Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
Then France is divided into 101 departments. The departments are divided into 342 arrondissements. The arrondissements are re-divided into 4,032 cantons. The smallest subdivision is the commune (there are 36,699 communes). On 1 January 2008, INSEE counted 36,781 communes in France. 36,569 of them are in metropolitan France and 212 of them are in overseas France.

Government 
The government of France is a semi-presidential system determined by the constitution of the French Fifth Republic. It provides for a separation of powers.

The main ideals are expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The constitution declares the nation to be "an indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic". With a Prime Minister subordinate to the President, this slightly strange system was chosen by General Charles de Gaulle in 1958.

Military
Military 

The French armed forces has four branches:
 The Armée de Terre (Army)
 The Marine Nationale (Navy)
 The Armée de l'Air (Air Force)
 The Gendarmerie Nationale (a military force which acts as a National Rural Police)

France has about 359,000 military personnel. France spends 2.6% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. This is the highest in the European Union. France and the UK spend 40% of the EU defence budget. About 10% of France's defence budget is for its nuclear weapons force.

Foreign relations 

France is a member of the United Nations. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and has veto rights. It is also a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It hosts the headquarters of the OECD, UNESCO and Interpol. In 1953, the United Nations asked France to choose a coat of arms to represent them internationally. The French emblem is now on their passports.
France was a founding member of the European Union. In the 1960s, France wanted to exclude the United Kingdom from the organisation. It wanted to build its own economic power in continental Europe.  France and Germany became closer after World War II.  This was to try to become the most influential country in the EU.  It limited the influence of the new Eastern European members. France is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). However, under President de Gaulle, it left the joint military command. In the early 1990s, France received criticism for its underground nuclear tests in French Polynesia. France vigorously opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. France retains strong political and economic influence in its former African colonies. For instance it has supplied economic aid and troops for peace-keeping missions in the Ivory Coast and Chad.

Economy
Economy 

France is a member of the G8 group of leading industrialised countries. France has the eighth-largest economy in the world by Gross domestic product (GDP) (which takes into account how much it costs to live in different countries and inflation rates). France and 11 other European Union members jointly launched the euro on 1 January 1999 and started using it in 2002.

France's economy has nearly 2.9 million registered companies. The government has a considerable influence over railway, electricity, aircraft, and telecommunications firms (as it owns big companies like SNCF and EDF (French electricity)). France has an important aerospace (design of aircraft and spacecraft) industry led by Airbus. It can also launch rockets from French Guiana.
France has invested a lot in nuclear power. This made France the smallest producer of carbon dioxide among the seven most industrialised countries in the world. As a result, 59 nuclear power plants generate  most of the electricity produced in the country (78% in 2006, up from only 8% in 1973, 24% in 1980, and 75% in 1990).

France is the leading agricultural producer and exporter in Europe. France exports wheat, poultry, dairy products, beef, and pork. It is also famous for its wine industry. France received 10 billion euros in 2006 from the European Community as subsidies to its farmers.

At one time, the Factory Act of 1833 limited the workday for women and children to 11 hours a day.

Demographics 
On 1 January 2008, it was estimated that 63.8 million people live in France, including in the Overseas Regions of France. 61,875,000 of these live in metropolitan France, the part of the country that is within Europe.
Ethnic groups 
The major ethnic groups living in France today are descended from Celtic people and Roman people. The significant minority groups living in France are:
 Teutonic, that is Germanic peoples
 Slavic
 people from North Africa
 Sub-Saharan African - people from Africa who live south of the Sahara desert
 people from Indochina
 people from the Basque Country of southwest Europe

Culture

Language 

French is the official language of France. It belongs to the Romance language group, which includes Italian and Spanish. Many regional dialects are also used in France. Alsatian, a German dialect, is spoken in Alsace and in parts of Lorraine in eastern France. French was the language of diplomacy and culture in Europe between the 17th and 19th century and is still widely used.

Some people in France also speak Basque, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, German, Flemish, and Occitan.

Religion
Religion 

France is a secular country and the constitution guarantees freedom of religion. The population is about 51% Roman Catholic, and 31% of people are agnostics or atheists. 5% are Muslim, 3% say they are Protestant and 1% say they are Jewish. 10% are from other religions or do not have an opinion about religion. There are also Zoroastrian, Unitarian Universalist, Jain and Wiccan communities. Religions founded in France include Raelism.

According to a Poll in 2007:
 34% of French citizens responded that "they believe there is a God".
 27% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force".
 33% answered that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".

Literature 

French literature began in the Middle Ages. French was divided into several dialects at the time. Some authors spelled words differently from one other.

During the 17th century, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Blaise Pascal and René Descartes were the main authors.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, French literature and poetry reached its best. The 18th century saw writings of authors, essayists and moralists as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
As for French children's literature in those times, Charles Perrault wrote stories such as "Little Red Riding Hood", "Beauty and the Beast", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Puss in Boots".

Many famous French novels were written in the 19th century by authors such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Jules Verne. They wrote popular novels like The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte-Cristo, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables. Other 19th century fiction writers include Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Théophile Gautier and Stendhal.

Famous novels were written during the 20th century by Marcel Proust, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Houellebecq.

Sports
Sports 

The Tour de France cycling race in July is one of the best-known sporting events. It is a three-week race of around 3,500 km that covers most of France and ends in the centre of Paris, on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées. Football is another popular sport in France. The French team won the FIFA World Cup in 1998 and 2018. They also won the UEFA European Football Championship in 1984 and 2000. France also hosts the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race. France also hosted the Rugby World Cup in 2007 and finished fourth.
France is closely associated with the Modern Olympic Games. At the end of the 19th century, the Baron Pierre de Coubertin suggested having the Olympic Games again. France hosted the Summer Olympics twice, in 1900 and 1924, in Paris. France will host the Summer Olympics in 2024, in Paris. France also hosted the Winter Games three times: in 1924 in Chamonix, in 1968 in Grenoble, and in 1992 in Albertville.

Cuisine
Cuisine  

French cuisine has influenced the style of cooking throughout Europe, and its chefs work in restaurants throughout the world.

The roots of modern haute cuisine lie in chefs like La Varenne (1615–1678) and the notable chef of Napoleon, Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833). These chefs developed a lighter style of food compared to the food of the Middle Ages. They used fewer spices, and more herbs and creamy ingredients.

Typical ingredients like roux and fish stock, and techniques such as marinading, and dishes such as ragout, were invented. Carême was an expert pâtissier (pastry-maker), and this is still a mark of French cooking. He developed basic sauces, his 'mother sauces'; he had over a hundred sauces in his repertoire, based on the half-dozen mother sauces.
French cuisine was introduced in the 20th century by Georges Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935). He was a genius at organisation. He worked out how to run large restaurants, as in a big hotel or a palace; how the staff should be organised; how the menu was prepared. He had methods for everything. Escoffier's largest contribution was the publication of Le Guide Culinaire in 1903, which established the fundamentals of French cookery. Escoffier managed the restaurants and cuisine at the Savoy Hotel and Carlton Hotel in London, the Hôtel Ritz Paris, and some of the greatest cruise ships.

Escoffier, however, left out much of the culinary character to be found in the regions of France.
Gastro-tourism and the Guide Michelin helped to make people familiar with the rich bourgeois and peasant cuisine of the French countryside in the 20th century. Gascon cuisine has also had great influence over the cuisine in the southwest of France. Many dishes that were once regional have become common all over the country. Cheese and wine are a major part of the cuisine, playing different roles regionally and nationally. In the north of France, people often prefer to use butter to cook. In the south, they prefer olive oil and garlic. In France, each region has its own special dish; choucroute in Alsace, quiche in Lorraine, cassoulet in the Languedoc-Roussillon, and tapenade in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.

In November 2010, French gastronomy was added by UNESCO to its lists of the world's 'intangible cultural heritage'.

Tourism
Tourism 

France is the number one tourist destination in the world. In 2007, 81.9 million foreign tourists visited France. Spain comes second (58.5 million in 2006) and the United States comes third (51.1 million in 2006).
Some of the most famous attractions in Paris, are the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. Another one is Mont Saint Michel, in Normandy.

A European Disneyland is located in a suburb east of Paris. The resort opened in 1992 and is also a popular tourist destination in Europe.

Related pages
 France at the Olympics
 France national football team
 List of rivers of France

References

Notes

Other websites 

 
 
 
 

 
European Union member states
Former good articles
French-speaking countries
G8 nations
G7 nations
Finland (Finnish: Suomi) is a country in Northern Europe and is a member state of the European Union. Finland is one of the Nordic countries and is also part of Fennoscandia. Finland is located between the 60th and 70th latitudes North. Its neighbours are Sweden to the west, Norway to the north, Russia to the east and Estonia to the south, beyond the sea called Gulf of Finland. Most of western and southern coast is on the shore of the Baltic Sea.
The capital of Finland is Helsinki; the second largest city is Tampere. The official currency of the country is the euro (EUR); before 2002 it was the markka, the Finnish mark (FIM). The president of Finland is Sauli Niinistö. 5.5 million people live in Finland. Finnish and Swedish both are the official languages of Finland; the most spoken languages is Finnish, mother tongue of about 90% of the population. Swedish is spoken by the Swedish speaking minority of Finland, called the Finnish Swedes, who make up 5% of the total population. Finland became independent of Russia on 6 December 1917.

The most important cities and towns in Finland are Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere, Vantaa, Turku, Oulu, Lahti, Kuopio, Jyväskylä and Pori.

Finland is a highly industrialised First World country. The most important Finnish industrial products are paper, and steel products such as machines and electronics. Nokia (the mobile company) is originally a company of Finland, named after a small town called Nokia.
Finland has been top of the list of least corrupt countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index more times than any other country.

People and culture 
The people of Finland are called Finns. Most Finns speak Finnish as their mother tongue. About six percent of Finns have the Swedish language as their mother tongue. They live mostly in the western part of Finland and on Åland (Finnish Ahvenanmaa)

Finns also study mandatory English and Swedish in school. Most Finns work either in services (that is: shops, banks, offices or businesses) or in factories. Finns often like saunas and nature. Many Finnish families have summer cottages, small houses where they go to relax on their summer holidays. The most important festivals that Finnish people celebrate are Midsummer and Christmas.

The most popular sports in Finland are ice hockey, skiing, track and field and association football (soccer). Finns have also won events in swimming, motor sports and gymnastics.
There is a group of a few thousand Sámis (also called Lapps) in the most northern part of Finland, called Lapland. Most of the Samis live in Norway and Sweden. Many Sami people farm reindeers. Originally, Samis were hunter-gatherers. In the past the Sami were nomads, but nowadays they live in regular houses.

Very few people in Finland are from other countries. In 2016 about 4% of residents were born in another country.

Nature and weather 

Most of Finland is covered by pine forest. The swan, which was considered holy long ago, is the national bird of Finland. Wood is the most important natural resource of Finland. It is estimated that up to one-third of all wood resources of the European Union are in Finland.

The national animal of Finland is the brown bear. The largest animal is the elk, a type of moose, which is a member of the deer family.

There are hundreds of rivers and thousands of fresh water lakes. Fishing is a popular sport. It is estimated there are almost 180,000 lakes in Finland.
Many islands in the Baltic Sea belong to Finland, too. Thousands of islands are part of the Åland archipelago. Tourists from all over the world come to see the fells and the northern lights in Lapland.

The highest mountain of Finland is Halti, which is 1328 meters high. The largest lake is Saimaa, 4,400 square kilometres. The longest river of Finland is Tornionjoki. The largest river (by watershed) is Kemijoki, 552 kilometres long.
The weather in Finland varies widely by season. Summer usually lasts from May to early September, and temperatures can reach up to +30 °C. Autumns are dark and rainy. Winter snow usually begins to fall in Helsinki in early December (in Lapland it can fall as early as October) and in the winter the temperature can drop to -40 °C. Highest temperature recorded in Finland is +37,2 °C and lowest temperature is -51,5 °C. Winter usually lasts to mid-March, when the snow melts in Helsinki (in Lapland the snow usually doesn't melt until early May), and Spring lasts till late May. Spring can be erratic, and the weather can change from frost to sunshine within a matter of days. The famed Northern Lights are common in Lapland.

History  
People first came to Finland 10,000 years ago. That was just after an ice age, after a glacier that covered the ground had receded.
Some think the first people in Finland already spoke a language similar to the Finnish language that is spoken today. It is known that an early form of the Finnish language was spoken in Finland in the Iron Age. (The Iron Age in Finland was 2,500–800 years ago).

The first residents in Finland hunted animals, as "hunter-gatherers". Some people started to farm crops about 5,200 years ago. Farming slowly became more and more popular and became the major way of life until the modern age.

The ancient Finns were pagans. The most important god of the Finnish pantheon was Ukko. He was a god of sky and thunder, much like Odin, another Scandinavian god-king. These powers were common among the pagan god kings in pantheons ranging from the Finnish Ukko, to the Scandinavian/Germanic/Saxon Odin, all the way east to Zeus of the Greeks and Jupiter of the Romans.
Around a thousand years ago, when most of Europe was adopting Christianity, Finland also began following Christianity. During the Reformation of Christianity in the 16th century, most Finns became Protestants. Some pagan practices still remain amongst the now Christian Finns, such as bear worship.

From the Middle Ages Finland was a part of Sweden. Then, in the year 1809, Russia took Finland from Sweden. Finland was a part of Russia, but after a short period of time it became autonomous. The Finns essentially controlled Finland, though the Tsar was in control officially. Finns could create their own laws and had their own currency, (called the markka), their own stamps and own customs. However, Finland did not have its own army.
During the 1905 Russian Revolution, in the Grand Duchy of Finland:
the Social Democrats organised the general strike of 1905 (). The Red Guards were formed. On , Russian artillerymen and military engineers rose to rebellion in the fortress of Sveaborg (later called Suomenlinna), Helsinki. The Finnish Red Guards supported the Sveaborg Rebellion with a general strike, but the mutiny was quelled by loyal troops and ships of the Baltic Fleet within 60 hours.

After independence
On 6 December 1917, Finland became independent, which meant that it no longer was a part of Russia. There was a communist revolution in Russia and after 1922 Russia was a part of the Soviet Union. There were communists in Finland too, who tried to create a revolution in Finland
This attempt at revolution caused the Finnish civil war. The communists lost the civil war, and Finland did not change its old capitalist system
Stalin, who was the leader of the Soviet Union, did not like having a capitalist country as its neighbour. Stalin wanted Finland to become a communist state and be a part of the Soviet Union. The leaders of Finland refused: they wanted to stay independent. The Soviet Union sent many troops across the eastern border of Finland to try to make Finland join them, which resulted in the Winter War. The Soviet Union eventually won, and took most of Karelia and other parts of Finland.

Adolf Hitler was the dictator of Germany, and he wanted to invade the Soviet Union. Finland wanted to retrieve the areas that it had lost, so they joined the German invasion, which started with Operation Barbarossa in 1941. The Finnish part of the Second World War is called the Continuation War in Finland. However, Finland was not a fascist or an antisemitic country. Finns were interested in freedom rather than dictatorship.
While Germany was losing the war, Finland had already progressed into the Soviet Union in order to regain the areas lost in the previous peace. Finland wanted to end the war with the Soviet Union, which resulted in peace. Once again Finland had to give up the areas they had conquered. This time, the peace with the Soviet Union made Finland and Germany enemies. Finns fought the Germans, and Germans retreated to Norway, burning down all of Lapland behind them. This is called the Lapland War. Finland remained independent.

After the war, many factories were built in Finland. Many people moved from farms to cities. At that time, big factories manufactured products like paper and steel. More and more people worked in more advanced jobs, like high technology. Also, many people went to universities to get a good education. Finland was one of the first countries where most people had Internet connections and mobile phones. A well-known company that makes mobile phones, Nokia, is from Finland.
Finland joined the European Union in 1995. The Finnish currency was changed to the euro in 2002.

Finland joined NATO in 2023, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Economy 
Finland has a mixed economy. Free market controls most of production and sales of goods, but public sector is involved in services. In 2013, taxes were 44% of gross national product. This is 4th largest in Europe, after Denmark, France and Belgium.

In 2014 services were 70% of the gross national product.

The largest company in 2014 was oil refinery Neste Oil. The second largest was Nokia. Two forest industries Stora Enso and UPM-Kymmene, were numbers three and four. Number five was Kesko which sells everyday goods in K-supermarkets.
Elections 
Elections are organized to select 200 members to the Parliament of Finland. Also selected are the president of Finland, members of town and city councils and Finnish members to the European Parliament. The elections are secret and direct. People vote directly for the person they want to be elected. In presidential elections votes are only cast for a person, not for a political party. All the other elections are proportional. The system is a combination of voting for individuals and parties. The right to vote is universal and equal. In general elections everybody has one vote.

Famous Finnish people
Alvar Aalto, architect
 Markku Alen, 1978 World Rally Champion
 Valtteri Bottas, current Formula One driver
 The Dudesons, also known as Duudsonit, a four-man stunt group with several TV shows and a movie. Close friends with the Jackass crew
 Akseli Gallen-Kallela, artist
 Marcus Gronholm, 2000/02 World Rally Champion
 Mika Häkkinen, 1998 and 1999 Formula One World Champion
 Tarja Halonen, former President of Finland
 Tuomas Holopainen, founder of the internationally famous band Nightwish
 Sami Hyypiä, football coach; 2005 UEFA Champions League winner
 Juha Kankkunen, 1986/87/91/93 World Rally Champion
 Urho Kekkonen, former President of Finland during the cold war
 Jari Kurri, 5 time Stanley Cup Winner, NHL Hall Of Famer
 Eino Leino, poet
 Elias Lönnrot, compiler of National epic Kalevala
 Jari Litmanen, footballer; 1995 UEFA Champions League winner
 Tommi Makinen, 1996-99 World Rally Champion
 Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, a president and military commander
Karita Mattila, world famous opera singer, winner of the first Cardiff singer of the world competition
 Hannu Mikkola, 1983 World Rally Champion
 Paavo Nurmi, famous Olympic long-distance runner
 Kimi Räikkönen, 2007 Formula One World Champion
 Keke Rosberg, 1982 Formula One World Champion
 Timo Salonen, 1985 World Rally Champion
 Timo Sarpaneva, famous designer mainly in glass
 Teemu Selanne, 2007 Stanley Cup Winner
 Jean Sibelius, the most important Finnish composer
 Lauri Törni, later known as Larry Thorne, a winner of the Mannerheim Cross during the Continuation War
 Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux
 Tarja Turunen, former member of the internationally famous band Nightwish
 Ville Valo, Lead Singer songwriter of HIM
 Ari Vatanen, 1981 World Rally Champion
 Tapio Wirkkala, designer and artist
References

Other websites 
 History
 Finland Travel Community - Discussion Forum (English) 
 Finland -Citizendium

 
European Union member states
Nordic countries
Members of NATO
1917 establishments in Europe
In botany, a fruit is a plant structure that contains the plant's seeds. 

To a botanist, the word fruit is used only if it comes from the part of the flower which was an ovary. It is an extra layer round the seeds, which may or may not be fleshy. However, even in the field of botany, there is no general agreement on how fruits should be classified. Many do have extra layers from other parts of the flower.

In general speech, and especially in cooking, fruits are a sweet product, and many botanical fruits are known as vegetables. This is how ordinary people use the words. On this page, we describe what botanists call a fruit.

The fleshy part of a fruit is called the mesocarp. It is between the fruit's skin (exocarp) and the seeds. The white part of an apple, for example, is the "fleshy" part of the apple. Usually, when we eat a fruit, we eat the "fleshy" part.

Types of fruits
Types of fruits

Berry
If the entire fruit is fleshy, except for maybe a thin skin, the fruit is called a berry. A berry might contain one seed or many. Grapes, avocados, and blueberries are berries. They all have a thin skin, but most of the fruit is fleshy. Don't get confused by the name of fruits like strawberries, because actually they are not berries. The seeds are on the outside: on a real berry, the seed or seeds are inside the fruit.

Pepo
A pepo (pronounced pee' po) is a modified berry. Its skin is hard and thick and is usually called a "rind". Pumpkins and watermelons, for instance, are pepos.

Hesperidium
A hesperidium is another modified berry. It has a leathery skin that is not as hard as the skin of a pepo. All citrus fruit like oranges and lemon are hesperidiums.

Pome
Pome

A pome (pohm) is a fruit that has a core surrounded by fleshy tissue that one can eat. The core is usually not eaten. Berries are different - the seeds are inside the fleshy part, not separated from it by a core. apples and pears are pomes.

Drupe

Drupes are also called stone fruit. A drupe is a fleshy fruit with a hard stone around the seed. We usually call this 'stone' the 'pit' of the fruit. Peaches and olives are drupes. Actually, the almond fruit is a drupe, too, though we eat the seed that is inside the 'pit' of the almond fruit.

Botanical fruits
Since fruits are produced from fertilised ovaries in flowers, only flowering plants produce fruits. Fruits are an evolutionary 'invention' which help seeds get dispersed by animals.

The botanical term includes many that are not 'fruits' in the common sense of the term. such as the vegetables squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, tomato, peas, beans, corn, eggplant, and bell pepper and some spices, such as allspice and chili

.

Accessory fruits
Accessory fruits

An accessory fruit or false fruit (pseudocarp) is a fruit in which some of the flesh is derived not from the ovary but from some adjacent tissue.

A fig is a type of accessory fruit called a syconium. Pomes, such as apples and pears, are also accessory fruits: the core is the true fruit.

Non-botanical fruits
Strictly speaking, these are not botanical fruits: 
 any produced by non-flowering plants, like juniper berries, which are the seed-containing female cones of conifers.
 fleshy fruit-like growths that develop from other plant tissues (like rhubarb).
Area of agreement
These are fruits which you can buy in shops, and which are also acceptable as botanical fruits:
 berry fruits: redcurrant, gooseberry, cranberry, blueberry Also, but not commonly known as berry fruits, are tomato, avocado, banana.
 false berries: raspberry, strawberry, blackberry: they are aggregate fruits (see below). The yew berry is not a fruit at all because the yew is a conifer.
 stone fruits or drupes: plum, cherry, peach, apricot, olive.
 citrus fruits, like oranges, grapefruits, and tangerines.
 aggregate fruits: raspberries, blackberries.
 multiple fruits: pineapples, figs.

Many fruits come from trees or bushes. For plants, fruits are a means of dispersal, usually by animals. When the fruit is eaten, the seed(s) are not digested, and get excreted. Where fruits have big stones, just the soft parts are eaten.
Most fruits we eat contain a lot of water and natural sugars, and many are high in Vitamin C. They have a large amount of dietary fibre. Fruits are usually low in protein and fat content, but avocados and some nuts are exceptions to this. Not only humans, but our closest living relatives (primates) are keen fruit-eaters. So are many other groups of herbivorous mammals and many birds.

Seedless fruits
Seedlessness is an important feature of some fruits of commerce. Commercial bananas, pineapple, and watermelons are examples of seedless fruits. Some citrus fruits, especially oranges, satsumas, mandarin oranges, and grapefruit are valued for their seedlessness.

Seedless bananas and grapes are triploids, and seedlessness results from the abortion of the embryonic plant which is produced by fertilisation. The method requires normal pollination and fertilisation.

Related pages
 List of fruit

References

Basic English 850 words
 
Plant anatomy
A farm is a piece of land used to grow crops  and/or raise animals.

People who grow these plants or raise these animals are called farmers. This work is called farming.

Land that is used to grow plants is called farmland.  Land that is used to feed animals with its grass is called pasture.  Land that can be used to grow plants for food is called arable land.

Many farms are very large and can cause damage.  In some places farms are many and small, and can also cause damage.  Farms provides most of the food for people.  Some people farm to eat the food they produce (subsistence agriculture). Other farms, including large ones, sell their products to markets far away in urban areas (commercial or industrial farming). Most subsistence farms are in poorer countries, while industrial farms are in richer countries.

Kinds of farms
Kinds of farms 

 A farm that produces fruits or nuts is called an orchard.
 A farm that produces grapes is called a vineyard.
 A farm that raises and trains horses is called a stable.
 A farm that produces milk and dairy products is called a dairy farm.
 If the animals are raised for meat it is a ranch.
 A large farm that produces non-essential crops like tobacco, coffee, cotton or sugarcane is called a plantation.

Related pages
 Farming
 Ranch

 
Basic English 850 words
Geography (from Greek: , geographia, literally "earth description") is the study of earth and its people. Its features are things like continents, seas, rivers and mountains. Its inhabitants are all the people and animals that live on it. Its phenomena are the things that happen like tides, winds, and earthquakes.

A person who is an expert in geography is a geographer. A geographer tries to understand the world and the things that are in it, how they started and how they have changed.

Geography is divided into two main parts called physical geography and human geography. Physical geography studies the natural environment and human geography studies the human environment. The human environmental studies would include things such as the population in a country, how a country's economy is doing, and more. There is also environmental geography.
Maps are a main tool of geography, so geographers spend much time making and studying them. Making maps is called cartography, and people who specialize in making maps are cartographers.

Branches

Physical geography 

Physical geography (or physiography) focuses on geography as an Earth science. It aims to understand the physical problems and the issues of lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, pedosphere, and global flora and fauna patterns (biosphere).

Physical geography can be divided into many broad categories, including:

{| style="border:1px solid #ddd; text-align:center; margin: auto;" cellspacing="15"
|  ||  ||  || 
|-
| Biogeography || Climatology & Meteorology || Coastal geography || Environmental management
|-
|  ||  ||  ||
|-
| Geodesy || Geomorphology || Glaciology || Hydrology & Hydrography
|-
|  ||  ||  || 
|-
| Landscape ecology || Oceanography || Pedology || Palaeogeography
|-
| 
|-
| Quaternary science
|}

Human geography
Human geography 

Human geography is the social science that covers the study of people and their communities, cultures, economies and their interaction with the environment. Geographers studying the human environment may look at:
 Population
 Countries of the world
 Land use
 Agriculture
 City
 Industry
 Energy
 Pollution

History
The oldest known world map dates back to ancient Babylon from the 9th century BC. The best known Babylonian world map is the Imago Mundi of 600 BC. Star charts (maps of the sky) are of similar age.

During the Middle Ages, people in Europe made fewer maps. People in the eastern countries made more. Abū Zayd al-Balkhī created the "Balkhī school" of mapping in Baghdad.

Western Europe became known as the leader of geographic thought during the European Renaissance and The Age of Exploration (1400–1600). The printing press made maps and information about the world available to everyone.

This caused more interest in how the world worked.
In the 1700s and 1800s scientists started to study the relationship between the environment and its people

Related pages
 Geographer
 Geographical renaming
 Geopolitics
 International Geographical Union
 Landform
 Map
 Navigator

References

Other websites 
 Geography Trainer 1.3 - Educational game aimed at school children 
 www.geoknow.net - Geography resources at your fingertips!
 PopulationData.net
 PopulationMondiale.com
 Using Literature To Teach Geography in High Schools. ERIC Digest. 
 Teaching Geography at School and Home. ERIC Digest. 
 The National Geography Content Standards. ERIC Digest.
Grammar is the study of words, how they are used in sentences, and how they change in different situations. The Ancient Greeks used to call it grammatikē tékhnē, the craft of letters. It can have any of these meanings:
 The study of a language: how it works, and everything about it. This is background research on language.
 The study of sentence structure.  Rules and examples show how the language should be used.  This is a correct usage grammar, as in a textbook or manual/guide.
 The system which people learn as they grow up. This is the native-speaker's grammar.

When we speak, we use the native person's grammar, or as near as we can. When we write, we try to write with correct grammar. So, speaking and writing a language each have their own style.

Different languages 
All languages have their own grammar. Most European languages are rather similar.
English makes few changes to its word endings ('suffixes'). In the Italic or 'Romance' languages (such as French, Italian, and Spanish), word endings carry a lot of meaning. In English we have just a few: plurals and possessives (John's) are the most common. In our verbs we have dropped most endings except one: I love, you love, but she loves. That final 's' comes from the Anglo-Saxon, which had more suffixes. Verbs do have endings which show changes in tense: walked, walking.
Word order is the other big difference. Romance languages normally put adjectives after the nouns to which they refer. For example, in English, a person may say I like fast cars, but in Spanish, it is Me gustan los coches rápidos. The order of the words has changed: if just the words, without the grammar, are translated into English, it would mean 'to me they please the cars fast'. This is because Spanish and English have different rules about word order. In German, verbs often come near the end of sentences (as: Die Katze hat die Nahrung gegessen), whereas in English we usually put them between subject and object, as: the cat has eaten the food.

Changing language 
Written grammar changes slowly but spoken grammar is more fluid. Sentences which English speakers find normal today, might have seemed strange 100 years ago. And they might not, because many of our favourite sayings come from the Authorized King James Version of the Bible, and from Shakespeare.
Different people speak with grammar that differs from that of other people.  For example, people who use the dialects called General American English and BBC English might say, I didn't do anything, while someone who speaks what is called African American Vernacular English or AAVE might say, I didn't do nothing. London working class version: I ain't done nuffink!  These are called double negatives, and are found almost entirely in spoken English, and seldom written.
These differences are called dialects. The dialect a person uses is usually decided by where they live. Even though the dialects of English use different words or word order, they still have grammar rules. However, when writing in American English, grammar uses the rules of General American English. When people talk about using 'proper English', they usually mean using the grammar of general British English, as described in standard reference works. The models for spoken English in Britain are often called Received Pronunciation or BBC English.

Parts of speech 
Grammar studies nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, sentences, phrases, clauses, interjections.
Nouns 
Nouns are 'thing' words like 'table and 'chair'.  They are objects, things you see in everyday life.  Proper nouns are names of specific places, people, or other things like days of the week.  The name 'James' is a proper noun, as is 'Wednesday' and 'London'. Nouns can also be abstract things, such as 'suffering' or 'happiness'.

Verbs 
Verbs are words that describe actions: "Ryan threw the ball". State: "I am worried". The basic verb form is called the infinitive.  The infinitive for existence is "to be".  A famous example is the speech of Hamlet: To be or not to be, that is the question.

Variations of the infinitive create verb tenses. 

 Past tense = was

Present tense = is

Future tense = will/shall

Adjectives  
Adjectives describe nouns. For example, the pretty in "pretty bicycle" says that the bicycle is pretty. In other words, the "pretty" is describing the bicycle. This can also happen with a place. For example, the tall in "that's a tall building" is describing the building.
Syntax 
Grammar studies syntax which is how the "parts of speech" fit together according to rules and create sentences.  Sentences fit together and create paragraphs.

References
The Great Lakes are five large lakes in east-central North America. They hold 21% of the world's surface fresh water. 

The five lakes are: Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario.

Geography 

Four of the Great Lakes are on the border between Canada and the United States of America. The other, Lake Michigan, is completely inside the United States.

All together, by volume, they are the largest group of fresh water lakes in the world. No one of the Lakes is larger than Lake Baikal (Russia) or Lake Tanganyika (East Africa).

The cities of Chicago, Illinois (9.8 million people, on Lake Michigan), Toronto, Ontario (5.5 million, on Lake Ontario); Detroit, Michigan (5.3 million, on the Detroit river); Montreal, Quebec (3.9 million, on the St. Lawrence River), Cleveland, Ohio (2.9 million, on Lake Erie), Buffalo, and Ottawa (1.2 million, Ontario, on the Ottawa River) are on the shores of the Great Lakes or their rivers.
Though the five lakes have separate basins, they form a single, connected body of freshwater. The lakes connect the east-central interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. Lakes Michigan, Huron and Erie are approximately equally high and ships can easily pass from one to the next. Water flows from Lake Superior and Lake Michigan into Lake Huron; then through the Detroit River into Lake Erie; then through Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario; and then through the Saint Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean. Water also drains from the Chicago River on the south.

Many rivers flow through a large watershed into the lakes. The lakes have about 35,000 islands. The Great Lakes region includes the five lakes and many thousands of smaller lakes, often called inland lakes.

Lake Michigan and Lake Huron hit all-time record low levels in 2013.
The unusual shape of the Great Lakes has created the possibility of large waves called seiche. If a storm causes a fast, strong increase in air pressure on one side of a lake, the water level on that side of the lake will drop and suddenly push up the water level on the opposite side of the lake.  A 10 foot tall wave in Chicago caused several deaths in 1954.
Ecological threats 
The Great Lakes are home to a variety of species of fish and other organisms. In recent years, overfishing caused a decline in lake trout. The drop in lake trout increased the alewife population. In response, the government introduced salmon as a predator to decrease the alewife population. This program was so successful that the salmon population rose rapidly, and the states surrounding Lake Michigan promoted 'salmon snagging'. This has been made illegal in all of the Great Lakes states except for a limited season in Illinois. Lake Michigan is now being stocked with several species of fish. However, several invader species such as lampreys, round goby, and zebra mussels threaten the native fish populations.
Invasive species 
Accidentally introduced species are a big problem. Since the 19th century about 160 species have invaded the Great Lakes ecosystem, causing severe economic and ecological impacts. According to the Inland Seas Education Association, they deprive fish of food, cause blooms of toxic algae, and foul boats, spawning areas and drinking water intakes. On average a new invasive species enters the Great Lakes every eight months.

Two important infestations in the Great Lakes are the zebra mussel,  first discovered in 1988, and the quagga mussel in 1989. These molluscs are efficient filter feeders. They compete with native mussels, and also reduce available food and spawning grounds for fish.
Also, the mussels hurt utility and manufacturing industries by clogging or blocking pipes. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the economic impact of the zebra mussel will be about $5 billion over the next decade. Because the quagga mussel is good at filtering plankton from the lake water, sunlight reaches deeper into the lake. This increases the growth of algae.

Pollution 
Chemicals from industrial plants run off the land into rivers and arrive in the lakes. Some of these chemicals are highly toxic, such as mercury. Contaminated water from sewer overflows also reaches the lakes, and beaches get closed because of the threat of pathogenic bacteria.

Notes

References 

 
Lakes of Canada
Geography of Ontario
Lakes of the United States
The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for open content such as software. It was made by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU project. It was initially created for use with software documentation, but can be applied to other types of works as well, such as Wikipedia. 

As a copyright license, the GFDL is a type of contract between the creator of a copyrightable work (such as a book, an encyclopedia article, a painting, or a piece of music) and anyone else who might want to use it. The GFDL is considered "copyleft" because the license is meant to make it easier to use and re-use the copyrighted work, not to restrict its use.
If a copyrightable work is released under the GFDL, the creator of the work is saying that anyone else may reproduce, distribute, or modify the work, as long as they follow a set of requirements specified in the GFDL. Among the requirements of the GFDL are that any new work created from the original work is also licensed under the GFDL—that is, once something is licensed as GFDL, it will always stay licensed as GFDL, and anything which uses it also is licensed as GFDL.

The GFDL also says that in order to distribute or modify a work licensed with the GFDL, the re-user must give credit to any previous authors of the work, and include a list of changes they made to the work.
Finally, any work licensed with the GFDL must contain, somewhere, the entire text of the license. This provision has been criticized, because it is not always easy to include an entire, long license with a copyrighted work. In a book, for example, it is easy to include one extra page with the license, but if the work is something like a song, or a photograph, it is not easy. 

The GFDL has other requirements that are more complicated. For example, if part of the work is labeled as an "invariant section," it cannot ever be removed or changed by someone using the work ("invariant" means "does not change"). 

Works licensed under the GFDL may be included in with non-GFDL-licensed works only if it is clear which parts of the work are licensed as the GFDL. For example, in a book of poetry it would be easy to label some poems as licensed under the GFDL and some not licensed under it. But it would not be easy to label if part of a song was licensed as GFDL and the rest was not, so this would not be allowed.
Any use of GFDL material which violates the terms of the GFDL is potentially copyright infringement. Infringement issues are managed through a community based approach with the approval and assistance of the Free Software Foundation.

A number of online projects use the GFDL. An online project to license its content under the GFDL is Wikipedia.

The GFDL has been criticized by many people who wish that it made it even easier for content to be re-used. Among the criticisms are that it is very hard to combine GFDL material with other copyleft licenses, that it is not always clear and easy to understand, and that some of its requirements, such as the "invariant sections", are not free at all.

History 
The GFDL was released in draft form for feedback in September 1999. After revisions, version 1.1 was issued in March 2000, version 1.2 in November 2002, and version 1.3 in November 2008. The current state of the license is version 1.3.
Conditions 
Material licensed under the current version of the license can be used for any purpose, as long as the use meets certain conditions.

All previous authors of the work must be credited.
All changes to the work must be logged.
All derivative works must be licensed under the same license.
The full text of the license, unmodified invariant sections as defined by the author if any, and any other added warranty disclaimers (such as a general disclaimer alerting readers that the document may not be accurate for example) and copyright notices from previous versions must be maintained.
Technical measures such as DRM may not be used to control or obstruct distribution or editing of the document.

Related pages 

 BSD license
 Copyleft
 Copyright
 Free software license
 GNU
 Non-commercial educational
 Open content
 Simple English "translation" of the GFDL text
 Share-alike
 Software licensing

References

Other websites
Other websites 

 FSF guide to the new drafts of documentation licenses
 GFDL official text
 Free Software and Free Manuals, essay by Richard Stallman
 Apple's Common Documentation License , an alternative license
Software licences
Glass is a hard material that can be made in many shapes. It is usually transparent, but it can also be made in colours. Glass is mainly made of silica; glass made of silica only is called silica glass. It originated in India.

Glass used to make windows and bottles is a specific type called soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silicon dioxide (SiO2), sodium oxide (Na2O) from sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), calcium oxide, also called lime (CaO), and several minor additives.

By changing the proportions, and adding different ingredients, many kinds of glass can be made. Coloured glass is made by adding small amounts of metal oxides. For example, a blue colour is given by tiny amounts of cobalt oxide.
Crystal glass is made by adding lead and zinc oxides. It is not actually a crystal because all glass is a non-crystalline solid. Crystal glass is called cut glass if it has been cut by hand:
" 'Cut glass' is glass that has been decorated entirely by hand by use of rotating wheels. Cuts are made in an otherwise completely smooth surface of the glass by workers holding and moving the piece against various sized metal or stone wheels".

Because glass is used to make lenses, the word "glasses" often means eyeglasses.

The myth that glass is actually a liquid comes from the fact that old windows in houses and churches (200–300 years old) are sometimes a little out of shape: thicker at the bottom than the top. This is actually due to the process of glass making in the past which led to the glass pane being thicker at one edge than the other. It was sensible to install the windows with the thick edge at the bottom. Sometimes a window can be found with the thick edge at the top of the window.