title: Nissan Laurel

text: In January 1991, the Laurel was facelifted and a new RB20E/RB20DE-powered 5-speed AT model crept into the range. Also in November 1991, 3-series cars RB25DE Catalogue DOHC2.5L add a grade-six-cylinder engine. 2.5L existing and additional models equipped with previous-generations high-mount side lamp, side-door airbags. Organizing models in the senior grades.


title: Nissan Laurel

text: In the North American market, this was only sold in parts of the Caribbean, primarily the Bahamas under the Nissan Laurel Altima. However, the Altima name was first used in the United States & Canada starting in the 1993 model year for its new compact car, which has since become a mid-size in 2002.


title: Nissan Laurel

text: The new Laurel C34 was released in January 1993. To meet stricter side impact legislation it was no longer available in a pillarless hardtop sedan configuration; the single body style offered was a regular saloon with B-posts. Gone as well was the four-cylinder engine. Available engines included a 2.0 L six (SOHC or DOHC), a 2.5 L DOHC six, and a 2.8 L diesel six. The diesel engine now had three valves per cylinder, for a total of 18. A wider and longer body meant that there was no longer a compact sedan version on offer. Under Japanese vehicle classification regulations all Laurels were now in the large car category due to vehicle length and width were no longer in compliance, even those models with engines displacing less than 2000 cc. Japanese owners were now liable for additional taxes paid yearly in addition to standard registration, road tax, and inspection costs. Large cars have a leading "3" at the top of the license plate, while compact cars have a "5". Manufacturing was transferred to the Murayama plant. The smaller Laurel Spirit was replaced by the all-new Nissan Presea.


title: Nissan Laurel

text: Some of the later models featured more sophistication such as Nissan's proprietary 4-wheel steering (HICAS) and 4-wheel drive (ATTESA) systems, which were taken from the Skyline models. The Laurel also offered ASCD (auto speed control) with steering wheel switches on the top-of-the-line Medalist VG Selection. The S Club has electrical Super HICAS and ABS brakes. A 5-speed manual transmission was only available in the Medalist diesel version, with no manually shifted gasoline cars offered. Diesels and single-cam gasoline cars received four-speed automatics; more powerful gasoline cars all got a five-speed automatic. To add a European luxury feel, the door handle design was changed to a pull-type.


title: Nissan Laurel

text: In May 1993 an RB20E-engined Club S was added, as the 2.5-only Club S was not a strong seller. In July and August 1993 special editions were launched to celebrate Nissan's 60th anniversary, the Medalist S 60th Anniversary and the Club SJ 60th Anniversary respectively.


title: Nissan Laurel

text: January 1994 saw a mid-life facelift for the C34 Laurel. Medalist versions received a center grille finisher, while the Club S received a sportier looking grille and an exclusive front bumper design, necessitating other minor changes around the front end. Medalist and Club S specifications were more differentiated than before. The Club S also received a new engine, the turbocharged 24-valve DOHC RB25DET straight-six, while the 24-valve RB20DE model was discontinued. The turbo version received a four-speed automatic, as the engine produces too much torque for the five-speed JATCO RE5R01A. The new Club S Type X was a more expensive version, while the regular Club S received a few downgrades, such as a Premium Tricot interior rather than the earlier Ultrasuede which was now only a cost option on the Type X. The Medalist J and the basic Grand Cruise model were replaced by the Medalist L and the Grand Saloon. Minor cost cutting led to Medalists using wheel trims shared with other Nissan automobiles, while the stereo head was changed from a Laurel-only dedicated size to a single DIN regular format.


title: Nissan Laurel

text: The Laurel underwent a minor change in September 1994, with a significant rear end redesign. Front end design remained largely untouched, while a driver's SRS airbag became standard fitment across the board. New was the first four-wheel-drive Laurel, and a Medalist Turbo model. The Medalist Turbo received the same sporty-looking front end as the Club S. In January 1995 a new well-equipped submodel appeared, the Club S Selection. In September 1995 another special edition appeared, the 20E-engined Medalist Dual Limited.


title: Nissan Laurel

text: A final update took place in May 1996. The steering wheel design was changed and a passenger airbag became standard. More special editions also appeared, in the form of the "Cellencia" which received dedicated seat fabric and a unique grille, as well as tinted window glass. In February 1997, the ABS-equipped Cellencia SV and Cellencia Medalist SV appeared. Production ended in May 1997 with sales continuing from stock until the eighth generation Laurel replaced it.


title: Nissan Laurel

text: The eighth and last generation debuted in June 1997. The number of available models was further reduced; the models had a DOHC two-liter engine, a 2.5 L six, or a 2.8 L diesel six. In late 2002 Laurel production was ended. The competitors were the Toyota Cresta and the Honda Inspire. In this generation, no manual transmission was offered anymore. It was replaced in 2003 by the Nissan Teana.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The Great Lakes region of North America is a binational Canadian–American region that includes portions of the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with the Canadian province of Ontario. Quebec is at times included as part of the region because, although it is not in a Great Lake watershed, it encompasses most of the St. Lawrence River watershed, part of a continuous hydrologic system that includes the Great Lakes. The region centers on the Great Lakes and forms a distinctive historical, economic, and cultural identity. A portion of the region also encompasses the Great Lakes Megalopolis.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Participating state and provincial governments are represented in the Conference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers, which also serves as the Secretariat to the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Compact and the Great Lakes–Saint Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The Great Lakes region takes its name from the corresponding geological formation of the Great Lakes Basin, a narrow watershed encompassing the Great Lakes, bounded by watersheds to the region's north (Hudson Bay), west (Mississippi), and east and south (Ohio, part of the Mississippi watershed). To the east, the rivers of St. Lawrence, Richelieu, Hudson, Mohawk and Susquehanna form an arc of watersheds east to the Atlantic.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The Great Lakes region, as distinct from the Great Lakes Basin, defines a unit of sub-national political entities defined by the U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario encompassing the Great Lakes watershed, and the states and province bordering one or more of the Great Lakes.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The Palaeozoic strata are parts of a great area of similar layers hundreds of feet in thickness. These strata decline gently southward from the great upland of the Laurentian Highlands of eastern Canada. The visible upland area of today was a small part of the primeval continent with the remainder of it still buried under a Palaeozoic cover. The visible part was the last part of the primeval continent to sink under the advancing Palaeozoic seas. This district may be considered an ancient coastal plain. The weaker layers are worn down in sub-parallel belts of lower land between the upland and the belts of more resistant strata, which rise in uplands. Illustrations of this type of forms are found in the district of the Great Lakes. The chief upland belt or escarpment is formed by the firm Niagara limestone/dolomite, which takes its name from the gorge and falls cut through the upland by the Niagara River. The Niagara Escarpment has a relatively strong slope or enfacing escarpment on the side towards the upland, and a long gentle slope on the other side. Its relief is seldom more than 200 or and is generally small. Its continuity and its contrast with the associated lowlands on the underlying and overlying weak strata make it an important feature. The escarpment would lie straight east–west if the slant of the strata were uniformly to the south. However, the strata are somewhat warped and so the escarpment's course is strongly convex to the north in the middle, gently convex to the south at either end.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The escarpment begins where its determining limestone/dolosmite begins, in west-central New York. There, it separates the lowlands that separate Lake Ontario from Lake Erie. It curves to the northwest through the Ontario province to the island belt that divides the Georgian Bay from Lake Huron. From there, it heads westward through the land-arm between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan and southwestward into the narrow points dividing Green Bay from Lake Michigan. Finally, it fades away with the thinning out of the limestone and is hardly traceable across the Mississippi River. The arrangement of the Great Lakes closely matches the course of the lowlands worn on the two belts of weaker strata on either side of the Niagara escarpment. Lake Ontario, Georgian Bay and Green Bay occupy depressions in the lowland on the inner side of the escarpment. Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan lie in depressions in the lowland on the outer side. When the two lowlands are traced eastward, they become confluent after the Niagara limestone has faded away in central New York, and the single lowland is continued under the name of the Mohawk Valley. This is an east–west longitudinal depression that has been eroded on a belt of relatively weak strata between the resistant crystalline rocks of the Adirondacks on the north and the northern escarpment of the Appalachian plateau (Catskills-Helderbergs) on the south. Early in U.S. history, this provided a vital economic route between the Atlantic seaports and the U.S. interior.


title: Great Lakes region

text: In Wisconsin, the inner lowland has an interesting feature. It is a knob of resistant quartzites, known as Baraboo Ridge, rising from the buried upland floor through the partly denuded cover of lower Palaeozoic strata. This knob or ridge can be thought of as an ancient physiographic fossil, as it is an ancient monadnock having been preserved from destructive attacks of weather by burial under sea-floor deposits. It has been recently re-exposed through the erosion of its cover. The occurrence of the lake basins in the lowland belts on either side of the Niagara escarpment is an abnormal feature. Glacial erosion has formed them through the glacial drift obstructing the normal outlet valleys and to crustal warping in connection with or independent of the glacial sheet.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Lake Superior is unlike the other lakes. The greater part of its basin occupies a depression in the upland area, independent of the overlap of Palaeozoic strata. The western half of the basin occupies a trough of synclinal structure. The Great Lakes receive the drainage of a small peripheral land area, enclosed by a water-parting from the rivers that run to Hudson Bay or the Gulf of Saint Lawrence on the north and to the Gulf of Mexico on the south.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The three lakes of the middle group: Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Erie stand at practically the same level. Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are connected by the Straits of Mackinac with the Mackinac Bridge spanning the straits. Lake Huron and Lake Erie are connected by the St. Clair River and Detroit River, with the small Lake St. Clair between them. The land northeast of the rivers is undergoing a slow elevation. The Niagara River connecting Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, with a fall of ( at the cataract) in , is thought to have been of recent origin, as an older river would have a mature valley. The original valley that is thought to have connected the two depressions through the Niagara Escarpment is thought to have been at the present route of the Welland Canal, and to have been completely filled with glacial drift. The same is true for the St. Lawrence, where there may not have been an original valley. The Ontarian River that was a precursor to Lake Ontario is thought to have drained westward, and the St. Lawrence drainage to have been created by subsidence due to the weight of the ice sheet.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Paleo-Indian cultures were the earliest in North America, with a presence in the Great Plains and Great Lakes areas from about 12,000 BCE to around 8,000 BCE. Prior to European settlement, Iroquoian people lived around Lakes Erie and Ontario, Algonquian peoples around most of the rest, and a variety of other indigenous nation-peoples including the Menominee, Ojibwa, Illinois, Pottawatmie, Huron, Shawnee, Erie, Fox, Miami, Meskwaki and Ho-Chunk (Winnebago). With the first permanent European settlements in the early seventeenth century, all these nation-peoples developed an extensive fur trade with French, Dutch, and English merchants in the St. Lawrence, Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, and Hudson's Bay, respectively.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The prospects of fur monopolies and discovery of a fabled Northwest Passage to Asia generated sporadic but intense competition among the three most powerful northwest Europe imperial nations to control the territory. A century and a half of naval and land wars among France, The Netherlands and Britain resulted finally in British control of the region, from the Ohio River to the Arctic, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Beyond the region, North American claims remained disputed among Britain, France, Spain and Russia.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Britain defeated France decisively at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham near Quebec City in 1759, and the Treaty of Paris (1763) that ended The Seven Years' War, known in America as the French and Indian War ceded the entire region to the victor. Indian Reserve is the historical term for this largely uncolonized area.set aside in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 for use by Native Americans, who already inhabited it. The British government had contemplated establishing an Indian barrier state in the portion of the reserve west of the Appalachian Mountains, and bounded by the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the Great Lakes. Britain's claims were intensely disputed by a confederation of Indians during Pontiac's Rebellion, which induced major concessions to still sovereign Indian nations; and by the Iroquois Confederacy, whose six member nations-Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora-never conceded sovereignty to either Britain or, later, The United States.


title: Great Lakes region

text: During the American Revolution, the region was contested between Britain and rebellious American colonies. Hoping for favorable claims of territorial control in an eventual peace treaty with Britain, American adventurers led by Kentucky militia leader George Rogers Clark briefly occupied village settlements, including Cahokia, Kaskaskia and Vincennes unopposed, with passive support from Francophone inhabitants. In the Peace of Paris (1784) Britain ceded what became known as the Northwest Territory, the area bounded by Great Lakes, Mississippi and Ohio rivers, and the eastern colonies of New York and Pennsylvania, to the fledgling United States. Britain, which may have entertained ambitions to repossess the area if America failed to govern it, retained control over its forts and licensed fur trade for fifteen years. By well-established trade and military routes across the Great Lakes, the British continued to supply not only their own troops but a wide alliance of Native American nations through Detroit, Fort Niagara, Fort Michilimackinac, and so on, until these posts were turned over to the United States following the Jay Treaty (1794).


title: Great Lakes region

text: During the Confederacy Period of 1781–1789, the Continental Congress passed three ordinances whose authority was unclear regarding the region's governance on the American side. The Land Ordinance of 1784 established the broad outlines of future governance. The territory would be divided into six states, which would be given broad powers of constitutional instituting, and admitted to the nation as equal members. The Land Ordinance of 1785 specified the manner in which land would be distributed in the Territory, favoring sale in small parcels to settlers who would work their own farms.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 defined the political protocols by which American states south of the lakes would enter the union as political equals with the original thirteen colonies. The ordinance, adopted in its final form just before the writing of the United States Constitution, was a sweeping, visionary proposal to create what was at the time a radical experiment in democratic governance and economy. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery, restricted primogeniture, mandated universal public education, provided for affordable farm land to people who settled and improved it, and required peaceful, lawful treatment of the Indian population. The ordinance prohibited the establishment of state religion and established civic rights that foreshadowed the United States Bill of Rights. Civil rights included freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, trial by jury, and exemption from unreasonable search and seizure. States were authorized to organize constitutional conventions and petition for admission as states equal to the original thirteen. Five states evolved from its provisions: Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The northeastern section of Minnesota, from the Mississippi to St. Croix River, also fell under ordinance jurisdiction and extended the constitution and culture of the Old Northwest to the Dakotas. The surge of settlement generated tension culminating in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Britain, fearing that fast American settlement could lead to annexation of its western provinces, countered with The Constitution Act of 1791, granting limited self-government to Canadian provinces, and creating two new provinces out of Canada: Lower Canada (today's Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario).


title: Great Lakes region

text: Settlement and economic expansion on both sides accelerated after the 1825 opening of The Erie Canal, an astonishingly successful public venture that effectively integrated markets and commerce between the Atlantic seaboard and the region. The region on both sides of the border became a vast research and design laboratory for agricultural machinery and techniques. Owner-operator family farms transformed both demographics and ecology into a vast terrain of farmlands, producing primarily wheat and corn. In western New York and northeast Ohio, the St. Lawrence, Mohawk, and Hudson rivers provided outlets for commercial corn and wheat, while The Ohio River let agricultural products from western Pennsylvania and southern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois journey downstream to New Orleans. Mining, primarily soft metals of copper, zinc, and lead; and timber to supply rapidly expanding sawmills that supplied lumber for new settlements.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Agricultural and industrial production generated distinctive political and social cultures of independent republican producers, who consolidated an ideology of personal liberty, free markets, and great social visions, often expressed in religious terms and enthusiasms. The region's alliance of antislavery with free soil movements contributed troops and agricultural goods that proved critical in the Union's victory. The Homestead and Morrill Acts, donating federal land to extend the agrarian economic franchise, and support state universities, modeled western expansion and education for all future states.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The British-Canadian London Conference of 1866, and subsequent Constitution Act of 1867 analogously derived from political, and some military, turmoil in the former jurisdiction of Upper Canada, which was renamed and organized in the new dominion as the province of Ontario. Like the provisions of the ordinance, Ontario prohibited slavery, made provisions for land distribution to farmers who owned their own land, and mandated universal public education.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Industrial production, organization, and technology have made the region among the world's most productive manufacturing centers. Nineteenth-century proto-monopolies such as International Harvester, Standard Oil, and United States Steel established the pattern of American centralized industrial consolidation and eventual global dominance. The region hosted the world's greatest concentrations of production for oil, coal, steel, automobiles, synthetic rubber, agricultural machinery, and heavy transport equipment. Agronomy industrialized as well, in meat processing, packaged cereal products, and processed dairy products. In response to disruptions and imbalances of power resulting from so vast a concentration of economic power, industrial workers organized the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a coherent agricultural cooperative movement, and the Progressive politics led by Wisconsin's Governor and Senator Robert M. La Follette. State universities, professional social work, and unemployment and workers' compensation were some of the region's permanent contributions to American social policy.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The Great Lakes region has produced globally influential breakthroughs in agricultural technology, transportation and building construction. Cyrus McCormick's reaper, John Deere's steel plow, Joseph Dart (Dart's Elevator), and George Washington Snow's balloon-frame construction are some of innovations that made significant, global impact. The University of Chicago and Case Western Reserve University figured prominently in developing nuclear power. Automobile manufacture developed simultaneously in Ohio and Indiana and became centered in the Detroit area of Michigan. Henry Ford's movable assembly line drew on regional experience in meat processing, agricultural machinery manufacture, and the industrial engineering of steel in revolutionizing the modern era of mass production manufacturing. Chicago-based Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck companies complemented mass manufactures with mass retail distribution.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland carry important roles in the field of architecture. Chicago pioneered the world's first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building designed by William LeBaron Jenney. Engineering innovation established Chicago from that time on to become one of the world's most influential epicenters of contemporary urban and commercial architecture. Equally influential was the 1832 invention of balloon-framing in Chicago which replaced heavy timber construction requiring massive beams and great woodworking skill with pre-cut timber. This new lumber could be nailed together by farmers and settlers who used it to build homes and barns throughout the western prairies and plains. Wisconsin-born, Chicago-trained Sullivan apprentice Frank Lloyd Wright designed prototypes for architectural designs from the commercial skylight atrium to suburban ranch house.


title: Great Lakes region

text: German-born Pennsylvania immigrant John A. Roebling invented steel wire rope, a pivotal part of suspension bridges he designed and whose construction he supervised in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Buffalo, based on earlier successful canal aqueducts. His most famous project was the Brooklyn Bridge. Contributions to modern transportation include the Wright brothers' early airplanes, designed and perfected in their Dayton, Ohio mechanics' workshops; distinctive Great Lakes freighters, and railroad beds constructed of wooden ties and steel rails. The early nineteenth century Erie Canal and mid-twentieth century St. Lawrence Seaway expanded the scale and capacity of massive water-born freight.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Agricultural associations joined the nineteenth century Grange, which in turn generated the agricultural cooperatives that defined much of rural political economy and culture throughout the region. Fraternal, ethnic, and civic organizations extended cooperatives and supported local ventures from insurance companies to orphanages and hospitals. The region was the political base, and provided much leadership political parties in the region.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The region's greatest institutional contributions were major corporate, labor, educational and cooperative organizations. It hosted some of the most influential national and international corporations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century monopoly age, including John Deere Plow, McCormack Reaper, New York Central and Erie railroads, Carnegie Steel, U.S. Steel, International Harvester and Standard Oil.


title: Great Lakes region

text: As a result of industrialization, the population became more concentrated into urban areas. In part to balance democratic representation against the economic and political power of these corporations, the region hosted industrial labor organization, consolidated agricultural cooperatives and state educational systems. The Big Ten Conference memorializes the nation's first region in which every state sponsored major research, technical-agricultural, and teacher-training colleges and universities. The Congress of Industrial Organizations grew out of the region's coal and iron mines; steel, automobile and rubber industries; and breakthrough strikes and contracts of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The role of government also grew during the early 20th century. In the rural areas, most people obtained food and manufactured goods from neighbors and other people they knew personally. As industry and commerce grew, goods such as food, materials, and medicines were no longer made by neighbors, but by large companies. During World War II, the region became the global epicenter of motorized land vehicles, including cars, trucks and jeeps, as well as a major supplier of engine, transmission, and electrical components to the wartime aeronautics industry. Despite extreme labor shortages, the region increased mechanization, and absorbed large numbers of women and immigrant labor, to increase its food production.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Navigable terrain, waterways, and ports spurred an unprecedented construction of transportation infrastructure throughout the region. The region is a global leader in advanced manufacturing and research and development, with significant innovations in both production processes and business organization. John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil set precedents for centralized pricing, uniform distribution, and controlled product standards through Standard Oil, which started as a consolidated refinery in Cleveland. Cyrus McCormick's Reaper and other manufacturers of agricultural machinery consolidated into International Harvester in Chicago. Andrew Carnegie's steel production integrated large-scale open-hearth and Bessemer processes into the world's most efficient and profitable mills. The largest, most comprehensive monopoly in the world, United States Steel, consolidated steel production throughout the region. Many of the world's largest employers began in the Great Lakes region.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Mass marketing in the modern sense was born in the region. Two competing Chicago retailers—Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck—developed mass marketing and sales through catalogues, mail-order distribution, and the establishment of their brand names as purveyors of consumer goods. The region's natural features, cultural institutions, and resorts make it a popular destination for tourism.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Advantages of accessible waterways, highly developed transportation infrastructure, finance, and a prosperous market base make the region the global leader in automobile production and a global business location. Henry Ford's movable assembly line and integrated production set the model and standard for major car manufactures. The Detroit area emerged as the world's automotive center, with facilities throughout the region. Akron, Ohio became the global leader in rubber production, driven by the demand for tires. Over 200 million tons of cargo are shipped annually through the Great Lakes.


title: Great Lakes region

text: According to the Brookings Institution, if it stood alone as a country, the Great Lakes economy would be one of the largest economic units on Earth (with a $6-trillion gross regional product). This region also contains what area urban planners call the Great Lakes Megalopolis, which has an estimated 59 million people. Chicago is emerging as the third megacity in the United States, after the New York City and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, with a metro population approaching ten million. Cities along the Great Lakes have access to the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence Seaway, making them international ports.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Chicago is the largest economic and financial center. Chicago was named the fourth most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index. The 2017 Global Financial Centres Index ranked Chicago as the twenty-fourth most competitive city in the world, behind Toronto, also in the Great Lakes region, at seventh. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first ever standardized "exchange traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts. As a world financial center it is home to major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. The CME Group, in addition, owns the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the Commodities Exchange Inc. (COMEX), and the Dow Jones Indexes., as well as headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (the Seventh District of the Federal Reserve).


title: Great Lakes region

text: Toronto is an international centre for business and finance. Generally considered the financial capital of Canada, Toronto has a high concentration of banks and brokerage firms on Bay Street, in the Financial District. The Toronto Stock Exchange is the world's seventh-largest stock exchange by market capitalization. The five largest financial institutions of Canada, collectively known as the Big Five, have national offices in Toronto.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Outside of Chicago and Toronto, many other cities are host to financial centers as well. Major bank headquarters are located in Ohio including Huntington Bancshares in Columbus, Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati, M&T Bank in Buffalo, and KeyCorp in Cleveland. Insurance companies such as Anthem in Indianapolis, Nationwide Insurance in Columbus, American Family Insurance in Madison, Wisconsin, Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, State Farm Insurance in Bloomington, Illinois, and Progressive Insurance and Medical Mutual of Ohio in Cleveland.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The Great Lakes region has a strong, established Lutheran tradition (as established by populations from Nordic and Germanic countries), but this tradition has become more diversified in recent years.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Large professional sports leagues such as the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA), Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), National Hockey League (NHL) and Major League Soccer (MLS) have team franchises in several cities in the region.


title: Great Lakes region

text: Blue collar industry traditionally represent in the Great Lakes region. In the United States, it is a stronghold of the Democratic Party though in recent years many states in Great Lakes region have become swing states. In Ontario, it is a stronghold of the Liberal Party of Canada.


title: Great Lakes region

text: The Great Lake region is served by Interstate 94 and Amtrak Lake Shore Limited and VIA rail services.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: Aquila is a constellation on the celestial equator. Its name is Latin for 'eagle' and it represents the bird that carried Zeus/Jupiter's thunderbolts in Greek-Roman mythology.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: Its brightest star, Altair, is one vertex of the Summer Triangle asterism. The constellation is best seen in the northern summer, as it is located along the Milky Way. Because of this location, many clusters and nebulae are found within its borders, but they are dim and galaxies are few.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: Aquila was one of the 48 constellations described by the second-century astronomer Ptolemy. It had been earlier mentioned by Eudoxus in the fourth century BC and Aratus in the third century BC.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: It is now one of the 88 constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union. The constellation was also known as "Vultur volans" (the flying vulture) to the Romans, not to be confused with "Vultur cadens" which was their name for Lyra. It is often held to represent the eagle which held Zeus's/Jupiter's thunderbolts in Greco-Roman mythology. Aquila is also associated with the eagle that kidnapped Ganymede, a son of one of the kings of Troy (associated with Aquarius), to Mount Olympus to serve as cup-bearer to the gods.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: Ptolemy catalogued 19 stars jointly in this constellation and in the now obsolete constellation of Antinous, which was named in the reign of the emperor Hadrian (AD 117–138), but sometimes erroneously attributed to Tycho Brahe, who catalogued 12 stars in Aquila and seven in Antinous. Hevelius determined 23 stars in the first and 19 in the second.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: The Greek Aquila is probably based on the Babylonian constellation of the Eagle, but is sometimes mistakenly thought as a seagull which is located in the same area as the Greek constellation.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: Aquila, which lies in the Milky Way, contains many rich starfields and has been the location of many novae.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: A bright nova was observed in Aquila in 1918 (Nova Aquilae 1918) and briefly shone brighter than Altair, the brightest star in Aquila. It was first seen by Zygmunt Laskowski and was confirmed on the night of 8 June 1918. Nova Aquilae reached a peak apparent magnitude of −0.5 and was the brightest nova recorded since the invention of the telescope.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: Aquila also holds some extragalactic objects. One of them is what may be the largest single mass concentration of galaxies in the Universe known, the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall. It was discovered in November 2013, and has the size of 10 billion light years. It is the biggest and the most massive structure in the Universe known.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: NASA's Pioneer 11 space probe, which flew by Jupiter and Saturn in the 1970s, is expected to pass near the star Lambda (λ) Aquilae in about 4 million years.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: In illustrations of Aquila that represent it as an eagle, a nearly straight line of three stars symbolizes part of the wings. The center and brightest of these three stars is Altair.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: According to Gavin White, the Babylonian Eagle carried the constellation called the Dead Man in its talons. The author also draws a comparison to the classical stories of Antinous and Ganymede.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: In classical Greek mythology, Aquila was identified as Αετός Δίας ("Aetos Dios"), the eagle that carried the thunderbolts of Zeus and was sent by him to carry the shepherd boy Ganymede, whom he desired, to Mount Olympus; the constellation of Aquarius is sometimes identified with Ganymede.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: In the Chinese love story of Qi Xi, Niu Lang (Altair) and his two children (β and γ Aquilae) are separated forever from their wife and mother Zhi Nu (Vega), who is on the far side of the river, the Milky Way.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: In ancient Egypt, Aquila possibly was seen as the falcon of Horus. According to Berio, the identification of Aquila as an Egyptian constellation, and not merely Graeco-Babylonian, is corroborated by the Daressy Zodiac. It depicts an outer ring showing the Sphaera Graeca, the familiar Hellenistic zodiac, while the middle ring depicts the Sphaera Barbarica or foreigner's zodiac with the zodiacal signs of the Egyptian" dodekaoros" which were also recorded by Teucros of Babylon. Under the sign of Sagittarius is the falcon of Horus, presumably because Aquila rises with Sagittarius.


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: In Chinese astronomy, ζ Aql is located within the Heavenly Market Enclosure (天市垣, "Tiān Shì Yuán"), and the other stars of the constellation are placed within the Black Tortoise of the North (北方玄武, "Běi Fāng Xuán Wǔ").


title: Aquila (constellation)

text: Several different Polynesian equivalents to Aquila as a whole are known. On the island of Futuna, it was called "Kau-amonga", meaning "Suspended Burden". Its name references the Futunan name for Orion's belt and sword, "Amonga". In Hawaii, Altair was called "Humu", translated to English as "to sew, to bind together parts of a fishhook." "Humu" also refers to the hole by which parts of a hook are bound together. "Humu-ma" was said to influence the astrologers. "Pao-toa" was the name for the entire constellation in the Marquesas Islands; the name meant "Fatigued Warrior". Also, Polynesian constellations incorporated the stars of modern Aquila. The Pukapuka constellation "Tolu", meaning "three", was made up of Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Aquilae. Altair was commonly named among Polynesian peoples, as well. The people of Hawaii called it "Humu", the people of the Tuamotus called it "Tukituki" ("Pound with a hammer") - they named Beta Aquilae "Nga Tangata" ("The Men") - and the people of Pukapuka called Altair "Turu" and used it as a navigational star. The Māori people named Altair "Poutu-te-rangi", "Pillar of the Sky", because of its important position in their cosmology. It was used differently in different Māori calendars, being the star of February and March in one version and March and April in the other. Altair was also the star that ruled the annual sweet potato harvest.


title: Arkady Volozh

text: Arkady Yuryevich Volozh (; born 11 February 1964) is a Russian technology entrepreneur, and founder of Yandex. Yandex is one of Europe's largest Internet companies, operating Russia's most popular search engine. Volozh co-founded several IT enterprises in his early days, and pioneered the development of search with new technology advancements and search software companies.


title: Arkady Volozh

text: Volozh was born in Guryev, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union (now Atyrau, Kazakhstan) into a Russian-Jewish family. His father was a petroleum geologist, and his mother was a music teacher. He attended Republican School of Physics and Mathematics in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and then studied applied mathematics at Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, graduating in 1986.


title: Arkady Volozh

text: Volozh is a serial entrepreneur with a background in computer science. After working at a state pipeline research institute, he started a small business importing personal computers from Austria. He went on to co-found several IT enterprises besides Yandex, including a Russian provider of wireless networking technology InfiNet Wireless, and CompTek International, one of the largest distributors of network and telecommunications equipment in Russia.


title: Arkady Volozh

text: Volozh co-founded CompTek in 1989. He also started working on search in 1989, which led to him establishing Arkadia Company in 1990. The company was developing search software. In 1993, Arkady Volozh and Ilya Segalovich developed a search engine for "non-structured information with Russian morphology".


title: Arkady Volozh

text: Arkady co-founded Yandex in 1997, later leaving his position as CEO of CompTek International to become the CEO of Yandex in 2000.


title: Arkady Volozh

text: As part of a larger effort to spread machine learning, Volozh and the Yandex team established the Yandex School of Data Analysis in 2007, offering a free master's level program in data science. The program has grown to include six branches, online courses, and other learning programs through multiple partnerships. In 2018, the school opened a branch in Tel Aviv to launch a one-year career advancement program in machine learning.


title: Arkady Volozh

text: On 3 June 2022, the European Union sanctioned Volozh as part of its package of sanctions against Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine, citing the role of Yandex in "promoting state media and narratives in its search results" and removing "content related to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine". The same day, Yandex released a statement saying that Volozh would resign from his posts and step down from the board of directors, effective immediately.


title: Arkady Volozh

text: Volozh is married, and he has three children. In December 2020, his net worth was an estimated . Following the fall of the share price of Yandex stock as a result of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Volozh's net worth at the end of February 2022 was estimated to be .


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: The German Empire () was a failed attempt to unify the German states within the German Confederation to create a German nation-state. It was created in the spring of 1848 during the German revolutions by the Frankfurt National Assembly. The parliament elected Archduke John of Austria as its provisional head of state with the title ‘Imperial Regent’. On 28 March 1849, its constitution was implemented and the parliament elected the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, to be the constitutional monarch of the empire with the title ‘Emperor of the Germans’. However, he turned the position down. The empire came to an end in December 1849 when the Central German Government was replaced by a Federal Central Commission.


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: The German National Assembly (Frankfurt Parliament) considered itself as the parliament of a new empire and enacted imperial laws. It installed a provisional government and created the first fleet of all Germany. In May 1849, larger German states such as Austria and Prussia forced members of parliament to resign. The provisional government lasted until December of that year. In summer 1851, the reinstalled Bundestag of the German Confederation declared the imperial legislation to be void. However, the German Bundestag and the states never called the provisional government illegal.


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: During its existence, several foreign countries recognized the empire, such as the Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA. The legacy of the empire consists e.g., in the experience of general all-German elections in 1848, the constitution of 1849. The modern German navy celebrates June 14th as its anniversary because of the 1848 parliament decision to create a fleet. The flag adopted by the empire by law in November 1848, is the flag of modern Germany (black-red-gold).


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: The state was created by the Frankfurt Parliament in spring 1848, following the March Revolution. The empire ended in December 1849 when the Central German Government was replaced with a Federal Central Commission.


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: The Empire struggled to be recognized by both German and foreign states. The German states, represented by the Federal Convention of the German Confederation, on 12 July 1848, acknowledged the Central German Government. In the following months, however, the larger German states did not always accept the decrees and laws of the Central German Government and the Frankfurt Parliament.


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: Several foreign states recognized the Central Government and sent ambassadors: the United States, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Sardinia, Sicily, and Greece. The French Second Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland installed official envoys to keep contact with the Central Government.


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: The first constitutional order of the German Empire was the "Imperial Law concerning the introduction of a provisional Central Power for Germany", on 28 June 1848. With the order, the Frankfurt Parliament established the offices of (Imperial Regent, a provisional monarch) and imperial ministers. A second constitutional order, the Frankfurt Constitution, on 28 March 1849, was accepted by 28 German states but not by the larger ones. Prussia, along with other German states, forced the Frankfurt Parliament into dissolution.


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: Several of this German Empire's accomplishments outlasted it: the Frankfurt Constitution was used as a model in other states in the decades to follow and the electoral law was used nearly verbatim in 1867 for the election of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation. The ' (Imperial Fleet) created by the Frankfurt Parliament lasted until 1852. The imperial law issuing a decree concerning bills of exchange (', General German exchange bills) was considered to apply to nearly all of Germany.


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: Contemporaries and scholars had different opinions about the statehood of the German Empire of 1848/1849:


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: In reality the distinction was less clear. The majority of the Frankfurt Parliament, based on the liberal groups, wanted to establish a dualist system with a sovereign monarch whose powers would be constrained by a constitution and parliament.


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: A German Confederation was created in 1815. This treaty organization for the defense of the German territories lacked, in the view of the national movement, a government and a parliament. But it was generally acknowledged by German and foreign powers – to establish a national state, it was the easiest to present it as the continuation of the Confederation. This was actually the road the National Assembly took, although it originally saw itself as a revolutionary organ.


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: The continuity between the old Confederation and the new organs was based on two decisions of the Confederation's Federal Convention:


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: Of course, the German states and the Federal Convention made those decisions under pressure of the revolution. They wanted to avoid a breakup with the Frankfurt Parliament. (Already in August this pressure faltered, and the larger states started to regain power.) According to historian Ernst Rudolf Huber, it was possible to determine a continuity or even legal identity of Confederation and the new Federal State. The old institution was enhanced with a (provisional) constitutional order and the name German Confederation was changed to German Empire. Ulrich Huber notes that none of the German states declared the Imperial Regent John and his government to be usurpatory or illegal.


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: The Frankfurt Assembly saw itself as the German national legislature, as made explicit in the "Imperial Law concerning the declaration of the imperial laws and the decrees of the provisional Central Power", from 27 September 1848. It issued laws earlier, such as the law of 14 June that created the Imperial Fleet. Maybe the most notable law declared the highly acclaimed Basic Rights of the German People, 27 December 1848.


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: The Central Power or Central Government consisted of the Imperial Regent, Archduke John, and the ministers he appointed. He usually appointed those politicians that had the support of the Frankfurt Parliament, at least until May 1849. One of the ministers, the Prussian general Eduard von Peucker, was charged with the federal troops and federal fortifications of the German Confederation. The Central Government had not much to govern, as the administration remained in the hands of the single states. But in February 1849, 105 people worked for the Central Government (in comparison to the 10 for the Federal Convention).


title: German Empire (1848–1849)

text: The Frankfurt Parliament assumed in general that the territory of the German Confederation was also the territory of the new state. Someone was a German if he was a subject of one of the German states within the German Empire (§ 131, Frankfurt Constitution). Additionally, it discussed the future of other territories where Germans lived. The members of parliament sometimes referred to the German language spoken in a territory, sometimes to historical rights, sometimes to military considerations (e.g., when a Polish state was rejected because it would be too weak to serve as a buffer state against Russia). One of the most disputed territories was Schleswig.


title: Mimosa

text: Mimosa is a genus of about 590 species of herbs and shrubs, in the mimosoid clade of the legume family Fabaceae. The generic name is derived from the Greek word ("mimos"), an "actor" or "mime", and the feminine suffix -"osa", "resembling", suggesting its 'sensitive leaves' which seem to 'mimic conscious life'.


title: Mimosa

text: Two species in the genus are especially notable. One is "Mimosa pudica", commonly known as touch-me-not, which folds its leaves when touched or exposed to heat. It is native to southern Central and South America but is widely cultivated elsewhere for its curiosity value, both as a houseplant in temperate areas, and outdoors in the tropics. Outdoor cultivation has led to weedy invasion in some areas, notably Hawaii. The other is "Mimosa tenuiflora", which is best known for its use in shamanic ayahuasca brews due to the psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine found in its root bark.


title: Mimosa

text: The taxonomy of the genus "Mimosa" has gone through several periods of splitting and lumping, ultimately accumulating over 3,000 names, many of which have either been synonymized under other species or transferred to other genera. In part due to these changing circumscriptions, the name "Mimosa" has also been applied to several other related species with similar pinnate or bipinnate leaves, but are now classified in other genera. The most common examples of this are "Albizia julibrissin" (Persian silk tree) and "Acacia dealbata" (wattle).


title: Mimosa

text: Members of this genus are among the few plants capable of rapid movement; examples outside of "Mimosa" include the telegraph plant, "Aldrovanda", some species of "Drosera" and the Venus flytrap. The leaves of the "Mimosa pudica" close quickly when touched. Some mimosas raise their leaves in the day and lower them at night, and experiments done by Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan on mimosas in 1729 provided the first evidence of biological clocks.


title: Mimosa

text: "Mimosa" can be distinguished from the large related genera, "Acacia" and "Albizia", since its flowers have ten or fewer stamens. Botanically, what appears to be a single globular flower is actually a cluster of many individual ones. Mimosas contain some level of heptanoic acid.


title: The Fourth Political Theory

text: The Fourth Political Theory (, ) is a book by the Russian philosopher and political analyst Aleksandr Dugin, published in 2009. In the book, Dugin states that he is laying the foundations for an entirely new political ideology, the fourth political theory, which integrates and supersedes liberal democracy, Marxism, and fascism. In this theory, the main subject of politics is not individualism, class struggle, or nation, but rather Dasein (existence itself).


title: The Fourth Political Theory

text: In the book, Dugin states that he wishes to devise an entirely new political theory to replace what he identifies as the previous three dominant political theories: liberalism, fascism and communism. According to Dugin, his aim is to take elements from all three, 'neutralise and decontaminate' negative aspects such as racism (in the case of fascism) and incorporate them into this new ideology. He refers to this ideology as a 'timeless, non-modern theory' valid for all time.


title: The Fourth Political Theory

text: Dugin views liberalism as having 'defeated all its competitors'. He refers to the derision of the past by liberals and the modern concept of 'progress' as being seriously flawed, going so far as to describe it as racism and even 'moral genocide against the past'.


title: The Fourth Political Theory

text: From the three other political theories, he discards the aspects he finds unacceptable and highlights what he sees as the positive qualities. He combines them to form a new political theory based on the 'ethnos', describing this as ‘the greatest value of the Fourth Political Theory as a cultural phenomenon; as a community of language, religious belief, daily life, and of sharing resources and efforts; as an organic entity’.


title: The Fourth Political Theory

text: "Commonweal" called it "a schizoid mix of Heideggerian-Deleuzian ontology, postmodern relativism, anti-liberal fist-pounding, and megalomaniacal geopolitics".


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Uncharted: Golden Abyss is a 2011 action-adventure game developed by Bend Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment as a launch title for the PlayStation Vita. A spin-off of the "Uncharted" series, the game was released in Japan in 2011, and in other regions in 2012. "Golden Abyss" is a prequel to the series, taking place before the events of "". The story revolves around adventurer-treasure hunter Nathan Drake as he becomes involved in a search for the lost city of Quivira and is aided by fellow treasure hunter Marisa Chase. Gameplay combines action-adventure with platforming elements, with players solving puzzles and fighting enemies using cover-based third-person shooting.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Concept work for "Golden Abyss" began in 2008, when Sony asked Bend Studio to develop a new "Uncharted" as a console launch title. Due to the changing specifications of the Vita, much of the early development was done using PlayStation 3 hardware. The entire project was overseen by original developer Naughty Dog, with Bend Studio receiving assets from the first two "Uncharted" titles and getting access to their motion capture facilities. John Garvin was both director and scriptwriter, the latter under the supervision of main series writer Amy Hennig. Hennig also ensured the return of Nolan North and Richard McGonagle as Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: The game was revealed in January 2011 alongside the Vita. "Golden Abyss" debuted to strong sales and generally positive critical reception. Journalists praised its graphics, voice performances, and recreation of "Uncharted" gameplay on the platform. Criticism focused on its storyline and implementation of Vita-specific controls. To date, the game remains exclusive to the platform, as it was left out of the PlayStation 4's "" due to the standalone nature of its narrative.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: "Uncharted: Golden Abyss" is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective, with platforming and puzzle elements. The player controls "Uncharted" series protagonist Nathan Drake. Progressing through a series of linear levels, Nathan explores a variety of environments including jungles, temple ruins, caverns and encampments.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: During platforming, Nathan climbs along ledges and jumps between platforms created by the environments. Some levels include multiple paths and hidden areas with collectible treasures. During some sections, Nathan also swims through bodies of water, and rows a canoe down a river. In combat, Nathan can use stealthy takedowns, and engage in cover-based third-person shooting against groups of enemies. Shooting can either be done with precise aiming or blind firing. Nathan can pick up and use a variety of weapons, including pistols, machine guns, shotguns, rocket launchers, and grenades.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: The game's controls use a combination of traditional joystick and button commands, and the PlayStation Vita's motion and touch control functions. The motion controls play into aiming Nathan's weapons or balancing during crossing on a tightrope while swiping on the touchscreen can both be used to guide Nathan through and around the environment and are mandatory when performing melee attacks. Some melee sections play out in a similar manner to quick time events. Some puzzles involve using the touch screen to reveal clues or adjust mechanisms. The back touch functions allow the player to zoom in with the weapon camera view, and take pictures within the environment.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: The events of "Golden Abyss" take place before "". Adventurer Nathan Drake accompanies old friend Jason Dante to a Panama dig site headed by the mistrustful Marisa Chase. At the site, they find the bodies of poisoned Spanish conquistadors and a grave marker with a Visigoth symbol. After Dante has to leave due to a phone call, Marisa shows Drake an amulet she hid from Dante, inherited from her grandfather Vincent Perez and they agree to team up. Nathan and Marisa are then attacked and captured by Dante's real partner, warlord Roberto Guerro, but the pair escape. They go to Perez's house, who hired Dante to continue his research after a terminal cancer diagnosis; Dante paid off Guerro for access to the site in return for a share of the treasure that Guerro will use to fund his conflict, while Marisa went there to finish her family's work. The pair learn that the marker referred to the Sete Cidades, an ancient Christian sect dedicated to finding the Seven Cities of Gold. Friar Marcos de Niza, a member of the sect, had been part of a failed expedition led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado to find the city of Quivira.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Following further clues, one referring to a "Sword of Stephen", Nathan and Marisa follow Perez's trail to a ruined Sete Cidades retreat. They find Perez, who succumbed to his illness, as well as evidence that leads Nathan to suspect that de Niza deliberately misled Coronado. Nathan follows the ruins to a crypt that contains the Sword of Stephen—the personal sword of Esteban, de Niza's guide; however, they are interrupted by Dante and Guerro. Guerro takes the sword and Marisa after pushing Dante off a balcony for insulting him. Nathan and Dante reluctantly ally to escape the ruins and Guerro's army but are unable to stop Guerro from escaping with Marisa. Dante hires his mercenary army to avenge himself on Guerro, and Nathan leaves after they argue. Encountering his friend Victor "Sully" Sullivan, Nathan convinces him to help rescue Marisa and finish Perez's work. The two follow a map made from the charcoal rubbings of symbols found on the sword to a temple complex believed to house the entrance to Quivira. There they witness and fight through a battle between Dante's mercenaries and Guerro's men. Sully is injured in a fall, forcing Drake to continue by himself.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Nathan survives a rocket attack from Dante's mercenaries and enters Quivira where he rescues Marisa from survivors of Guerro's army. Using Marisa's amulet, they enter Quivira, discovering the "Golden Abyss", a gold-lined cavern linked by an underground lake. There they discover Esteban's corpse and a Geiger counter stowed in Chase's backpack revealing the gold to be irradiated from nearby uranium deposits. The people of Quivira slowly died out from radiation poisoning, and de Niza killed Esteban and his scouting party before deliberately misleading Coronado to keep the irradiated gold from being looted. Dante arrives, intending to sell the irradiated gold regardless, and Nathan beats him in a fistfight and escapes with Marisa. Marisa seals the Golden Abyss with explosives, trapping Dante inside, and Nathan has a last fight with Guerro which ends with Guerro falling through a damaged bridge to his death with the Sword of Stephen. Nathan and Marisa escape with Sully's help, and before leaving on a stolen helicopter Marisa throws away her amulet, saying it belongs "in hell" with the rest of Quivira.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: "Uncharted: Golden Abyss" was developed by Bend Studio, a first-party production studio under Sony Computer Entertainment best known for creating the "Syphon Filter" series. Bend Studio was among the first studios to receive inside information about the Vita. As they were wrapping up production on "" in 2008, the team decided they wanted to develop a new entry in the "Uncharted" series; at the time, the only released title was "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" and had not gained the large industry presence it would. Bend Studio was chosen partly because of their long record of production quality titles for the PlayStation Portable (PSP). Bend Studio originally had a nine-person team working on the game, eventually expanding to 55 people. In addition to Bend Studio, several other studios collaborated on the title. Notable studios included MK Productions, which helped design some of the larger setpieces; Scratch Image, which handled lip-synching and facial animation; and the Visual Arts and Services Group, which polished the motion capture work. The music was composed by Clint Bajakian, who had previously worked as a music manager and minor composer on the other "Uncharted" titles. The sound and music design was outsourced to Sony's music staff, with thirty people assigned to the task.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Production ran in parallel to the final production stages of "" and the development of "". The title was supervised by "Uncharted" studio Naughty Dog. While Sony was immediately willing for Bend Studio to create an "Uncharted" Vita title, Naughty Dog needed a lot more assurance and communication during pre-production. It was the studio's first launch title for a console, something that put extra pressure on the team during production. During the first year of production, the project was untitled, alternately using the working titles "Uncharted X" and "Uncharted: Dark Secrets". The game's crunch period lasted from January to December 2011, putting a great deal of strain on the production team as they needed to give up weekends and holidays to finish the game on time. This had a debilitating impact on the team's morale, prompting the studio to put in solid work and overtime guidelines for future projects. An alpha build, technically playable from beginning to end, was completed in September, with play and focus testing enabling the team to adjust the playtime and streamline some elements.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: The early prototype builds used PlayStation 3 (PS3) hardware up until the final year of production, with a dedicated game engine only appearing during that time. It was the first time Bend Studio had handled the hardware, as their previous work had transitioned straight from PlayStation 2 to PSP. One of the early design prototypes had the game taking place around an open world hub with quests, but the team had no experience with open-world design and combined with story problems this version was scrapped. During production, Bend Studio was in constant and detailed contact with Sony regarding the Vita, giving them a deep insight into how the console worked. This open communication was part of Sony's shift in console production following difficulties with the PSP, wanting input and feedback before release from associated game studios. It was also key to keeping production going in the wake of hardware breakdowns. Part of the production was creating a rough working prototype of an early level so the team could understand the Vita's functions. The locked narrative, necessary for production to begin, proved an issue as several gameplay segments had to be kept despite negatively impacting pacing and characterisation. The length of the game was also an issue, with Garvin later feeling they had been overly ambitious.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: A key inclusion was the Vita's touch-based control functions, as Garvin felt the team would have failed if the controls were similar to the PS3 entries. While there was speculation that Sony forced Bend Studio not to include other control options for elements like melee attacks, Garvin clarified that Bend Studio made the call. A recurrent issue was that the hardware specifications were changing all the time, with new information coming in every three months or so and their single Vita development kit being "the size of a PC". When motion controls were agreed upon, the team had to improvise using a PS3 Sixaxis controller, and until the introduction of the OLED screen, making the touch controls work was a constant struggle as their test model used the standard PSP screen. Getting motion controls to work alongside traditional controls while keeping the "Uncharted" gameplay style intact was one of the biggest challenges during development. The canoe section, which made extensive use of touch commands, was trimmed down based on negative feedback from test players.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: When designing the game's levels and visuals, the team was given access to the source code and texture library for the first two "Uncharted" titles. The Vita's hardware meant that the graphics could potentially match those used on the PS3, allowing the team to pursue the visual quality of "Uncharted 2", which had then entered beta testing and wowed them with its graphics. The team wanted to match the production values of the PS3 games, but they had a leaner polygon limit and so had to carefully combine polygonal models and painted backgrounds to emulate the style. To simplify the level design, around 80% of levels used stock geometry compared to 20% unique architecture. Compared to "Resistance: Retribution", which displayed 50,000 polygons per frame, "Golden Abyss" featured around 260,000 per frame.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: The scenario was written by Garvin, reprising his dual role as director and scenarist from the "Syphon Filter" series. During the early production, Garvin met with main series writer Amy Hennig and Naughty Dog president Evan Wells, going through brainstorming sessions and having several early concepts "shot down". Hennig also vetted Garvin's scripts. The game's jungle setting, and Drake's search for Quivira, were present from the early presentations. The storyline and script was the very first element to begin production, with the story and key scenes being locked in place before any gameplay assets were completed. Nathan's characterization was described as cockier than the main trilogy and being led around by others rather than leading the way, with the events of "Golden Abyss" being his first life-threatening challenge as an adventurer. When Garvin began writing, he thought it would be simple due to his previous scenario work, but found the series' story and character formula very challenging;


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Garvin created the narrative hook surrounding Marcos de Niza very early in production, but the characters and story beats were in flux during most of 2010. During the early draft, the two villains were Guerro and a rival called Salazar. Hennig was worried that it would be too similar to the villain dynamics of the first "Uncharted". The story was stuck at this point until Garvin created the character of Dante, which provided an additional and more original foil for Nathan. The early story plan involved "grave robbing in Mesa Verde, lost temples in the Louisiana swamps, a museum heist during a hurricane in New Orleans and a boat chase through the Grand Canyon". The entire concept, aside from the basic narrative hook and jungle setting, was completely rewritten following input and criticism from Hennig. The second version was based around the open-world hub design, but this was dropped due to their lack of experience and the clash between Nathan's character and his necessary role as a mercenary type. The current story was constructed from salvageable sections from both drafts.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Marisa went through several changes due to test player feedback; she was originally written as a character who complained a lot and got herself into situations where she had to be rescued by Nathan, compared negatively to the status of Princess Peach in the "Mario" series. To remedy this, she was given a more forceful personality, and the gameplay sequences had Nathan assisting her escapes rather than saving her directly. During the concept development, several plot and scene details were changed or cut. During early production, the game was to be set between the first and second games featuring a role for recurring heroine Elena Fisher, along with showing some of Nathan's origin story. The narrative eventually settled into being a standalone prequel to the first game. A planned chapter would have explored the previous relationship between Nathan and "Uncharted 2" antagonist Harry Flynn. They were also going to follow the series' recurring theme of supernatural elements by having Quivira's radiation-mutated people—dubbed Chindi—inhabiting the ruins. Both these concepts, and a section featuring exploration through a highland temple, were scrapped. The origin story concept was removed due to Naughty Dog already developing that element in "Uncharted 3", while the Chindi was both a challenge to program and seen as too similar to the Descendants from the first game. In addition, the lack of supernatural elements helped distinguish the game from the main series. A mudslide set piece was cut after production began due to potential negative associations with the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The locked script, while necessary, ended up negatively impacting production and pacing within the game.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Hennig was key to securing Nolan North to reprise his role as Nathan Drake. She also vetted the new cast members. Richard McGonagle reprised his role as recurring supporting character Victor Sullivan. Two notable newcomers were veteran voice actor Jason Spisak as Dante, and Christine Lakin as Marisa Chase. Garvin recalled that Hennig commented that good actors could rescue even bad dialogue. Lakin called her experience acting a role in the "Uncharted" series as the fruition of a childhood dream of acting in an "Indiana Jones"-type action story. Chase's character was partially developed during voice recording through Lakin's delivery and ad-libbing in turn played off Lakin and added his ad-libs, creating unplanned but desirable chemistry between the pair.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: As with previous "Uncharted" titles, cutscenes were shot in Naughty Dog's Culver City studio, with actions and dialogue being recorded at the same time, an approach Bend Studio had never used before. Naughty Dog gave Bend Studio access to all their motion capture library from the first two "Uncharted" games, which cut a considerable amount of time from development. It was Lakin's first motion capture role, making her anxious not to make any mistakes. She found the experience relatively easy due to her extensive theater work, as the motion capture studio compared her to black box theater. She had a positive experience working alongside North and liked McGonagle though she never acted with him as they shared no scenes together. Motion capture filming took place across six three-day shoots between January and May 2011. This tight schedule was possible due to the overarching story being fixed, although smaller scenes and dialogue rewrites were still happening.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Rumors of the existence of "Golden Abyss" was leaked from an early stage, as Bend Studio shared information on the Vita and consequently their project for it with other interested studios. It was officially announced alongside the Vita in January 2011. A few weeks prior to the reveal, Bend Studio had to put together a demo level approaching the polish of their planned final product; their efforts to create the demo helped solidify a production pipeline for the rest of the game. Its official title was revealed in June of that year. In all regions, the game was a console launch title.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: In Japan, the game was released on December 17, 2011. The Japanese dub took its cue from the English original, with the Japanese localization taking care to portray Nathan's immaturity and interactions with more experienced characters. Hiroki Tōchi reprised his role as Nathan's Japanese voice. In Japan, the game was given a new subtitle, translated as "The Mapless Adventure Begins". The title was a reference to it being Nathan's first major adventure. After its Japanese release, Bend Studio were able to perform further polishing and prepare new features that were available at launch in the West. "Golden Abyss" later released on February 15, 2012 in North America; February 22 in Europe; and February 23 in Australia. It was also one of the debut titles when the Vita joined Sony's PlayStation Plus service on November 20 of that year.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: The Treasure Map downloadable content (DLC) added a treasure map for each chapter to help players easily locate all the collectibles in a chapter. The 1.01 update released in February added "Black Market", an in-game store enabling players to trade and receive bounty items that are collected in the game with other Vita players using the PS Vita's "NEAR" application. Patch 1.02, released in May, included fixes and solved an issue raised by players where the game automatically disconnected the game from PlayStation Network upon start-up. The final patch 1.03 featured more adjustments, and implemented a gameplay collectable related to the spin-off title "". To date, "Golden Abyss" remains exclusive to the Vita. When the PlayStation 4 collection "" was being developed by Bluepoint Games, Naughty Dog considered including the game. Its standalone narrative meant it was considered non-essential for inclusion as the collection was meant to prime players for "".


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: "Golden Abyss" met with "generally favorable reviews", earning a score of 80 out of 100 on review aggregate site "Metacritic" based on 80 critic reviews. It was the 14th best-rated Vita title of 2012.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Jeremy Parish, writing for "1Up.com", described the story as "playing out like something straight from a serial adventure", noting the amount of historical research. "Edge Magazine" found the storyline intriguing and praised North's performance, but felt there was too much exposition. Japanese magazine "Famitsu" enjoyed the narrative, with one reviewer calling its mystery elements stronger than the main series. Ray Carsillo of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" enjoyed the storyline, saying it was a worthy entry into the series and supported by strong voice performances. "Eurogamer"s Tom Bramwell felt the narrative was weakest when it became lost in its use of legends, enjoying the story better when it focused on familiar characters. Rob Manual of "G4" enjoyed the characters but cited problems with the storytelling and pacing; and Matt Hegelson, writing for "Game Informer", faulted the dialogue and lack of connection to the main series. Sebastian Moss of "Game Revolution" praised Garvin's attempt to capture the series's style and the coherent story, while "GameSpot"s Mark Walton was unimpressed and said the narrative was "like a decent bit of fan fiction". "GamesRadar" said the story lacked strength, but its standalone style lent itself to being the start of similar spin-off titles, and "GameTrailers" noted that the mixture of stylistic elements, ranging from adventure to exploration, prevented the narrative becoming boring. "IGN"s Greg Miller was not impressed with the narrative.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Parish praised the graphics, saying they raised the bar for portable hardware and were stronger than a number of contemporary home console titles. "Edge" was amazed by the graphics on display, a sentiment shared by one of the four "Famitsu" reviewers. Carsillo referred to the graphics as being "console-quality". Bramwell praised the developer's efforts on the Vita hardware despite the graphics being lacking compared to games following the first "Uncharted". While he noted some simplified graphics, Manuel praised the graphics as worthy of the series. Helgeson lauded the title as the best-looking handheld title ever made, Moss praised the close-up graphics while faulting the backgrounds as low quality. Both "GamesRadar" and Watson praised the graphics but had little commentary, and "GameTrailers" cited the graphics as "far beyond anything we’ve ever seen on a handheld". Miller cited the graphics as being equal to the first "Uncharted".


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Parish enjoyed the gameplay despite noting the continued dissonance between Nathan's residence about killing named characters and taking out standard enemies and praising their smooth implementation within the hardware's gimmicks. "Edge" found the gameplay solid, but faulted the lack of innovations found in later home console "Uncharted" titles. "Famitsu" lauded the gameplay apart from some frustration completing touch screen puzzles. Carsillo was mixed about the gameplay, noting its solid base but finding the Vita-specific elements too intrusive. Bramwell enjoyed the gameplay, noting the extra freedom given to players compared to the heavily-scripted home console entries. Manuel had a mixed experience with the gameplay due to the implementation of Vita functions, while Moss noted a lack of content and replayability compared to the home console series. Watson said the gameplay made up for deficiencies in the narrative despite problematic enemy AI. "GamesRadar" enjoyed the basic gameplay, but panned several pieces of inconsistent or confusing level design. "GameTrailers" noted a lack of large setpieces compared to the home console entries. Miller praised the gameplay as generally on the same level as the main series.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: The touch and motion controls saw mixed reactions; a few critics praised their implementation, while others found them either awkward to use or poorly implemented. Other reviewers felt the developers were too keen to show them off, putting too many compulsory uses for the new functions into the game. "Edge" had a divided response, praising the motion-based aiming, but found the touch response unreliable.


title: Uncharted: Golden Abyss

text: Upon release in Japan, "Golden Abyss" debuted in sales charts in 8th place, according to sales data collector "Media Create". With opening sales of over 48,000 units, it was the second best-selling Vita title of the week after "Everybody's Golf 6". During February, according to the NPD Group, the game reached the top 20 best-selling video games, being the best-selling Vita title during that period. In 2018, "Golden Abyss" was revealed as the best-selling Vita title in the United States. In the UK, the game reached the top of the game charts during its debut week. The game was also the best-selling PlayStation Network title during its month of release.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: Hinduism is the second largest religious affiliation in People's Republic of Bangladesh, as according to the Official 2022 Census of Bangladesh, approximately just 13.1 million people responded that they were Hindus, constituting 7.95% out of the total population of 165.15 million people. In terms of population, Bangladesh is the third-largest Hindu populated country of the world, just after India and Nepal. Hinduism is the second-largest religion in 61 out of 64 districts of Bangladesh, but there is no Hindu majority district in Bangladesh.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: In nature, Bangladeshi Hinduism closely resembles the forms and customs of Hinduism practiced in the neighboring Indian state of West Bengal, with which Bangladesh (at one time known as East Bengal) was united until the partition of India in 1947. The vast majority of Hindus in Bangladesh are Bengali Hindus.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: Goddess (Devi) – usually venerated as Durga or Kali – is widely revered, often alongside her consort Shiva. The worship of Shiva has generally found adherents among the higher castes in Bangladesh. Worship of Vishnu (typically in the form of his "Avatars" or incarnation Rama or Krishna) more explicitly cuts across caste lines by teaching the fundamental oneness of humankind in spirit. Vishnu worship in Bengal expresses the union of the male and female principles in a tradition of love and devotion. This form of Hindu belief and the Sufi tradition of Islam have influenced and interacted with each other in Bengal. Both were popular mystical movements emphasizing the personal relationship of religious leaders and disciples instead of the dry stereotypes of the Brahmins or the Ulama. As in Bengali Islamic practice, worship of Vishnu frequently occurs in a small devotional society ("shomaj"). Both use the language of earthly love to express communion with the divine. In both traditions, the Bengali language is the vehicle of a large corpus of mystical literature of great beauty and emotional impact.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: In Bangladeshi Hinduism ritual bathing, vows, and pilgrimages to sacred rivers, mountains, and shrines are common practices. An ordinary Hindu will worship at the shrines of Muslim "pirs", without being concerned with the religion to which that place is supposed to be affiliated. Hindus revere many holy men and ascetics conspicuous for their bodily mortifications. Some believe that they attain spiritual benefit merely by looking at a great holy man. Durga Puja, held in September–October, is the most important festival of Bangladeshi Hindus and it is widely celebrated across Bangladesh. Thousands of pandals (mandaps) are set up in various cities, towns, and villages to mark the festival. Other festivals are Kali Puja, Janmashtami, Holi, Saraswati Puja, Shivratri and Rathayatra, the most popular being the century-old Dhamrai Rathayatra.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: The principle of "ahimsa" is expressed in almost universally observed rules against eating beef. By no means are all Bangladeshi Hindus vegetarians, but abstinence from all kinds of meat is regarded as a "higher" virtue. The Priestly Caste Brahmin (pronounced "Brahmon" in Bengali) Bangladeshi Hindus, unlike their counterparts elsewhere in South Asia, eat fish and chicken. This is similar to the Indian state of West Bengal, where Hindus also consume fish, eggs, chicken, and mutton. There are also some vegetarians as well. There are also non-Bengali Hindus in Bangladesh, majority of the Hajong, Rajbongshi people and Tripuris in Bangladesh are Hindus.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: "Source: Census of India 1901-1941, Census of East Pakistan 1951-1961, Bangladesh Government Census 1974-2011"According to the 2001 Bangladesh census, there were around 11.82 million Hindus in Bangladesh constituting 9.6% of the population, which at the time was 123.15 million. The Bangladesh 2011 census states, that approximately 12.73 million people responded that they were Hindus, constituting 8.54% of the total 149.77 million. While 2022 Census of Bangladesh, put the number of Hindus in Bangladesh at 13.1 million out of total 165.1 million population, thus constituting 7.95% of the population. According to a report published by a local daily newspaper of Bangladesh, the Hindu population in the country has reduced by nearly one million between 2001 and 2011 period. The reduction mainly happened in nine districts – Bhola, Barisal, Jhalokati, Pirojpur, Bagerhat, Narail, Gopalganj, Rajbari and Manikganj. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom have said that Hindus constitute merely 7% of the population in Bangladesh as per as the latest 2016 figures. Hindus in Bangladesh in the late 2000s were almost evenly distributed in all regions, with large concentrations in Gopalganj, Dinajpur, Sylhet, Sunamganj, Mymensingh, Khulna, Jessore, Chittagong and parts of Chittagong Hill Tracts. In the capital city of Dhaka, Hindus are the second-largest religious community after the Muslims and the largest concentration of Hindus can be found in and around Shankhari Bazaar of the old city.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: In 2013, Amnesty International reported that the rise of more explicitly Islamist political formations in Bangladesh during the 1990s had resulted in many Hindus being intimidated or attacked, and that fairly substantial numbers were leaving the country for India.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: In 1901, Hindus constituted 33% of the population of what is now Bangladesh. In 1941, about 28% of the population were Hindus. Their proportion declined to 22% in 1951 after the Partition of India in 1947, as Hindus migrated from East Bengal to India. Wealthy Hindus who migrated lost their land and assets through the "East Bengal Evacuees Act". Poor and middle-class Hindus who were left behind were targets of discriminatory new laws. At the outbreak of the 1965 India-Pakistan war, the "Defense of Pakistan Ordinance", and later the "Enemy (Custody and Registration) Order II", labeled Hindus as the "enemy" and expropriated their property. The 1974 census of Bangladesh showed that the population of Hindus had fallen to 13.5%. Even after independence, the Hindus were branded "Indian stooges" and untrustworthy citizens.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: Since 1971, the Hindu percentage has continued to decline, forming 8.5% of the population as of 2011. The fall in the share of total population has been attributed to outward migration, and the fertility rate for Hindus remaining consistently lower than Muslims (2.1 versus 2.3 as of 2014).


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics report, Khulna division has the highest decline in Hindu population of (1.33%) from 2011-22 period. In 2011, 12.85% of the population of the division were Hindus. This rate has come down to 11.52% in 2022. Among the eight divisions, Khulna has the third highest Hindu population. According to the 2022 census, Sylhet division has the highest Hindu population of 13.5%, but the ratio was 14.05% in 2011. In Rangpur division, the Hindu population has decreased from 13.21% in 2011 to 12.98% in 2022. Mymensingh division has the lowest percentage of people belonging to the Hindu community at (3.92%) as of 2022.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: The Hindu population in what is now Bangladesh has decreased as a percentage of the total population, from 28% in 1940 to 8.5% in 2011. After the emergence of Bangladesh, the Hindu community continued to decline as a percentage of the population—from 13.5% in 1974 to 8.5% in 2011. Bangladesh Census authority have found that since from the last 50 years, about 7.5 million (75 lakhs) hindus have left the country due to religious persecution and discrimination. As per as 2016 official figures, it is estimated that Hindu population have came down to a mere 7%.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: From 1964 to 2013, around 11.3 million Hindus left Bangladesh due to religious persecution and discrimination, as stated by Dhaka university economist Abul Barkat. On average 632 Hindus left the country each day and 230,612 annually as reported by him.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: From his 30-year-long research, Barkat found that the exodus mostly took place during military governments after independence.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: Abul Barkat (Dhaka University based economist) also state's: that there should have been 28.7 million Hindus in the year 2013 instead of 12.2 million", Or, to put it another way, Hindus should accounted for 16-18% of Bangladesh's population, not 9.7% as they do currently. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Hindus constitute merely 7% of the population in Bangladesh as per as the latest 2016 figures.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: According to the Pew Research Center, Bangladesh will have 14.47 million Hindus by 2050 and will comprise 7.3% of the country's population. Another theory suggest that Bangladesh will have at least 230-250 million population by 2050, out of which there will be around 8.51-9.25 million hindus living in this nation, thus constituting only 3.7% after the beginning of half-century.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: On average, annually 230,612 Hindus were leaving Bangladesh for India permanently. So between (2011-2051), It is estimated that 9,224,480 Hindus will leave the country if current immigration on this rate continues further.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: With migration into West Bengal, the 1947 partition of Bengal significantly altered religious demographics in the eastern segment of the province, which later became Bangladesh. Violence also saw an uptick in the 1950s and 1960s in what had then become East Pakistan (present-day-Bangladesh), leading to large numbers of upper caste Bengali Hindus migrating to West Bengal, Assam and Tripura with official Indian Government records indicating 4.12 million (Hindu) refugees crossed into India from East Bengal between 1947 and 1958.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: Utilizing demographic studies and other methods over a 55-year period from 1947 to 2001, professor Sachi Dastidar of the State University of New York calculates that well over 49 million Hindus are missing today from Bangladesh. Ergo in the absence of partition in 1947 and other events that followed, it is estimated the present-day Bangladeshi hindu population would be approximately 62.73 million or 31.4%, well above the current population of 12.73 million or 8.5%, as reported in the Bangladesh 2011 census.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: According to a report published by a local daily newspaper of Bangladesh, the Hindu population in the country has reduced by 1 million between 2001 and 2011 period. After the 1960s, most of the migration was lower caste – a trend that has continued to till this day. As per a BJP estimate, Bangladeshi Hindu immigrants are a significant presence in 75 Assembly constituencies – making up approximately a fourth of the state's seats.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: Starting from the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has made the issue of Hindu Bangladeshi immigrants a core part of its strategy in West Bengal. An estimation shows that around 30 million Bangladeshi origin low-caste Hindu refugees live in different parts of West Bengal specially in southern districts namely North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Nadia and other smaller pockets of North and South Bengal, they are having an influence in over 70 assembly constituencies and are eagerly waiting to acquire Indian citizenship through CAA which was passed by Indian parliament in 2019 year for the purpose of granting them citizenship(if there religion is Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism) as a promise criteria made by BJP in the election campaign of West Bengal earlier before the passage of that bill. An estimation shows that Assam has around 2 million Bangladeshi hindus living in different parts of the state and are struggling to acquire Indian citizenship just like their counterparts in neighbouring West Bengal. The BJP hopes to wean away a large chunk of Bengali settlers who took refuge in Tripura from Bangladesh (former East Pakistan). The influx of the Bengali Hindus increased during the Bangladesh Liberation War and around at that time of (1971), India have received 10 million refugees from East Pakistan- mostly 80% being Hindus, and after Bangladesh become independent, nearly 1.5 million of Bengali Hindu refugees decided to stay back in India particularly in West Bengal and other North Eastern states majorly in Assam and Tripura. Census data show the population of Tripura's 19 Scheduled Tribes dropped from 63.77% in 1881 to 31.78% in 2011. This is attributed to the migration of 6.10 lakh Bengalis – the figure almost equal to the State's total population in 1951 – from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) between 1947 and 1971. At present, there are around 2.2 million Bengali Hindus in Tripura (moslty having Eastern Bangladeshi origin), making them the largest ethnic group in the State, constituting around 60 per cent of the state population.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: The official number of Hindus living in Bangladesh is about 13.1 million or say 7.9% as per as 2022 census conducted by Bangladesh government authority. However, at certain times different leaders as well as Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics have given different estimates.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: Hindu temples and shrines are more or less distributed all across the country. The Kantaji Temple is an elegant example of an 18th-century temple. The most important temple in terms of prominence is the Dhakeshwari Temple, located in Dhaka. This temple along with other Hindu organizations arranges Durga Puja and Krishna Janmaashtami very prominently. The other main temples of Dhaka are the Ramakrishna Mission, Joy Kali Temple, Laxmi Narayan Mandir, Swami Bagh Temple and Siddheswari Kalimandir.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: Many Hindu temples have suffered from the implementation of the Vested Property Act through which land and moveable property has been confiscated by agents acting on behalf of successive governments.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: Hindu family law governs the personal life of Hindus in Bangladesh. There is no known limit for the number of wives a Hindu man can take in Bangladesh so polygamy for Hindu man is legal in Bangladesh.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: "Under Bangladesh Hindu (civil) law, men may have multiple wives, but there are officially no options for divorce," the report said.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: A survey conducted during the year by Research Initiatives in Bangladesh and MJF showed that 26.7 percent of Hindu men and 29.2 percent of Hindu women would like to obtain a divorce but did not do so because of existing laws.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: The Hindu community has many similar issues as the predominantly Muslim community of Bangladesh. These include women's rights, dowry, poverty, unemployment, and others. Issues unique to the Hindu community include maintenance of Hindu culture and temples in Bangladesh. Small sects of Islamists constantly try to politically and socially isolate the Hindus of Bangladesh. Because Hindus of Bangladesh are scattered across all areas (except in Narayanganj), they cannot unite politically. However, Hindus became sway voters in various elections. Hindus have usually voted in large mass for Bangladesh Awami League and communist parties, as these are the only parties which have a nominal commitment to secularism; the alternatives are the increasingly pro-Islamist centrist parties such as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jatiya Party (which both incorporate Muslim identity into their version of Bangladeshi nationalism) or the outright Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh (an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Jamaat-e-Islami) which seeks to establish Islamic law under which there would be separate provisions for Hindus as non-Muslims. However, Hindus, in general, maintain cordial relationships with liberal Muslims and they even participate in each other's festivals such as Durga Puja and Eid al-Fitr.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: The Bangladesh Liberation War resulted in one of the largest genocides of the 20th century. While estimates of the number of casualties were 200,000–3,000,000, it is reasonably certain that Hindus bore a disproportionate brunt of the Pakistan Army's onslaught against the Bengali population of what was East Pakistan. The Pakistani Army killed many Bengali Hindus during the Liberation War, and most of the Bengali Hindu-owned businesses were permanently destroyed. The historic Ramna Kali Temple in Dhaka and the century-old Rath at Dhamrai were demolished and burned down by the Pakistani Army.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: In the first constitution of the newly independent country, secularism and equality of all citizens irrespective of religious identity were enshrined. On his return to liberated Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in his first speech to the nation, specifically recognized the disproportionate suffering of the Hindu population during the Bangladesh Liberation War. On a visit to Kolkata, India in February 1972, Mujib visited the refugee camps that were still hosting several million Bangladeshi Hindus and appealed to them to return to Bangladesh and to help to rebuild the country.


title: Hinduism in Bangladesh

text: Despite the public commitment of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his government to re-establishing secularism and the rights of non-Muslim religious groups, two significant aspects of his rule remain controversial as relates to the conditions of Hindus in Bangladesh. The first was his refusal to return the premises of the Ramna Kali Mandir, historically the most important temple in Dhaka, to the religious body that owned the property. This centuries-old Hindu temple was demolished by the Pakistan army during the Bangladesh Liberation War, and around one hundred devotees were murdered. Under the provisions of the Enemy Property Act, it was determined that ownership of the property could not be established as there were no surviving members to claim inherited rights, and the land was handed over to the Dhaka Club.