title: The Prince

text: Machiavelli's ideas on how to accrue honour and power as a leader had a profound impact on political leaders throughout the modern west, helped by the new technology of the printing press. Pole reported that it was spoken of highly by his enemy Thomas Cromwell in England, and had influenced Henry VIII in his turn towards Protestantism, and in his tactics, for example during the Pilgrimage of Grace. A copy was also possessed by the Catholic king and emperor Charles V. In France, after an initially mixed reaction, Machiavelli came to be associated with Catherine de Medici and the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre. As reports, in the 16th century, Catholic writers "associated Machiavelli with the Protestants, whereas Protestant authors saw him as Italian and Catholic". In fact, he was apparently influencing both Catholic and Protestant kings.


title: The Prince

text: One of the most important early works dedicated to criticism of Machiavelli, especially "The Prince", was that of the Huguenot, Innocent Gentillet, "Discourse against Machiavelli", commonly also referred to as "Anti Machiavel", published in Geneva in 1576. He accused Machiavelli of being an atheist and accused politicians of his time by saying that they treated his works as the "Koran of the courtiers". Another theme of Gentillet was more in the spirit of Machiavelli himself: he questioned the effectiveness of immoral strategies (just as Machiavelli had himself done, despite also explaining how they could sometimes work). This became the theme of much future political discourse in Europe during the 17th century. This includes the Catholic Counter Reformation writers summarised by Bireley: Giovanni Botero, Justus Lipsius, Carlo Scribani, Adam Contzen, Pedro de Ribadeneira, and Diego de Saavedra Fajardo. These authors criticized Machiavelli, but also followed him in many ways. They accepted the need for a prince to be concerned with reputation, and even a need for cunning and deceit, but compared to Machiavelli, and like later modernist writers, they emphasized economic progress much more than the riskier ventures of war. These authors tended to cite Tacitus as their source for realist political advice, rather than Machiavelli, and this pretense came to be known as "Tacitism".


title: The Prince

text: Modern materialist philosophy developed in the 16th, 17th and 18th century, starting in the generations after Machiavelli. The importance of Machiavelli's realism was noted by many important figures in this endeavor, for example Jean Bodin, Francis Bacon, Harrington, John Milton, Spinoza, Rousseau, Hume, Edward Gibbon, and Adam Smith. Although he was not always mentioned by name as an inspiration, due to his controversy, he is also thought to have been an influence for other major philosophers, such as Montaigne, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke and Montesquieu.


title: The Prince

text: 20th-century Italian-American mobsters were influenced by "The Prince". John Gotti and Roy DeMeo would regularly quote "The Prince" and consider it to be the


title: The Prince

text: This interpretation was famously put forth by scholar Garrett Mattingly (1958), who stated that "In some ways, Machiavelli's little treatise was just like all the other "Mirrors of Princes", in other ways it was a diabolical burlesque of all of them, like a political Black Mass."


title: The Prince

text: This position was taken up previously by some of the more prominent Enlightenment "philosophes". Diderot speculated that it was a work designed not to mock, but to secretly expose corrupt princely rule. And in his "The Social Contract", the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said:


title: The Prince

text: Whether or not the word "satire" is the best choice, the interpretation is very rare amongst those who study Machiavelli's works. For example Isaiah Berlin states that he cannot find anything other than Machiavelli's work that "reads less" like a satirical piece.


title: The Prince

text: Mary Dietz, in her essay "Trapping The Prince", writes that Machiavelli's agenda was not to be satirical, as Rousseau had argued, but instead was "offering carefully crafted advice (such as arming the people) designed to undo the ruler if taken seriously and followed." By this account, the aim was to reestablish the republic in Florence. She focuses on three categories in which Machiavelli gives paradoxical advice:


title: The Prince

text: According to Dietz, the trap never succeeded because Lorenzo – "a suspicious prince" – apparently never read the work of the "former republican."


title: The Prince

text: The Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci argued that Machiavelli's audience for this work was not the classes who already rule (or have "hegemony") over the common people, but the common people themselves, trying to establish a new hegemony, and making Machiavelli the first "Italian Jacobin".


title: The Prince

text: Hans Baron is one of the few major commentators who argues that Machiavelli must have changed his mind dramatically in favour of free republics, after having written "The Prince".


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Mohenjo-daro (; ", "meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men'; ) is an archaeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. Built around 2500 BCE, it was the largest settlement of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation, and one of the world's earliest major cities, contemporaneous with the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Minoan Crete, and Norte Chico. With an estimated population of at least 40,000 people, Mohenjo-daro prospered until around 1700 BCE.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Mohenjo-daro was abandoned in the 19th century BCE as the Indus Valley Civilization declined, and the site was not rediscovered until the 1920s. Significant excavation has since been conducted at the site of the city, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, the first site in South Asia to be so designated. The site is currently threatened by erosion and improper restoration.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: The city's original name is unknown. Based on his analysis of a Mohenjo-daro seal, Iravatham Mahadevan speculates that the city's ancient name could have been "Kukkutarma" ("the city ["-rma"] of the cockerel ["kukkuta"]"). Cock-fighting may have had ritual and religious significance for the city. Mohenjo-daro may also have been a point of diffusion for the clade of the domesticated chicken found in Africa, Western Asia, Europe and the Americas.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Mohenjo-daro, the modern name for the site, has been interpreted as "Mound of the Dead Men" in Sindhi.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Mohenjo-daro is located off the right (west) bank of the lower Indus river in Larkana District, Sindh, Pakistan. It lies on a Pleistocene ridge in the flood plain of the Indus, around from the town of Larkana.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Mohenjo-daro was built in the 26th century BCE. It was one of the largest cities of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, also known as the Harappan Civilization, which developed around 3,000 BCE from the prehistoric Indus culture. At its height, the Indus Civilization spanned much of what is now Pakistan and North India, extending westwards to the Iranian border, south to Gujarat in India and northwards to an outpost in Bactria, with major urban centers at Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Lothal, Kalibangan, Dholavira and Rakhigarhi. Mohenjo-daro was the most advanced city of its time, with remarkably sophisticated civil engineering and urban planning. When the Indus civilization went into sudden decline around 1900 BCE, Mohenjo-daro was abandoned.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: The ruins of the city remained undocumented for around 3,700 years until R. D. Banerji, an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India, visited the site in 1919–20 identifying what he thought to be a Buddhist stupa (150–500 CE) known to be there and finding a flint scraper which convinced him of the site's antiquity. This led to large-scale excavations of Mohenjo-daro led by K. N. Dikshit in 1924–25, and John Marshall in 1925–26. In the 1930s major excavations were conducted at the site under the leadership of Marshall, D. K. Dikshitar and Ernest Mackay. Further excavations were carried out in 1945 by Mortimer Wheeler and his trainee, Ahmad Hasan Dani. The last major series of excavations were conducted in 1964 and 1965 by George F. Dales. After 1965 excavations were banned due to weathering damage to the exposed structures, and the only projects allowed at the site since have been salvage excavations, surface surveys, and conservation projects. In the 1980s, German and Italian survey groups led by Michael Jansen and Maurizio Tosi used less invasive archeological techniques, such as architectural documentation, surface surveys, and localized probing, to gather further information about Mohenjo-daro. A dry core drilling conducted in 2015 by Pakistan's National Fund for Mohenjo-daro revealed that the site is larger than the unearthed area.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Mohenjo-daro has a planned layout with rectilinear buildings arranged on a grid plan. Most were built of fired and mortared brick; some incorporated sun-dried mud-brick and wooden superstructures. The covered area of Mohenjo-daro is estimated at 300 hectares. The "Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History" offers a "weak" estimate of a peak population of around 40,000.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: The sheer size of the city, and its provision of public buildings and facilities, suggests a high level of social organization. The city is divided into two parts, the so-called Citadel and the Lower City. The Citadel – a mud-brick mound around high – is known to have supported public baths, a large residential structure designed to house about 5,000 citizens, and two large assembly halls. The city had a central marketplace, with a large central well. Individual households or groups of households obtained their water from smaller wells. Waste water was channeled to covered drains that lined the major streets. Some houses, presumably those of more prestigious inhabitants, include rooms that appear to have been set aside for bathing, and one building had an underground furnace (known as a hypocaust), possibly for heated bathing. Most houses had inner courtyards, with doors that opened onto side-lanes. Some buildings had two stories.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: In 1950, Sir Mortimer Wheeler identified one large building in Mohenjo-daro as a "Great Granary". Certain wall-divisions in its massive wooden superstructure appeared to be grain storage-bays, complete with air-ducts to dry the grain. According to Wheeler, carts would have brought grain from the countryside and unloaded them directly into the bays. However, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer noted the complete lack of evidence for grain at the "granary", which, he argued, might therefore be better termed a "Great Hall" of uncertain function. Close to the "Great Granary" is a large and elaborate public bath, sometimes called the Great Bath. From a colonnaded courtyard, steps lead down to the brick-built pool, which was waterproofed by a lining of bitumen. The pool measures long, wide and deep. It may have been used for religious purification. Other large buildings include a "Pillared Hall", thought to be an assembly hall of some kind, and the so-called "College Hall", a complex of buildings comprising 78 rooms, thought to have been a priestly residence.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Mohenjo-daro had no series of city walls, but was fortified with guard towers to the west of the main settlement, and defensive fortifications to the south. Considering these fortifications and the structure of other major Indus valley cities like Harappa, it is postulated that Mohenjo-daro was an administrative center. Both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro share relatively the same architectural layout, and were generally not heavily fortified like other Indus Valley sites. It is obvious from the identical city layouts of all Indus sites that there was some kind of political or administrative centrality, but the extent and functioning of an administrative center remains unclear.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: The location of Mohenjo-daro was built in a relatively short period of time, with the water supply system and wells being some of the first planned constructions.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: The city also had large platforms perhaps intended as defense against flooding. According to a theory first advanced by Wheeler, the city could have been flooded and silted over, perhaps six times, and later rebuilt in the same location. For some archaeologists, it was believed that a final flood that helped engulf the city in a sea of mud brought about the abandonment of the site. Gregory Possehl was the first to theorize that the floods were caused by overuse and expansion upon the land, and that the mud flood was not the reason the site was abandoned. Instead of a mud flood wiping part of the city out in one fell swoop, Possehl coined the possibility of constant mini-floods throughout the year, paired with the land being worn out by crops, pastures, and resources for bricks and pottery spelled the downfall of the site.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Numerous objects found in excavation include seated and standing figures, copper and stone tools, carved seals, balance-scales and weights, gold and jasper jewellery, and children's toys. Many bronze and copper pieces, such as figurines and bowls, have been recovered from the site, showing that the inhabitants of Mohenjo-daro understood how to utilize the lost wax technique. The furnaces found at the site are believed to have been used for copperworks and melting the metals as opposed to smelting. There even seems to be an entire section of the city dedicated to shell-working, located in the northeastern part of the site. Some of the most prominent copperworks recovered from the site are the copper tablets which have examples of the untranslated Indus script and iconography. While the script has not been deciphered yet, many of the images on the tablets match another tablet and both hold the same caption in the Indus language, with the example given showing three tablets with the image of a mountain goat and the inscription on the back reading the same letters for the three tablets.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Pottery and terracotta sherds have been recovered from the site, with many of the pots having deposits of ash in them, leading archeologists to believe they were either used to hold the ashes of a person or as a way to warm up a home located in the site. These heaters, or braziers, were ways to heat the house while also being able to be utilized in a manner of cooking or straining, while others solely believe they were used for heating.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: The finds from Mohenjo-daro were initially deposited in the Lahore Museum, but later moved to the ASI headquarters at New Delhi, where a new "Central Imperial Museum" was being planned for the new capital of the British Raj, in which at least a selection would be displayed. It became apparent that Indian independence was approaching, but the Partition of India was not anticipated until late in the process. The new Pakistani authorities requested the return of the Harappan pieces excavated on their territory, but the Indian authorities refused. Eventually an agreement was reached, whereby the finds, totalling some 12,000 objects (most sherds of pottery), were split equally between the countries; in some cases this was taken very literally, with some necklaces and girdles having their beads separated into two piles. In the case of the "two most celebrated sculpted figures", Pakistan asked for and received the "Priest-king", while India retained the much smaller "Dancing Girl", and also the "Pashupati seal".


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Most of the objects from Mohenjo-daro retained by India are in the National Museum of India in New Delhi and those returned to Pakistan in the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi, with many also in the museum now established at Mohenjo-daro itself. In 1939, a small representative group of artefacts excavated at the site was transferred to the British Museum by the Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Discovered by John Marshall in 1931, the idol appears to mimic certain characteristics that match the Mother Goddess belief common in many early Near East civilizations. Sculptures and figurines depicting women have been observed as part of Harappan culture and religion, as multiple female pieces were recovered from Marshall's archaeological digs. These figures were not categorized correctly, according to Marshall, meaning that where they were recovered from the site is not actually clear. One of said figures, pictured below, is 18.7 cm tall and is currently on display at the National Museum of Pakistan, in Karachi. The fertility and motherhood aspects on display on the idols is represented by the female genitalia that is presented in an almost exaggerated style as stated by Marshall, with him inferring that such figurines are offerings to the goddess, as opposed to the typical understanding of them being idols representing the goddess's likeness. Because of the figurines being unique in terms of hairstyles, body proportions, as well as headdresses and jewelry, there are theories as to who these figurines actually represent. Shereen Ratnagar theorizes that because of their uniqueness and dispersed discovery throughout the site that they could be figurines of ordinary household women, who commissioned these pieces to be used in rituals or healing ceremonies to help aforementioned individual women.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: A bronze statuette dubbed the "Dancing Girl", high and about 4,500 years old, was found in 'HR area' of Mohenjo-daro in 1926; it is now in the National Museum, New Delhi. In 1973, British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler described the item as his favorite statuette:She's about fifteen years old I should think, not more, but she stands there with bangles all the way up her arm and nothing else on. A girl perfectly, for the moment, perfectly confident of herself and the world. There's nothing like her, I think, in the world.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: John Marshall, another archeologist at Mohenjo-daro, described the figure as "a young girl, her hand on her hip in a half-impudent posture, and legs slightly forward as she beats time to the music with her legs and feet." The archaeologist Gregory Possehl said of the statuette, "We may not be certain that she was a dancer, but she was good at what she did and she knew it". The statue led to two important discoveries about the civilization: first, that they knew metal blending, casting and other sophisticated methods of working with ore, and secondly that entertainment, especially dance, was part of the culture.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: In 1927, a seated male soapstone figure was found in a building with unusually ornamental brickwork and a wall-niche. Though there is no evidence that priests or monarchs ruled Mohenjo-daro, archaeologists dubbed this dignified figure a "Priest-King". The sculpture is tall, and shows a neatly bearded man with pierced earlobes and a fillet around his head, possibly all that is left of a once-elaborate hairstyle or head-dress; his hair is combed back. He wears an armband, and a cloak with drilled trefoil, single circle and double circle motifs, which show traces of red. His eyes might have originally been inlaid.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: A seal discovered at the site bears the image of a seated, cross-legged and possibly ithyphallic figure surrounded by animals. The figure has been interpreted by some scholars as a yogi, and by others as a three-headed "proto-Shiva" as "Lord of Animals".


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Sir Mortimer Wheeler was especially fascinated with this artifact, which he believed to be at least 4,500 years old. The necklace has an S-shaped clasp with seven strands, each over 4 ft long, of bronze-metal bead-like nuggets which connect each arm of the "S" in filigree. Each strand has between 220 and 230 of the many-faceted nuggets, and there are about 1,600 nuggets in total. The necklace weighs about 250 grams in total, and is presently held in a private collection in India.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: An initial agreement to fund restoration was agreed through the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris on 27 May 1980. Contributions were made by a number of other countries to the project:


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Preservation work for Mohenjo-daro was suspended in December 1996 after funding from the Pakistani government and international organizations stopped. Site conservation work resumed in April 1997, using funds made available by the UNESCO. The 20-year funding plan provided $10 million to protect the site and standing structures from flooding. In 2011, responsibility for the preservation of the site was transferred to the government of Sindh.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Currently the site is threatened by groundwater salinity and improper restoration. Many walls have already collapsed, while others are crumbling from the ground up. In 2012, Pakistani archaeologists warned that, without improved conservation measures, the site could disappear by 2030.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: The Mohenjo-daro site was further threatened in January 2014, when Bilawal Bhutto Zardari of the Pakistan People's Party chose the site for Sindh Festival's inauguration ceremony. This would have exposed the site to mechanical operations, including excavation and drilling. Farzand Masih, head of the Department of Archaeology at Punjab University warned that such activity was banned under the Antiquity Act, saying "You cannot even hammer a nail at an archaeological site." On 31 January 2014, a case was filed in the Sindh High Court to bar the Sindh government from continuing with the event. The festival was held by PPP at the historic site, despite all the protest by both national and international historians and educators.


title: Mohenjo-daro

text: Mohenjo-daro has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification "BWh") with extremely hot summers and mild winters. The highest recorded temperature is , and the lowest recorded temperature is . Rainfall is low, and mainly occurs in the monsoon season (July–September). The average annual rainfall of Mohenjo-daro is 100.1 mm and mainly occurs in the monsoon season. The highest annual rainfall ever is 413.1 mm, recorded in 1994, and the lowest annual rainfall ever is 10 mm, recorded in 1987.


title: Amaterasu

text: Amaterasu, also known as Amaterasu Ōmikami () or Ōhirume no Muchi no Kami (), is the goddess of the sun in Japanese mythology. One of the major deities ("kami") of Shinto, she is also portrayed in Japan's earliest literary texts, the "Kojiki" (c. 712 CE) and the "Nihon Shoki" (720 CE), as the ruler (or one of the rulers) of the heavenly realm Takamagahara and the mythical ancestress of the Imperial House of Japan via her grandson Ninigi. Along with her siblings, the moon deity Tsukuyomi and the impetuous storm god Susanoo, she is considered to be one of the "Three Precious Children" (, ), the three most important offspring of the creator god Izanagi.


title: Amaterasu

text: Amaterasu's chief place of worship, the Grand Shrine of Ise in Ise, Mie Prefecture, is one of Shinto's holiest sites and a major pilgrimage center and tourist spot. As with other Shinto "kami", she is also enshrined in a number of Shinto shrines throughout Japan.


title: Amaterasu

text: The goddess is referred to as 'Amaterasu Ōmikami' ( / ; historical orthography: , "Amaterasu Ohomikami"; Old Japanese: "Amaterasu Opomikami") in the "Kojiki", while the "Nihon Shoki" gives the following variant names:


title: Amaterasu

text: 'Amaterasu' is thought to derive from the verb "amateru" "to illuminate / shine in the sky" ("ama" "sky, heaven" + "teru" "to shine") combined with the honorific auxiliary verb "-su", while 'Ōmikami' means "great [and] august deity" ("ō" "great" + honorific prefix "mi-" + "kami").


title: Amaterasu

text: Her other name, 'Ōhirume', is usually understood as meaning "great woman of the sun / daytime" (cf. "hiru" "day(time), noon", from "hi" "sun, day" + "me" "woman, lady"), though alternative etymologies such as "great spirit woman" (taking "hi" to mean "spirit") or "wife of the sun" (suggested by Orikuchi Shinobu, who put forward the theory that Amaterasu was originally conceived of as the consort or priestess of a male solar deity) had been proposed. A possible connection with the name Hiruko (the child rejected by the gods Izanagi and Izanami and one of Amaterasu's siblings) has also been suggested. To this name is appended the honorific "muchi", which is also seen in a few other theonyms such as 'Ō(a)namuchi' or 'Michinushi-no-Muchi' (an epithet of the three Munakata goddesses).


title: Amaterasu

text: As the ancestress of the imperial line, the epithet 'Sume(ra)-Ō(mi)kami' (, lit. "great imperial deity"; also read as 'Kōtaijin') is also applied to Amaterasu in names such as 'Amaterasu Sume(ra) Ō(mi)kami' (, also read as 'Tenshō Kōtaijin') and 'Amaterashimasu-Sume(ra)-Ōmikami' ().


title: Amaterasu

text: During the medieval and early modern periods, the deity was also referred to as 'Tenshō Daijin' (the "on'yomi" of ) or 'Amateru Ongami' (an alternate reading of the same).


title: Amaterasu

text: The name 'Amaterasu Ōmikami' has been translated into English in different ways. While a number of authors such as Donald Philippi rendered it as "heaven-illuminating great deity," Basil Hall Chamberlain argued (citing the authority of Motoori Norinaga) that it is more accurately understood to mean "shining in heaven", and accordingly translated it as "Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity". Gustav Heldt's 2014 translation of the "Kojiki", meanwhile, renders it as "the great and mighty spirit Heaven Shining."


title: Amaterasu

text: Both the "Kojiki" (ca. 712 CE) and the "Nihon Shoki" (720 CE) agree in their description of Amaterasu as the daughter of the god Izanagi and the elder sister of Tsukuyomi, the deity of the moon, and Susanoo, the god of storms and seas. The circumstances surrounding the birth of these three deities, known as the "Three Precious Children" (, "mihashira no uzu no miko" or "sankishi"), however, vary between sources:


title: Amaterasu

text: One of the variant legends in the "Shoki" relates that Amaterasu ordered her brother Tsukuyomi to go down to the terrestrial world (Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni, the "Central Land of Reed-Plains") and visit the goddess Ukemochi. When Ukemochi vomited foodstuffs out of her mouth and presented them to Tsukuyomi at a banquet, a disgusted and offended Tsukuyomi slew her and went back to Takamagahara. This act upset Amaterasu, causing her to split away from Tsukuyomi, thus separating night from day.


title: Amaterasu

text: Amaterasu then sent another god, Ame-no-Kumahito (), who found various food-crops and animals emerging from Ukemochi's corpse.


title: Amaterasu

text: Amaterasu had the grains collected and sown for humanity's use and, putting the silkworms in her mouth, reeled thread from them. From this began agriculture and sericulture.


title: Amaterasu

text: This account is not found in the "Kojiki", where a similar story is instead told of Susanoo and the goddess Ōgetsuhime.


title: Amaterasu

text: When Susanoo, the youngest of the three divine siblings, was expelled by his father Izanagi for his troublesome nature and incessant wailing on account of missing his deceased mother Izanami, he first went up to Takamagahara to say farewell to Amaterasu. A suspicious Amaterasu went out to meet him dressed in male clothing and clad in armor, at which Susanoo proposed a trial by pledge ("ukehi") to prove his sincerity. In the ritual, the two gods each chewed and spat out an object carried by the other (in some variants, an item they each possessed). Five (or six) gods and three goddesses were born as a result; Amaterasu adopted the males as her sons and gave the females – later known as the three Munakata goddesses – to Susanoo.


title: Amaterasu

text: Susanoo, declaring that he had won the trial as he had produced deities of the required gender, then "raged with victory" and proceeded to wreak havoc by destroying his sister's rice fields and defecating in her palace. While Amaterasu tolerated Susanoo's behavior at first, his "misdeeds did not cease, but became even more flagrant" until one day, he bore a hole in the rooftop of Amaterasu's weaving hall and hurled the "heavenly piebald horse" (, "ame no fuchikoma"), which he had flayed alive, into it. One of Amaterasu's weaving maidens was alarmed and struck her genitals against a weaving shuttle, killing her. In response, a furious Amaterasu shut herself inside the Ame-no-Iwayato (, "Heavenly Rock-Cave Door", also known as Ama-no-Iwato), plunging heaven and earth into total darkness.


title: Amaterasu

text: The main account in the "Shoki" has Amaterasu wounding herself with the shuttle when Susanoo threw the flayed horse in her weaving hall, while a variant account identifies the goddess who was killed during this incident as Wakahirume-no-Mikoto (, lit. "young woman of the sun / day(time)").


title: Amaterasu

text: Whereas the above accounts identify Susanoo's flaying of the horse as the immediate cause for Amaterasu hiding herself, yet another variant in the "Shoki" instead portrays it to be Susanoo defecating in her seat:


title: Amaterasu

text: After Amaterasu hid herself in the cave, the gods, led by Omoikane, the god of wisdom, conceived a plan to lure her out:


title: Amaterasu

text: Inside the cave, Amaterasu is surprised that the gods should show such mirth in her absence. Ame-no-Uzume answered that they were celebrating because another god greater than her had appeared. Curious, Amaterasu slid the boulder blocking the cave's entrance and peeked out, at which Ame-no-Koyane and Futodama brought out the mirror (the Yata-no-Kagami) and held it before her. As Amaterasu, struck by her own reflection (apparently thinking it to be the other deity Ame-no-Uzume spoke of), approached the mirror, Ame-no-Tajikarao took her hand and pulled her out of the cave, which was then immediately sealed with a straw rope, preventing her from going back inside. Thus was light restored to the world.


title: Amaterasu

text: As punishment for his unruly conduct, Susanoo was then driven out of Takamagahara by the other gods. Going down to earth, he arrived at the land of Izumo, where he killed the monstrous serpent Yamata no Orochi to rescue the goddess Kushinadahime, whom he eventually married. From the serpent's carcass Susanoo found the sword Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi (, "Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven"), also known as Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi ( "Grass-Cutting Sword"), which he presented to Amaterasu as a reconciliatory gift.


title: Amaterasu

text: After a time, Amaterasu and the primordial deity Takamimusubi (also known as Takagi-no-Kami) declared that Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni, which was then being ruled over by Ōkuninushi (also known as Ō(a)namuchi), the descendant ("Kojiki") or the son ("Shoki") of Susanoo, should be pacified and put under the jurisdiction of their progeny, claiming it to be teeming with "numerous deities which shone with a lustre like that of fireflies, and evil deities which buzzed like flies". Amaterasu ordered Ame-no-Oshihomimi, the firstborn of the five male children born during her contest with Susanoo, to go down to earth and establish his rule over it. However, after inspecting the land below, he deemed it to be in an uproar and refused to go any further. At the advice of Omoikane and the other deities, Amaterasu then dispatched another of her five sons, Ame no Hohi. Upon arriving, however, Ame no Hohi began to curry favor with Ōkuninushi and did not send back any report for three years. The heavenly deities then sent a third messenger, Ame-no-Wakahiko, who also ended up siding with Ōkuninushi and marrying his daughter Shitateruhime. After eight years, a female pheasant was sent to question Ame-no-Wakahiko, who killed it with his bow and arrow. The blood-stained arrow flew straight up to Takamagahara at the feet of Amaterasu and Takamimusubi, who then threw it back to earth with a curse, killing Ame-no-Wakahiko in his sleep.


title: Amaterasu

text: The preceding messengers having thus failed to complete their task, the heavenly gods finally sent the warrior deities Futsunushi and Takemikazuchi to remonstrate with Ōkuninushi. At the advice of his son Kotoshironushi, Ōkuninushi agreed to abdicate and left the physical realm to govern the unseen spirit world, which was given to him in exchange. The two gods then went around Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni, killing those who resisted them and rewarding those who rendered submission, before going back to heaven.


title: Amaterasu

text: With the earth now pacified, Amaterasu and Takamimusubi again commanded Ame-no-Oshihomimi to descend and rule it. He, however, again demurred and suggested that his son Ninigi be sent instead. Amaterasu thus bequeathed to Ninigi Kusanagi, the sword Susanoo gave her, along with the two items used to lure her out of the Ame-no-Iwayato: the mirror Yata-no-Kagami and the jewel Yasakani no Magatama. With a number of gods serving as his retinue, Ninigi came down from heaven to Mount Takachiho in the land of Himuka and built his palace there. Ninigi became the ancestor of the emperors of Japan, while the mirror, jewel, and sword he brought with him became the three sacred treasures of the imperial house. Five of the gods who accompanied him in his descent - Ame-no-Koyane, Futodama, Ame-no-Uzume, Ishikoridome (the maker of the mirror), and Tamanoya (the maker of the jewel) - meanwhile became the ancestors of the clans involved in court ceremonial such as the Nakatomi and the .


title: Amaterasu

text: Many years later, Ninigi's great-grandson, Kamuyamato-Iwarebiko (later known as Emperor Jimmu), decided to leave Himuka in search of a new home with his elder brother Itsuse. Migrating eastward, they encountered various gods and local tribes who either submitted to them or resisted them. After Itsuse died of wounds sustained during a battle against a chieftain named Nagasunehiko, Iwarebiko retreated and went to Kumano, located on the southern part of the Kii Peninsula. While there, he and his army were enchanted by a god in the shape of a giant bear and fell into a deep sleep. At that moment, a local named Takakuraji had a dream in which Amaterasu and Takamimusubi commanded the god Takemikazuchi to help Iwarebiko. Takemikazuchi then dropped his sword, Futsu-no-Mitama, into Takakuraji's storehouse, ordering him to give it to Iwarebiko. Upon waking up and discovering the sword inside the storehouse, Takakuraji went to where Iwarebiko was and presented it to him. The magic power of the Futsu-no-Mitama immediately exterminated the evil gods of the region and roused Iwarebiko and his men from their slumber.


title: Amaterasu

text: Continuing their journey, the army soon found themselves stranded in the mountains. Takamimusubi (so the "Kojiki") or Amaterasu ("Shoki") then told Iwarebiko in a dream that the giant crow Yatagarasu would be sent to guide them in their way. Soon enough, the bird appeared and led Iwarebiko and his men to safety. At length, Iwarebiko arrived at the land of Yamato (modern Nara Prefecture) and defeated Nagasunehiko, thereby avenging his brother Itsuse. He then established his palace-capital at Kashihara and ruled therein.


title: Amaterasu

text: An anecdote concerning Emperor Sujin relates that Amaterasu (via the Yata-no-Kagami and the Kusanagi sword) and Yamato-no-Ōkunitama, the tutelary deity of Yamato, were originally worshiped in the great hall of the imperial palace. When a series of plagues broke out during Sujin's reign, he "dreaded [...] the power of these Gods, and did not feel secure in their dwelling together." He thus entrusted the mirror and the sword to his daughter Toyosukiirihime, who brought them to the village of Kasanuhi, and delegated the worship of Yamato-no-Ōkunitama to another daughter, Nunakiirihime. When the pestilence showed no sign of abating, he then performed divination, which revealed the plague to have been caused by Ōmononushi, the god of Mount Miwa. When the god was offered proper worship as per his demands, the epidemic ceased.


title: Amaterasu

text: During the reign of Sujin's son and successor, Emperor Suinin, custody of the sacred treasures were transferred from Toyosukiirihime to Suinin's daughter Yamatohime, who took them first to "Sasahata in Uda" to the east of Miwa. Heading north to Ōmi, she then eastwards to Mino and proceeded south to Ise, where she received a revelation from Amaterasu:


title: Amaterasu

text: This account serves as the origin myth of the Grand Shrine of Ise, Amaterasu's chief place of worship.


title: Amaterasu

text: Later, when Suinin's grandson Prince Ousu (also known as Yamato Takeru) went to Ise to visit his aunt Yamatohime before going to conquer and pacify the eastern regions on the command of his father, Emperor Keikō, he was given the divine sword to protect him in times of peril. It eventually came in handy when Yamato Takeru was lured onto an open grassland by a treacherous chieftain, who then set fire to the grass to entrap him. Desperate, Yamato Takeru used the sword to cut the grass around him (a variant in the "Shoki" has the sword miraculously mow the grass of its own accord) and lit a counter-fire to keep the fire away. This incident explains the sword's name ("Grass Cutter"). On his way home from the east, Yamato Takeru – apparently blinded by hubris – left the Kusanagi in the care of his second wife, Miyazuhime of Owari, and went to confront the god of Mount Ibuki on his own. Without the sword's protection, he fell prey to the god's enchantment and became ill and died afterwards. Thus the Kusanagi stayed in Owari, where it was enshrined in the shrine of Atsuta.


title: Amaterasu

text: At one time, when Emperor Chūai was on a campaign against the Kumaso tribes of Kyushu, his consort Jingū was possessed by unknown gods who told Chūai of a land rich in treasure located on the other side of the sea that is his for the taking. When Chūai doubted their words and accused them of being deceitful, the gods laid a curse upon him that he should die "without possessing this land." (The "Kojiki" and the "Shoki" diverge at this point: in the former, Chūai dies almost immediately after being cursed, while in the latter, he dies of a sudden illness a few months after.)


title: Amaterasu

text: After Chūai's death, Jingū performed divination to ascertain which gods had spoken to her husband. The deities identified themselves as Tsukisakaki Izu no Mitama Amazakaru Mukatsuhime no Mikoto (, "The Awe-inspiring Spirit of the Planted "Sakaki", the Lady of Sky-distant Mukatsu", usually interpreted as the "aramitama" or 'violent spirit' of Amaterasu), Kotoshironushi, and the three gods of Sumie (Sumiyoshi): Uwatsutsunoo, Nakatsutsunoo, and Sokotsutsunoo. Worshiping the gods in accordance with their instructions, Jingū then set out to conquer the promised land beyond the sea: the three kingdoms of Korea.


title: Amaterasu

text: When Jingū returned victorious to Japan, she enshrined the deities in places of their own choosing; Amaterasu, warning Jingū not to take her "aramitama" along to the capital, instructed her to install it in Hirota, the harbor where the empress disembarked.


title: Amaterasu

text: She is a virgin goddess and never engages in sexual relationships. However, according to Nozomu Kawamura, she was a consort to a sun god and some telling stories place Tsukuyomi as her husband.


title: Amaterasu

text: Amaterasu has many siblings most notably Susanoo and Tsukiyomi. Basil Hall Chamberlain used the words "elder brother" to translate her dialog referring to Susanoo in the "Kojiki", even though he noted that she was his elder sister. The word (which was also used by Izanami to address her elder brother and husband Izanagi) was "nase" (phonetically spelt in the "Kojiki"; modern dictionaries use the semantic spelling 汝兄, whose kanji literally mean "thou[, my] elder brother"), an ancient term used only by females to refer to their brothers, who had higher status than them. (As opposed to males using ( in the "Kojiki") to refer to their sisters, who had lower status than them.) The "Nihon Shoki" used the Chinese word ("younger brother") instead.


title: Amaterasu

text: Some tellings say she had a sister named Wakahirume who was a weaving maiden and helped Amaterasu weave clothes for the other kami in heaven. Wakahirume was later accidentally killed by Susanoo.


title: Amaterasu

text: Amaterasu has 5 sons Ame-no-oshihomimi, Ame no Hohi, Amatsuhikone, Ikutsuhikone, and Kumanokusubi, who were given birth to by Susanoo by chewing her hair jewels. According to one account in the "Nihon Shoki", it was because these children were male that Susanoo won during the ritual to prove his intent, even though they were not his children, but hers. This explanation of the outcome of the ritual contradicts that in the "Kojiki", according to which it was because she gave birth to female children using his sword, and those children were his. The "Kojiki" claims he won because he had daughters to whom she gave birth, while the "Nihon Shoki" claims he won because he himself gave birth to her sons. Several figures and noble clans claim descent from Amaterasu most notably the Japanese imperial family through Emperor Jimmu who descended from her grandson Ninigi.


title: Amaterasu

text: Her son Ame no Hohi is considered the ancestral kami of clans in Izumo which includes the Haji clan, Sugawara clan, and the Senge clan. The legendary sumo wrestler Nomi no Sukune is believed to be a 14th generation descendant of Amenohohi.


title: Amaterasu

text: The Ise Grand Shrine ( "Ise Jingū") located in Ise, Mie Prefecture, Japan, houses the inner shrine, Naiku, dedicated to Amaterasu. Her sacred mirror, Yata no Kagami, is said to be kept at this shrine as one of the Imperial regalia objects. A ceremony known as () is held every twenty years at this shrine to honor the many deities enshrined, which is formed by 125 shrines altogether. New shrine buildings are built at a location adjacent to the site first. After the transfer of the object of worship, new clothing and treasure and offering food to the goddess the old buildings are taken apart. The building materials taken apart are given to many other shrines and buildings to renovate. This practice is a part of the Shinto faith and has been practiced since the year 690 CE, but is not only for Amaterasu but also for many other deities enshrined in Ise Grand Shrine. Additionally, from the late 7th century to the 14th century, an unmarried princess of the Imperial Family, called "Saiō" () or "itsuki no miko" (), served as the sacred priestess of Amaterasu at the Ise Shrine upon every new dynasty.


title: Amaterasu

text: The in Takachiho, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan is also dedicated to Amaterasu and sits above the gorge containing Ama-no-Iwato.


title: Amaterasu

text: The worship of Amaterasu to the exclusion of other "kami" has been described as "the cult of the sun." This phrase may also refer to the early pre-archipelagoan worship of the sun.


title: Amaterasu

text: According to the "Engishiki" () and "Sandai Jitsuroku" () of the Heian period, the sun goddess had many shrines named "Amateru" or "Amateru-mitama", which were mostly located in the Kinki area. However, there have also been records of a shrine on Tsushima Island, coined as either "Teruhi Gongen" or the "Shining Sun Deity" during medieval times. It was later found that such a shrine was meant for a male sun deity named Ameno-himitama.


title: Amaterasu

text: Amaterasu was also once worshiped at Hinokuma shrines. The Hinokuma shrines were used to worship the goddess by the Ama people in the Kii Provinces. Because the Ama people were believed to have been fishermen, researchers have conjectured that the goddess was also worshiped for a possible connection to the sea.


title: Amaterasu

text: Amaterasu, while primarily being the goddess of the sun, is also sometimes worshiped as having connections with other aspects and forms of nature. Amaterasu can also be considered a goddess of the wind and typhoons alongside her brother, and even possibly death. There are many connections between local legends in the Ise region with other goddesses of nature, such as a nameless goddess of the underworld and sea. It's possible that Amaterasu's name became associated with these legends in the Shinto religion as it grew throughout Japan.


title: Amaterasu

text: In contrast, Amaterasu, while enshrined at other locations, also can be seen as the goddess that represents Japan and its ethnicity. The many differences in Shinto religion and mythology can be due to how different local gods and beliefs clashed. In the Meiji Era, the belief in Amaterasu fought against the Izumo belief in Ōkuninushi for spiritual control over the land of Japan. During this time, the religious nature of Okininushi may have been changed to be included in Shinto mythology. Osagawara Shouzo built shrines in other countries to mainly spread Japan's culture and Shinto religion. It, however, was usually seen as the worshiping of Japan itself, rather than Amaterasu. Most of these colonial and oversea shrines were destroyed after WWII.


title: Amaterasu

text: Outside of being worshiped as a sun goddess, some have argued that Amaterasu was once related to snakes. There was a legend circulating among the Ise Priests that essentially described an encounter of Amaterasu sleeping with the Saiō every night in the form of a snake or lizard, evidenced by fallen scales in the priestess' bed. This was recorded by a medieval monk in his diary, which stated that "in ancient times Amaterasu was regarded as a snake deity or as a sun deity." In the Ise kanjō, the god's snake form is considered an embodiment of the "three poisons", namely greed, anger, and ignorance. Amaterasu is also linked to a snake cult, which is also tied to the theory that the initial gender of the goddess was male.


title: Amaterasu

text: In general, some of these Amaterasu–dragon associations have been in reference to Japanese plays. One example has been within the Chikubushima tradition in which the dragon goddess Benzaiten was the emanation of Amaterasu. Following that, in the Japanese epic, Taiheki, one of the characters, Nitta Yoshisada (), made comparisons with Amaterasu and a dragon with the quote: “I have heard that the Sun Goddess of Ise … conceals her true being in the august image of Vairocana, and that she has appeared in this world in the guise of a dragon god of the blue ocean.”


title: Amaterasu

text: Another tradition of the Heavenly Cave story depicts Amaterasu as a "dragon-fox" ("shinko" or "tatsugitsune") during her descent to the famed cave because it is a type of animal/kami that emits light from its entire body.


title: Amaterasu

text: Because Amaterasu has the highest position among the Shinto deities, there has been debate on her influence and relation to women's positions in early Japanese society. Some scholars have argued that the goddess' presence and high stature within the "kami" system could suggest that early rulers in Japan were female. Others have argued the goddess' presence implies strong influences female priests had in Japanese politics and religion.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: Kim's Convenience is a Canadian television sitcom that aired on CBC Television from October 2016 to April 2021. It depicts the Korean Canadian Kim family that runs a convenience store in the Moss Park neighbourhood of Toronto: parents "Appa" (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) and "Umma" (Jean Yoon) – Korean for "dad" and "mom", respectively – along with their daughter Janet (Andrea Bang) and estranged son Jung (Simu Liu). Other characters include Jung's friend and coworker Kimchee (Andrew Phung), his manager Shannon (Nicole Power) and Janet's friend Gerald Tremblay (Ben Beauchemin). The series is based on Ins Choi's 2011 play of the same name.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: The first season was filmed from June to August 2016 at Showline Studios in Toronto. It is produced by Thunderbird Films in conjunction with Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre Company, with Lee and Yoon reprising their roles from the play. Scripts were created by Choi and Kevin White, who previously wrote for "Corner Gas".


title: Kim's Convenience

text: The second season premiered September 26, 2017. In July 2018, the series became available outside of Canada when it debuted internationally on Netflix. However, since January 2020, it is no longer available in all markets (e.g., the Netherlands), making the fourth season unavailable to a worldwide audience. The third season premiered January 8, 2019 and the fourth premiered January 7, 2020.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: On March 31, 2020, it was initially announced that the show had been renewed for two more seasons, and on March 8, 2021, it was revealed that the show would end after the fifth season, due to the departure of the show's two co-creators. Since the show's cancellation, several of the show's actors have publicly discussed production issues, particularly criticising a lack of diversity among behind-the-scenes staff.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: A spin-off series, "Strays", began production in February 2021 after a one-year delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: Interior scenes at the store, Handy Car Rental and home are shot at Studio City Toronto (formerly Showline Studios) at 915 Lake Shore Boulevard East, where an exact replica of Mimi Variety, the model for the store, has been recreated. The studio is also used as the exterior of the car rental business. One episode was shot in Koreatown at Bloor and Christie Streets.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: The long-established Mimi Variety store at 252 Queen Street East is used for exterior shots and as the model for the interior set built in the studio. While the signage has been adjusted, the "Kim's Convenience" sign uses the same red and green lettering as the original sign. All other sections, such as the "7 DAYS A WEEK" element, are the original signage of Mimi Variety. The owners of the Mimi Variety store have retained the new signage, even though the business has not officially changed its name. The producers also painted a mural on an exterior wall, mostly seen in the credit sequence and for stock transitional shots, as well as for promotional shots.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: Episodes for season 5 were filmed in 2020 under strict protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Simu Liu had planned to return to Toronto for the start of production once he was finished shooting "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" in Australia. Since filming for both projects overlapped due to delays caused by the pandemic, he was only able to return to Toronto toward the end of production, where he continued shooting for nine days until he had completed "all the stuff that he missed out on".


title: Kim's Convenience

text: On March 8, 2021, it was announced that the series would be coming to an end after the fifth season, despite being renewed for a sixth season a year earlier, due to the departure of series creators Choi and White, who decided to move on to other projects after the production completion on the fifth season. The show's producers, Thunderbird Films, ultimately decided not to move forward with the sixth season, believing that they would not be able to deliver the "same heart and quality". One of the aforementioned projects was a spin-off of the show, "Strays", which would center on character Shannon Ross, played by Nicole Power, and was developed by White with "Kim's" producer Ivan Fecan serving as executive producer. Fecan explained that Choi was unsure of how to continue with the show beyond the fifth season. The cast and crew attempted to persuade Choi to remain for the show's planned sixth and final season, but ultimately Choi decided to depart the show. Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who played Appa in both the series and the original play, said that Choi stopped contacting Lee after speaking with him about staying on the show. He later said the series "died from within...No matter how good it can be, if you don’t deal with issues from within and try to gloss it over because everything on the surface looks fantastic and idealistic, then you are just asking for trouble. I think that’s the unfortunate lesson from this whole thing.” Fecan decided to end the show as he believed the series could not continue without Choi.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: On June 2, 2021, cast member Simu Liu claimed that the show suffered from a lack of diversity among writers and producers and that there was discord behind the scenes. He also claimed that actors were not allowed to offer creative input and that the cast was poorly paid. Shortly after, on June 6, 2021, actor Jean Yoon stated on social media that "[A]s an Asian Canadian woman, a Korean-Canadian woman w [sic] more experience and knowledge of the world of my characters, the lack of Asian female, especially Korean writers in the writers' room of "Kim's [Convenience]" made my life very difficult and the experience of working on the show painful." Liu also stated that he would not reprise his role in the "Strays" spin-off due to it focusing on Nicole Power's character Shannon, the only white main character from the show. John Doyle of "The Globe and Mail" noted the complexities of the situation, explaining that since all of the other major characters in "Kim's Convenience" were drawn from Ins Choi's original theatrical play, and Shannon was the only character who had been newly created specifically for the television series, she was the only character who was the intellectual property of the show's producers and thus the only one who could be spun off without Choi's participation.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: Entertainment One released the first two seasons of "Kim's Convenience" on Region 1 DVD on March 7, 2017.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: The show was released to mostly positive reception from critics. The first season holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 12 critics' reviews. John Doyle of "The Globe and Mail" wrote that the show "stays away from the pseudo-seriousness that could easily plague a comedy about immigrants and family dynamics." In conclusion, Doyle called it "a clever, generally engaging screwball comedy with an eye on entertainment". The "Toronto Star"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Tony Wong wrote that "the show is good. Possibly even great. The dialogue is sharp, on point and borderline subversive. It has the potential to be a future classic. It has bite...It's funny and true, but not a reality we typically see reflected on television." Reviewing the series following its release for US audiences on Netflix, Bryan Washington of "Vulture" remarked on the series' treatment of political issues surrounding immigrants, noting the tensions are never truly in the background but also do not take precedence over the comedy, remarking "I haven't laughed as hard all year, with feeling, as I have alongside the series."


title: Kim's Convenience

text: Despite the series being based on a play by Korean Canadian Ins Choi, and Choi writing over a third of the 65 episodes, Rick Salutin, also of the "Star", was less enthusiastic of the show's portrayal of minorities on television saying "only accents are funny in Kim's Convenience" and that audiences are "laughing at the characters not with them". Salutin concluded by stating "I don't see why supporting Canadian culture means you should be uncritical, as if someone will take it away if you weren't. You should be most critical about what you care most about like public education or the CBC, you want them to be good not just there". Although not directly a response to Salutin's review, actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (Appa) has questioned critics' inclination to cite accents as offensive:


title: Kim's Convenience

text: Mark Breslin, founder of the Canadian comedy club chain Yuk Yuk's, was critical of the show's lack of strong humour:


title: Kim's Convenience

text: Midway through its first season, "Kim's Convenience" was estimated by Numeris to have an average audience of 933,000 per episode, with 39% of viewers between the ages of 25 and 54.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: For the 5th Canadian Screen Awards in 2017, "Kim's Convenience" garnered 11 nominations, including Best Comedy Series, Best Actor in a Comedy Series (Lee), Best Actress in a Comedy Series (Yoon and Bang), and Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (Phung). Lee won the award for best actor in a continuing leading comedic role for his portrayal of Appa, and Phung won Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Kimchee.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: "Kim's Convenience" won two awards at the 2017 Toronto ACTRA Awards, Outstanding Performance - Female for actress Jean Yoon and the Members’ Choice Series Ensemble Award for Best Cast.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: The first-season episodes "Ddong Chim" and "Janet's Photos" are 2017 Writers Guild of Canada's Canadian Screenwriting Awards finalists in the TV comedy category.


title: Kim's Convenience

text: At the 6th Canadian Screen Awards in 2018, the series received 12 nominations. It won the awards for Best Comedy Series, Best Actor in a Comedy Series (Lee) and Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (Phung).


title: Kim's Convenience

text: As the show's third season aired in the winter of 2019 rather than the fall of 2018, it did not air inside the eligibility period for the 7th Canadian Screen Awards.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The Rugby World Cup is a men's rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams. The tournament is administered by World Rugby, the sport's international governing body. The winners are awarded the Webb Ellis Cup, named after William Webb Ellis, who according to a popular legend, invented rugby by picking up the ball during a football game.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The tournament was first held in 1987 and was co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia. Four countries have won the trophy; New Zealand and South Africa three times, Australia twice, and England once. South Africa is the current champion, having defeated England in the 2019 tournament final.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Sixteen teams participated in the tournament from 1987 until 1995; since 1999, twenty teams have participated in each tournament. Japan hosted the 2019 Rugby World Cup and France will host the next in 2023.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Beginning 2021, the women's equivalent tournament was officially renamed Rugby World Cup to promote equality with the men's game.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Under the current format, 20 teams qualify for each Rugby World Cup. Twelve teams qualify automatically based on their performance in the previous World Cup — the top three teams in each of the four group (pool) stages of the previous tournament qualify for the next tournament as seeded teams. The qualification system for the remaining eight places is region-based, with a total eight teams allocated for Europe, five for Oceania, three for the Americas, two for Africa, and one for Asia. The last place is determined by an intercontinental play-off.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The tournament involves twenty nations competing over six weeks. There are two stages — a pool, followed by a knockout round. Nations are divided into four pools, A through to D, of five nations each. The teams are seeded based on the World Rankings. The four highest-ranked teams are drawn into pools A to D. The next four highest-ranked teams are then drawn into pools A to D, followed by the next four. The remaining positions in each pool are filled by the qualifiers.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Nations play four pool games, playing their respective pool members once each. A bonus points system is used during pool play. If two or more teams are level on points, a system of criteria determines the higher ranked.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Eight teams — the winner and runner-up from each of the four pools — enter the knockout stage. The knockout stage consists of quarter- and semi-finals, and then the final. The winner of each pool is placed against a runner-up of a different pool in a quarter-final. The winner of each quarter-final goes on to the semi-finals, and the respective winners proceed to the final. Losers of the semi-finals contest for third place, called the 'Bronze Final'. If a match in the knockout stages ends in a draw, the winner is determined through extra time. If that fails, the match goes into sudden death and the next team to score any points is the winner.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Prior to the Rugby World Cup, there was no truly global rugby union competition, but there were a number of other tournaments. One of the oldest is the annual Six Nations Championship, which started in 1883 as the Home Nations Championship, a tournament between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It expanded to the Five Nations in 1910, when France joined the tournament. France did not participate from 1931 to 1939, during which period it reverted to a Home Nations championship. In 2000, Italy joined the competition, which became the Six Nations.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Rugby union was also played at the Summer Olympic Games, first appearing at the 1900 Paris games and subsequently at London in 1908, Antwerp in 1920, and Paris again in 1924. France won the first gold medal, then Australasia, with the last two being won by the United States. However rugby union ceased to be on Olympic program after 1924.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The idea of a Rugby World Cup had been suggested on numerous occasions going back to the 1950s, but met with opposition from most unions in the IRFB. The idea resurfaced several times in the early 1980s, with the Australian Rugby Union (ARU; now known as Rugby Australia) in 1983, and the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU; now known as New Zealand Rugby) in 1984 independently proposing the establishment of a world cup. A proposal was again put to the IRFB in 1985 and this time passed 10–6. The delegates from Australia, France, New Zealand and South Africa all voted for the proposal, and the delegates from Ireland and Scotland against; the English and Welsh delegates were split, with one from each country for and one against.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The inaugural tournament, jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand, was held in May and June 1987, with sixteen nations taking part. The inaugural World Cup in 1987, did not involve any qualifying process; instead, the 16 places were automatically filled by seven eligible International Rugby Football Board (IRFB, now World Rugby) member nations, and the rest by invitation. New Zealand became the first-ever champions, defeating France 29–9 in the final. The subsequent 1991 tournament was hosted by England, with matches played throughout Britain, Ireland and France. Qualifying tournaments were introduced for the second tournament, where eight of the sixteen places were contested in a twenty-four-nation tournament. This tournament saw the introduction of a qualifying tournament; eight places were allocated to the quarter-finalists from 1987, and the remaining eight decided by a thirty-five nation qualifying tournament. Australia won the second tournament, defeating England 12–6 in the final.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: In 1992, eight years after their last official series, South Africa hosted New Zealand in a one-off test match. The resumption of international rugby in South Africa came after the dismantling of the apartheid system. With their return to test rugby, South Africa were selected to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup. After upsetting Australia in the opening match, South Africa continued to advance through the tournament until they met New Zealand in the final. After a tense final that went into extra time, South Africa emerged 15–12 winners, with then President Nelson Mandela, wearing a Springbok jersey, presenting the trophy to South Africa's captain, Francois Pienaar.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The 1999 tournament was hosted by Wales with matches also being held throughout the rest of the United Kingdom, Ireland and France. The tournament included a repechage system, alongside specific regional qualifying places. The number of participating nations was increased from sixteen to twenty — and has remained to date at twenty. Australia claimed their second title, defeating France in the final. The combination of the sport turning professional after 1995 and the increase in teams from sixteen to twenty led to a number of remarkably lopsided results in both the 1999 and 2003 tournaments, with two matches in each tournament resulting in teams scoring over 100 points; Australia's 142–0 win over Namibia in 2003 stands as the most lopsided score in Rugby World Cup history.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: In 2003 and 2007, the qualifying format allowed for eight of the twenty available positions to be automatically filled by the eight quarter-finalists of the previous tournament. The remaining twelve positions were filled by continental qualifying tournaments. Ten positions were filled by teams qualifying directly through continental competitions. Another two places were allocated for a cross-continental repechage.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The 2003 event was hosted by Australia, although it was originally intended to be held jointly with New Zealand. England emerged as champions defeating Australia in extra time. England's win broke the southern hemisphere's dominance in the event. Such was the celebration of England's victory that an estimated 750,000 people gathered in central London to greet the team, making the day the largest sporting celebration of its kind ever in the United Kingdom.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The 2007 competition was hosted by France, with matches also being held in Wales and Scotland. South Africa claimed their second title by defeating defending champions England 15–6. The biggest story of the tournament, however, was Argentina who racked up wins against some of the top European teams — France, Ireland, and Scotland — to finish first in the Pool of death and finish third overall in the tournament. The attention from Argentina's performance led to Argentina participating in SANZAAR and the professionalization of rugby in Argentina.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The 2011 tournament was awarded to New Zealand in November 2005, ahead of bids from Japan and South Africa. The All Blacks reclaimed their place atop the rugby world with a narrow 8–7 win over France in the 2011 final.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The opening weekend of the 2015 tournament, hosted by England, generated the biggest upset in Rugby World Cup history when Japan, who had not won a single World Cup match since 1991, defeated heavily favored South Africa. Overall, New Zealand once again won the final, this time against Australia. In doing so, they became the first team in World Cup history to win three titles, as well as the first to successfully defend a title.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Japan's hosting of the 2019 World Cup marked the first time the tournament had been held outside the traditional rugby strongholds; Japan won all four of their pool matches to top their group and qualify to the quarter-finals for the first time. The tournament saw South Africa claim their third trophy to match New Zealand for the most Rugby World Cup titles. South Africa defeated England 32–12 in the final.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Starting in 2021, gender designations were removed from the titles of the men's and women's World Cups. Accordingly, all World Cups for men and women will officially bear the "Rugby World Cup" name. The first tournament to be affected by the new policy will be the next women's tournament to be held in New Zealand in 2022, which will retain its original title of "Rugby World Cup 2021" despite having been delayed from its original schedule due to COVID-19 issues.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Winners of the Rugby World Cup are presented with the Webb Ellis Cup, named after William Webb Ellis. The trophy is also referred to simply as the "Rugby World Cup". The trophy was chosen in 1987 for use in the competition, and was created in 1906 by Garrard's Crown Jewellers. The trophy is restored after each game by fellow Royal Warrant holder Thomas Lyte. The words 'The International Rugby Football Board' and 'The Webb Ellis Cup' are engraved on the face of the cup. It stands thirty-eight centimetres high and is silver gilded in gold, and supported by two cast scroll handles, one with the head of a satyr, and the other a head of a nymph. In Australia the trophy is colloquially known as "Bill" — a reference to William Webb Ellis.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Tournaments are organised by Rugby World Cup Ltd (RWCL), which is itself owned by World Rugby. The selection of host is decided by a vote of World Rugby Council members. The voting procedure is managed by a team of independent auditors, and the voting kept secret. The host nation is generally selected five or six years before the competition.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The tournament has been hosted by multiple nations. For example, the 1987 tournament was co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand. World Rugby requires that the hosts must have a venue with a capacity of at least 60,000 spectators for the final. Host nations sometimes construct or upgrade stadia in preparation for the World Cup, such as Millennium Stadium – purpose built for the 1999 tournament – and Eden Park, upgraded for 2011. The first country outside of the traditional rugby nations of SANZAAR or the Six Nations to be awarded the hosting rights was 2019 host Japan. France will host the 2023 tournament. The next tournament to be hosted by a nation outside the traditional nations will be the 2031 tournament in the United States.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Organizers of the Rugby World Cup, as well as the Global Sports Impact, state that the Rugby World Cup is the third largest sporting event in the world, behind only the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics, although other sources question whether this is accurate.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Reports emanating from World Rugby and its business partners have frequently touted the tournament's media growth, with cumulative worldwide television audiences of 300 million for the inaugural 1987 tournament, 1.75 billion in 1991, 2.67 billion in 1995, 3 billion in 1999, 3.5 billion in 2003, and 4 billion in 2007. The 4 billion figure was widely dismissed as the global audience for television is estimated to be about 4.2 billion.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: However, independent reviews have called into question the methodology of those growth estimates, pointing to factual inconsistencies. The event's supposed drawing power outside of a handful of rugby strongholds was also downplayed significantly, with an estimated 97 percent of the 33 million average audience produced by the 2007 final coming from Australasia, South Africa, the British Isles and France. Other sports have been accused of exaggerating their television reach over the years; such claims are not exclusive to the Rugby World Cup.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: While the event's global popularity remains a matter of dispute, high interest in traditional rugby nations is well documented. The 2003 final, between Australia and England, became the most watched rugby union match in the history of Australian television.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: †Typhoon Hagibis caused 3 group stage matches to be cancelled permanently. As a result, only 45 of the scheduled 48 matches were played in the 2019 Rugby World Cup.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: Twenty-five nations have participated at the Rugby World Cup (excluding qualifying tournaments). The only nations to host and win a tournament are New Zealand (1987 and 2011) and South Africa (1995). The performance of other host nations includes England (1991 final hosts) and Australia (2003 hosts) both finishing runners-up, while France (2007 hosts) finished fourth, and Wales (1999 hosts) and Japan (2019 hosts) reached the quarter-finals. Wales became the first host nation to be eliminated at the pool stages in 1991 while England became the first solo host nation to be eliminated at the pool stages in 2015. Of the twenty-five nations that have participated in at least one tournament, eleven of them have never missed a tournament.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: South Africa was excluded from the first two tournaments due to a sporting boycott during the apartheid era.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The record for most points overall is held by English player Jonny Wilkinson, who scored 277 during his World Cup career. New Zealand All Black Grant Fox holds the record for most points in one competition, with 126 in 1987; Jason Leonard of England holds the record for most World Cup matches: 22 between 1991 and 2003. All Black Simon Culhane holds the record for most points in a match by one player, 45, as well as the record for most conversions in a match, 20. All Black Marc Ellis holds the record for most tries in a match, six, which he scored against Japan in 1995.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: New Zealand All Black Jonah Lomu is the youngest player to appear in a final – aged 20 years and 43 days at the 1995 Final. Lomu (playing in two tournaments) and South African Bryan Habana (playing in three tournaments) share the record for most total World Cup tournament tries, both scoring 15. Lomu (in 1999) and Habana (in 2007) also share the record, along with All Black Julian Savea (in 2015), for most tries in a tournament, with 8 each. South Africa's Jannie de Beer kicked five drop-goals against England in 1999 – an individual record for a single World Cup match. The record for most penalties in a match is 8, held by Australian Matt Burke, Argentinian Gonzalo Quesada, Scotland's Gavin Hastings and France's Thierry Lacroix, with Quesada also holding the record for most penalties in a tournament, with 31.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: The most points scored in a game is 145, by the All Blacks against Japan in 1995, while the widest winning margin is 142, held by Australia in a match against Namibia in 2003.


title: Rugby World Cup

text: A total of 25 players have been sent off (red carded) in the tournament. Welsh lock Huw Richards was the first, while playing against New Zealand in 1987. No player has been red carded more than once.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The population of the United Kingdom was estimated at over 67.0 million in 2020. It is the 21st most populated country in the world and has a population density of 270 people per square kilometre (700 people per square mile), with England having significantly greater density than Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Almost a third of the population lives in South East England, which is predominantly urban and suburban, with about 9 million in the capital city, London, whose population density is just over 5,200 per square kilometre (13,468 per sq mi).


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The population of the UK has undergone demographic transition—that is, the transition from a (typically) pre-industrial population, with high birth and mortality rates and slow population growth, through a stage of falling mortality and faster rates of population growth, to a stage of low birth and mortality rates with, again, lower rates of growth. This growth through 'natural change' has been accompanied in the past two decades by growth through net migration into the United Kingdom, which since 1999 has exceeded natural change.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The United Kingdom's high literacy rate (99% at age 15 and above) is attributable to universal state education, introduced at the primary level in 1870 (Scotland 1872, free 1890) and at the secondary level in 1900. Parents are obliged to have their children educated from the ages of 5 to 16 years (18 in England from 2013), and can continue education free of charge in the form of A-Levels, vocational training, and apprenticeship until the age of 18.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The United Kingdom's population is predominantly White British (81.88% at the 2011 Census), but due to migration from Commonwealth nations, Britain has become ethnically diverse. The second and third largest non-white racial groups are Asian British at 7% of the population, followed by Black British people at 3%.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The main language of the country is British English. Some Celtic languages, namely Scottish Gaelic and Irish, are still spoken by minorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland, respectively, and Cornish has been revived to a limited degree in Cornwall; but the predominant language in all these areas is English. Welsh is widely spoken as a first language in parts of North and West Wales, and to lesser extent in South East Wales, where English is the dominant first language.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: Roman Britain had an estimated population between 2.8 million and 3 million at the end of the second century AD. At the end of the fourth century, it had an estimated population of 3.6 million, of whom 125,000 consisted of the Roman army and their families and dependents. The urban population of Roman Britain was about 240,000 people at the end of the fourth century. Roman Britain's capital city, Londinium, is estimated to have had a population of about 60,000.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: Following the Roman withdrawal from Britain, Germanic tribes from continental Europe such as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes began a period of significant migration to the southeastern part of the island, notably bringing their language, Old English. Nevertheless, the overall population is believed to have fallen precipitously due to political upheavals and plagues. By the time of the compilation of the Domesday Book in the eleventh century, there may have between 1.25 and 2 million people living in England. Though the Domesday Book did not count the English population, it has been regarded as one of the first attempts to produce a census of the country.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: Between the years of 1086 and 1750, the English population fluctuated in size due to civil war, famines and plagues. By the end of the 13th century, the population was estimated to have reached between four to six million people, but a combination of factors such as widespread famine and disease in the following century collapsed the population dramatically. An agricultural crisis in 1315 to 1322 and the Black Death in 1348 to 1350 collapsed the population by over a third of its pre-existing number, and the growth rate. By 1377, the population was estimated on a poll-tax of all people aged 14 and over, depending on the population amount of those under 14, to be around 2.2 million to 3.1 million.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: Periods of instability over the 15th century such as the War of the Roses caused the population to, while grow, increase at a slowed pace. The general factors behind the slow increase was a high mortality rate due to war, less marriages within the population and late marriages, keeping fertility levels lower then they should have been for the time and a net emigration of English people out of the country. However in contrast to the preceding century, by the 16th century, this situation has elevated itself due to political stability under the Tudor monarchy and little civil unrest which would have resulted in a higher mortality rate. While this was overturned with the English Civil War in 17th century, it allowed the population to grow at a faster pace, causing the population of England to reach a pre-collapse total of 5.74 million by 1750. In Scotland, population growth was not to the same extent as it was in England, which resulted in being significantly lower in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, which is often ascribed to similar factors halting it such as a high mortality rate, especially for infants, and later marriage and childbearing patterns. Ireland on the other hand before the 19th century consistently had rapid population growth, which has been ascribed to higher fertility rates and earlier marriage than England. Furthermore the Plantation of Ulster in the 17th century also affected the population total of Scotland with an estimated 100,000 Scots migrating to Ulster, additionally, the Jacobite rebellion in 1745 also caused significant emigration. The estimated population total of Scotland in 1691 was 1.23 million.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The impetus to collect population data was reinforced due to food supply concerns and war against France in the late 18th century and then beginning of the early 19th century. In 1800, the Census Act was passed, authorising the first modern census in British history to be conducted.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The first Census in 1801 revealed that the population of Great Britain was 10.5 million. Of this, England's population had grown to 8.3 million, Wales population rested at 0.6 million while Scotland had a population of 1.6 million. In Ireland, the population rested at an estimate of between 4.5 and 5.5 million inhabitants. Since 1801, a census has been conducted every decade, in Ireland this was conducted for the first time in 1821.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: During the Industrial Revolution, the demographic transition started to occur within the United Kingdom, going from a pre-industrial society demographically to one of a industrialised society. By 1841 Census, the population of England and Wales rested at 15.9 million, doubling in the space of 40 years, for Ireland 8.2 million and for Scotland 2.6 million. This slowed rate of growth for Scotland may be attributed to higher net emigration of Scottish people out of the nation, and two typhus epidemics in 1837 and 1847.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: Factors often associated with the beginning of the demographic transition began to change dramatically as well, which contributed to the rapid increase. For example, Child mortality decreased dramatically, the proportion of children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5 per thousand in 1730–1749 to 31.8 per thousand in 1810–1829. General mortality was thought to have declined as well, especially after 1850 as well as a increased birth rate caused the English population to sustain itself in the second phase of the transition from 1750 to 1870.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: Due to this, in the second half of the 19th century the population of England continued to grow quickly from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901. This rapid growth was also seen in the other constituent nations. In Wales, the population increased from 0.6 million in 1801 to 2 million in 1901, in Scotland, the population increased from 1.6 million to 4.5 million in 1901. In contrast however and due to the Great Irish Famine, which began in the 1840s, caused the deaths of 1 million Irish people, and caused well over a million to emigrate. Mass emigration became entrenched as a result of the famine, and Ireland's population decreased rapidly, from 8.2 million in 1841 to 3.2 million in 1901. However this massive population collapse did not effect Northern Ireland to the same extent, due to being more industrialised and urbanised and while the population did decline, it had recovered itself by the beginning of the 20th century. This prolonged period of emigration and net population decline in Irish history was only reversed by the middle of the 20th century.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: By the 1870s, the total fertility rate of the UK population declined from 4.88 children per woman in 1871, to 2.4 by 1921, representing a transition to the third stage of the demographic transition. Traditional means of birth control were used such as abstinence and withdrawal facilitated the collapse of the birth rate, this was also hastened by the 1930s by more modern methods of contraception which were beginning to be used with increased acceptance. From 1840 to 1930 there was a net emigration of English people out of the country which resulted in the population being stunted in the capacity it could have grown to.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: During the first half of the 20th century, the United Kingdom began to approach the 4th stage of the demographic transition. The end of the First World War and the loss of lives of troops, coupled with an influenza outbreak is estimated to have caused the death of upwards of 900,000 people in the United Kingdom. This as a consequence shrunk the male population of the Lost Generation and altered the sex ratio, which slowed the growth rate of the population down. By the end of the Second World War, this transition had been completed and the society had a low but fluctuating birth rate, a low death rate and a slowed growth rate of the population. In 1948, the British Nationality Act was signed which allowed the access of the peoples of the British Empire's colonies to migrate to the country being classed in nationality as the same as a native of the United Kingdom. This law, while a unintentional side-effect, led to the start of modern migration to the United Kingdom.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The move into the 4th stage also took place during major social change in the United Kingdom throughout the 1960s. Liberalisation of society during the decade led to the 1967 Abortion Act which legalised abortion in the United Kingdom for the first time, and the 1969 Divorce Reform Act, which liberalised the circumstances under which someone can get a divorce. Between these years, the population fluctuated; from the 1950s onwards the population increased through natural growth but by the time of the mid 1970s the population decreased due to emigration, which took net migration to a negative, and deaths exceeding births. For the first time in 1973, the birth rate of the country fell below replacement level, due to the previous liberalising acts. By the 1980s, the decline of population growth had recovered to a extent due to a reversal of net emigration.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: In the 1990s, international migration began to contribute more proportionally to population growth, and by 1998 this had passed natural increase as the main provider of growth. Liberalisation of immigration rules under the new government allowed rapid increase of the number of migrants arriving, quadrupling the number from a net migration rate of 50,000 a year, to 200,000 a year.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: By the beginning of the 21st century, the population of the United Kingdom rested at a total of 59,113,000 people. In each constituent nation, the population of England was 49,449,700, Scotland had a population of 5,064,200, Wales had a population of 2,910,200 and Northern Ireland a population of 1,689,300. Increased international migration which began to rapidly increase at the end of the 20th century also has brought increased ethnic heterogenization to the British population, not only in ethnicity and race, but also in country of birth. In 2001, the White British population was registered to be 88.52% of the total population, but by 2011, this proportion of the population had dropped to 81.88%, with other ethnic groups either rising by 50% of their respective total population in 2001 or doubling entirely.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: Such rapid immigration growth boosted population growth in the United Kingdom. In 2011, the population sat at around 63 million people.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The population of the UK in the last recorded census in 2011 was 63 million, of whom 31 million were male and 32 million female. The 2011 census recorded the population of England as 53.0 million, Scotland as 5.3 million, Wales as 3.1 million, and Northern Ireland as 1.8 million. At the last recorded population estimate, it was estimated that the UK population was at a total of 67,081,234 people.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: There are 13 urban areas that exceed 500,000 inhabitants: they are centred on London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds and Bradford, Southampton and Portsmouth, Sheffield, Liverpool, Leicester, Manchester, Belfast, Bristol, Newcastle upon Tyne and Nottingham.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The following table shows the total UK population estimated at census dates. Pre 1901 figures include the whole of Ireland, whereas from 1901 onwards only the population of Northern Ireland is included.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The UK government first began publishing population projections for the country in the 1920's under the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) which were mainly produced to be used for long-term financial estimates for pensions and other schemes of social insurance. However since the Second World War, population projections have taken an expanded role in all areas of influencing government policy. The GAD produced population projections every year from 1955 to 1979 and then switched it to every 2 years up to 1991. The Office of National Statistics took control of producing population projections for the country in 2006.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The British Office for National Statistics' 2016-based National Population Projections indicated that, if recent trends continue, the UK's population would increase by 3.6 million between mid-2016 and mid-2026. This represents an average annual growth rate of 0.5%. Over the same period, the population of England is projected to grow by 5.9%; for Wales, this figure is 3.1%, while for Scotland and Northern Ireland the figures are 3.2% and 4.2% respectively. These projections did not allow for any possible effects of the UK leaving the European Union.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: First official data on the fertility rate of the country was first made available in 1938, However estimates of the total fertility rate can be made back all the way till 1541.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The fertility rate of the country before the 19th century maintained itself at an average of around 5 children per woman. This fertility rate within the United Kingdom has been falling since 1870, when the country began into transition into the 3rd stage of the demographic transition. This transition represents the change in reproductive strategy from how many children a mother 'needs' to more of how many she 'wants' and a substitution of quality over quantity in the offspring produced. From the 1880s onwards, the birth rate began to decline rapidly from the levels it had previous sustained itself at. In England this crude birth rate decline represented a 44% decrease over a period from 1875 to 1920.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: A number of factors have been argued to have contributed to this ranging from four broad spectrums of biological, technological changes and developments in the society, socio-economic reasons and cultural considerations. In the context of the Industrial Revolution, a large number of socio-economic developments occurred; large scale urbanisation of the population caused mass internal movements of people to high density population centres, income per capita of citizens rose significantly especially in the last half of the 19th century, coupled with large scale economic growth improved the livelihoods of the working and middle classes of the United Kingdom, this growth in the standard of living led also to the collapse of mortality rates, which had been in decline since the early 18th century and more especially the infant mortality. This development came about with the decline of child labour at the same time as well which meant there was less of a need for a quantity of children to uphold the household economically, educational quality of the country rose during the same time period which meant that children held more a economical potential through educated labour means.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The decline and equalling out of the gender gap in terms of place in the workforce meant that women were beginning in the 19th century to become a larger part of the workforce which also contributed to the birth rate decline.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: Improvements in public diets and nutritional quality increases, which are linked to biological factors such as a decline in lactation, have also been included as a potential factor in the decline of the fertility rate. Technological developments within the society also began to have an effect; contraceptive use become somewhat usable on a mass scale in the latter half of the 19th century due to technological developments in the production of rubber. Abortion, while illegal during the 19th century, was also used by women, however to what extent at the time is unknown.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: Cultural considerations such as decline in religious adherence (albeit little data on this matter during the 19th century) have also been considered as reasons. While these factors altogether are debated by demographers as to which were more important then each other, it is generally accepted that due to these factors overall, mothers could begin to invest more time and nurture 'quality' into their offspring rather then having a increased 'quantity' of children that were needed in the past for various such reasons, and that this development led to the decrease of the total fertility rate.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: By 1914, the birthrate sat at around 2.88 children per woman, however by 1918 had collapsed proportionally by almost 50% due to World War One and sank to 2.03 children. In the post-World War One period, while the birthrate of the country boomed at the very end of the war reaching a peak of 3.08 children in 1920, this began to endure a rapid decline and had slumped to historic lows by the 1930s, for the first time in the country's history falling below a replacement level fertility rate. This did not recover in-till the end of the Second World War in 1945.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: In the post-World War Two period, the fertility rate of the country boomed once again, bringing itself out of the below replacement level in the 1930s to levels not seen since the late 19th century. This peaked in 1964, with a TFR of 2.95. However by 1973, the fertility rate of the country collapsed again below replacement, and has not since in the present day reached a replacement level again. However population issues such as the sub-replacement level fertility rate have often been categorised as something in which the government does not view as a major issue. Little incentives were made and have been made to increase the birth rate throughout the UK's post war period. However Wendy Singe argues that, while compared to other countries, the United Kingdom managed to retain a similarly 'high' (for post-war European standards) fertility rate with a quote; 'liberal market economy and residual approach to welfare, a combination of high female employment and relatively high fertility has been achieved without a coherent or generous set of work-family reconciliation policies.'


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: Family planning policies were enacted during the 1970s due to concerns of rapid population growth during the 1960s. The 1973 NHS Reorganisation Act is an example of such policies, within this act family planning advice and supplies were first issued to the public. Over this time period, with previous liberalising acts such as the Abortion Act and the Divorce Reform Act, and scientific developments such as increased access to contraceptive methods to reduce pregnancies, such as the contraceptive pill, it is generally ascribed that these social changes were the major contributors to the decline of the fertility rate below replacement level in the latter half of the 20th century. With these changes also, pre-marital conceptions fell to 1950 levels by the late 1970s. This pattern of decline of the birth rate is similar to other European countries.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: The government's position was further presented and then re-iterated in 1984 at the UN Conference on Population in Mexico;The United Kingdom('s) government does not pursue a population policy in the sense of actively trying to influence the overall size of the population, its age-structure, or the components of change except in the field of immigration. Nor has it expressed a view about the size of population, or the age-structure, that would be desirable. ...The current level of births has not been the cause of general anxiety. The prevailing view is that decisions about fertility and childbearing are for people themselves to make, but that it is proper for government to provide individuals with the information and the means necessary to make their decisions effective. To this end, the government provides assistance with family planning as part of the National Health Service. The ‘ageing’ of the population does raise social and economic issues. However, it is believed that these will prove manageable; and also, to a degree, that society will adapt...’ In 2003, Right to Request was setup which allowed the parents of small children to request flexible working times which included shorter working hours for parents to care for their children. However, although a majority of requests for Right to Request are accepted, a report in 2006 found that its impact was negligible as mothers tended to switch employers to get reduced hours regardless.


title: Demography of the United Kingdom

text: Due to migration beginning in the late 90s and especially during the 2000s lead to the overall total fertility rate of the country to rise by 0.1 in the period of 2004 to 2011.