Escobar in a police shootout in December 1993, indiscriminate acts of violence associated with that organization have abated as the \"cartels\" have broken up into multiple smaller and often-competing trafficking organizations. Nevertheless, violence continues as these drug organizations resort to violence as part of their operations but also to protest government policies, including extradition. The M-19 and several smaller guerrilla groups were successfully incorporated into a peace process as the 1980s ended and the 1990s began, which culminated in the elections for a Constituent Assembly of Colombia that would write a new constitution, which took effect in 1991. The new Constitution brought about a considerable number of institutional and legal reforms based on principles that the delegates considered as more modern, humanist, democratic and politically open than those in the 1886 constitution. Practical results were mixed and mingled emerged (such as the debate surrounding the constitutional prohibition of extradition, which later was reversed), but together with the reincorporation of some of the guerrilla groups to the legal political framework, the new Constitution inaugurated an era that was both a continuation and a gradual, but significant, departure from what had come before. Contacts with the FARC, which had irregularly continued despite the generalized de facto interruptions of the ceasefire and the official 1987 break from negotiations, were temporarily cut off in 1990 under the presidency of César Gaviria (1990--1994). The Colombian Army\'s assault on the FARC\'s *Casa Verde* sanctuary at La Uribe, Meta, followed by a FARC offensive that sought to undermine the deliberations of the Constitutional Assembly, began to highlight a significant break in the uneven negotiations carried over from the previous decade. President Ernesto Samper assumed office in August 1994. However, a political crisis relating to large-scale contributions from drug traffickers to Samper\'s presidential campaign diverted attention from governance programs, thus slowing, and in many cases, halting progress on the nation\'s domestic reform agenda. The military also suffered several setbacks in its fight against the guerrillas when several of its rural bases began to be overrun and a record number of soldiers and officers were taken prisoner by the FARC (which since 1982 was attempting to implement a more \"conventional\" style of warfare. seeking to eventually defeat the military in the field). On August 7, 1998, Andrés Pastrana was sworn in as the President of Colombia. A member of the Conservative Party, Pastrana defeated Liberal Party candidate Horacio Serpa in a run-off election marked by high voter turnout and little political unrest. The new president\'s program was based on a commitment to bring about a peaceful resolution of Colombia\'s longstanding civil conflict and to cooperate fully with the United States to combat the trafficking of illegal drugs. While early initiatives in the Colombian peace process gave reason for optimism, the Pastrana administration also has had to combat high unemployment and other economic problems, such as the fiscal deficit and the impact of global financial instability on Colombia. During his administration, unemployment has risen to over 20%. Additionally, the growing severity of countrywide guerrilla attacks by the FARC and ELN. and smaller movements, as well as the growth of drug production, corruption and the spread of even more violent paramilitary groups such as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) has made it difficult to solve the country\'s problems. Although the FARC and ELN accepted participation in the peace process, they did not make explicit commitments to end the conflict. The FARC suspended talks in November 2000, to protest what it called \"paramilitary terrorism\" but returned to the negotiating table in February 2001 following 2 days of meetings between President Pastrana and FARC leader Manuel Marulanda. The Colombian Government and ELN in early 2001 continued discussions aimed at opening a formal peace process. ## From 2004 and on {#from_2004_and_on} By 2004, the security situation of Colombia had shown improvement, and the economy, while still fragile, had also shown some positive signs. On the other hand, relatively little had been accomplished in structurally solving most of the country\'s other grave problems, in part due to legislative and political conflicts between the administration and the Colombian Congress (including those over the controversial 2006 project to give President Álvaro Uribe the right to be re-elected), and a relative lack of freely allocated funds and credits. In October 2006, Uribe was re-elected by a landslide. Some critical observers consider in retrospect that Uribe\'s policies, while admittedly reducing crime and guerrilla activity, were too slanted in favor of a military solution to Colombia\'s internal war, neglecting grave social and human rights concerns to a certain extent. They hoped that Uribe\'s government would make serious efforts towards improving the human rights situation inside the country, protecting civilians and reducing any abuses committed by the armed forces. Uribe\'s supporters in turn believed that increased military action was a necessary prelude to any serious negotiation attempt with the guerrillas and that the increased security situation would help the government, in the long term, to focus more actively on reducing most wide-scale abuses and human rights violations on the part of both the armed groups and any rogue security forces that might have links to the paramilitaries. In short, these supporters maintained that the security situation needed to be stabilized in favor of the government before any other social concerns could take precedence. In February 2010, the constitutional court blocked President Alvaro Uribe from seeking re-election again. Uribe left the presidency in 2010. In 2010, Juan Manuel Santos was elected president; he was supported by ex-president Uribe, and he owed his election mainly through having won over former Uribe supporters. But two years after winning the presidential election, Santos (to widespread surprise) began peace talks with FARC. which took place in Havana. Re-elected in 2014, Santos revived an important infrastructure program, which had been planned during the Uribe administration. Focused mainly on the provision of national highways, the program was led by former vice-president Germán Vargas Lleras. In 2015, Colombia\'s Congress limited presidency to single term, preventing the president from seeking re-election. Talks between the government and the guerrillas resulted in the announcement of a peace agreement. However, a referendum to ratify the deal was unsuccessful. Afterward, the Colombian government and the FARC signed a revised peace deal in November 2016, which the Colombian congress approved. In 2016, President Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The government began a process of attention and comprehensive reparation for victims of conflict. Colombia under President Santos showed some progress in the struggle to defend human rights, as expressed by HRW. A Special Jurisdiction of Peace was created to investigate, clarify, prosecute and punish serious human rights violations and grave breaches of international humanitarian law which occurred during the armed conflict and to satisfy victims\' right to justice. During his visit to Colombia, Pope Francis paid tribute to the victims of the conflict. In May 2018, Ivan Duque, the candidate of the conservative Centro Democrático (Democratic Centre), won the presidential election. On 7 August 2018, he was sworn in as the new president of Colombia. Colombia\'s relations with Venezuela have fluctuated due to the ideological differences between both governments. Colombia has offered humanitarian support with food and medicines to mitigate the shortage of supplies in Venezuela. Colombia\'s Foreign Ministry said that all efforts to resolve Venezuela\'s crisis should be peaceful. Colombia proposed the idea of the Sustainable Development Goals and a final document was adopted by the United Nations. In February 2019, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro cut diplomatic relations with Colombia after Colombian President Ivan Duque helped Venezuelan opposition politicians deliver humanitarian aid to their country. Colombia recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country\'s legitimate president. In January 2020, Colombia rejected Maduro\'s proposal that the two countries restore diplomatic relations. The 19 June 2022 election run-off vote ended in a win for former guerrilla Gustavo Petro, taking 50.47% of the vote compared to 47.27% of right-wing Rodolfo Hernández. The single-term limit for the country\'s presidency prevented president Iván Duque from seeking re-election. Petro became the country\'s first leftist president-elect. On 7 August 2022, he was sworn in.

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5,846

Geography of the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the north. It consists mostly of low hills and plateaus surrounded along the borders by low mountains. Two areas of lowlands follow the Elbe river and the Morava river. About a third of the area of the Czech Republic is covered by forests. The Czech Republic also possesses Moldauhafen, a 30,000 m^2^ enclave in the middle of Hamburg docks in Germany, which was awarded to Czechoslovakia by Article 363 of the Treaty of Versailles to allow the landlocked country a place where goods transported down river could be transferred to seagoing ships. This territory reverts to Germany in 2028. ## Physical geography {#physical_geography} ### Climate *Main article: Climate of the Czech Republic* The Czech Republic\'s climate is temperate, transitional between an oceanic climate and a continental climate. The summers are rather cool and dry, with average temperatures in most areas around 20 °C, the winters are fairly mild and wet with temperatures averaging around 0 °C in most areas. The relative humidity varies between 60% and 80%. #### Examples ### Geology Most of the area of the Czech Republic belongs to the geographically stable Bohemian Massif. Only an area of the Western Carpathians in the east of the country is younger, lifted during the Tertiary. Igneous rocks make up the base of the Bohemian Massif. Sedimentary rocks are mostly found in the north-eastern part of Bohemia with significant areas of sandstone. Among the metamorphic rocks, the most commonly found is Gneiss. ### Mountains The most notable mountain ranges in the Czech Republic are all found along the borders of the country. In Bohemia it is the Bohemian Forest and Ore Mountains, both bordering Germany. Then the long region of Sudetes with several mountains ranges, including Giant Mountains with Sněžka -- the highest peak of the Czech Republic. The last major mountain range is the Moravian-Silesian Beskids in the east. ### Rivers *Main article: Rivers of the Czech Republic* There are four major rivers in the Czech Republic. The Elbe (locally \"Labe\") flows from the Giant Mountains in the north east of Bohemia to the west and then through northern Germany all the way to the North Sea. The Morava River drains most of Moravia and flows to the south into the Danube and ultimately to the Black Sea. The Oder starts in the Moravian Silesia and flows north through Poland into the Baltic Sea. The fourth major river is the Vltava, which is the longest river of the Czech Republic and drains the southern part of Bohemia before flowing into the Elbe at Mělník. ### Bodies of water {#bodies_of_water} Natural occurring bodies of water are rather scarce; most of the significant bodies of water are man-made ponds and reservoirs. The largest pond is the Rožmberk Pond, which is one of the system of fish ponds built in the 16th century around Třeboň. The largest reservoir by area covered is the Lipno Reservoir (4,870 ha), built in the 1950s and the largest reservoir by volume is Orlík Reservoir (716 million m^3^), built around the same time. The largest and deepest natural lake is Černé jezero (18.4 ha). ## Human geography {#human_geography} ### Population geography {#population_geography} *Main article: Demographics of the Czech Republic* The population of the Czech Republic is estimated to be around 10.6 million. The highest population density is in the larger metropolitan area of Ostrava and of course in the area around the capital of Prague. The lowest population density is in the Czech-German and Czech-Austrian borderlands, mostly as a lasting result of the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after the World War II. ### Political geography {#political_geography} The Czech Republic is divided into thirteen regions and one capital city with regional status. The older administrative units of seventy-six districts are still recognized and remain the seats of various branches of state administration. Historically, the Czech Republic can be split into three regions: Bohemia in the west, Moravia in the east and Czech Silesia in the north east. ### Industry and agriculture {#industry_and_agriculture} Areas affected the most by heavy industry are the Sokolov Basin and the Most Basin in the north-west of the Czech Republic. The extensive deposits of brown coal in those areas are mostly used for electricity production. It is estimated, that almost 40% of all electric power produced in the Czech Republic comes from burning brown coal mined in these areas. Plant agriculture is focused around the lowlands surrounding the Elbe and the Morava. Around 34% of the country is covered by forests and approximately 37% of land is arable. The estimated area of irrigated land is 385 km^2^, and freshwater withdrawal per capita is around 164 m^3^ every year.

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5,848

Politics of the Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary republic, in which the president is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the Government of the Czech Republic, which reports to the Chamber of Deputies. The legislature is exercised by the Parliament. The Czech Parliament is bicameral: the upper house of the Parliament is the Senate, and the lower house is the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate consists of 81 members who are elected for six years. The Chamber of Deputies consists of 200 members who are elected for four years. The judiciary system is topped by the trio of the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court and Supreme Administrative Court. The highest legal document is the Constitution of the Czech Republic, complemented by constitutional laws and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. The current constitution went in effect on 1 January 1993, after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The Czech Republic has a multi-party system. Between 1993 and 2013, the two largest political parties were the centre-left Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) and centre-right Civic Democratic Party (ODS). This changed in early 2014, with the rise of a new major political party ANO 2011, which has since led two cabinets. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices the Czech Republic was 2023 the 16th most electoral democratic country in the world. ## Executive branch {#executive_branch} The president is the head of state, and the prime minister is the head of government. The majority of executive power is given to the Cabinet, which consists of the prime minister, deputy prime ministers and ministers (usually heads of the ministries). `{{office-table}}`{=mediawiki} \|President \|Petr Pavel \|Independent \|9 March 2023 \|- \|Prime Minister \|Petr Fiala \|Civic Democratic Party \|28 November 2021 \|} ### President The president of the Czech Republic is elected by a direct vote for five years. They can only serve for two terms. The president is a formal head of state with limited executive powers specified in the articles 54 to 66 of the Constitution: - to appoint or dismiss the prime minister and other members of the Cabinet - to appoint or dismiss the entire Cabinet - to confirm or decline a resignation of the prime minister and other members of the Cabinet - to summon a session of the Chamber of Deputies - to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies when specific conditions described in the Constitution are met - to pardon and mitigate penalties imposed by the court, order not to initiate criminal proceedings, suspend them if they are already initiated and to wipe previous criminal records - to declare the date of elections to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate - to bestow state honors - to appoint and promote generals - to appoint judges - to appoint the president and vice-president of the Supreme Audit Office - to appoint members of the Board of the Czech National Bank - to appoint or dismiss heads of diplomatic missions The president is also the commander in chief of the Armed Forces and ratifies all domestic laws and international agreements. ### Cabinet The Cabinet is the supreme executive body in the Czech Republic. It makes its decisions as a body. It is held responsible by the Chamber of Deputies. The president appoints every new prime minister, who then chooses the ministers. All ministers of the Cabinet need to be approved by the president and within thirty days after the presidential approval they must ask the Chamber of Deputies for a vote of confidence. #### Prime minister {#prime_minister} The prime minister is the head of government. The prime minister organizes the work of the Cabinet, presides over it and acts in its name. The prime minister sets the agenda for most foreign and domestic policies but has to obtain the president\'s approval to hire or dismiss any other member of the Cabinet. #### Ministers Ministers are any member of the Cabinet who are not the prime minister. They are usually the head of a ministry, but this is not required. A ministry -- sometimes called government department -- is a governmental organisation that manages a specific sector of public administration. The number of ministries varies depending on the particular Cabinet and is managed by the Competence Law. As of 2021, the Czech Republic had 13 ministers and 14 ministries.`{{Huh?|date=March 2023}}`{=mediawiki} ## Legislative branch {#legislative_branch} The Parliament (*Parlament* in Czech) consists of two houses. The lower house is the Chamber of Deputies, and the upper house is the Senate. \|President of the Chamber of Deputies \|Markéta Pekarová Adamová \|TOP 09 \|10 November 2021 \|- \|President of the Senate \|Miloš Vystrčil \|Civic Democratic Party \|19 February 2020 \|} ### Chamber of Deputies {#chamber_of_deputies} The Chamber of Deputies (*Poslanecká sněmovna* in Czech) has 200 members, elected for four-year terms by proportional representation with a 5% election threshold. The Chamber of Deputies elections happen every four years, unless the reigning Cabinet prematurely loses the Chamber of Deputies\' support. Candidates for every political party participating in the elections are split among 14 electoral districts, which are identical to the country\'s administrative regions. A citizen must be at least 21 years old to be eligible for candidacy. The Chamber of Deputies was formerly known as the Czech National Council. It has the same powers and responsibilities as the now-defunct Federal Assembly of the Czechoslovakia. ### Senate The Senate (*Senát* in Czech) has 81 members, each elected for a six-year term. Senate elections happen every two years and only a third of the seats is contested each time. All of the 81 Senate electoral districts are designed to contain roughly the same number of voters. The Senate elections use a two-round system, when the two most successful candidates from the first round face each other again in the second round usually a week later. Only citizens who have reached the age of 40 are eligible for candidacy. The senate\'s function is to be a stabilizing force and its influence is significantly lower than that of the Chamber of Deputies. ## Judicial branch {#judicial_branch} The Czech court system recognizes four categories of courts and the Constitutional Court, which stands outside of the court system. ### Constitutional Court {#constitutional_court} The Constitutional Court\'s main purpose is to protect people\'s constitutional rights and freedoms. The decisions of the court are final, cannot be overturned and are considered a source of law. The court is composed of 15 justices who are named for a renewable period of 10 years by the president and approved by the Senate. Its functionality is similar to that of the Supreme Court of the United States. ### Supreme courts {#supreme_courts} There are two supreme courts in the court system of the Czech Republic -- the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court. Both reside in Brno. #### Supreme Court {#supreme_court} The Supreme Court of the Czech Republic is the court of highest appeal for almost all legal cases heard in the Czech Republic. The justices of the Supreme Court analyze and evaluate legally effective decisions of lower courts. They unify the Czech judicature. #### Supreme Administrative Court {#supreme_administrative_court} The Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic protects people from unlawful decisions and procedures of the state authorities. It examines objections to elections and has the authority to ban or suspend the activity of political parties. It resolves competence disputes between governmental organizations and also serves as disciplinary court for other members of the judiciary. ### High courts {#high_courts} There are two high courts in the Czech Republic -- one in Prague and one in Olomouc . They serve as courts of appeal to Regional Courts in cases, where the Regional Court acted as a court of first instance. Presidents of the high courts are appointed by the president for seven years. The vice-presidents are appointed by the minister of justice and also serve a seven-year term. A justice is required by the law to have at least eight years of experience before becoming a member of a High Court. ### Regional courts {#regional_courts} Regional courts serve mainly as the courts of appeal to district courts and also as the only instance of administrative courts besides the Supreme Administrative Court. However, they can also act as courts of first instance in cases of more severe criminal charges, disputes between corporations or disputes over intellectual property. There are eight regional courts in the Czech Republic: in Brno, Ostrava, Hradec Králové, Ústí nad Labem, Plzeň, České Budějovice and two in Prague. ### District courts {#district_courts} District courts serve as the courts of first instance in almost all civil or criminal proceedings. There is a total of 86 district courts in the Czech Republic. Notaries and executors are appointed by the minister of justice to their jurisdictions. ## Regional government {#regional_government} The Czech Republic is divided in 14 administrative regions, including one for the capital of Prague. The older system of 73 administrative districts (*okresy* in Czech) and 4 municipalities was abandoned in 1999 in an administrative reform. Each of the regions has a regional council with a varied number of regional councilors and a president of the regional cabinet (*hejtman* in Czech) as its formal head. The capital of Prague is the only exception to this, as the City Council acts both as regional and municipal governing body and is led by a mayor. Regional councilors are elected for four-year terms similarly to deputies in the Chamber of Deputies. All adults eligible to vote are also eligible to be a candidate to a regional council. ## Composition of the Senate {#composition_of_the_senate} For the current composition of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic, see List of MPs elected in the 2017 Czech legislative election. `{{Composition of the Senate of the Czech Republic}}`{=mediawiki} ## Recent political developments {#recent_political_developments} From 1991, the Czech Republic, originally as part of Czechoslovakia and since 1993 in its own right, has been a member of the Visegrád Group and from 1995, the OECD. The Czech Republic joined NATO on 12 March 1999 and the European Union on 1 May 2004. On 21 December 2007 the Czech Republic joined the Schengen Area. Until 2017, either the Czech Social Democratic Party or the Civic Democratic Party led the governments of the Czech Republic. In October 2017, populist movement ANO 2011, led by the country\'s second-richest man, Andrej Babiš, won the elections with three times more votes than its closest rival, the centre-right Civic Democrats. In December 2017, Czech President Miloš Zeman appointed Andrej Babiš as the new prime minister. On 28 November 2021, Czech President Miloš Zeman appointed opposition leader Petr Fiala as the country\'s new prime minister. The centre-right coalition Spolu (meaning Together) won tightly contested legislative elections in October 2021 against Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and his right-wing populist ANO party. Babiš had sought re-election after four years in power. In January 2023, Former NATO general Petr Pavel won the election runoff over Andrej Babiš to succeed Miloš Zeman as the fourth president of the Czech Republic.

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Economy of the Czech Republic

The **economy of the Czech Republic** is a developed export-oriented social market economy based in services, manufacturing, and innovation that maintains a high-income welfare state and the European social model. The Czech Republic participates in the European Single Market as a member of the European Union, and is therefore a part of the economy of the European Union. It uses its own currency, the Czech koruna, instead of the euro. It is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The Czech Republic ranks 16th in inequality-adjusted human development and 24th in World Bank Human Capital Index, ahead of countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom or France. In 2019 it was described by *The Guardian* as \"one of Europe\'s most flourishing economies\", but in 2023 as \"sick man of Europe\" by Die Welt. The industry sector accounts for 37% of the economy, while services account for 61% and agriculture for 2%. The principal industries are high tech engineering, electronics and machine-building, steel production, transportation equipment (automotive, rail and aerospace industry), chemicals, advanced materials and pharmaceuticals. The major services are research and development, ICT and software development, nanotechnology and life sciences. Its main agricultural products are cereals, vegetable oils and hops. the Czech GDP per capita at purchasing power parity is \$50,961 and 698,706 Czech crowns (\$31,368) at nominal value. `{{As of|September 2021|post=,}}`{=mediawiki} the unemployment rate in the Czech Republic was the lowest in the EU at 2.6%, and the poverty rate is the second lowest of OECD members, following Denmark. The Czech Republic ranks 21st in the Index of Economic Freedom (ranked behind Chile), 30th in the Global Innovation Index (ranked behind UAE), 32nd in the Global Competitiveness Report, 41st in the ease of doing business index and 25th in the Global Enabling Trade Report (ranked behind Canada). The largest trading partner for both export and import is Germany, followed by other members of the EU. The Czech Republic has a highly diverse economy that ranks 7th in the 2019 Economic Complexity Index. ## History ### From industrialisation to communism (1800-1989) {#from_industrialisation_to_communism_1800_1989} The Czech lands were among the first industrialized countries in continental Europe during the German Confederation era. The Czech industrial tradition dates back to the 19th century, when the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were the economic and industrial heartland of the Austrian Empire and later the Austrian side of Austria-Hungary. The Czech lands produced a majority (about 70%) of all industrial goods in the Empire, some of which were almost monopolistic. After the First World War, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire collapsed and independent Czechoslovakia was created. Czechoslovakia had way too big industrial production for a small internal market and it missed the big market of the former Empire. The Czechoslovak crown was introduced in April 1919 at a 1:1 ratio to the Austro-Hungarian currency, it became one of the most stable currencies in Europe. It is a widespread myth among Czechs that the First Republic belonged to the 10 most developed economies of the world. In fact it had the 14th highest GDP per capita in the world. The Czech part (without Slovakia and Transcarpathia) had a similar GDP in the 1920s to Germany and Belgium, which was higher than that of the crisis-struck Austrian First Republic. The consequences of the 1938 Munich Agreement and subsequent Nazi Germany occupation were disastrous for the economy. After the occupation and forced subordination of the economy to Nazi German economic interests, the crown was officially pegged to the mark at a ratio of 1:10, even though the unofficial exchange rate was 1 to 6-7 and Germans immediately started buying Czech goods in large quantities. After the World War II and the Communist Coup d\'état were all the economies of the socialist countries tightly linked to that of the Soviet Union, in accordance with Stalin\'s development policy of planned interdependence. Czechoslovakia was the most prosperous country in the Eastern Bloc, however it was during the decades overtaken not only by Austria or Finland but also Southern European economies like that of Italy, Spain or Greece. ### 1989--1995 The \"Velvet Revolution\" in 1989, offered a chance for profound and sustained political and economic reform. With the disintegration of the communist economic alliance in 1991, Czech manufacturers lost their traditional markets among former communist countries in the east. Signs of economic resurgence began to appear in the wake of the shock therapy that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) labelled the \"*big bang*\" of January 1991. Since then, consistent liberalization and astute economic management has led to the removal of 95% of all price controls, low unemployment, a positive balance of payments position, a stable exchange rate, a shift of exports from former communist economic bloc markets to Western Europe, and relatively low foreign debt. Inflation has been higher than in some other countries -- mostly in the 10% range -- and the government has run consistent modest budget deficits. Two government priorities have been strict fiscal policies and creating a good climate for incoming investment in the republic. Following a series of currency devaluations, the crown has remained stable in relation to the US dollar. The Czech crown became fully convertible for most business purposes in late 1995. In order to stimulate the economy and attract foreign partners, the government has revamped the legal and administrative structure governing investment. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the country, till that point highly dependent on exports to the USSR, had to make a radical shift in economic outlook: away from the East, and towards the West. This necessitated the restructuring of existing banking and telecommunications facilities, as well as adjusting commercial laws and practices to fit Western standards. Further minimizing reliance on a single major partner, successive Czech governments have welcomed U.S. investment (amongst others) as a counterbalance to the strong economic influence of Western European partners, especially of their powerful neighbour, Germany. Although foreign direct investment (FDI) runs in uneven cycles, with a 12.9% share of total FDI between 1990 and March 1998, the U.S. was the third-largest foreign investor in the Czech economy, behind Germany and the Netherlands. The country boasts a flourishing consumer production sector and has privatized most state-owned heavy industries through the voucher privatization system. Under the system, every citizen was given the opportunity to buy, for a moderate price, a book of vouchers that represents potential shares in any state-owned company. The voucher holders could then invest their vouchers, increasing the capital base of the chosen company, and creating a nation of citizen share-holders. This is in contrast to Russian privatization, which consisted of sales of communal assets to private companies rather than share-transfer to citizens. The effect of this policy has been dramatic. Under communism, state ownership of businesses was estimated to be 97%. Privatization through restitution of real estate to the former owners was largely completed in 1992. By 1998, more than 80% of enterprises were in private hands. Now completed, the program has made Czechs, who own shares of each of the Czech companies, one of the highest per-capita share owners in the world. On the other hand, by the public is the voucher privatisation seen mostly as unfair and source of corruption. ### 1995--2000 {#section_1} The country\'s economic transformation was far from complete. Political and financial crises in 1997 shattered the Czech Republic\'s image as one of the most stable and prosperous of post-Communist states. Delays in enterprise restructuring and failure to develop a well-functioning capital market played major roles in Czech economic troubles, which culminated in a currency crisis in May. The formerly pegged currency was forced into a floating system as investors sold their Korunas faster than the government could buy them. This followed a worldwide trend to divest from developing countries that year. Investors also worried the republic\'s economic transformation was far from complete. Another complicating factor was the current account deficit, which reached nearly 8% of GDP. In response to the crisis, two austerity packages were introduced later in the spring (called vernacularly \"The Packages\"), which cut government spending by 2.5% of GDP. Growth dropped to 0.3% in 1997, −2.3% in 1998, and −0.5% in 1999. The government established a restructuring agency in 1999 and launched a revitalization program -- to spur the sale of firms to foreign companies. Key priorities included accelerating legislative convergence with EU norms, restructuring enterprises, and privatising banks and utilities. The economy, fueled by increased export growth and investment, was expected to recover by 2000. ### 2000--2005 {#section_2} Growth in 2000--05 was supported by exports to the EU, primarily to Germany, and a strong recovery of foreign and domestic investment. Domestic demand is playing an ever more important role in underpinning growth as interest rates drop and the availability of credit cards and mortgages increases. Current account deficits of around 5% of GDP are beginning to decline as demand for Czech products in the European Union increases. Inflation is under control. Recent accession to the EU gives further impetus and direction to structural reform. In early 2004 the government passed increases in the Value Added Tax (VAT) and tightened eligibility for social benefits with the intention to bring the public finance gap down to 4% of GDP by 2006, but more difficult pension and healthcare reforms will have to wait until after the next elections. Privatization of the state-owned telecommunications firm Český Telecom took place in 2005. Intensified restructuring among large enterprises, improvements in the financial sector, and effective use of available EU funds should strengthen output growth. ### 2005--2010 {#section_3} Growth continued in the first years of the EU membership. The credit portion of the 2008 financial crisis did not affect the Czech Republic much, mostly due to its stable banking sector which has learned its lessons during a smaller crisis in the late 1990s and became much more cautious. As a fraction of the GDP, the Czech public debt is among the smallest ones in Central and Eastern Europe. Moreover, unlike many other post-communist countries, an overwhelming majority of the household debt -- over 99% -- is denominated in the local Czech currency. That\'s why the country wasn\'t affected by the shrunken money supply in the U.S. dollars. However, as a large exporter, the economy was sensitive to the decrease of the demand in Germany and other trading partners. In the middle of 2009, the annual drop of the GDP for 2009 was estimated around 3% or 4.3%, a relatively modest decrease. The impact of the economic crisis may have been limited by the existence of the national currency that temporarily weakened in H1 of 2009, simplifying the life of the exporters. The Czech Republic has a well-educated population and a densely developed infrastructure. ### 2010--2019 {#section_4} Due to the Great Recession, Czech Republic was in stagnation or decreasing of GDP. Some commenters and economists criticising fiscally conservative policy of Petr Nečas\' right-wing government, especially criticising ex-minister of finance, Miroslav Kalousek. Miroslav Kalousek in a 2008 interview, as minister of finance in the center-right government of Mirek Topolánek, said \"Czech Republic will not suffer by financial crisis\". In September 2008, Miroslav Kalousek formed state budget with projection of 5% GDP increase in 2009. In 2009 and 2010, Czech Republic suffered strong economical crisis and GDP decreased by 4,5%. From 2009 to 2012, Czech Republic suffered highest state budget deficits in history of independent Czech Republic. From 2008 to 2012, the public debt of Czech Republic increased by 18,9%. Most decrease of industrial output was in construction industry (-25% in 2009, -15,5% in 2013). From 4Q 2009 to 1Q 2013, GDP decreased by 7,8%. In 2012, Czech government increased VAT. Basic VAT was increased from 20% in 2012 to 21% in 2013 and reduced VAT increased from 14% to 15% in 2013. Small enterprises sales decreased by 21% from 2012 to 2013 as result of increasing VAT. Patria.cz predicting sales stagnation and mild increase in 2013. Another problem is foreign trade. The Czech Republic is considered an export economy (the Czech Republic has strong machinery and automobile industries), however in 2013, foreign trade rapidly decreased which led to many other problems and increase of state budget deficit. In 2013, Czech National Bank, central bank, implemented controversial monetary step. To increase export and employment, CNB wilfully deflated Czech Crown (CZK), which inflation increased from 0.2% in November 2013, to 1.3% in 1Q 2014. In 2014, GDP in the Czech Republic increased by 2% and is predicted to increase by 2.7% in 2015. In 2015, Czech Republic\'s economy grew by 4,2% and it\'s the fastest growing economy in the European Union. On 29 May 2015, it was announced that growth of the Czech economy has increased from calculated 3,9% to 4,2%. In August 2015, Czech GDP growth was 4.4%, making the Czech economy the highest growing in Europe. On 9 November 2015, unemployment in the Czech Republic was at 5.9%, the lowest number since February 2009. On the other hand, the economy suffers from dividends being paid to the foreign owners of Czech companies (in 2016 worth CZK 289 billion). It is seen as a hurdle to catching up with the Western European economies and as a reason for salaries being only a third of neighbouring Germany or Austria. In 2019 it was described by *The Guardian* as \"one of Europe\'s most flourishing economies\" ### 2020-present The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic in the early 2020s as well as the European energy crisis caused by the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 hit the Czech economy hard. In 2023, the conservative German newspaper Die Welt called the Czech Republic \"Europe\'s sick man\" as it was the only country not to economically recover from the pandemic trap. Furthermore, the newspaper highlighting the danger of the Czech Republic being stuck in the middle-income trap, although it is labelled as high-income country by the World Bank since 2006. ## Adoption of Euro and EU funds {#adoption_of_euro_and_eu_funds} Since its accession to the European Union in 2004, the Czech Republic has adopted the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union and it is bound by the Treaty of Accession 2003 to adopt the Euro currency in the future. Although the Czech Republic is economically well positioned to adopt the euro, following the European debt crisis there has been considerable opposition among the public adoption of the euro currency. There is no target date by the government for joining the ERM II or adopting the euro. The cabinet that was formed following the 2017 legislative election did not plan to proceed with euro adoption within its term, and this policy was continued by the succeeding cabinet formed after the 2021 election. However, by the start of 2024, President Petr Pavel called on the government to take concrete steps in adopting the euro. The Czech Republic also receives €24.2bn between 2014 and 2020 from the European Structural and Investment Funds, however, this sum does not outweigh the amount of capital outflow of profits of foreign owned firms from the Czech Republic into other EU members, at which the funds are aimed to compensate for. ## Public policy {#public_policy} `{{Expand section|date=August 2017}}`{=mediawiki} `{{See also|Healthcare in the Czech Republic|Welfare in the Czech Republic|European social model}}`{=mediawiki} Social policy in the Czech Republic addresses issues such as healthcare, education, social welfare, housing and pensions. The government provides social assistance and benefits to vulnerable groups, including the elderly, disabled, and unemployed. These social safety nets help protect individuals and families against income loss and social risks. The Czech Republic has elements of the European social model in its welfare system and social policies. However, there are some aspect, where the Czech Republic differs from the model. The Czech Republic provides universal access to healthcare, and healthcare services are predominantly financed through compulsory health insurance contributions. The country has a well-developed healthcare system that aims to provide essential medical care to all citizens. The Czech Republic has labor market regulations in place to protect workers\' rights, ensure fair wages, and promote job security. However, labor market flexibility has increased in recent years, and the country has undertaken labor market reforms to enhance competitiveness. As of 2016, the Czech Republic has the second lowest poverty rate of OECD members only behind Denmark. The Czech healthcare system ranks 13th in the 2016 Euro health consumer index. ## Prague Stock Exchange {#prague_stock_exchange} The Czech economy also includes its capital market. In the case of the Czech Republic, it is the Prague Stock Exchange (PSE). (PSE). The Prague Stock Exchange is governed by the Capital Market Business Act and the stock exchange rules it sets itself. All of its activities are controlled by the Czech National Bank. The Vienna Stock Exchange is the majority shareholder of the Prague Stock Exchange. The Prague Stock Exchange has four main markets: - Prime Market - a market for trading the largest and most prestigious issues of shares of Czech and foreign companies (the market capitalization of the company should exceed EUR 1 million) - Standard Market - a market designed for trading large and prestigious issues of shares of Czech and foreign companies (Market Capitalization of the company should exceed EUR 1 million) - Free Market - a market admits to trading both investment instruments for which the issuer has requested admission to trading and investment instruments traded on other world exchanges which are admitted to trading without the issuer\'s consent - START Market - a market for smaller innovative companies (Small and Medium Enterprises) that wish to raise new capital or whose owners wish to partially or wholly exit their existing business to capitalise their existing operations The largest issue traded on the Prague Stock Exchange is the energy company ČEZ. The main activity of ČEZ is the sale of electricity, mainly generated from its own sources, and the related provision of support services to the electricity system. Other large issues on the Prague Stock Exchange\'s Prime Market include banking houses - Komerční banka, MONETA Money Bank and the dual listing of the Austrian company Erste Group Bank, under which the local bank Česká spořitelna falls; as well as Colt CZ Group focusing mainly on the production of firearms (traded on the Prague Stock Exchange from 2020). From the Standard market, the largest issue is Philip Morris ČR, the largest manufacturer and seller of tobacco products in the Czech Republic. On the START market, we find, for example, e-commerce companies Bezvavlasy and Pilulka Lékárny, leather manufacturer and processor KARO Leather or urban furniture manufacturer mmcité. ## Energy In Czech Republic energy production is diverse, with a mix of nuclear, coal, natural gas, and renewable sources. Nuclear power plays a significant role, while efforts to increase renewable usage are underway. The country aims to balance energy security, environmental concerns and sustainability in its energy policies. National objectives are to cut gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 (compared with 1990) and to construct one nuclear reactor at the current Dukovany NPP site by late 2030s. The Czech energy sector is largely built around two large nuclear plants and several smaller conventional coal power plants. Nuclear and coal power plants provide primarily baseload power at a high level of utilization, while gas fired units, reservoir hydro and pumped storage provide flexible generation. Recent rises in costs of carbon credits have made coal power plants almost financially inviable. in 2022, Czech gross electricity production reached 78.8 terawatt-hours (TWh), while domestic consumption was around 60.4 TWh. The Czech energy mix was made up of 53.60 percent fossil fuels (47.50 percent lignite, 5.86 percent natural gas, etc.), 40.95 percent nuclear power, and 5.46 percent renewables (3.34 percent biomass, 1.47 percent solar, 0.63 percent water, etc.). The first green hydrogen electrolyzer powered by solar energy in the Czech Republic started in May 2023 with production capacity of about 100 kilograms per day / 8,000 kilograms of green hydrogen per year. While the goal of EU funds is to support a sustainable low-carbon-emission economy and ensure energy security by utilizing alternative energies, the Czech approach is different. As described in the State Energy Policy, the future Czech energy mix will be primarily based on nuclear power with a goal of reaching 50 percent of the energy supply. Due to EU regulations, the share of coal energy will decrease but be largely replaced by both one (and possibly more) large nuclear reactors. The deployment of a series of small modular reactors is also under consideration by the Czechs. The share of alternative energies will grow but its potential for becoming the backbone of the energy sector is unclear. ## Statistical indicators {#statistical_indicators} ### Development of main indicators {#development_of_main_indicators} The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980--2017. Inflation under 2% is in green. +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ | Year | GDP\ | GDP per capita\ | GDP (in Bil. US\$ nominal) | GDP growth\ | Inflation rate\ | Unemployment\ | Government debt\ | | | (in Bil. US\$ PPP) | (in US\$ PPP) | | (real) | (in Percent) | (in Percent) | (in % of GDP) | +======+====================+=================+============================+=============+=================+===============+==================+ | 2015 | 340.6 | 32,318 | 209.1 | 5.3 % | 0.3 % | 5.0 % | 40.0 % | +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ | 2016 | 353.9 | 33,529 | 229.6 | 2.6 % | 0.7 % | 3.9 % | 36.8 % | +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ | 2017 | 375.7 | 35,512 | 208.9 | 4.3 % | 2.4 % | 2.9 % | 34.7 % | +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ | 2018 | 397.7 | 37,547 | 211.7 | 3.5 % | 2.3 % | 3.0 % | 32.9 % | +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ | 2019 | 418.7 | 39,478 | 209.4 | 3.0 % | 2.0 % | 3.2 % | 31.3 % | +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ | 2020 | 437.7 | 41,220 | 188.0 | 2.5 % | 2.0 % | 3.4 % | 29.4 % | +------+--------------------+-----------------+----------------------------+-------------+-----------------+---------------+------------------+ ### Background *From the CIA World Factbook 2017* **GDP (pp.):** \$353.9 billion (2016) **GDP (nom.):** \$195.3 billion (2016) **GDP Growth:** 2.6% (2016) **GDP per capita (pp.):** \$33,500 (2016) **GDP per capita (nom.):** \$18,487 (2016) **GDP by sector:** *Agriculture:* 2.5% *Industry:* 37.5% *Services:* 60% (2016) **Inflation:** 0.7% (2016) **Labour Force:** 5.427 million (2017) **Unemployment:** 2,3% (September 2018) **Industrial production growth rate:** 3.5% (2016) **Household income or consumption by percentage share:** (2015) - *lowest 10%:* 4.1% - *highest 10%:* 21.7% **Public Debt:** 34.2% GDP (2018) ### Trade and finance {#trade_and_finance} **Exports:** \$136.1 billion *Export goods:* machinery and transport equipment, raw materials, fuel, chemicals (2018) **Imports:** \$122.8 billion *Import goods:* machinery and transport equipment, raw materials and fuels, chemicals (2018) **Current Account balance:** \$2.216 billion (2018) **Export partners:** Germany 32.4%, Slovakia 8.4%, Poland 5.8%, UK 5.2%, France 5.2%, Italy 4.3%, Austria 4.2% (2016) **Import partners:** Germany 30.6%, Poland 9.6%, China 7.5%, Slovakia 6.3%, Netherlands 5.3%, Italy 4.1% (2016) **Reserves:** \$85.73 billion (31 December 2016) **Foreign Direct Investment:** \$139.6 billion (31 December 2016) **Czech Investment Abroad:** \$43.09 billion (31 December 2016) **External debt:** \$138 billion (31 December 2016) **Value of Publicly Traded Shares:** \$44.5 billion (31 December 2016) **Exchange rates:** - *koruny (Kč) per US\$1* -- 21.82 Kč (September 2018), 18.75 (December 2010), 18.277 (2007), 23.957 (2005), 25.7 (2004), 28.2 (2003), 32.7 (2002), 38.0 (2001), 38.6 (2001), 34.6 (1999), 32.3 (1998), 31.7 (1997), 27.1 (1996), 26.5 (1995) - *koruny (Kč) per EUR€1* -- 27.33 (May 2015), 25.06 (December 2010) ### IT and Telecommunications {#it_and_telecommunications} **Households with access to fixed and mobile telephone access** - *landline telephone* -- 25% (2009) - according to the Czech Statistical Office: 55,2% (2005); 31,1% (2008); 27,6% (2009); 24,2% (2010); 23,4% (2011); 21,8% (2012) - *mobile telephone* -- 94% (2009) - according to the Czech Statistical Office: 81,2% (2005); 92,4% (2008); 94,6% (2009); 95,6% (2010); 96,2% (2011); 97,0% (2012) **Individuals with mobile telephone access** - according to the Czech Statistical Office: 75,8% (2005); 90,6% (2009); 93,9% (2011); 96,0% (2012); 96,0% (2013) **Broadband penetration rate** - *fixed broadband* -- 19.1% (2010) - *mobile broadband* -- 3.5% (2010) **Individuals using computer and internet** - *computer* -- 67% (2009) - according to the Czech Statistical Office: 42,0% (2005); 59,2% (2009); 64,1% (2010); 67,1% (2011); 69,5% (2012); 70,2% (2013) - *internet* -- 80.9% (2019) - according to the Czech Statistical Office: 32,1% (2005); 55,9% (2009); 61,8% (2010); 65,5% (2011); 69,5% (2012); 70,4% (2013) ### Companies In 2022, the sector with the highest number of companies registered in Czech Republic is Services with 295,538 companies followed by Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate and Wholesale Trade with 189,308 and 95,142 companies respectively. ## International rankings {#international_rankings} ### Society and quality of life {#society_and_quality_of_life} thumb\|400px\|upright=2\|Index of Economic Freedom 2018 - 32nd in Human Development Index (2022) - 18th in inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (2022) - 6th in Henley Passport Index (2024) - 24th in Human Capital Index (2018) - 16th in Quality of Nationality Index (Henley & Partners, 2018) - 27th in Legatum Prosperity Index (2019) - 22nd in Social Progress Index (2019) ### Macroeconomics - 41st in Ease of doing business index (2019) - 7th in Economic Complexity Index (2018) - 26th in Global Competitiveness Report (2022) - 25th in Global Enabling Trade Report (2016) - 24th in Global Innovation Index (2019) - 21st in Index of Economic Freedom (2018)

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5,850

Telecommunications in the Czech Republic

There are telecommunications in the Czech Republic. ## Office There is a Czech Telecommunication Office (Czech: Český Telekomunikační Úřad) called CTU. ## Companies Telecom companies have included České Radiokomunikace, O2 Czech Republic (formerly Telefonica O2 Czech Republic), Vodafone Czech Republic (formerly Oskar Mobil a.s.), CETIN, CS Link, Eurotel, Skylink and Telekom Austria Czech Republic. ## Telephones The number of main line telephones in use was 3,741,492 in 1998, 3.869 million in 2000, 3.626 million in 2003, 2.888 million in 2006, and 1,294,806 in 2021. The number of mobile cellular phones was 965,476 in 1998, 4.346 million in 2000, 9.708 million in 2003, and 13.075 million in 2007. Copper subscriber systems have been improved with Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) equipment to accommodate Internet and other digital signals. Trunk systems include fibre-optic cable and microwave radio relay. ## Television There were 3,428,817 televisions in December 1999 and 3,405,834 televisions in December 2000. There were 150 television broadcast stations and 1,434 repeaters in 2000. ## Radio There were 3,173,856 radios in December 1999, and 3,159,134 radios in December 2000. In 2000, the radio broadcast stations were AM 31, FM 304 and shortwave 17. In 1999, they were AM 21, FM 199 and shortwave 1. ## Internet The number of internet users was 2.69 million in 2001, 5.1 million in 2005, 4.4 million in 2007 and 7.6 million in 2012. There were 35 Internet Service Providers in 1999, and more than three hundred in 2000. The internet country code is .cz.

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5,851

Transport in the Czech Republic

**Transport in the Czech Republic** relies on several main modes, including transport by road, rail, water and air. ## Railways The Czech Republic has a total railway length of 9435 km which makes it a country with the second highest rail density in the world. The vast majority (9341 km) is standard gauge. Electrified railways generally have voltages of 3 kV DC or 25 kV AC. 94 km of track is narrow gauge. The most prominent Czech railway company is the state-owned České dráhy (ČD) (English: *Czech Railways*). Prague has an underground rapid transit system, the Prague Metro. In addition, the cities of Brno, Liberec, Most, Olomouc, Ostrava, Plzeň, and Prague have tram systems. In April 2025, Czechia introduced Europe\'s first driverless passenger train on the 24-kilometer Kopidlno to Dolní Bousov line in the Mladá Boleslav District. Developed by AŽD Praha, the train features a modified 811 series engine named Edita, equipped with sensors and computing systems to autonomously monitor surroundings and adjust speed. Despite its autonomous capabilities, a driver remains on board during this testing phase due to legal requirements and to handle unforeseen situations. Fully autonomous operation without onboard staff is anticipated by 2031, pending technological advancements and legislative changes. ## Roads The Czech Republic has, in total, 55653 km of roads. It has 1247 km of motorways. In the 1980s and 1990s there was a significant increase in passenger transport on the roads in the Czech Republic, which was associated with a sharp increase in the accident rate. Between 2007 and 2013, the death rate fell in every year, with a record low of 583 deaths in 2013, compared with the 1994 high of 1,473 casualties. Despite this however, the fatality rate per head of population is moderately high, comparable to the United States. ### Highways There are 2 main categories of roads forming the main network: Motorways and Highways. These roads are managed by the state-owned Directorate of Highways and Motorways of the Czech Republic -- ŘSD, established in 1997. Among the first modern motorways in the Czech Republic was the motorway from Prague to the Slovak border through Brno whose construction was started on May 2, 1939. Motorways are dual carriageways with tolls and a speed limit of 130 km/h. Highways can be single and dual carriageway with a speed limit of 90 km/h (dual carriageways are commonly signposted as Roads for motorcars with a speed limit of 110 km/h). ŘSD currently manages and maintains 1,369 km of motorways (*dálnice*). ## Waterways The Vltava is the country\'s longest river, at 430 km. 358 km of the Elbe (Labe), which totals 1154 km, is also present in the country. An artificial waterway, nowadays used for recreation, is the Baťa Canal. ## Ports and harbours {#ports_and_harbours} Děčín, Mělník, Prague, Ústí nad Labem, Moldauhafen in Hamburg (no longer operational, will be handed over to Germany in 2028) ## Airports `{{see also|List of airports in the Czech Republic}}`{=mediawiki} In 2006, the Czech Republic had a total 121 airports. 46 of these airports had paved runways while 75 had unpaved runways. The largest and busiest airport in the Czech Republic is Václav Havel Airport Prague, opened in 1937. Other international airports include Brno-Tuřany Airport, Karlovy Vary Airport, Ostrava Leoš Janáček Airport, Pardubice Airport, Kunovice Airport and Public domestic and private international airport is for example Hradec Králové Airport. Airports with paved runways Total: 46 (2007) - Over 3,047 m: 2 - 2,438 to 3,047 m: 10 - 1,524 to 2,437 m: 13 - 914 to 1,523 m: 2 - Under 914 m: 19 Airports with unpaved runways Total: 75 (2007) - 1,524 to 2,437 m: 1 - 914 to 1,523 m: 25 - Under 914 m: 49 ## Heliports 2 (2006)

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5,859

Continuity Irish Republican Army

The **Continuity Irish Republican Army** (**Continuity IRA** or **CIRA**), styling itself as the **Irish Republican Army** (*\[\[Óglaigh na hÉireann\]\]*), is an Irish republican paramilitary group that aims to bring about a united Ireland. It claims to be a direct continuation of the original Irish Republican Army and the national army of the Irish Republic that was proclaimed in 1916. It emerged from a split in the Provisional IRA in 1986 but did not become active until the Provisional IRA ceasefire of 1994. It is an illegal organisation in the Republic of Ireland and is designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the United States. It has links with the political party Republican Sinn Féin (RSF). Since 1994, the CIRA has waged a campaign in Northern Ireland against the British Army and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary. This is part of a wider campaign against the British security forces by dissident republican paramilitaries. It has targeted the security forces in gun attacks and bombings, as well as with grenades, mortars and rockets. The CIRA has also carried out bombings with the goal of causing economic harm and/or disruption, as well as many punishment attacks on alleged criminals. To date, it has been responsible for the death of one PSNI officer. The CIRA was smaller and less active than the now-defunct Real IRA, and there have been a number of splits within the organisation since the mid-2000s. ## Origins The Continuity IRA has its origins in a split in the Provisional IRA. In September 1986, the Provisional IRA held a General Army Convention (GAC), the organisation\'s supreme decision-making body. It was the first GAC in 16 years. The meeting, which like all such meetings was secret, was convened to discuss among other resolutions, the articles of the Provisional IRA constitution which dealt with abstentionism, specifically its opposition to the taking of seats in Dáil Éireann (the parliament of the Republic of Ireland). The GAC passed motions (by the necessary two-thirds majority) allowing members of the Provisional IRA to discuss and debate the taking of parliamentary seats, and the removal of the ban on members of the organisation from supporting any successful republican candidate who took their seat in Dáil Éireann. The Provisional IRA convention delegates opposed to the change in the constitution claimed that the convention was gerrymandered \"by the creation of new IRA organisational structures for the convention, including the combinations of Sligo-Roscommon-Longford and Wicklow-Wexford-Waterford.\" The only IRA body that supported this viewpoint was the outgoing IRA Executive. Those members of the outgoing Executive who opposed the change comprised a quorum. They met, dismissed those in favour of the change, and set up a new Executive. They contacted Tom Maguire, who was a commander in the old IRA and had supported the Provisionals against the Official IRA (see Irish republican legitimatism), and asked him for support. Maguire had also been contacted by supporters of Gerry Adams, then president of Sinn Féin, and a supporter of the change in the Provisional IRA constitution. Maguire rejected Adams\' supporters, supported the IRA Executive members opposed to the change, and named the new organisers the Continuity Army Council. In a 1986 statement, he rejected \"the legitimacy of an Army Council styling itself the Council of the Irish Republican Army which lends support to any person or organisation styling itself as Sinn Féin and prepared to enter the partition parliament of Leinster House.\" In 1987, Maguire described the \"Continuity Executive\" as the \"lawful Executive of the Irish Republican Army.\" ## Campaign Initially, the Continuity IRA did not reveal its existence, either in the form of press statements or paramilitary activity. Although the Garda Síochána had suspicions that the organisation existed, they were unsure of its name, labelling it the \"Irish National Republican Army\". On 21 January 1994, on the 75th anniversary of the First Dáil Éireann, a group of men in paramilitary dress offered a \"final salute\" to Tom Maguire by firing over his grave. A public statement headed \"Irish Republican Publicity Bureau\" signed \"B Ó Ruairc, *Rúnaí* \[Secretary\]\" identifying the firing party as \"Volunteers of Óglaigh na hÉireann-the Irish Republican Army\", and two accompanying photos were published in *Saoirse Irish Freedom*. Garda Special Branch detectives raided the headquarters of Republican Sinn Féin at Arran Quay, Dublin, two days after the graveside volley, seizing files and questioning staff. In February 1994 it was reported that in previous months Gardaí had found arms dumps along the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth that did not belong to the Provisional IRA, and forensics tests determined had been used for firing practice recently. It was only after the Provisional IRA declared a ceasefire in 1994 that the Continuity IRA became active, announcing its intention to continue the campaign against British rule. The CIRA continues to oppose the Good Friday Agreement and, unlike the Provisional IRA (and the Real IRA in 1998), the CIRA has not announced a ceasefire or agreed to participate in weapons decommissioning---nor is there any evidence that it will. In the 18th Independent Monitoring Commission\'s report, the RIRA, the CIRA and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) were deemed a potential future threat. The CIRA was labelled \"active, dangerous and committed and\... capable of a greater level of violent and other crime\". Like the RIRA and RIRA splinter group Óglaigh na hÉireann, it too sought funds for expansion. It is also known to have worked with the INLA. The CIRA has been involved in a number of bombing and shooting incidents. Targets of the CIRA have included the British military, the Northern Ireland police (both the Royal Ulster Constabulary and its successor the Police Service of Northern Ireland). Since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 the CIRA, along with other paramilitaries opposing the ceasefire, have been involved with a countless number of punishment shootings and beatings. By 2005 the CIRA was believed to be an established presence on the island of Great Britain with the capability of launching attacks. A bomb defused in Dublin in December 2005 was believed to have been the work of the CIRA. In February 2006, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) blamed the CIRA for planting four bombs in Northern Ireland during the final quarter of 2005, as well as several hoax bomb warnings. The IMC also blamed the CIRA for the killings of two former CIRA members in Belfast, who had stolen CIRA weapons and established a rival organisation. The CIRA continued to be active in both planning and undertaking attacks on the PSNI. The IMC said they tried to lure police into ambushes, while they have also taken to stoning and using petrol bombs. In addition, other assaults, robbery, tiger kidnapping, extortion, fuel laundering and smuggling were undertaken by the group. The CIRA also actively took part in recruiting and training members, including disgruntled former Provisional IRA members. As a result of this continued activity the IMC said the group remained \"a very serious threat\". On 10 March 2009 the CIRA claimed responsibility for the fatal shooting of a PSNI officer in Craigavon, County Armagh---the first police fatality in Northern Ireland since 1998. The officer was fatally shot by a sniper as he and a colleague investigated \"suspicious activity\" at a house nearby when a window was smashed by youths causing the occupant to phone the police. The PSNI officers responded to the emergency call, giving a CIRA sniper the chance to shoot and kill officer Stephen Carroll. Carroll was killed two days after the Real IRA\'s 2009 Massereene Barracks shooting at Massereene Barracks in Antrim. In a press interview with Republican Sinn Féin some days later, regarded by some to be the political wing of the Continuity IRA, Richard Walsh described the attacks as \"acts of war\". In 2013, the Continuity IRA\'s \'South Down Brigade\' threatened a Traveller family in Newry and published a statement in the local newspaper. There were negotiations with community representatives and the CIRA announced the threat was lifted. It was believed the threat was issued after a Traveller feud which resulted in a pipe bomb attack in Bessbrook, near Newry. The Continuity IRA is believed to be strongest in the County Fermanagh -- North County Armagh area (Craigavon, Armagh and Lurgan). It is believed to be behind a number of attacks such as pipe bombings, rocket attacks, gun attacks, and the PSNI claimed it orchestrated riots a number of times to lure police officers into areas such as Kilwilkie in Lurgan and Drumbeg in Craigavon in order to attack them. It also claimed the group orchestrated a riot during a security alert in Lurgan. The alert turned out to be a hoax.`{{failed verification|date=December 2019}}`{=mediawiki} On Easter 2016, the Continuity IRA marched in paramilitary uniforms through North Lurgan, Co Armagh, without any hindrance from the PSNI who monitored the parade from a police helicopter. In July and August 2019 the CIRA carried out attempted bomb attacks on the PSNI in Craigavon, County Armagh and Wattlebridge, County Fermanagh. On 5 February 2020, a bomb planted by the CIRA was found by the PSNI in a lorry in Lurgan. The CIRA believed the lorry was going to be put on a North Channel ferry to Scotland in January 2020. ## Claim to legitimacy {#claim_to_legitimacy} Similar to the claim put forward by the Provisional IRA after its split from the Official IRA in 1969, the Continuity IRA claims to be the legitimate continuation of the original Irish Republican Army or *Óglaigh na hÉireann*. This argument is based on the view that the surviving anti-Treaty members of the Second Dáil delegated their \"authority\" to the IRA Army Council in 1938. As further justification for this claim, Tom Maguire, one of those anti-Treaty members of the Second Dáil, issued a statement in favour of the Continuity IRA, just as he had done in 1969 in favour of the Provisionals. J. Bowyer Bell, in his *The Irish Troubles*, describes Maguire\'s opinion in 1986: \"abstentionism was a basic tenet of republicanism, a moral issue of principle. Abstentionism gave the movement legitimacy, the right to wage war, to speak for a Republic all but established in the hearts of the people\". Maguire\'s stature was such that a delegation from Gerry Adams sought his support in 1986, but was rejected. ## Relationship to other organisations {#relationship_to_other_organisations} These changes within the IRA were accompanied by changes on the political side and at the 1986 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (party conference), which followed the IRA Convention, the party\'s policy of abstentionism, which forbade Sinn Féin elected representatives from taking seats in the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Republic, was dropped. On 2 November, the 628 delegates present cast their votes, the result being 429 to 161. The traditionalists, having lost at both conventions, walked out of the Mansion House, met that evening at the West County Hotel, and reformed as Republican Sinn Féin (RSF). According to a report in the *Cork Examiner*, the Continuity IRA\'s first chief of staff was Dáithí Ó Conaill, who also served as the first chairman of RSF from 1986 to 1987. The Continuity IRA and RSF perceive themselves as forming a \"true\" Republican Movement. ## Structure and status {#structure_and_status} The leadership of the Continuity IRA is believed to be based in the provinces of Munster and Ulster. It was alleged that its chief of staff was a Limerick man and that a number of other key members were from that county, until their expulsion. Dáithí Ó Conaill was the first chief of staff until 1991. In 2004 the United States (US) government believed the Continuity IRA consisted of fewer than fifty hardcore activists. In 2005, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell told Dáil Éireann that the organisation had a maximum of 150 members. The CIRA is an illegal organisation under UK (section 11(1) of the Terrorism Act 2000) and ROI law due to the use of \'IRA\' in the group\'s name, in a situation analogous to that of the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA). Membership of the organisation is punishable by a sentence of up to ten years imprisonment under UK law. On 31 May 2001 Dermot Gannon became the first person to be convicted of membership of the CIRA solely on the word of a Garda Síochána chief superintendent. On 13 July 2004, the US government designated the CIRA as a \'Foreign Terrorist Organization\'. This made it illegal for Americans to provide material support to the CIRA, requires US financial institutions to block the group\'s assets and denies alleged CIRA members visas into the US. ## External aid and arsenal {#external_aid_and_arsenal} The US government suspects the Continuity IRA of having received funds and arms from supporters in the United States. Security sources in Ireland have expressed the suspicion that, in co-operation with the RIRA, the Continuity IRA may have acquired arms and materiel from the Balkans. They also suspect that the Continuity IRA arsenal contains some weapons that were taken from Provisional IRA arms dumps, including a few dozen rifles, machine guns, and pistols; a small amount of the explosive Semtex; and a few dozen detonators. ## Internal tension and splits {#internal_tension_and_splits} In 2005, several members of the CIRA, who were serving prison sentences in Portlaoise Prison for paramilitary activity, left the organisation. Some transferred to the INLA landing of the prison, but the majority of those who left are now independent and on E4 landing. The remaining CIRA prisoners have moved to D Wing. Supporters of the Continuity IRA leadership claim that this resulted from an internal disagreement, which although brought to a conclusion, was followed by some people leaving the organisation anyway. Supporters of the disaffected members established the Concerned Group for Republican Prisoners. Most of those who had left went back to the CIRA, or dissociated themselves from the CGRP, which is now defunct. In February 2006, the Independent Monitoring Commission claimed in a report on paramilitary activity that two groups, styling themselves as \"Óglaigh na hÉireann\" and \"Saoirse na hÉireann\", had been formed after a split in the Continuity IRA either in early 2006 or late 2005. The Óglaigh na hÉireann group was responsible for a number of pipe bomb attacks on the PSNI, bomb hoaxes, and robberies, the IMC also claimed the organisation was responsible for the killing of Andrew Burns on 12 February 2008 and was seeking to recruit former members of the RIRA. The Saoirse na hÉireann (SNH) group was composed of \"disaffected and largely young republicans\" and was responsible for a number of bomb hoaxes, two of which took place in September 2006. It was thought to have operated largely in republican areas of Belfast . The groups had apparently ceased operations by early 2009. In 2007, the Continuity IRA was responsible for shooting dead two of its members who had left and attempted to create their own organisation. Upon leaving the CIRA, they had allegedly taken a number of guns with them. The Continuity IRA is believed by Gardaí to have been involved in a number of gangland killings in Dublin and Limerick. In July 2010, members of a \"militant Northern-based faction within the CIRA\" claimed to have overthrown the leadership of the organisation. They also claimed that an Army Convention representing \"95 per cent of volunteers\" had unanimously elected a new 12-member Army Executive, which in turn appointed a new seven-member Army Council. The moves came as a result of dissatisfaction with the southern-based leadership and the apparent winding-down of military operations. A senior source from RSF said: \"We would see them \[the purported new leadership\] as just another splinter group that has broken away.\" This organisation is referred to as the Real CIRA. In June 2011 CIRA member Liam Kenny was murdered, allegedly by drug dealers, at his home in Clondalkin, West Dublin. On 28 November 2011 an innocent man was mistakenly shot dead in retaliation for the murder of Liam Kenny. Limerick Real IRA volunteer Rose Lynch pleaded guilty to this murder at the Special Criminal Court and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In July 2012 the CIRA announced it had a new leadership after expelling members who had been working against the organisation. In April 2014 a former leading member of the Belfast Continuity IRA who had been expelled from the organisation, Tommy Crossan, was shot dead. ## In popular culture {#in_popular_culture} The CIRA are depicted in RTÉ\'s TV series crime drama *Love/Hate*.

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5,874

Claudine (book series)

The ***Claudine*** series consists of four early novels by French authors Colette and Henry Gauthier-Villars, published 1900--1904. Written in diary form, they describe the growth to maturity of a young girl, Claudine. Aged fifteen at the beginning of the first book, *Claudine à l\'école*, the series describes her education and experiences as she grows up. All the books are written in first-person with the first three having Claudine herself as the narrator. The last in the series, *Claudine s\'en va*, introduces a new narrator, Annie. The novels were written in the late 19th century in collaboration with Colette\'s first husband, the writer Henry Gauthier-Villars, better known by his pen name \"Willy\". There has been much speculation over the degree of involvement of both Colette and Willy in the writing of the Claudine novels, particularly as Willy was known for often using ghostwriters. Consequently, although the novels were originally attributed to Willy only and published under his name alone, they were later published under both names. After the death of Willy, Colette went to court to challenge her former husband\'s involvement in any of the writing, and subsequently had his name removed from the books. This decision however was overturned after her death, as Willy\'s son from a prior relationship, Jacques Gauthier-Villars, successfully sued to have his father\'s name restored. The *Claudine* novels are thought to be roughly autobiographical. ## List of books {#list_of_books} - *Claudine à l\'école* (1900) -- Claudine at School - *Claudine à Paris* (1901) -- Claudine in Paris - *Claudine en ménage* (1902) -- Claudine Married - *Claudine s\'en va* (1903) -- Claudine and Annie

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5,881

Century

A **century** is a period of 100 years or 10 decades. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word *century* comes from the Latin *centum*, meaning *one hundred*. *Century* is sometimes abbreviated as **c.** A centennial or centenary is a hundredth anniversary, or a celebration of this, typically the remembrance of an event which took place a hundred years earlier. ## Start and end of centuries {#start_and_end_of_centuries} Although a century can mean any arbitrary period of 100 years, there are two viewpoints on the nature of standard centuries. One is based on strict construction, while the other is based on popular perception. According to the strict construction, the 1st century AD, which began with AD 1, ended with AD 100, and the 2nd century with AD 200;`{{NoteTag|[[AD]] and [[Common Era|CE]] year numbering, which are numerically equivalent, are now commonly used to number years, including those which occurred before these notations were invented; AD did not become widespread in Europe until early in the 2nd millennium.}}`{=mediawiki} in this model, the *n*-th century starts with a year that follows a year with a multiple of 100 (except the first century as it began after the year 1 BC) and ends with the next coming year with a multiple of 100 (*100n*), i.e. the 20th century comprises the years **1901** to **2000**, and the 21st century comprises the years **2001** to **2100** in strict usage. In common perception and practice, centuries are structured by grouping years based on sharing the \'hundreds\' digit(s). In this model, the *n*-th century starts with the year that ends in \"00\" and ends with the year ending in \"99\"; for example, in popular culture, the years **1900** to **1999** constitute the 20th century, and the years **2000** to **2099** constitute the 21st century. (This is similar to the grouping of \"0-to-9 decades\" which share the \'tens\' digit.) To facilitate calendrical calculations by computer, the astronomical year numbering and ISO 8601 systems both contain a year zero, with the astronomical year 0 corresponding to the year 1 BC, the astronomical year -1 corresponding to 2 BC, and so on. Year 2 BC 1 BC 1 2 \... 99 100 101 102 \... 199 200 201 202 \... 1899 1900 1901 1902 \... 1999 2000 2001 2002 \... 2025 \... 2099 2100 2101 2102 \... --------- ---------------- ------ ------------- --- ------ ---- ------------- ------------- ----- ------ ----- ------------- ------------- ----- ------ -------------- -------------- -------------- ------ ------ ------ -------------- -------------- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------------- -------------- ------ ------ Strict 1st century BC 1st century 2nd century 3rd century \... 19th century 20th century 21st century 22nd century \... Popular 1st century BC 1st century 2nd century 3rd century \... 19th century 20th century 21st century 22nd century \... : Strict vs Popular usage ## Alternative naming systems {#alternative_naming_systems} Informally, years may be referred to in groups based on the hundreds part of the year. In this system, the years 1900--1999 are referred to as the *nineteen hundreds* (*1900s*). Aside from English usage, this system is used in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Finnish and Hungarian. The Swedish *nittonhundratalet* (or *1900-talet*), Danish *nittenhundredetallet* (or *nittenhundredetallet*), Norwegian *nittenhundretallet* (or *1900-tallet*), Finnish *tuhatyhdeksänsataaluku* (or *1900-luku*) and Hungarian *ezerkilencszázas évek* (or *1900-as évek*) refer unambiguously to the years 1900--1999. In Swedish, however, a century is in more rare cases referred to as *det n-te seklet/århundradet* (\"the n-th century\") rather than *n-hundratalet*, i.e. the 17th century is (in rare cases) referred to as *17:(d)e/sjuttonde århundradet/seklet* rather than *1600-talet* and mainly also referring to the years 1601--1700 rather than 1600--1699; according to *Svenska Akademiens ordbok*, *16:(d)e/sextonde århundradet* may refer to either the years 1501--1600 or 1500--1599. ## Similar dating units in other calendar systems {#similar_dating_units_in_other_calendar_systems} While the century has been commonly used in the West, other cultures and calendars have utilized differently sized groups of years in a similar manner. The Hindu calendar, in particular, summarizes its years into groups of 60, while the Aztec calendar considers groups of 52.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,903

Cultural movement

A **cultural movement** is a shared effort by loosely affiliated individuals to change the way others in society think by disseminating ideas through various art forms and making intentional choices in daily life. By definition, cultural movements are intertwined with other phenomena such as social movements and political movements, and can be difficult to distinguish from broader cultural change or transformation. Historically, different nations or regions of the world have gone through their own independent sequence of movements in culture; but as world communications have accelerated, this geographical distinction has become less distinct. When cultural movements go through revolutions from one to the next, genres tend to get attacked and mixed up, and often new genres are generated and old ones fade.: These changes are often reactions against the prior cultural form, which typically has grown stale and repetitive. An obsession emerges among the mainstream with the new movement, and the old one falls into neglect -- sometimes it dies out entirely, but often it chugs along favored in a few disciplines and occasionally making reappearances (sometimes prefixed with \"neo-\"). There is continual argument over the precise definition of each of these periods as one historian might group them differently, or choose different names or descriptions. Even though in many cases the popular change from one to the next can be swift and sudden, the beginning and end of movements are somewhat subjective. This is because the movements did not spring out of the blue and into existence then come to an abrupt end and lose total support, as would be suggested by a date range. Thus use of the term \"period\" is somewhat deceptive. \"Period\" also suggests a linearity of development, whereas it has not been uncommon for two or more distinctive cultural approaches to be active at the same time. Historians will be able to find distinctive traces of a cultural movement before its accepted beginning, and there will always be new creations in old forms. So it can be more useful to think in terms of broad \"movements\" that have rough beginnings and endings. Yet for historical perspective, some rough date ranges will be provided for each to indicate the \"height\" or accepted time span of the movement. This list covers Western, notably European and American cultural movements. They have, however, been paralleled by cultural movements in East Asia and elsewhere. In the late 20th and early 21st century in Thailand, for example, there has been a cultural shift away from Western social and political values and more toward Japanese and Chinese. As well, Thai culture has reinvigorated monarchical concepts to accommodate state shifts away from Western ideology regarding democracy and monarchies. ## Cultural movements {#cultural_movements} - Graeco-Roman - The Greek culture marked a departure from the other Mediterranean cultures that preceded and surrounded it. The Romans adopted Greek and other styles, and spread the result throughout Western Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Together, Greek and Roman thought in philosophy, religion, science, history, and all forms of thought can be viewed as a central underpinning of Western culture, and is therefore termed the Classical Age by some. Others might divide it into the Hellenistic period and the Roman period, or might choose other finer divisions. : : See: Classical architecture --- Classical sculpture --- Greek architecture --- Hellenistic architecture --- Ionic --- Doric --- Corinthian --- Stoicism --- Cynicism --- Epicurean --- Roman architecture --- Early Christian --- Neoplatonism - Romanesque (11th century & 12th centuries) - A style (esp. architectural) similar in form and materials to Roman styles. Romanesque seems to be the first pan-European style since Roman Imperial Architecture and examples are found in every part of the continent. : : See: Romanesque architecture --- Ottonian Art - Gothic (mid 12th century until mid 15th century) : : See: Gothic architecture --- Gregorian chant --- Neoplatonism - Nominalism ```{=html}  ``` - - Rejects Platonic realism as a requirement for thinking and speaking in general terms. - Humanism (16th century) ```{=html}  ``` - Renaissance - The use of light, shadow, and perspective to more accurately represent life. Because of how fundamentally these ideas were felt to alter so much of life, some have referred to it as the \"Golden Age\". In reality it was less an \"Age\" and more of a movement in popular philosophy, science, and thought that spread over Europe (and probably other parts of the world), over time, and affected different aspects of culture at different points in time. Very roughly, the following periods can be taken as indicative of place/time foci of the Renaissance: Italian Renaissance 1450--1550. Spanish Renaissance 1550--1587. English Renaissance 1588--1629. - Protestant Reformation - The Protestant Reformation, often referred to simply as the Reformation, was a schism from the Roman Catholic Church initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli and other early Protestant Reformers in the 16th century Europe. - Mannerism - Anti-classicist movement that sought to emphasize the feeling of the artist himself. - See: Mannerism/Art - Baroque - Emphasizes power and authority, characterized by intricate detail and without the \"disturbing angst\" of Mannerism. Essentially is exaggerated Classicism to promote and glorify the Church and State. Occupied with notions of infinity. - See: Baroque art --- Baroque music - Rococo - Neoclassical (17th--19th centuries) - Severe, unemotional movement recalling Roman and Greek (\"classical\") style, reacting against the overbred Rococo style and the emotional Baroque style. It stimulated revival of classical thinking, and had especially profound effects on science and politics. It also had a direct influence on Academic Art in the 19th century. Beginning in the early 17th century with Cartesian thought (see René Descartes), this movement provided philosophical frameworks for the natural sciences, sought to determine the principles of knowledge by rejecting all things previously believed to be known about the world. In Renaissance Classicism attempts are made to recreate the classic art forms --- tragedy, comedy, and farce. - See also: Weimar Classicism - Age of Enlightenment (1688--1789): Reason (rationalism) seen as the ideal. - Romanticism (1770--1830) - Began in Germany and spread to England and France as a reaction against Neoclassicism and against the Age of Enlightenment.. The notion of \"folk genius\", or an inborn and intuitive ability to do magnificent things, is a core principle of the Romantic movement. Nostalgia for the primitive past in preference to the scientifically minded present. Romantic heroes, exemplified by Napoleon, are popular. Fascination with the past leads to a resurrection of interest in the Gothic period. It did not really replace the Neoclassical movement so much as provide a counterbalance; many artists sought to join both styles in their works. - See: Symbolism - Realism (1830--1905) - Ushered in by the Industrial Revolution and growing Nationalism in the world. Began in France. Attempts to portray the speech and mannerisms of everyday people in everyday life. Tends to focus on middle class social and domestic problems. Plays by Ibsen are an example. Naturalism evolved from Realism, following it briefly in art and more enduringly in theatre, film, and literature. Impressionism, based on \'scientific\' knowledge and discoveries concerns observing nature and reality objectively. - See: Post-Impressionism --- Neo-impressionism --- Pointillism --- Pre-Raphaelite - Art Nouveau (1880--1905) - Decorative, symbolic art - See: Transcendentalism - Modernism (1880--1965) - Also known as the Avant-garde movement. Originating in the 19th century with Symbolism, the Modernist movement composed itself of a wide range of \'isms\' that ran in contrast to Realism and that sought out the underlying fundamentals of art and philosophy. The Jazz age and Hollywood emerge and have their hey-days. - See: Fauvism --- Cubism --- Futurism --- Suprematism --- Dada --- Constructivism --- Surrealism --- Expressionism --- Existentialism --- Op art --- Art Deco --- Bauhaus --- Neo-Plasticism --- Precisionism --- Abstract expressionism --- New Realism --- Color field painting --- Happening --- Fluxus --- Hard-edge painting --- Pop art --- Photorealism --- Minimalism --- Postminimalism --- Lyrical abstraction --- Situationism - Postmodernism (since c.1965) - A reaction to Modernism, in a way, Postmodernism largely discards the notion that artists should seek pure fundamentals, often questioning whether such fundamentals even exist -- or suggestion that if they do exist, they may be irrelevant. It is exemplified by movements such as deconstructivism, conceptual art, *etc.* - See: Postmodern philosophy --- Postmodern music --- Postmodern art - Post-postmodernism (since c.1990)

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,909

Counterpoint

In music theory, **counterpoint** is the relationship of two or more simultaneous musical lines (also called voices) that are harmonically dependent on each other, yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. The term originates from the Latin *punctus contra punctum* meaning \"point against point\", i.e. \"note against note\". John Rahn describes counterpoint as follows: Counterpoint has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradition, strongly developing during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period, especially in the Baroque period. In Western pedagogy, counterpoint is taught through a system of species (see below). There are several different forms of counterpoint, including imitative counterpoint and free counterpoint. Imitative counterpoint involves the repetition of a main melodic idea across different vocal parts, with or without variation. Compositions written in free counterpoint often incorporate non-traditional harmonies and chords, chromaticism and dissonance. ## General principles {#general_principles} The term \"counterpoint\" has been used to designate a voice or even an entire composition. Counterpoint focuses on melodic interaction---only secondarily on the harmonies produced by that interaction. Work initiated by Guerino Mazzola (born 1947) has given counterpoint theory a mathematical foundation. In particular, Mazzola\'s model gives a structural (and not psychological) foundation of forbidden parallels of fifths and the dissonant fourth. Octavio Agustin has extended the model to microtonal contexts. Another theorist who has tried to incorporate mathematical principles in his study of counterpoint is Sergei Taneyev (1856--1915). Inspired by Spinoza, Taneyev developed a theory which covers and generalizes a wide range of advanced contrapuntal phenomena, including what is known to the English-speaking theorists as invertible counterpoint (although he describes them mainly using his own, custom-built terminology), by means of linking them to simple algebraic procedures. In counterpoint, the *functional independence* of voices is the prime concern. The violation of this principle leads to special effects, which are avoided in counterpoint. In organ registers, certain interval combinations and chords are activated by a single key so that playing a melody results in parallel voice leading. These voices, losing independence, are fused into one and the parallel chords are perceived as single tones with a new timbre. In counterpoint, parallel voices are prohibited because they violate the heterogeneity of musical texture when independent voices occasionally disappear turning into a new timbre quality and vice versa. ## Development Some examples of related compositional techniques include: the round (familiar in folk traditions), the canon, and perhaps the most complex contrapuntal convention: the fugue. All of these are examples of imitative counterpoint. ## Examples from the repertoire {#examples_from_the_repertoire} There are many examples of song melodies that are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. For example, \"Frère Jacques\" and \"Three Blind Mice\" combine euphoniously when sung together. A number of popular songs that share the same chord progression can also be sung together as counterpoint. A well-known pair of examples is \"My Way\" combined with \"Life on Mars\". Johann Sebastian Bach is revered as one of the greatest masters of counterpoint. For example, the harmony implied in the opening subject of the Fugue in G-sharp minor from Book II of *the Well-Tempered Clavier* is heard anew in a subtle way when a second voice is added. \"The counterpoint in bars 5-8\... sheds an unexpected light on the tonality of the Subject.\": Bach\'s 3-part Invention in F minor combines three independent melodies: According to pianist András Schiff, Bach\'s counterpoint influenced the composing of both Mozart and Beethoven. In the development section of the opening movement of Beethoven\'s Piano Sonata in E minor, Beethoven demonstrates this influence by adding \"a wonderful counterpoint\" to one of the main themes. A further example of fluid counterpoint in late Beethoven may be found in the first orchestral variation on the \"Ode to Joy\" theme in the last movement of Beethoven\'s Symphony No. 9, bars 116--123. The famous theme is heard on the violas and cellos, while \"the basses add a bass-line whose sheer unpredictability gives the impression that it is being spontaneously improvised. Meantime a solo bassoon adds a counterpoint that has a similarly impromptu quality.\" In the Prelude to Richard Wagner\'s opera *Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg*, three themes from the opera are combined simultaneously. According to Gordon Jacob, \"This is universally and justly acclaimed as an extraordinary feat of virtuosity.\" However, Donald Tovey points out that here \"the combination of themes \... unlike classical counterpoint, really do not of themselves combine into complete or euphonious harmony.\" One spectacular example of 5-voice counterpoint can be found in the finale to Mozart\'s Symphony No 41 (\"Jupiter\" Symphony). Here five tunes combine simultaneously in \"a rich tapestry of dialogue\": See also Invertible counterpoint. ## Species counterpoint {#species_counterpoint} Species counterpoint was developed as a pedagogical tool in which students progress through several \"species\" of increasing complexity, with a very simple part that remains constant known as the cantus firmus (Latin for \"fixed melody\"). Species counterpoint generally offers less freedom to the composer than other types of counterpoint and therefore is called a \"strict\" counterpoint. The student gradually attains the ability to write *free* counterpoint (that is, less rigorously constrained counterpoint, usually without a cantus firmus) according to the given rules at the time. The idea is at least as old as 1532, when Giovanni Maria Lanfranco described a similar concept in his *Scintille di musica* (Brescia, 1533). The 16th-century Venetian theorist Zarlino elaborated on the idea in his influential *Le institutioni harmoniche*, and it was first presented in a codified form in 1619 by Lodovico Zacconi in his *Prattica di musica*. Zacconi, unlike later theorists, included a few extra contrapuntal techniques, such as invertible counterpoint. In 1725 Johann Joseph Fux published *Gradus ad Parnassum* (Steps to Parnassus), in which he described five species: 1. Note against note; 2. Two notes against one; 3. Four notes against one; 4. Notes offset against each other (as suspensions); 5. All the first four species together, as \"florid\" counterpoint. A succession of later theorists quite closely imitated Fux\'s seminal work, often with some small and idiosyncratic modifications in the rules. Many of Fux\'s rules concerning the purely linear construction of melodies have their origin in solfeggio. Concerning the common practice era, alterations to the melodic rules were introduced to enable the function of certain harmonic forms. The combination of these melodies produced the basic harmonic structure, the figured bass. ### Considerations for all species {#considerations_for_all_species} The following rules apply to melodic writing in each species, for each part: 1. The final note must be approached by step. If the final is approached from below, then the leading tone must be raised in a minor key (Dorian, Hypodorian, Aeolian, Hypoaeolian), but not in Phrygian or Hypophrygian mode. Thus, in the Dorian mode on D, a C`{{music|sharp}}`{=mediawiki} is necessary at the cadence. 2. Permitted melodic intervals are the perfect unison, fourth, fifth, and octave, as well as the major and minor second, major and minor third, and ascending minor sixth. The ascending minor sixth must be immediately followed by motion downwards. 3. If writing two skips in the same direction---something that must be only rarely done---the second must be smaller than the first, and the interval between the first and the third note may not be dissonant. The three notes should be from the same triad; if this is impossible, they should not outline more than one octave. In general, do not write more than two skips in the same direction. 4. If writing a skip in one direction, it is best to proceed after the skip with step-wise motion in the other direction. 5. The interval of a tritone in three notes should be avoided (for example, an ascending melodic motion F--A--B`{{music|natural}}`{=mediawiki}) as is the interval of a seventh in three notes. 6. There must be a climax or high point in the line countering the cantus firmus. This usually occurs somewhere in the middle of exercise and must occur on a strong beat. 7. An outlining of a seventh is avoided within a single line moving in the same direction. And, in all species, the following rules govern the combination of the parts: 1. The counterpoint must begin and end on a perfect consonance. 2. Contrary motion should dominate. 3. Perfect consonances must be approached by oblique or contrary motion. 4. Imperfect consonances may be approached by any type of motion. 5. The interval of a tenth should not be exceeded between two adjacent parts unless by necessity. 6. Build from the bass, upward. ### First species {#first_species} In *first species* counterpoint, each note in every added part (parts being also referred to as *lines* or *voices*) sounds against one note in the cantus firmus. Notes in all parts are sounded simultaneously, and move against each other simultaneously. Since all notes in First species counterpoint are whole notes, rhythmic independence is not available. In the present context, a \"step\" is a melodic interval of a half or whole step. A \"skip\" is an interval of a third or fourth. (See Steps and skips.) An interval of a fifth or larger is referred to as a \"leap\". A few further rules given by Fux, by study of the Palestrina style, and usually given in the works of later counterpoint pedagogues, are as follows. `{{Image frame|width=392|content=<score sound="1"> \relative c'' { << \new Staff { \clef "treble" d1 a b d cis d } \new Staff { \clef "treble" d,1 f g f e d } >> } </score>|caption=Short example of "first species" counterpoint}}`{=mediawiki} 1. Begin and end on either the unison, octave, or fifth, unless the added part is underneath, in which case begin and end only on unison or octave. 2. Use no unisons except at the beginning or end. 3. Avoid parallel fifths or octaves between any two parts; and avoid \"hidden\" parallel fifths or octaves: that is, movement by similar motion to a perfect fifth or octave, unless one part (sometimes restricted to the *higher* of the parts) moves by step. 4. Avoid moving in parallel fourths. (In practice Palestrina and others frequently allowed themselves such progressions, especially if they do not involve the lowest of the parts.) 5. Do not use an interval more than three times in a row. 6. Attempt to use up to three parallel thirds or sixths in a row. 7. Attempt to keep any two adjacent parts within a tenth of each other, unless an exceptionally pleasing line can be written by moving outside that range. 8. Avoid having any two parts move in the same direction by skip. 9. Attempt to have as much contrary motion as possible. 10. Avoid dissonant intervals between any two parts: major or minor second, major or minor seventh, any augmented or diminished interval, and perfect fourth (in many contexts). In the adjacent example in two parts, the cantus firmus is the lower part. (The same cantus firmus is used for later examples also. Each is in the Dorian mode.) ### Second species {#second_species} In *second species* counterpoint, two notes in each of the added parts work against each longer note in the given part. `{{Image frame|content=<score sound="1"> { # (set-global-staff-size 15) \relative c' { << \new Staff { r2 a' d c b e d a b cis d1 \bar "|." } \new Staff { d,1 f g f e d} >> } } </score> Short example of "second species" counterpoint }}`{=mediawiki} Additional considerations in second species counterpoint are as follows, and are in addition to the considerations for first species: 1. It is permissible to begin on an upbeat, leaving a half-rest in the added voice. 2. The accented beat may be consonant (perfect or imperfect), the unaccented beat may then have dissonance, in the form of three kinds of melodic embellishment: Passing Note (scalic movement between two consonances), Neighbour Note (a step away from a consonance and back to the same consonance) or an Escape Tone (a step in one direction to a dissonance followed by a leap in the opposite direction to a consonance). The accented beat may have dissonance as well, but the unaccented beat that follows it must be consonant. This is known as Accented Dissonance, and takes the form of either a Neighbour note or a Passing note, which must resolve down to a consonance on the offbeat. 1. Avoid the interval of the unison except at the beginning or end of the example, except that it may occur on the unaccented portion of the bar. 2. Use caution with successive accented perfect fifths or octaves. They must not be used as part of a sequential pattern. The example shown is weak due to similar motion in the second measure in both voices. A good rule to follow: if one voice skips or jumps try to use step-wise motion in the other voice or at the very least contrary motion. ### Third species {#third_species} In *third species* counterpoint, four (or three, etc.) notes move against each longer note in the given part. Three special figures are introduced into third species and later added to fifth species, and ultimately outside the restrictions of *species writing*. There are three figures to consider: The *nota cambiata*, *double neighbor tones*, and *double passing tones*. Double neighbor tones: the figure is prolonged over four beats and allows special dissonances. The upper and lower tones are prepared on beat 1 and resolved on beat 4. The fifth note or downbeat of the next measure should move by step in the same direction as the last two notes of the double neighbor figure. Lastly a double passing tone allows two dissonant passing tones in a row. The figure would consist of 4 notes moving in the same direction by step. The two notes that allow dissonance would be beat 2 and 3 or 3 and 4. The dissonant interval of a fourth would proceed into a diminished fifth and the next note would resolve at the interval of a sixth. ### Fourth species {#fourth_species} In *fourth species* counterpoint, some notes are sustained or *suspended* in an added part while notes move against them in the given part, often creating a dissonance on the beat, followed by the suspended note then changing (and \"catching up\") to create a subsequent consonance with the note in the given part as it continues to sound. As before, fourth species counterpoint is called *expanded* when the added-part notes vary in length among themselves. The technique requires chains of notes sustained across the boundaries determined by beat, and so creates syncopation. A dissonant interval is allowed on beat 1 because of the syncopation created by the suspension. While it is not incorrect to start with a half note, it is also common to start 4th species with a half rest. \\relative c\' { \\new PianoStaff \<\< \\new Staff { \\set Staff.explicitKeySignatureVisibility = #all-invisible a\'2 d\~ d c\~ c bes\~ \\key d \\minor bes a b cis d1 \\bar \"\|.\" } \\new Staff { d, f g f e d \\bar \"\|.\" } \>\> } Short example of \"fourth species\" counterpoint ### Fifth species (florid counterpoint) {#fifth_species_florid_counterpoint} In *fifth species* counterpoint, sometimes called *florid counterpoint*, the other four species of counterpoint are combined within the added parts. In the example, the first and second bars are second species, the third bar is third species, the fourth and fifth bars are third and embellished fourth species, and the final bar is first species. In florid counterpoint it is important that no one species dominates the composition. \\relative c\' { \\new PianoStaff \<\< \\new Staff { r2 a\' d c b4 c d e f e d2\~ d4 cis8 b cis2 d1 \\bar \"\|.\" } \\new Staff { d, f g f e d \\bar \"\|.\" } \>\> } Short example of \"Florid\" counterpoint ## Contrapuntal derivations {#contrapuntal_derivations} Since the Renaissance period in European music, much contrapuntal music has been written in imitative counterpoint. In imitative counterpoint, two or more voices enter at different times, and (especially when entering) each voice repeats some version of the same melodic element. The fantasia, the ricercar, and later, the canon and fugue (the contrapuntal form *par excellence*) all feature imitative counterpoint, which also frequently appears in choral works such as motets and madrigals. Imitative counterpoint spawned a number of devices, including: Melodic inversion: The inverse of a given fragment of melody is the fragment turned upside down---so if the original fragment has a rising major third (see interval), the inverted fragment has a falling major (or perhaps minor) third, etc. (Compare, in twelve-tone technique, the inversion of the tone row, which is the so-called prime series turned upside down.) (Note: in *invertible counterpoint*, including *double* and *triple counterpoint*, the term *inversion* is used in a different sense altogether. At least one pair of parts is switched, so that the one that was higher becomes lower. See Inversion in counterpoint; it is not a kind of imitation, but a rearrangement of the parts.)\ Retrograde: Whereby an imitative voice sounds the melody backwards in relation to the leading voice.\ Retrograde inversion: Where the imitative voice sounds the melody backwards and upside-down at once.\ Augmentation: When in one of the parts in imitative counterpoint the note values are extended in duration compared to the rate at which they were sounded when introduced.\ Diminution: When in one of the parts in imitative counterpoint the note values are reduced in duration compared to the rate at which they were sounded when introduced. ## Free counterpoint {#free_counterpoint} Broadly speaking, due to the development of harmony, from the Baroque period on, most contrapuntal compositions were written in the style of free counterpoint. This means that the general focus of the composer had shifted away from how the intervals of added melodies related to a *cantus firmus*, and more toward how they related to each other. Nonetheless, according to Kent Kennan: \"\....actual teaching in that fashion (free counterpoint) did not become widespread until the late nineteenth century.\" Young composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, were still educated in the style of \"strict\" counterpoint, but in practice, they would look for ways to expand on the traditional concepts of the subject. Main features of free counterpoint: 1. All forbidden chords, such as second-inversion, seventh, ninth etc., can be used freely as long as they resolve to a consonant triad 2. Chromaticism is allowed 3. The restrictions about rhythmic-placement of dissonance are removed. It is possible to use passing tones on the accented beat 4. Appoggiatura is available: dissonance tones can be approached by leaps. ## Linear counterpoint {#linear_counterpoint} **Linear counterpoint** is \"a purely horizontal technique in which the integrity of the individual melodic lines is not sacrificed to harmonic considerations. \"Its distinctive feature is rather the concept of melody, which served as the starting-point for the adherents of the \'new objectivity\' when they set up linear counterpoint as an anti-type to the Romantic harmony.\" The voice parts move freely, irrespective of the effects their combined motions may create.\" In other words, either \"the domination of the horizontal (linear) aspects over the vertical\" is featured or the \"harmonic control of lines is rejected.\" Associated with neoclassicism, the technique was first used in Igor Stravinsky\'s *Octet* (1923), inspired by J. S. Bach and Giovanni Palestrina. However, according to Knud Jeppesen: \"Bach\'s and Palestrina\'s points of departure are antipodal. Palestrina starts out from lines and arrives at chords; Bach\'s music grows out of an ideally harmonic background, against which the voices develop with a bold independence that is often breath-taking.\" According to Cunningham, linear harmony is \"a frequent approach in the 20th century\...\[in which lines\] are combined with almost careless abandon in the hopes that new \'chords\' and \'progressions\'\...will result.\" It is possible with \"any kind of line, diatonic or duodecuple\". ## Dissonant counterpoint {#dissonant_counterpoint} **Dissonant counterpoint** was originally theorized by Charles Seeger as \"at first purely a school-room discipline,\" consisting of species counterpoint but with all the traditional rules reversed. First species counterpoint must be all dissonances, establishing \"dissonance, rather than consonance, as the rule,\" and consonances are \"resolved\" through a skip, not step. He wrote that \"the effect of this discipline\" was \"one of purification\". Other aspects of composition, such as rhythm, could be \"dissonated\" by applying the same principle. Seeger was not the first to employ dissonant counterpoint, but was the first to theorize and promote it. Other composers who have used dissonant counterpoint, if not in the exact manner prescribed by Charles Seeger, include Johanna Beyer, John Cage, Ruth Crawford-Seeger, Vivian Fine, Carl Ruggles, Henry Cowell, Carlos Chávez, John J. Becker, Henry Brant, Lou Harrison, Wallingford Riegger, and Frank Wigglesworth.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,912

Carbonate

A **carbonate** is a salt of carbonic acid, (`{{chem2|H2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}), characterized by the presence of the **carbonate ion**, a polyatomic ion with the formula `{{chem2|CO3(2-)}}`{=mediawiki}. The word \"carbonate\" may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the **carbonate group** `{{chem2|O\dC(\sO\s)2}}`{=mediawiki}. The term is also used as a verb, to describe carbonation: the process of raising the concentrations of carbonate and bicarbonate ions in water to produce carbonated water and other carbonated beverages`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}either by the addition of carbon dioxide gas under pressure or by dissolving carbonate or bicarbonate salts into the water. In geology and mineralogy, the term \"carbonate\" can refer both to carbonate minerals and carbonate rock (which is made of chiefly carbonate minerals), and both are dominated by the carbonate ion, `{{chem2|CO3(2-)}}`{=mediawiki}. Carbonate minerals are extremely varied and ubiquitous in chemically precipitated sedimentary rock. The most common are calcite or calcium carbonate, `{{chem2|CaCO3}}`{=mediawiki}, the chief constituent of limestone (as well as the main component of mollusc shells and coral skeletons); dolomite, a calcium-magnesium carbonate `{{chem2|CaMg(CO3)2}}`{=mediawiki}; and siderite, or iron(II) carbonate, `{{chem2|FeCO3}}`{=mediawiki}, an important iron ore. Sodium carbonate (\"soda\" or \"natron\"), `{{chem2|Na2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}, and potassium carbonate (\"potash\"), `{{chem2|K2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}, have been used since antiquity for cleaning and preservation, as well as for the manufacture of glass. Carbonates are widely used in industry, such as in iron smelting, as a raw material for Portland cement and lime manufacture, in the composition of ceramic glazes, and more. New applications of alkali metal carbonates include: thermal energy storage, catalysis and electrolyte both in fuel cell technology as well as in electrosynthesis of `{{chem2|H2O2}}`{=mediawiki} in aqueous media. ## Structure and bonding {#structure_and_bonding} The carbonate ion is the simplest oxocarbon anion. It consists of one carbon atom surrounded by three oxygen atoms, in a trigonal planar arrangement, with *D*~3h~ molecular symmetry. It has a molecular mass of 60.01 g/mol and carries a total formal charge of −2. It is the conjugate base of the hydrogencarbonate (bicarbonate) ion, `{{chem2|HCO3-}}`{=mediawiki}, which is the conjugate base of `{{chem2|H2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}, carbonic acid. The Lewis structure of the carbonate ion has two (long) single bonds to negative oxygen atoms, and one short double bond to a neutral oxygen atom. : This structure is incompatible with the observed symmetry of the ion, which implies that the three bonds are the same length and that the three oxygen atoms are equivalent. As in the case of the isoelectronic nitrate ion, the symmetry can be achieved by a resonance among three structures: : This resonance can be summarized by a model with fractional bonds and delocalized charges: : ## Chemical properties {#chemical_properties} right\|thumb\|190px\|Stalactites and stalagmites are carbonate minerals. Metal carbonates generally decompose on heating, liberating carbon dioxide leaving behind an oxide of the metal. This process is called calcination, after *calx*, the Latin name of quicklime or calcium oxide, CaO, which is obtained by roasting limestone in a lime kiln: : As illustrated by its affinity for `{{chem2|Ca(2+)}}`{=mediawiki}, carbonate is a ligand for many metal cations. Transition metal carbonate and bicarbonate complexes feature metal ions covalently bonded to carbonate in a variety of bonding modes. Lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium, and ammonium carbonates are water-soluble salts, but carbonates of 2+ and 3+ ions are often poorly soluble in water. Of the insoluble metal carbonates, `{{chem2|CaCO3}}`{=mediawiki} is important because, in the form of scale, it accumulates in and impedes flow through pipes. Hard water is rich in this material, giving rise to the need for infrastructural water softening. Acidification of carbonates generally liberates carbon dioxide: : Thus, scale can be removed with acid. In solution the equilibrium between carbonate, bicarbonate, carbon dioxide and carbonic acid is sensitive to pH, temperature, and pressure. Although di- and trivalent carbonates have low solubility, bicarbonate salts are far more soluble. This difference is related to the disparate lattice energies of solids composed of mono- vs dianions, as well as mono- vs dications. In aqueous solution, carbonate, bicarbonate, carbon dioxide, and carbonic acid participate in a dynamic equilibrium. In strongly basic conditions, the carbonate ion predominates, while in weakly basic conditions, the bicarbonate ion is prevalent. In more acid conditions, aqueous carbon dioxide, `{{chem2|CO2(aq)}}`{=mediawiki}, is the main form, which, with water, `{{chem2|H2O}}`{=mediawiki}, is in equilibrium with carbonic acid`{{snd}}`{=mediawiki}the equilibrium lies strongly towards carbon dioxide. Thus sodium carbonate is basic, sodium bicarbonate is weakly basic, while carbon dioxide itself is a weak acid. ## Organic carbonates {#organic_carbonates} In organic chemistry a carbonate can also refer to a functional group within a larger molecule that contains a carbon atom bound to three oxygen atoms, one of which is double bonded. These compounds are also known as organocarbonates or carbonate esters, and have the general formula `{{chem2|R\sO\sC(\dO)\sO\sR′}}`{=mediawiki}, or `{{chem2|RR′CO3}}`{=mediawiki}. Important organocarbonates include dimethyl carbonate, the cyclic compounds ethylene carbonate and propylene carbonate, and the phosgene replacement, triphosgene. ## Buffer Three reversible reactions control the pH balance of blood and act as a buffer to stabilise it in the range 7.37--7.43: 1. 2. 3. Exhaled `{{chem2|CO2(g)}}`{=mediawiki} depletes `{{chem2|CO2(aq)}}`{=mediawiki}, which in turn consumes `{{chem2|H2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}, causing the equilibrium of the first reaction to try to restore the level of carbonic acid by reacting bicarbonate with a hydrogen ion, an example of Le Châtelier\'s principle. The result is to make the blood more alkaline (raise pH). By the same principle, when the pH is too high, the kidneys excrete bicarbonate (`{{chem2|HCO3-}}`{=mediawiki}) into urine as urea via the urea cycle (or Krebs--Henseleit ornithine cycle). By removing the bicarbonate, more `{{chem2|H+}}`{=mediawiki} is generated from carbonic acid (`{{chem2|H2CO3}}`{=mediawiki}), which comes from `{{chem2|CO2(g)}}`{=mediawiki} produced by cellular respiration. Crucially, a similar buffer operates in the oceans. It is a major factor in climate change and the long-term carbon cycle, due to the large number of marine organisms (especially coral) which are made of calcium carbonate. Increased solubility of carbonate through increased temperatures results in lower production of marine calcite and increased concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This, in turn, increases Earth temperature. The amount of `{{chem2|CO3(2-)}}`{=mediawiki} available is on a geological scale and substantial quantities may eventually be redissolved into the sea and released to the atmosphere, increasing `{{chem2|CO2}}`{=mediawiki} levels even more. ## Carbonate salts {#carbonate_salts} - Carbonate overview: ## Presence outside Earth {#presence_outside_earth} It is generally thought that the presence of carbonates in rock is strong evidence for the presence of liquid water. Recent observations of the planetary nebula NGC 6302 show evidence for carbonates in space, where aqueous alteration similar to that on Earth is unlikely. Other minerals have been proposed which would fit the observations. Small amounts of carbonate deposits have been found on Mars via spectral imaging and Martian meteorites also contain small amounts. Groundwater may have existed at Gusev and Meridiani Planum.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,916

Circumference

`{{General geometry}}`{=mediawiki} In geometry, the **circumference** (`{{etymology|la|{{wikt-lang|la|circumferēns}}|carrying around, circling}}`{=mediawiki}) is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse. The circumference is the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and straightened out to a line segment. More generally, the perimeter is the curve length around any closed figure. Circumference may also refer to the circle itself, that is, the locus corresponding to the edge of a disk. The `{{em|{{visible anchor|circumference of a sphere}}}}`{=mediawiki} is the circumference, or length, of any one of its great circles. ## Circle 2πR (*Person of Interest*)}} The circumference of a circle is the distance around it, but if, as in many elementary treatments, distance is defined in terms of straight lines, this cannot be used as a definition. Under these circumstances, the circumference of a circle may be defined as the limit of the perimeters of inscribed regular polygons as the number of sides increases without bound. The term circumference is used when measuring physical objects, as well as when considering abstract geometric forms. ### Relationship with `{{pi}}`{=mediawiki} {#relationship_with} The circumference of a circle is related to one of the most important mathematical constants. This constant, pi, is represented by the Greek letter $\pi.$ Its first few decimal digits are 3.141592653589793\... Pi is defined as the ratio of a circle\'s circumference $C$ to its diameter $d:$ $\pi = \frac{C}{d}.$ Or, equivalently, as the ratio of the circumference to twice the radius. The above formula can be rearranged to solve for the circumference: ${C} = \pi \cdot{d} = 2\pi \cdot{r}.\!$ The ratio of the circle\'s circumference to its radius is equivalent to $2\pi$. This is also the number of radians in one turn. The use of the mathematical constant `{{pi}}`{=mediawiki} is ubiquitous in mathematics, engineering, and science. In *Measurement of a Circle* written circa 250 BCE, Archimedes showed that this ratio (written as $C/d,$ since he did not use the name `{{pi}}`{=mediawiki}) was greater than 3`{{sfrac|10|71}}`{=mediawiki} but less than 3`{{sfrac|1|7}}`{=mediawiki} by calculating the perimeters of an inscribed and a circumscribed regular polygon of 96 sides. This method for approximating `{{pi}}`{=mediawiki} was used for centuries, obtaining more accuracy by using polygons of larger and larger number of sides. The last such calculation was performed in 1630 by Christoph Grienberger who used polygons with 10^40^ sides. ## Ellipse *Main article: Ellipse#Circumference* Some authors use circumference to denote the perimeter of an ellipse. There is no general formula for the circumference of an ellipse in terms of the semi-major and semi-minor axes of the ellipse that uses only elementary functions. However, there are approximate formulas in terms of these parameters. One such approximation, due to Euler (1773), for the canonical ellipse, $\frac{x^2}{a^2} + \frac{y^2}{b^2} = 1,$ is $C_{\rm{ellipse}} \sim \pi \sqrt{2\left(a^2 + b^2\right)}.$ Some lower and upper bounds on the circumference of the canonical ellipse with $a\geq b$ are: $2\pi b \leq C \leq 2\pi a,$ $\pi (a+b) \leq C \leq 4(a+b),$ $4\sqrt{a^2+b^2} \leq C \leq \pi \sqrt{2\left(a^2+b^2\right)}.$ Here the upper bound $2\pi a$ is the circumference of a circumscribed concentric circle passing through the endpoints of the ellipse\'s major axis, and the lower bound $4\sqrt{a^2+b^2}$ is the perimeter of an inscribed rhombus with vertices at the endpoints of the major and minor axes. The circumference of an ellipse can be expressed exactly in terms of the complete elliptic integral of the second kind. More precisely, $C_{\rm{ellipse}} = 4a \int_0^{\pi/2} \sqrt{1 - e^2 \sin^2\theta}\ d\theta,$ where $a$ is the length of the semi-major axis and $e$ is the eccentricity $\sqrt{1 - b^2/a^2}.$

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,930

Coffea

***Coffea*** is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. *Coffea* species are shrubs or small trees native to tropical and southern Africa and tropical Asia. The seeds of some species, called coffee beans, are used to flavor various beverages and products. The fruits, like the seeds, contain a large amount of caffeine, and have a distinct sweet taste. The plant ranks as one of the world\'s most valuable and widely traded commodity crops and is an important export product of several countries, including those in Central and South America, the Caribbean and Africa. The coffee trade relies heavily on two of the over 120 species, *Coffea arabica* (commonly known simply as \"Arabica\"), which accounts for 60--80% of the world\'s coffee production, and *Coffea canephora* (known as \"Robusta\"), which accounts for about 20--40%. Both coffee species are vulnerable to shifts, caused by climate change, in their growing zones, which are likely to result in a decline in production in some of the most important growing regions. ## Cultivation and use {#cultivation_and_use} There are over 130 species of *Coffea*, which is grown from seed. The two most popular are *Coffea arabica* (commonly known simply as \"Arabica\"), which accounts for 60--80% of the world\'s coffee production, and *Coffea canephora* (known as \"Robusta\"), which accounts for about 20--40%. *C. arabica* is preferred for its sweeter taste, while *C. canephora* has a higher caffeine content. *C. arabica* has its origins in the highlands of Ethiopia and the Boma Plateau of Sudan, and came about as the result of a hybrid between *C. canephora* and *C. eugenioides*. The trees produce edible red or purple fruits that are either epigynous berries or indehiscent drupes. The fruit is often referred to as a \"coffee cherry\", and it contains two seeds, called \"coffee beans\". Despite these terms, coffee is neither a true cherry (the fruit of certain species in the genus *Prunus*) nor a true bean (seeds from plants in the family *Fabaceae*). In any coffee crop, about 5--10% of fruits contain only a single bean. Called a peaberry, it is smaller and rounder than a normal coffee bean. When grown in the tropics, coffee is a vigorous bush or small tree that usually grows to a height of 3 -. Most commonly cultivated coffee species grow best at high elevations, but do not tolerate freezing temperatures. The *Coffea arabica* tree grows fruit after three to five years, producing for an average of 50 to 60 years, though up to 100 years is possible. The white flowers are highly scented. The fruit takes about nine months to ripen. ## Ecology The caffeine in coffee beans serves as a toxic substance that protects against insects and other pests, a form of natural plant defense against herbivory. Caffeine simultaneously attracts pollinators, specifically honeybees, by creating an olfactory memory that signals bees to return to the plant\'s flowers. Not all *Coffea* species contain caffeine, and the earliest species had little or no caffeine content. Caffeine has evolved independently in multiple lineages of *Coffea* in Africa, perhaps in response to high pest predation in the humid environments of West-Central Africa. Caffeine has also evolved independently in the more distantly related genera *Theobroma* (cacao) and *Camellia* (tea). This suggests that caffeine production is an adaptive trait in coffee and plant evolution. The fruit and leaves also contain caffeine, and can be used to make coffee cherry tea and coffee-leaf tea. The fruit is also used in many brands of soft drink as well as pre-packaged teas. Several insect pests affect coffee production, including the coffee borer beetle (*Hypothenemus hampei*) and the coffee leafminer (*Leucoptera caffeina*). Coffee is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species, *Dalcera abrasa*, turnip moth and some members of the genus *Endoclita*, including *E. damor* and *E. malabaricus*. ## Research New species of *Coffea* are still being identified in the 2000s. In 2008 and 2009, researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, named seven from the mountains of northern Madagascar, including *C. ambongensis*, *C. boinensis*, *C. labatii*, *C. pterocarpa*, *C. bissetiae*, and *C. namorokensis*. In 2008, two new species were discovered in Cameroon: *Coffea charrieriana*, which is caffeine-free, and *Coffea anthonyi*. By crossing the new species with other known coffees, two new features might be introduced to cultivated coffee plants: beans without caffeine and self-pollination. In 2011, *Coffea* absorbed the twenty species of the former genus *Psilanthus* due to the morphological and genetic similarities between the two genera. Historically, the two have been considered distinct genera due to differences in the length of the corolla tube and the anther arrangement: *Coffea* with a short corolla tube and exserted style and anthers; *Psilanthus* with a long corolla tube and included anthers. However, these characteristics were not present in all species of either respective genus, making the two genera overwhelmingly similar in both morphology and genetic sequence. This transfer expanded *Coffea* from 104 species to 124, and extended its native distribution to tropical Asia and Australasia. The coffee genome was published in 2014, with more than 25,000 genes identified. This revealed that coffee plants make caffeine using a different set of genes from those found in tea, cacao and other such plants. A robust and almost fully resolved phylogeny of the entire genus was published in 2017. In addition to resolving the relationships of *Coffea* species, this study\'s results suggest Africa or Asia as the likely ancestral origin of Coffea and point to several independent radiations across Africa, Asia, and the Western Indian Ocean Islands. In 2020, a technique of DNA fingerprinting, or genetic authentication of plant material, was proven effective for coffee. For the study, scientists used DNA extraction and SSR marker analysis. This technique or similar ones may allow for several improvements to coffee production such as improved information for farmers as to the susceptibility of their coffee plants to pests and disease, a professionalized coffee seed system, and transparency and traceability for buyers of green, un-roasted coffee. ## Species As of May 2024, Plants of the World Online includes: `{{div col|colwidth=20em}}`{=mediawiki} 1. *Coffea abbayesii* J.-F. Leroy 2. *Coffea affinis* De Wild. 3. *Coffea alleizettii* Dubard 4. *Coffea ambanjensis* J.-F. Leroy 5. *Coffea ambongenis* J.-F. Leroy ex A. P. Davis 6. *Coffea andrambovatensis* J.-F. Leroy 7. *Coffea ankaranensis* J.-F. Leroy ex A. P. Davis 8. *Coffea anthonyi* Stoff. & F. Anthony 9. *Coffea arabica* L. 10. *Coffea arenesiana* J.-F. Leroy 11. *Coffea augagneurii* Dubard 12. *Coffea bakossii* Cheek & Bridson 13. *Coffea benghalensis* B. Heyne ex Schult. 14. *Coffea bertrandii* A. Chev. 15. *Coffea betamponensis* Portères & J.-F. Leroy 16. *Coffea bissetiae* A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 17. *Coffea boinensis* A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 18. *Coffea boiviniana* A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 19. *Coffea bonnieri* Dubard 20. *Coffea brassii* (J.-F. Leroy) A. P. Davis 21. *Coffea brevipes* Hiern 22. *Coffea bridsoniae* A. P. Davis & Mvungi 23. *Coffea buxifolia* A. Chev. 24. *Coffea callmanderi* `{{Au|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 25. *Coffea canephora* (*\"Coffea robusta\"*) Pierre ex A. Froehner 26. *Coffea carrissoi* A. Chev. 27. *Coffea charrieriana* Stoff. & F. Anthony 28. *Coffea cochinchinensis* Pierre ex Pit. 29. *Coffea commersoniana* (Baill.) A. Chev. 30. *Coffea congensis* A. Froehner 31. *Coffea costatifructa* Bridson 32. *Coffea coursiana* J.-F. Leroy 33. *Coffea dactylifera* Robbr. & Stoff. 34. *Coffea darainensis* `{{Au|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 35. *Coffea decaryana* J.-F. Leroy 36. *Coffea dubardii* Jum. 37. *Coffea ebracteolata* (Hiern) Brenan 38. *Coffea eugenioides* S. Moore 39. *Coffea fadenii* Bridson 40. *Coffea farafanganensis* J.-F. Leroy 41. *Coffea floresiana* Boerl. 42. *Coffea fotsoana* Stoff. & Sonké 43. *Coffea fragilis* J.-F. Leroy 44. *Coffea fragrans* Wall. ex Hook. f. 45. *Coffea gallienii* Dubard 46. *Coffea grevei* Drake ex A. Chev. 47. *Coffea heimii* J.-F. Leroy 48. *Coffea × heterocalyx* `{{Au|Stoff.}}`{=mediawiki} 49. *Coffea homollei* J.-F. Leroy 50. *Coffea horsfieldiana* Miq. 51. *Coffea humbertii* J.-F. Leroy 52. *Coffea humblotiana* Baill. 53. *Coffea humilis* A. Chev. 54. *Coffea jumellei* J.-F. Leroy 55. *Coffea kalobinonensis* `{{Au|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 56. *Coffea kapakata* (A. Chev.) Bridson 57. *Coffea kianjavatensis* J.-F. Leroy 58. *Coffea kihansiensis* A. P. Davis & Mvungi 59. *Coffea kimbozensis* Bridson 60. *Coffea kivuensis* Lebrun 61. *Coffea labatii* A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 62. *Coffea lancifolia* A. Chev. 63. *Coffea lebruniana* Germ. & Kester 64. *Coffea leonimontana* Stoff. 65. *Coffea leroyi* A. P. Davis 66. *Coffea liaudii* J.-F. Leroy ex A. P. Davis 67. *Coffea liberica* Hiern 68. *Coffea ligustroides* S. Moore 69. *Coffea littoralis* A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 70. *Coffea lulandoensis* Bridson 71. *Coffea mabesae* (Elmer) J.-F. Leroy 72. *Coffea macrocarpa* A. Rich. 73. *Coffea madurensis* Teijsm. & Binn. ex Koord. 74. *Coffea magnistipula* Stoff. & Robbr. 75. *Coffea malabarica* (Sivar., Biju & P. Mathew) A.P.Davis 76. *Coffea mangoroensis* Portères 77. *Coffea mannii* (Hook. f.) A. P. Davis 78. *Coffea manombensis* A. P. Davis 79. *Coffea mapiana* Sonké, Nguembou & A P. Davis 80. *Coffea mauritiana* Lam. 81. *Coffea mayombensis* A. Chev. 82. *Coffea mcphersonii* A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 83. *Coffea melanocarpa* Welw. ex Hiern 84. *Coffea merguensis* Ridl. 85. *Coffea microdubardii* `{{Au|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 86. *Coffea millotii* J.-F. Leroy 87. *Coffea minutiflora* A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 88. *Coffea mogenetii* Dubard 89. *Coffea mongensis* Bridson 90. *Coffea montekupensis* Stoff. 91. *Coffea montis-sacri* A. P. Davis 92. *Coffea moratii* J.-F. Leroy ex A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 93. *Coffea mufindiensis* Hutch. ex Bridson 94. *Coffea myrtifolia* (A.Rich. ex DC.) J.-F. Leroy 95. *Coffea namorokensis* A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 96. *Coffea neobridsoniae* A. P. Davis 97. *Coffea neoleroyi* A. P. Davis 98. *Coffea perrieri* Drake ex Jum. & H. Perrier 99. *Coffea pervilleana* (Baill.) Drake 100. *Coffea pocsii* Bridson 101. *Coffea pseudozanguebariae* Bridson 102. *Coffea pterocarpa* A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 103. *Coffea pustulata* `{{Au|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 104. *Coffea racemosa* Lour. 105. *Coffea rakotonasoloi* A. P. Davis 106. *Coffea ratsimamangae* J.-F. Leroy ex A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 107. *Coffea resinosa* (Hook. f.) Radlk. 108. *Coffea rhamnifolia* (Chiov.) Bridson 109. *Coffea richardii* J.-F. Leroy 110. *Coffea rizetiana* `{{Au|Stoff. & Noirot}}`{=mediawiki} 111. *Coffea rupicola* `{{Au|A. P. Davis & Rakotonas.}}`{=mediawiki} 112. *Coffea sahafaryensis* J.-F. Leroy 113. *Coffea sakarahae* J.-F. Leroy 114. *Coffea salvatrix* Swynn. & Philipson 115. *Coffea sambavensis* J.-F. Leroy ex A. P Davis & Rakotonas. 116. *Coffea sapinii* (De Wild.) A. P. Davis 117. *Coffea schliebenii* Bridson 118. *Coffea semsei* (Bridson) A. P. Davis 119. *Coffea sessiliflora* Bridson 120. *Coffea stenophylla* G. Don 121. *Coffea tetragona* Jum. & H. Perrier 122. *Coffea togoensis* A. Chev. 123. *Coffea toshii* A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 124. *Coffea travancorensis* Wight & Arn. 125. *Coffea tricalysioides* J.-F. Leroy 126. *Coffea tsirananae* J.-F. Leroy 127. *Coffea vatovavyensis* J.-F. Leroy 128. *Coffea vavateninensis* J.-F. Leroy 129. *Coffea vianneyi* J.-F. Leroy 130. *Coffea vohemarensis* A. P. Davis & Rakotonas. 131. *Coffea wightiana* Wall. ex Wight & Arn. 132. *Coffea zanguebariae* Lour.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,932

Carbohydrate

thumb\|class=skin-invert\|upright=1.25\|Lactose is a disaccharide found in animal milk. It consists of a molecule of D-galactose and a molecule of D-glucose bonded by beta-1-4 glycosidic linkage. A **carbohydrate** (`{{IPAc-en|ˌ|k|ɑːr|b|oʊ|ˈ|h|aɪ|d|r|eɪ|t}}`{=mediawiki}) is a biomolecule composed of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O) atoms. The typical hydrogen-to-oxygen atomic ratio is 2:1, analogous to that of water, and is represented by the empirical formula `{{chem2|C_{''m''}(H2O)_{''n''} }}`{=mediawiki} (where *m* and *n* may differ). This formula does not imply direct covalent bonding between hydrogen and oxygen atoms; for example, in `{{chem2|CH2O}}`{=mediawiki}, hydrogen is covalently bonded to carbon, not oxygen. While the 2:1 hydrogen-to-oxygen ratio is characteristic of many carbohydrates, exceptions exist. For instance, uronic acids and deoxy-sugars like fucose deviate from this precise stoichiometric definition. Conversely, some compounds conforming to this definition, such as formaldehyde and acetic acid, are not classified as carbohydrates. The term is predominantly used in biochemistry, functioning as a synonym for **saccharide** (`{{ety|grc|''σάκχαρον'' ({{grc-transl|σάκχαρον}})|sugar}}`{=mediawiki}), a group that includes sugars, starch, and cellulose. The saccharides are divided into four chemical groups: monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides. Monosaccharides and disaccharides, the smallest (lower molecular weight) carbohydrates, are commonly referred to as sugars. While the scientific nomenclature of carbohydrates is complex, the names of the monosaccharides and disaccharides very often end in the suffix *-ose*, which was originally taken from the word glucose (`{{ety|grc|''{{wikt-lang|grc|γλεῦκος}}'' ({{grc-transl|γλεῦκος}})|wine, [[must]]}}`{=mediawiki}), and is used for almost all sugars (e.g., fructose (fruit sugar), sucrose (cane or beet sugar), ribose, lactose (milk sugar)). Carbohydrates perform numerous roles in living organisms. Polysaccharides serve as an energy store (e.g., starch and glycogen) and as structural components (e.g., cellulose in plants and chitin in arthropods and fungi). The 5-carbon monosaccharide ribose is an important component of coenzymes (e.g., ATP, FAD and NAD) and the backbone of the genetic molecule known as RNA. The related deoxyribose is a component of DNA. Saccharides and their derivatives include many other important biomolecules that play key roles in the immune system, fertilization, preventing pathogenesis, blood clotting, and development. Carbohydrates are central to nutrition and are found in a wide variety of natural and processed foods. Starch is a polysaccharide and is abundant in cereals (wheat, maize, rice), potatoes, and processed food based on cereal flour, such as bread, pizza or pasta. Sugars appear in human diet mainly as table sugar (sucrose, extracted from sugarcane or sugar beets), lactose (abundant in milk), glucose and fructose, both of which occur naturally in honey, many fruits, and some vegetables. Table sugar, milk, or honey is often added to drinks and many prepared foods such as jam, biscuits and cakes. Cellulose, a polysaccharide found in the cell walls of all plants, is one of the main components of insoluble dietary fiber. Although it is not digestible by humans, cellulose and insoluble dietary fiber generally help maintain a healthy digestive system by facilitating bowel movements. Other polysaccharides contained in dietary fiber include resistant starch and inulin, which feed some bacteria in the microbiota of the large intestine, and are metabolized by these bacteria to yield short-chain fatty acids. ## Terminology In scientific literature, the term \"carbohydrate\" has many synonyms, like \"sugar\" (in the broad sense), \"saccharide\", \"ose\", \"glucide\", \"hydrate of carbon\" or \"polyhydroxy compounds with aldehyde or ketone\". Some of these terms, especially \"carbohydrate\" and \"sugar\", are also used with other meanings. In food science and in many informal contexts, the term \"carbohydrate\" often means any food that is particularly rich in the complex carbohydrate starch (such as cereals, bread and pasta) or simple carbohydrates, such as sugar (found in candy, jams, and desserts). This informality is sometimes confusing since it confounds chemical structure and digestibility in humans. The term \"carbohydrate\" (or \"carbohydrate by difference\") refers also to dietary fiber, which is a carbohydrate, but, unlike sugars and starches, fibers are not hydrolyzed by human digestive enzymes. Fiber generally contributes little food energy in humans, but is often included in the calculation of total food energy. The fermentation of soluble fibers by gut microflora can yield short-chain fatty acids, and soluble fiber is estimated to provide about 2 kcal/g. ## History The history of the discovery regarding carbohydrates dates back around 10,000 years ago in Papua New Guinea during the cultivation of sugarcane during the Neolithic agricultural revolution. The term \"carbohydrate\" was first proposed by German chemist Carl Schmidt (chemist) in 1844. In 1856, glycogen, a form of carbohydrate storage in animal livers, was discovered by French physiologist Claude Bernard. ## Structure Formerly the name \"carbohydrate\" was used in chemistry for any compound with the formula C~*m*~ (H~2~O)~*n*~. Following this definition, some chemists considered formaldehyde (CH~2~O) to be the simplest carbohydrate, while others claimed that title for glycolaldehyde. Today, the term is generally understood in the biochemistry sense, which excludes compounds with only one or two carbons and includes many biological carbohydrates which deviate from this formula. For example, while the above representative formulas would seem to capture the commonly known carbohydrates, ubiquitous and abundant carbohydrates often deviate from this. For example, carbohydrates often display chemical groups such as: *N*-acetyl (e.g., chitin), sulfate (e.g., glycosaminoglycans), carboxylic acid and deoxy modifications (e.g., fucose and sialic acid). Natural saccharides are generally built of simple carbohydrates called monosaccharides with general formula (CH~2~O)~*n*~ where *n* is three or more. A typical monosaccharide has the structure H--(CHOH)~*x*~(C=O)--(CHOH)~*y*~--H, that is, an aldehyde or ketone with many hydroxyl groups added, usually one on each carbon atom that is not part of the aldehyde or ketone functional group. Examples of monosaccharides are glucose, fructose, and glyceraldehydes. However, some biological substances commonly called \"monosaccharides\" do not conform to this formula (e.g., uronic acids and deoxy-sugars such as fucose) and there are many chemicals that do conform to this formula but are not considered to be monosaccharides (e.g., formaldehyde CH~2~O and inositol (CH~2~O)~6~). The open-chain form of a monosaccharide often coexists with a closed ring form where the aldehyde/ketone carbonyl group carbon (C=O) and hydroxyl group (--OH) react forming a hemiacetal with a new C--O--C bridge. Monosaccharides can be linked together into what are called polysaccharides (or oligosaccharides) in a large variety of ways. Many carbohydrates contain one or more modified monosaccharide units that have had one or more groups replaced or removed. For example, deoxyribose, a component of DNA, is a modified version of ribose; chitin is composed of repeating units of N-acetyl glucosamine, a nitrogen-containing form of glucose. ## Division Carbohydrates are polyhydroxy aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, acids, their simple derivatives and their polymers having linkages of the acetal type. They may be classified according to their degree of polymerization, and may be divided initially into three principal groups, namely sugars, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides. +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ | Class\ | Subgroup | Components | | (degree of polymerization) | | | +============================+============================+============================================================+ | Sugars (1--2) | Monosaccharides | Glucose, galactose, fructose, xylose | +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Disaccharides | Sucrose, lactose, maltose, isomaltulose, trehalose | +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Polyols | Sorbitol, mannitol | +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ | Oligosaccharides (3--9) | Malto-oligosaccharides | Maltodextrins | +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Other oligosaccharides | Raffinose, stachyose, fructo-oligosaccharides | +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ | Polysaccharides (\>9) | Starch | Amylose, amylopectin, modified starches | +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Non-starch polysaccharides | Glycogen, Cellulose, Hemicellulose, Pectins, Hydrocolloids | +----------------------------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+ : The major dietary carbohydrates ## Monosaccharides upright=0.5\|thumb\|class=skin-invert\|D-glucose is an aldohexose with the formula (C·H~2~O)~6~. The red atoms highlight the aldehyde group and the blue atoms highlight the asymmetric center furthest from the aldehyde; because this -OH is on the right of the Fischer projection, this is a D sugar. Monosaccharides are the simplest carbohydrates in that they cannot be hydrolyzed to smaller carbohydrates. They are aldehydes or ketones with two or more hydroxyl groups. The general chemical formula of an unmodified monosaccharide is (C•H~2~O)~n~, literally a \"carbon hydrate\". Monosaccharides are important fuel molecules as well as building blocks for nucleic acids. The smallest monosaccharides, for which n=3, are dihydroxyacetone and D- and L-glyceraldehydes. ### Classification of monosaccharides {#classification_of_monosaccharides} The α and β anomers of glucose. Note the position of the hydroxyl group (red or green) on the anomeric carbon relative to the CH~2~OH group bound to carbon 5: they either have identical absolute configurations (R,R or S,S) (α), or opposite absolute configurations (R,S or S,R) (β). Monosaccharides are classified according to three different characteristics: the placement of its carbonyl group, the number of carbon atoms it contains, and its chiral handedness. If the carbonyl group is an aldehyde, the monosaccharide is an aldose; if the carbonyl group is a ketone, the monosaccharide is a ketose. Monosaccharides with three carbon atoms are called trioses, those with four are called tetroses, five are called pentoses, six are hexoses, and so on. These two systems of classification are often combined. For example, glucose is an aldohexose (a six-carbon aldehyde), ribose is an aldopentose (a five-carbon aldehyde), and fructose is a ketohexose (a six-carbon ketone). Each carbon atom bearing a hydroxyl group (-OH), with the exception of the first and last carbons, are asymmetric, making them stereo centers with two possible configurations each (R or S). Because of this asymmetry, a number of isomers may exist for any given monosaccharide formula. Using Le Bel-van\'t Hoff rule, the aldohexose D-glucose, for example, has the formula (C·H~2~O)~6~, of which four of its six carbons atoms are stereogenic, making D-glucose one of 2^4^=16 possible stereoisomers. In the case of glyceraldehydes, an aldotriose, there is one pair of possible stereoisomers, which are enantiomers and epimers. 1, 3-dihydroxyacetone, the ketose corresponding to the aldose glyceraldehydes, is a symmetric molecule with no stereo centers. The assignment of D or L is made according to the orientation of the asymmetric carbon furthest from the carbonyl group: in a standard Fischer projection if the hydroxyl group is on the right the molecule is a D sugar, otherwise it is an L sugar. The \"D-\" and \"L-\" prefixes should not be confused with \"d-\" or \"l-\", which indicate the direction that the sugar rotates plane polarized light. This usage of \"d-\" and \"l-\" is no longer followed in carbohydrate chemistry. ### Ring-straight chain isomerism {#ring_straight_chain_isomerism} The aldehyde or ketone group of a straight-chain monosaccharide will react reversibly with a hydroxyl group on a different carbon atom to form a hemiacetal or hemiketal, forming a heterocyclic ring with an oxygen bridge between two carbon atoms. Rings with five and six atoms are called furanose and pyranose forms, respectively, and exist in equilibrium with the straight-chain form. During the conversion from straight-chain form to the cyclic form, the carbon atom containing the carbonyl oxygen, called the anomeric carbon, becomes a stereogenic center with two possible configurations: The oxygen atom may take a position either above or below the plane of the ring. The resulting possible pair of stereoisomers is called anomers. In the *α anomer*, the -OH substituent on the anomeric carbon rests on the opposite side (trans) of the ring from the CH~2~OH side branch. The alternative form, in which the CH~2~OH substituent and the anomeric hydroxyl are on the same side (cis) of the plane of the ring, is called the *β anomer*. ### Use in living organisms {#use_in_living_organisms} Monosaccharides are the major fuel source for metabolism, and glucose is an energy-rich molecule utilized to generate ATP in almost all living organisms. Glucose is a high-energy substrate produced in plants through photosynthesis by combining energy-poor water and carbon dioxide in an endothermic reaction fueled by solar energy. When monosaccharides are not immediately needed, they are often converted to more space-efficient (i.e., less water-soluble) forms, often polysaccharides. In animals, glucose circulating the blood is a major metabolic substrate and is oxidized in the mitochondria to produce ATP for performing useful cellular work. In humans and other animals, serum glucose levels must be regulated carefully to maintain glucose within acceptable limits and prevent the deleterious effects of hypo- or hyperglycemia. Hormones such as insulin and glucagon serve to keep glucose levels in balance: insulin stimulates glucose uptake into the muscle and fat cells when glucose levels are high, whereas glucagon helps to raise glucose levels if they dip too low by stimulating hepatic glucose synthesis. In many animals, including humans, this storage form is glycogen, especially in liver and muscle cells. In plants, starch is used for the same purpose. The most abundant carbohydrate, cellulose, is a structural component of the cell wall of plants and many forms of algae. Ribose is a component of RNA. Deoxyribose is a component of DNA. Lyxose is a component of lyxoflavin found in the human heart. Ribulose and xylulose occur in the pentose phosphate pathway. Galactose, a component of milk sugar lactose, is found in galactolipids in plant cell membranes and in glycoproteins in many tissues. Mannose occurs in human metabolism, especially in the glycosylation of certain proteins. Fructose, or fruit sugar, is found in many plants and humans, it is metabolized in the liver, absorbed directly into the intestines during digestion, and found in semen. Trehalose, a major sugar of insects, is rapidly hydrolyzed into two glucose molecules to support continuous flight. ## Disaccharides *Main article: Disaccharide* Two joined monosaccharides are called a disaccharide, the simplest kind of polysaccharide. Examples include sucrose and lactose. They are composed of two monosaccharide units bound together by a covalent bond known as a glycosidic linkage formed via a dehydration reaction, resulting in the loss of a hydrogen atom from one monosaccharide and a hydroxyl group from the other. The formula of unmodified disaccharides is C~12~H~22~O~11~. Although there are numerous kinds of disaccharides, a handful of disaccharides are particularly notable. Sucrose, pictured to the right, is the most abundant disaccharide, and the main form in which carbohydrates are transported in plants. It is composed of one D-glucose molecule and one D-fructose molecule. The systematic name for sucrose, *O*-α-D-glucopyranosyl-(1→2)-D-fructofuranoside, indicates four things: - Its monosaccharides: glucose and fructose - Their ring types: glucose is a pyranose and fructose is a furanose - How they are linked together: the oxygen on carbon number 1 (C1) of α-D-glucose is linked to the C2 of D-fructose. - The *-oside* suffix indicates that the anomeric carbon of both monosaccharides participates in the glycosidic bond. Lactose, a disaccharide composed of one D-galactose molecule and one D-glucose molecule, occurs naturally in mammalian milk. The systematic name for lactose is *O*-β-D-galactopyranosyl-(1→4)-D-glucopyranose. Other notable disaccharides include maltose (two D-glucoses linked α-1,4) and cellobiose (two D-glucoses linked β-1,4). Disaccharides can be classified into two types: reducing and non-reducing disaccharides. If the functional group is present in bonding with another sugar unit, it is called a reducing disaccharide or biose. ## Oligosaccharides and polysaccharides {#oligosaccharides_and_polysaccharides} ### Oligosaccharides Oligosaccharides are saccharide polymers composed of three to ten units of monosaccharides, connected via glycosidic linkages, similar to disaccharides. They are usually linked to lipids or amino acids glycosic linkage with oxygen or nitrogen to form glycolipids and glycoproteins, though some, like the raffinose series and the fructooligosaccharides, do not. They have roles in cell recognition and cell adhesion. ### Polysaccharides ## Nutrition Carbohydrate consumed in food yields 3.87 kilocalories of energy per gram for simple sugars, and 3.57 to 4.12 kilocalories per gram for complex carbohydrate in most other foods. Relatively high levels of carbohydrate are associated with processed foods or refined foods made from plants, including sweets, cookies and candy, table sugar, honey, soft drinks, breads and crackers, jams and fruit products, pastas and breakfast cereals. Refined carbohydrates from processed foods such as white bread or rice, soft drinks, and desserts are readily digestible, and many are known to have a high glycemic index, which reflects a rapid assimilation of glucose. By contrast, the digestion of whole, unprocessed, fiber-rich foods such as beans, peas, and whole grains produces a slower and steadier release of glucose and energy into the body. Animal-based foods generally have the lowest carbohydrate levels, although milk does contain a high proportion of lactose. Organisms typically cannot metabolize all types of carbohydrate to yield energy. Glucose is a nearly universal and accessible source of energy. Many organisms also have the ability to metabolize other monosaccharides and disaccharides but glucose is often metabolized first. In *Escherichia coli*, for example, the lac operon will express enzymes for the digestion of lactose when it is present, but if both lactose and glucose are present, the *lac* operon is repressed, resulting in the glucose being used first (see: Diauxie). Polysaccharides are also common sources of energy. Many organisms can easily break down starches into glucose; most organisms, however, cannot metabolize cellulose or other polysaccharides such as chitin and arabinoxylans. These carbohydrate types can be metabolized by some bacteria and protists. Ruminants and termites, for example, use microorganisms to process cellulose, fermenting it to caloric short-chain fatty acids. Even though humans lack the enzymes to digest fiber, dietary fiber represents an important dietary element for humans. Fibers promote healthy digestion, help regulate postprandial glucose and insulin levels, reduce cholesterol levels, and promote satiety. The Institute of Medicine recommends that American and Canadian adults get between 45 and 65% of dietary energy from whole-grain carbohydrates. The Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization jointly recommend that national dietary guidelines set a goal of 55--75% of total energy from carbohydrates, but only 10% directly from sugars (their term for simple carbohydrates). A 2017 Cochrane Systematic Review concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support the claim that whole grain diets can affect cardiovascular disease. ### Classification The term *complex carbohydrate* was first used in the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs publication *Dietary Goals for the United States* (1977) where it was intended to distinguish sugars from other carbohydrates (which were perceived to be nutritionally superior). However, the report put \"fruit, vegetables and whole-grains\" in the complex carbohydrate column, despite the fact that these may contain sugars as well as polysaccharides. The standard usage, however, is to classify carbohydrates chemically: *simple* if they are sugars (monosaccharides and disaccharides) and *complex* if they are polysaccharides (or oligosaccharides). Carbohydrates are sometimes divided into \"available carbohydrates\", which are absorbed in the small intestine and \"unavailable carbohydrates\", which pass to the large intestine, where they are subject to fermentation by the gastrointestinal microbiota. #### Glycemic index {#glycemic_index} The glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load concepts characterize the potential for carbohydrates in food to raise blood glucose compared to a reference food (generally pure glucose). Expressed numerically as GI, carbohydrate-containing foods can be grouped as high-GI (score more than 70), moderate-GI (56--69), or low-GI (less than 55) relative to pure glucose (GI=100). Consumption of carbohydrate-rich, high-GI foods causes an abrupt increase in blood glucose concentration that declines rapidly following the meal, whereas low-GI foods with lower carbohydrate content produces a lower blood glucose concentration that returns gradually after the meal. Glycemic load is a measure relating the quality of carbohydrates in a food (low- vs. high-carbohydrate content -- the GI) by the amount of carbohydrates in a single serving of that food. ### Health effects of dietary carbohydrate restriction {#health_effects_of_dietary_carbohydrate_restriction} Low-carbohydrate diets may miss the health advantages -- such as increased intake of dietary fiber and phytochemicals -- afforded by high-quality plant foods such as legumes and pulses, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. A \"meta-analysis, of moderate quality,\" included as adverse effects of the diet halitosis, headache and constipation.`{{Better source needed|reason=Quoting source: "Only one meta-analysis, of moderate quality, reported adverse effects of LCDs [...]"|date=August 2022}}`{=mediawiki} Carbohydrate-restricted diets can be as effective as low-fat diets in helping achieve weight loss over the short term when overall calorie intake is reduced. An Endocrine Society scientific statement said that \"when calorie intake is held constant \[\...\] body-fat accumulation does not appear to be affected by even very pronounced changes in the amount of fat vs carbohydrate in the diet.\" In the long term, low-carbohydrate diets do not appear to confer a \"metabolic advantage,\" and effective weight loss or maintenance depends on the level of calorie restriction, not the ratio of macronutrients in a diet. The reasoning of diet advocates that carbohydrates cause undue fat accumulation by increasing blood insulin levels, but a more balanced diet that restricts refined carbohydrates can also reduce serum glucose and insulin levels and may also suppress lipogenesis and promote fat oxidation. However, as far as energy expenditure itself is concerned, the claim that low-carbohydrate diets have a \"metabolic advantage\" is not supported by clinical evidence. Further, it is not clear how low-carbohydrate dieting affects cardiovascular health, although two reviews showed that carbohydrate restriction may improve lipid markers of cardiovascular disease risk. Carbohydrate-restricted diets are no more effective than a conventional healthy diet in preventing the onset of type 2 diabetes, but for people with type 2 diabetes, they are a viable option for losing weight or helping with glycemic control. There is limited evidence to support routine use of low-carbohydrate dieting in managing type 1 diabetes. The American Diabetes Association recommends that people with diabetes should adopt a generally healthy diet, rather than a diet focused on carbohydrate or other macronutrients. An extreme form of low-carbohydrate diet -- the ketogenic diet -- is established as a medical diet for treating epilepsy. Through celebrity endorsement during the early 21st century, it became a fad diet as a means of weight loss, but with risks of undesirable side effects, such as low energy levels and increased hunger, insomnia, nausea, and gastrointestinal discomfort.`{{scientific citation needed|date=May 2023}}`{=mediawiki} The British Dietetic Association named it one of the \"top 5 worst celeb diets to avoid in 2018\". ## Metabolism Carbohydrate metabolism is the series of biochemical processes responsible for the formation, breakdown and interconversion of carbohydrates in living organisms. The most important carbohydrate is glucose, a simple sugar (monosaccharide) that is metabolized by nearly all known organisms. Glucose and other carbohydrates are part of a wide variety of metabolic pathways across species: plants synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water by photosynthesis storing the absorbed energy internally, often in the form of starch or lipids. Plant components are consumed by animals and fungi, and used as fuel for cellular respiration. Oxidation of one gram of carbohydrate yields approximately 16 kJ (4 kcal) of energy, while the oxidation of one gram of lipids yields about 38 kJ (9 kcal). The human body stores between 300 and 500 g of carbohydrates depending on body weight, with the skeletal muscle contributing to a large portion of the storage. Energy obtained from metabolism (e.g., oxidation of glucose) is usually stored temporarily within cells in the form of ATP. Organisms capable of anaerobic and aerobic respiration metabolize glucose and oxygen (aerobic) to release energy, with carbon dioxide and water as byproducts. ### Catabolism Catabolism is the metabolic reaction which cells undergo to break down larger molecules, extracting energy. There are two major metabolic pathways of monosaccharide catabolism: glycolysis and the citric acid cycle. In glycolysis, oligo- and polysaccharides are cleaved first to smaller monosaccharides by enzymes called glycoside hydrolases. The monosaccharide units can then enter into monosaccharide catabolism. A 2 ATP investment is required in the early steps of glycolysis to phosphorylate Glucose to Glucose 6-Phosphate (G6P) and Fructose 6-Phosphate (F6P) to Fructose 1,6-biphosphate (FBP), thereby pushing the reaction forward irreversibly. In some cases, as with humans, not all carbohydrate types are usable as the digestive and metabolic enzymes necessary are not present. ## Carbohydrate chemistry {#carbohydrate_chemistry} Carbohydrate chemistry is a large and economically important branch of organic chemistry. Some of the main organic reactions that involve carbohydrates are: - Amadori rearrangement - Carbohydrate acetalisation - Carbohydrate digestion - Cyanohydrin reaction - Koenigs--Knorr reaction - Lobry de Bruyn--Van Ekenstein transformation - Nef reaction - Wohl degradation - Tipson-Cohen reaction - Ferrier rearrangement - Ferrier II reaction ## Chemical synthesis {#chemical_synthesis} Carbohydrate synthesis is a sub-field of organic chemistry concerned specifically with the generation of natural and unnatural carbohydrate structures. This can include the synthesis of monosaccharide residues or structures containing more than one monosaccharide, known as oligosaccharides. Selective formation of glycosidic linkages and selective reactions of hydroxyl groups are very important, and the usage of protecting groups is extensive. Common reactions for glycosidic bond formation are as follows: - Chemical glycosylation - Fischer glycosidation - Koenigs-Knorr reaction - Crich beta-mannosylation While some common protection methods are as below: - Carbohydrate acetalisation - Trimethylsilyl - Benzyl ether - p-Methoxybenzyl ether

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Chemical thermodynamics

**Chemical thermodynamics** is the study of the interrelation of heat and work with chemical reactions or with physical changes of state within the confines of the laws of thermodynamics. Chemical thermodynamics involves not only laboratory measurements of various thermodynamic properties, but also the application of mathematical methods to the study of chemical questions and the *spontaneity* of processes. The structure of chemical thermodynamics is based on the first two laws of thermodynamics. Starting from the first and second laws of thermodynamics, four equations called the \"fundamental equations of Gibbs\" can be derived. From these four, a multitude of equations, relating the thermodynamic properties of the thermodynamic system can be derived using relatively simple mathematics. This outlines the mathematical framework of chemical thermodynamics. ## History In 1865, the German physicist Rudolf Clausius, in his *Mechanical Theory of Heat*, suggested that the principles of thermochemistry, e.g. the heat evolved in combustion reactions, could be applied to the principles of thermodynamics. Building on the work of Clausius, between the years 1873-76 the American mathematical physicist Willard Gibbs published a series of three papers, the most famous one being the paper *On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances*. In these papers, Gibbs showed how the first two laws of thermodynamics could be measured graphically and mathematically to determine both the thermodynamic equilibrium of chemical reactions as well as their tendencies to occur or proceed. Gibbs\' collection of papers provided the first unified body of thermodynamic theorems from the principles developed by others, such as Clausius and Sadi Carnot. During the early 20th century, two major publications successfully applied the principles developed by Gibbs to chemical processes and thus established the foundation of the science of chemical thermodynamics. The first was the 1923 textbook *Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances* by Gilbert N. Lewis and Merle Randall. This book was responsible for supplanting the chemical affinity with the term free energy in the English-speaking world. The second was the 1933 book *Modern Thermodynamics by the methods of Willard Gibbs* written by E. A. Guggenheim. In this manner, Lewis, Randall, and Guggenheim are considered as the founders of modern chemical thermodynamics because of the major contribution of these two books in unifying the application of thermodynamics to chemistry. ## Overview The primary objective of chemical thermodynamics is the establishment of a criterion for determination of the feasibility or spontaneity of a given transformation. In this manner, chemical thermodynamics is typically used to predict the energy exchanges that occur in the following processes: 1. Chemical reactions 2. Phase changes 3. The formation of solutions The following state functions are of primary concern in chemical thermodynamics: - Internal energy (*U*) - Enthalpy (*H*) - Entropy (*S*) - Gibbs free energy (*G*) Most identities in chemical thermodynamics arise from application of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, particularly the law of conservation of energy, to these state functions. **The three laws of thermodynamics** (global, unspecific forms): 1. The energy of the universe is constant. 2. In any spontaneous process, there is always an increase in entropy of the universe. 3. The entropy of a perfect crystal (well ordered) at 0 Kelvin is zero. ## Chemical energy {#chemical_energy} **Chemical energy** is the energy that can be released when chemical substances undergo a transformation through a chemical reaction. Breaking and making chemical bonds involves energy release or uptake, often as heat that may be either absorbed by or evolved from the chemical system. Energy released (or absorbed) because of a reaction between chemical substances (\"reactants\") is equal to the difference between the energy content of the products and the reactants. This change in energy is called the change in internal energy of a chemical system. It can be calculated from $\Delta_{\rm f}U^{\rm o}_{\mathrm {reactants}}$, the internal energy of formation of the reactant molecules related to the bond energies of the molecules under consideration, and $\Delta_{\rm f}U^{\rm o}_{\mathrm {products}}$, the internal energy of formation of the product molecules. The change in internal energy is equal to the heat change if it is measured under conditions of constant volume (at STP condition), as in a closed rigid container such as a bomb calorimeter. However, at constant pressure, as in reactions in vessels open to the atmosphere, the measured heat is usually not equal to the internal energy change, because pressure-volume work also releases or absorbs energy. (The heat change at constant pressure is called the enthalpy change; in this case the widely tabulated enthalpies of formation are used.) A related term is the heat of combustion, which is the chemical energy released due to a combustion reaction and of interest in the study of fuels. Food is similar to hydrocarbon and carbohydrate fuels, and when it is oxidized, its energy release is similar (though assessed differently than for a hydrocarbon fuel --- see food energy). In chemical thermodynamics, the term used for the chemical potential energy is chemical potential, and sometimes the Gibbs-Duhem equation is used. ## Chemical reactions {#chemical_reactions} In most cases of interest in chemical thermodynamics there are internal degrees of freedom and processes, such as chemical reactions and phase transitions, which create entropy in the universe unless they are at equilibrium or are maintained at a \"running equilibrium\" through \"quasi-static\" changes by being coupled to constraining devices, such as pistons or electrodes, to deliver and receive external work. Even for homogeneous \"bulk\" systems, the free-energy functions depend on the composition, as do all the extensive thermodynamic potentials, including the internal energy. If the quantities { *N*~*i*~ }, the number of chemical species, are omitted from the formulae, it is impossible to describe compositional changes. ### Gibbs function or Gibbs Energy {#gibbs_function_or_gibbs_energy} For an unstructured, homogeneous \"bulk\" system, there are still various *extensive* compositional variables { *N*~*i*~ } that *G* depends on, which specify the composition (the amounts of each chemical substance, expressed as the numbers of molecules present or the numbers of moles). Explicitly, $G = G(T,P,\{N_i\})\,.$ For the case where only *PV* work is possible, $\mathrm{d}G = -S\, \mathrm{d}T + V \, \mathrm{d}P + \sum_i \mu_i \, \mathrm{d}N_i \,$ a restatement of the fundamental thermodynamic relation, in which *μ~i~* is the chemical potential for the *i*-th component in the system $\mu_i = \left( \frac{\partial G}{\partial N_i}\right)_{T,P,N_{j\ne i},etc. } \,.$ The expression for d*G* is especially useful at constant *T* and *P*, conditions, which are easy to achieve experimentally and which approximate the conditions in living creatures $(\mathrm{d}G)_{T,P} = \sum_i \mu_i \, \mathrm{d}N_i\,.$ ### Chemical affinity {#chemical_affinity} While this formulation is mathematically defensible, it is not particularly transparent since one does not simply add or remove molecules from a system. There is always a *process* involved in changing the composition; e.g., a chemical reaction (or many), or movement of molecules from one phase (liquid) to another (gas or solid). We should find a notation which does not seem to imply that the amounts of the components ( *N*~*i*~ ) can be changed independently. All real processes obey conservation of mass, and in addition, conservation of the numbers of atoms of each kind. Consequently, we introduce an explicit variable to represent the degree of advancement of a process, a progress variable *ξ* for the *extent of reaction* (Prigogine & Defay, p. 18; Prigogine, pp. 4--7; Guggenheim, p. 37.62), and to the use of the partial derivative ∂*G*/∂*ξ* (in place of the widely used \"Δ*G*\", since the quantity at issue is not a finite change). The result is an understandable expression for the dependence of d*G* on chemical reactions (or other processes). If there is just one reaction $(\mathrm{d}G)_{T,P} = \left( \frac{\partial G}{\partial \xi}\right)_{T,P} \, \mathrm{d}\xi.\,$ If we introduce the *stoichiometric coefficient* for the *i*-th component in the reaction $\nu_i = \partial N_i / \partial \xi \,$ (negative for reactants), which tells how many molecules of *i* are produced or consumed, we obtain an algebraic expression for the partial derivative $\left( \frac{\partial G}{\partial \xi} \right)_{T,P} = \sum_i \mu_i \nu_i = -\mathbb{A}\,$ where we introduce a concise and historical name for this quantity, the \"affinity\", symbolized by **A**, as introduced by Théophile de Donder in 1923.(De Donder; Progogine & Defay, p. 69; Guggenheim, pp. 37, 240) The minus sign ensures that in a spontaneous change, when the change in the Gibbs free energy of the process is negative, the chemical species have a positive affinity for each other. The differential of *G* takes on a simple form that displays its dependence on composition change $(\mathrm{d}G)_{T,P} = -\mathbb{A}\, d\xi \,.$ If there are a number of chemical reactions going on simultaneously, as is usually the case, $(\mathrm{d}G)_{T,P} = -\sum_k\mathbb{A}_k\, d\xi_k \,.$ with a set of reaction coordinates { ξ~*j*~ }, avoiding the notion that the amounts of the components ( *N*~*i*~ ) can be changed independently. The expressions above are equal to zero at thermodynamic equilibrium, while they are negative when chemical reactions proceed at a finite rate, producing entropy. This can be made even more explicit by introducing the reaction *rates* d*ξ*~*j*~/d*t*. For every *physically independent* *process* (Prigogine & Defay, p. 38; Prigogine, p. 24) $\mathbb{A}\ \dot{\xi} \le 0 \,.$ This is a remarkable result since the chemical potentials are intensive system variables, depending only on the local molecular milieu. They cannot \"know\" whether temperature and pressure (or any other system variables) are going to be held constant over time. It is a purely local criterion and must hold regardless of any such constraints. Of course, it could have been obtained by taking partial derivatives of any of the other fundamental state functions, but nonetheless is a general criterion for (−*T* times) the entropy production from that spontaneous process; or at least any part of it that is not captured as external work. (See *Constraints* below.) We now relax the requirement of a homogeneous \"bulk\" system by letting the chemical potentials and the affinity apply to any locality in which a chemical reaction (or any other process) is occurring. By accounting for the entropy production due to irreversible processes, the equality for d*G* is now replaced by $\mathrm{d}G = - S \, \mathrm{d}T + V \, \mathrm{d}P -\sum_k\mathbb{A}_k\, \mathrm{d}\xi_k + \mathrm{\delta} W'\,$ or $\mathrm{d}G_{T,P} = -\sum_k\mathbb{A}_k\, \mathrm{d}\xi_k + \mathrm{\delta} W'.\,$ Any decrease in the Gibbs function of a system is the upper limit for any isothermal, isobaric work that can be captured in the surroundings, or it may simply be dissipated, appearing as *T* times a corresponding increase in the entropy of the system and its surrounding. Or it may go partly toward doing external work and partly toward creating entropy. The important point is that the *extent of reaction* for a chemical reaction may be coupled to the displacement of some external mechanical or electrical quantity in such a way that one can advance only if the other also does. The coupling may occasionally be *rigid*, but it is often flexible and variable. ### Solutions In solution chemistry and biochemistry, the Gibbs free energy decrease (∂*G*/∂*ξ*, in molar units, denoted cryptically by Δ*G*) is commonly used as a surrogate for (−*T* times) the global entropy produced by spontaneous chemical reactions in situations where no work is being done; or at least no \"useful\" work; i.e., other than perhaps ± *P* d*V*. The assertion that all *spontaneous reactions have a negative ΔG* is merely a restatement of the second law of thermodynamics, giving it the physical dimensions of energy and somewhat obscuring its significance in terms of entropy. When no useful work is being done, it would be less misleading to use the Legendre transforms of the entropy appropriate for constant *T*, or for constant *T* and *P*, the Massieu functions −*F*/*T* and −*G*/*T*, respectively. ## Non-equilibrium {#non_equilibrium} Generally the systems treated with the conventional chemical thermodynamics are either at equilibrium or near equilibrium. Ilya Prigogine developed the thermodynamic treatment of open systems that are far from equilibrium. In doing so he has discovered phenomena and structures of completely new and completely unexpected types. His generalized, nonlinear and irreversible thermodynamics has found surprising applications in a wide variety of fields. The non-equilibrium thermodynamics has been applied for explaining how ordered structures e.g. the biological systems, can develop from disorder. Even if Onsager\'s relations are utilized, the classical principles of equilibrium in thermodynamics still show that linear systems close to equilibrium always develop into states of disorder which are stable to perturbations and cannot explain the occurrence of ordered structures. Prigogine called these systems dissipative systems, because they are formed and maintained by the dissipative processes which take place because of the exchange of energy between the system and its environment and because they disappear if that exchange ceases. They may be said to live in symbiosis with their environment. The method which Prigogine used to study the stability of the dissipative structures to perturbations is of very great general interest. It makes it possible to study the most varied problems, such as city traffic problems, the stability of insect communities, the development of ordered biological structures and the growth of cancer cells to mention but a few examples. ### System constraints {#system_constraints} In this regard, it is crucial to understand the role of walls and other *constraints*, and the distinction between *independent* processes and *coupling*. Contrary to the clear implications of many reference sources, the previous analysis is not restricted to homogeneous, isotropic bulk systems which can deliver only *P*d*V* work to the outside world, but applies even to the most structured systems. There are complex systems with many chemical \"reactions\" going on at the same time, some of which are really only parts of the same, overall process. An *independent* process is one that *could* proceed even if all others were unaccountably stopped in their tracks. Understanding this is perhaps a \"thought experiment\" in chemical kinetics, but actual examples exist. A gas-phase reaction at constant temperature and pressure which results in an increase in the number of molecules will lead to an increase in volume. Inside a cylinder closed with a piston, it can proceed only by doing work on the piston. The extent variable for the reaction can increase only if the piston moves out, and conversely if the piston is pushed inward, the reaction is driven backwards. Similarly, a redox reaction might occur in an electrochemical cell with the passage of current through a wire connecting the electrodes. The half-cell reactions at the electrodes are constrained if no current is allowed to flow. The current might be dissipated as Joule heating, or it might in turn run an electrical device like a motor doing mechanical work. An automobile lead-acid battery can be recharged, driving the chemical reaction backwards. In this case as well, the reaction is not an independent process. Some, perhaps most, of the Gibbs free energy of reaction may be delivered as external work. The hydrolysis of ATP to ADP and phosphate can drive the force-times-distance work delivered by living muscles, and synthesis of ATP is in turn driven by a redox chain in mitochondria and chloroplasts, which involves the transport of ions across the membranes of these cellular organelles. The coupling of processes here, and in the previous examples, is often not complete. Gas can leak slowly past a piston, just as it can slowly leak out of a rubber balloon. Some reaction may occur in a battery even if no external current is flowing. There is usually a coupling coefficient, which may depend on relative rates, which determines what percentage of the driving free energy is turned into external work, or captured as \"chemical work\", a misnomer for the free energy of another chemical process.

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Standard works

The **Standard Works** of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church, the largest in the Latter Day Saint movement) are the four books that currently constitute its open scriptural canon. The four books of the standard works are: - The Authorized King James Version (KJV) as the official scriptural text of the Bible (other versions of the Bible are used in non-English-speaking countries) - The Book of Mormon, subtitled since 1981 *\"Another Testament of Jesus Christ\"* - The Doctrine and Covenants (D&C) - The Pearl of Great Price (containing the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith--Matthew, Joseph Smith--History, and the Articles of Faith) The *Standard Works* are printed and distributed by the LDS Church both in a single binding called a *quadruple combination* and as a set of two books, with the Bible in one binding, and the other three books in a second binding called a *triple combination*. Current editions of the *Standard Works* include a number of non-canonical study aids, including a Bible dictionary, photographs, maps and gazetteer, topical guide, index, footnotes, cross references, and excerpts from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. The scriptural canon is \"open\" due to the Latter-day Saint belief in continuous revelation. Additions can be made to the scriptural canon with the \"common consent\" of the church\'s membership. Other branches of the Latter Day Saint movement reject some of the *Standard Works* or add other scriptures, such as the Book of the Law of the Lord and The Word of the Lord Brought to Mankind by an Angel. ## Differences in canonicity across sects {#differences_in_canonicity_across_sects} Canons of various Latter Day Saint denominations reject some of the *Standard Works* canonized by the LDS Church or have included additional works. For instance, the Bickertonite sect does not consider the Pearl of Great Price or D&C to be scriptural. Rather, they believe that the New Testament scriptures contain a true description of the church as established by Jesus Christ, and that both the King James Version of the Bible and the Book of Mormon are the inspired word of God. Some Latter Day Saint denominations accept earlier versions of the *Standard Works* or work to develop corrected translations. Others have purportedly received additional revelations. The Community of Christ points to Jesus Christ as the living Word of God, and it affirms the Bible, along with the Book of Mormon, as well as its own regularly appended version of D&C as scripture for the church. While it publishes a version of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible---which includes material from the Book of Moses---Community of Christ also accepts the use of other English translations of the Bible, such as the standard King James Version and the New Revised Standard Version. Like the Bickertonites, the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) rejects the D&C and the Pearl of Great Price, as well as the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, preferring to use only the King James Bible and the Book of Mormon as doctrinal standards. The Book of Commandments is accepted as being superior to the D&Cs as a compendium of Smith\'s early revelations but is not accorded the same status as the Bible or the Book of Mormon. The Word of the Lord and The Word of the Lord Brought to Mankind by an Angel are two related books considered to be scriptural by Fettingite factions that separated from the Temple Lot church. Both books contain revelations said to be given to former Church of Christ (Temple Lot) apostle Otto Fetting by an angelic being who said he was John the Baptist. The latter title (120 messages) contains the entirety of the former\'s material (30 message) with additional revelations (90 messages) said to be given to William A. Draves by this same being, after Fetting\'s death. Neither are accepted by the larger Temple Lot body of believers. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) considers the Bible (when correctly translated), the Book of Mormon, and editions of the D&C published prior to Joseph Smith\'s death (which contained the Lectures on Faith) to be inspired scripture. They also hold the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible to be inspired, but do not believe modern publications of the text are accurate. Other portions of the Pearl of Great Price, however, are not considered to be scriptural---though are not necessarily fully rejected either. The Book of Jasher was consistently used by both Joseph Smith and James Strang, but as with other Latter Day Saint denominations and sects, there is no official stance on its authenticity, and it is not considered canonical. This sect likewise holds as scriptural several prophecies, visions, revelations, and translations printed by James Strang, and published in the *Revelations of James J. Strang*. An additional work, called The Book of the Law of the Lord, is also accepted as inspired scripture by the Strangites. They likewise hold as scriptural several prophecies, visions, revelations, and translations printed by James Strang, and published in the *Revelations of James J. Strang*. Among other things, this text contains his purported \"Letter of Appointment\" from Joseph Smith and his translation of the Voree plates. The Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite) accepts the following as scripture: the Inspired Version of the Bible (including the Book of Moses and Joseph Smith--Matthew), the Book of Mormon, and the 1844 edition of the D&C (including the Lectures on Faith). However, the revelation on tithing (section 107 in the 1844 edition; 119 in modern LDS Church editions) is emphatically rejected by members of this church, as it is not believed to be given by Joseph Smith. The Book of Abraham is rejected as scripture, as are the other portions of the Pearl of Great Price that do not appear in the Inspired Version of the Bible. Many Latter Day Saint denominations have also either adopted the Articles of Faith or at least view them as a statement of basic theology. (They are considered scriptural by the LDS Church and are included in the Pearl of Great Price.) At times, the Articles of Faith have been adapted to fit the respective belief systems of various faith communities. ## Process of addition or alteration {#process_of_addition_or_alteration} The D&C teaches that \"all things must be done in order, and by common consent in the church\". This applies to adding new scripture. LDS Church president Harold B. Lee taught \"The only one authorized to bring forth any new doctrine is the President of the Church, who, when he does, will declare it as revelation from God, and it will be so accepted by the Council of the Twelve and sustained by the body of the Church.\" There are several instances of this happening in the LDS Church: - June 9, 1830: First conference of the church, The Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ, now known as D&C 20. If the Bible and Book of Mormon were not sustained on April 6 then they were by default when the Articles and Covenants were sustained. (see D&C 20:8-11) - August 17, 1835: Select revelations from Joseph Smith were unanimously accepted as scripture. These were later printed in the D&C. - October 10, 1880: The Pearl of Great Price was unanimously accepted as scripture. Also at that time, other revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants -- which had not been accepted as scripture in 1835 because they were received after that date -- were unanimously accepted as scripture. - October 6, 1890: Official Declaration 1 was accepted unanimously as scripture. It later began to be published in the Doctrine and Covenants. - April 3, 1976: Two visions (one received by Joseph Smith and the other by Joseph F. Smith) were accepted as scripture and added to the Pearl of Great Price. (The two visions were later moved to the D&C as sections 137 and 138.) - September 30, 1978: Official Declaration 2 was accepted unanimously as scripture. It immediately was added to the Doctrine and Covenants. When a doctrine undergoes this procedure, the LDS Church treats it as the word of God, and it is used as a standard to compare other doctrines. Lee taught: > It is not to be thought that every word spoken by the General Authorities is inspired, or that they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost in everything they speak and write. Now you keep that in mind. I don\'t care what his position is, if he writes something or speaks something that goes beyond anything that you can find in the standard works, unless that one be the prophet, seer, and revelator---please note that one exception---you may immediately say, \"Well, that is his own idea!\" And if he says something that contradicts what is found in the standard works (I think that is why we call them \"standard\"---it is the standard measure of all that men teach), you may know by that same token that it is false; regardless of the position of the man who says it. ## The Bible {#the_bible} English-speaking Latter-day Saints typically study a custom edition of the KJV, which includes custom chapter headings, footnotes referencing books in the Standard Works, and select passages from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Though the KJV was always commonly used, it was officially adopted in the 1950s when J. Reuben Clark, of the church\'s First Presidency, argued extensively that newer translations, such as Revised Standard Version (RSV) of 1952, were of lower quality and less compatible with LDS Church tradition. After publishing its own KJV edition in 1979, the First Presidency announced in 1992 that the KJV was the church\'s official English Bible, stating: \"\[w\]hile other Bible versions may be easier to read than the King James Version, in doctrinal matters latter-day revelation supports the King James Version in preference to other English translations.\" In 2010, this statement was written into the church\'s *Handbook*, which directs official church policy and programs. A Spanish version, with a similar format and using a slightly revised version of the 1909 Reina-Valera translation, was published in 2009. Latter-day Saints in other non-English speaking areas may use other versions of the Bible. Though the Bible is part of the LDS Church\'s canon and members believe it to be the word of God, they believe that errors, omissions, and mistranslations are present in even the earliest known Biblical manuscripts. They state that the errors in the Bible have led to incorrect interpretations of certain passages. Thus, as Joseph Smith explained, the church believes the Bible to be the word of God \"as far as it is translated correctly\". The LDS Church teaches that \"\[t\]he most reliable way to measure the accuracy of any biblical passage is not by comparing different texts, but by comparison with the Book of Mormon and modern-day revelations\". The manuscripts of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible state that \"the Songs of Solomon are not inspired scripture,\" and therefore it is not included in the LDS Church\'s canon and is rarely studied by its members. However, it is still printed in every version of the KJV published by the church. ### The Apocrypha {#the_apocrypha} Although the Apocrypha was part of the 1611 edition of the KJV, the LDS Church does not currently use the Apocrypha as part of its canon. Joseph Smith taught that while the contemporary edition of the Apocrypha was not to be relied on for doctrine, it was potentially useful when read with a spirit of discernment. ### Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible {#joseph_smith_translation_of_the_bible} Joseph Smith translated selected verses of the Bible, working by subject. His complete work is known as the *Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible*, or the *Inspired Version*. Although this selected translation is not generally quoted by church members, the English Bible issued by the church and commonly used by Latter-day Saints contains cross-references to the Joseph Smith Translation (JST), as well as an appendix containing longer excerpts from it. Excerpts that were too long to include in the Bible appendix are included in the Pearl of Great Price as the Book of Moses (for Genesis 1:1-6:13) and Joseph Smith-Matthew (for Matthew 23:39-24:51 and Mark 13). ## The Book of Mormon {#the_book_of_mormon} LDS Church members, and others in the Latter Day Saint movement, consider the Book of Mormon a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. It contains a record of God\'s dealings with the prophets and ancient inhabitants of the Americas. The introduction to the book asserts that it \"contains, as does the Bible, the fullness of the everlasting gospel. The book was written by many ancient prophets by the spirit of prophecy and revelation. Their words, written on gold plates, were quoted and abridged by a prophet-historian named Mormon.\" Segments of the Book of Mormon provide an account of the culture, religious teachings, and civilizations of some of the groups who immigrated to the New World. One came from Jerusalem in 600 B.C., and afterward separated into two nations, identified in the book as the Nephites and the Lamanites. Some years after their arrival, the Nephites met with a similar group, the Mulekites who left the Middle East during the same period. An older group arrived in America much earlier, when the Lord confounded the tongues at the Tower of Babel. This group is known as the Jaredites and their story is condensed in the Book of Ether. The crowning event recorded in the Book of Mormon is the personal ministry of Jesus Christ among Nephites soon after his resurrection. This account presents the doctrines of the gospel, outlines the plan of salvation, and offers men peace in this life and eternal salvation in the life to come. The latter segments of the Book of Mormon detail the destruction of these civilizations, as all were destroyed except the Lamanites. The book asserts that the Lamanites are among the ancestors of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. According to his record, Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by gift and power of God through a set of interpreters, later referred to as the Urim and Thummim. Eleven witnesses signed testimonies of its authenticity, which are now included in the preface to the Book of Mormon. The Three Witnesses testified to have seen an angel present the golden plates and to have heard God bear witness to its truth. Eight others stated that Joseph Smith showed them the golden plates and that they handled and examined them. ## The Doctrine and Covenants {#the_doctrine_and_covenants} The LDS Church\'s D&C is a collection of revelations, policies, letters, and statements given to the modern church by past church presidents. This record contains points of church doctrine and direction on church government. The book has existed in numerous forms, with varying content, throughout the history of the church and has also been published in differing formats by the various Latter Day Saint denominations. When the church chooses to canonize new material, it is typically added to the D&C; the most recent changes were made in 1981. ## The Pearl of Great Price {#the_pearl_of_great_price} The Pearl of Great Price is a selection of material produced by Joseph Smith and deals with many significant aspects of the faith and doctrine of the church. Many of these materials were initially published in church periodicals in the early days of the church. The Pearl of Great Price contains five sections: - Selections from the Book of Moses: portions of the Book of Genesis from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. - The Book of Abraham: a translation from papyri acquired by Smith in 1835, dealing with Abraham\'s journeys in Egypt. The work contains many distinctive Mormon doctrines such as exaltation. - Joseph Smith--Matthew: portions of the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Mark from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. - Joseph Smith--History: a first-person narrative of Smith\'s life before the founding of the church. The material is taken from *Documentary History of the Church* and is based on a history written by Smith in 1838. - The Articles of Faith: concise listing of thirteen fundamental doctrines of Mormonism composed by Smith in 1842. ## Table of canonicity {#table_of_canonicity} All denominations in the Latter Day Saint movement listed below use the same canon of the Book of Mormon. Other uses and content vary among their respective canons. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Books | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) | Community of Christ (RLDS) | Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite) | Church of Christ (Temple Lot) | Church of Christ (Fettingite) | Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) | Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite) | +===============================================================================================================================================================================+==============================================================+============================+=======================================+===============================+===============================+=========================================================+====================================+ | Doctrine and Covenants | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Book of Commandments | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Moroni\'s visit to Joseph Smith | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Conferral of Aaronic priesthood by John the Baptist | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Three Witnesses | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Parley P. Pratt and Ziba Peterson | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Property division | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Location of Zion at Jackson County, Missouri | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Prayer of Joseph Smith; keys of the kingdom | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To William E. McLellin | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Testimony of the Book of Commandments | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Orson Hyde, Luke S. Johnson, Lyman E. Johnson, and William E. McLellin; bishops; parents | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Assignments for John Whitmer | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Stewardship; equality | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon called to preach | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Bishops | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Explanation of 1 Corinthians 7:14; salvation of children | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Missionary work; families of missionaries | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Jesus Christ; resurrection; degrees of glory; origin of Satan | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Explanation of certain verses in Revelation | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | United Order; equality | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Jared Carter | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Stephen Burnett and Eden Smith | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Jesse Gause; on 18 Mar 1833 its application was transferred to Frederick G. Williams | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Obedience; United Order; equality | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Husbands and fathers; widows and orphans | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Priesthood | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Letter from Joseph Smith to W. W. Phelps; United Order; One Mighty and Strong; equality | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Parable of the Tares explained | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Prophecy of war and calamity | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | The \"olive leaf\"; \"Lord\'s message of peace\" | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | A \"Word of Wisdom\" | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Keys of the kingdom; First Presidency | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | The Apocrypha | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Frederick G. Williams | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | John\'s record of Christ; intelligence; innocence of children | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Hyrum Smith, Reynolds Cahoon, and Jared Carter; construction of various buildings commanded | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Kirtland Temple to be built; purpose of temples | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Division of property | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Saints in Jackson County, Missouri; temple to be built in Jackson County | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Promises and warnings; martyrs; when war is justified; forgiving enemies | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To John Murdock | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon to preach gospel; Rigdon to be Smith\'s spokesman; welfare of Orson Hyde and John Gould | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Redemption of Zion; parables; United States and the U.S. Constitution; Saints to seek redress | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Minutes for first high council meeting | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Redemption of Zion; organization of Zion\'s Camp | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | United Order | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Redemption of Zion; purpose of Kirtland Temple; peace | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Warren A. Cowdery; Second Coming | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Priesthood; quorums | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Lyman Sherman | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Dedicatory prayer for Kirtland Temple | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Visitation of Jesus Christ to accept Kirtland Temple; conferral of priesthood keys; coming of Moses, Elias, and Elijah | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | temporal needs of the church | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Thomas B. Marsh; Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; First Presidency | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Answers to questions on the Book of Isaiah | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Concerning David W. Patten | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Name of the church; stakes; temple to be built at Far West, Missouri | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Adam-ondi-Ahman | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Concerning William Marks, Newel K. Whitney, and Oliver Granger; property; sacrifice | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles filled | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Tithing | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Council on the Disposition of the Tithes | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Prayer and prophecies of Joseph Smith; why many are called but few chosen | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Destiny of Joseph Smith | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Letter to church; duty in relation to their persecutors | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Nauvoo Temple and Nauvoo House to be built; baptism for the dead | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Saints in Iowa | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | To Brigham Young | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Letter to church; baptism for the dead | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Letter to church; baptism for the dead | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Distinguishing the nature of angels and disembodied spirits | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Various items of instruction; corporeal nature of God and Jesus Christ; intelligence; seer stones | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Various items of instruction; celestial marriage; eternal life | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Plural marriage; celestial marriage; sealing power; exaltation | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Original \"Appendix\"; Second Coming; missionary work | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | secular governments and laws in general | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Martyrdom of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Organization of Mormon pioneer westward journey | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Salvation for the dead; salvation of little children | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Jesus Christ preached to spirits in prison; salvation for the dead | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Cessation of plural marriage | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | 1978 Revelation on Priesthood: cessation of priesthood restrictions based on race | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | God\'s words to Moses | Yes\ | | | | | | | | | (Pearl of Great Price) | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Prophecy of Enoch | Yes\ | | | | | | | | | (Pearl of Great Price) | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | General meeting of the quorums of the church to consider the labors of the committee charged with organizing publication of the revelations into a book | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Declaration on marriage; one spouse only | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Tithing | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Calling of William Marks | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Priesthood ordination of other races | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Foreign missions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Instructions to the elders | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Branch and district presidents | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Duties of quorums | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Lamoni College; church publications; relations with the LDS Church; doctrinal tracts; interpretation of various scriptures; gospel boat; branch in Detroit | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Patriarchs; foreign missions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Quorums | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Sanitarium | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Organization and colonization | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Presiding Bishopric | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Presiding Bishop | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Missionary work | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; unity | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; work toward Zion | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; Zion | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; counsel | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Commendation; urge to work | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; counsel | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | New President of the Church named | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; unity commended | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; stewardship | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; counsel | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; relationship between ministerial programs; prepare to build temple at Independence | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Clarification of 149 | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; counsel on culture; Independence Temple preparation; ecology | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; reconciliation | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | New precedent on presidential succession; presidential successor named; changes in leadership positions; reconciliation | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | New President of the Church; changes in leadership positions; counsel on outreach | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; counsel on outreach | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; counsel on witness | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Purpose of Independence Temple; priesthood opened to women; changes in leadership positions | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; unity; humility | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; the spiritual life | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Changes in leadership positions; trusting the Spirit; Independence Temple accepted | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | New President of the Church named | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Proclaim peace; reach out; patience; embrace differences; respect tradition | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Be a prophetic people; diversity; tithing | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Strive for peace; missionary work; use and misuse of scripture; equality; generosity | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Effects of baptism, confirmation, and sacrament of the Lord\'s Supper; cultural awareness and sensitivity; flexibility in number of quorums of seventy; accelerate evangelism | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Expand community, promote peace, and end poverty; tithing; unity in diversity; act in accordance to beliefs | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Pearl of Great Price | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Book of Moses | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Book of Abraham | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Joseph Smith--Matthew | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Joseph Smith--History | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Articles of Faith | | Inspired | | | | Inspired | Inspired | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Latter Day Saint movement other religious text | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | The Word of the Lord | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | The Word of the Lord Brought to Mankind by an Angel | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Lectures on Faith | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Book of Jasher | | | | | | No - not considered canonical | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | The Book of the Law of the Lord | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Letter of Appointment | | | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,942

History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The **history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints** (LDS Church) has three main periods, described generally as: 1. the early history during the lifetime of Joseph Smith, which is in common with most Latter Day Saint movement churches; 2. the \"pioneer era\" under the leadership of Brigham Young and his 19th-century successors; 3. the modern era beginning in the early 20th century as the practice of polygamy was discontinued and many members sought reintegration into U.S. society. The LDS Church originated in the burned-over district within Western New York. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, was raised in this region during the Second Great Awakening. Smith gained a small following in the late 1820s as he was dictating the Book of Mormon, which he said was a translation of inscriptions found on a set of golden plates buried near his home in Upstate New York by an Indigenous American prophet named Moroni. On April 6, 1830, at the home of Peter Whitmer in Fayette, New York, Smith organized the religion\'s first legal church entity, the Church of Christ, which grew rapidly under Smith\'s leadership. The main body of the church moved first to Kirtland, Ohio, in the early 1830s, then to Missouri in 1838, where the 1838 Mormon War with other Missouri settlers ensued. On October 27, 1838, Lilburn W. Boggs, the Governor of Missouri, signed Missouri Executive Order 44, which called to expel adherents from the state. Approximately 15,000 Mormons fled to Illinois after their surrender at Far West on November 1, 1838. After fleeing from Missouri, Smith founded the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, which grew rapidly. When Smith was killed, Nauvoo had a population of about 12,000 people, nearly all members of Smith\'s church. After his death, a succession crisis ensued and the majority voted to accept the Quorum of the Twelve, led by Brigham Young, as the church\'s leading body. After suffering persecution in Illinois, Young left Nauvoo in 1846 and led his followers, the Mormon pioneers, to Salt Lake Valley. The Mormon pioneers then branched out to pioneer a large state called Deseret, establishing colonies that spanned from Canada to Mexico. Young incorporated the LDS Church as a legal entity and governed his followers as a theocratic leader, assuming both political and religious positions. He also publicized the previously secret practice of plural marriage, a form of polygamy. By 1857, tensions had again escalated between Latter-day Saints and other Americans, largely as a result of the teachings on polygamy and theocracy. During the Utah War, from 1857 to 1858, the United States Army conducted an invasion of Utah, after which Young agreed to be replaced by a non-Mormon territorial Governor, Alfred Cumming. The church, however, still wielded significant political power in Utah Territory. Even after Young died in 1877, many members continued the practice of polygamy despite opposition by the United States Congress. When tensions with the U.S. government came to a head in 1890, the church officially abandoned the public practice of polygamy in the United States and eventually stopped performing official polygamous marriages altogether after a Second Manifesto in 1904. Eventually, the church adopted a policy of excommunicating members who were found to be practicing polygamy, and today seeks to actively distance itself from polygamist fundamentalist groups. During the 20th century, the church became an international organization. The church first began engaging with mainstream American culture, and then with international cultures. It engaged especially in Latin American countries by sending out thousands of missionaries. The church began publicly supporting monogamy and the nuclear family, and at times played a role in political matters. One of the official changes to the organization during the modern era was the participation of black members in temple ceremonies, which began in 1978, reversing a policy originally instituted by Young. The church has also gradually changed its temple ceremony. There continue to be periodic changes in the structure and organization of the church. ## Early history (1820s to 1846) {#early_history_1820s_to_1846} Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, was raised in Western New York during the Second Great Awakening. Smith gained a small following in the late 1820s as he was dictating the Book of Mormon. He stated that the book was a translation of characters from an ancient script called reformed Egyptian that he stated was inscribed on gold plates which had been buried near his residence in western New York by an indigenous American prophet. Smith said he had been given the plates from the angel Moroni. On April 6, 1830, in western New York, Smith organized the religion\'s first legal church entity, the Church of Christ. The church rapidly gained a following who viewed Smith as their prophet. In late 1830, Smith envisioned a \"City of Zion\", a utopian city in Native American lands near Independence, Missouri. In October 1830, he sent his Assistant President, Oliver Cowdery, and others on a mission to the area.`{{unreliable source?|date=September 2021}}`{=mediawiki} Passing through Kirtland, Ohio, the missionaries converted a congregation of Disciples of Christ led by Sidney Rigdon, and in 1831, Smith decided to temporarily move his followers to Kirtland until lands in the Missouri area could be purchased. In the meantime, the church\'s headquarters remained in Kirtland from 1831 to 1838 and there the church built its first temple and continued to grow in membership from 680 to 17,881 members. While the main church body was in Kirtland, many of Smith\'s followers attempted to establish settlements in Missouri but were met with resistance from other Missourians who believed Mormons were abolitionists or who distrusted their political ambitions. After Smith and other Mormons in Kirtland emigrated to Missouri in 1838, hostilities escalated into the 1838 Mormon War, culminating in adherents being expelled from the state under an Extermination Order signed by Lilburn W. Boggs, the governor of Missouri. After Missouri, Smith founded the city of Nauvoo, Illinois as the new church headquarters, and served as the city\'s mayor and leader of the Nauvoo Legion. As church leader, Smith also instituted the then-secret practice of plural marriage and taught a political system he called \"theodemocracy\", to be led by a Council of Fifty which had secretly and symbolically anointed him king of this millennial theodemocracy. On June 7, 1844, a newspaper called the *Nauvoo Expositor*, edited by dissident Mormon William Law, issued a scathing criticism of polygamy and the Nauvoo theocratic government, including a call for church reform based on earlier Mormon principles. In response to the newspaper\'s publication, Smith and the Nauvoo City Council declared the paper a public nuisance, and ordered the press destroyed. The town marshal carried out the order during the evening of June 10. The destruction of the press led to charges of riot against Smith and other members of the council. After Smith surrendered on the charges, he was also charged with treason against Illinois. While in state custody, he and his brother Hyrum Smith, who was second in line to the church presidency, were killed in a firefight with an angry mob attacking the jail on June 27, 1844. After Smith\'s death, a succession crisis ensued. In this crisis a number of church leaders campaigned to lead the church. Most adherents voted on August 8, 1844, to accept the leadership of Brigham Young, the senior apostle. Later, adherents bolstered their succession claims by referring to a March 1844 meeting in which Joseph committed the \"keys of the kingdom\" to a group of members within the Council of Fifty that included the apostles. In addition, by the end of the 1800s, several of Young\'s followers had published reminiscences recalling that during Young\'s August 8 speech, he looked or sounded similar to Joseph Smith, which they attributed to the power of God. ## Pioneer era (c. 1846 to c. 1900) {#pioneer_era_c._1846_to_c._1900} ### Migration to Utah and colonization of the West {#migration_to_utah_and_colonization_of_the_west} *Main article: Mormon pioneers, History of Utah* Under the leadership of Brigham Young, church leaders planned to leave Nauvoo, Illinois in April 1846, but amid threats from the state militia, they were forced to cross the Mississippi River in the cold of February. They eventually left the boundaries of the United States to what is now Utah, where they founded Salt Lake City. The groups that left Illinois for Utah became known as the Mormon pioneers and forged a path to Salt Lake City known as the Mormon Trail. The arrival of the Mormon Pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, is commemorated by the Utah State holiday Pioneer Day. Groups of converts from the United States, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere were encouraged to gather in Utah in the following decades. Both the original Mormon migration and subsequent convert migrations resulted in many deaths. Brigham Young organized a great colonization of the American West, with Mormon settlements extending from Canada to Mexico. Notable cities that sprang from early Mormon settlements include San Bernardino, California, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Mesa, Arizona. ### Brigham Young\'s early theocratic leadership {#brigham_youngs_early_theocratic_leadership} Following the death of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young stated that the church should be led by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (see succession crisis). Later, after the migration to Utah had begun, Young was sustained as a member of the First Presidency on December 25, 1847, and then as President of the Church on October 8, 1848. In the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded the area to the United States. As a result, Brigham Young sent emissaries to Washington, D.C. with a proposal to create a vast State of Deseret, of which Young would be the first governor. Instead, Congress created the much smaller Utah Territory in 1850, and Young was appointed governor in 1851. Because of his religious position, Young exercised much more practical control over the affairs of Mormon and non-Mormon settlers than a typical territorial governor of the time. For most of the 19th century, the LDS Church maintained an ecclesiastical court system parallel to federal courts, and required Mormons to use the system exclusively for civil matters, or face church discipline. ### Mormon Reformation {#mormon_reformation} In 1856--1858, the church underwent what is commonly called the Mormon Reformation. In 1855, a drought struck the flourishing territory. Very little rain fell, and dependable mountain streams ran very low. An infestation of grasshoppers and crickets destroyed whatever crops the Mormons had managed to salvage. During the winter of 1855--56, flour and other basic necessities were very scarce and costly. In September 1856, as the drought continued, the trials and difficulties led to an explosion of religious fervor. Jedediah M. Grant, a counselor in the First Presidency and a well-known conservative voice in the extended community, preached three days of fiery sermons to the people of Kaysville, Utah territory. He called for repentance and a general recommitment to moral living and religious teachings. 500 people presented themselves for \"re-baptism\"---a symbol of their determination to reform their lives. The message spread from Kaysville to surrounding Mormon communities. Church leaders traveled around the territory, expressing their concern about signs of spiritual decay and calling for repentance. Members were asked to seal their rededication with re-baptism. Several sermons Willard Richards and George A. Smith had given earlier in the history of the church had touched on the concept of blood atonement, suggesting that apostates could become so enveloped in sin that the voluntary shedding of their own blood might increase their chances of eternal salvation. On September 21, 1856, while calling for sincere repentance, Brigham Young took the idea further, and stated: This belief became ingrained in the church\'s public image during that period and drew widespread ridicule in Eastern newspapers, particularly in connection with the practice of polygamy. The notion faced consistent criticism from numerous Mormons and was ultimately disavowed as an official doctrine by the LDS Church in 1978. Nevertheless, in contemporary times, critics of the church and some popular writers continue to associate a formal doctrine of blood atonement with the Church. Throughout the winter, special meetings were held and Mormons were urged to adhere to the commandments of God and the practices and precepts of the church. Preaching placed emphasis on the practice of plural marriage, adherence to the Word of Wisdom, attendance at church meetings, and personal prayer. On December 30, 1856, the entire all-Mormon territorial legislature was re-baptized for the remission of their sins, and confirmed under the hands of the Twelve Apostles. As time went on, however, the sermons became intolerant and hysterical. ### Utah War and Mountain Meadows massacre {#utah_war_and_mountain_meadows_massacre} In 1857--1858, the church was involved in an armed conflict with the U.S. government, now known as the Utah War. The settlers and the United States government battled for hegemony over the culture and government of the territory. Tensions over the Utah War, the murder of Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt in Arkansas, and threats of violence from the Baker-Fancher wagon train (and possibly other factors), resulted in rogue Mormon settlers in southern Utah massacring a wagon train from Arkansas, known as Mountain Meadows massacre. The result of the Utah War was the succeeding of the governorship of the Utah territory from Brigham Young to Alfred Cumming, an outsider appointed by President James Buchanan. ### Brigham Young\'s later years {#brigham_youngs_later_years} The church had attempted unsuccessfully to institute the United Order numerous times, most recently during the Mormon Reformation. In 1874, Young once again attempted to establish a permanent Order, which he called the \"United Order of Enoch\" in at least 200 LDS Church-established communities, beginning in St. George, Utah on February 9, 1874. In Young\'s Order, producers typically transferred ownership of their property to the Order itself. All members within the order would then collectively partake in the cooperative\'s net income, often distributed in proportion to the value of the property initially contributed. Occasionally, members received wages for their labor on the shared property. Much like Joseph Smith\'s United Order, Young\'s Order had a brief existence. By the time Young died, most of these Orders had faltered. As the 19th century drew to a close, these Orders had effectively become extinct. Young died in August 1877, but the First Presidency was not reorganized until 1880, when he was succeeded by John Taylor, who in the interim had served as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. ### Polygamy and the United States \"Mormon question\" {#polygamy_and_the_united_states_mormon_question} For several decades, polygamy was preached as God\'s law. Brigham Young, the church\'s second president, had 56 wives during his life; many other church leaders were also polygamists. This early practice of polygamy caused conflict between church members and the broader American society. In 1854, the Republican party referred in its platform to polygamy and slavery as the \"twin relics of barbarism.\" In 1862, the U.S. Congress enacted the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, signed by Abraham Lincoln, which made bigamy a felony in the territories punishable by \$500 or five years in prison. The law also permitted the confiscation of church property without compensation. However, this law was not enforced by the Lincoln administration or by Mormon-controlled territorial probate courts. Moreover, as Mormon polygamist marriages were performed in secret, it was difficult to prove when a polygamist marriage had taken place. In the meantime, Congress was preoccupied with the American Civil War. In 1874, after the war, Congress passed the Poland Act, which transferred jurisdiction over Morrill Act cases to federal prosecutors and courts, which were not controlled by Mormons. In addition, the Morrill Act was upheld in 1878 by the United States Supreme Court in the case of *Reynolds v. United States*. After *Reynolds*, Congress became even more aggressive against polygamy, and passed the Edmunds Act in 1882. The Edmunds Act prohibited not just bigamy, which remained a felony, but also bigamous cohabitation, which was prosecuted as a misdemeanor, and did not require proof an actual marriage ceremony had taken place. The Act also vacated the Utah territorial government, created an independent committee to oversee elections to prevent Mormon influence, and disenfranchised any former or present polygamist. Further, the law allowed the government to deny civil rights to polygamists without a trial. In 1887, Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act, which allowed prosecutors to force plural wives to testify against their husbands, abolished the right of women to vote, disincorporated the church, and confiscated the church\'s property. By this time, many church leaders had gone into hiding to avoid prosecution, and half the Utah prison population was composed of polygamists. Church leadership officially ended the practice in the United States in 1890, based on a decree of church president Wilford Woodruff called the 1890 Manifesto. ## 20th century {#th_century} The church\'s modern era began soon after it renounced polygamy in 1890. Prior to the 1890 Manifesto, church leaders had been in hiding, many ecclesiastical matters had been neglected, and the church organization itself had been disincorporated. With the reduction in federal pressure afforded by the Manifesto, however, the church began to re-establish its institutions. ### World Wars {#world_wars} Throughout both World Wars, the LDS Church maintained a stance of neutrality, focusing on supporting its members spiritually and materially without endorsing any political sides. The church\'s leaders guided members through these challenging times by bolstering welfare programs and emphasizing faith. The wars notably influenced the LDS Church\'s international expansion and its role as a global religious organization committed to humanitarian efforts. #### LDS Church in World War I {#lds_church_in_world_war_i} During World War I, the LDS Church was led by Joseph F. Smith, who navigated the church through the tumultuous period with a focus on neutrality and peace. Many members served in the military, and the church organized welfare and support efforts for those affected by the war. #### LDS Church in World War II {#lds_church_in_world_war_ii} In World War II, the LDS Church, under the leadership of Heber J. Grant, continued its tradition of non-partisanship in global conflicts, while still supporting its members' decisions to serve in their respective countries' military forces. The church\'s extensive welfare system was pivotal during this time, providing support for both members and non-members affected by the war. ### Post-Manifesto polygamy and the Second Manifesto {#post_manifesto_polygamy_and_the_second_manifesto} The 1890 Manifesto did not, itself, eliminate the practice of new plural marriages, as they continued to occur clandestinely, mostly with church approval and authority. In addition, most Mormon polygamists and every polygamous general authority continued to cohabit with their polygamous wives. Mormon leaders, including Woodruff, maintained that the Manifesto was a temporary expediency designed to enable Utah to obtain statehood and that at some future date, the practice would soon resume. Nevertheless, the 1890 Manifesto provided the church breathing room to obtain Utah\'s statehood, which it received in 1896 after a campaign to convince the American public that Mormon leaders had abandoned polygamy and intended to stay out of politics. Despite being admitted to the United States, Utah was initially unsuccessful in having its elected representatives and senators seated in the United States Congress. In 1898, Utah elected general authority B.H. Roberts to the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat. Roberts, however, was denied a seat there because he was practicing polygamy. In 1903, the Utah legislature selected Reed Smoot, also an LDS Church general authority but also a monogamist, as its first senator. From 1904 to 1907, the United States Senate conducted a series of Congressional hearings on whether Smoot should be seated. Eventually, the Senate granted Smoot a seat and allowed him to vote. However, the hearings raised controversy as to whether polygamy had actually been abandoned as claimed in the 1890 Manifesto, and whether the LDS Church continued to exercise influence on Utah politics. In response to these hearings, church president Joseph F. Smith issued a Second Manifesto denying that any post-Manifesto marriages had the church\'s sanction, and announcing that those entering such marriages in the future would be excommunicated. The Second Manifesto did not annul existing plural marriages within the church, and the church tolerated some degree of polygamy into at least the 1930s. However, eventually, the church adopted a policy of excommunicating its members found practicing polygamy and today seeks to actively distance itself from Mormon fundamentalist groups still practicing polygamy. In modern times, members of the Mormon religion do not practice polygamy. ### Involvement in national politics {#involvement_in_national_politics} #### Relationship to the women\'s suffrage movement {#relationship_to_the_womens_suffrage_movement} In 1870, the Utah Territory had become one of the first polities to grant women the right to vote---a right which the U.S. Congress revoked in 1887 as part of the Edmunds-Tucker Act. As a result, a number of LDS women became active and vocal proponents of women\'s rights. Of particular note was the LDS journalist and suffragist Emmeline B. Wells, editor of the *Woman\'s Exponent*, a Utah feminist newspaper. Wells, who was both a feminist and a polygamist, wrote vocally in favor of a woman\'s role in the political process and public discourse. National suffrage leaders, however, were somewhat perplexed by the seeming paradox between Utah\'s progressive stand on women\'s rights, and the church\'s stand on polygamy. In 1890, after the church officially renounced polygamy, U.S. suffrage leaders began to embrace Utah\'s feminism more directly, and in 1891, Utah hosted the Rocky Mountain Suffrage Conference in Salt Lake City, attended by such national feminist leaders as Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw. The Utah Woman Suffrage Association, which had been formed in 1889 as a branch of the American Woman Suffrage Association (which in 1890 became the National American Woman Suffrage Association), was then successful in demanding that the constitution of the nascent state of Utah should enfranchise women. In 1896, Utah became the third state in the U.S. to grant women the right to vote. #### Debate over temperance and prohibition {#debate_over_temperance_and_prohibition} The LDS Church was actively involved in support of the temperance movement in the 19th century, and later the prohibition movement under the presidency of Heber J. Grant. #### Relationship with socialism and communism {#relationship_with_socialism_and_communism} Mormonism has had a mixed relationship with socialism in its various forms. In the earliest days of Mormonism, Joseph Smith had established a form of Christian communalism, an idea made popular during the Second Great Awakening, combined with a move toward theocracy. Mormons referred to this form of theocratic communalism as the United Order, or the law of consecration. While short-lived during the life of Joseph Smith, the United Order was re-established for a time in several communities of Utah during the theocratic political leadership of Brigham Young. Some aspects of secular socialism also found a place in the political views of Joseph Smith. He ran for President of the United States on a platform that included a nationalized bank aimed at addressing the abuses of private banks. As a secular political leader in Nauvoo, Joseph Smith introduced collective farms to support those lacking property, ensuring sustenance for the poor and their families. Upon reaching Utah, Brigham Young guided the church leadership in advocating for collective industry ownership. In 1876, a circular issued by them emphasized the importance of wealth distribution for liberty, warning against tyranny, oppression, and the vices arising from unequal wealth distribution. The circular, signed by the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency, cautioned that continuous wealth concentration among the rich and deepening poverty among the poor could lead the nation toward disaster. In addition to religious socialism, many Mormons in Utah were interested in the secular socialist movement that began in America during the 1890s. During the 1890s to the 1920s, the Utah Social Democratic Party, which became part of the Socialist Party of America in 1901, elected about 100 socialists to state offices in Utah. An estimated 40% of Utah Socialists were Mormon. Many early socialists visited the Church\'s cooperative communities in Utah with great interest and were well received by the church leadership. Prominent early socialists such as Albert Brisbane, Victor Prosper Considerant, Plotino Rhodakanaty, Edward Bellamy, and Ruth & Reginald Wright Kauffman showed great interest in the successful cooperative communities of the church in Utah. For example, while doing research for what would become a best selling socialist novel, *Looking Backward*, Edward Bellamy toured the Church\'s cooperative communities in Utah and visited with Lorenzo Snow for a week. Ruth & Reginald Wright Kauffman also wrote a book, though this one non-fiction, after visiting the Church in Utah. Their book was titled *The Latter Day Saints: A Study of the Mormons in the Light of Economic Conditions*, which discussed the Church from a Marxist perspective. Socialist Plotino Rhodakanaty also became a prominent early church member in Mexico, after being baptized by a group of missionaries which included Moses Thatcher. Thatcher kept in touch with Rhodakanaty for years following and was himself perhaps the most prominent member of the church to have openly identified himself as a socialist supporter. Albert Brisbane and Victor Prosper Considerant also visited the church in Utah during its early years, prompting Considerant to note that \"thanks to a certain dose of socialist solidarity, the Mormons have in a few years attained a state of unbelievable prosperity\". Attributing the peculiar socialist attitudes of the early Mormons to their success in the desert of the western United States was common even among those who were not themselves socialist. For instance, in his book History of Utah, 1540--1886, Hubert Howe Bancroft points out that the Mormons \"while not communists, the elements of socialism enter strongly into all their relations, public and private, social, commercial, and industrial, as well as religious and political. This tends to render them exclusive, independent of the gentiles and their government, and even in some respects antagonistic to them. They have assisted each other until nine out of ten own their farms, while commerce and manufacturing are to large extent cooperative. The rights of property are respected; but while a Mormon may sell his farm to a gentile, it would not be deemed good fellowship for him to do so.\" While religious and secular socialism gained some acceptance among Mormons, the church was more circumspect about Marxist Communism because of its acceptance of violence as a means to achieve revolution. From the time of Joseph Smith, the church had taken a favorable view as to the American Revolution and the necessity at times to violently overthrow the government, however the church viewed the revolutionary nature of Leninist Communism as a threat to the United States Constitution, which the church saw as divinely inspired to ensure the agency of man. In 1936, the First Presidency issued a statement which stated in part that "to support Communism is treasonable to our free institutions, and no patriotic American citizen may become either a Communist or supporter of Communism. \... \[N\]o loyal American citizen and no faithful church member can be a Communist." The strident atheism of Marxist thought may have also been considered incompatible with the church\'s fundamentally religious worldview. In later years, such leaders as Ezra Taft Benson would take a stronger anti-Communist position publicly, his anti-Communism often being anti-leftist in general. However, the stridency of Benson\'s views was strongly disliked by others in the church\'s leadership, and even considered a point of embarrassment for the church. Later, Benson would become church president and backed off of his political rhetoric. Toward the end of his presidency, the church even began to discipline church members who had taken Benson\'s earlier hardline right-wing speeches too much to heart, some of whom claimed that the church had excommunicated them for adhering too closely to Benson\'s right-wing ideology. ### Institutional reforms {#institutional_reforms} #### Developments in Church financing {#developments_in_church_financing} Soon after the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church was in a dire financial condition. It was recovering from the U.S. crackdown on polygamy, and had difficulty reclaiming property that had been confiscated during polygamy raids. Meanwhile, there was a national recession beginning in 1893. By the late 1890s, the church was about \$2 million in debt, and near bankruptcy. In response, Lorenzo Snow, then President of the Church, conducted a campaign to raise the payment of tithing, of which less than 20% of LDS had been paying during the 1890s. After a visit to Saint George, Utah, which had a much higher-than-average percentage of full 10% tithe-payers, Snow felt that he had received a revelation. As a result of Snow\'s vigorous campaign, tithing payment increased dramatically from 18.4% in 1898 to an eventual peak of 59.3% in 1910. From that time, payment of tithing has been a requirement for temple worship within the faith. During this timeframe, changes were made in stipends for bishops and general authorities. Bishops once received a 10% stipend from tithing funds, but are now purely volunteer. General authorities receive stipends, and formerly received loans from church funds. #### Changes to meeting schedule {#changes_to_meeting_schedule} In earlier times, Latter-day Saint meetings occurred every Sunday morning and evening, with additional gatherings throughout the week. This structure was convenient for Utah Saints, as they typically resided within walking distance of a church building. However, outside of Utah, this meeting schedule presented logistical challenges. In 1980, the church implemented the \"Consolidated Meeting Schedule,\" consolidating most church meetings into a three-hour block on Sundays. In 2019, the meeting schedule was condensed into a two-hour block, with meetings during the second hour alternating between Sunday School and gendered (Relief Society / Priesthood) meetings. #### Changes to missionary service {#changes_to_missionary_service} In 1982, the First Presidency announced that the length of service of male full-time missionaries would be reduced to 18 months. In 1984, a little more than two years later, it was announced that the length of service would be returned to its original length of 24 months. Starting in 1990, paying for a mission became easier on those called to work in industrialized nations. Missionaries began paying into a church-wide general missionary fund instead of paying on their own. The amount paid into the fund does not vary by location; therefore, missionaries serving in low-cost-of-living-areas effectively subsidize missionaries serving in areas with higher costs. #### Changes to church hierarchy and structure {#changes_to_church_hierarchy_and_structure} During the 1960s, the church pursued a Priesthood Correlation Program, which streamlined and centralized the structure of the church. It had begun earlier in 1908, as the Correlation Program. The program increased church control over viewpoints taught in local church meetings. During this time period, priesthood editorial oversight was established of formerly priesthood-auxiliary-specific YMMIA, YLMIA, Relief Society, Primary, and Sunday School magazines. In 1911, the church adopted the Scouting program for its male members of appropriate age. The Priesthood-Auxiliary movement (1928--1937) re-emphasized the church hierarchy around Priesthood, and re-emphasized other church organizations as \"priesthood auxiliaries\" with reduced autonomy. ### LDS multiculturalism {#lds_multiculturalism} As the church began to collide and meld with cultures outside of Utah and the United States, the church began to jettison some of the parochialisms and prejudices that had become part of Latter-day Saint culture but were not essential to Mormonism. During and after the civil rights movement, the church faced a critical point in its history, where its previous attitudes toward other cultures and people of color, which had once been shared by much of the Anglo-American mainstream, carried racist and neocolonialist connotations. The mid-20th century saw the church critiqued over its positions on Black and Native American matters, especially the institution\'s bias towards European standards or norms at the expense and disregard of other racial or ethnic backgrounds\' identity and humanity. #### The church and black people {#the_church_and_black_people} The cause of some of the church\'s most damaging publicity had to do with the church\'s policy of discrimination against black people. Black people were always officially welcome in the church, and Joseph Smith established an early precedent for it by ordaining black males to the Priesthood. Smith was also anti-slavery, going so far as to run on an anti-slavery platform as a candidate for the presidency of the United States. At times, however, Smith had shown sympathy for the belief that black people were the cursed descendants of Cain, a belief which was commonly held in his day. In 1849, church doctrine taught that while black people could be baptized, black men could not be ordained to the Priesthood and black people could not enter LDS temples. Journal histories and public teachings of the time reflect that Young and others stated that God would some day reverse this policy of discrimination. By the late 1960s, the church had expanded into Brazil, the Caribbean, and the nations of Africa, but it was also being criticized for its policy of racial discrimination. In the case of Africa and the Caribbean, the church had not yet begun large-scale missionary efforts in most areas. There were large groups of people who desired to join the church in Ghana and Nigeria and there were also many faithful church members who were of African descent in Brazil. On June 9, 1978, under the administration of Spencer W. Kimball, the church\'s leadership changed the long-standing policy. Today, there are many black members of the church, and there are also many predominantly black congregations. In the Salt Lake City area, black members organized branches of a monthly gathering and activity arm called the Genesis Group that provided group members with additional support. #### The church and Native Americans {#the_church_and_native_americans} During the post-World War II period, the church also began to focus on expansion into a number of Native American cultures, as well as Oceanic cultures, which many Mormons considered to be the same ethnicity. These peoples were called \"Lamanites\", because they were all believed to descend from the Lamanite group in the *Book of Mormon*. In 1947, the church began the Indian Placement Program, where Native American students (upon request by their parents) were voluntarily placed in Anglo Latter-day Saint foster homes during the school year, where they would attend public schools and become assimilated into Mormon culture. In 1955, the church began ordaining black Melanesians to the Priesthood. The church\'s policy toward Native Americans also came under fire during the 1970s. In particular the Indian Placement Program was criticized as neocolonial. In 1977, the U.S. government commissioned a study to investigate accusations that the church was using its influence to push children into joining the program. However, the commission rejected these accusations and found that the program was beneficial in many cases, and provided well-balanced American education for thousands, allowing the children to return to their cultures and customs. One issue was that the time away from family caused the assimilation of Native American students into American culture, rather than allowing the children to learn within, and preserve, their own culture. By the late 1980s, the program had been in decline, and in 1996, it was discontinued. In 2016, three lawsuits against the LDS Church were filed in the Navajo Nation District Court, alleging that participants in the program were sexually abused in their foster homes. The church asked for the lawsuits to be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, arguing that the alleged abuse took place outside the reservation. In 1981, the church published a new LDS edition of the Standard Works that changed a passage in *The Book of Mormon* that Lamanites (considered by many Latter-day Saints to be Native Americans) will \"become white and delightsome\" after accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead of continuing the original reference to skin color, the new edition replaced the word \"white\" with the word \"pure\". ### Doctrinal reforms and influences {#doctrinal_reforms_and_influences} In 1927, the church implemented its \"Good Neighbor policy\", whereby it removed any suggestion in church literature, sermons, and ordinances that its members should seek vengeance on US citizens or governments, particularly for the assassinations of its founder Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum. The church also reformed the temple ordinance around this time to remove such references. #### Evolution The issue of evolution has been a point of controversy for some members of the church. The first official statement on the issue of evolution was in 1909, which marked the centennial of Charles Darwin\'s birth and the 50th anniversary of his masterwork, *On the Origin of Species*. In that year, the First Presidency, led by Joseph F. Smith as president, issued a statement reinforcing the predominant religious view of creationism, and calling human evolution one of the \"theories of men\", but falling short of declaring evolution untrue or evil. Soon after the 1909 statement, Joseph F. Smith professed in an editorial that \"the church itself has no philosophy about the *modus operandi* employed by the Lord in His creation of the world.\" In 1925, as a result of publicity from the \"Scopes Monkey Trial\" concerning the right to teach evolution in Tennessee public schools, the First Presidency reiterated its 1909 stance, stating that \"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern, declares man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity.\" In the early 1930s there was an intense debate between liberal theologian and general authority B. H. Roberts and some members of the Council of the Twelve Apostles over attempts by B. H. Roberts to reconcile the fossil record with the scriptures by introducing a doctrine of pre-Adamite creation, and backing up this speculative doctrine using geology, biology, anthropology, and archeology. More conservative members of the Twelve Apostles, including Joseph Fielding Smith, rejected his speculation because it contradicted the idea that there was no death until after the fall of Adam. James E. Talmage published a book through the LDS Church that explicitly stated that organisms lived and died on this earth before the earth was fit for human habitation. The debate over pre-Adamites has been interpreted by LDS proponents of evolution as a debate about organic evolution. This view, based on the belief that a dichotomy of thought on the subject of evolution existed between B. H. Roberts and Joseph Fielding Smith, has become common among pro-evolution members of the church. As a result, the ensuing 1931 statement has been interpreted by some as official permission for members to believe in organic evolution. Later, Joseph Fielding Smith published his book *Man: His Origin and Destiny*, which denounced evolution without qualification. Similar statements of denunciation were made by Bruce R. McConkie, who in 1980 denounced evolution as one of \"the seven deadly heresies.\" Evolution was also denounced by the conservative apostle Ezra Taft Benson, who in 1975 called on church members to use the Book of Mormon to combat evolution and several times denounced evolution as a \"falsehood\" on a par with socialism, rationalism, and humanism. A dichotomy of opinion exists among church members today. Largely influenced by Smith, McConkie, and Benson, evolution is rejected by a large number of conservative church members. A minority accept evolution, supported in part by the debate between B. H. Roberts and Joseph Fielding Smith, in part by a large amount of scientific evidence, and in part by Joseph F. Smith\'s words that \"the church itself has no philosophy about the *modus operandi* employed by the Lord in His creation of the world.\" Meanwhile, Brigham Young University, the largest private university owned and operated by the church, not only teaches evolution to its biology majors, but has also done significant research in evolution. BYU-I, another church-run school, also teaches it. A 2018 study in *PLOS One* researched the attitudes toward evolution of Latter-day Saint undergraduates. The study revealed that there has been a recent shift of attitude towards evolution among LDS undergraduates, from antagonistic to more accepting. The researchers cited examples of more acceptance of fossil and geological records, as well as an acceptance of the old age of the earth. The researchers attributed this attitude change to several factors including primary-school exposure to evolution and a reduction in the number of anti-evolution statements from the First Presidency. #### Reacting to pluralism {#reacting_to_pluralism} The church was opposed to the Equal Rights Amendment. In 1995, the church issued The Family: A Proclamation to the World. The church opposes same-sex marriage, but does not object to rights regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the family or the constitutional rights of churches and their adherents to administer and practice their religion free from government interference. The church supported a gay rights bill in Salt Lake City which bans discrimination against gay men and lesbians in housing and employment, calling them \"common-sense rights.\" Some church members have formed a number of unofficial support organizations, including Evergreen International, Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons, North Star, Disciples2, Wildflowers, Family Fellowship, GLYA (Gay LDS Young Adults), LDS Reconciliation, Gamofites and the Guardrail foundation. Church leaders have met with people from Evergreen International, Inc. and several gay rights leaders. #### Challenges to fundamental church doctrine {#challenges_to_fundamental_church_doctrine} In 1967, a set of papyrus manuscripts were discovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art that appear to be the manuscripts from which Joseph Smith said to have translated the Book of Abraham in 1835. These manuscripts were presumed lost in the Chicago fire of 1871. Analyzed by Egyptologists, the manuscripts were identified as *The Book of the Dead*, an ancient Egyptian funerary text. Moreover, the scholars\' translations of the scrolls disagreed with Smith\'s purported translation. This discovery forced many Mormon apologists to moderate the earlier prevailing view that Smith\'s translations were literal one-to-one translations. In the early 1980s, the apparent discovery of an early Mormon manuscript, which came to be known as the \"Salamander Letter\", received much publicity. This letter, reportedly discovered by a scholar named Mark Hofmann, alleged that the *Book of Mormon* was given to Joseph Smith by a being that changed itself into a salamander, not by an angel as the official church history recounted. The document was purchased by private collector Steven Christensen, but was still significantly publicized and even printed in the church\'s official magazine, the *Ensign*. The document, however, was revealed as a forgery in 1985, and Hofmann was arrested for two murders related to his forgeries. #### Mormon dissidents and scholars {#mormon_dissidents_and_scholars} In 1989, George P. Lee, a Navajo member of the First Quorum of the Seventy who had participated in the Indian Placement Program in his youth, was excommunicated. The church action occurred not long after he had submitted to the Church a 23-page letter critical of the program and the effect it had on Native American culture. In October 1994, Lee confessed to, and was convicted of, sexually molesting a 13-year-old girl in 1989. It is not known if church leaders had knowledge of this crime during the excommunication process. In the late 1980s, the administration of Ezra Taft Benson formed what it called the Strengthening Church Members Committee, to keep files on potential church dissidents and collect their published material for possible later use in church disciplinary proceedings. The existence of this committee was first publicized by an anti-Mormon ministry in 1991, when it was referred to in a memo dated July 19, 1990 leaked from the office of the church\'s Presiding Bishopric. At the 1992 Sunstone Symposium, dissident Mormon scholar Lavina Fielding Anderson accused the Committee of being \"an internal espionage system,\" which prompted Brigham Young University professor and moderate Mormon scholar Eugene England to \"accuse that committee of undermining the Church,\" a charge for which he later publicly apologized. The publicity concerning the statements of Anderson and England, however, prompted the church to officially acknowledge the existence of the committee. The Church explained that the Committee \"provides local church leadership with information designed to help them counsel with members who, however well-meaning, may hinder the progress of the church through public criticism.\" Official concern about the work of dissident scholars within the church led to the excommunication or disfellowshipping of six such scholars, dubbed the September Six, in September 1993. ### Latter-day Saint public relations {#latter_day_saint_public_relations} In the 1960s, the church formed the Church Information Service with the goal of being ready to respond to media inquiries and generate positive media coverage. The organization kept a photo file to provide photos to the media for such events as Temple dedications. It also worked to get stories covering Family Home Evening, the church welfare plan and the church\'s youth activities in various publications. As part of the church\'s efforts to re-position its image as that of a mainstream religion, the church began to moderate its earlier anti--Roman Catholic rhetoric. In Bruce R. McConkie\'s 1958 edition of *Mormon Doctrine*, he had stated his unofficial opinion that the Catholic Church was part of \"the church of the devil\" and \"the great and abominable church\" because it was among organizations that misled people away from following God\'s laws. In his 1966 edition of the same book, the specific reference to the Catholic Church was removed. According to Riess and Tickle, early Mormons rarely quoted from the Book of Mormon in their speeches and writings. It was not until the 1980s that it was cited regularly in speeches given by LDS Church leaders at the biannual general conferences. In 1982, the LDS Church subtitled the Book of Mormon \"Another Testament of Jesus Christ.\" Apostle Boyd K. Packer stated that the scripture now took its place \"beside the Old Testament and the New Testament. Riess and Tickle assert that the introduction of this subtitle was intended to emphasize the Christ-centered nature of the Book of Mormon. They assert that the LDS \"rediscovery of the Book of Mormon in the late twentieth century is strongly connected to their renewed emphasis on the person and nature of Jesus Christ.\" In 1995, the church announced a new logo design that emphasized the words \"JESUS CHRIST\" in large capital letters, and de-emphasized the words \"The Church of\" and \"of Latter-day Saints\". ## 21st century {#st_century} On January 1, 2000, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles released a proclamation entitled \"The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles\". This document commemorated the birth of Jesus and set forth the church\'s official view regarding Christ. The church has participated in several interfaith cooperation initiatives. The church has opened its broadcasting facilities (Bonneville International) to other Christian groups and has participated in the VISN Religious Interfaith Cable Television Network. The church has also participated in numerous joint humanitarian efforts with other churches. Lastly, the church has agreed not to baptize Holocaust victims by proxy. Beginning in 2001, the church also sponsors or sponsored a low-interest educational loan program known as the Perpetual Education Fund, which provides or provided educational opportunities to students from developing nations. In 2004, the church endorsed an amendment to the United States Constitution banning homosexual marriage. The church also announced its opposition to political measures that \"confer legal status on any other sexual relationship\" than a \"man and a woman lawfully wedded as husband and wife.\" On November 5, 2015, an update letter to LDS Church leaders for the Church Handbook was leaked. The policy banned a \"child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship\" from baby blessings, baptism, confirmation, priesthood ordination, and missionary service until the child was not living with their homosexual parent(s), was \"of legal age\", and \"disavow\[ed\] the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage\", in addition to receiving approval from the Office of the First Presidency. The policy update also added that entering a same-sex marriage as a type of \"apostasy\", mandating a disciplinary council. The next day, in a video interview, apostle D. Todd Christofferson clarified that the policy was \"about love\" and \"protect\[ing\] children\" from \"difficulties, challenges, conflicts\" where \"parents feel one way and the expectations of the Church are very different\". On November 13, the First Presidency released a letter clarifying that the policy applied \"only to those children whose primary residence is with a couple living in a same-gender marriage or similar relationship\" and that for children residing with parents in a same-sex relationship who had already received ordinances the policy would not require that \"privileges be curtailed or that further ordinances be withheld\". The next day around 1,500 members gathered across from the Church Office Building to submit their resignation letters in response to the policy change with thousands more resigning online in the weeks after Two months later, in a satellite broadcast, apostle Russell M. Nelson stated that the policy change was \"revealed to President Monson\" in a \"sacred moment\" when \"the Lord inspired \[him\] \... to declare \... the will of the Lord\". In April 2019, the church---then led by Nelson---reversed these policies, citing efforts to be more accepting to people of all kinds of backgrounds. For over 100 years, the church was a major sponsor of Scouting programs for boys, particularly in the United States. The LDS Church was the largest chartered organization in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), having joined the BSA as its first charter organization in 1913. In 2020, the church ended its relationship with the BSA and began an alternate, religion-centered youth program, which replaced all other youth programs. Prior to leaving the Scouting program, LDS Scouts made up nearly 20 percent of all enrolled Boy Scouts, more than any other church. ### Legal entities and merger {#legal_entities_and_merger} In 1887, the LDS Church was legally dissolved in the United States by the Edmunds--Tucker Act because of the church\'s practice of polygamy. For more than the next hundred years, the church as a whole operated as an unincorporated entity. During that time, tax-exempt corporations of the LDS Church included the *Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints*, which managed non-ecclesiastical real estate and other holdings; and the *Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints*, which governed temples, other sacred buildings, and the church\'s employees. By 2021, the two had been merged into one corporate entity, legally named \"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\" ### Ensign Peak Advisors {#ensign_peak_advisors} In December 2019, a whistleblower alleged the church held over \$100 billion in investment funds through its investment management company, Ensign Peak Advisors (EP); that it failed to use the funds for charitable purposes and instead used them in for-profit ventures; and that it misled contributors and the public about the usage and extent of those funds. In response, the church\'s First Presidency stated that \"the Church complies with all applicable law governing our donations, investments, taxes, and reserves,\" and that \"a portion\" of funds received by the church are \"methodically safeguarded through wise financial management and the building of a prudent reserve for the future\". The church has not directly addressed the fund\'s size to the public, but third parties have treated the disclosures as legitimate. In February 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a \$5 million penalty to the church and its investment company, EP. The SEC alleged that the church concealed its investments and their management in multiple shell companies from 1997 to 2019; the SEC believes these shell companies were approved by senior church leadership to avoid public transparency. The church released a statement that in 2000 EP \"received and relied upon legal counsel regarding how to comply with its reporting obligations while attempting to maintain the privacy of the portfolio.\" After initial SEC concern in June 2019, the church stated that EP \"adjusted its approach and began filing a single aggregated report.\"

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,946

Casuistry

**Casuistry** (`{{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|æ|zj|u|ᵻ|s|t|r|i}}`{=mediawiki} `{{respell|KAZ|ew|iss|tree}}`{=mediawiki}) is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending abstract rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. The term is also used pejoratively to criticise the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to ethical questions (as in sophistry). It has been defined as follows: > Study of cases of conscience and a method of solving conflicts of obligations by applying general principles of ethics, religion, and moral theology to particular and concrete cases of human conduct. This frequently demands an extensive knowledge of natural law and equity, civil law, ecclesiastical precepts, and an exceptional skill in interpreting these various norms of conduct\.... It remains a common method in applied ethics. ## Etymology According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the term and its agent noun \"casuist\", appearing from about 1600, derive from the Latin noun `{{Wikt-lang|la|casus}}`{=mediawiki}, meaning \"case\", especially as referring to a \"case of conscience\". The same source says, \"Even in the earliest printed uses the sense was pejorative\". ## History Casuistry dates from at least Aristotle (384--322 BC), yet the peak of casuistry was from 1550 to 1650, when the Society of Jesus (commonly known as the *Jesuits*) used case-based reasoning, particularly in administering the Sacrament of Penance (or \"confession\"). The term became pejorative following Blaise Pascal\'s attack on the misuse of the method in his *Provincial Letters* (1656--57). The French mathematician, religious philosopher and Jansenist sympathiser attacked priests who used casuistic reasoning in confession to pacify wealthy church donors. Pascal charged that \"remorseful\" aristocrats could confess a sin one day, re-commit it the next, then generously donate to the church and return to re-confess their sin, confident that they were being assigned a penance in name only. These criticisms darkened casuistry\'s reputation in the following centuries. For example, the *Oxford English Dictionary* quotes a 1738 essay by Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke to the effect that casuistry \"destroys, by distinctions and exceptions, all morality, and effaces the essential difference between right and wrong, good and evil\". The 20th century saw a revival of interest in casuistry. In their book *The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning* (1988), Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin argue that it is not casuistry but its abuse that has been a problem; that, properly used, casuistry is powerful reasoning. Jonsen and Toulmin offer casuistry as a method for compromising the contradictory principles of moral absolutism and moral relativism. In addition, the ethical philosophies of utilitarianism (especially preference utilitarianism) and pragmatism have been identified as employing casuistic reasoning.`{{by whom|date=June 2022}}`{=mediawiki} ### Early modernity {#early_modernity} The casuistic method was popular among Catholic thinkers in the early modern period. Casuistic authors include Antonio Escobar y Mendoza, whose *Summula casuum conscientiae* (1627) enjoyed great success, Thomas Sanchez, Vincenzo Filliucci (Jesuit and penitentiary at St Peter\'s), Antonino Diana, Paul Laymann (*Theologia Moralis*, 1625), John Azor (*Institutiones Morales*, 1600), Etienne Bauny, Louis Cellot, Valerius Reginaldus, and Hermann Busembaum (d. 1668). The progress of casuistry was interrupted toward the middle of the 17th century by the controversy which arose concerning the doctrine of probabilism, which effectively stated that one could choose to follow a \"probable opinion\"`{{mdash}}`{=mediawiki}that is, an opinion supported by a theologian or another`{{mdash}}`{=mediawiki}even if it contradicted a more probable opinion or a quotation from one of the Fathers of the Church. Certain kinds of casuistry were criticised by early Protestant theologians, because it was used to justify many of the abuses that they sought to reform. It was famously attacked by the Catholic and Jansenist philosopher Blaise Pascal during the formulary controversy against the Jesuits, in his Provincial Letters, as the use of rhetorics to justify moral laxity, which became identified by the public with **Jesuitism**; hence the everyday use of the term to mean complex and sophistic reasoning to justify moral laxity. By the mid-18th century, \"casuistry\" had become a synonym for attractive-sounding, but ultimately false, moral reasoning. In 1679 Pope Innocent XI publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (*stricti mentalis*), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suarez and other casuists as *propositiones laxorum moralistarum* and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication. Despite this condemnation by a pope, both Catholicism and Protestantism permit the use of ambiguous statements in specific circumstances. ### Later modernity {#later_modernity} G. E. Moore dealt with casuistry in chapter 1.4 of his *Principia Ethica*, in which he claimed that \"the defects of casuistry are not defects of principle; no objection can be taken to its aim and object. It has failed only because it is far too difficult a subject to be treated adequately in our present state of knowledge\". Furthermore, he asserted that \"casuistry is the goal of ethical investigation. It cannot be safely attempted at the beginning of our studies, but only at the end\". Since the 1960s, applied ethics has revived the ideas of casuistry in applying moral reasoning to particular cases in law, bioethics, and business ethics. Its facility for dealing with situations where rules or values conflict with each other has made it a useful approach in professional ethics, and casuistry\'s reputation has improved somewhat as a result. Pope Francis, a Jesuit, has criticized casuistry as \"the practice of setting general laws on the basis of exceptional cases\" in instances where a more holistic approach would be preferred.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,948

Chinese input method

Several input methods allow the use of Chinese characters with computers. Most allow selection of characters based either on their pronunciation or their graphical shape. Phonetic input methods are easier to learn but are less efficient, while graphical methods allow faster input, but have a steep learning curve. Other methods allow users to write characters directly via touchscreens, such as those found on mobile phones and tablet computers. ## History Chinese input methods predate the computer. One of the early attempts was an electro-mechanical Chinese typewriter Mingkwai (`{{zh|c=明快 |p=míngkuài |w=ming-k'uai}}`{=mediawiki}) which was invented by Lin Yutang, a prominent Chinese writer, in the 1940s. It assigned thirty base shapes or strokes to different keys and adopted a new way of categorizing Chinese characters. But the typewriter was not produced commercially and Lin soon found himself deeply in debt. Before the 1980s, Chinese publishers hired teams of workers and selected a few thousand type pieces from an enormous Chinese character set. Chinese government agencies entered characters using a long, complicated list of Chinese telegraph codes, which assigned different numbers to each character. During the early computer era, Chinese characters were categorized by their radicals or Pinyin romanization, but results were less than satisfactory. In the 1970s to 1980s, large keyboards with thousands of keys were used to input Chinese. Each key was mapped to several Chinese characters. To type a character, one pressed the character key and then a selection key. There were also experimental \"radical keyboards\" with dozens to several hundreds keys. Chinese characters were decomposed into \"radicals\", each of which was represented by a key. Unwieldy and difficult to use, these keyboards became obsolete after the introduction of Cangjie input method, the first method to use only the standard QWERTY keyboard and make Chinese touch typing possible. Chu Bong-Foo invented a common input method in 1976 with his Cangjie input method, which assigns different \"roots\" to each key on a standard computer keyboard. With this method, for example, the character *日* is assigned to the A key, and 月 is assigned to B. Typing them together will result in the character *明* (\"bright\"). Despite its steeper learning curve, this method remains popular in Chinese communities that use traditional Chinese characters, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan; the method allows very precise input, thus allowing users to type more efficiently and quickly, provided they are familiar with the fairly complicated rules of the method. It was the first method that allowed users to enter more than a hundred Chinese characters per minute. Its popularity is also helped by its omnipresence on traditional Chinese computer systems, since Chu has given up its patent in 1982, stating that it should be part of the cultural asset. Developers of Chinese systems can adopt it freely, and users do not have the hassle of it being absent on devices with Chinese support. Cangjie input programs supporting a large CJK character set have been developed. All methods have their strengths and weaknesses. The pinyin method can be learned rapidly but its maximum input rate is limited. The Wubi method takes longer to learn, but expert typists can enter text much more rapidly with it than with phonetic methods. However, Wubi is proprietary, and a version of it has become freely available only after its inventor lost a patent lawsuit in 1997. Due to these complexities, there is no \"standard\" method. By 1989, bopomofo and pinyin were available for the IBM PC. In mainland China, pinyin methods such as Sogou Pinyin and Google Pinyin are the most popular. In Taiwan, use of Cangjie, Dayi, Boshiamy, and bopomofo predominate; and in Hong Kong and Macau, the Cangjie is most often taught in schools, while a few schools teach CKC Chinese Input System. Other methods include handwriting recognition, OCR and speech recognition. The computer itself must first be \"trained\" before the first or second of these methods are used; that is, the new user enters the system in a special \"learning mode\" so that the system can learn to identify their handwriting or speech patterns. The latter two methods are used less frequently than keyboard-based input methods and suffer from relatively high error rates, especially when used without proper \"training\", though higher error rates are an acceptable trade-off to many users. ## Categories ### Phonetic-based {#phonetic_based} The user enters pronunciations that are converted into relevant Chinese characters. The user must select the desired character from homophones, which are common in Chinese. Modern systems, such as Sogou Pinyin and Google Pinyin, predict the desired characters based on context and user preferences. For example, if one enters the sounds *jicheng*, the software will type *繼承* (to inherit), but if *jichengche* is entered, *計程車* (taxi) will appear. Various Chinese dialects complicate the system. Phonetic methods are mainly based on standard pinyin, Zhuyin/Bopomofo, and Jyutping in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, respectively. Input methods based on other varieties of Chinese, like Hakka or Minnan, also exist. While the phonetic system is easy to learn, choosing appropriate Chinese characters slows typing speed. Most users report a typing speed of fifty characters per minute, though some reach over one hundred per minute. With some phonetic IMEs (Input Method Editors), in addition to predictive input based on previous conversions, it is possible for users to create custom dictionary entries for frequently used characters and phrases, potentially lowering the number of characters required to evoke it. #### Shuangpin thumb\|upright=1.35\|The Microsoft pinyin 2003 shuangpin scheme. Shuangpin (*双拼*; *雙拼*), literally dual spell, is a stenographical phonetic input method based on hanyu pinyin that reduces the number of keystrokes for one Chinese character to two by distributing every vowel and consonant composed of more than one letter to a specific key. In most Shuangpin layout schemes such as Xiaohe, Microsoft 2003 and Ziranma, the most frequently used vowels are placed on the middle layer, reducing the risk of repetitive strain injury. Shuangpin is supported by a large number of pinyin input software including QQ, Microsoft Bing Pinyin, Sogou Pinyin and Google Pinyin. ### Shape-based {#shape_based} - Cangjie input method - Simplified Cangjie - Dayi method - Array input method (*行列*) - Four-corner method - Stroke count method - Wubi method - Zhengma method - Biaoxingma method - ZYQ method (*正易全*) ### Others - Chinese telegraph code (*中文電碼*) ### Examples of keyboard layouts {#examples_of_keyboard_layouts} Image:Keyboard layout Zhuyin.svg\|A typical keyboard layout for zhuyin on computers, which can be used as an input method Image:Wubi keyboard.png\|A keyboard using the Wubi method Image:Keyboard layout cangjie.png\|A typical keyboard layout for the Cangjie method, which is based on the U.S. keyboard layout. Note the non-standard use of Z as the collision key. Image:Keyboard layout Dayi.svg\|A typical keyboard layout for the Dayi method Image:Keyboard layout Chinese Traditional.png\|Chinese (traditional) keyboard layout, a US keyboard with Zhuyin, Cangjie and Dayi key labels, which can all be used to input Chinese characters into a computer ## Software - Microsoft IME - Sogou Pinyin - Google Pinyin

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,980

Carbon sink

thumb\|upright=1.35 \|Carbon sinks (green bars on the right) remove carbon from the atmosphere, whereas carbon sources (greenhouse gas emissions) (grey bars on the left) add them. Since the 1850s, there are more carbon sources than sinks and therefore the carbon dioxide in Earth\'s atmosphere is rising.A **carbon sink** is a natural or artificial carbon sequestration process that \"removes a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere\". These sinks form an important part of the natural carbon cycle. An overarching term is **carbon pool**, which is all the places where carbon on Earth can be, i.e. the atmosphere, oceans, soil, florae, fossil fuel reservoirs and so forth. A carbon sink is a type of carbon pool that has the capability to take up more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. Globally, the two most important carbon sinks are vegetation and the ocean. Soil is an important carbon storage medium. Much of the organic carbon retained in the soil of agricultural areas has been depleted due to intensive farming. *Blue carbon* designates carbon that is fixed via certain marine ecosystems. *Coastal blue carbon* includes mangroves, salt marshes and seagrasses. These make up a majority of ocean plant life and store large quantities of carbon. *Deep blue carbon* is located in international waters and includes carbon contained in \"continental shelf waters, deep-sea waters and the sea floor beneath them\". For climate change mitigation purposes, the maintenance and enhancement of natural carbon sinks, mainly soils and forests, is important. In the past, human practices like deforestation and industrial agriculture have depleted natural carbon sinks. This kind of land use change has been one of the causes of climate change. ## Definition In the context of climate change and in particular mitigation, a *sink* is defined as \"Any process, activity or mechanism which removes a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere\". In the case of non-`{{CO2}}`{=mediawiki} greenhouse gases, sinks need not store the gas. Instead they can break it down into substances that have a reduced effect on global warming. For example, nitrous oxide can be reduced to harmless N~2~. Related terms are \"carbon pool, reservoir, sequestration, source and uptake\". The same publication defines *carbon pool* as \"a reservoir in the Earth system where elements, such as carbon \[\...\], reside in various chemical forms for a period of time.\" Both carbon pools and carbon sinks are important concepts in understanding the carbon cycle, but they refer to slightly different things. A carbon pool can be thought of as the overarching term, and carbon sink is then a particular type of carbon pool: A carbon pool is all the places where carbon can be stored (for example the atmosphere, oceans, soil, plants, and fossil fuels). ## Types The amount of carbon dioxide varies naturally in a dynamic equilibrium with photosynthesis of land plants. The natural carbon sinks are: - Soil is a carbon store and active carbon sink. - Photosynthesis by terrestrial plants with grass and trees allows them to serve as carbon sinks during growing seasons. - Absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans via solubility and biological pumps. Artificial carbon sinks are those that store carbon in building materials or deep underground (geologic carbon sequestration). No major artificial systems remove carbon from the atmosphere on a large scale yet. Public awareness of the significance of `{{CO2}}`{=mediawiki} sinks has grown since passage of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which promotes their use as a form of carbon offset. ## Natural carbon sinks {#natural_carbon_sinks} thumb\|right\|upright=2\|This diagram of the fast carbon cycle shows the movement of carbon between land, atmosphere, soil and oceans in billions of tons of carbon per year. Yellow numbers are natural fluxes, red are human contributions in billions of tons of carbon per year. White numbers indicate stored carbon.*Main article: Carbon sequestration* ### Soils Soils represent a short to long-term carbon storage medium and contain more carbon than all terrestrial vegetation and the atmosphere combined. Plant litter and other biomass including charcoal accumulates as organic matter in soils, and is degraded by chemical weathering and biological degradation. More recalcitrant organic carbon polymers such as cellulose, hemi-cellulose, lignin, aliphatic compounds, waxes and terpenoids are collectively retained as humus. Organic matter tends to accumulate in litter and soils of colder regions such as the boreal forests of North America and the Taiga of Russia. Leaf litter and humus are rapidly oxidized and poorly retained in sub-tropical and tropical climate conditions due to high temperatures and extensive leaching by rainfall. Areas, where shifting cultivation or slash and burn agriculture are practiced, are generally only fertile for two to three years before they are abandoned. These tropical jungles are similar to coral reefs in that they are highly efficient at conserving and circulating necessary nutrients, which explains their lushness in a nutrient desert. Grasslands contribute to soil organic matter, stored mainly in their extensive fibrous root mats. Due in part to the climatic conditions of these regions (e.g., cooler temperatures and semi-arid to arid conditions), these soils can accumulate significant quantities of organic matter. This can vary based on rainfall, the length of the winter season, and the frequency of naturally occurring lightning-induced grass-fires. While these fires release carbon dioxide, they improve the quality of the grasslands overall, in turn increasing the amount of carbon retained in the humic material. They also deposit carbon directly into the soil in the form of biochar that does not significantly degrade back to carbon dioxide. Much organic carbon retained in many agricultural areas worldwide has been severely depleted due to intensive farming practices. Since the 1850s, a large proportion of the world\'s grasslands have been tilled and converted to croplands, allowing the rapid oxidation of large quantities of soil organic carbon. Methods that significantly enhance carbon sequestration in soil are called carbon farming. They include for example no-till farming, residue mulching, cover cropping, and crop rotation. ### Forests ### Deep ocean, tidal marshes, mangroves and seagrasses {#deep_ocean_tidal_marshes_mangroves_and_seagrasses} ## Enhancing natural carbon sinks {#enhancing_natural_carbon_sinks} ### Purpose in the context of climate change {#purpose_in_the_context_of_climate_change} ### Carbon sequestration techniques in oceans {#carbon_sequestration_techniques_in_oceans} To enhance carbon sequestration processes in oceans the following technologies have been proposed but none have achieved large scale application so far: Seaweed farming, ocean fertilisation, artificial upwelling, basalt storage, mineralization and deep sea sediments, adding bases to neutralize acids. The idea of direct deep-sea carbon dioxide injection has been abandoned. ## Artificial carbon sinks {#artificial_carbon_sinks} ### Geologic carbon sequestration {#geologic_carbon_sequestration} ### Wooden buildings {#wooden_buildings} Broad-base adoption of mass timber and their role in substituting steel and concrete in new mid-rise construction projects over the next few decades has the potential to turn timber buildings into carbon sinks, as they store the carbon dioxide taken up from the air by trees that are harvested and used as mass timber. This could result in storing between 10 million tons of carbon per year in the lowest scenario and close to 700 million tons in the highest scenario. For this to happen, the harvested forests would need to be sustainably managed and wood from demolished timber buildings would need to be reused or preserved on land in various forms. Using rapidly renewable plant materials like bamboo, straw or hempcrete can be further carbon sinks.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,987

Coal

**Coal** is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is a type of fossil fuel, formed when dead plant matter decays into peat which is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth\'s tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. Coal is used primarily as a fuel. While coal has been known and used for thousands of years, its usage was limited until the Industrial Revolution. With the invention of the steam engine, coal consumption increased. In 2020, coal supplied about a quarter of the world\'s primary energy and over a third of its electricity. Some iron and steel-making and other industrial processes burn coal. The extraction and burning of coal damages the environment, causing premature death and illness, and it is the largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide contributing to climate change. Fourteen billion tonnes of carbon dioxide were emitted by burning coal in 2020, which is 40% of total fossil fuel emissions and over 25% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. As part of worldwide energy transition, many countries have reduced or eliminated their use of coal power. The United Nations Secretary General asked governments to stop building new coal plants by 2020. Global coal use was 8.3 billion tonnes in 2022, and is set to remain at record levels in 2023. To meet the Paris Agreement target of keeping global warming below 2 C-change coal use needs to halve from 2020 to 2030, and \"phasing down\" coal was agreed upon in the Glasgow Climate Pact. The largest consumer and importer of coal in 2020 was China, which accounts for almost half the world\'s annual coal production, followed by India with about a tenth. Indonesia and Australia export the most, followed by Russia. ## Etymology The word originally took the form *col* in Old English, from reconstructed Proto-Germanic \**kula*(*n*), from Proto-Indo-European root \**g*(*e*)*u-lo-* \"live coal\". Germanic cognates include the Old Frisian *kole*, Middle Dutch *cole*, Dutch *kool*, Old High German *chol*, German *Kohle* and Old Norse *kol*. Irish *gual* is also a cognate via the Indo-European root. ## Formation of coal {#formation_of_coal} The conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called coalification. At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying areas. In these wetlands, the process of coalification began when dead plant matter was protected from oxidation, usually by mud or acidic water, and was converted into peat. The resulting peat bogs, which trapped immense amounts of carbon, were eventually deeply buried by sediments. Then, over millions of years, the heat and pressure of deep burial caused the loss of water, methane and carbon dioxide and increased the proportion of carbon. The grade of coal produced depended on the maximum pressure and temperature reached, with lignite (also called \"brown coal\") produced under relatively mild conditions, and sub-bituminous coal, bituminous coal, or anthracite coal (also called \"hard coal\" or \"black coal\") produced in turn with increasing temperature and pressure. Of the factors involved in coalification, temperature is much more important than either pressure or time of burial. Subbituminous coal can form at temperatures as low as {{ convert\|35 to 80\|C\|\|sp=us}} while anthracite requires a temperature of at least 180 to 245 C. Although coal is known from most geologic periods, 90% of all coal beds were deposited in the Carboniferous and Permian periods. Paradoxically, this was during the Late Paleozoic icehouse, a time of global glaciation. However, the drop in global sea level accompanying the glaciation exposed continental shelves that had previously been submerged, and to these were added wide river deltas produced by increased erosion due to the drop in base level. These widespread areas of wetlands provided ideal conditions for coal formation. The rapid formation of coal ended with the coal gap in the Permian--Triassic extinction event, where coal is rare. Favorable geography alone does not explain the extensive Carboniferous coal beds. Other factors contributing to rapid coal deposition were high oxygen levels, above 30%, that promoted intense wildfires and formation of charcoal that was all but indigestible by decomposing organisms; high carbon dioxide levels that promoted plant growth; and the nature of Carboniferous forests, which included lycophyte trees whose determinate growth meant that carbon was not tied up in heartwood of living trees for long periods. One theory suggested that about 360 million years ago, some plants evolved the ability to produce lignin, a complex polymer that made their cellulose stems much harder and more woody. The ability to produce lignin led to the evolution of the first trees. But bacteria and fungi did not immediately evolve the ability to decompose lignin, so the wood did not fully decay but became buried under sediment, eventually turning into coal. About 300 million years ago, mushrooms and other fungi developed this ability, ending the main coal-formation period of earth\'s history. Although some authors pointed at some evidence of lignin degradation during the Carboniferous, and suggested that climatic and tectonic factors were a more plausible explanation, reconstruction of ancestral enzymes by phylogenetic analysis corroborated a hypothesis that lignin degrading enzymes appeared in fungi approximately 200 MYa. One likely tectonic factor was the Central Pangean Mountains, an enormous range running along the equator that reached its greatest elevation near this time. Climate modeling suggests that the Central Pangean Mountains contributed to the deposition of vast quantities of coal in the late Carboniferous. The mountains created an area of year-round heavy precipitation, with no dry season typical of a monsoon climate. This is necessary for the preservation of peat in coal swamps. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants. This coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae. Sometimes coal seams (also known as coal beds) are interbedded with other sediments in a cyclothem. Cyclothems are thought to have their origin in glacial cycles that produced fluctuations in sea level, which alternately exposed and then flooded large areas of continental shelf. ### Chemistry of coalification {#chemistry_of_coalification} The woody tissue of plants is composed mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Modern peat is mostly lignin, with a content of cellulose and hemicellulose ranging from 5% to 40%. Various other organic compounds, such as waxes and nitrogen- and sulfur-containing compounds, are also present. Lignin has a weight composition of about 54% carbon, 6% hydrogen, and 30% oxygen, while cellulose has a weight composition of about 44% carbon, 6% hydrogen, and 49% oxygen. Bituminous coal has a composition of about 84.4% carbon, 5.4% hydrogen, 6.7% oxygen, 1.7% nitrogen, and 1.8% sulfur, on a weight basis. The low oxygen content of coal shows that coalification removed most of the oxygen and much of the hydrogen a process called *carbonization*. Carbonization proceeds primarily by dehydration, decarboxylation, and demethanation. Dehydration removes water molecules from the maturing coal via reactions such as : 2 R--OH → R--O--R + H~2~O Decarboxylation removes carbon dioxide from the maturing coal: : RCOOH → RH + CO~2~ while demethanation proceeds by reaction such as : 2 R-CH~3~ → R-CH~2~-R + CH~4~ : R-CH~2~-CH~2~-CH~2~-R → R-CH=CH-R + CH~4~ In these formulas, R represents the remainder of a cellulose or lignin molecule to which the reacting groups are attached. Dehydration and decarboxylation take place early in coalification, while demethanation begins only after the coal has already reached bituminous rank. The effect of decarboxylation is to reduce the percentage of oxygen, while demethanation reduces the percentage of hydrogen. Dehydration does both, and (together with demethanation) reduces the saturation of the carbon backbone (increasing the number of double bonds between carbon). As carbonization proceeds, aliphatic compounds convert to aromatic compounds. Similarly, aromatic rings fuse into polyaromatic compounds (linked rings of carbon atoms). The structure increasingly resembles graphene, the structural element of graphite. Chemical changes are accompanied by physical changes, such as decrease in average pore size. ### Macerals Macerals are coalified plant parts that retain the morphology and some properties of the original plant. In many coals, individual macerals can be identified visually. Some macerals include: - vitrinite, derived from woody parts - lipinite, derived from spores and algae - inertite, derived from woody parts that had been burnt in prehistoric times - huminite, a precursor to vitrinite. In coalification huminite is replaced by vitreous (shiny) *vitrinite*. Maturation of bituminous coal is characterized by *bitumenization*, in which part of the coal is converted to bitumen, a hydrocarbon-rich gel. Maturation to anthracite is characterized by *debitumenization* (from demethanation) and the increasing tendency of the anthracite to break with a conchoidal fracture, similar to the way thick glass breaks. ### Types thumb\|upright=1.35\|Coal ranking system used by the United States Geological Survey As geological processes apply pressure to dead biotic material over time, under suitable conditions, its metamorphic grade or rank increases successively into: - Peat, a precursor of coal - Lignite, or brown coal, the lowest rank of coal, most harmful to health when burned, used almost exclusively as fuel for electric power generation - Sub-bituminous coal, whose properties range between those of lignite and those of bituminous coal, is used primarily as fuel for steam-electric power generation. - Bituminous coal, a dense sedimentary rock, usually black, but sometimes dark brown, often with well-defined bands of bright and dull material. It is used primarily as fuel in steam-electric power generation and to make coke. Known as steam coal in the UK, and historically used to raise steam in steam locomotives and ships - Anthracite coal, the highest rank of coal, is a harder, glossy black coal used primarily for residential and commercial space heating. - Graphite, a difficult to ignite coal which is mostly used in pencils, or powdered for lubrication. - Cannel coal (sometimes called \"candle coal\"), a variety of fine-grained, high-rank coal with significant hydrogen content, which consists primarily of liptinite. It is related to boghead coal. There are several international standards for coal. The classification of coal is generally based on the content of volatiles. However the most important distinction is between thermal coal (also known as steam coal), which is burnt to generate electricity via steam; and metallurgical coal (also known as coking coal), which is burnt at high temperature to make steel. Hilt\'s law is a geological observation that (within a small area) the deeper the coal is found, the higher its rank (or grade). It applies if the thermal gradient is entirely vertical; however, metamorphism may cause lateral changes of rank, irrespective of depth. For example, some of the coal seams of the Madrid, New Mexico coal field were partially converted to anthracite by contact metamorphism from an igneous sill while the remainder of the seams remained as bituminous coal. ## History The earliest recognized use is from the Shenyang area of China where by 4000 BC Neolithic inhabitants had begun carving ornaments from black lignite. Coal from the Fushun mine in northeastern China was used to smelt copper as early as 1000 BC. Marco Polo, the Italian who traveled to China in the 13th century, described coal as \"black stones \... which burn like logs\", and said coal was so plentiful, people could take three hot baths a week. In Europe, the earliest reference to the use of coal as fuel is from the geological treatise *On Stones* (Lap. 16) by the Greek scientist Theophrastus (c. 371--287 BC): Outcrop coal was used in Britain during the Bronze Age (3000--2000 BC), where it formed part of funeral pyres. In Roman Britain, with the exception of two modern fields, \"the Romans were exploiting coals in all the major coalfields in England and Wales by the end of the second century AD\". Evidence of trade in coal, dated to about AD 200, has been found at the Roman settlement at Heronbridge, near Chester; and in the Fenlands of East Anglia, where coal from the Midlands was transported via the Car Dyke for use in drying grain. Coal cinders have been found in the hearths of villas and Roman forts, particularly in Northumberland, dated to around AD 400. In the west of England, contemporary writers described the wonder of a permanent brazier of coal on the altar of Minerva at Aquae Sulis (modern day Bath), although in fact easily accessible surface coal from what became the Somerset coalfield was in common use in quite lowly dwellings locally. Evidence of coal\'s use for iron-working in the city during the Roman period has been found. In Eschweiler, Rhineland, deposits of bituminous coal were used by the Romans for the smelting of iron ore. `{{anchor|Sea coal}}`{=mediawiki} No evidence exists of coal being of great importance in Britain before about AD 1000, the High Middle Ages. Coal came to be referred to as \"seacoal\" in the 13th century; the wharf where the material arrived in London was known as Seacoal Lane, so identified in a charter of King Henry III granted in 1253. Initially, the name was given because much coal was found on the shore, having fallen from the exposed coal seams on cliffs above or washed out of underwater coal outcrops, but by the time of Henry VIII, it was understood to derive from the way it was carried to London by sea. In 1257--1259, coal from Newcastle upon Tyne was shipped to London for the smiths and lime-burners building Westminster Abbey. Seacoal Lane and Newcastle Lane, where coal was unloaded at wharves along the River Fleet, still exist. These easily accessible sources had largely become exhausted (or could not meet the growing demand) by the 13th century, when underground extraction by shaft mining or adits was developed. The alternative name was \"pitcoal\", because it came from mines. Cooking and home heating with coal (in addition to firewood or instead of it) has been done in various times and places throughout human history, especially in times and places where ground-surface coal was available and firewood was scarce, but a widespread reliance on coal for home hearths probably never existed until such a switch in fuels happened in London in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Historian Ruth Goodman has traced the socioeconomic effects of that switch and its later spread throughout Britain and suggested that its importance in shaping the industrial adoption of coal has been previously underappreciated. The development of the Industrial Revolution led to the large-scale use of coal, as the steam engine took over from the water wheel. In 1700, five-sixths of the world\'s coal was mined in Britain. Britain would have run out of suitable sites for watermills by the 1830s if coal had not been available as a source of energy. In 1947 there were some 750,000 miners in Britain, but the last deep coal mine in the UK closed in 2015. A grade between bituminous coal and anthracite was once known as \"steam coal\" as it was widely used as a fuel for steam locomotives. In this specialized use, it is sometimes known as \"sea coal\" in the United States. Small \"steam coal\", also called *dry small steam nuts* (DSSN), was used as a fuel for domestic water heating. Coal played an important role in industry in the 19th and 20th century. The predecessor of the European Union, the European Coal and Steel Community, was based on the trading of this commodity. Coal continues to arrive on beaches around the world from both natural erosion of exposed coal seams and windswept spills from cargo ships. Many homes in such areas gather this coal as a significant, and sometimes primary, source of home heating fuel. ## Composition Coal is a mixture of diverse organic compounds and polymers. Several kinds exist, with variable dark colors and composition. Young coals (brown coal, lignite) are not completely black. The two main black coals are bituminous, which is more abundant, and anthracite. The type of coal with the highest percentage of carbon in its chemical composition is anthracite, followed by bituminous, then lignite, and finally brown coal. The fuel value of coal varies in the same order. Some anthracite deposits contain pure carbon in the form of graphite. For bituminous coal, the elemental composition on a dry, ash-free basis of 84.4% carbon, 5.4% hydrogen, 6.7% oxygen, 1.7% nitrogen, and 1.8% sulfur, on a weight basis. This composition reflects partly the composition of the precursor plants. The second main fraction of coal is ash, an undesirable, noncombustable mixture of inorganic minerals. The composition of ash is often discussed in terms of oxides obtained after combustion in air: ------------------------------- ---------- 20--40 10--35 5--35 CaO 1--20 MgO 0.3--4 0.5--2.5 & `{{chem2|K2O}}`{=mediawiki} 1--4 0.1--12 ------------------------------- ---------- : Ash composition, weight percent Of particular interest is the sulfur content of coal, which can vary from less than 1% to as much as 4%. Most of the sulfur and most of the nitrogen is incorporated into the organic fraction in the form of organosulfur compounds and organonitrogen compounds. This sulfur and nitrogen are strongly bound within the hydrocarbon matrix. These elements are released as SO~2~ and NO~x~ upon combustion. They cannot be removed, economically at least, otherwise. Some coals contain inorganic sulfur, mainly in the form of iron pyrite (FeS~2~). Being a dense mineral, it can be removed from coal by mechanical means, e.g. by froth flotation. Some sulfate occurs in coal, especially weathered samples. It is not volatilized and can be removed by washing. Minor components include: Substance Content --------------- --------- Mercury (Hg) Arsenic (As) Selenium (Se) : Average content As minerals, Hg, As, and Se are not problematic to the environment, especially since they are only trace components. They become however mobile (volatile or water-soluble) when these minerals are combusted. ## Uses Most coal is used as fuel. 27.6% of world energy was supplied by coal in 2017 and Asia used almost three-quarters of it. Other large-scale applications also exist. The energy density of coal is roughly 24 megajoules per kilogram (approximately 6.7 kilowatt-hours per kg). For a coal power plant with a 40% efficiency, it takes an estimated 325 kg of coal to power a 100 W lightbulb for one year. ### Electricity generation {#electricity_generation} In 2022, 68% of global coal use was used for electricity generation. Coal burnt in coal power stations to generate electricity is called **thermal coal**. It is usually pulverized and then burned in a furnace with a boiler. The furnace heat converts boiler water to steam, which is then used to spin turbines which turn generators and create electricity. The thermodynamic efficiency of this process varies between about 25% and 50% depending on the pre-combustion treatment, turbine technology (e.g. supercritical steam generator) and the age of the plant. A few integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants have been built, which burn coal more efficiently. Instead of pulverizing the coal and burning it directly as fuel in the steam-generating boiler, the coal is gasified to create syngas, which is burned in a gas turbine to produce electricity (just like natural gas is burned in a turbine). Hot exhaust gases from the turbine are used to raise steam in a heat recovery steam generator which powers a supplemental steam turbine. The overall plant efficiency when used to provide combined heat and power can reach as much as 94%. IGCC power plants emit less local pollution than conventional pulverized coal-fueled plants. Other ways to use coal are as coal-water slurry fuel (CWS), which was developed in the Soviet Union, or in an MHD topping cycle. However these are not widely used due to lack of profit. In 2017 38% of the world\'s electricity came from coal, the same percentage as 30 years previously. In 2018 global installed capacity was 2TW (of which 1TW is in China) which was 30% of total electricity generation capacity. The most dependent major country is South Africa, with over 80% of its electricity generated by coal; but China alone generates more than half of the world\'s coal-generated electricity. Efforts around the world to reduce the use of coal have led some regions to switch to natural gas and renewable energy. In 2018 coal-fired power station capacity factor averaged 51%, that is they operated for about half their available operating hours. ### Coke Coke is a solid carbonaceous residue that is used in manufacturing steel and other iron-containing products. Coke is made when metallurgical coal (also known as *coking coal*) is baked in an oven without oxygen at temperatures as high as 1,000 °C, driving off the volatile constituents and fusing together the fixed carbon and residual ash. Metallurgical coke is used as a fuel and as a reducing agent in smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. The carbon monoxide produced by its combustion reduces hematite (an iron oxide) to iron. : Pig iron, which is too rich in dissolved carbon, is also produced. The coke must be strong enough to resist the weight of overburden in the blast furnace, which is why coking coal is so important in making steel using the conventional route. Coke from coal is grey, hard, and porous and has a heating value of 29.6 MJ/kg. Some coke-making processes produce byproducts, including coal tar, ammonia, light oils, and coal gas. Petroleum coke (petcoke) is the solid residue obtained in oil refining, which resembles coke but contains too many impurities to be useful in metallurgical applications. ### Production of chemicals {#production_of_chemicals} upright=1.35\|thumb\|Production of chemicals from coal Chemicals have been produced from coal since the 1950s. Coal can be used as a feedstock in the production of a wide range of chemical fertilizers and other chemical products. The main route to these products was coal gasification to produce syngas. Primary chemicals that are produced directly from the syngas include methanol, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide, which are the chemical building blocks from which a whole spectrum of derivative chemicals are manufactured, including olefins, acetic acid, formaldehyde, ammonia, urea, and others. The versatility of syngas as a precursor to primary chemicals and high-value derivative products provides the option of using coal to produce a wide range of commodities. In the 21st century, however, the use of coalbed methane is becoming more important. Because the slate of chemical products that can be made via coal gasification can in general also use feedstocks derived from natural gas and petroleum, the chemical industry tends to use whatever feedstocks are most cost-effective. Therefore, interest in using coal tended to increase for higher oil and natural gas prices and during periods of high global economic growth that might have strained oil and gas production. Coal to chemical processes require substantial quantities of water. Much coal to chemical production is in China where coal dependent provinces such as Shanxi are struggling to control its pollution. ### Liquefaction Coal can be converted directly into synthetic fuels equivalent to gasoline or diesel by hydrogenation or carbonization. Coal liquefaction emits more carbon dioxide than liquid fuel production from crude oil. Mixing in biomass and using carbon capture and storage (CCS) would emit slightly less than the oil process but at a high cost. State owned China Energy Investment runs a coal liquefaction plant and plans to build 2 more. Coal liquefaction may also refer to the cargo hazard when shipping coal. ### Gasification Coal gasification, as part of an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal-fired power station, is used to produce syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H~2~) gas to fire gas turbines to produce electricity. Syngas can also be converted into transportation fuels, such as gasoline and diesel, through the Fischer--Tropsch process; alternatively, syngas can be converted into methanol, which can be blended into fuel directly or converted to gasoline via the methanol to gasoline process. Gasification combined with Fischer--Tropsch technology was used by the Sasol chemical company of South Africa to make chemicals and motor vehicle fuels from coal. During gasification, the coal is mixed with oxygen and steam while also being heated and pressurized. During the reaction, oxygen and water molecules oxidize the coal into carbon monoxide (CO), while also releasing hydrogen gas (H~2~). This used to be done in underground coal mines, and also to make town gas, which was piped to customers to burn for illumination, heating, and cooking. : 3C (*as Coal*) + O~2~ + H~2~O → H~2~ + 3CO If the refiner wants to produce gasoline, the syngas is routed into a Fischer--Tropsch reaction. This is known as indirect coal liquefaction. If hydrogen is the desired end-product, however, the syngas is fed into the water gas shift reaction, where more hydrogen is liberated: : CO + H~2~O → CO~2~ + H~2~ ## Coal industry {#coal_industry} ### Mining About 8,000 Mt of coal are produced annually, about 90% of which is hard coal and 10% lignite. `{{As of|2018}}`{=mediawiki} just over half is from underground mines. The coal mining industry employs almost 2.7 million workers. More accidents occur during underground mining than surface mining. Not all countries publish mining accident statistics so worldwide figures are uncertain, but it is thought that most deaths occur in coal mining accidents in China: in 2017 there were 375 coal mining related deaths in China. Most coal mined is thermal coal (also called steam coal as it is used to make steam to generate electricity) but metallurgical coal (also called \"metcoal\" or \"coking coal\" as it is used to make coke to make iron) accounts for 10% to 15% of global coal use. ### As a traded commodity {#as_a_traded_commodity} China mines almost half the world\'s coal, followed by India with about a tenth. At 471 Mt and a 34% share of global exports, Indonesia was the largest exporter by volume in 2022, followed by Australia with 344 Mt and Russia with 224 Mt. Other major exporters of coal are the United States, South Africa, Colombia, and Canada. In 2022, China, India, and Japan were the biggest importers of coal, importing 301, 228, and 184 Mt respectively. Russia is increasingly orienting its coal exports from Europe to Asia as Europe transitions to renewable energy and subjects Russia to sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine. The price of metallurgical coal is volatile and much higher than the price of thermal coal because metallurgical coal must be lower in sulfur and requires more cleaning. Coal futures contracts provide coal producers and the electric power industry an important tool for hedging and risk management. In some countries, new onshore wind or solar generation already costs less than coal power from existing plants. However, for China this is forecast for the early 2020s and for southeast Asia not until the late 2020s. In India, building new plants is uneconomic and, despite being subsidized, existing plants are losing market share to renewables. In many countries in the Global North, there is a move away from the use of coal and former mine sites are being used as a tourist attraction. ### Market trends {#market_trends} thumb\|upright=1.8\|Coal production by region In 2022, China used 4520 Mt of coal, comprising more than half of global coal consumption. India, the European Union, and the United States, were the next largest consumers of coal, using 1162, 461, and 455 Mt respectively. Over the past decade, China has almost always accounted for the lion\'s share of the global growth in coal demand. Therefore, international market trends depend on Chinese energy policy. Although the government effort to reduce air pollution in China means that the global long-term trend is to burn less coal, the short and medium term trends may differ, in part due to Chinese financing of new coal-fired power plants in other countries. Preliminary analysis by International Energy Agency (IEA) indicates that global coal exports reached an all-time high in 2023. Through to 2026, the IEA expects global coal trade to decline by about 12%, driven by growing domestic production in coal-intensive economies such as China and India and coal phase-out plans elsewhere, such as in Europe. While thermal coal exports are expected to decline by about 16% by 2026, exports of metallurgical coal are expected to slightly increase by almost 2%. ## Damage to human health`{{anchor|Health_effects}}`{=mediawiki} {#damage_to_human_health} The use of coal as fuel causes health problems and deaths. The mining and processing of coal causes air and water pollution. Coal-powered plants emit nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulate pollution, and heavy metals, which adversely affect human health. Coalbed methane extraction is important to avoid mining accidents. The deadly London smog was caused primarily by the heavy use of coal. Globally coal is estimated to cause 800,000 premature deaths every year, mostly in India and China. Burning coal is a major contributor to sulfur dioxide emissions, which creates PM2.5 particulates, the most dangerous form of air pollution. Coal smokestack emissions cause asthma, strokes, reduced intelligence, artery blockages, heart attacks, congestive heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias, mercury poisoning, arterial occlusion, and lung cancer. Annual health costs in Europe from use of coal to generate electricity are estimated at up to €43 billion. In China, early deaths due to air pollution coal plants have been estimated at 200 per GW-year, however they may be higher around power plants where scrubbers are not used or lower if they are far from cities. Improvements to China\'s air quality and human health would grow with more stringent climate policies, mainly because the country\'s energy is so heavily reliant on coal. And there would be a net economic benefit. A 2017 study in the *Economic Journal* found that for Britain during the period 1851--1860, \"a one standard deviation increase in coal use raised infant mortality by 6--8% and that industrial coal use explains roughly one-third of the urban mortality penalty observed during this period.\" Breathing in coal dust causes coalworker\'s pneumoconiosis or \"black lung\", so called because the coal dust literally turns the lungs black. In the US alone, it is estimated that 1,500 former employees of the coal industry die every year from the effects of breathing in coal mine dust. Huge amounts of coal ash and other waste is produced annually. Use of coal generates hundreds of millions of tons of ash and other waste products every year. These include fly ash, bottom ash, and flue-gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals, along with non-metals such as selenium. Around 10% of coal is ash. Coal ash is hazardous and toxic to human beings and some other living things. Coal ash contains the radioactive elements uranium and thorium. Coal ash and other solid combustion byproducts are stored locally and escape in various ways that expose those living near coal plants to radiation and environmental toxics. ## Damage to the environment {#damage_to_the_environment} Coal mining, coal combustion wastes, and flue gas are causing major environmental damage. Water systems are affected by coal mining. For example, the mining of coal affects groundwater and water table levels and acidity. Spills of fly ash, such as the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill, can also contaminate land and waterways, and destroy homes. Power stations that burn coal also consume large quantities of water. This can affect the flows of rivers, and has consequential impacts on other land uses. In areas of water scarcity, such as the Thar Desert in Pakistan, coal mining and coal power plants contribute to the depletion of water resources. One of the earliest known impacts of coal on the water cycle was acid rain. In 2014, approximately 100 Tg/S of sulfur dioxide (SO~2~) was released, over half of which was from burning coal. After release, the sulfur dioxide is oxidized to H~2~SO~4~ which scatters solar radiation, hence its increase in the atmosphere exerts a cooling effect on the climate. This beneficially masks some of the warming caused by increased greenhouse gases. However, the sulfur is precipitated out of the atmosphere as acid rain in a matter of weeks, whereas carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Release of SO~2~ also contributes to the widespread acidification of ecosystems. Disused coal mines can also cause issues. Subsidence can occur above tunnels, causing damage to infrastructure or cropland. Coal mining can also cause long lasting fires, and it has been estimated that thousands of coal seam fires are burning at any given time. For example, Brennender Berg has been burning since 1668, and is still burning in the 21st century. The production of coke from coal produces ammonia, coal tar, and gaseous compounds as byproducts which if discharged to land, air or waterways can pollute the environment. The Whyalla steelworks is one example of a coke producing facility where liquid ammonia was discharged to the marine environment. ### Climate change {#climate_change} thumb\|upright=1.5 \| The warming influence (called radiative forcing) of long-lived greenhouse gases has nearly doubled in 40 years, with carbon dioxide being the dominant driver of global warming. The largest and most long-term effect of coal use is the release of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes climate change. Coal-fired power plants were the single largest contributor to the growth in global CO~2~ emissions in 2018, 40% of the total fossil fuel emissions, and more than a quarter of total emissions.`{{refn|14.4 gigatonnes coal/50 gigatonnes total|group=note}}`{=mediawiki} Coal mining can emit methane, another greenhouse gas. In 2016 world gross carbon dioxide emissions from coal usage were 14.5 gigatonnes. For every megawatt-hour generated, coal-fired electric power generation emits around a tonne of carbon dioxide, which is double the approximately 500 kg of carbon dioxide released by a natural gas-fired electric plant. The emission intensity of coal varies with type and generator technology and exceeds 1200 g per kWh in some countries. In 2013, the head of the UN climate agency advised that most of the world\'s coal reserves should be left in the ground to avoid catastrophic global warming. To keep global warming below 1.5 °C or 2 °C hundreds, or possibly thousands, of coal-fired power plants will need to be retired early. ### Underground fires {#underground_fires} Thousands of coal fires are burning around the world. Those burning underground can be difficult to locate and many cannot be extinguished. Fires can cause the ground above to subside, their combustion gases are dangerous to life, and breaking out to the surface can initiate surface wildfires. Coal seams can be set on fire by spontaneous combustion or contact with a mine fire or surface fire. Lightning strikes are an important source of ignition. The coal continues to burn slowly back into the seam until oxygen (air) can no longer reach the flame front. A grass fire in a coal area can set dozens of coal seams on fire. Coal fires in China burn an estimated 120 million tons of coal a year, emitting 360 million metric tons of CO~2~, amounting to 2--3% of the annual worldwide production of CO~2~ from fossil fuels. ## Pollution mitigation and carbon capture {#pollution_mitigation_and_carbon_capture} *Main article: Coal pollution mitigation, Carbon capture and storage* Systems and technologies exist to mitigate the health and environmental impact of burning coal for energy. ### Precombustion treatment {#precombustion_treatment} Refined coal is the product of a coal-upgrading technology that removes moisture and certain pollutants from lower-rank coals such as sub-bituminous and lignite (brown) coals. It is one form of several precombustion treatments and processes for coal that alter coal\'s characteristics before it is burned. Thermal efficiency improvements are achievable by improved pre-drying (especially relevant with high-moisture fuel such as lignite or biomass). The goals of precombustion coal technologies are to increase efficiency and reduce emissions when the coal is burned. Precombustion technology can sometimes be used as a supplement to postcombustion technologies to control emissions from coal-fueled boilers. ### Post combustion approaches {#post_combustion_approaches} Post combustion approaches to mitigate pollution include flue-gas desulfurization, selective catalytic reduction, electrostatic precipitators, and fly ash reduction. ### Carbon capture and storage {#carbon_capture_and_storage} Carbon capture and storage (CCS) can be used to capture carbon dioxide from the flue gas of coal power plants and bury it securely in an underground reservoir. Between 1972 and 2017, plans were made to add CCS to enough coal and gas power plants to sequester 161 million tonnes of `{{chem|CO|2|}}`{=mediawiki} per year, but by 2021 98% of these plans had failed. Cost, the absence of measures to address long-term liability for stored CO~2~, and limited social acceptability have all contributed to project cancellations. As of 2024, CCS is in operation at only four coal power plants and one gas power plant worldwide. ### \"Clean coal\" and \"abated coal\" {#clean_coal_and_abated_coal} Since the mid-1980s, the term \"clean coal\" has been widely used with various meanings. Initially, \"clean coal technology\" referred to scrubbers and catalytic converters that reduced the pollutants that cause acid rain. The scope then expanded to include reduction of other pollutants such as mercury. Recently, the term has come to encompass the use of carbon capture and storage to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In political discourse, the term has been erroneously used to imply that coal itself can be clean. For instance, it has been suggested that \"clean coal\" can be produced and exported. Even with scrubbers and some CCS, coal still has a fairly high environmental impact. In discussions on greenhouse gas emissions, another common term is \"abatement\" of coal use. In the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, an agreement was reached to phase down unabated coal use. Since the term *abated* was not defined, the agreement was criticized for being open to abuse. Without a clear definition, is possible for fossil fuel use to be called \"abated\" if it uses CCS only in a minimal fashion, such as capturing only 30% of the emissions from a plant. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers fossil fuels to be unabated if they are \"produced and used without interventions that substantially reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted throughout the life-cycle; for example, capturing 90% or more from power plants.\" ## Economics In 2018 `{{USD| 80 billion}}`{=mediawiki} was invested in coal supply but almost all for sustaining production levels rather than opening new mines. In the long term coal and oil could cost the world trillions of dollars per year. Coal alone may cost Australia billions, whereas costs to some smaller companies or cities could be on the scale of millions of dollars. The economies most damaged by coal (via climate change) may be India and the US as they are the countries with the highest social cost of carbon. Bank loans to finance coal are a risk to the Indian economy. China is the largest producer of coal in the world. It is the world\'s largest energy consumer, and coal in China supplies 60% of its primary energy. However two fifths of China\'s coal power stations are estimated to be loss-making. Air pollution from coal storage and handling costs the US almost 200 dollars for every extra ton stored, due to PM2.5. Coal pollution costs the {{€\|43 billion}} each year. Measures to cut air pollution benefit individuals financially and the economies of countries such as China. ### Subsidies Subsidies for coal in 2021 have been estimated at `{{US$|19 billion}}`{=mediawiki}, not including electricity subsidies, and are expected to rise in 2022. `{{As of|2019}}`{=mediawiki} G20 countries provide at least `{{US$|63.9 billion}}`{=mediawiki} of government support per year for the production of coal, including coal-fired power: many subsidies are impossible to quantify but they include `{{US$|27.6 billion}}`{=mediawiki} in domestic and international public finance, `{{US$|15.4 billion}}`{=mediawiki} in fiscal support, and `{{US$|20.9 billion}}`{=mediawiki} in state-owned enterprise (SOE) investments per year. In the EU state aid to new coal-fired plants is banned from 2020, and to existing coal-fired plants from 2025. As of 2018, government funding for new coal power plants was supplied by Exim Bank of China, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Indian public sector banks. Coal in Kazakhstan was the main recipient of coal consumption subsidies totalling US\$2 billion in 2017. Coal in Turkey benefited from substantial subsidies in 2021. ### Stranded assets {#stranded_assets} Some coal-fired power stations could become stranded assets, for example China Energy Investment, the world\'s largest power company, risks losing half its capital. However, state-owned electricity utilities such as Eskom in South Africa, Perusahaan Listrik Negara in Indonesia, Sarawak Energy in Malaysia, Taipower in Taiwan, EGAT in Thailand, Vietnam Electricity and EÜAŞ in Turkey are building or planning new plants. As of 2021 this may be helping to cause a carbon bubble which could cause financial instability if it bursts. ## Politics Countries building or financing new coal-fired power stations, such as China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey and Bangladesh, face mounting international criticism for obstructing the aims of the Paris Agreement. In 2019, the Pacific Island nations (in particular Vanuatu and Fiji) criticized Australia for failing to cut their emissions at a faster rate than they were, citing concerns about coastal inundation and erosion. In May 2021, the G7 members agreed to end new direct government support for international coal power generation. ## Cultural usage {#cultural_usage} Coal is the official state mineral of Kentucky, and the official state rock of Utah and West Virginia. These US states have a historic link to coal mining. Some cultures hold that children who misbehave will receive only a lump of coal from Santa Claus for Christmas in their stockings instead of presents. It is also customary and considered lucky in Scotland to give coal as a gift on New Year\'s Day. This occurs as part of first-footing and represents warmth for the year to come.

2025-06-20T00:00:00

5,993

Chemical bond

A **chemical bond** is the association of atoms or ions to form molecules, crystals, and other structures. The bond may result from the electrostatic force between oppositely charged ions as in ionic bonds or through the sharing of electrons as in covalent bonds, or some combination of these effects. Chemical bonds are described as having different strengths: there are \"strong bonds\" or \"primary bonds\" such as covalent, ionic and metallic bonds, and \"weak bonds\" or \"secondary bonds\" such as dipole--dipole interactions, the London dispersion force, and hydrogen bonding. Since opposite electric charges attract, the negatively charged electrons surrounding the nucleus and the positively charged protons within a nucleus attract each other. Electrons shared between two nuclei will be attracted to both of them. \"Constructive quantum mechanical wavefunction interference\" stabilizes the paired nuclei (see Theories of chemical bonding). Bonded nuclei maintain an optimal distance (the bond distance) balancing attractive and repulsive effects explained quantitatively by quantum theory. The atoms in molecules, crystals, metals and other forms of matter are held together by chemical bonds, which determine the structure and properties of matter. All bonds can be described by quantum theory, but, in practice, simplified rules and other theories allow chemists to predict the strength, directionality, and polarity of bonds. The octet rule and VSEPR theory are examples. More sophisticated theories are valence bond theory, which includes orbital hybridization and resonance, and molecular orbital theory which includes the linear combination of atomic orbitals and ligand field theory. Electrostatics are used to describe bond polarities and the effects they have on chemical substances. ## Overview of main types of chemical bonds {#overview_of_main_types_of_chemical_bonds} A chemical bond is an attraction between atoms. This attraction may be seen as the result of different behaviors of the outermost or valence electrons of atoms. These behaviors merge into each other seamlessly in various circumstances, so that there is no clear line to be drawn between them. However it remains useful and customary to differentiate between different types of bond, which result in different properties of condensed matter. In the simplest view of a covalent bond, one or more electrons (often a pair of electrons) are drawn into the space between the two atomic nuclei. Energy is released by bond formation. This is not as a result of reduction in potential energy, because the attraction of the two electrons to the two protons is offset by the electron-electron and proton-proton repulsions. Instead, the release of energy (and hence stability of the bond) arises from the reduction in kinetic energy due to the electrons being in a more spatially distributed (i.e. longer de Broglie wavelength) orbital compared with each electron being confined closer to its respective nucleus. These bonds exist between two particular identifiable atoms and have a direction in space, allowing them to be shown as single connecting lines between atoms in drawings, or modeled as sticks between spheres in models. In a polar covalent bond, one or more electrons are unequally shared between two nuclei. Covalent bonds often result in the formation of small collections of better-connected atoms called molecules, which in solids and liquids are bound to other molecules by forces that are often much weaker than the covalent bonds that hold the molecules internally together. Such weak intermolecular bonds give organic molecular substances, such as waxes and oils, their soft bulk character, and their low melting points (in liquids, molecules must cease most structured or oriented contact with each other). When covalent bonds link long chains of atoms in large molecules, however (as in polymers such as nylon), or when covalent bonds extend in networks through solids that are not composed of discrete molecules (such as diamond or quartz or the silicate minerals in many types of rock) then the structures that result may be both strong and tough, at least in the direction oriented correctly with networks of covalent bonds. Also, the melting points of such covalent polymers and networks increase greatly. In a simplified view of an *ionic* bond, the bonding electron is not shared at all, but transferred. In this type of bond, the outer atomic orbital of one atom has a vacancy which allows the addition of one or more electrons. These newly added electrons potentially occupy a lower energy-state (effectively closer to more nuclear charge) than they experience in a different atom. Thus, one nucleus offers a more tightly bound position to an electron than does another nucleus, with the result that one atom may transfer an electron to the other. This transfer causes one atom to assume a net positive charge, and the other to assume a net negative charge. The *bond* then results from electrostatic attraction between the positive and negatively charged ions. Ionic bonds may be seen as extreme examples of polarization in covalent bonds. Often, such bonds have no particular orientation in space, since they result from equal electrostatic attraction of each ion to all ions around them. Ionic bonds are strong (and thus ionic substances require high temperatures to melt) but also brittle, since the forces between ions are short-range and do not easily bridge cracks and fractures. This type of bond gives rise to the physical characteristics of crystals of classic mineral salts, such as table salt. A less often mentioned type of bonding is *metallic* bonding. In this type of bonding, each atom in a metal donates one or more electrons to a \"sea\" of electrons that reside between many metal atoms. In this sea, each electron is free (by virtue of its wave nature) to be associated with a great many atoms at once. The bond results because the metal atoms become somewhat positively charged due to loss of their electrons while the electrons remain attracted to many atoms, without being part of any given atom. Metallic bonding may be seen as an extreme example of delocalization of electrons over a large system of covalent bonds, in which every atom participates. This type of bonding is often very strong (resulting in the tensile strength of metals). However, metallic bonding is more collective in nature than other types, and so they allow metal crystals to more easily deform, because they are composed of atoms attracted to each other, but not in any particularly-oriented ways. This results in the malleability of metals. The cloud of electrons in metallic bonding causes the characteristically good electrical and thermal conductivity of metals, and also their shiny lustre that reflects most frequencies of white light. ## History Early speculations about the nature of the **chemical bond**, from as early as the 12th century, supposed that certain types of chemical species were joined by a type of chemical affinity. In 1704, Sir Isaac Newton famously outlined his atomic bonding theory, in \"Query 31\" of his *Opticks*, whereby atoms attach to each other by some \"force\". Specifically, after acknowledging the various popular theories in vogue at the time, of how atoms were reasoned to attach to each other, i.e. \"hooked atoms\", \"glued together by rest\", or \"stuck together by conspiring motions\", Newton states that he would rather infer from their cohesion, that \"particles attract one another by some force, which in immediate contact is exceedingly strong, at small distances performs the chemical operations, and reaches not far from the particles with any sensible effect.\" In 1819, on the heels of the invention of the voltaic pile, Jöns Jakob Berzelius developed a theory of chemical combination stressing the electronegative and electropositive characters of the combining atoms. By the mid 19th century, Edward Frankland, F.A. Kekulé, A.S. Couper, Alexander Butlerov, and Hermann Kolbe, building on the theory of radicals, developed the theory of valency, originally called \"combining power\", in which compounds were joined owing to an attraction of positive and negative poles. In 1904, Richard Abegg proposed his rule that the difference between the maximum and minimum valencies of an element is often eight. At this point, valency was still an empirical number based only on chemical properties. However the nature of the atom became clearer with Ernest Rutherford\'s 1911 discovery that of an atomic nucleus surrounded by electrons in which he quoted Nagaoka rejected Thomson\'s model on the grounds that opposite charges are impenetrable. In 1904, Nagaoka proposed an alternative planetary model of the atom in which a positively charged center is surrounded by a number of revolving electrons, in the manner of Saturn and its rings. Nagaoka\'s model made two predictions: - a very massive atomic center (in analogy to a very massive planet) - electrons revolving around the nucleus, bound by electrostatic forces (in analogy to the rings revolving around Saturn, bound by gravitational forces.) Rutherford mentions Nagaoka\'s model in his 1911 paper in which the atomic nucleus is proposed. At the 1911 Solvay Conference, in the discussion of what could regulate energy differences between atoms, Max Planck stated: \"The intermediaries could be the electrons.\" These nuclear models suggested that electrons determine chemical behavior. Next came Niels Bohr\'s 1913 model of a nuclear atom with electron orbits. In 1916, chemist Gilbert N. Lewis developed the concept of electron-pair bonds, in which two atoms may share one to six electrons, thus forming the single electron bond, a single bond, a double bond, or a triple bond; in Lewis\'s own words, \"An electron may form a part of the shell of two different atoms and cannot be said to belong to either one exclusively.\" Also in 1916, Walther Kossel put forward a theory similar to Lewis\' only his model assumed complete transfers of electrons between atoms, and was thus a model of ionic bonding. Both Lewis and Kossel structured their bonding models on that of Abegg\'s rule (1904). Niels Bohr also proposed a model of the chemical bond in 1913. According to his model for a diatomic molecule, the electrons of the atoms of the molecule form a rotating ring whose plane is perpendicular to the axis of the molecule and equidistant from the atomic nuclei. The dynamic equilibrium of the molecular system is achieved through the balance of forces between the forces of attraction of nuclei to the plane of the ring of electrons and the forces of mutual repulsion of the nuclei. The Bohr model of the chemical bond took into account the Coulomb repulsion -- the electrons in the ring are at the maximum distance from each other. In 1927, the first mathematically complete quantum description of a simple chemical bond, i.e. that produced by one electron in the hydrogen molecular ion, H~2~^+^, was derived by the Danish physicist Øyvind Burrau. This work showed that the quantum approach to chemical bonds could be fundamentally and quantitatively correct, but the mathematical methods used could not be extended to molecules containing more than one electron. A more practical, albeit less quantitative, approach was put forward in the same year by Walter Heitler and Fritz London. The Heitler--London method forms the basis of what is now called valence bond theory. In 1929, the linear combination of atomic orbitals molecular orbital method (LCAO) approximation was introduced by Sir John Lennard-Jones, who also suggested methods to derive electronic structures of molecules of F~2~ (fluorine) and O~2~ (oxygen) molecules, from basic quantum principles. This molecular orbital theory represented a covalent bond as an orbital formed by combining the quantum mechanical Schrödinger atomic orbitals which had been hypothesized for electrons in single atoms. The equations for bonding electrons in multi-electron atoms could not be solved to mathematical perfection (i.e., *analytically*), but approximations for them still gave many good qualitative predictions and results. Most quantitative calculations in modern quantum chemistry use either valence bond or molecular orbital theory as a starting point, although a third approach, density functional theory, has become increasingly popular in recent years. In 1933, H. H. James and A. S. Coolidge carried out a calculation on the dihydrogen molecule that, unlike all previous calculation which used functions only of the distance of the electron from the atomic nucleus, used functions which also explicitly added the distance between the two electrons. With up to 13 adjustable parameters they obtained a result very close to the experimental result for the dissociation energy. Later extensions have used up to 54 parameters and gave excellent agreement with experiments. This calculation convinced the scientific community that quantum theory could give agreement with experiment. However this approach has none of the physical pictures of the valence bond and molecular orbital theories and is difficult to extend to larger molecules. ## Bonds in chemical formulas {#bonds_in_chemical_formulas} Because atoms and molecules are three-dimensional, it is difficult to use a single method to indicate orbitals and bonds. In **molecular formulas** the chemical bonds (binding orbitals) between atoms are indicated in different ways depending on the type of discussion. Sometimes, some details are neglected. For example, in organic chemistry one is sometimes concerned only with the functional group of the molecule. Thus, the molecular formula of ethanol may be written in conformational form, three-dimensional form, full two-dimensional form (indicating every bond with no three-dimensional directions), compressed two-dimensional form (CH~3~--CH~2~--OH), by separating the functional group from another part of the molecule (C~2~H~5~OH), or by its atomic constituents (C~2~H~6~O), according to what is discussed. Sometimes, even the non-bonding valence shell electrons (with the two-dimensional approximate directions) are marked, e.g. for elemental carbon ~.~^\'^C^\'^. Some chemists may also mark the respective orbitals, e.g. the hypothetical ethene^−4^ anion (~\\~^/^C=C~/~^\\^ ^−4^) indicating the possibility of bond formation. ## Strong chemical bonds {#strong_chemical_bonds} +-------------------------------------+ | **Typical bond lengths in pm\ | | and bond energies in kJ/mol.**\ | | Bond lengths can be converted to Å\ | | by division by 100 (1 Å = 100 pm).\ | +-------------------------------------+ | Bond | +-------------------------------------+ | H --- Hydrogen | +-------------------------------------+ | H--H | +-------------------------------------+ | H--O | +-------------------------------------+ | H--F | +-------------------------------------+ | H--Cl | +-------------------------------------+ | C --- Carbon | +-------------------------------------+ | C--H | +-------------------------------------+ | C--C | +-------------------------------------+ | C--C= | +-------------------------------------+ | =C--C≡ | +-------------------------------------+ | =C--C= | +-------------------------------------+ | C=C | +-------------------------------------+ | C≡C | +-------------------------------------+ | C--N | +-------------------------------------+ | C--O | +-------------------------------------+ | C=O | +-------------------------------------+ | C≡O | +-------------------------------------+ | C--F | +-------------------------------------+ | C--Cl | +-------------------------------------+ | N --- Nitrogen | +-------------------------------------+ | N--H | +-------------------------------------+ | N--N | +-------------------------------------+ | N≡N | +-------------------------------------+ | O --- Oxygen | +-------------------------------------+ | O--O | +-------------------------------------+ | O=O | +-------------------------------------+ | F, Cl, Br, I --- Halogens | +-------------------------------------+ | F--F | +-------------------------------------+ | Cl--Cl | +-------------------------------------+ | Br--H | +-------------------------------------+ | Br--Br | +-------------------------------------+ | I--H | +-------------------------------------+ | I--I | +-------------------------------------+ Strong chemical bonds are the *intramolecular* forces that hold atoms together in molecules. A strong chemical bond is formed from the transfer or sharing of electrons between atomic centers and relies on the electrostatic attraction between the protons in nuclei and the electrons in the orbitals. The types of strong bond differ due to the difference in electronegativity of the constituent elements. Electronegativity is the tendency for an atom of a given chemical element to attract shared electrons when forming a chemical bond, where the higher the associated electronegativity then the more it attracts electrons. Electronegativity serves as a simple way to quantitatively estimate the bond energy, which characterizes a bond along the continuous scale from covalent to ionic bonding. A large difference in electronegativity leads to more polar (ionic) character in the bond. ### Ionic bond {#ionic_bond} Ionic bonding is a type of electrostatic interaction between atoms that have a large electronegativity difference. There is no precise value that distinguishes ionic from covalent bonding, but an electronegativity difference of over 1.7 is likely to be ionic while a difference of less than 1.7 is likely to be covalent. Ionic bonding leads to separate positive and negative ions. Ionic charges are commonly between −3e to +3e. Ionic bonding commonly occurs in metal salts such as sodium chloride (table salt). A typical feature of ionic bonds is that the species form into ionic crystals, in which no ion is specifically paired with any single other ion in a specific directional bond. Rather, each species of ion is surrounded by ions of the opposite charge, and the spacing between it and each of the oppositely charged ions near it is the same for all surrounding atoms of the same type. It is thus no longer possible to associate an ion with any specific other single ionized atom near it. This is a situation unlike that in covalent crystals, where covalent bonds between specific atoms are still discernible from the shorter distances between them, as measured via such techniques as X-ray diffraction. Ionic crystals may contain a mixture of covalent and ionic species, as for example salts of complex acids such as sodium cyanide, NaCN. X-ray diffraction shows that in NaCN, for example, the bonds between sodium cations (Na^+^) and the cyanide anions (CN^−^) are *ionic*, with no sodium ion associated with any particular cyanide. However, the bonds between the carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) atoms in cyanide are of the *covalent* type, so that each carbon is strongly bound to *just one* nitrogen, to which it is physically much closer than it is to other carbons or nitrogens in a sodium cyanide crystal. When such crystals are melted into liquids, the ionic bonds are broken first because they are non-directional and allow the charged species to move freely. Similarly, when such salts dissolve into water, the ionic bonds are typically broken by the interaction with water but the covalent bonds continue to hold. For example, in solution, the cyanide ions, still bound together as single CN^−^ ions, move independently through the solution, as do sodium ions, as Na^+^. In water, charged ions move apart because each of them are more strongly attracted to a number of water molecules than to each other. The attraction between ions and water molecules in such solutions is due to a type of weak dipole-dipole type chemical bond. In melted ionic compounds, the ions continue to be attracted to each other, but not in any ordered or crystalline way. ### Covalent bond {#covalent_bond} Covalent bonding is a common type of bonding in which two or more atoms share valence electrons more or less equally. The simplest and most common type is a single bond in which two atoms share two electrons. Other types include the double bond, the triple bond, one- and three-electron bonds, the three-center two-electron bond and three-center four-electron bond. In non-polar covalent bonds, the electronegativity difference between the bonded atoms is small, typically 0 to 0.3. Bonds within most organic compounds are described as covalent. The figure shows methane (CH~4~), in which each hydrogen forms a covalent bond with the carbon. See sigma bonds and pi bonds for LCAO descriptions of such bonding. Molecules that are formed primarily from non-polar covalent bonds are often immiscible in water or other polar solvents, but much more soluble in non-polar solvents such as hexane. A polar covalent bond is a covalent bond with a significant ionic character. This means that the two shared electrons are closer to one of the atoms than the other, creating an imbalance of charge. Such bonds occur between two atoms with moderately different electronegativities and give rise to dipole--dipole interactions. The electronegativity difference between the two atoms in these bonds is 0.3 to 1.7. #### Single and multiple bonds {#single_and_multiple_bonds} A single bond between two atoms corresponds to the sharing of one pair of electrons. The Hydrogen (H) atom has one valence electron. Two Hydrogen atoms can then form a molecule, held together by the shared pair of electrons. Each H atom now has the noble gas electron configuration of helium (He). The pair of shared electrons forms a single covalent bond. The electron density of these two bonding electrons in the region between the two atoms increases from the density of two non-interacting H atoms. A double bond has two shared pairs of electrons, one in a sigma bond and one in a pi bond with electron density concentrated on two opposite sides of the internuclear axis. A triple bond consists of three shared electron pairs, forming one sigma and two pi bonds. An example is nitrogen. Quadruple and higher bonds are very rare and occur only between certain transition metal atoms. #### Coordinate covalent bond (dipolar bond) {#coordinate_covalent_bond_dipolar_bond} A coordinate covalent bond is a covalent bond in which the two shared bonding electrons are from the same one of the atoms involved in the bond. For example, boron trifluoride (BF~3~) and ammonia (NH~3~) form an adduct or coordination complex F~3~B←NH~3~ with a B--N bond in which a lone pair of electrons on N is shared with an empty atomic orbital on B. BF~3~ with an empty orbital is described as an electron pair acceptor or Lewis acid, while NH~3~ with a lone pair that can be shared is described as an electron-pair donor or Lewis base. The electrons are shared roughly equally between the atoms in contrast to ionic bonding. Such bonding is shown by an arrow pointing to the Lewis acid. (In the Figure, solid lines are bonds in the plane of the diagram, wedged bonds point towards the observer, and dashed bonds point away from the observer.) Transition metal complexes are generally bound by coordinate covalent bonds. For example, the ion Ag^+^ reacts as a Lewis acid with two molecules of the Lewis base NH~3~ to form the complex ion Ag(NH~3~)~2~^+^, which has two Ag←N coordinate covalent bonds. ### Metallic bonding {#metallic_bonding} In metallic bonding, bonding electrons are delocalized over a lattice of atoms. By contrast, in ionic compounds, the locations of the binding electrons and their charges are static. The free movement or delocalization of bonding electrons leads to classical metallic properties such as luster (surface light reflectivity), electrical and thermal conductivity, ductility, and high tensile strength. ## Intermolecular bonding {#intermolecular_bonding} There are several types of weak bonds that can be formed between two or more molecules which are not covalently bound. Intermolecular forces cause molecules to attract or repel each other. Often, these forces influence physical characteristics (such as the melting point) of a substance. Van der Waals forces are interactions between closed-shell molecules. They include both Coulombic interactions between partial charges in polar molecules, and Pauli repulsions between closed electrons shells. Keesom forces are the forces between the permanent dipoles of two polar molecules.`{{r|Atkins|p=701}}`{=mediawiki} London dispersion forces are the forces between induced dipoles of different molecules.`{{r|Atkins|p=703}}`{=mediawiki} There can also be an interaction between a permanent dipole in one molecule and an induced dipole in another molecule.`{{r|Atkins|p=702}}`{=mediawiki} Hydrogen bonds of the form A\--H•••B occur when A and B are two highly electronegative atoms (usually N, O or F) such that A forms a highly polar covalent bond with H so that H has a partial positive charge, and B has a lone pair of electrons which is attracted to this partial positive charge and forms a hydrogen bond.`{{r|Atkins|p=702}}`{=mediawiki} Hydrogen bonds are responsible for the high boiling points of water and ammonia with respect to their heavier analogues. In some cases a similar halogen bond can be formed by a halogen atom located between two electronegative atoms on different molecules. At short distances, repulsive forces between atoms also become important.`{{r|Atkins|p=705-6}}`{=mediawiki} ## Theories of chemical bonding {#theories_of_chemical_bonding} In the (unrealistic) limit of \"pure\" ionic bonding, electrons are perfectly localized on one of the two atoms in the bond. Such bonds can be understood by classical physics. The force between the atoms depends on isotropic continuum electrostatic potentials. The magnitude of the force is in simple proportion to the product of the two ionic charges according to Coulomb\'s law. Covalent bonds are better understood by valence bond (VB) theory or molecular orbital (MO) theory. The properties of the atoms involved can be understood using concepts such as oxidation number, formal charge, and electronegativity. The electron density within a bond is not assigned to individual atoms, but is instead delocalized between atoms. In valence bond theory, bonding is conceptualized as being built up from electron pairs that are localized and shared by two atoms via the overlap of atomic orbitals. The concepts of orbital hybridization and resonance augment this basic notion of the electron pair bond. In molecular orbital theory, bonding is viewed as being delocalized and apportioned in orbitals that extend throughout the molecule and are adapted to its symmetry properties, typically by considering linear combinations of atomic orbitals (LCAO). Valence bond theory is more chemically intuitive by being spatially localized, allowing attention to be focused on the parts of the molecule undergoing chemical change. In contrast, molecular orbitals are more \"natural\" from a quantum mechanical point of view, with orbital energies being physically significant and directly linked to experimental ionization energies from photoelectron spectroscopy. Consequently, valence bond theory and molecular orbital theory are often viewed as competing but complementary frameworks that offer different insights into chemical systems. As approaches for electronic structure theory, both MO and VB methods can give approximations to any desired level of accuracy, at least in principle. However, at lower levels, the approximations differ, and one approach may be better suited for computations involving a particular system or property than the other. Unlike the spherically symmetrical Coulombic forces in pure ionic bonds, covalent bonds are generally directed and anisotropic. These are often classified based on their symmetry with respect to a molecular plane as sigma bonds and pi bonds. In the general case, atoms form bonds that are intermediate between ionic and covalent, depending on the relative electronegativity of the atoms involved. Bonds of this type are known as polar covalent bonds.

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6,001

Geography of the Comoros

The **Comoros archipelago** consists of four main islands aligned along a northwest--southeast axis at the north end of the Mozambique Channel, between Mozambique and the island of Madagascar. Still widely known by their French names, the islands officially have been called by their Swahili names by the Comorian government. They are Grande Comore (Njazidja), Mohéli (Mwali), Anjouan (Nzwani), and Mayotte (Mahoré). The islands\' distance from each other---Grande Comore is some 200 kilometers from Mayotte, forty kilometers from Mohéli, and eighty kilometers from Anjouan---along with a lack of good harbor facilities, make transportation and communication difficult. Comoros are sunny islands. ## Details The islands have a total land area of 2,236 square kilometers (including Mayotte), and claim territorial waters of 320 square kilometers. Mount Karthala (2316 m) on Grande Comore is an active volcano. From April 17 to 19, 2005, the volcano began spewing ash and gas, forcing as many as 10,000 people to flee. Comoros is located within the Somali Plate. ## Grande Comore {#grande_comore} Grande Comore is the largest island, sixty-seven kilometers long and twenty-seven kilometers wide, with a total area of 1,146 square kilometers. The most recently formed of the four islands in the archipelago, it is also of volcanic origin. Two volcanoes form the island\'s most prominent topographic features: La Grille in the north, with an elevation of 1,000 meters, is extinct and largely eroded; Kartala in the south, rising to a height of 2,361 meters, last erupted in 1977. A plateau averaging 600 to 700 meters high connects the two mountains. Because Grande Comore is geologically a relatively new island, its soil is thin and rocky and cannot hold water. As a result, water from the island\'s heavy rainfall must be stored in catchment tanks. There are no coral reefs along the coast, and the island lacks a good harbor for ships. One of the largest remnants of the Comoros\' once-extensive rain forests is on the slopes of Kartala. The national capital has been at Moroni since 1962. ## Anjouan Anjouan, triangular shaped and forty kilometers from apex to base, has an area of 424 square kilometers. Three mountain chains --- Sima, Nioumakele, and Jimilime---emanate from a central peak, Mtingui (1,575 m), giving the island its distinctive shape. Older than Grande Comore, Anjouan has deeper soil cover, but overcultivation has caused serious erosion. A coral reef lies close to shore; the island\'s capital of Mutsamudu is also its main port. ## Mohéli Mohéli is thirty kilometers long and twelve kilometers wide, with an area of 290 square kilometers. It is the smallest of the four islands and has a central mountain chain reaching 860 meters at its highest. Like Grande Comore, it retains stands of rain forest. Mohéli\'s capital is Fomboni. ## Mayotte Mayotte, geologically the oldest of the four islands, is thirty-nine kilometers long and twenty-two kilometers wide, totaling 375 square kilometers, and its highest points are between 500 and 600 meters above sea level. Because of greater weathering of the volcanic rock, the soil is relatively rich in some areas. A well-developed coral reef that encircles much of the island ensures protection for ships and a habitat for fish. Dzaoudzi, capital of the Comoros until 1962 and now Mayotte\'s administrative center, is situated on a rocky outcropping off the east shore of the main island. Dzaoudzi is linked by a causeway to le Pamanzi, which at ten kilometers in area is the largest of several islets adjacent to Mayotte. Islets are also scattered in the coastal waters of Mayotte just as in Grande Comore, Anjouan, and Mohéli. ## Flora and fauna {#flora_and_fauna} Comorian waters are the habitat of the coelacanth, a rare fish with limblike fins and a cartilaginous skeleton, the fossil remains of which date as far back as 400 million years and which was once thought to have become extinct about 70 million years ago. A live specimen was caught in 1938 off southern Africa; other coelacanths have since been found in the vicinity of the Comoro Islands. Several mammals are unique to the islands themselves. Livingstone\'s fruit bat, although plentiful when discovered by explorer David Livingstone in 1863, has been reduced to a population of about 120, entirely on Anjouan. The world\'s largest bat, the jet-black Livingstone fruit bat has a wingspan of nearly two meters. A British preservation group sent an expedition to the Comoros in 1992 to bring some of the bats to Britain to establish a breeding population. A hybrid of the common brown lemur (*Eulemur fulvus*) originally from Madagascar, was introduced by humans prior to European colonization and is found on Mayotte.`{{LoM3 Sfn|p=400}}`{=mediawiki} The mongoose lemur (*Eulemur mongoz*), also introduced from Madagascar by humans, can be found on the islands of Mohéli and Anjouan.`{{LoM3 Sfn|p=446}}`{=mediawiki} 22 species of bird are unique to the archipelago and 17 of these are restricted to the Union of the Comoros. These include the Karthala scops-owl, Anjouan scops-owl and Humblot\'s flycatcher. Partly in response to international pressures, Comorians in the 1990s have become more concerned about the environment. Steps are being taken not only to preserve the rare fauna, but also to counteract degradation of the environment, especially on densely populated Anjouan. Specifically, to minimize the cutting down of trees for fuel, kerosene is being subsidized, and efforts are being made to replace the loss of the forest cover caused by ylang-ylang distillation for perfume. The Community Development Support Fund, sponsored by the International Development Association (IDA, a World Bank affiliate) and the Comorian government, is working to improve water supply on the islands as well. ## Climate The climate is marine tropical, with two seasons: hot and humid from November to April, the result of the northeastern monsoon, and a cooler, drier season the rest of the year. Average monthly temperatures range from 23 to along the coasts. Although the average annual precipitation is 2000 mm, water is a scarce commodity in many parts of the Comoros. Mohéli and Mayotte possess streams and other natural sources of water, but Grande Comore and Anjouan, whose mountainous landscapes retain water poorly, are almost devoid of naturally occurring running water. Cyclones, occurring during the hot and wet season, can cause extensive damage, especially in coastal areas. On the average, at least twice each decade houses, farms, and harbor facilities are devastated by these great storms. ### Tropical cyclones {#tropical_cyclones} Due to their low latitude, the islands are rarely affected by tropical cyclones. However, several cyclones have had damaging and deadly effects. Cyclones in December 1905 and again in December 1906 led to a famine that killed 490 people between August 1905 and January 1906. A tropical cyclone in 1950 killed 585 people while moving through Anjouan and Moheli, injuring 70,000 others. The cyclone left 40,000 people homeless, and also caused ₣3.5 worth of damage to crops and infrastructure. ### Weather ## Extreme points {#extreme_points} This is a list of the extreme points of the Comoros, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location. This list excludes the French-administered island of Mayotte which is claimed by the Comorian government. - Northernmost point -- unnamed headland north-west of Bangoua Kouni, Grande Comore - Easternmost point -- unnamed peninsula east of Domoni, Anjouan - Southernmost point - unnamed headland on Île Canzouni, Mohéli - Westernmost point - unnamed headland west of Iconi, Grande Comore ## Statistics **Area:** 2,235 km^2^ **Coastline:** 340 km **Climate:** tropical marine; rainy season (November to May) **Terrain:** volcanic islands, interiors vary from steep mountains to low hills **Elevation extremes:**\ *lowest point:* Indian Ocean 0 m\ *highest point:* Karthala 2,360 m **Natural resources:** fish **Land use:**\ *arable land:* 47.29%\ *permanent crops:* 29.55%\ *other:* 23.16% (2012 est.) **Irrigated land:** 1.3 km^2^ (2003) **Total renewable water resources:** 1.2 km^3^ (2011) **Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural):**\ *total:* 0.01 km^3^/yr (48%/5%/47%)\ *per capital:* 16.86 m^3^/yr (1999) **Natural hazards:** cyclones possible during rainy season (December to April); volcanic activity on Grand Comore **Environmental - current issues:** soil degradation and erosion results from crop cultivation on slopes without proper terracing; deforestation

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6,002

Demographics of the Comoros

The Comorians (*القمري*) inhabiting Grande Comore, Anjouan, and Mohéli (86% of the population) share African-Arab origins. Islam is the dominant religion, and Quranic schools for children reinforce its influence. Although Islamic culture is firmly established throughout, a small minority are Christian. The most common language is Comorian, related to Swahili. French and Arabic also are spoken. About 89% of the population is literate. The Comoros have had eight censuses since World War II: - 1951 - 1956 - 1958-09-07: 183,133 - 1966-07-06 - Note: in 1974 Mayotte was removed from the Comoros - 1980-09-15: 335,150 - 1991-09-15: 446,817 - 2003-09-15: 575,660 - 2017-12-15: 758,316 The latest official estimate (for 1 July 2020) is 897,219. Population density figures conceal a great disparity between the republic\'s most crowded island, Nzwani, which had a density of 772 persons per square kilometer in 2017; Njazidja, which had a density of 331 persons per square kilometer in 2017; and Mwali, where the 2017 population density figure was 178 persons per square kilometer. By comparison, estimates of the population density per square kilometer of the Indian Ocean\'s other island microstates ranged from 241 (Seychelles) to 690 (Maldives) in 1993. Given the rugged terrain of Njazidja and Nzwani, and the dedication of extensive tracts to agriculture on all three islands, population pressures on the Comoros are becoming increasingly critical. The age structure of the population of the Comoros is similar to that of many developing countries, in that the republic has a very large proportion of young people. In 1989, 46.4 percent of the population was under fifteen years of age, an above-average proportion even for sub-Saharan Africa. The population\'s rate of growth was a relatively high 3.5 percent per annum in the mid-1980s, up substantially from 2.0 percent in the mid-1970s and 2.1 percent in the mid-1960s. In 1983 the Abdallah regime borrowed US\$2.85 million from the International Development Association to devise a national family planning program. However, Islamic reservations about contraception made forthright advocacy and implementation of birth control programs politically hazardous, and consequently little was done in the way of public policy. The Comorian population has become increasingly urbanized in recent years. In 1991 the percentage of Comorians residing in cities and towns of more than 5,000 persons was about 30 percent, up from 25 percent in 1985 and 23 percent in 1980. The Comoros\' largest cities were the capital, Moroni, with about 30,000 people, and the port city of Mutsamudu, on the island of Nzwani, with about 20,000 people. Migration among the various islands is important. Natives of Nzwani have settled in significant numbers on less crowded Mwali, causing some social tensions, and many Nzwani also migrate to Maore. In 1977 Maore expelled peasants from Ngazidja and Nzwani who had recently settled in large numbers on the island. Some were allowed to reenter starting in 1981 but solely as migrant labor. The number of Comorians living abroad has been estimated at between 80,000 and 100,000; during the colonial period, most of them lived in Tanzania, Madagascar, and other parts of Southeast Africa. The number of Comorians residing in Madagascar was drastically reduced after anti-Comorian rioting in December 1976 in Mahajanga, in which at least 1,400 Comorians were killed. As many as 17,000 Comorians left Madagascar to seek refuge in their native land in 1977 alone. About 100,000 Comorians live in France; many of them had gone there for a university education and never returned. Small numbers of Indians, Malagasy, South Africans, and Europeans (mostly French) live on the islands and play an important role in the economy. Most French left after independence in 1975. Some Persian Gulf countries started buying Comorian citizenship for their stateless Bedoon residents and deporting them to Comoros. ## Population ### UN population projections {#un_population_projections} ## Vital statistics {#vital_statistics} Statistics `{{as of|2010|lc=y}}`{=mediawiki}: Period Live births per year Deaths per year Natural change per year CBR\* CDR\* NC\* TFR\* IMR\* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------- ----------------- ------------------------- ------- ------- ------ ------- ------- 1950--1955 8 000 4 000 4 000 46.8 24.0 22.8 6.00 178 1955--1960 9 000 4 000 5 000 48.9 22.9 26.0 6.60 167 1960--1965 10 000 4 000 6 000 48.0 20.8 27.2 6.91 154 1965--1970 11 000 4 000 6 000 46.8 18.9 27.9 7.05 141 1970--1975 12 000 4 000 8 000 46.8 16.9 29.8 7.05 127 1975--1980 14 000 5 000 10 000 47.9 15.6 32.3 7.05 116 1980--1985 17 000 5 000 12 000 48.6 14.3 34.4 7.05 106 1985--1990 16 000 5 000 11 000 39.6 12.1 27.5 6.00 95 1990--1995 17 000 5 000 12 000 36.6 11.0 25.6 5.30 89 1995--2000 20 000 6 000 15 000 38.6 10.6 28.0 5.30 83 2000--2005 24 000 6 000 18 000 40.2 10.1 30.0 5.30 78 2005--2010 27 000 7 000 20 000 39.0 9.4 29.5 5.08 72 \* CBR = crude birth rate (per 1000); CDR = crude death rate (per 1000); NC = natural change (per 1000); IMR = infant mortality rate per 1000 births; TFR = total fertility rate (number of children per woman) ### Demographic and Health Surveys {#demographic_and_health_surveys} Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Year Total Urban ------ ------- ----------- ------- CBR TFR CBR TFR 1996 33.9 5.1 (3.7) 28.9 2012 32.3 4.3 (3.2) 27.7 Structure of the population (DHS 2012) (Males 11 088, Females 12 284 = 23 373) : Age Group Male (%) Female (%) Total (%) ----------- ---------- ------------ ----------- 0--4 15.5 13.6 14.5 5--9 15.0 13.8 14.4 10--14 13.9 11.8 12.8 15--19 10.1 11.2 10.7 20--24 6.8 8.6 7.8 25--29 5.4 7.8 6.7 30--34 5.8 6.5 6.2 35--39 6.0 5.4 5.7 40--44 4.5 4.0 4.2 45--49 3.2 2.5 2.9 50--54 2.9 4.9 3.9 55--59 1.7 2.2 2.0 60--64 3.3 2.6 2.9 65--69 1.5 1.3 1.4 70--74 2.3 1.7 2.0 75--79 0.8 0.8 0.8 80+ 1.2 1.3 1.3 Unknown 0.1 0.1 0.1 Age group Male (%) Female (%) Total (%) ----------- ---------- ------------ ----------- 0--14 44.4 39.2 41.7 15--64 49.7 55.6 52.7 65+ 5.8 5.1 5.5 Fertility data as of 2012 (DHS Program): Region Total fertility rate Percentage of women age 15-49 currently pregnant Mean number of children ever born to women age 40--49 --------------- ---------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Mohéli 5.0 6.8 6.3 Anjouan 5.2 6.7 5.8 Grande Comore 3.5 6.5 4.6 ## Languages : Arabic (official), French (official), Comorian (official) ## Religion Sunni Muslim 98%, other (including Shia Muslim, Roman Catholic, Jehovah\'s Witness, Protestant) 2% note: Sunni Islam is the state religion

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