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+New Hampshire (/ˈhæmpʃər/) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. New Hampshire is the 5th smallest by area and the 10th least populous U.S. state.
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+Concord is the state capital, while Manchester is the largest city. New Hampshire has no general sales tax, nor income tax other than on interest and dividends. The New Hampshire primary is the first primary in the U.S. presidential election cycle. Its license plates carry the state motto, "Live Free or Die". The state's nickname, "The Granite State", refers to its extensive granite formations and quarries.[12]
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+In January 1776, it became the first of the British North American colonies to establish a government independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain's authority, and it was the first to establish its own state constitution. Six months later, it became one of the original 13 colonies that signed the United States Declaration of Independence, and in June 1788 it was the ninth state to ratify the United States Constitution, bringing that document into effect.
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+Historically, New Hampshire was a major center for textile manufacturing, shoemaking, and papermaking, with Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester at one time being the largest cotton textile plant in the world. Numerous mills were located along various rivers in the state, especially the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers. Many French Canadians migrated to New Hampshire to work the mills in the late 19th and early 20th century; New Hampshire still ranks second among states by percentage of people claiming French American ancestry, with 24.5% of the state identifying as such.
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+Manufacturing centers such as Manchester, Nashua, and Berlin were hit hard in the 1930s–1940s, as major manufacturing industries left New England and moved to the southern United States or overseas, reflecting nationwide trends. In the 1950s and 1960s, defense contractors moved into many of the former mills, such as Sanders Associates in Nashua, and the population of southern New Hampshire surged beginning in the 1980s as major highways connected the region to Greater Boston and established several bedroom communities in the state.
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+With some of the highest ski mountains on the East Coast, New Hampshire's major recreational attractions include skiing, snowmobiling, and other winter sports, hiking and mountaineering (Mount Monadnock in the state's southwestern corner is among the most climbed mountains in the U.S.), observing the fall foliage, summer cottages along many lakes and the seacoast, motor sports at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and Motorcycle Week, a popular motorcycle rally held in Weirs Beach in Laconia in June. The White Mountain National Forest links the Vermont and Maine portions of the Appalachian Trail, and has the Mount Washington Auto Road, where visitors may drive to the top of 6,288-foot (1,917 m) Mount Washington.
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+Among prominent individuals from New Hampshire are founding father Nicholas Gilman, Senator Daniel Webster, Revolutionary War hero John Stark, editor Horace Greeley, founder of the Christian Science religion Mary Baker Eddy, poet Robert Frost, astronaut Alan Shepard, rock musician Ronnie James Dio, author Dan Brown, actor Adam Sandler, inventor Dean Kamen, comedians Sarah Silverman and Seth Meyers, restaurateurs Richard and Maurice McDonald, and President of the United States Franklin Pierce.
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+The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire by Captain John Mason.[13]
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+New Hampshire is part of the six-state New England region. It is bounded by Quebec, Canada, to the north and northwest; Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east; Massachusetts to the south; and Vermont to the west. New Hampshire's major regions are the Great North Woods, the White Mountains, the Lakes Region, the Seacoast, the Merrimack Valley, the Monadnock Region, and the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee area. New Hampshire has the shortest ocean coastline of any U.S. coastal state, with a length of 18 miles (29 km),[14] sometimes measured as only 13 miles (21 km).[15] New Hampshire was home to the rock formation called the Old Man of the Mountain, a face-like profile in Franconia Notch, until the formation disintegrated in May 2003.
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+The White Mountains range in New Hampshire spans the north-central portion of the state. The range includes Mount Washington, the tallest in the northeastern U.S.—site of the second-highest wind speed ever recorded—[16]as well as Mount Adams and Mount Jefferson. With hurricane-force winds every third day on average, more than a hundred recorded deaths among visitors, and conspicuous krumholtz (dwarf, matted trees much like a carpet of bonsai trees), the climate on the upper reaches of Mount Washington has inspired the weather observatory on the peak to claim that the area has the "World's Worst Weather".[17]
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+In the flatter southwest corner of New Hampshire, the landmark Mount Monadnock has given its name to a class of earth-forms—a monadnock—signifying, in geomorphology, any isolated resistant peak rising from a less resistant eroded plain.
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+Major rivers include the 110-mile (177 km) Merrimack River, which bisects the lower half of the state north–south and ends up in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Its tributaries include the Contoocook River, Pemigewasset River, and Winnipesaukee River. The 410-mile (660 km) Connecticut River, which starts at New Hampshire's Connecticut Lakes and flows south to Connecticut, defines the western border with Vermont. The state border is not in the center of that river, as is usually the case, but at the low-water mark on the Vermont side; meaning that the entire river along the Vermont border (save for areas where the water level has been raised by a dam) lies within New Hampshire.[18] Only one town—Pittsburg—shares a land border with the state of Vermont. The "northwesternmost headwaters" of the Connecticut also define the Canada–U.S. border.
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+The Piscataqua River and its several tributaries form the state's only significant ocean port where they flow into the Atlantic at Portsmouth. The Salmon Falls River and the Piscataqua define the southern portion of the border with Maine. The Piscataqua River boundary was the subject of a border dispute between New Hampshire and Maine in 2001, with New Hampshire claiming dominion over several islands (primarily Seavey's Island) that include the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the case in 2002, leaving ownership of the island with Maine. New Hampshire still claims sovereignty of the base, however.[19]
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+The largest of New Hampshire's lakes is Lake Winnipesaukee, which covers 71 square miles (184 km2) in the east-central part of New Hampshire. Umbagog Lake along the Maine border, approximately 12.3 square miles (31.9 km2), is a distant second. Squam Lake is the second largest lake entirely in New Hampshire.
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+New Hampshire has the shortest ocean coastline of any state in the United States, approximately 18 miles (29 km) long.[20] Hampton Beach is a popular local summer destination. About 7 miles (11 km) offshore are the Isles of Shoals, nine small islands (four of which are in New Hampshire) known as the site of a 19th-century art colony founded by poet Celia Thaxter, and the alleged location of one of the buried treasures of the pirate Blackbeard.
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+It is the state with the highest percentage of timberland area in the country.[21] New Hampshire is in the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome. Much of the state, in particular the White Mountains, is covered by the conifers and northern hardwoods of the New England-Acadian forests. The southeast corner of the state and parts of the Connecticut River along the Vermont border are covered by the mixed oaks of the Northeastern coastal forests.[22]
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+The northern third of the state is locally referred to as the "north country" or "north of the notches", in reference to White Mountain passes that channel traffic. It contains less than 5% of the state's population, suffers relatively high poverty, and is steadily losing population as the logging and paper industries decline. However, the tourist industry, in particular visitors who go to northern New Hampshire to ski, snowboard, hike and mountain bike, has helped offset economic losses from mill closures.
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+Winter season lengths are projected to decline at ski areas across New Hampshire due to the effects of global warming, which is likely to continue the historic contraction and consolidation of the ski industry and threaten individual ski businesses and communities that rely on ski tourism.[23]
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+New Hampshire experiences a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfa in some southern areas, Dfb in most of the state, and Dfc subarctic in some northern highland areas), with warm, humid summers, and long, cold, and snowy winters. Precipitation is fairly evenly distributed all year. The climate of the southeastern portion is moderated by the Atlantic Ocean and averages relatively milder winters (for New Hampshire), while the northern and interior portions experience colder temperatures and lower humidity. Winters are cold and snowy throughout the state, and especially severe in the northern and mountainous areas. Average annual snowfall ranges from 60 inches (150 cm) to over 100 inches (250 cm) across the state.[24]
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+Average daytime highs are in the mid 70s°F to low 80s°F (24–28°C) throughout the state in July, with overnight lows in the mid 50s°F to low 60s°F (13–15°C). January temperatures range from an average high of 34 °F (1 °C) on the coast to overnight lows below 0 °F (−18 °C) in the far north and at high elevations. Average annual precipitation statewide is roughly 40 inches (100 cm) with some variation occurring in the White Mountains due to differences in elevation and annual snowfall. New Hampshire's highest recorded temperature was 106 °F (41 °C) in Nashua on July 4, 1911, while the lowest recorded temperature was −47 °F (−44 °C) atop Mount Washington on January 29, 1934. Mount Washington also saw an unofficial −50 °F (−46 °C) reading on January 22, 1885, which, if made official, would tie the all-time record low for New England (also −50 °F (−46 °C) at Big Black River, Maine, on January 16, 2009, and Bloomfield, Vermont on December 30, 1933).
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+Extreme snow is often associated with a nor'easter, such as the Blizzard of '78 and the Blizzard of 1993, when several feet accumulated across portions of the state over 24 to 48 hours. Lighter snowfalls of several inches occur frequently throughout winter, often associated with an Alberta Clipper.
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+New Hampshire, on occasion, is affected by hurricanes and tropical storms although by the time they reach the state they are often extratropical, with most storms striking the southern New England coastline and moving inland or passing by offshore in the Gulf of Maine. Most of New Hampshire averages fewer than 20 days of thunderstorms per year and an average of two tornadoes occur annually statewide.[25]
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+The National Arbor Day Foundation plant hardiness zone map depicts zones 3, 4, 5, and 6 occurring throughout the state[26] and indicates the transition from a relatively cooler to warmer climate as one travels southward across New Hampshire. The 1990 USDA plant hardiness zones for New Hampshire range from zone 3b in the north to zone 5b in the south.[27]
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+Metropolitan areas in the New England region are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as New England City and Town Areas (NECTAs). The following is a list of NECTAs fully or partially in New Hampshire:[29][30]
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+Various Algonquian-speaking Abenaki tribes, largely divided between the Androscoggin and Pennacook nations, inhabited the area before European settlement.[31] Despite the similar language, they had a very different culture and religion from other Algonquian peoples. English and French explorers visited New Hampshire in 1600–1605, and David Thompson settled at Odiorne's Point in present-day Rye in 1623. The first permanent settlement was at Hilton's Point (present-day Dover). By 1631, the Upper Plantation comprised modern-day Dover, Durham and Stratham; in 1679, it became the "Royal Province". Father Rale's War was fought between the colonists and the Wabanaki Confederacy throughout New Hampshire.
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+New Hampshire was one of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule during the American Revolution. By the time of the American Revolution, New Hampshire was a divided province. The economic and social life of the Seacoast region revolved around sawmills, shipyards, merchants' warehouses, and established village and town centers. Wealthy merchants built substantial homes, furnished them with the finest luxuries, and invested their capital in trade and land speculation. At the other end of the social scale, there developed a permanent class of day laborers, mariners, indentured servants and even slaves.
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+The only battle fought in New Hampshire was the raid on Fort William and Mary, December 14, 1774, in Portsmouth Harbor, which netted the rebellion sizable quantities of gunpowder, small arms and cannon. (General Sullivan, leader of the raid, described it as, "remainder of the powder, the small arms, bayonets, and cartouche-boxes, together with the cannon and ordnance stores") over the course of two nights. This raid was preceded by a warning to local patriots the previous day, by Paul Revere on December 13, 1774, that the fort was to be reinforced by troops sailing from Boston. According to unverified accounts, the gunpowder was later used at the Battle of Bunker Hill, transported there by Major Demerit, who was one of several New Hampshire patriots who stored the powder in their homes until it was transported elsewhere for use in revolutionary activities. During the raid, the British soldiers fired upon the rebels with cannon and muskets. Although there were apparently no casualties, these were among the first shots in the American Revolutionary period, occurring approximately five months before the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
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+The United States Constitution was ratified by New Hampshire on June 21, 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth state to do so.[32]
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+New Hampshire was a Jacksonian stronghold; the state sent Franklin Pierce to the White House in the election of 1852. Industrialization took the form of numerous textile mills, which in turn attracted large flows of immigrants from Quebec (the "French Canadians") and Ireland. The northern parts of the state produced lumber, and the mountains provided tourist attractions. After 1960, the textile industry collapsed, but the economy rebounded as a center of high technology and as a service provider.
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+Starting in 1952, New Hampshire gained national and international attention for its presidential primary held early in every presidential election year. It immediately became the most important testing grounds for candidates for the Republican and Democratic nominations. The media gave New Hampshire and Iowa about half of all the attention paid to all states in the primary process, magnifying the state's decision powers and spurring repeated efforts by out-of-state politicians to change the rules.
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+The United States Census Bureau estimates the population of New Hampshire was 1,359,711 on July 1, 2019, a 3.28% increase since the 2010 United States Census.[34] The center of population of New Hampshire is in Merrimack County, in the town of Pembroke.[35] The center of population has moved south 12 miles (19 km) since 1950,[36] a reflection of the fact the state's fastest growth has been along its southern border, which is within commuting range of Boston and other Massachusetts cities.
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+The most densely populated areas generally lie within 50 miles (80 km) of the Massachusetts border, and are concentrated in two areas: along the Merrimack River Valley running from Concord to Nashua, and in the Seacoast Region along an axis stretching from Rochester to Portsmouth. Outside of those two regions, only one community, the city of Keene, has a population over 20,000. The four counties covering these two areas account for 72% of the state population, and one (Hillsborough) has nearly 30% of the state population, as well as the two most populous communities, Manchester and Nashua. The northern portion of the state is very sparsely populated: the largest county by area, Coos, covers the northern one-fourth of the state and has only around 31,000 people, about a third of whom live in a single community (Berlin). The trends over the past several decades have been for the population to shift southward, as many northern communities lack the economic base to maintain their populations, while southern communities have been absorbed by the Greater Boston metropolis.
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+As of the 2010 Census, the population of New Hampshire was 1,316,470. The gender makeup of the state was 49.3% male and 50.7% female. 21.8% of the population were under the age of 18; 64.6% were between the ages of 18 and 64; and 13.5% were 65 years of age or older.[37]
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+The racial makeup of New Hampshire as of the 2010 Census was:[37]
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+Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.8% of the population in 2010: 0.6% were of Mexican, 0.9% Puerto Rican, 0.1% Cuban, and 1.2% other Hispanic or Latino origin.
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+According to the 2012–2017 American Community Survey, the largest ancestry groups in the state were Irish (20.6%), English (16.5%), French (14.0%), Italian (10.4%), German (9.1%), French Canadian (8.9%), and American (4.8%).[40]
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+New Hampshire has the highest percentage (22.9%) of residents with French/French-Canadian/Acadian ancestry of any U.S. state.[41]
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+According to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey estimates from 2017, 2.1% of the population aged 5 and older speak Spanish at home, while 1.8% speak French.[42] In Coos County, 9.6% of the population speaks French at home,[43] down from 16% in 2000.[44]
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+Note: Percentages in table do not add up to 100, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.
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+A Pew survey showed that the religious affiliations of the people of New Hampshire was as follows: Protestant 30%, Catholic 26%, LDS (Mormon) 1%, Jewish 1%, Jehovah's Witness 2% and non-religious at 36%.[51]
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+A survey suggests people in New Hampshire and Vermont[note 3] are less likely than other Americans to attend weekly services and only 54% say that they are "absolutely certain there is a God" compared to 71% in the rest of the nation.[note 4][52] New Hampshire and Vermont are also at the lowest levels among states in religious commitment. In 2012, 23% of New Hampshire residents in a Gallup poll considered themselves "very religious", while 52% considered themselves "non-religious".[53] According to the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) the largest denominations are the Catholic Church with 311,028 members; The United Church of Christ with 26,321 members; and the United Methodist Church with 18,029 members.[54]
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+In 2016, a Gallup Poll found that New Hampshire was the least religious state in the United States. Only 20% of respondents in New Hampshire categorized themselves as "very religious", while the nationwide average was 40%.[55]
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+The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that New Hampshire's total state product in 2018 was $86 billion, ranking 40th in the United States.[57] Median household income in 2017 was $74,801, the fourth highest in the country (including Washington, DC).[58] Its agricultural outputs are dairy products, nursery stock, cattle, apples and eggs. Its industrial outputs are machinery, electric equipment, rubber and plastic products, and tourism is a major component of the economy.[59]
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+New Hampshire experienced a major shift in its economic base during the 20th century. Historically, the base was composed of traditional New England textiles, shoe making, and small machine shops, drawing upon low-wage labor from nearby small farms and from parts of Quebec. Today, of the state's total manufacturing dollar value, these sectors contribute only two percent for textiles, two percent for leather goods, and nine percent for machining.[60] They experienced a sharp decline due to obsolete plants and the lure of cheaper wages in the Southern United States.
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+New Hampshire today has a broad-based and growing economy, with a state GDP growth rate of 2.2% in 2018.[57] The state's largest economic sectors in 2018, based on contribution to GDP, are: 15% real estate and rental and leasing; 13% professional business services; 12% manufacturing; 10% government and government services; and 9% health care and social services.[61]
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+The state's budget in FY2018 was $5.97 billion, including $1.79 billion in federal funds.[62] The issue of taxation is controversial in New Hampshire, which has a property tax (subject to municipal control) but no broad sales tax or income tax. The state does have narrower taxes on meals, lodging, vehicles, business and investment income, and tolls on state roads.
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+According to the Energy Information Administration, New Hampshire's energy consumption and per capita energy consumption are among the lowest in the country. The Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant, near Portsmouth, is the largest nuclear reactor in New England and provided 57% of New Hampshire's electricity generation and 27% of its electricity consumption in 2017. In 2016 and 2017, New Hampshire obtained more of its electricity generation from wind power than coal-fired power plants. Approximately 32% of New Hampshire's electricity consumption came from renewable resources (including nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, and other renewable resources). New Hampshire was a net exporter of electricity, exporting 63 trillion British thermal units (18 TWh).[63]
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+New Hampshire's residential electricity use is low compared with the national average, in part because demand for air conditioning is low during the generally mild summer months and because few households use electricity as their primary energy source for home heating. Nearly half of New Hampshire households use fuel oil for winter heating, which is one of the largest shares in the United States. New Hampshire has potential for renewable energies like wind power, hydroelectricity, and wood fuel.[63]
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+The state has no general sales tax and no personal state income tax (the state does tax, at a 5 percent rate, income from dividends and interest), and the legislature has exercised fiscal restraint. Efforts to diversify the state's general economy have been ongoing.
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+New Hampshire's lack of a broad-based tax system has resulted in the state's local communities having some of the nation's highest property taxes. However, the state's overall tax burden is relatively low; in 2010 New Hampshire ranked 44th highest among states in combined average state and local tax burden.[64]
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+As of February 2010, the state's unemployment rate was 7.1%.[65] By October 2010, the unemployment rate had dropped to 5.4%.[66] The (preliminary) seasonally unemployment rate in April 2019 was 2.4% based on a 767,500 person civilian workforce with 749,000 people in employment. New Hampshire's workforce is 90% in nonfarm employment, with 18% employed in trade, transportation, and utilities; 17% in education and health care; 12% in government; 11% in professional and business services; and 10% in leisure and hospitality.[67]
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+According to a 2013 study by Phoenix Marketing International, New Hampshire had the eighth-highest percentage of millionaire households in the United States, at 6.48% of all households.[68] In 2013, New Hampshire also had the nation's lowest poverty rate at just 8.7% of all residents, according to the Census Bureau.[69]
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+In March 2018, 86% of New Hampshire's workforce were employed by the private sector, with 53% of those workers being employed by firms with less than 100 employees. About 14% of private sector employees are employed by firms with more than 1,000 employees.[70]
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+According to community surveys by the Economic & Labor Market Information Bureau of NH Employment Security, the following are the largest private employers in the state:[71]
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+New Hampshire's state government employs approximately 6,100 people. Additionally, the U.S. Department of State employs approximately 1,600 people at the National Visa Center in Portsmouth, which processes United States immigrant visa petitions.[71]
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+The governor of New Hampshire, since January 5, 2017, is Chris Sununu (Republican). New Hampshire's two U.S. senators are Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan (both Democrats), both of whom are former governors. New Hampshire's two U.S. representatives as of January 2019 are Chris Pappas and Ann McLane Kuster (both Democrats).
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+New Hampshire is an alcoholic beverage control state, and through the State Liquor Commission it takes in $100 million from the sale and distribution of liquor.[72]
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+New Hampshire is the only state in the U.S. that does not require adults to wear seat belts in their vehicles. It is one of three states that has no mandatory helmet law.
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+The New Hampshire State Constitution of 1783 is the supreme law of the state, followed by the New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated and the New Hampshire Code of Administrative Rules. These are roughly analogous to the federal United States Constitution, United States Code and Code of Federal Regulations respectively.
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+New Hampshire has a bifurcated executive branch, consisting of the governor and a five-member executive council which votes on state contracts worth more than $5,000 and "advises and consents" to the governor's nominations to major state positions such as department heads and all judgeships and pardon requests. New Hampshire does not have a lieutenant governor; the Senate president serves as "acting governor" whenever the governor is unable to perform the duties.
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+The legislature is called the General Court. It consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate. There are 400 representatives, making it one of the largest elected bodies in the English-speaking world,[73] and 24 senators. Legislators are paid a nominal salary of $200 per year, the lowest in the U.S. by far, thus most are effectively volunteers, nearly half of which are retirees. (For details, see the article on Government of New Hampshire.)
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+The state's sole appellate court is the New Hampshire Supreme Court. The Superior Court is the court of general jurisdiction and the only court which provides for jury trials in civil or criminal cases. The other state courts are the Probate Court, District Court, and the Family Division.
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+New Hampshire has 10 counties and 234 cities and towns.
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+New Hampshire is a "Dillon Rule" state, meaning the state retains all powers not specifically granted to municipalities. Even so, the legislature strongly favors local control, particularly with regard to land use regulations. New Hampshire municipalities are classified as towns or cities, which differ primarily by the form of government. Most towns generally operate on the town meeting form of government, where the registered voters in the town act as the town legislature, and a board of selectmen acts as the executive of the town. Larger towns and the state's thirteen cities operate either on a council–manager or council–mayor form of government. There is no difference, from the state government's point of view, between towns and cities besides the form of government. All state-level statutes treat all municipalities identically.
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+New Hampshire has a small number of unincorporated areas that are titled as grants, locations, purchases, or townships. These locations have limited to no self-government, and services are generally provided for them by neighboring towns or the county or state where needed. As of the 2000 census, there were 25 of these left in New Hampshire, accounting for a total population of 173 people (as of 2000[update]); several were entirely depopulated. All but two of these unincorporated areas are in Coos County.
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+The Republican Party and the Democratic Party are the two largest parties in the state. A plurality of voters are registered as undeclared, and can choose either ballot in the primary and then regain their undeclared status after voting.[74] The Libertarian Party had official party status from 1990 to 1996. There is also a program known as the Free State Project with the goal of turning New Hampshire into a libertarian stronghold by suggesting that libertarians move there so they can concentrate their power. The Libertarian Party regained ballot access after the 2016 election because the gubernatorial candidate received more than four percent of the vote.[75]
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+As of February 5, 2016, there were 882,959 registered voters, of whom 389,472 (44.1%) did not declare a political party affiliation, 262,111 (29.7%) were Republican, and 231,376 (26.2%) were Democratic.[76]
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+New Hampshire is internationally known for the New Hampshire primary, the first primary in the quadrennial American presidential election cycle. State law requires that the Secretary of State schedule this election at least one week before any "similar event". However, the Iowa caucus has preceded the New Hampshire primary. This primary, as the nation's first contest that uses the same procedure as the general election, draws more attention than those in other states, and it has been decisive in shaping the national contest.
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+State law permits a town with fewer than 100 residents to open its polls at midnight, and close when all registered citizens have cast their ballots. As such, the communities of Dixville Notch in Coos County and Hart's Location in Carroll County, among others, have chosen to implement these provisions. Dixville Notch and Hart's Location are traditionally the first places in both New Hampshire and the U.S. to vote in presidential primaries and elections.
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+Nominations for all other partisan offices are decided in a separate primary election. In Presidential election cycles, this is the second primary election held in New Hampshire.
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+Saint Anselm College in Goffstown has become a popular campaign spot for politicians as well as several national presidential debates because of its proximity to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.[77][78][79]
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+In the past, New Hampshire has often voted Republican. Between 1856 and 1988, New Hampshire cast its electoral votes for the Democratic presidential ticket six times: Woodrow Wilson (twice), Franklin D. Roosevelt (three times), and Lyndon B. Johnson (once).
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+Beginning in 1992, New Hampshire became a swing state in both national and local elections. The state supported Democrats Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, John Kerry in 2004, Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and Hillary Clinton in 2016. It was the only state in the country to switch from supporting Republican George W. Bush in the 2000 election to supporting his Democratic challenger in the 2004 election, when John Kerry, a senator from neighboring Massachusetts, won the state. Donald Trump very narrowly lost the state in 2016.
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+The Democrats dominated elections in New Hampshire in 2006 and 2008. In 2006, Democrats won both congressional seats (electing Carol Shea-Porter in the first district and Paul Hodes in the second), re-elected Governor John Lynch, and gained a majority on the Executive Council and in both houses for the first time since 1911. Democrats had not held both the legislature and the governorship since 1874.[80] Neither U.S. Senate seat was up for a vote in 2006. In 2008, Democrats retained their majorities, governorship, and Congressional seats; and former governor Jeanne Shaheen defeated incumbent Republican John E. Sununu for the U.S. Senate in a rematch of the 2002 contest.
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+The 2008 elections resulted in women holding a majority, 13 of the 24 seats, in the New Hampshire Senate, a first for any legislative body in the United States.[81]
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+In the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans made historic gains in New Hampshire, capturing veto-proof majorities in the state legislature, taking all five seats in the Executive Council, electing a new U.S. senator, Kelly Ayotte, winning both U.S. House seats, and reducing the margin of victory of incumbent Governor John Lynch compared to his 2006 and 2008 landslide wins.
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+In the 2012 state legislative elections, Democrats took back the New Hampshire House of Representatives and narrowed the Republican majority in the New Hampshire Senate to 13–11.[82] In 2012, New Hampshire became the first state in U.S. history to elect an all-female federal delegation: Democratic Congresswomen Carol Shea-Porter of Congressional District 1 and Ann McLane Kuster of Congressional District 2 accompanied U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte in 2013. Further, the state elected its second female governor: Democrat Maggie Hassan.
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+In the 2014 elections, Republicans retook the New Hampshire House of Representatives with a 239–160 majority and expanded their majority in the New Hampshire Senate to 14 of the Senate's 24 seats. On the national level, incumbent Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen defeated her Republican challenger, former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown. New Hampshire also elected Frank Guinta (R) for its First Congressional District representative and Ann Kuster (D) for its Second Congressional District representative.
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+In the 2016 elections, Republicans held the New Hampshire House of Representatives with a majority of 220–175, and held onto their 14 seats in the New Hampshire Senate. In the gubernatorial race, retiring Governor Maggie Hassan was succeeded by Republican Chris Sununu, who defeated Democratic nominee Colin Van Ostern. Sununu became the state's first Republican governor since Craig Benson, who left office in 2005 following defeat by John Lynch. Republicans control the governor's office and both chambers of the state legislature, a governing trifecta in which the Republicans have full governing power.[83] In the presidential race, the state voted for the Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, by a margin of 2,736 votes, or 0.3%, one of the closest results the state has ever seen in a presidential race, while Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson received 4.12% of the vote. The Democrats also won a competitive race in the Second Congressional District, as well as a competitive senate race. New Hampshire's congressional delegation currently consists of exclusively Democrats. It is one of only eight states with an entirely Democratic delegation, five of which are in New England (the others are Delaware, Hawaii, and New Mexico).
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+New Hampshire has a well-maintained, well-signed network of Interstate highways, U.S. highways, and state highways. State highway markers still depict the Old Man of the Mountain despite that rock formation's demise in 2003. Several route numbers align with the same route numbers in neighboring states. State highway numbering is arbitrary, with no overall system as with U.S. and Interstate systems. Major routes include:
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+New Hampshire has 25 public-use airports, three with some scheduled commercial passenger service. The busiest airport by number of passengers handled is Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in Manchester and Londonderry, which serves the Greater Boston metropolitan area.
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+Long-distance intercity passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak's Vermonter and Downeaster lines.
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+Greyhound, Concord Coach, Vermont Translines and Dartmouth Coach all provide intercity bus connections to and from points in New Hampshire and to long-distance points beyond and in between.
+
+As of 2013[update], Boston-centered MBTA Commuter Rail services reach only as far as northern Massachusetts. The New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority is working to extend "Capital Corridor" service from Lowell, Massachusetts, to Nashua, Concord, and Manchester, including Manchester-Boston Regional Airport; and "Coastal Corridor" service from Haverhill, Massachusetts, to Plaistow, New Hampshire.[84][85] Legislation in 2007 created the New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority (NHRTA) with the goal of overseeing the development of commuter rail in the state of New Hampshire. In 2011, Governor John Lynch vetoed HB 218, a bill passed by Republican lawmakers, which would have drastically curtailed the powers and responsibilities of NHRTA.[86][87] The I-93 Corridor transit study suggested a rail alternative along the Manchester and Lawrence branch line which could provide freight and passenger service.[88] This rail corridor would also have access to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.
+
+Eleven public transit authorities operate local and regional bus services around the state, and eight private carriers operate express bus services which link with the national intercity bus network.[89] The New Hampshire Department of Transportation operates a statewide ride-sharing match service, in addition to independent ride matching and guaranteed ride home programs.[89]
+
+Tourist railroads include the Conway Scenic Railroad, Hobo-Winnipesaukee Railroad, and the Mount Washington Cog Railway.
+
+Freight railways in New Hampshire include Claremont & Concord Railroad (CCRR), Pan Am Railways via subsidiary Springfield Terminal Railway (ST), the New England Central Railroad (NHCR), the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad (SLR), and New Hampshire Northcoast Corporation (NHN).
+
+The first public high schools in the state were the Boys' High School and the Girls' High School of Portsmouth, established either in 1827 or 1830 depending on the source.[90][91][92]
+
+New Hampshire has more than 80 public high schools, many of which serve more than one town. The largest is Pinkerton Academy in Derry, which is owned by a private non-profit organization and serves as the public high school of a number of neighboring towns. There are at least 30 private high schools in the state.
+
+New Hampshire is also the home of several prestigious university-preparatory schools, such as Phillips Exeter Academy, St. Paul's School, Proctor Academy, Brewster Academy, and Kimball Union Academy.
+
+In 2008 the state tied with Massachusetts as having the highest scores on the SAT and ACT standardized tests given to high school students.[93]
+
+The following professional and professional development sports teams are in New Hampshire:
+
+The New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon is an oval track and road course which has been visited by national motorsport championship series such as the NASCAR Cup Series, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, American Canadian Tour (ACT), the Champ Car and the IndyCar Series. Other motor racing venues include Star Speedway and New England Dragway in Epping, Lee Speedway in Lee, Twin State Speedway in Claremont, Monadnock Speedway in Winchester and Canaan Fair Speedway in Canaan.
+
+New Hampshire has two NCAA Division I teams: the Dartmouth Big Green (Ivy League) and the New Hampshire Wildcats (America East Conference), as well as three Division II teams: Franklin Pierce Ravens, Saint Anselm Hawks and Southern New Hampshire Penmen (Northeast-10 Conference).
+
+The Seacoast United Phantoms are a soccer team based in Hampton, New Hampshire. Founded in 1996, the team plays in the USL League Two, the fourth tier of the American Soccer Pyramid, in the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home games at Amesbury Sports Park, where they have played since 2017.
+
+Annually since 2002, high-school statewide all-stars compete against Vermont in ten sports during "Twin State" playoffs.[97]
+
+In the spring, New Hampshire's many sap houses hold sugaring-off open houses. In summer and early autumn, New Hampshire is home to many county fairs, the largest being the Hopkinton State Fair, in Contoocook. New Hampshire's Lakes Region is home to many summer camps, especially around Lake Winnipesaukee, and is a popular tourist destination. The Peterborough Players have performed every summer in Peterborough, New Hampshire since 1933. The Barnstormers Theatre in Tamworth, New Hampshire, founded in 1931, is one of the longest-running professional summer theaters in the United States.[98]
+
+In September, New Hampshire is host to the New Hampshire Highland Games. New Hampshire has also registered an official tartan with the proper authorities in Scotland, used to make kilts worn by the Lincoln Police Department while its officers serve during the games. The fall foliage peaks in mid-October. In the winter, New Hampshire's ski areas and snowmobile trails attract visitors from a wide area.[99] After the lakes freeze over they become dotted with ice fishing ice houses, known locally as bobhouses.
+
+Funspot, the world's largest video arcade[100] (now termed a museum), is in Laconia.
+

en/4104.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,329 @@
+Coordinates: 40°00′N 74°30′W / 40°N 74.5°W / 40; -74.5
+
+New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware River and Pennsylvania; and on the southwest by Delaware Bay and the State of Delaware. New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state by area but the 11th-most populous, with 8,882,190 residents as of 2019 and an area of 8,722.58 square miles, making it the most densely populated of the 50 U.S. states. Its largest city is Newark. All but one county in New Jersey lie within the combined statistical areas of New York City or Philadelphia. New Jersey was the second-wealthiest U.S. state by median household income as of 2017.[20]
+
+New Jersey was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, with historical tribes such as the Lenape along the coast. In the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes founded the first European settlements in the state.[21] The English later seized control of the region,[22] naming it the Province of New Jersey after the largest of the Channel Islands, Jersey,[23] and granting it as a colony to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton. New Jersey was the site of several important battles during the American Revolutionary War in the 18th century.
+
+In the 19th century, factories in the cities Camden, Paterson, Newark, Trenton, Jersey City, and Elizabeth (known as the "Big Six"[24]), helped drive the Industrial Revolution. New Jersey's geographic location at the center of the Northeast megalopolis, between Boston and New York City to the northeast, and Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., to the southwest, fueled its rapid growth through the process of suburbanization in the second half of the 20th century. At the turn of the 21st century, this suburbanization began reverting with the consolidation of New Jersey's culturally diverse populace toward more urban settings within the state,[25][26] with towns home to commuter rail stations outpacing the population growth of more automobile-oriented suburbs since 2008.[27]
+
+As of 2018, New Jersey was home to the highest number of millionaires per capita of all U.S. states.[28] New Jersey's public school system consistently ranks at or among the top of all fifty U.S. states.[29][30][31]
+
+Around 180 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period, New Jersey bordered North Africa. The pressure of the collision between North America and Africa gave rise to the Appalachian Mountains. Around 18,000 years ago, the Ice Age resulted in glaciers that reached New Jersey. As the glaciers retreated, they left behind Lake Passaic, as well as many rivers, swamps, and gorges.[32]
+
+New Jersey was originally settled by Native Americans, with the Lenni-Lenape being dominant at the time of contact. Scheyichbi is the Lenape name for the land that is now New Jersey.[33] The Lenape were several autonomous groups that practiced maize agriculture in order to supplement their hunting and gathering in the region surrounding the Delaware River, the lower Hudson River, and western Long Island Sound. The Lenape society was divided into matrilinear clans that were based upon common female ancestors. These clans were organized into three distinct phratries identified by their animal sign: Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf. They first encountered the Dutch in the early 17th century, and their primary relationship with the Europeans was through fur trade.
+
+The Dutch became the first Europeans to lay claim to lands in New Jersey. The Dutch colony of New Netherland consisted of parts of modern Middle Atlantic states. Although the European principle of land ownership was not recognized by the Lenape, Dutch West India Company policy required its colonists to purchase the land that they settled. The first to do so was Michiel Pauw who established a patronship called Pavonia in 1630 along the North River which eventually became the Bergen. Peter Minuit's purchase of lands along the Delaware River established the colony of New Sweden. The entire region became a territory of England on June 24, 1664, after an English fleet under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls sailed into what is now New York Harbor and took control of Fort Amsterdam, annexing the entire province.
+
+During the English Civil War, the Channel Island of Jersey remained loyal to the British Crown and gave sanctuary to the King. It was from the Royal Square in Saint Helier that Charles II of England was proclaimed King in 1649, following the execution of his father, Charles I. The North American lands were divided by Charles II, who gave his brother, the Duke of York (later King James II), the region between New England and Maryland as a proprietary colony (as opposed to a royal colony). James then granted the land between the Hudson River and the Delaware River (the land that would become New Jersey) to two friends who had remained loyal through the English Civil War: Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton.[34] The area was named the Province of New Jersey.
+
+Since the state's inception, New Jersey has been characterized by ethnic and religious diversity. New England Congregationalists settled alongside Scots Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed migrants. While the majority of residents lived in towns with individual landholdings of 100 acres (40 ha), a few rich proprietors owned vast estates. English Quakers and Anglicans owned large landholdings. Unlike Plymouth Colony, Jamestown and other colonies, New Jersey was populated by a secondary wave of immigrants who came from other colonies instead of those who migrated directly from Europe. New Jersey remained agrarian and rural throughout the colonial era, and commercial farming developed sporadically. Some townships, such as Burlington on the Delaware River and Perth Amboy, emerged as important ports for shipping to New York City and Philadelphia. The colony's fertile lands and tolerant religious policy drew more settlers, and New Jersey's population had increased to 120,000 by 1775.
+
+Settlement for the first 10 years of English rule took place along Hackensack River and Arthur Kill—settlers came primarily from New York and New England. On March 18, 1673, Berkeley sold his half of the colony to Quakers in England, who settled the Delaware Valley region as a Quaker colony. (William Penn acted as trustee for the lands for a time.) New Jersey was governed very briefly as two distinct provinces, East and West Jersey, for 28 years between 1674 and 1702, at times part of the Province of New York or Dominion of New England.
+
+In 1702, the two provinces were reunited under a royal governor, rather than a proprietary one. Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, became the first governor of the colony as a royal colony. Britain believed that he was an ineffective and corrupt ruler, taking bribes and speculating on land. In 1708 he was recalled to England. New Jersey was then ruled by the governors of New York, but this infuriated the settlers of New Jersey, who accused those governors of favoritism to New York. Judge Lewis Morris led the case for a separate governor, and was appointed governor by King George II in 1738.[35]
+
+New Jersey was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution. The New Jersey Constitution of 1776 was passed July 2, 1776, just two days before the Second Continental Congress declared American Independence from Great Britain. It was an act of the Provincial Congress, which made itself into the State Legislature. To reassure neutrals, it provided that it would become void if New Jersey reached reconciliation with Great Britain. New Jersey representatives Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, and Abraham Clark were among those who signed the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
+
+During the American Revolutionary War, British and American armies crossed New Jersey numerous times, and several pivotal battles took place in the state. Because of this, New Jersey today is often referred to as "The Crossroads of the American Revolution".[36] The winter quarters of the Continental Army were established there twice by General George Washington in Morristown, which has been called "The Military Capital of the American Revolution".[37]
+
+On the night of December 25–26, 1776, the Continental Army under George Washington crossed the Delaware River. After the crossing, he surprised and defeated the Hessian troops in the Battle of Trenton. Slightly more than a week after victory at Trenton, American forces gained an important victory by stopping General Cornwallis's charges at the Second Battle of Trenton. By evading Cornwallis's army, Washington made a surprise attack on Princeton and successfully defeated the British forces there on January 3, 1777. Emanuel Leutze's painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware became an icon of the Revolution.
+
+American forces under Washington met the forces under General Henry Clinton at the Battle of Monmouth in an indecisive engagement in June 1778. Washington attempted to take the British column by surprise; when the British army attempted to flank the Americans, the Americans retreated in disorder. The ranks were later reorganized and withstood the British charges.
+
+In the summer of 1783, the Continental Congress met in Nassau Hall at Princeton University, making Princeton the nation's capital for four months. It was there that the Continental Congress learned of the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the war.
+
+On December 18, 1787, New Jersey became the third state to ratify the United States Constitution, which was overwhelmingly popular in New Jersey, as it prevented New York and Pennsylvania from charging tariffs on goods imported from Europe. On November 20, 1789, the state became the first in the newly formed Union to ratify the Bill of Rights.
+
+The 1776 New Jersey State Constitution gave the vote to "all inhabitants" who had a certain level of wealth. This included women and blacks, but not married women, because they could not own property separately from their husbands. Both sides, in several elections, claimed that the other side had had unqualified women vote and mocked them for use of "petticoat electors", whether entitled to vote or not; on the other hand, both parties passed Voting Rights Acts. In 1807, the legislature passed a bill interpreting the constitution to mean universal white male suffrage, excluding paupers; the constitution was itself an act of the legislature and not enshrined as the modern constitution.[38]
+
+On February 15, 1804, New Jersey became the last northern state to abolish new slavery and enacted legislation that slowly phased out existing slavery. This led to a gradual decrease of the slave population. By the close of the Civil War, about a dozen African Americans in New Jersey were still held in bondage.[39] New Jersey voters initially refused to ratify the constitutional amendments banning slavery and granting rights to the United States' black population.
+
+Industrialization accelerated in the northern part of the state following completion of the Morris Canal in 1831. The canal allowed for coal to be brought from eastern Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley to northern New Jersey's growing industries in Paterson, Newark, and Jersey City.
+
+In 1844, the second state constitution was ratified and brought into effect. Counties thereby became districts for the State Senate, and some realignment of boundaries (including the creation of Mercer County) immediately followed. This provision was retained in the 1947 Constitution, but was overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1962 by the decision Baker v. Carr. While the Governorship was stronger than under the 1776 constitution, the constitution of 1844 created many offices that were not responsible to him, or to the people, and it gave him a three-year term, but he could not succeed himself.
+
+New Jersey was one of the few Union states (the others being Delaware and Kentucky) to select a candidate other than Abraham Lincoln twice in national elections, and sided with Stephen Douglas (1860) and George B. McClellan (1864) during their campaigns. McClellan, a native Philadelphian, had New Jersey ties and formally resided in New Jersey at the time; he later became Governor of New Jersey (1878–81). (In New Jersey, the factions of the Democratic party managed an effective coalition in 1860.) During the American Civil War, the state was led first by Republican Governor Charles Smith Olden, then by Democrat Joel Parker. During the course of the war, over 80,000 from the state enlisted in the Northern army; unlike many states, including some Northern ones, no battle was fought there.[citation needed]
+
+In the Industrial Revolution, cities like Paterson grew and prospered. Previously, the economy had been largely agrarian, which was problematically subject to crop failures and poor soil. This caused a shift to a more industrialized economy, one based on manufactured commodities such as textiles and silk. Inventor Thomas Edison also became an important figure of the Industrial Revolution, having been granted 1,093 patents, many of which for inventions he developed while working in New Jersey. Edison's facilities, first at Menlo Park and then in West Orange, are considered perhaps the first research centers in the United States. Christie Street in Menlo Park was the first thoroughfare in the world to have electric lighting. Transportation was greatly improved as locomotion and steamboats were introduced to New Jersey.
+
+Iron mining was also a leading industry during the middle to late 19th century. Bog iron pits in the southern New Jersey Pinelands were among the first sources of iron for the new nation.[40] Mines such as Mt. Hope, Mine Hill and the Rockaway Valley Mines created a thriving industry. Mining generated the impetus for new towns and was one of the driving forces behind the need for the Morris Canal. Zinc mines were also a major industry, especially the Sterling Hill Mine.
+
+New Jersey prospered through the Roaring Twenties. The first Miss America Pageant was held in 1921 in Atlantic City, the Holland Tunnel connecting Jersey City to Manhattan opened in 1927, and the first drive-in movie was shown in 1933 in Camden. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the state offered begging licenses to unemployed residents,[41] the zeppelin airship Hindenburg crashed in flames over Lakehurst, and the SS Morro Castle beached itself near Asbury Park after going up in flames while at sea.
+
+Through both World Wars, New Jersey was a center for war production, especially naval construction. The Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company yards in Kearny and Newark and the New York Shipbuilding Corporation yard in Camden produced aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers.[42] New Jersey manufactured 6.8 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking fifth among the 48 states.[43] In addition, Fort Dix (1917) (originally called "Camp Dix"),[44] Camp Merritt (1917)[45] and Camp Kilmer (1941)[46] were all constructed to house and train American soldiers through both World Wars. New Jersey also became a principal location for defense in the Cold War. Fourteen Nike missile stations were constructed for the defense of the New York City and Philadelphia areas. PT-109, a motor torpedo boat commanded by Lt. (j.g.) John F. Kennedy in World War II, was built at the Elco Boatworks in Bayonne. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) was briefly docked at the Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne in the 1950s before she was sent to Kearney to be scrapped.[47] In 1962, the world's first nuclear-powered cargo ship, the NS Savannah, was launched at Camden.
+
+In 1951, the New Jersey Turnpike opened, permitting fast travel by car and truck between North Jersey (and metropolitan New York) and South Jersey (and metropolitan Philadelphia).[citation needed]
+
+In 1959, Air Defense Command deployed the CIM-10 Bomarc surface-to-air missile to McGuire Air Force Base. On June 7, 1960 an explosion in a CIM-10 Bomarc missile fuel tank caused the accident and subsequent plutonium contamination.[48]
+
+In the 1960s, race riots erupted in many of the industrial cities of North Jersey. The first race riots in New Jersey occurred in Jersey City on August 2, 1964. Several others ensued in 1967, in Newark and Plainfield. Other riots followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, just as in the rest of the country. A riot occurred in Camden in 1971.
+
+As a result of an order from the New Jersey Supreme Court to fund schools equitably, the New Jersey legislature passed an income tax bill in 1976. Prior to this bill, the state had no income tax.[49]
+
+In the early part of the 2000s, two light rail systems were opened: the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail in Hudson County and the River Line between Camden and Trenton. The intent of these projects was to encourage transit-oriented development in North Jersey and South Jersey, respectively. The HBLR in particular was credited with a revitalization of Hudson County and Jersey City in particular.[50][51][52][53] Urban revitalization has continued in North Jersey in the 21st century. As of 2014, Jersey City's Census-estimated population was 262,146,[54] with the largest population increase of any municipality in New Jersey since 2010,[55] representing an increase of 5.9% from the 2010 United States Census, when the city's population was enumerated at 247,597.[56][57] Between 2000 and 2010, Newark experienced its first population increase since the 1950s.
+
+New Jersey is bordered on the north and northeast by New York (parts of which are across the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, and the Arthur Kill); on the east by the Atlantic Ocean; on the southwest by Delaware across Delaware Bay; and on the west by Pennsylvania across the Delaware River.
+
+New Jersey is often broadly divided into three geographic regions: North Jersey, Central Jersey, and South Jersey. Some New Jersey residents do not consider Central Jersey a region in its own right, but others believe it is a separate geographic and cultural area from the North and South.
+
+Within those regions are five distinct areas, based upon natural geography and population concentration. Northeastern New Jersey lies closest to Manhattan in New York City, and up to a million residents commute daily into the city for work, often via public transportation.[60] Northwestern New Jersey is more wooded, rural, and mountainous. The Jersey shore, along the Atlantic Coast in Central and South Jersey, has its own unique natural, residential, and cultural characteristics owing to its location by the ocean. The Delaware Valley includes the southwestern counties of the state, which reside within the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area. The Pine Barrens region is in the southern interior of New Jersey. Covered rather extensively by mixed pine and oak forest, it has a much lower population density than much of the rest of the state.
+
+The federal Office of Management and Budget divides New Jersey's counties into seven Metropolitan Statistical Areas, with 16 counties included in either the New York City or Philadelphia metro areas. Four counties have independent metro areas, and Warren County is part of the Pennsylvania-based Lehigh Valley metro area. New Jersey is also at the center of the Northeast megalopolis.
+
+High Point, in Montague Township, Sussex County, is the state's highest elevation, at 1,803 feet (550 m) above sea level. The state's highest prominence is Kitty Ann Mountain in Morris County, rising 892 feet. The Palisades are a line of steep cliffs on the west side of the Hudson River, in Bergen and Hudson Counties. Major New Jersey rivers include the Hudson, Delaware, Raritan, Passaic, Hackensack, Rahway, Musconetcong, Mullica, Rancocas, Manasquan, Maurice, and Toms rivers. Due to New Jersey's peninsular geography, both sunrise and sunset are visible over water from different points on the Jersey Shore.
+
+There are two climatic conditions in the state. The south, central, and northeast parts of the state have a humid subtropical climate, while the northwest has a humid continental climate (microthermal), with much cooler temperatures due to higher elevation. New Jersey receives between 2,400 and 2,800 hours of sunshine annually.[61]
+
+Climate change is affecting New Jersey faster than much of the rest of the United States. As of 2019, New Jersey was one of the fastest-warming states in the nation. Since 1895, average temperatures have climbed by almost 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, double the average for the other Lower 48 states.[62]
+
+Summers are typically hot and humid, with statewide average high temperatures of 82–87 °F (28–31 °C) and lows of 60–69 °F (16–21 °C); however, temperatures exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on average 25 days each summer, exceeding 100 °F (38 °C) in some years. Winters are usually cold, with average high temperatures of 34–43 °F (1–6 °C) and lows of 16 to 28 °F (−9 to −2 °C) for most of the state, but temperatures can, for brief periods, fall below 10 °F (−12 °C) and sometimes rise above 50 °F (10 °C). Northwestern parts of the state have significantly colder winters with sub-0 °F (−18 °C) being an almost annual occurrence. Spring and autumn may feature wide temperature variations, with lower humidity than summer. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone classification ranges from 6 in the northwest of the state, to 7B near Cape May.[63] All-time temperature extremes recorded in New Jersey include 110 °F (43 °C) on July 10, 1936 in Runyon, Middlesex County and −34 °F (−37 °C) on January 5, 1904 in River Vale, Bergen County.[64]
+
+Average annual precipitation ranges from 43 to 51 inches (1,100 to 1,300 mm), uniformly spread through the year. Average snowfall per winter season ranges from 10–15 inches (25–38 cm) in the south and near the seacoast, 15–30 inches (38–76 cm) in the northeast and central part of the state, to about 40–50 inches (1.0–1.3 m) in the northwestern highlands, but this often varies considerably from year to year. Precipitation falls on an average of 120 days a year, with 25 to 30 thunderstorms, most of which occur during the summer.
+
+During winter and early spring, New Jersey can experience "nor'easters", which are capable of causing blizzards or flooding throughout the northeastern United States. Hurricanes and tropical storms (such as Tropical Storm Floyd in 1999[65]), tornadoes, and earthquakes are rare, although New Jersey was impacted by a hurricane in 1903, and Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012 with the storm making landfall in the state with top winds of 90 mph (145 km/h).
+
+The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of New Jersey was 8,882,190 on July 1, 2019, a 1.03% increase since the 2010 United States Census.[5] Residents of New Jersey are most commonly referred to as "New Jerseyans" or, less commonly, as "New Jerseyites". As of the 2010 census, there were 8,791,894 people living in the state. The racial makeup of the state was:
+
+17.7% of the population were Hispanic or Latino (of any race).
+
+Non-Hispanic Whites were 58.9% of the population in 2011,[2] down from 85% in 1970.[70]
+
+In 2010, unauthorized immigrants constituted an estimated 6.2% of the population. This was the fourth-highest percentage of any state in the country.[71] There were an estimated 550,000 illegal immigrants in the state in 2010.[72] Among the municipalities which are considered sanctuary cities are Camden, Jersey City and Newark.[73]
+
+The United States Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2019[update], estimated New Jersey's population at 8,882,190. Which represents an increase of 213,750, or 2.4%, since the last census in 2010. As of 2010, New Jersey was the eleventh-most populous state in the United States, and the most densely populated, at 1,185 residents per square mile (458 per km2), with most of the population residing in the counties surrounding New York City, Philadelphia, and along the eastern Jersey Shore, while the extreme southern and northwestern counties are relatively less dense overall. It is also the second wealthiest state according to the U.S. Census Bureau.[20]
+
+The center of population for New Jersey is located in Middlesex County, in the town of Milltown, just east of the New Jersey Turnpike.[74]
+
+New Jersey is home to more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere else in the world.[75][76][77]
+
+On October 21, 2013, same-sex marriages commenced in New Jersey.[78]
+
+New Jersey is one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse states in the United States. As of 2011, 56.4% of New Jersey's children under the age of one belonged to racial or ethnic minority groups, meaning that they had at least one parent who was not non-Hispanic white.[79] The state has the second largest Jewish population by percentage (after New York);[80] the second largest Muslim population by percentage (after Michigan); the largest population of Peruvians in the United States; the largest population of Cubans outside of Florida; the third highest Asian population by percentage; and the second highest Italian population,[81] according to the 2000 Census. African Americans, Hispanics (Puerto Ricans and Dominicans), West Indians, Arabs, and Brazilian and Portuguese Americans are also high in number. New Jersey has the third highest Asian Indian population of any state by absolute numbers and the highest by percentage,[82][83][84][85] with Bergen County home to America's largest Malayali community.[86] Overall, New Jersey has the third largest Korean population, with Bergen County home to the highest Korean concentration per capita of any U.S. county[87] (6.9% in 2011). New Jersey also has the fourth largest Filipino population, and fourth largest Chinese population, per the 2010 U.S. Census. The five largest ethnic groups in 2000 were: Italian (17.9%), Irish (15.9%), African (13.6%), German (12.6%), Polish (6.9%).
+
+India Square, in Bombay, Jersey City, Hudson County,[88] is home to the highest concentration of Asian Indians in the Western Hemisphere.[89] Meanwhile, Central New Jersey, particularly Edison and surrounding Middlesex County, is prominently known for its significant concentration of Asian Indians. The world's largest Hindu temple was inaugurated in Robbinsville in 2014, a BAPS temple.[90] The growing Little India is a South Asian-focused commercial strip in Middlesex County, the U.S. county with the highest concentration of Asian Indians.[91][92][93] The Oak Tree Road strip runs for about one-and-a-half miles through Edison and neighboring Iselin in Woodbridge Township, near the area's sprawling Chinatown and Koreatown, running along New Jersey Route 27.[94] It is the largest and most diverse South Asian cultural hub in the United States.[95][96] Carteret's Punjabi Sikh community, variously estimated at upwards of 3,000, is the largest concentration of Sikhs in the state.[97] Monroe Township in Middlesex County has experienced a particularly rapid growth rate in its Indian American population, with an estimated 5,943 (13.6%) as of 2017,[98] which was 23 times the 256 (0.9%) counted as of the 2000 Census; and Diwali is celebrated by the township as a Hindu holiday. In Middlesex County, election ballots are printed in English, Spanish, Gujarati, Hindi, and Punjabi.[99]
+
+Newark was the fourth poorest of U.S. cities with over 250,000 residents in 2008,[100] but New Jersey as a whole had the second-highest median household income as of 2014.[20] This is largely because so much of New Jersey consists of suburbs, most of them affluent, of New York City and Philadelphia. New Jersey is also the most densely populated state, and the only state that has had every one of its counties deemed "urban" as defined by the Census Bureau's Combined Statistical Area.[101]
+
+In 2010, 6.2% of its population was reported as under age 5, 23.5% under 18, and 13.5% were 65 or older; and females made up approximately 51.3% of the population.[107]
+
+A study by the Pew Research Center found that in 2013, New Jersey was the only U.S. state in which immigrants born in India constituted the largest foreign-born nationality, representing roughly 10% of all foreign-born residents in the state.[104]
+
+For further information on various ethnoracial groups and neighborhoods prominently featured within New Jersey, see the following articles:
+
+As of 2011, 56.4% of New Jersey's population younger than age 1 were minorities (meaning that they had at least one parent who was not non-Hispanic white).[108]
+
+Note: Births in table do not add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.
+
+As of 2010, 71.31% (5,830,812) of New Jersey residents age 5 and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 14.59% (1,193,261) spoke Spanish, 1.23% (100,217) Chinese (which includes Cantonese and Mandarin), 1.06% (86,849) Italian, 1.06% (86,486) Portuguese, 0.96% (78,627) Tagalog, and Korean was spoken as a main language by 0.89% (73,057) of the population over the age of five. In total, 28.69% (2,345,644) of New Jersey's population age 5 and older spoke a mother language other than English.[114]
+
+A diverse collection of languages has since evolved amongst the state's population, given that New Jersey has become cosmopolitan and is home to ethnic enclaves of non-English-speaking communities:[115][116][117][118]
+
+High-rise residential complexes in the borough of Fort Lee
+
+Paterson, known as the "Silk City",[119] has become a prime destination for an internationally diverse pool of immigrants,[120][121] with at least 52 distinct ethnic groups.[122]
+
+Skyscrapers in Jersey City, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world[123][124]
+
+Federal Courthouse in Camden, which is connected to Philadelphia via the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in the background
+
+By number of adherents, the largest denominations in New Jersey, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives in 2010, were the Roman Catholic Church with 3,235,290; Islam with 160,666; and the United Methodist Church with 138,052.[126] The world's largest Hindu temple was inaugurated in Robbinsville, Mercer County, in central New Jersey during 2014, a BAPS temple.[127] In January 2018, Gurbir Grewal became the first Sikh American state attorney general in the United States.[128] In January 2019, Sadaf Jaffer became the first female Muslim American mayor, first female South Asian mayor, and first female Pakistani-American mayor in the United States, of Montgomery in Somerset County.[129]
+
+Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, the fifth-largest cathedral in North America, is the seat of the city's Roman Catholic Archdiocese.
+
+Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel, in South Orange, Essex County. New Jersey is home to the second-highest Jewish American (Hebrew) population per capita, after New York.
+
+Swaminarayan Akshardham (Devnagari) in Robbinsville, Mercer County, inaugurated in 2014 as the world's largest Hindu temple[130]
+
+Little Ramallah in Paterson is an increasingly popular destination for Muslim immigrants.
+
+For its overall population and nation-leading population density, New Jersey has a relative paucity of classic large cities. This paradox is most pronounced in Bergen County, New Jersey's most populous county, whose more than 930,000 residents in 2019 inhabited 70 municipalities, the most populous being Hackensack, with 44,522 residents estimated in 2018. Many urban areas extend far beyond the limits of a single large city, as New Jersey cities (and indeed municipalities in general) tend to be geographically small; three of the four largest cities in New Jersey by population have under 20 square miles of land area, and eight of the top ten, including all of the top five have land area under 30 square miles. As of the 2010 United States Census[update], only four municipalities had populations in excess of 100,000, although Edison and Woodbridge came very close.
+
+The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that New Jersey's gross state product in the fourth quarter of 2018 was $639.8 billion.[132] New Jersey's estimated taxpayer burden in 2015 was $59,400 per taxpayer.[133] New Jersey is nearly $239 billion in debt.[134]
+
+New Jersey's per capita gross state product in 2008 was $54,699, second in the U.S. and above the national per capita gross domestic product of $46,588.[135] Its per capita income was the third highest in the nation with $51,358.[135] In 2018, New Jersey had the highest number of millionaires per capita in the United States (approximately 9% of households), according to a study by Phoenix Marketing International.[28] The state is ranked second in the nation by the number of places with per capita incomes above national average with 76.4%. Nine of New Jersey's counties are among the 100 wealthiest U.S. counties.
+
+New Jersey has seven tax brackets that determine state income tax rates, which range from 1.4% (for income below $20,000) to 8.97% (for income above $500,000).[136]
+
+The standard sales tax rate as of January 1, 2018, is 6.625%, applicable to all retail sales unless specifically exempt by law. This rate, which is comparably lower than that of New York City, often attracts numerous shoppers from New York City, often to suburban Paramus, New Jersey, which has five malls, one of which (the Garden State Plaza) has over two million square feet of retail space. Tax exemptions include most food items for at-home preparation, medications, most clothing, footwear and disposable paper products for use in the home.[137] There are 27 Urban Enterprise Zone statewide, including sections of Paterson, Elizabeth, and Jersey City. In addition to other benefits to encourage employment within the zone, shoppers can take advantage of a reduced 3.3125% sales tax rate (half the rate charged statewide) at eligible merchants.[138][139][140]
+
+New Jersey has the highest cumulative tax rate of all 50 states with residents paying a total of $68 billion in state and local taxes annually with a per capita burden of $7,816 at a rate of 12.9% of income.[141] All real property located in the state is subject to property tax unless specifically exempted by statute. New Jersey does not assess an intangible personal property tax, but it does impose an inheritance tax.
+
+New Jersey consistently ranks as having one of the highest proportional levels of disparity of any state in the United States, based upon what it receives from the federal government relative to what it gives. In 2015, WalletHub ranked New Jersey the state least dependent upon federal government aid overall and having the fourth lowest return on taxpayer investment from the federal government, at 48 cents per dollar.[142]
+
+New Jersey has one of the highest tax burdens in the nation.[143] Factors for this include the large federal tax liability which is not adjusted for New Jersey's higher cost of living and Medicaid funding formulas.
+
+New Jersey's economy is multifaceted, but is centered on the pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology, information technology, the financial industry, chemical development, telecommunications, food processing, electric equipment, printing, publishing, and tourism. New Jersey's agricultural outputs are nursery stock, horses, vegetables, fruits and nuts, seafood, and dairy products.[144] New Jersey ranks second among states in blueberry production, third in cranberries and spinach, and fourth in bell peppers, peaches, and head lettuce.[145] The state harvests the fourth-largest number of acres planted with asparagus.[146]
+
+Although New Jersey is home to many energy-intensive industries, its energy consumption is only 2.7% of the U.S. total, and its carbon dioxide emissions are 0.8% of the U.S. total. Its comparatively low greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to the state's use of nuclear power. According to the Energy Information Administration, nuclear power dominates New Jersey's electricity market, typically supplying more than one-half of state generation. New Jersey has three nuclear power plants, including the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, which came online in 1969 and is the oldest operating nuclear plant in the country.[147]
+
+New Jersey has a strong scientific economy and is home to major pharmaceutical and telecommunications firms, drawing on the state's large and well-educated labor pool. There is also a strong service economy in retail sales, education, and real estate, serving residents who work in New York City or Philadelphia.
+
+Shipping is a key industry in New Jersey because of the state's strategic geographic location, the Port of New York and New Jersey being the busiest port on the East Coast. The Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal was the world's first container port and today is one of the world's largest.
+
+New Jersey hosts several business headquarters, including twenty-four Fortune 500 companies.[148] Paramus in Bergen County has become the top retail ZIP code (07652) in the United States, with the municipality generating over US$6 billion in annual retail sales.[149] Several New Jersey counties, including Somerset (7), Morris (10), Hunterdon (13), Bergen (21), and Monmouth (42), have been ranked among the highest-income counties in the United States.
+
+New Jersey's location at the center of the Northeast megalopolis and its extensive transportation system have put over one-third of all United States residents and many Canadian residents within overnight distance by land. This accessibility to consumer revenue has enabled seaside resorts such as Atlantic City and the remainder of the Jersey Shore, as well as the state's other natural and cultural attractions, to contribute significantly to the record 111 million tourist visits to New Jersey in 2018, providing US$44.7 billion in tourism revenue, directly supporting 333,860 jobs, sustaining more than 531,000 jobs overall including peripheral impacts, and generating US$5 billion in state and local tax revenue.[150]
+
+In 1976, a referendum of New Jersey voters approved casino gambling in Atlantic City, where the first legalized casino opened in 1978.[151] At that time, Las Vegas was the only other casino resort in the country.[152] Today, several casinos lie along the Atlantic City Boardwalk,[citation needed] the first and longest boardwalk in the world.[citation needed] Atlantic City experienced a dramatic contraction in its stature as a gambling destination after 2010, including the closure of multiple casinos since 2014, spurred by competition from the advent of legalized gambling in other northeastern U.S. states.[153][154] On February 26, 2013, Governor Chris Christie signed online gambling into law.[155] Sports betting has become a growing source of gambling revenue in New Jersey since being legalized across the nation by the U.S. Supreme Court on May 14, 2018.[156]
+
+Forests cover 45%, or approximately 2.1 million acres, of New Jersey's land area.[157] The chief tree of the northern forests is the oak. The Pine Barrens, consisting of pine forests, is in the southern part of the state.
+
+Some mining activity of zinc, iron, and manganese still takes place in the area in and around the Franklin Furnace.
+
+New Jersey is second in the nation in solar power installations,[158] enabled by one of the country's most favorable net metering policies, and the renewable energy certificates program. The state has more than 10,000 solar installations.[159]
+
+In 2010, there were 605 school districts in the state.[161]
+
+Secretary of Education Rick Rosenberg, appointed by Governor Jon Corzine, created the Education Advancement Initiative (EAI) to increase college admission rates by 10% for New Jersey's high school students, decrease dropout rates by 15%, and increase the amount of money devoted to schools by 10%. Rosenberg retracted this plan when criticized for taking the money out of healthcare to fund this initiative.
+
+In 2010, the state government paid all of the teachers' premiums for health insurance,[161] but currently all NJ public teachers pay a portion of their own health insurance premiums.
+
+In 2015, New Jersey spent more per each public school student than any other U.S. state except New York, Alaska, and Connecticut, amounting to $18,235 spent per pupil. Over 50% of the expenditure was allocated to student instruction.[162]
+
+According to 2011 Newsweek statistics, students of High Technology High School in Lincroft, Monmouth County and Bergen County Academies in Hackensack, Bergen County registered average SAT scores of 2145 and 2100, respectively,[163] representing the second- and third-highest scores, respectively, of all listed U.S. high schools.[163]
+
+Princeton University in Princeton, Mercer County, one of the world's most prominent research universities, is often featured at or near the top of various national and global university rankings, topping the 2020 list of U.S. News & World Report.[164] In 2013, Rutgers University, headquartered in New Brunswick, Middlesex County as the flagship institution of higher education in New Jersey, gained medical and dental schools, augmenting its profile as a national research university as well.[165]
+
+In 2014, New Jersey's school systems were ranked at the top of all fifty U.S. states by financial website Wallethub.com.[166] In 2018, New Jersey's overall educational system was ranked second among all states to Massachusetts by U.S. News & World Report.[31] In 2019, Education Week also ranked New Jersey public schools the best of all U.S. states.[29]
+
+Nine New Jersey high schools were ranked among the top 25 in the U.S. on the Newsweek "America's Top High Schools 2016" list, more than from any other state.[167] A 2017 UCLA Civil Rights project found that New Jersey has the sixth-most segregated classrooms in the United States.[168]
+
+New Jersey has continued to play a prominent role as a U.S. cultural nexus. Like every state, New Jersey has its own cuisine, religious communities, museums, and halls of fame.
+
+New Jersey is the birthplace of modern inventions such as: FM radio, the motion picture camera, the lithium battery, the light bulb, transistors, and the electric train. Other New Jersey creations include: the drive-in movie, the cultivated blueberry, cranberry sauce, the postcard, the boardwalk, the zipper, the phonograph, saltwater taffy, the dirigible, the seedless watermelon,[169] the first use of a submarine in warfare, and the ice cream cone.[170]
+
+Diners are iconic to New Jersey. The state is home to many diner manufacturers and has over 600 diners, more than any other place in the world.[171]
+
+New Jersey is the only state without a state song. I'm From New Jersey is incorrectly listed on many websites as being the New Jersey state song, but it was not even a contender when in 1996 the New Jersey Arts Council submitted their suggestions to the New Jersey Legislature.[172]
+
+New Jersey is frequently the target of jokes in American culture,[173] especially from New York City-based television shows, such as Saturday Night Live. Academic Michael Aaron Rockland attributes this to New Yorkers' view that New Jersey is the beginning of Middle America. The New Jersey Turnpike, which runs between two major East Coast cities, New York City and Philadelphia, is also cited as a reason, as people who traverse through the state may only see its industrial zones.[174] Reality television shows like Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives of New Jersey have reinforced stereotypical views of New Jersey culture,[175] but Rockland cited The Sopranos and the music of Bruce Springsteen as exporting a more positive image.[174]
+
+New Jersey is known for several foods developed within the region, including Taylor Ham (also known as pork roll), cheesesteaks, and scrapple.
+
+Several states with substantial Italian American populations take credit for the development of submarine sandwiches, including New Jersey.[176]
+
+New Jersey has long been an important origin for both rock and rap music. Prominent musicians from or with significant connections to New Jersey include:
+
+New Jersey currently has six teams from major professional sports leagues playing in the state, although one Major League Soccer team and two National Football League teams identify themselves as being from the New York metropolitan area.
+
+The National Hockey League's New Jersey Devils, based in Newark at the Prudential Center, is the only major league sports franchise to bear the state's name. Founded in 1974 in Kansas City, Missouri, as the Kansas City Scouts, the team played in Denver, Colorado, as the Colorado Rockies from 1976 until the spring of 1982 when naval architect, businessman, and Jersey City native John J. McMullen purchased, renamed, and moved the franchise to Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford's Meadowlands Sports Complex. While the team had mostly losing records in Kansas City, Denver, and its first years in New Jersey, the Devils began to improve in the late 1980s and early 1990s under Hall of Fame president and general manager Lou Lamoriello. The team made the playoffs for the Stanley Cup in 2001 and 2012, and won it in 1995, 2000, and 2003. The organization is the youngest of the nine major league teams in the New York metropolitan area. The Devils have established a following throughout the northern and central portions of the state, carving a place in a media market once dominated by the New York Rangers and Islanders.
+
+In 2018, the Philadelphia Flyers renovated and expanded their training facility, the Virtua Center Flyers Skate Zone, in Voorhees Township in the southern portion of the state.[213]
+
+The New York Metropolitan Area's two National Football League teams, the New York Giants and the New York Jets, play at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford's Meadowlands Sports Complex.[214] Built for about $1.6 billion,[215] the venue is the most expensive stadium ever built.[212] On February 2, 2014, MetLife Stadium hosted Super Bowl XLVIII.
+
+The New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer play in Red Bull Arena, a soccer-specific stadium in Harrison across the Passaic River from downtown Newark. On July 27, 2011, Red Bull Arena hosted the 2011 MLS All-Star Game.[216]
+
+From 1977 to 2012, New Jersey had a National Basketball Association team, the New Jersey Nets. WNBA's New York Liberty played in New Jersey from 2011 to 2013 while their primary home arena, Madison Square Garden was undergoing renovations.[217] In 2016, the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA opened their new headquarters and training facility, the Philadelphia 76ers Training Complex, in Camden.[218]
+
+The Meadowlands Sports Complex is home to the Meadowlands Racetrack, one of three major harness racing tracks in the state. The Meadowlands Racetrack and Freehold Raceway in Freehold are two of the major harness racing tracks in North America. Monmouth Park Racetrack in Oceanport is a popular spot for thoroughbred racing in New Jersey and the northeast. It hosted the Breeders' Cup in 2007, and its turf course was renovated in preparation.
+
+New Jerseyans' collegiate allegiances are predominantly split among the three major NCAA Division I programs in the state: the Rutgers University (New Jersey's flagship state university) Scarlet Knights, members of the Big Ten Conference; the Seton Hall University (the state's largest Catholic university) Pirates, members of the Big East Conference; and the Princeton University (the state's Ivy League university) Tigers.
+
+The intense rivalry between Rutgers and Princeton athletics began with the first intercollegiate football game in 1869. The schools have not met on the football field since 1980, but they continue to play each other annually in all other sports offered by the two universities.
+
+Rutgers, which fields 24 teams in various sports, is nationally known for its football program, with a 6–4 all-time bowl record; and its women's basketball programs, which appeared in a National Final in 2007. In 2008 and 2009, Rutgers expanded their football home HighPoint.com Stadium on the Busch Campus. The basketball teams play at Louis Brown Athletic Center on Livingston Campus. Both venues and campuses are in Piscataway, across the Raritan River from New Brunswick. The university also fields men's basketball and baseball programs. Rutgers' fans live mostly in the western parts of the state and Middlesex County; its alumni base is the largest in the state.
+
+Rutgers' satellite campuses in Camden and Newark each field their own athletic programs—the Rutgers–Camden Scarlet Raptors and the Rutgers–Newark Scarlet Raiders—which both compete in NCAA Division III.
+
+Seton Hall fields no football team, but its men's basketball team is one of the Big East's storied programs. No New Jersey team has won more games in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, and it is the state's only men's basketball program to reach a modern National Final. The Pirates play their home games at Prudential Center in downtown Newark, about four miles from the university's South Orange campus. Their fans hail largely from in the predominantly Roman Catholic areas of the northern part of the state and the Jersey Shore. The annual inter-conference rivalry game between Seton Hall and Rutgers, whose venue alternates between Newark and Piscataway, the Garden State Hardwood Classic, is planned through 2026.[219]
+
+The state's other Division I schools include the Monmouth University Hawks (West Long Branch), the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) Highlanders (Newark), the Rider University Broncs (Lawrenceville), and the Saint Peter's University Peacocks and Peahens (Jersey City).
+
+Fairleigh Dickinson University competes in both Division I and Division III. It has two campuses, each with its own sports teams. The teams at the Metropolitan Campus are known as the FDU Knights, and compete in the Northeast Conference and NCAA Division I. The College at Florham (FDU-Florham) teams are known as the FDU-Florham Devils and compete in the Middle Atlantic Conferences' Freedom Conference and NCAA Division III.
+
+Among the various Division III schools in the state, the Stevens Institute of Technology Ducks have fielded the longest continuously running collegiate men's lacrosse program in the country. 2009 marked the 125th season.
+
+New Jersey high schools are divided into divisions under the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA).[220]'[221] Founded in 1918, the NJSIAA currently represents 22,000 schools, 330,000 coaches, and almost 4.5 million athletes.
+
+Motion picture technology was developed by Thomas Edison, with much of his early work done at his West Orange laboratory. Edison's Black Maria was the first motion picture studio. America's first motion picture industry started in 1907 in Fort Lee and the first studio was constructed there in 1909.[225] DuMont Laboratories in Passaic developed early sets and made the first broadcast to the private home.
+
+A number of television shows and films have been filmed in New Jersey. Since 1978, the state has maintained a Motion Picture and Television Commission to encourage filming in-state.[226] New Jersey has long offered tax credits to television producers. Governor Chris Christie suspended the credits in 2010, but the New Jersey State Legislature in 2011 approved the restoration and expansion of the tax credit program. Under bills passed by both the state Senate and Assembly, the program offers 20 percent tax credits (22% in urban enterprise zones) to television and film productions that shoot in the state and meet set standards for hiring and local spending.[227]
+
+The New Jersey Turnpike is one of the most prominent and heavily trafficked roadways in the United States. This toll road, which overlaps with Interstate 95 for much of its length, carries traffic between Delaware and New York, and up and down the East Coast in general. Commonly referred to as simply "the Turnpike", it is known for its numerous rest areas named after prominent New Jerseyans.
+
+The Garden State Parkway, or simply "the Parkway", carries relatively more in-state traffic than interstate traffic and runs from New Jersey's northern border to its southernmost tip at Cape May. It is the main route that connects the New York metropolitan area to the Jersey Shore and is consistently one of the safest roads in the nation. With a total of fifteen travel and six shoulder lanes, the Driscoll Bridge on the Parkway, spanning the Raritan River in Middlesex County, is the widest motor vehicle bridge in the world by number of lanes as well as one of the busiest.[230]
+
+New Jersey is connected to New York City via various key bridges and tunnels. The double-decked George Washington Bridge carries the heaviest load of motor vehicle traffic of any bridge in the world, at 102 million vehicles per year, across fourteen lanes.[228][229] It connects Fort Lee, New Jersey to the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, and carries Interstate 95 and U.S. Route 1/9 across the Hudson River. The Lincoln Tunnel connects to Midtown Manhattan carrying New Jersey Route 495, and the Holland Tunnel connects to Lower Manhattan carrying Interstate 78. New Jersey is also connected to Staten Island by three bridges—from north to south, the Bayonne Bridge, the Goethals Bridge, and the Outerbridge Crossing.
+
+New Jersey has interstate compacts with all three of its neighboring states. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Delaware River Port Authority (with Pennsylvania), the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (with Pennsylvania), and the Delaware River and Bay Authority (with Delaware) operate most of the major transportation routes in and out of the state. Bridge tolls are collected only from traffic exiting the state, with the exception of the private Dingman's Ferry Bridge over the Delaware River, which charges a toll in both directions.
+
+It is unlawful for a customer to serve themselves gasoline in New Jersey. It became the last remaining U.S. state where all gas stations are required to sell full-service gasoline to customers at all times in 2016, after Oregon's introduction of restricted self-service gasoline availability took effect.[231]
+
+Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) is one of the busiest airports in the United States. Operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, it is one of the three main airports serving the New York metropolitan area. United Airlines is the airport's largest tenant, operating an entire terminal there, which it uses as one of its primary hubs. FedEx Express operates a large cargo terminal at EWR as well. The adjacent Newark Airport railroad station provides access to Amtrak and NJ Transit trains along the Northeast Corridor Line.
+
+Two smaller commercial airports, Atlantic City International Airport and rapidly growing Trenton-Mercer Airport, also operate in other parts of the state. Teterboro Airport in Bergen County, and Millville Municipal Airport in Cumberland County, are general aviation airports popular with private and corporate aircraft due to their proximity to New York City and the Jersey Shore, respectively.
+
+NJ Transit operates extensive rail and bus service throughout the state. A state-run corporation, it began with the consolidation of several private bus companies in North Jersey in 1979. In the early 1980s, it acquired Conrail's commuter train operations that connected suburban towns to New York City. Today, NJ Transit has eleven commuter rail lines that run through different parts of the state. Most of the lines end at either Penn Station in New York City or Hoboken Terminal in Hoboken. One line provides service between Atlantic City and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
+
+NJ Transit also operates three light rail systems in the state. The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail connects Bayonne to North Bergen, through Hoboken and Jersey City. The Newark Light Rail is partially underground, and connects downtown Newark with other parts of the city and its suburbs, Belleville and Bloomfield. The River Line connects Trenton and Camden.
+
+The PATH is a rapid transit system consisting of four lines operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It links Hoboken, Jersey City, Harrison and Newark with New York City. The PATCO Speedline is a rapid transit system that links Camden County to Philadelphia. Both the PATCO and the PATH are two of only five rapid transit systems in the United States to operate 24 hours a day.
+
+Amtrak operates numerous long-distance passenger trains in New Jersey, both to and from neighboring states and around the country. In addition to the Newark Airport connection, other major Amtrak railway stations include Trenton Transit Center, Metropark, and the historic Newark Penn Station.
+
+The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, has two commuter rail lines that operate into New Jersey. The Trenton Line terminates at the Trenton Transit Center, and the West Trenton Line terminates at the West Trenton Rail Station in Ewing.
+
+AirTrain Newark is a monorail connecting the Amtrak/NJ Transit station on the Northeast Corridor to the airport's terminals and parking lots.
+
+Some private bus carriers still remain in New Jersey. Most of these carriers operate with state funding to offset losses and state owned buses are provided to these carriers, of which Coach USA companies make up the bulk. Other carriers include private charter and tour bus operators that take gamblers from other parts of New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, and Delaware to the casino resorts of Atlantic City.
+
+New York Waterway has ferry terminals at Belford, Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, and Edgewater, with service to different parts of Manhattan. Liberty Water Taxi in Jersey City has ferries from Paulus Hook and Liberty State Park to Battery Park City in Manhattan. Statue Cruises offers service from Liberty State Park to the Statue of Liberty National Monument, including Ellis Island. SeaStreak offers services from the Raritan Bayshore to Manhattan, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket.
+
+The Delaware River and Bay Authority operates the Cape May–Lewes Ferry on Delaware Bay, carrying both passengers and vehicles between New Jersey and Delaware. The agency also operates the Forts Ferry Crossing for passengers across the Delaware River. The Delaware River Port Authority operates the RiverLink Ferry between the Camden waterfront and Penn's Landing in Philadelphia.
+
+The position of Governor of New Jersey has been considered one of the most powerful in the nation. Until 2010, the governor was the only statewide elected executive official in the state and appointed numerous government officials. Formerly, an acting governor was even more powerful as he simultaneously served as President of the New Jersey State Senate, thus directing half of the legislative and all of the executive process. In 2002 and 2007, President of the State Senate Richard Codey held the position of acting governor for a short time, and from 2004 to 2006 Codey became a long-term acting governor due to Jim McGreevey's resignation. A 2005 amendment to the state Constitution prevents the Senate President from becoming acting governor in the event of a permanent gubernatorial vacancy without giving up her or his seat in the state Senate. Phil Murphy (D) is the Governor. The governor's mansion is Drumthwacket, located in Princeton.
+
+Before 2010, New Jersey was one of the few states without a lieutenant governor. Republican Kim Guadagno was elected the first Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey and took office on January 19, 2010. She was elected on the Republican ticket with Governor-Elect Chris Christie in the November 2009 NJ gubernatorial election. The position was created as the result of a Constitutional amendment to the New Jersey State Constitution passed by the voters on November 8, 2005 and effective as of January 17, 2006.
+
+The current version of the New Jersey State Constitution was adopted in 1947. It provides for a bicameral New Jersey Legislature, consisting of an upper house Senate of 40 members and a lower house General Assembly of 80 members. Each of the 40 legislative districts elects one State Senator and two Assembly members. Assembly members are elected for a two-year term in all odd-numbered years; State Senators are elected in the years ending in 1, 3, and 7 and thus serve either four- or two-year terms.
+
+New Jersey is one of only five states that elects its state officials in odd-numbered years. (The others are Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia.) New Jersey holds elections for these offices every four years, in the year following each federal Presidential election year. Thus, the last year when New Jersey elected a Governor was 2017; the next gubernatorial election will occur in 2021.
+
+The New Jersey Supreme Court[232] consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices. All are appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of a majority of the membership of the State Senate. Justices serve an initial seven-year term, after which they can be reappointed to serve until age 70.
+
+Most of the day-to-day work in the New Jersey courts is carried out in the Municipal Court, where simple traffic tickets, minor criminal offenses, and small civil matters are heard.
+
+More serious criminal and civil cases are handled by the Superior Court for each county. All Superior Court judges are appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of a majority of the membership of the State Senate. Each judge serves an initial seven-year term, after which he or she can be reappointed to serve until age 70. New Jersey's judiciary is unusual in that it still has separate courts of law and equity, like its neighbor Delaware but unlike most other U.S. states. The New Jersey Superior Court is divided into Law and Chancery Divisions at the trial level; the Law Division hears both criminal cases and civil lawsuits where the plaintiff's primary remedy is damages, while the Chancery Division hears family cases, civil suits where the plaintiff's primary remedy is equitable relief, and probate trials.
+
+The Superior Court also has an Appellate Division, which functions as the state's intermediate appellate court. Superior Court judges are assigned to the Appellate Division by the Chief Justice.
+
+There is also a Tax Court, which is a court of limited jurisdiction. Tax Court judges hear appeals of tax decisions made by County Boards of Taxation. They also hear appeals on decisions made by the Director of the Division of Taxation on such matters as state income, sales and business taxes, and homestead rebates. Appeals from Tax Court decisions are heard in the Appellate Division of Superior Court. Tax Court judges are appointed by the Governor for initial terms of seven years, and upon reappointment are granted tenure until they reach the mandatory retirement age of 70. There are 12 Tax Court judgeships.
+
+New Jersey is divided into 21 counties; 13 date from the colonial era. New Jersey was completely divided into counties by 1692; the present counties were created by dividing the existing ones; most recently Union County in 1857.[233] New Jersey is the only state in the nation where elected county officials are called "Freeholders", governing each county as part of its own Board of Chosen Freeholders. The number of freeholders in each county is determined by referendum, and must consist of three, five, seven or nine members.
+
+Depending on the county, the executive and legislative functions may be performed by the Board of Chosen Freeholders or split into separate branches of government. In 16 counties, members of the Board of Chosen Freeholders perform both legislative and executive functions on a commission basis, with each Freeholder assigned responsibility for a department or group of departments. In the other five counties (Atlantic, Bergen, Essex, Hudson and Mercer), there is a directly elected County Executive who performs the executive functions while the Board of Chosen Freeholders retains a legislative and oversight role. In counties without an Executive, a County Administrator (or County Manager) may be hired to perform day-to-day administration of county functions.
+
+New Jersey currently has 565 municipalities; the number was 566 before Princeton Township and Princeton Borough merged to form the municipality of Princeton on January 1, 2013. Unlike other states, all New Jersey land is part of a municipality. In 2008, Governor Jon Corzine proposed cutting state aid to all towns under 10,000 people, to encourage mergers to reduce administrative costs.[234] In May 2009, the Local Unit Alignment Reorganization and Consolidation Commission began a study of about 40 small communities in South Jersey to decide which ones might be good candidates for consolidation.[235]
+
+Starting in the 20th century, largely driven by reform-minded goals, a series of six modern forms of government was implemented. This began with the Walsh Act, enacted in 1911 by the New Jersey Legislature, which provided for a three- or five-member commission elected on a non-partisan basis. This was followed by the 1923 Municipal Manager Law, which offered a non-partisan council, provided for a weak mayor elected by and from the members of the council, and introduced a Council-manager government structure with an appointed manager responsible for day-to-day administration of municipal affairs.
+
+The Faulkner Act, originally enacted in 1950 and substantially amended in 1981, offers four basic plans: Mayor-Council, Council-Manager, Small Municipality, and Mayor-Council-Administrator. The act provides many choices for communities with a preference for a strong executive and professional management of municipal affairs and offers great flexibility in allowing municipalities to select the characteristics of its government: the number of seats on the Council; seats selected at-large, by wards, or through a combination of both; staggered or concurrent terms of office; and a mayor chosen by the Council or elected directly by voters. Most large municipalities and a majority of New Jersey's residents are governed by municipalities with Faulkner Act charters. Municipalities can also formulate their own unique form of government and operate under a Special Charter with the approval of the New Jersey Legislature.[citation needed]
+
+While municipalities retain their names derived from types of government, they may have changed to one of the modern forms of government, or further in the past to one of the other traditional forms, leading to municipalities with formal names quite baffling to the general public. For example, though there are four municipalities that are officially of the village type, Loch Arbour is the only one remaining with the village form of government. The other three villages—Ridgefield Park (now with a Walsh Act form), Ridgewood (now with a Faulkner Act Council-Manager charter) and South Orange (now operates under a Special Charter)—have all migrated to other non-village forms.[citation needed]
+
+Socially, New Jersey is considered one of the more liberal states in the nation. Polls indicate that 60% of the population are self-described as pro-choice, although a majority are opposed to late trimester and intact dilation and extraction and public funding of abortion.[236][237] In a 2009 Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll, a plurality supported same-sex marriage 49% to 43% opposed,[238] On October 18, 2013, the New Jersey Supreme Court rendered a provisional, unanimous (7–0) order authorizing same-sex marriage in the state, pending a legal appeal by Governor Chris Christie,[239] who then withdrew this appeal hours after the inaugural same-sex marriages took place on October 21, 2013.[78]
+
+New Jersey also has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the U.S. These include bans on assault firearms, hollow-nose bullets and slingshots. No gun offense in New Jersey is graded less than a felony. BB guns and black-powder guns are all treated as modern firearms. New Jersey does not recognize out-of-state gun licenses and aggressively enforces its own gun laws.[240]
+
+In past elections, New Jersey was a Republican bastion, but recently has become a Democratic stronghold. Currently, New Jersey Democrats have majority control of both houses of the New Jersey Legislature (Senate, 26–14, and Assembly, 54–26), a 10–2 split of the state's twelve seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and both U.S. Senate seats. Although the Democratic Party is very successful statewide, the state has had Republican governors; from 1994 to 2002, Christine Todd Whitman won twice with 47% and 49% of the votes, respectively, and in the 2009 gubernatorial election, Republican Chris Christie defeated incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine with 48% of the vote. In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Christie won reelection with over 60% of the votes. Because each candidate for lieutenant governor runs on the same ticket as the party's candidate for governor, the current Governor and Lieutenant Governor are members of the Democratic Party. The governor's appointments to cabinet and non-cabinet positions may be from either party; for instance, the Attorney General is a Democrat.
+
+In federal elections, the state leans heavily towards the Democratic Party. For many years in the past, however, it was a Republican stronghold, having given comfortable margins of victory to the Republican candidate in the close elections of 1948, 1968, and 1976. New Jersey was a crucial swing state in the elections of 1960, 1968, and 1992. The last elected Republican to hold a Senate seat from New Jersey was Clifford P. Case in 1979. Newark Mayor Cory Booker was elected in October 2013 to join Robert Menendez to make New Jersey the first state with concurrent serving black and Latino U.S. senators.[241]
+
+The state's Democratic strongholds include Camden County, Essex County (typically the state's most Democratic county—it includes Newark, the state's largest city), Hudson County (the second-strongest Democratic county, including Jersey City, the state's second-largest city); Mercer County (especially around Trenton and Princeton), Middlesex County, and Union County (including Elizabeth, the state's fourth-largest city).[242]
+
+The suburban northwestern and southeastern counties of the state are reliably Republican: Republicans have support along the coast in Ocean County and in the mountainous northwestern part of the state, especially Morris County, Sussex County, and Warren County. Other suburban counties, especially Bergen County and Burlington County had the majority of votes go to the Democratic Party. In the 2008 election, President Barack Obama won New Jersey with approximately fifty-seven percent of the vote, compared to McCain's forty-one percent. Independent candidate Ralph Nader garnered less than one percent of the vote.
+
+About one-third of the state's counties are considered "swing" counties, but some go more one way than others. For example, Salem County, the same is true with Passaic County, with a highly populated Hispanic Democratic south (including Paterson, the state's third-largest city) and a rural, Republican north; with the "swing" township of Wayne in the middle. Other "swing" counties like Monmouth County, Somerset County, and Cape May County tend to go Republican, as they also have population in conservative areas, although Somerset has recently trended Democratic.
+
+To be eligible to vote in a U.S. election, all New Jerseyans are required to start their residency in the state 30 days prior to an election and register 21 days prior to election day.[243]
+
+On December 17, 2007, Governor Jon Corzine signed into law a bill that would eliminate the death penalty in New Jersey. New Jersey is the first state to pass such legislation since Iowa and West Virginia eliminated executions in 1965.[244] Corzine also signed a bill that would downgrade the Death Row prisoners' sentences from "Death" to "Life in Prison with No Parole".[245]
+
+There is also a mineral museum Ogdensburg in Sussex County.
+
+Visitors and residents take advantage of and contribute to performances at the numerous music, theater, and dance companies and venues located throughout the state, including:
+
+New Jersey is the location of most of the boardwalks in the U.S., with nearly every town and city along the Jersey Shore area each having a boardwalk with various attractions, entertainment, shopping, dining, miniature golf, arcades, water parks with various water rides, including water slides, lazy rivers, wave pools, etc., and amusement parks hosting rides and attractions including roller coasters, carousels, Ferris wheels, bumper cars, teacups, etc.
+
+(Glyptemys muhlenbergii)[249]

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+Coordinates: 40°00′N 74°30′W / 40°N 74.5°W / 40; -74.5
+
+New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware River and Pennsylvania; and on the southwest by Delaware Bay and the State of Delaware. New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state by area but the 11th-most populous, with 8,882,190 residents as of 2019 and an area of 8,722.58 square miles, making it the most densely populated of the 50 U.S. states. Its largest city is Newark. All but one county in New Jersey lie within the combined statistical areas of New York City or Philadelphia. New Jersey was the second-wealthiest U.S. state by median household income as of 2017.[20]
+
+New Jersey was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, with historical tribes such as the Lenape along the coast. In the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes founded the first European settlements in the state.[21] The English later seized control of the region,[22] naming it the Province of New Jersey after the largest of the Channel Islands, Jersey,[23] and granting it as a colony to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton. New Jersey was the site of several important battles during the American Revolutionary War in the 18th century.
+
+In the 19th century, factories in the cities Camden, Paterson, Newark, Trenton, Jersey City, and Elizabeth (known as the "Big Six"[24]), helped drive the Industrial Revolution. New Jersey's geographic location at the center of the Northeast megalopolis, between Boston and New York City to the northeast, and Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., to the southwest, fueled its rapid growth through the process of suburbanization in the second half of the 20th century. At the turn of the 21st century, this suburbanization began reverting with the consolidation of New Jersey's culturally diverse populace toward more urban settings within the state,[25][26] with towns home to commuter rail stations outpacing the population growth of more automobile-oriented suburbs since 2008.[27]
+
+As of 2018, New Jersey was home to the highest number of millionaires per capita of all U.S. states.[28] New Jersey's public school system consistently ranks at or among the top of all fifty U.S. states.[29][30][31]
+
+Around 180 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period, New Jersey bordered North Africa. The pressure of the collision between North America and Africa gave rise to the Appalachian Mountains. Around 18,000 years ago, the Ice Age resulted in glaciers that reached New Jersey. As the glaciers retreated, they left behind Lake Passaic, as well as many rivers, swamps, and gorges.[32]
+
+New Jersey was originally settled by Native Americans, with the Lenni-Lenape being dominant at the time of contact. Scheyichbi is the Lenape name for the land that is now New Jersey.[33] The Lenape were several autonomous groups that practiced maize agriculture in order to supplement their hunting and gathering in the region surrounding the Delaware River, the lower Hudson River, and western Long Island Sound. The Lenape society was divided into matrilinear clans that were based upon common female ancestors. These clans were organized into three distinct phratries identified by their animal sign: Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf. They first encountered the Dutch in the early 17th century, and their primary relationship with the Europeans was through fur trade.
+
+The Dutch became the first Europeans to lay claim to lands in New Jersey. The Dutch colony of New Netherland consisted of parts of modern Middle Atlantic states. Although the European principle of land ownership was not recognized by the Lenape, Dutch West India Company policy required its colonists to purchase the land that they settled. The first to do so was Michiel Pauw who established a patronship called Pavonia in 1630 along the North River which eventually became the Bergen. Peter Minuit's purchase of lands along the Delaware River established the colony of New Sweden. The entire region became a territory of England on June 24, 1664, after an English fleet under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls sailed into what is now New York Harbor and took control of Fort Amsterdam, annexing the entire province.
+
+During the English Civil War, the Channel Island of Jersey remained loyal to the British Crown and gave sanctuary to the King. It was from the Royal Square in Saint Helier that Charles II of England was proclaimed King in 1649, following the execution of his father, Charles I. The North American lands were divided by Charles II, who gave his brother, the Duke of York (later King James II), the region between New England and Maryland as a proprietary colony (as opposed to a royal colony). James then granted the land between the Hudson River and the Delaware River (the land that would become New Jersey) to two friends who had remained loyal through the English Civil War: Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton.[34] The area was named the Province of New Jersey.
+
+Since the state's inception, New Jersey has been characterized by ethnic and religious diversity. New England Congregationalists settled alongside Scots Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed migrants. While the majority of residents lived in towns with individual landholdings of 100 acres (40 ha), a few rich proprietors owned vast estates. English Quakers and Anglicans owned large landholdings. Unlike Plymouth Colony, Jamestown and other colonies, New Jersey was populated by a secondary wave of immigrants who came from other colonies instead of those who migrated directly from Europe. New Jersey remained agrarian and rural throughout the colonial era, and commercial farming developed sporadically. Some townships, such as Burlington on the Delaware River and Perth Amboy, emerged as important ports for shipping to New York City and Philadelphia. The colony's fertile lands and tolerant religious policy drew more settlers, and New Jersey's population had increased to 120,000 by 1775.
+
+Settlement for the first 10 years of English rule took place along Hackensack River and Arthur Kill—settlers came primarily from New York and New England. On March 18, 1673, Berkeley sold his half of the colony to Quakers in England, who settled the Delaware Valley region as a Quaker colony. (William Penn acted as trustee for the lands for a time.) New Jersey was governed very briefly as two distinct provinces, East and West Jersey, for 28 years between 1674 and 1702, at times part of the Province of New York or Dominion of New England.
+
+In 1702, the two provinces were reunited under a royal governor, rather than a proprietary one. Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, became the first governor of the colony as a royal colony. Britain believed that he was an ineffective and corrupt ruler, taking bribes and speculating on land. In 1708 he was recalled to England. New Jersey was then ruled by the governors of New York, but this infuriated the settlers of New Jersey, who accused those governors of favoritism to New York. Judge Lewis Morris led the case for a separate governor, and was appointed governor by King George II in 1738.[35]
+
+New Jersey was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution. The New Jersey Constitution of 1776 was passed July 2, 1776, just two days before the Second Continental Congress declared American Independence from Great Britain. It was an act of the Provincial Congress, which made itself into the State Legislature. To reassure neutrals, it provided that it would become void if New Jersey reached reconciliation with Great Britain. New Jersey representatives Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, and Abraham Clark were among those who signed the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
+
+During the American Revolutionary War, British and American armies crossed New Jersey numerous times, and several pivotal battles took place in the state. Because of this, New Jersey today is often referred to as "The Crossroads of the American Revolution".[36] The winter quarters of the Continental Army were established there twice by General George Washington in Morristown, which has been called "The Military Capital of the American Revolution".[37]
+
+On the night of December 25–26, 1776, the Continental Army under George Washington crossed the Delaware River. After the crossing, he surprised and defeated the Hessian troops in the Battle of Trenton. Slightly more than a week after victory at Trenton, American forces gained an important victory by stopping General Cornwallis's charges at the Second Battle of Trenton. By evading Cornwallis's army, Washington made a surprise attack on Princeton and successfully defeated the British forces there on January 3, 1777. Emanuel Leutze's painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware became an icon of the Revolution.
+
+American forces under Washington met the forces under General Henry Clinton at the Battle of Monmouth in an indecisive engagement in June 1778. Washington attempted to take the British column by surprise; when the British army attempted to flank the Americans, the Americans retreated in disorder. The ranks were later reorganized and withstood the British charges.
+
+In the summer of 1783, the Continental Congress met in Nassau Hall at Princeton University, making Princeton the nation's capital for four months. It was there that the Continental Congress learned of the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the war.
+
+On December 18, 1787, New Jersey became the third state to ratify the United States Constitution, which was overwhelmingly popular in New Jersey, as it prevented New York and Pennsylvania from charging tariffs on goods imported from Europe. On November 20, 1789, the state became the first in the newly formed Union to ratify the Bill of Rights.
+
+The 1776 New Jersey State Constitution gave the vote to "all inhabitants" who had a certain level of wealth. This included women and blacks, but not married women, because they could not own property separately from their husbands. Both sides, in several elections, claimed that the other side had had unqualified women vote and mocked them for use of "petticoat electors", whether entitled to vote or not; on the other hand, both parties passed Voting Rights Acts. In 1807, the legislature passed a bill interpreting the constitution to mean universal white male suffrage, excluding paupers; the constitution was itself an act of the legislature and not enshrined as the modern constitution.[38]
+
+On February 15, 1804, New Jersey became the last northern state to abolish new slavery and enacted legislation that slowly phased out existing slavery. This led to a gradual decrease of the slave population. By the close of the Civil War, about a dozen African Americans in New Jersey were still held in bondage.[39] New Jersey voters initially refused to ratify the constitutional amendments banning slavery and granting rights to the United States' black population.
+
+Industrialization accelerated in the northern part of the state following completion of the Morris Canal in 1831. The canal allowed for coal to be brought from eastern Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley to northern New Jersey's growing industries in Paterson, Newark, and Jersey City.
+
+In 1844, the second state constitution was ratified and brought into effect. Counties thereby became districts for the State Senate, and some realignment of boundaries (including the creation of Mercer County) immediately followed. This provision was retained in the 1947 Constitution, but was overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1962 by the decision Baker v. Carr. While the Governorship was stronger than under the 1776 constitution, the constitution of 1844 created many offices that were not responsible to him, or to the people, and it gave him a three-year term, but he could not succeed himself.
+
+New Jersey was one of the few Union states (the others being Delaware and Kentucky) to select a candidate other than Abraham Lincoln twice in national elections, and sided with Stephen Douglas (1860) and George B. McClellan (1864) during their campaigns. McClellan, a native Philadelphian, had New Jersey ties and formally resided in New Jersey at the time; he later became Governor of New Jersey (1878–81). (In New Jersey, the factions of the Democratic party managed an effective coalition in 1860.) During the American Civil War, the state was led first by Republican Governor Charles Smith Olden, then by Democrat Joel Parker. During the course of the war, over 80,000 from the state enlisted in the Northern army; unlike many states, including some Northern ones, no battle was fought there.[citation needed]
+
+In the Industrial Revolution, cities like Paterson grew and prospered. Previously, the economy had been largely agrarian, which was problematically subject to crop failures and poor soil. This caused a shift to a more industrialized economy, one based on manufactured commodities such as textiles and silk. Inventor Thomas Edison also became an important figure of the Industrial Revolution, having been granted 1,093 patents, many of which for inventions he developed while working in New Jersey. Edison's facilities, first at Menlo Park and then in West Orange, are considered perhaps the first research centers in the United States. Christie Street in Menlo Park was the first thoroughfare in the world to have electric lighting. Transportation was greatly improved as locomotion and steamboats were introduced to New Jersey.
+
+Iron mining was also a leading industry during the middle to late 19th century. Bog iron pits in the southern New Jersey Pinelands were among the first sources of iron for the new nation.[40] Mines such as Mt. Hope, Mine Hill and the Rockaway Valley Mines created a thriving industry. Mining generated the impetus for new towns and was one of the driving forces behind the need for the Morris Canal. Zinc mines were also a major industry, especially the Sterling Hill Mine.
+
+New Jersey prospered through the Roaring Twenties. The first Miss America Pageant was held in 1921 in Atlantic City, the Holland Tunnel connecting Jersey City to Manhattan opened in 1927, and the first drive-in movie was shown in 1933 in Camden. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the state offered begging licenses to unemployed residents,[41] the zeppelin airship Hindenburg crashed in flames over Lakehurst, and the SS Morro Castle beached itself near Asbury Park after going up in flames while at sea.
+
+Through both World Wars, New Jersey was a center for war production, especially naval construction. The Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company yards in Kearny and Newark and the New York Shipbuilding Corporation yard in Camden produced aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, and destroyers.[42] New Jersey manufactured 6.8 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking fifth among the 48 states.[43] In addition, Fort Dix (1917) (originally called "Camp Dix"),[44] Camp Merritt (1917)[45] and Camp Kilmer (1941)[46] were all constructed to house and train American soldiers through both World Wars. New Jersey also became a principal location for defense in the Cold War. Fourteen Nike missile stations were constructed for the defense of the New York City and Philadelphia areas. PT-109, a motor torpedo boat commanded by Lt. (j.g.) John F. Kennedy in World War II, was built at the Elco Boatworks in Bayonne. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) was briefly docked at the Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne in the 1950s before she was sent to Kearney to be scrapped.[47] In 1962, the world's first nuclear-powered cargo ship, the NS Savannah, was launched at Camden.
+
+In 1951, the New Jersey Turnpike opened, permitting fast travel by car and truck between North Jersey (and metropolitan New York) and South Jersey (and metropolitan Philadelphia).[citation needed]
+
+In 1959, Air Defense Command deployed the CIM-10 Bomarc surface-to-air missile to McGuire Air Force Base. On June 7, 1960 an explosion in a CIM-10 Bomarc missile fuel tank caused the accident and subsequent plutonium contamination.[48]
+
+In the 1960s, race riots erupted in many of the industrial cities of North Jersey. The first race riots in New Jersey occurred in Jersey City on August 2, 1964. Several others ensued in 1967, in Newark and Plainfield. Other riots followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, just as in the rest of the country. A riot occurred in Camden in 1971.
+
+As a result of an order from the New Jersey Supreme Court to fund schools equitably, the New Jersey legislature passed an income tax bill in 1976. Prior to this bill, the state had no income tax.[49]
+
+In the early part of the 2000s, two light rail systems were opened: the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail in Hudson County and the River Line between Camden and Trenton. The intent of these projects was to encourage transit-oriented development in North Jersey and South Jersey, respectively. The HBLR in particular was credited with a revitalization of Hudson County and Jersey City in particular.[50][51][52][53] Urban revitalization has continued in North Jersey in the 21st century. As of 2014, Jersey City's Census-estimated population was 262,146,[54] with the largest population increase of any municipality in New Jersey since 2010,[55] representing an increase of 5.9% from the 2010 United States Census, when the city's population was enumerated at 247,597.[56][57] Between 2000 and 2010, Newark experienced its first population increase since the 1950s.
+
+New Jersey is bordered on the north and northeast by New York (parts of which are across the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, and the Arthur Kill); on the east by the Atlantic Ocean; on the southwest by Delaware across Delaware Bay; and on the west by Pennsylvania across the Delaware River.
+
+New Jersey is often broadly divided into three geographic regions: North Jersey, Central Jersey, and South Jersey. Some New Jersey residents do not consider Central Jersey a region in its own right, but others believe it is a separate geographic and cultural area from the North and South.
+
+Within those regions are five distinct areas, based upon natural geography and population concentration. Northeastern New Jersey lies closest to Manhattan in New York City, and up to a million residents commute daily into the city for work, often via public transportation.[60] Northwestern New Jersey is more wooded, rural, and mountainous. The Jersey shore, along the Atlantic Coast in Central and South Jersey, has its own unique natural, residential, and cultural characteristics owing to its location by the ocean. The Delaware Valley includes the southwestern counties of the state, which reside within the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area. The Pine Barrens region is in the southern interior of New Jersey. Covered rather extensively by mixed pine and oak forest, it has a much lower population density than much of the rest of the state.
+
+The federal Office of Management and Budget divides New Jersey's counties into seven Metropolitan Statistical Areas, with 16 counties included in either the New York City or Philadelphia metro areas. Four counties have independent metro areas, and Warren County is part of the Pennsylvania-based Lehigh Valley metro area. New Jersey is also at the center of the Northeast megalopolis.
+
+High Point, in Montague Township, Sussex County, is the state's highest elevation, at 1,803 feet (550 m) above sea level. The state's highest prominence is Kitty Ann Mountain in Morris County, rising 892 feet. The Palisades are a line of steep cliffs on the west side of the Hudson River, in Bergen and Hudson Counties. Major New Jersey rivers include the Hudson, Delaware, Raritan, Passaic, Hackensack, Rahway, Musconetcong, Mullica, Rancocas, Manasquan, Maurice, and Toms rivers. Due to New Jersey's peninsular geography, both sunrise and sunset are visible over water from different points on the Jersey Shore.
+
+There are two climatic conditions in the state. The south, central, and northeast parts of the state have a humid subtropical climate, while the northwest has a humid continental climate (microthermal), with much cooler temperatures due to higher elevation. New Jersey receives between 2,400 and 2,800 hours of sunshine annually.[61]
+
+Climate change is affecting New Jersey faster than much of the rest of the United States. As of 2019, New Jersey was one of the fastest-warming states in the nation. Since 1895, average temperatures have climbed by almost 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, double the average for the other Lower 48 states.[62]
+
+Summers are typically hot and humid, with statewide average high temperatures of 82–87 °F (28–31 °C) and lows of 60–69 °F (16–21 °C); however, temperatures exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on average 25 days each summer, exceeding 100 °F (38 °C) in some years. Winters are usually cold, with average high temperatures of 34–43 °F (1–6 °C) and lows of 16 to 28 °F (−9 to −2 °C) for most of the state, but temperatures can, for brief periods, fall below 10 °F (−12 °C) and sometimes rise above 50 °F (10 °C). Northwestern parts of the state have significantly colder winters with sub-0 °F (−18 °C) being an almost annual occurrence. Spring and autumn may feature wide temperature variations, with lower humidity than summer. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone classification ranges from 6 in the northwest of the state, to 7B near Cape May.[63] All-time temperature extremes recorded in New Jersey include 110 °F (43 °C) on July 10, 1936 in Runyon, Middlesex County and −34 °F (−37 °C) on January 5, 1904 in River Vale, Bergen County.[64]
+
+Average annual precipitation ranges from 43 to 51 inches (1,100 to 1,300 mm), uniformly spread through the year. Average snowfall per winter season ranges from 10–15 inches (25–38 cm) in the south and near the seacoast, 15–30 inches (38–76 cm) in the northeast and central part of the state, to about 40–50 inches (1.0–1.3 m) in the northwestern highlands, but this often varies considerably from year to year. Precipitation falls on an average of 120 days a year, with 25 to 30 thunderstorms, most of which occur during the summer.
+
+During winter and early spring, New Jersey can experience "nor'easters", which are capable of causing blizzards or flooding throughout the northeastern United States. Hurricanes and tropical storms (such as Tropical Storm Floyd in 1999[65]), tornadoes, and earthquakes are rare, although New Jersey was impacted by a hurricane in 1903, and Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012 with the storm making landfall in the state with top winds of 90 mph (145 km/h).
+
+The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of New Jersey was 8,882,190 on July 1, 2019, a 1.03% increase since the 2010 United States Census.[5] Residents of New Jersey are most commonly referred to as "New Jerseyans" or, less commonly, as "New Jerseyites". As of the 2010 census, there were 8,791,894 people living in the state. The racial makeup of the state was:
+
+17.7% of the population were Hispanic or Latino (of any race).
+
+Non-Hispanic Whites were 58.9% of the population in 2011,[2] down from 85% in 1970.[70]
+
+In 2010, unauthorized immigrants constituted an estimated 6.2% of the population. This was the fourth-highest percentage of any state in the country.[71] There were an estimated 550,000 illegal immigrants in the state in 2010.[72] Among the municipalities which are considered sanctuary cities are Camden, Jersey City and Newark.[73]
+
+The United States Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2019[update], estimated New Jersey's population at 8,882,190. Which represents an increase of 213,750, or 2.4%, since the last census in 2010. As of 2010, New Jersey was the eleventh-most populous state in the United States, and the most densely populated, at 1,185 residents per square mile (458 per km2), with most of the population residing in the counties surrounding New York City, Philadelphia, and along the eastern Jersey Shore, while the extreme southern and northwestern counties are relatively less dense overall. It is also the second wealthiest state according to the U.S. Census Bureau.[20]
+
+The center of population for New Jersey is located in Middlesex County, in the town of Milltown, just east of the New Jersey Turnpike.[74]
+
+New Jersey is home to more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere else in the world.[75][76][77]
+
+On October 21, 2013, same-sex marriages commenced in New Jersey.[78]
+
+New Jersey is one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse states in the United States. As of 2011, 56.4% of New Jersey's children under the age of one belonged to racial or ethnic minority groups, meaning that they had at least one parent who was not non-Hispanic white.[79] The state has the second largest Jewish population by percentage (after New York);[80] the second largest Muslim population by percentage (after Michigan); the largest population of Peruvians in the United States; the largest population of Cubans outside of Florida; the third highest Asian population by percentage; and the second highest Italian population,[81] according to the 2000 Census. African Americans, Hispanics (Puerto Ricans and Dominicans), West Indians, Arabs, and Brazilian and Portuguese Americans are also high in number. New Jersey has the third highest Asian Indian population of any state by absolute numbers and the highest by percentage,[82][83][84][85] with Bergen County home to America's largest Malayali community.[86] Overall, New Jersey has the third largest Korean population, with Bergen County home to the highest Korean concentration per capita of any U.S. county[87] (6.9% in 2011). New Jersey also has the fourth largest Filipino population, and fourth largest Chinese population, per the 2010 U.S. Census. The five largest ethnic groups in 2000 were: Italian (17.9%), Irish (15.9%), African (13.6%), German (12.6%), Polish (6.9%).
+
+India Square, in Bombay, Jersey City, Hudson County,[88] is home to the highest concentration of Asian Indians in the Western Hemisphere.[89] Meanwhile, Central New Jersey, particularly Edison and surrounding Middlesex County, is prominently known for its significant concentration of Asian Indians. The world's largest Hindu temple was inaugurated in Robbinsville in 2014, a BAPS temple.[90] The growing Little India is a South Asian-focused commercial strip in Middlesex County, the U.S. county with the highest concentration of Asian Indians.[91][92][93] The Oak Tree Road strip runs for about one-and-a-half miles through Edison and neighboring Iselin in Woodbridge Township, near the area's sprawling Chinatown and Koreatown, running along New Jersey Route 27.[94] It is the largest and most diverse South Asian cultural hub in the United States.[95][96] Carteret's Punjabi Sikh community, variously estimated at upwards of 3,000, is the largest concentration of Sikhs in the state.[97] Monroe Township in Middlesex County has experienced a particularly rapid growth rate in its Indian American population, with an estimated 5,943 (13.6%) as of 2017,[98] which was 23 times the 256 (0.9%) counted as of the 2000 Census; and Diwali is celebrated by the township as a Hindu holiday. In Middlesex County, election ballots are printed in English, Spanish, Gujarati, Hindi, and Punjabi.[99]
+
+Newark was the fourth poorest of U.S. cities with over 250,000 residents in 2008,[100] but New Jersey as a whole had the second-highest median household income as of 2014.[20] This is largely because so much of New Jersey consists of suburbs, most of them affluent, of New York City and Philadelphia. New Jersey is also the most densely populated state, and the only state that has had every one of its counties deemed "urban" as defined by the Census Bureau's Combined Statistical Area.[101]
+
+In 2010, 6.2% of its population was reported as under age 5, 23.5% under 18, and 13.5% were 65 or older; and females made up approximately 51.3% of the population.[107]
+
+A study by the Pew Research Center found that in 2013, New Jersey was the only U.S. state in which immigrants born in India constituted the largest foreign-born nationality, representing roughly 10% of all foreign-born residents in the state.[104]
+
+For further information on various ethnoracial groups and neighborhoods prominently featured within New Jersey, see the following articles:
+
+As of 2011, 56.4% of New Jersey's population younger than age 1 were minorities (meaning that they had at least one parent who was not non-Hispanic white).[108]
+
+Note: Births in table do not add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.
+
+As of 2010, 71.31% (5,830,812) of New Jersey residents age 5 and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 14.59% (1,193,261) spoke Spanish, 1.23% (100,217) Chinese (which includes Cantonese and Mandarin), 1.06% (86,849) Italian, 1.06% (86,486) Portuguese, 0.96% (78,627) Tagalog, and Korean was spoken as a main language by 0.89% (73,057) of the population over the age of five. In total, 28.69% (2,345,644) of New Jersey's population age 5 and older spoke a mother language other than English.[114]
+
+A diverse collection of languages has since evolved amongst the state's population, given that New Jersey has become cosmopolitan and is home to ethnic enclaves of non-English-speaking communities:[115][116][117][118]
+
+High-rise residential complexes in the borough of Fort Lee
+
+Paterson, known as the "Silk City",[119] has become a prime destination for an internationally diverse pool of immigrants,[120][121] with at least 52 distinct ethnic groups.[122]
+
+Skyscrapers in Jersey City, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world[123][124]
+
+Federal Courthouse in Camden, which is connected to Philadelphia via the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in the background
+
+By number of adherents, the largest denominations in New Jersey, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives in 2010, were the Roman Catholic Church with 3,235,290; Islam with 160,666; and the United Methodist Church with 138,052.[126] The world's largest Hindu temple was inaugurated in Robbinsville, Mercer County, in central New Jersey during 2014, a BAPS temple.[127] In January 2018, Gurbir Grewal became the first Sikh American state attorney general in the United States.[128] In January 2019, Sadaf Jaffer became the first female Muslim American mayor, first female South Asian mayor, and first female Pakistani-American mayor in the United States, of Montgomery in Somerset County.[129]
+
+Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, the fifth-largest cathedral in North America, is the seat of the city's Roman Catholic Archdiocese.
+
+Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel, in South Orange, Essex County. New Jersey is home to the second-highest Jewish American (Hebrew) population per capita, after New York.
+
+Swaminarayan Akshardham (Devnagari) in Robbinsville, Mercer County, inaugurated in 2014 as the world's largest Hindu temple[130]
+
+Little Ramallah in Paterson is an increasingly popular destination for Muslim immigrants.
+
+For its overall population and nation-leading population density, New Jersey has a relative paucity of classic large cities. This paradox is most pronounced in Bergen County, New Jersey's most populous county, whose more than 930,000 residents in 2019 inhabited 70 municipalities, the most populous being Hackensack, with 44,522 residents estimated in 2018. Many urban areas extend far beyond the limits of a single large city, as New Jersey cities (and indeed municipalities in general) tend to be geographically small; three of the four largest cities in New Jersey by population have under 20 square miles of land area, and eight of the top ten, including all of the top five have land area under 30 square miles. As of the 2010 United States Census[update], only four municipalities had populations in excess of 100,000, although Edison and Woodbridge came very close.
+
+The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that New Jersey's gross state product in the fourth quarter of 2018 was $639.8 billion.[132] New Jersey's estimated taxpayer burden in 2015 was $59,400 per taxpayer.[133] New Jersey is nearly $239 billion in debt.[134]
+
+New Jersey's per capita gross state product in 2008 was $54,699, second in the U.S. and above the national per capita gross domestic product of $46,588.[135] Its per capita income was the third highest in the nation with $51,358.[135] In 2018, New Jersey had the highest number of millionaires per capita in the United States (approximately 9% of households), according to a study by Phoenix Marketing International.[28] The state is ranked second in the nation by the number of places with per capita incomes above national average with 76.4%. Nine of New Jersey's counties are among the 100 wealthiest U.S. counties.
+
+New Jersey has seven tax brackets that determine state income tax rates, which range from 1.4% (for income below $20,000) to 8.97% (for income above $500,000).[136]
+
+The standard sales tax rate as of January 1, 2018, is 6.625%, applicable to all retail sales unless specifically exempt by law. This rate, which is comparably lower than that of New York City, often attracts numerous shoppers from New York City, often to suburban Paramus, New Jersey, which has five malls, one of which (the Garden State Plaza) has over two million square feet of retail space. Tax exemptions include most food items for at-home preparation, medications, most clothing, footwear and disposable paper products for use in the home.[137] There are 27 Urban Enterprise Zone statewide, including sections of Paterson, Elizabeth, and Jersey City. In addition to other benefits to encourage employment within the zone, shoppers can take advantage of a reduced 3.3125% sales tax rate (half the rate charged statewide) at eligible merchants.[138][139][140]
+
+New Jersey has the highest cumulative tax rate of all 50 states with residents paying a total of $68 billion in state and local taxes annually with a per capita burden of $7,816 at a rate of 12.9% of income.[141] All real property located in the state is subject to property tax unless specifically exempted by statute. New Jersey does not assess an intangible personal property tax, but it does impose an inheritance tax.
+
+New Jersey consistently ranks as having one of the highest proportional levels of disparity of any state in the United States, based upon what it receives from the federal government relative to what it gives. In 2015, WalletHub ranked New Jersey the state least dependent upon federal government aid overall and having the fourth lowest return on taxpayer investment from the federal government, at 48 cents per dollar.[142]
+
+New Jersey has one of the highest tax burdens in the nation.[143] Factors for this include the large federal tax liability which is not adjusted for New Jersey's higher cost of living and Medicaid funding formulas.
+
+New Jersey's economy is multifaceted, but is centered on the pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology, information technology, the financial industry, chemical development, telecommunications, food processing, electric equipment, printing, publishing, and tourism. New Jersey's agricultural outputs are nursery stock, horses, vegetables, fruits and nuts, seafood, and dairy products.[144] New Jersey ranks second among states in blueberry production, third in cranberries and spinach, and fourth in bell peppers, peaches, and head lettuce.[145] The state harvests the fourth-largest number of acres planted with asparagus.[146]
+
+Although New Jersey is home to many energy-intensive industries, its energy consumption is only 2.7% of the U.S. total, and its carbon dioxide emissions are 0.8% of the U.S. total. Its comparatively low greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to the state's use of nuclear power. According to the Energy Information Administration, nuclear power dominates New Jersey's electricity market, typically supplying more than one-half of state generation. New Jersey has three nuclear power plants, including the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, which came online in 1969 and is the oldest operating nuclear plant in the country.[147]
+
+New Jersey has a strong scientific economy and is home to major pharmaceutical and telecommunications firms, drawing on the state's large and well-educated labor pool. There is also a strong service economy in retail sales, education, and real estate, serving residents who work in New York City or Philadelphia.
+
+Shipping is a key industry in New Jersey because of the state's strategic geographic location, the Port of New York and New Jersey being the busiest port on the East Coast. The Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal was the world's first container port and today is one of the world's largest.
+
+New Jersey hosts several business headquarters, including twenty-four Fortune 500 companies.[148] Paramus in Bergen County has become the top retail ZIP code (07652) in the United States, with the municipality generating over US$6 billion in annual retail sales.[149] Several New Jersey counties, including Somerset (7), Morris (10), Hunterdon (13), Bergen (21), and Monmouth (42), have been ranked among the highest-income counties in the United States.
+
+New Jersey's location at the center of the Northeast megalopolis and its extensive transportation system have put over one-third of all United States residents and many Canadian residents within overnight distance by land. This accessibility to consumer revenue has enabled seaside resorts such as Atlantic City and the remainder of the Jersey Shore, as well as the state's other natural and cultural attractions, to contribute significantly to the record 111 million tourist visits to New Jersey in 2018, providing US$44.7 billion in tourism revenue, directly supporting 333,860 jobs, sustaining more than 531,000 jobs overall including peripheral impacts, and generating US$5 billion in state and local tax revenue.[150]
+
+In 1976, a referendum of New Jersey voters approved casino gambling in Atlantic City, where the first legalized casino opened in 1978.[151] At that time, Las Vegas was the only other casino resort in the country.[152] Today, several casinos lie along the Atlantic City Boardwalk,[citation needed] the first and longest boardwalk in the world.[citation needed] Atlantic City experienced a dramatic contraction in its stature as a gambling destination after 2010, including the closure of multiple casinos since 2014, spurred by competition from the advent of legalized gambling in other northeastern U.S. states.[153][154] On February 26, 2013, Governor Chris Christie signed online gambling into law.[155] Sports betting has become a growing source of gambling revenue in New Jersey since being legalized across the nation by the U.S. Supreme Court on May 14, 2018.[156]
+
+Forests cover 45%, or approximately 2.1 million acres, of New Jersey's land area.[157] The chief tree of the northern forests is the oak. The Pine Barrens, consisting of pine forests, is in the southern part of the state.
+
+Some mining activity of zinc, iron, and manganese still takes place in the area in and around the Franklin Furnace.
+
+New Jersey is second in the nation in solar power installations,[158] enabled by one of the country's most favorable net metering policies, and the renewable energy certificates program. The state has more than 10,000 solar installations.[159]
+
+In 2010, there were 605 school districts in the state.[161]
+
+Secretary of Education Rick Rosenberg, appointed by Governor Jon Corzine, created the Education Advancement Initiative (EAI) to increase college admission rates by 10% for New Jersey's high school students, decrease dropout rates by 15%, and increase the amount of money devoted to schools by 10%. Rosenberg retracted this plan when criticized for taking the money out of healthcare to fund this initiative.
+
+In 2010, the state government paid all of the teachers' premiums for health insurance,[161] but currently all NJ public teachers pay a portion of their own health insurance premiums.
+
+In 2015, New Jersey spent more per each public school student than any other U.S. state except New York, Alaska, and Connecticut, amounting to $18,235 spent per pupil. Over 50% of the expenditure was allocated to student instruction.[162]
+
+According to 2011 Newsweek statistics, students of High Technology High School in Lincroft, Monmouth County and Bergen County Academies in Hackensack, Bergen County registered average SAT scores of 2145 and 2100, respectively,[163] representing the second- and third-highest scores, respectively, of all listed U.S. high schools.[163]
+
+Princeton University in Princeton, Mercer County, one of the world's most prominent research universities, is often featured at or near the top of various national and global university rankings, topping the 2020 list of U.S. News & World Report.[164] In 2013, Rutgers University, headquartered in New Brunswick, Middlesex County as the flagship institution of higher education in New Jersey, gained medical and dental schools, augmenting its profile as a national research university as well.[165]
+
+In 2014, New Jersey's school systems were ranked at the top of all fifty U.S. states by financial website Wallethub.com.[166] In 2018, New Jersey's overall educational system was ranked second among all states to Massachusetts by U.S. News & World Report.[31] In 2019, Education Week also ranked New Jersey public schools the best of all U.S. states.[29]
+
+Nine New Jersey high schools were ranked among the top 25 in the U.S. on the Newsweek "America's Top High Schools 2016" list, more than from any other state.[167] A 2017 UCLA Civil Rights project found that New Jersey has the sixth-most segregated classrooms in the United States.[168]
+
+New Jersey has continued to play a prominent role as a U.S. cultural nexus. Like every state, New Jersey has its own cuisine, religious communities, museums, and halls of fame.
+
+New Jersey is the birthplace of modern inventions such as: FM radio, the motion picture camera, the lithium battery, the light bulb, transistors, and the electric train. Other New Jersey creations include: the drive-in movie, the cultivated blueberry, cranberry sauce, the postcard, the boardwalk, the zipper, the phonograph, saltwater taffy, the dirigible, the seedless watermelon,[169] the first use of a submarine in warfare, and the ice cream cone.[170]
+
+Diners are iconic to New Jersey. The state is home to many diner manufacturers and has over 600 diners, more than any other place in the world.[171]
+
+New Jersey is the only state without a state song. I'm From New Jersey is incorrectly listed on many websites as being the New Jersey state song, but it was not even a contender when in 1996 the New Jersey Arts Council submitted their suggestions to the New Jersey Legislature.[172]
+
+New Jersey is frequently the target of jokes in American culture,[173] especially from New York City-based television shows, such as Saturday Night Live. Academic Michael Aaron Rockland attributes this to New Yorkers' view that New Jersey is the beginning of Middle America. The New Jersey Turnpike, which runs between two major East Coast cities, New York City and Philadelphia, is also cited as a reason, as people who traverse through the state may only see its industrial zones.[174] Reality television shows like Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives of New Jersey have reinforced stereotypical views of New Jersey culture,[175] but Rockland cited The Sopranos and the music of Bruce Springsteen as exporting a more positive image.[174]
+
+New Jersey is known for several foods developed within the region, including Taylor Ham (also known as pork roll), cheesesteaks, and scrapple.
+
+Several states with substantial Italian American populations take credit for the development of submarine sandwiches, including New Jersey.[176]
+
+New Jersey has long been an important origin for both rock and rap music. Prominent musicians from or with significant connections to New Jersey include:
+
+New Jersey currently has six teams from major professional sports leagues playing in the state, although one Major League Soccer team and two National Football League teams identify themselves as being from the New York metropolitan area.
+
+The National Hockey League's New Jersey Devils, based in Newark at the Prudential Center, is the only major league sports franchise to bear the state's name. Founded in 1974 in Kansas City, Missouri, as the Kansas City Scouts, the team played in Denver, Colorado, as the Colorado Rockies from 1976 until the spring of 1982 when naval architect, businessman, and Jersey City native John J. McMullen purchased, renamed, and moved the franchise to Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford's Meadowlands Sports Complex. While the team had mostly losing records in Kansas City, Denver, and its first years in New Jersey, the Devils began to improve in the late 1980s and early 1990s under Hall of Fame president and general manager Lou Lamoriello. The team made the playoffs for the Stanley Cup in 2001 and 2012, and won it in 1995, 2000, and 2003. The organization is the youngest of the nine major league teams in the New York metropolitan area. The Devils have established a following throughout the northern and central portions of the state, carving a place in a media market once dominated by the New York Rangers and Islanders.
+
+In 2018, the Philadelphia Flyers renovated and expanded their training facility, the Virtua Center Flyers Skate Zone, in Voorhees Township in the southern portion of the state.[213]
+
+The New York Metropolitan Area's two National Football League teams, the New York Giants and the New York Jets, play at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford's Meadowlands Sports Complex.[214] Built for about $1.6 billion,[215] the venue is the most expensive stadium ever built.[212] On February 2, 2014, MetLife Stadium hosted Super Bowl XLVIII.
+
+The New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer play in Red Bull Arena, a soccer-specific stadium in Harrison across the Passaic River from downtown Newark. On July 27, 2011, Red Bull Arena hosted the 2011 MLS All-Star Game.[216]
+
+From 1977 to 2012, New Jersey had a National Basketball Association team, the New Jersey Nets. WNBA's New York Liberty played in New Jersey from 2011 to 2013 while their primary home arena, Madison Square Garden was undergoing renovations.[217] In 2016, the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA opened their new headquarters and training facility, the Philadelphia 76ers Training Complex, in Camden.[218]
+
+The Meadowlands Sports Complex is home to the Meadowlands Racetrack, one of three major harness racing tracks in the state. The Meadowlands Racetrack and Freehold Raceway in Freehold are two of the major harness racing tracks in North America. Monmouth Park Racetrack in Oceanport is a popular spot for thoroughbred racing in New Jersey and the northeast. It hosted the Breeders' Cup in 2007, and its turf course was renovated in preparation.
+
+New Jerseyans' collegiate allegiances are predominantly split among the three major NCAA Division I programs in the state: the Rutgers University (New Jersey's flagship state university) Scarlet Knights, members of the Big Ten Conference; the Seton Hall University (the state's largest Catholic university) Pirates, members of the Big East Conference; and the Princeton University (the state's Ivy League university) Tigers.
+
+The intense rivalry between Rutgers and Princeton athletics began with the first intercollegiate football game in 1869. The schools have not met on the football field since 1980, but they continue to play each other annually in all other sports offered by the two universities.
+
+Rutgers, which fields 24 teams in various sports, is nationally known for its football program, with a 6–4 all-time bowl record; and its women's basketball programs, which appeared in a National Final in 2007. In 2008 and 2009, Rutgers expanded their football home HighPoint.com Stadium on the Busch Campus. The basketball teams play at Louis Brown Athletic Center on Livingston Campus. Both venues and campuses are in Piscataway, across the Raritan River from New Brunswick. The university also fields men's basketball and baseball programs. Rutgers' fans live mostly in the western parts of the state and Middlesex County; its alumni base is the largest in the state.
+
+Rutgers' satellite campuses in Camden and Newark each field their own athletic programs—the Rutgers–Camden Scarlet Raptors and the Rutgers–Newark Scarlet Raiders—which both compete in NCAA Division III.
+
+Seton Hall fields no football team, but its men's basketball team is one of the Big East's storied programs. No New Jersey team has won more games in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, and it is the state's only men's basketball program to reach a modern National Final. The Pirates play their home games at Prudential Center in downtown Newark, about four miles from the university's South Orange campus. Their fans hail largely from in the predominantly Roman Catholic areas of the northern part of the state and the Jersey Shore. The annual inter-conference rivalry game between Seton Hall and Rutgers, whose venue alternates between Newark and Piscataway, the Garden State Hardwood Classic, is planned through 2026.[219]
+
+The state's other Division I schools include the Monmouth University Hawks (West Long Branch), the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) Highlanders (Newark), the Rider University Broncs (Lawrenceville), and the Saint Peter's University Peacocks and Peahens (Jersey City).
+
+Fairleigh Dickinson University competes in both Division I and Division III. It has two campuses, each with its own sports teams. The teams at the Metropolitan Campus are known as the FDU Knights, and compete in the Northeast Conference and NCAA Division I. The College at Florham (FDU-Florham) teams are known as the FDU-Florham Devils and compete in the Middle Atlantic Conferences' Freedom Conference and NCAA Division III.
+
+Among the various Division III schools in the state, the Stevens Institute of Technology Ducks have fielded the longest continuously running collegiate men's lacrosse program in the country. 2009 marked the 125th season.
+
+New Jersey high schools are divided into divisions under the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA).[220]'[221] Founded in 1918, the NJSIAA currently represents 22,000 schools, 330,000 coaches, and almost 4.5 million athletes.
+
+Motion picture technology was developed by Thomas Edison, with much of his early work done at his West Orange laboratory. Edison's Black Maria was the first motion picture studio. America's first motion picture industry started in 1907 in Fort Lee and the first studio was constructed there in 1909.[225] DuMont Laboratories in Passaic developed early sets and made the first broadcast to the private home.
+
+A number of television shows and films have been filmed in New Jersey. Since 1978, the state has maintained a Motion Picture and Television Commission to encourage filming in-state.[226] New Jersey has long offered tax credits to television producers. Governor Chris Christie suspended the credits in 2010, but the New Jersey State Legislature in 2011 approved the restoration and expansion of the tax credit program. Under bills passed by both the state Senate and Assembly, the program offers 20 percent tax credits (22% in urban enterprise zones) to television and film productions that shoot in the state and meet set standards for hiring and local spending.[227]
+
+The New Jersey Turnpike is one of the most prominent and heavily trafficked roadways in the United States. This toll road, which overlaps with Interstate 95 for much of its length, carries traffic between Delaware and New York, and up and down the East Coast in general. Commonly referred to as simply "the Turnpike", it is known for its numerous rest areas named after prominent New Jerseyans.
+
+The Garden State Parkway, or simply "the Parkway", carries relatively more in-state traffic than interstate traffic and runs from New Jersey's northern border to its southernmost tip at Cape May. It is the main route that connects the New York metropolitan area to the Jersey Shore and is consistently one of the safest roads in the nation. With a total of fifteen travel and six shoulder lanes, the Driscoll Bridge on the Parkway, spanning the Raritan River in Middlesex County, is the widest motor vehicle bridge in the world by number of lanes as well as one of the busiest.[230]
+
+New Jersey is connected to New York City via various key bridges and tunnels. The double-decked George Washington Bridge carries the heaviest load of motor vehicle traffic of any bridge in the world, at 102 million vehicles per year, across fourteen lanes.[228][229] It connects Fort Lee, New Jersey to the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, and carries Interstate 95 and U.S. Route 1/9 across the Hudson River. The Lincoln Tunnel connects to Midtown Manhattan carrying New Jersey Route 495, and the Holland Tunnel connects to Lower Manhattan carrying Interstate 78. New Jersey is also connected to Staten Island by three bridges—from north to south, the Bayonne Bridge, the Goethals Bridge, and the Outerbridge Crossing.
+
+New Jersey has interstate compacts with all three of its neighboring states. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Delaware River Port Authority (with Pennsylvania), the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (with Pennsylvania), and the Delaware River and Bay Authority (with Delaware) operate most of the major transportation routes in and out of the state. Bridge tolls are collected only from traffic exiting the state, with the exception of the private Dingman's Ferry Bridge over the Delaware River, which charges a toll in both directions.
+
+It is unlawful for a customer to serve themselves gasoline in New Jersey. It became the last remaining U.S. state where all gas stations are required to sell full-service gasoline to customers at all times in 2016, after Oregon's introduction of restricted self-service gasoline availability took effect.[231]
+
+Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) is one of the busiest airports in the United States. Operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, it is one of the three main airports serving the New York metropolitan area. United Airlines is the airport's largest tenant, operating an entire terminal there, which it uses as one of its primary hubs. FedEx Express operates a large cargo terminal at EWR as well. The adjacent Newark Airport railroad station provides access to Amtrak and NJ Transit trains along the Northeast Corridor Line.
+
+Two smaller commercial airports, Atlantic City International Airport and rapidly growing Trenton-Mercer Airport, also operate in other parts of the state. Teterboro Airport in Bergen County, and Millville Municipal Airport in Cumberland County, are general aviation airports popular with private and corporate aircraft due to their proximity to New York City and the Jersey Shore, respectively.
+
+NJ Transit operates extensive rail and bus service throughout the state. A state-run corporation, it began with the consolidation of several private bus companies in North Jersey in 1979. In the early 1980s, it acquired Conrail's commuter train operations that connected suburban towns to New York City. Today, NJ Transit has eleven commuter rail lines that run through different parts of the state. Most of the lines end at either Penn Station in New York City or Hoboken Terminal in Hoboken. One line provides service between Atlantic City and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
+
+NJ Transit also operates three light rail systems in the state. The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail connects Bayonne to North Bergen, through Hoboken and Jersey City. The Newark Light Rail is partially underground, and connects downtown Newark with other parts of the city and its suburbs, Belleville and Bloomfield. The River Line connects Trenton and Camden.
+
+The PATH is a rapid transit system consisting of four lines operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It links Hoboken, Jersey City, Harrison and Newark with New York City. The PATCO Speedline is a rapid transit system that links Camden County to Philadelphia. Both the PATCO and the PATH are two of only five rapid transit systems in the United States to operate 24 hours a day.
+
+Amtrak operates numerous long-distance passenger trains in New Jersey, both to and from neighboring states and around the country. In addition to the Newark Airport connection, other major Amtrak railway stations include Trenton Transit Center, Metropark, and the historic Newark Penn Station.
+
+The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, has two commuter rail lines that operate into New Jersey. The Trenton Line terminates at the Trenton Transit Center, and the West Trenton Line terminates at the West Trenton Rail Station in Ewing.
+
+AirTrain Newark is a monorail connecting the Amtrak/NJ Transit station on the Northeast Corridor to the airport's terminals and parking lots.
+
+Some private bus carriers still remain in New Jersey. Most of these carriers operate with state funding to offset losses and state owned buses are provided to these carriers, of which Coach USA companies make up the bulk. Other carriers include private charter and tour bus operators that take gamblers from other parts of New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, and Delaware to the casino resorts of Atlantic City.
+
+New York Waterway has ferry terminals at Belford, Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, and Edgewater, with service to different parts of Manhattan. Liberty Water Taxi in Jersey City has ferries from Paulus Hook and Liberty State Park to Battery Park City in Manhattan. Statue Cruises offers service from Liberty State Park to the Statue of Liberty National Monument, including Ellis Island. SeaStreak offers services from the Raritan Bayshore to Manhattan, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket.
+
+The Delaware River and Bay Authority operates the Cape May–Lewes Ferry on Delaware Bay, carrying both passengers and vehicles between New Jersey and Delaware. The agency also operates the Forts Ferry Crossing for passengers across the Delaware River. The Delaware River Port Authority operates the RiverLink Ferry between the Camden waterfront and Penn's Landing in Philadelphia.
+
+The position of Governor of New Jersey has been considered one of the most powerful in the nation. Until 2010, the governor was the only statewide elected executive official in the state and appointed numerous government officials. Formerly, an acting governor was even more powerful as he simultaneously served as President of the New Jersey State Senate, thus directing half of the legislative and all of the executive process. In 2002 and 2007, President of the State Senate Richard Codey held the position of acting governor for a short time, and from 2004 to 2006 Codey became a long-term acting governor due to Jim McGreevey's resignation. A 2005 amendment to the state Constitution prevents the Senate President from becoming acting governor in the event of a permanent gubernatorial vacancy without giving up her or his seat in the state Senate. Phil Murphy (D) is the Governor. The governor's mansion is Drumthwacket, located in Princeton.
+
+Before 2010, New Jersey was one of the few states without a lieutenant governor. Republican Kim Guadagno was elected the first Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey and took office on January 19, 2010. She was elected on the Republican ticket with Governor-Elect Chris Christie in the November 2009 NJ gubernatorial election. The position was created as the result of a Constitutional amendment to the New Jersey State Constitution passed by the voters on November 8, 2005 and effective as of January 17, 2006.
+
+The current version of the New Jersey State Constitution was adopted in 1947. It provides for a bicameral New Jersey Legislature, consisting of an upper house Senate of 40 members and a lower house General Assembly of 80 members. Each of the 40 legislative districts elects one State Senator and two Assembly members. Assembly members are elected for a two-year term in all odd-numbered years; State Senators are elected in the years ending in 1, 3, and 7 and thus serve either four- or two-year terms.
+
+New Jersey is one of only five states that elects its state officials in odd-numbered years. (The others are Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia.) New Jersey holds elections for these offices every four years, in the year following each federal Presidential election year. Thus, the last year when New Jersey elected a Governor was 2017; the next gubernatorial election will occur in 2021.
+
+The New Jersey Supreme Court[232] consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices. All are appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of a majority of the membership of the State Senate. Justices serve an initial seven-year term, after which they can be reappointed to serve until age 70.
+
+Most of the day-to-day work in the New Jersey courts is carried out in the Municipal Court, where simple traffic tickets, minor criminal offenses, and small civil matters are heard.
+
+More serious criminal and civil cases are handled by the Superior Court for each county. All Superior Court judges are appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of a majority of the membership of the State Senate. Each judge serves an initial seven-year term, after which he or she can be reappointed to serve until age 70. New Jersey's judiciary is unusual in that it still has separate courts of law and equity, like its neighbor Delaware but unlike most other U.S. states. The New Jersey Superior Court is divided into Law and Chancery Divisions at the trial level; the Law Division hears both criminal cases and civil lawsuits where the plaintiff's primary remedy is damages, while the Chancery Division hears family cases, civil suits where the plaintiff's primary remedy is equitable relief, and probate trials.
+
+The Superior Court also has an Appellate Division, which functions as the state's intermediate appellate court. Superior Court judges are assigned to the Appellate Division by the Chief Justice.
+
+There is also a Tax Court, which is a court of limited jurisdiction. Tax Court judges hear appeals of tax decisions made by County Boards of Taxation. They also hear appeals on decisions made by the Director of the Division of Taxation on such matters as state income, sales and business taxes, and homestead rebates. Appeals from Tax Court decisions are heard in the Appellate Division of Superior Court. Tax Court judges are appointed by the Governor for initial terms of seven years, and upon reappointment are granted tenure until they reach the mandatory retirement age of 70. There are 12 Tax Court judgeships.
+
+New Jersey is divided into 21 counties; 13 date from the colonial era. New Jersey was completely divided into counties by 1692; the present counties were created by dividing the existing ones; most recently Union County in 1857.[233] New Jersey is the only state in the nation where elected county officials are called "Freeholders", governing each county as part of its own Board of Chosen Freeholders. The number of freeholders in each county is determined by referendum, and must consist of three, five, seven or nine members.
+
+Depending on the county, the executive and legislative functions may be performed by the Board of Chosen Freeholders or split into separate branches of government. In 16 counties, members of the Board of Chosen Freeholders perform both legislative and executive functions on a commission basis, with each Freeholder assigned responsibility for a department or group of departments. In the other five counties (Atlantic, Bergen, Essex, Hudson and Mercer), there is a directly elected County Executive who performs the executive functions while the Board of Chosen Freeholders retains a legislative and oversight role. In counties without an Executive, a County Administrator (or County Manager) may be hired to perform day-to-day administration of county functions.
+
+New Jersey currently has 565 municipalities; the number was 566 before Princeton Township and Princeton Borough merged to form the municipality of Princeton on January 1, 2013. Unlike other states, all New Jersey land is part of a municipality. In 2008, Governor Jon Corzine proposed cutting state aid to all towns under 10,000 people, to encourage mergers to reduce administrative costs.[234] In May 2009, the Local Unit Alignment Reorganization and Consolidation Commission began a study of about 40 small communities in South Jersey to decide which ones might be good candidates for consolidation.[235]
+
+Starting in the 20th century, largely driven by reform-minded goals, a series of six modern forms of government was implemented. This began with the Walsh Act, enacted in 1911 by the New Jersey Legislature, which provided for a three- or five-member commission elected on a non-partisan basis. This was followed by the 1923 Municipal Manager Law, which offered a non-partisan council, provided for a weak mayor elected by and from the members of the council, and introduced a Council-manager government structure with an appointed manager responsible for day-to-day administration of municipal affairs.
+
+The Faulkner Act, originally enacted in 1950 and substantially amended in 1981, offers four basic plans: Mayor-Council, Council-Manager, Small Municipality, and Mayor-Council-Administrator. The act provides many choices for communities with a preference for a strong executive and professional management of municipal affairs and offers great flexibility in allowing municipalities to select the characteristics of its government: the number of seats on the Council; seats selected at-large, by wards, or through a combination of both; staggered or concurrent terms of office; and a mayor chosen by the Council or elected directly by voters. Most large municipalities and a majority of New Jersey's residents are governed by municipalities with Faulkner Act charters. Municipalities can also formulate their own unique form of government and operate under a Special Charter with the approval of the New Jersey Legislature.[citation needed]
+
+While municipalities retain their names derived from types of government, they may have changed to one of the modern forms of government, or further in the past to one of the other traditional forms, leading to municipalities with formal names quite baffling to the general public. For example, though there are four municipalities that are officially of the village type, Loch Arbour is the only one remaining with the village form of government. The other three villages—Ridgefield Park (now with a Walsh Act form), Ridgewood (now with a Faulkner Act Council-Manager charter) and South Orange (now operates under a Special Charter)—have all migrated to other non-village forms.[citation needed]
+
+Socially, New Jersey is considered one of the more liberal states in the nation. Polls indicate that 60% of the population are self-described as pro-choice, although a majority are opposed to late trimester and intact dilation and extraction and public funding of abortion.[236][237] In a 2009 Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll, a plurality supported same-sex marriage 49% to 43% opposed,[238] On October 18, 2013, the New Jersey Supreme Court rendered a provisional, unanimous (7–0) order authorizing same-sex marriage in the state, pending a legal appeal by Governor Chris Christie,[239] who then withdrew this appeal hours after the inaugural same-sex marriages took place on October 21, 2013.[78]
+
+New Jersey also has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the U.S. These include bans on assault firearms, hollow-nose bullets and slingshots. No gun offense in New Jersey is graded less than a felony. BB guns and black-powder guns are all treated as modern firearms. New Jersey does not recognize out-of-state gun licenses and aggressively enforces its own gun laws.[240]
+
+In past elections, New Jersey was a Republican bastion, but recently has become a Democratic stronghold. Currently, New Jersey Democrats have majority control of both houses of the New Jersey Legislature (Senate, 26–14, and Assembly, 54–26), a 10–2 split of the state's twelve seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and both U.S. Senate seats. Although the Democratic Party is very successful statewide, the state has had Republican governors; from 1994 to 2002, Christine Todd Whitman won twice with 47% and 49% of the votes, respectively, and in the 2009 gubernatorial election, Republican Chris Christie defeated incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine with 48% of the vote. In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Christie won reelection with over 60% of the votes. Because each candidate for lieutenant governor runs on the same ticket as the party's candidate for governor, the current Governor and Lieutenant Governor are members of the Democratic Party. The governor's appointments to cabinet and non-cabinet positions may be from either party; for instance, the Attorney General is a Democrat.
+
+In federal elections, the state leans heavily towards the Democratic Party. For many years in the past, however, it was a Republican stronghold, having given comfortable margins of victory to the Republican candidate in the close elections of 1948, 1968, and 1976. New Jersey was a crucial swing state in the elections of 1960, 1968, and 1992. The last elected Republican to hold a Senate seat from New Jersey was Clifford P. Case in 1979. Newark Mayor Cory Booker was elected in October 2013 to join Robert Menendez to make New Jersey the first state with concurrent serving black and Latino U.S. senators.[241]
+
+The state's Democratic strongholds include Camden County, Essex County (typically the state's most Democratic county—it includes Newark, the state's largest city), Hudson County (the second-strongest Democratic county, including Jersey City, the state's second-largest city); Mercer County (especially around Trenton and Princeton), Middlesex County, and Union County (including Elizabeth, the state's fourth-largest city).[242]
+
+The suburban northwestern and southeastern counties of the state are reliably Republican: Republicans have support along the coast in Ocean County and in the mountainous northwestern part of the state, especially Morris County, Sussex County, and Warren County. Other suburban counties, especially Bergen County and Burlington County had the majority of votes go to the Democratic Party. In the 2008 election, President Barack Obama won New Jersey with approximately fifty-seven percent of the vote, compared to McCain's forty-one percent. Independent candidate Ralph Nader garnered less than one percent of the vote.
+
+About one-third of the state's counties are considered "swing" counties, but some go more one way than others. For example, Salem County, the same is true with Passaic County, with a highly populated Hispanic Democratic south (including Paterson, the state's third-largest city) and a rural, Republican north; with the "swing" township of Wayne in the middle. Other "swing" counties like Monmouth County, Somerset County, and Cape May County tend to go Republican, as they also have population in conservative areas, although Somerset has recently trended Democratic.
+
+To be eligible to vote in a U.S. election, all New Jerseyans are required to start their residency in the state 30 days prior to an election and register 21 days prior to election day.[243]
+
+On December 17, 2007, Governor Jon Corzine signed into law a bill that would eliminate the death penalty in New Jersey. New Jersey is the first state to pass such legislation since Iowa and West Virginia eliminated executions in 1965.[244] Corzine also signed a bill that would downgrade the Death Row prisoners' sentences from "Death" to "Life in Prison with No Parole".[245]
+
+There is also a mineral museum Ogdensburg in Sussex County.
+
+Visitors and residents take advantage of and contribute to performances at the numerous music, theater, and dance companies and venues located throughout the state, including:
+
+New Jersey is the location of most of the boardwalks in the U.S., with nearly every town and city along the Jersey Shore area each having a boardwalk with various attractions, entertainment, shopping, dining, miniature golf, arcades, water parks with various water rides, including water slides, lazy rivers, wave pools, etc., and amusement parks hosting rides and attractions including roller coasters, carousels, Ferris wheels, bumper cars, teacups, etc.
+
+(Glyptemys muhlenbergii)[249]

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+
+
+The newton (symbol: N) is the International System of Units (SI) derived unit of force. It is named after Isaac Newton in recognition of his work on classical mechanics, specifically Newton's second law of motion. One newton is the force needed to accelerate one kilogram of mass at the rate of one metre per second squared in the direction of the applied force.
+
+See below for the conversion factors.
+
+One newton is the force needed to accelerate one kilogram of mass at the rate of one metre per second squared in the direction of the applied force.[1]
+The units "metre per second squared" can be understood as change in velocity per time, i.e. an increase of velocity by 1 metre per second every second.
+
+In 1946, Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures (CGPM) Resolution 2 standardized the unit of force in the MKS system of units to be the amount needed to accelerate 1 kilogram of mass at the rate of 1 metre per second squared. In 1948, the 9th CGPM Resolution 7 adopted the name newton for this force.[2] The MKS system then became the blueprint for today's SI system of units. The newton thus became the standard unit of force in the Système international d'unités (SI), or International System of Units.
+
+The newton is named after Isaac Newton. As with every SI unit named for a person, its symbol starts with an upper case letter (N), but when written in full it follows the rules for capitalisation of a common noun; i.e., "newton" becomes capitalised at the beginning of a sentence and in titles, but is otherwise in lower case.
+
+In more formal terms, Newton's second law of motion states that the force exerted by an object is directly proportional to the acceleration of that object, namely:[3]
+
+where the proportionality constant, 
+
+
+
+m
+
+
+{\displaystyle m}
+
+, represents the mass of the object undergoing an acceleration, 
+
+
+
+a
+
+
+{\displaystyle a}
+
+. As a result, the newton may be defined in terms of kilograms (
+
+
+
+
+kg
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\text{kg}}}
+
+), metres (
+
+
+
+
+m
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\text{m}}}
+
+), and seconds (
+
+
+
+
+s
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\text{s}}}
+
+) by
+
+At average gravity on Earth (conventionally, g = 9.80665 m/s2), a kilogram mass exerts a force of about 9.8 newtons. An average-sized apple exerts about one newton of force, which we measure as the apple's weight.[4]
+
+The weight of an average adult exerts a force of about 608 N.
+
+It is common to see forces expressed in kilonewtons (kN) where 1 kN  = 1000 N. For example, the tractive effort of a Class Y steam train locomotive and the thrust of an F100 jet engine are both around 130 kN.
+
+One kilonewton, 1 kN, is equivalent to 102.0 kgf, or about 100 kg of load under Earth gravity.
+
+So for example, a platform that shows it is rated at 321 kilonewtons (72,000 lbf), will safely support a 32,100 kilograms (70,800 lb) load.
+
+Specifications in kilonewtons are common in safety specifications for:
+

en/411.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,143 @@
+Coordinates: 29°N 41°E / 29°N 41°E / 29; 41
+
+
+
+The Middle East is a transcontinental region which generally includes Western Asia (except for Transcaucasia), all of Egypt (mostly in North Africa), and Turkey (partly in Europe). The term has come into wider usage as a replacement of the term Near East (as opposed to the Far East) beginning in the early 20th century. The broader concept of the "Greater Middle East" (or Middle East and North Africa) also adds the Maghreb, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and sometimes even Transcaucasia and Central Asia into the region. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions.
+
+Most Middle Eastern countries (13 out of 18) are part of the Arab world. The most populous countries in the region are Egypt, Iran, and Turkey, while Saudi Arabia is the largest Middle Eastern country by area. The history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the geopolitical importance of the region being recognized for millennia.[2][3][4] Several major religions have their origins in the Middle East, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Arabs constitute the majority ethnic group in the region,[5] followed by Turks, Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Copts, Jews, Assyrians, Iraqi Turkmen, and Greek Cypriots.
+
+The Middle East generally has a hot, arid climate, with several major rivers providing irrigation to support agriculture in limited areas such as the Nile Delta in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates watersheds of Mesopotamia (Iraq, Kuwait, and eastern Syria), and most of what is known as the Fertile Crescent. Most of the countries that border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil, with monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula in particular benefiting economically from petroleum exports. Because of the arid climate and heavy reliance on the fossil fuel industry, the Middle East is both a heavy contributor to climate change and a region expected to be severely negatively impacted by it.
+
+The term "Middle East" may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office.[6] However, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902[7] to "designate the area between Arabia and India".[8][9] During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, a rivalry which would become known as The Great Game. Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf.[10][11] He labeled the area surrounding the Persian Gulf as the Middle East, and said that after Egypt's Suez Canal, it was the most important passage for Britain to control in order to keep the Russians from advancing towards British India.[12] Mahan first used the term in his article "The Persian Gulf and International Relations", published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal.
+
+The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar; it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf.  Naval force has the quality of mobility which carries with it the privilege of temporary absences; but it needs to find on every scene of operation established bases of refit, of supply, and in case of disaster, of security. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, and the Persian Gulf.[13]
+
+Mahan's article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled "The Middle Eastern Question," written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include "those regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India."[14] After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term.[15]
+
+Until World War II, it was customary to refer to areas centered around Turkey and the eastern shore of the Mediterranean as the "Near East", while the "Far East" centered on China,[16] and the Middle East then meant the area from Mesopotamia to Burma, namely the area between the Near East and the Far East.[citation needed] In the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term "Middle East" gained broader usage in Europe and the United States, with the Middle East Institute founded in Washington, D.C. in 1946, among other usage.[17]
+
+The corresponding adjective is Middle Eastern and the derived noun is Middle Easterner.
+
+The description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, "Near East" was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while "Middle East" referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. In contrast, "Far East" referred to the countries of East Asia (e.g. China, Japan, Korea, etc.)
+
+With the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, "Near East" largely fell out of common use in English, while "Middle East" came to be applied to the re-emerging countries of the Islamic world. However, the usage "Near East" was retained by a variety of academic disciplines, including archaeology and ancient history, where it describes an area identical to the term Middle East, which is not used by these disciplines (see Ancient Near East).
+
+The first official use of the term "Middle East" by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, which pertained to the Suez Crisis. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles defined the Middle East as "the area lying between and including Libya on the west and Pakistan on the east, Syria and Iraq on the North and the Arabian peninsula to the south, plus the Sudan and Ethiopia."[16] In 1958, the State Department explained that the terms "Near East" and "Middle East" were interchangeable, and defined the region as including only Egypt, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.[18]
+
+The Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous. It instructs:
+
+Use Middle East unless Near East is used by a source in a story. Mideast is also acceptable, but Middle East is preferred.[19]
+
+The term Middle East has also been criticised as Eurocentric ("based on a British Western perception") by Hanafi (1998).[20]
+
+There are terms similar to Near East and Middle East in other European languages, but since it is a relative description, the meanings depend on the country and are different from the English terms generally. In German the term Naher Osten (Near East) is still in common use (nowadays the term Mittlerer Osten is more and more common in press texts translated from English sources, albeit having a distinct meaning) and in Russian Ближний Восток or Blizhniy Vostok, Bulgarian Близкия Изток, Polish Bliski Wschód or Croatian Bliski istok (meaning Near East in all the four Slavic languages) remains as the only appropriate term for the region. However, some languages do have "Middle East" equivalents, such as the French Moyen-Orient, Swedish Mellanöstern, Spanish Oriente Medio or Medio Oriente, and the Italian Medio Oriente.[note 1]
+
+Perhaps because of the influence of the Western press, the Arabic equivalent of Middle East (Arabic: الشرق الأوسط  ash-Sharq al-Awsaṭ) has become standard usage in the mainstream Arabic press, comprising the same meaning as the term "Middle East" in North American and Western European usage. The designation, Mashriq, also from the Arabic root for East, also denotes a variously defined region around the Levant, the eastern part of the Arabic-speaking world (as opposed to the Maghreb, the western part).[21] Even though the term originated in the West, apart from Arabic, other languages of countries of the Middle East also use a translation of it. The Persian equivalent for Middle East is خاورمیانه (Khāvar-e miyāneh), the Hebrew is המזרח התיכון (hamizrach hatikhon) and the Turkish is Orta Doğu.
+
+Traditionally included within the Middle East are Iran (Persia), Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, and Egypt. In modern-day-country terms they are these:
+
+Various concepts are often being paralleled to Middle East, most notably Near East, Fertile Crescent and the Levant. Near East, Levant and Fertile Crescent are geographic concepts, which refer to large sections of the modern defined Middle East, with Near East being the closest to Middle East in its geographic meaning. Due to it primarily being Arabic speaking, the Maghreb region of North Africa is sometimes included.
+
+The countries of the South Caucasus—Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia—are occasionally included in definitions of the Middle East.[24]
+
+The Greater Middle East was a political term coined by the second Bush administration in the first decade of the 21st century,[25] to denote various countries, pertaining to the Muslim world, specifically Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan.[26] Various Central Asian countries are sometimes also included.[27]
+
+The Middle East lies at the juncture of Eurasia and Africa and of the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. It is the birthplace and spiritual center of religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Manichaeism, Yezidi, Druze, Yarsan and Mandeanism, and in Iran, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Manicheanism, and the Bahá'í Faith. Throughout its history the Middle East has been a major center of world affairs; a strategically, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously sensitive area. The region is one of the regions were agriculture was independently discovered, and from the Middle East it was spread, during the Neolithic, to different regions of the world such as Europe, the Indus Valley and Eastern Africa.
+
+Prior to the formation of civilizations, advanced cultures formed all over the Middle East during the Stone age. The search for agricultural lands by agriculturalists, and pastoral lands by herdsmen meant different migrations took place within the region and shaped its ethnic and demographic makeup.
+
+Around 10,000 BC the first fully developed Neolithic cultures belonging to the phase Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) appeared in the Fertile Crescent.[28] Around 10,700–9400 BC a settlement was established in Tell Qaramel, 10 miles (16 km) north of Aleppo. The settlement included two temples dating to 9650 BC.[29] Around 9000 BC during the PPNA, one of the world's first towns, Jericho, appeared in the Levant. It was surrounded by a stone wall and contained a population of 2,000–3,000 people and a massive stone tower.[30] Around 6400 BC the Halaf culture appeared in Syria and Northern Mesopotamia. The Halaf culture was adjacent to the Ubaid culture (c. 6500 BC) of southern Mesopotamia, Hassuna culture (c. 6000 BC) of northeastern Mesopotamia and Samarra culture (c. 5500 BC) of central Mesopotamia.
+
+In 1981 a team of researchers from the Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, including Jacques Cauvin and Oliver Aurenche divided Near East Neolithic chronology into ten periods (0 to 9) based on social, economic and cultural characteristics.[31] In 2002 Danielle Stordeur and Frédéric Abbès advanced this system with a division into five periods.
+
+The Middle East is widely and most famously known as the Cradle of civilization. The world's earliest civilizations, Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia), ancient Egypt and Kish in the Levant, all originated in the Fertile Crescent and Nile Valley regions of the ancient Near East. These were followed by the Hittite, Greek, Hurrian and Urartian civilisations of Asia Minor, Elam in pre-Iranian Persia, as well as the civilizations of the Levant (such as Ebla, Mari, Nagar, Ugarit, Canaan, Aramea, Mitanni, Phoenicia and Israel), Persian and Median civilizations in Iran, North Africa (Carthage/Phoenicia) and the Arabian Peninsula (Magan, Sheba, Ubar). The Near East was first largely unified under the Neo Assyrian Empire, then the Achaemenid Empire followed later by the Macedonian Empire and after this to some degree by the Iranian empires (namely the Parthian and Sassanid Empires), the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. The region served as the intellectual and economic center of the Roman Empire and played an exceptionally important role due to its periphery on the Sassanid Empire. From the 4th century CE onwards, the Middle East became the center of the two main powers at the time, the Byzantine empire and the Sassanid Empire. However, it would be the later Arab Caliphates of the Middle Ages, or Islamic Golden Age which began with the Arab conquest of the region in the 7th century AD, that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant Islamic ethnic identity that largely (but not exclusively) persists today. The 4 caliphates that dominated the Middle East for more than 600 years were the Rashidun Caliphate, the Umayyad caliphate, the Abbasid caliphate and the Fatimid caliphate. The Mongols, the Kingdom of Armenia, the Franks during the crusades, the Seljuks, the Safavids, the Mamluks, the Ottoman Empire, and the British Empire also dominated the region.
+
+The modern Middle East began after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with the Central Powers, was defeated by the British Empire and their allies and partitioned into a number of separate nations, initially under British and French Mandates. Other defining events in this transformation included the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the eventual departure of European powers, notably Britain and France by the end of the 1960s. They were supplanted in some part by the rising influence of the United States from the 1970s onwards.
+
+In the 20th century, the region's significant stocks of crude oil gave it new strategic and economic importance. Mass production of oil began around 1945, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates having large quantities of oil.[33] Estimated oil reserves, especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran, are some of the highest in the world, and the international oil cartel OPEC is dominated by Middle Eastern countries.
+
+During the Cold War, the Middle East was a theater of ideological struggle between the two superpowers and their allies: NATO and the United States on one side, and the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact on the other, as they competed to influence regional allies. Besides the political reasons there was also the "ideological conflict" between the two systems. Moreover, as Louise Fawcett argues, among many important areas of contention, or perhaps more accurately of anxiety, were, first, the desires of the superpowers to gain strategic advantage in the region, second, the fact that the region contained some two-thirds of the world's oil reserves in a context where oil was becoming increasingly vital to the economy of the Western world [...][34] Within this contextual framework, the United States sought to divert the Arab world from Soviet influence. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the region has experienced both periods of relative peace and tolerance and periods of conflict particularly between Sunnis and Shiites.
+
+Arabs constitute the largest ethnic group in the Middle East, followed by various Iranian peoples and then by Turkic speaking groups (Turkish, Azeris, and Iraqi Turkmen). Native ethnic groups of the region include, in addition to Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Greek Cypriots, Jews, Kurds, Lurs, Mandaeans, Persians, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, and Zazas. European ethnic groups that form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians (including Kabardians), Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Franco-Levantines, Italo-Levantines, and Iraqi Turkmens. Among other migrant populations are Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Pashtuns, Romani, and Afro-Arabs.
+
+
+
+"Migration has always provided an important vent for labor market pressures in the Middle East. For the period between the 1970s and 1990s, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf in particular provided a rich source of employment for workers from Egypt, Yemen and the countries of the Levant, while Europe had attracted young workers from North African countries due both to proximity and the legacy of colonial ties between France and the majority of North African states."[35] According to the International Organization for Migration, there are 13 million first-generation migrants from Arab nations in the world, of which 5.8 reside in other Arab countries. Expatriates from Arab countries contribute to the circulation of financial and human capital in the region and thus significantly promote regional development. In 2009 Arab countries received a total of US$35.1 billion in remittance in-flows and remittances sent to Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon from other Arab countries are 40 to 190 per cent higher than trade revenues between these and other Arab countries.[36] In Somalia, the Somali Civil War has greatly increased the size of the Somali diaspora, as many of the best educated Somalis left for Middle Eastern countries as well as Europe and North America.
+
+Non-Arab Middle Eastern countries such as Turkey, Israel and Iran are also subject to important migration dynamics.
+
+A fair proportion of those migrating from Arab nations are from ethnic and religious minorities facing racial and or religious persecution and are not necessarily ethnic Arabs, Iranians or Turks.[citation needed] Large numbers of Kurds, Jews, Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians as well as many Mandeans have left nations such as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey for these reasons during the last century. In Iran, many religious minorities such as Christians, Baha'is and Zoroastrians have left since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.[citation needed]
+
+The Middle East is very diverse when it comes to religions, many of which originated there. Islam is the largest religion in the Middle East, but other faiths that originated there, such as Judaism and Christianity, are also well represented. Christians represent 40.5% of Lebanon, where the Lebanese president, half of the cabinet, and half of the parliament follow one of the various Lebanese Christian rites. There are also important minority religions like the Bahá'í Faith, Yarsanism, Yazidism, Zoroastrianism, Mandaeism, Druze, and Shabakism, and in ancient times the region was home to Mesopotamian religions, Canaanite religions, Manichaeism, Mithraism and various monotheist gnostic sects.
+
+The five top languages, in terms of numbers of speakers, are Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, and Hebrew. Arabic and Hebrew represent the Afro-Asiatic language family. Persian and Kurdish belong to the Indo-European language family. Turkish belongs to Turkic language family. About 20 minority languages are also spoken in the Middle East.
+
+Arabic, with all its dialects, are the most widely spoken languages in the Middle East, with Literary Arabic being official in all North African and in most West Asian countries. Arabic dialects are also spoken in some adjacent areas in neighbouring Middle Eastern non-Arab countries. It is a member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Several Modern South Arabian languages such as Mehri and Soqotri are also spoken Yemen and Oman. Another Semitic language such as Aramaic and its dialects are spoken mainly by Assyrians and Mandaeans. There is also an Oasis Berber-speaking community in Egypt where the language is also known as Siwa. It is a non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic language.
+
+Persian is the second most spoken language. While it is primarily spoken in Iran and some border areas in neighbouring countries, the country is one of the region's largest and most populous. It belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Other Western Iranic languages spoken in the region include Achomi, Daylami, Kurdish dialects, Semmani, Lurish, amongst many others.
+
+The third-most widely spoken language, Turkish, is largely confined to Turkey, which is also one of the region's largest and most populous countries, but it is present in areas in neighboring countries. It is a member of the Turkic languages, which have their origins in Central Asia. Another Turkic language, Azerbaijani, is spoken by Azerbaijanis in Iran.
+
+Hebrew is one of the two official languages of Israel, the other being Arabic. Hebrew is spoken and used by over 80% of Israel's population, the other 20% using Arabic.
+
+English is one of the official languages of Akrotiri and Dhekelia.[37][38] It is also commonly taught and used as a second language, especially among the middle and upper classes, in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Kurdistan, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.[39][40] It is also a main language in some Emirates of the United Arab Emirates.
+
+French is taught and used in many government facilities and media in Lebanon, and is taught in some primary and secondary schools of Egypt and Syria. Maltese, a Semitic language mainly spoken in Europe, is also used by the Franco-Maltese diaspora in Egypt.
+
+Armenian and Greek speakers are also to be found in the region. Georgian is spoken by the Georgian diaspora. Russian is spoken by a large portion of the Israeli population, because of emigration in the late 1990s.[41] Russian today is a popular unofficial language in use in Israel; news, radio and sign boards can be found in Russian around the country after Hebrew and Arabic. Circassian is also spoken by the diaspora in the region and by almost all Circassians in Israel who speak Hebrew and English as well. The largest Romanian-speaking community in the Middle East is found in Israel, where as of 1995[update] Romanian is spoken by 5% of the population.[note 2][42][43]
+
+Bengali, Hindi and Urdu are widely spoken by migrant communities in many Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia (where 20–25% of the population is South Asian), the United Arab Emirates (where 50–55% of the population is South Asian), and Qatar, which have large numbers of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian immigrants.
+
+Middle Eastern economies range from being very poor (such as Gaza and Yemen) to extremely wealthy nations (such as Qatar and UAE). Overall, as of 2007[update], according to the CIA World Factbook, all nations in the Middle East are maintaining a positive rate of growth.
+
+According to the World Bank's World Development Indicators database published on July 1, 2009, the three largest Middle Eastern economies in 2008 were Turkey ($794,228), Saudi Arabia ($467,601) and Iran ($385,143) in terms of Nominal GDP.[44] Regarding nominal GDP per capita, the highest ranking countries are Qatar ($93,204), the UAE ($55,028), Kuwait ($45,920) and Cyprus ($32,745).[45] Turkey ($1,028,897), Iran ($839,438) and Saudi Arabia ($589,531) had the largest economies in terms of GDP-PPP.[46] When it comes to per capita (PPP)-based income, the highest-ranking countries are Qatar ($86,008), Kuwait ($39,915), the UAE ($38,894), Bahrain ($34,662) and Cyprus ($29,853). The lowest-ranking country in the Middle East, in terms of per capita income (PPP), is the autonomous Palestinian Authority of Gaza and the West Bank ($1,100).
+
+The economic structure of Middle Eastern nations are different in the sense that while some nations are heavily dependent on export of only oil and oil-related products (such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait), others have a highly diverse economic base (such as Cyprus, Israel, Turkey and Egypt). Industries of the Middle Eastern region include oil and oil-related products, agriculture, cotton, cattle, dairy, textiles, leather products, surgical instruments, defence equipment (guns, ammunition, tanks, submarines, fighter jets, UAVs, and missiles). Banking is also an important sector of the economies, especially in the case of UAE and Bahrain.
+
+With the exception of Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Israel, tourism has been a relatively undeveloped area of the economy, in part because of the socially conservative nature of the region as well as political turmoil in certain regions of the Middle East. In recent years, however, countries such as the UAE, Bahrain, and Jordan have begun attracting greater numbers of tourists because of improving tourist facilities and the relaxing of tourism-related restrictive policies.
+
+Unemployment is notably high in the Middle East and North Africa region, particularly among young people aged 15–29, a demographic representing 30% of the region's total population. The total regional unemployment rate in 2005, according to the International Labour Organization, was 13.2%,[47] and among youth is as high as 25%,[48] up to 37% in Morocco and 73% in Syria.[49]
+
+Climate change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) refers to changes in the climate of the MENA region and the subsequent response, adaption and mitigation strategies of countries in the region. In 2018, the MENA region emitted 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide and produced 8.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG)[50] despite making up only 6% of the global population.[51] These emissions are mostly from the energy sector,[52] an integral component of many Middle Eastern and North African economies due to the extensive oil and natural gas reserves that are found within the region.[53][54]
+
+Recognised by the United Nations, The World Bank and the World Health Organisation as one of the greatest global challenges in the 21st century, climate change is currently having an unprecedented effect upon the Earth's natural systems.[55][56][57] Sharp global temperature and sea level changes, shifting precipitation patterns and increased frequency of extreme weather events are some of the main impacts of climate change as identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).[58] The MENA region is especially vulnerable to such impacts due to its arid and semi-arid environment, facing climatic challenges such as low rainfall, high temperatures and dry soil.[58][59] The climatic conditions that foster such challenges for MENA are projected by the IPCC to worsen throughout the 21st century.[58] If greenhouse gas emissions are not significantly reduced, part of the MENA region risks becoming uninhabitable before the year 2100.[60][61][62]
+
+Abu Dhabi – United Arab Emirates
+
+Amman – Jordan
+
+Ankara – Turkey
+
+Baghdad – Iraq
+
+Beirut – Lebanon
+
+Cairo – Egypt
+
+Damascus – Syria
+
+Doha – Qatar
+
+Dubai – United Arab Emirates
+
+Istanbul – Turkey
+
+Jerusalem – Israel
+
+Kuwait City – Kuwait
+
+Manama – Bahrain
+
+Mecca – Saudi Arabia
+
+Muscat – Oman
+
+Nicosia – Cyprus
+
+Ramallah – Palestine
+
+Sana'a – Yemen
+
+Tehran – Iran
+
+Tel Aviv – Israel

en/4112.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,164 @@
+
+
+Coordinates: 42°S 173°E / 42°S 173°E / -42; 173
+
+New Zealand (Māori: Aotearoa [aɔˈtɛaɾɔa]) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It comprises two main landmasses—the North Island (Te Ika-a-Māui) and the South Island (Te Waipounamu)—and around 600 smaller islands, covering a total area of 268,021 square kilometres (103,500 sq mi). New Zealand is about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland.
+
+Owing to their remoteness, the islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable lands to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands, and then developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand. In 1840, representatives of the United Kingdom and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands. In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire and in 1907 it became a dominion; it gained full statutory independence in 1947 and the British monarch remained the head of state. Today, the majority of New Zealand's population of 5 million is of European descent; the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealand's culture is mainly derived from Māori and early British settlers, with recent broadening arising from increased immigration. The official languages are English, Māori, and New Zealand Sign Language, with English being very dominant.
+
+A developed country, New Zealand ranks highly in international comparisons of national performance, such as quality of life, education, protection of civil liberties, government transparency, and economic freedom. New Zealand underwent major economic changes during the 1980s, which transformed it from a protectionist to a liberalised free-trade economy. The service sector dominates the national economy, followed by the industrial sector, and agriculture; international tourism is a significant source of revenue. Nationally, legislative authority is vested in an elected, unicameral Parliament, while executive political power is exercised by the Cabinet, led by the prime minister, currently Jacinda Ardern. Queen Elizabeth II is the country's monarch and is represented by a governor-general, currently Dame Patsy Reddy. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes. The Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau (a dependent territory); the Cook Islands and Niue (self-governing states in free association with New Zealand); and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealand's territorial claim in Antarctica.
+
+New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ASEAN Plus Six, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Pacific Community and the Pacific Islands Forum.
+
+The first European visitor to New Zealand, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, named the islands Staten Land, believing they were part of the Staten Landt that Jacob Le Maire had sighted off the southern end of South America.[11][12] Hendrik Brouwer proved that the South American land was a small island in 1643, and Dutch cartographers subsequently renamed Tasman's discovery Nova Zeelandia, from Latin, after the Dutch province of Zeeland.[11][13] This name was later anglicised to "New Zealand".[14][15]
+
+Aotearoa (pronounced [aɔˈtɛaɾɔa] in Māori and /ˌaʊtɛəˈroʊ.ə/ in English; often translated as "land of the long white cloud")[16] is the current Māori name for New Zealand. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the whole country before the arrival of Europeans, with Aotearoa originally referring to just the North Island.[17] Māori had several traditional names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui (the fish of Māui) for the North Island and Te Waipounamu (the waters of greenstone) or Te Waka o Aoraki (the canoe of Aoraki) for the South Island.[18] Early European maps labelled the islands North (North Island), Middle (South Island) and South (Stewart Island / Rakiura).[19] In 1830, mapmakers began to use "North" and "South" on their maps to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907 this was the accepted norm.[15] The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised, and names and alternative names were formalised in 2013. This set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, and South Island or Te Waipounamu.[20] For each island, either its English or Māori name can be used, or both can be used together.[20]
+
+New Zealand is one of the last major landmasses settled by humans. Radiocarbon dating, evidence of deforestation[22] and mitochondrial DNA variability within Māori populations[23] suggest that Eastern Polynesians first settled the New Zealand archipelago between 1250 and 1300,[18][24] although newer  archaeological and genetic research points to a date no earlier than about 1280, with at least the main settlement period between about 1320 and 1350,[25][26] consistent with evidence based on genealogical traditions.[27][28] This represented a culmination in a long series of voyages through the Pacific islands.[29] Over the centuries that followed, the Polynesian settlers developed a distinct culture now known as Māori. The population formed different iwi (tribes) and hapū (subtribes) which would sometimes cooperate, sometimes compete and sometimes fight against each other.[30] At some point a group of Māori migrated to Rēkohu, now known as the Chatham Islands, where they developed their distinct Moriori culture.[31][32] The Moriori population was all but wiped out between 1835 and 1862, largely because of Taranaki Māori invasion and enslavement in the 1830s, although European diseases also contributed. In 1862 only 101 survived, and the last known full-blooded Moriori died in 1933.[33]
+
+The first Europeans known to have reached New Zealand were the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman and his crew in 1642.[34] In a hostile encounter, four crew members were killed and at least one Māori was hit by canister shot.[35] Europeans did not revisit New Zealand until 1769 when British explorer James Cook mapped almost the entire coastline.[34] Following Cook, New Zealand was visited by numerous European and North American whaling, sealing and trading ships. They traded European food, metal tools, weapons and other goods for timber, Māori food, artefacts and water.[36] The introduction of the potato and the musket transformed Māori agriculture and warfare. Potatoes provided a reliable food surplus, which enabled longer and more sustained military campaigns.[37] The resulting intertribal Musket Wars encompassed over 600 battles between 1801 and 1840, killing 30,000–40,000 Māori.[38] From the early 19th century, Christian missionaries began to settle New Zealand, eventually converting most of the Māori population.[39] The Māori population declined to around 40% of its pre-contact level during the 19th century; introduced diseases were the major factor.[40]
+
+In 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip assumed the position of Governor of the new British colony of New South Wales which according to his commission included New Zealand.[41] The British Government appointed James Busby as British Resident to New Zealand in 1832 following a petition from northern Māori.[42] In 1835, following an announcement of impending French settlement by Charles de Thierry, the nebulous United Tribes of New Zealand sent a Declaration of Independence to King William IV of the United Kingdom asking for protection.[42] Ongoing unrest, the proposed settlement of New Zealand by the New Zealand Company (which had already sent its first ship of surveyors to buy land from Māori) and the dubious legal standing of the Declaration of Independence prompted the Colonial Office to send Captain William Hobson to claim sovereignty for the United Kingdom and negotiate a treaty with the Māori.[43] The Treaty of Waitangi was first signed in the Bay of Islands on 6 February 1840.[44] In response to the New Zealand Company's attempts to establish an independent settlement in Wellington[45] and French settlers purchasing land in Akaroa,[46] Hobson declared British sovereignty over all of New Zealand on 21 May 1840, even though copies of the Treaty were still circulating throughout the country for Māori to sign.[47] With the signing of the Treaty and declaration of sovereignty the number of immigrants, particularly from the United Kingdom, began to increase.[48]
+
+New Zealand, still part of the colony of New South Wales, became a separate Colony of New Zealand on 1 July 1841.[49] Armed conflict began between the Colonial government and
+Māori in 1843 with the Wairau Affray over land and disagreements over sovereignty. These conflicts, mainly in the North Island, saw thousands of imperial troops and the Royal Navy come to New Zealand and became known as the New Zealand Wars. Following these armed conflicts, large amounts of Māori land was confiscated by the government to meet settler demands.[50]
+
+The colony gained a representative government in 1852 and the first Parliament met in 1854.[51] In 1856 the colony effectively became self-governing, gaining responsibility over all domestic matters other than native policy.[51] (Control over native policy was granted in the mid-1860s.[51]) Following concerns that the South Island might form a separate colony, premier Alfred Domett moved a resolution to transfer the capital from Auckland to a locality near Cook Strait.[52] Wellington was chosen for its central location, with Parliament officially sitting there for the first time in 1865.[53]
+
+In 1891 the Liberal Party came to power as the first organised political party.[54] The Liberal Government, led by Richard Seddon for most of its period in office,[55] passed many important social and economic measures. In 1893 New Zealand was the first nation in the world to grant all women the right to vote[54] and in 1894 pioneered the adoption of compulsory arbitration between employers and unions.[56]
+
+In 1907, at the request of the New Zealand Parliament, King Edward VII proclaimed New Zealand a Dominion within the British Empire,[57] reflecting its self-governing status.[58] In 1947 the country adopted the Statute of Westminster, confirming that the British Parliament could no longer legislate for New Zealand without the consent of New Zealand.[51]
+
+Early in the 20th century, New Zealand was involved in world affairs, fighting in the First and Second World Wars[59] and suffering through the Great Depression.[60] The depression led to the election of the First Labour Government and the establishment of a comprehensive welfare state and a protectionist economy.[61] New Zealand experienced increasing prosperity following the Second World War[62] and Māori began to leave their traditional rural life and move to the cities in search of work.[63] A Māori protest movement developed, which criticised Eurocentrism and worked for greater recognition of Māori culture and of the Treaty of Waitangi.[64] In 1975, a Waitangi Tribunal was set up to investigate alleged breaches of the Treaty, and it was enabled to investigate historic grievances in 1985.[44] The government has negotiated settlements of these grievances with many iwi,[65] although Māori claims to the foreshore and seabed proved controversial in the 2000s.[66][67]
+
+New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy,[68] although its constitution is not codified.[69] Elizabeth II is the queen of New Zealand[70] and thus the head of state.[71] The queen is represented by the governor-general, whom she appoints on the advice of the prime minister.[72] The governor-general can exercise the Crown's prerogative powers, such as reviewing cases of injustice and making appointments of ministers, ambassadors and other key public officials,[73] and in rare situations, the reserve powers (e.g. the power to dissolve parliament or refuse the royal assent of a bill into law).[74] The powers of the monarch and the governor-general are limited by constitutional constraints and they cannot normally be exercised without the advice of ministers.[74]
+
+The New Zealand Parliament holds legislative power and consists of the queen and the House of Representatives.[75] It also included an upper house, the Legislative Council, until this was abolished in 1950.[75] The supremacy of parliament over the Crown and other government institutions was established in England by the Bill of Rights 1689 and has been ratified as law in New Zealand.[75] The House of Representatives is democratically elected and a government is formed from the party or coalition with the majority of seats. If no majority is formed, a minority government can be formed if support from other parties during confidence and supply votes is assured.[75] The governor-general appoints ministers under advice from the prime minister, who is by convention the parliamentary leader of the governing party or coalition.[76] Cabinet, formed by ministers and led by the prime minister, is the highest policy-making body in government and responsible for deciding significant government actions.[77] Members of Cabinet make major decisions collectively, and are therefore collectively responsible for the consequences of these decisions.[78]
+
+A parliamentary general election must be called no later than three years after the previous election.[79] Almost all general elections between 1853 and 1993 were held under the first-past-the-post voting system.[80] Since the 1996 election, a form of proportional representation called mixed-member proportional (MMP) has been used.[69] Under the MMP system, each person has two votes; one is for a candidate standing in the voter's electorate and the other is for a party. Since the 2014 election, there have been 71 electorates (which include seven Māori electorates in which only Māori can optionally vote),[81] and the remaining 49 of the 120 seats are assigned so that representation in parliament reflects the party vote, with the threshold that a party must win at least one electorate or 5% of the total party vote before it is eligible for a seat.[82]
+
+Elections since the 1930s have been dominated by two political parties, National and Labour.[80] Between March 2005 and August 2006, New Zealand became the first country in the world in which all the highest offices in the land—head of state, governor-general, prime minister, speaker and chief justice—were occupied simultaneously by women.[83] The current prime minister is Jacinda Ardern, who has been in office since 26 October 2017.[84] She is the country's third female prime minister.[85]
+
+New Zealand's judiciary, headed by the chief justice,[86] includes the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, the High Court, and subordinate courts.[87] Judges and judicial officers are appointed non-politically and under strict rules regarding tenure to help maintain judicial independence.[69] This theoretically allows the judiciary to interpret the law based solely on the legislation enacted by Parliament without other influences on their decisions.[88]
+
+New Zealand is identified as one of the world's most stable and well-governed states.[89] As at 2017[update], the country was ranked fourth in the strength of its democratic institutions,[90] and first in government transparency and lack of corruption.[91] A 2017 Human Rights Report by the U.S. Department of State noted that the government generally respected the rights of individuals, but voiced concerns regarding the social status of the Māori population.[92] New Zealand ranks highly for civic participation in the political process, with 80% voter turnout during recent elections, compared to an OECD average of 68%.[93]
+
+Early colonial New Zealand allowed the British Government to determine external trade and be responsible for foreign policy.[94] The 1923 and 1926 Imperial Conferences decided that New Zealand should be allowed to negotiate its own political treaties and the first commercial treaty was ratified in 1928 with Japan. On 3 September 1939 New Zealand allied itself with Britain and declared war on Germany with Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage proclaiming, "Where she goes, we go; where she stands, we stand."[95]
+
+In 1951 the United Kingdom became increasingly focused on its European interests,[96] while New Zealand joined Australia and the United States in the ANZUS security treaty.[97] The influence of the United States on New Zealand weakened following protests over the Vietnam War,[98] the refusal of the United States to admonish France after the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior,[99] disagreements over environmental and agricultural trade issues and New Zealand's nuclear-free policy.[100][101] Despite the United States' suspension of ANZUS obligations the treaty remained in effect between New Zealand and Australia, whose foreign policy has followed a similar historical trend.[102] Close political contact is maintained between the two countries, with free trade agreements and travel arrangements that allow citizens to visit, live and work in both countries without restrictions.[103] In 2013[update] there were about 650,000 New Zealand citizens living in Australia, which is equivalent to 15% of the resident population of New Zealand.[104]
+
+New Zealand has a strong presence among the Pacific Island countries. A large proportion of New Zealand's aid goes to these countries and many Pacific people migrate to New Zealand for employment.[105] Permanent migration is regulated under the 1970 Samoan Quota Scheme and the 2002 Pacific Access Category, which allow up to 1,100 Samoan nationals and up to 750 other Pacific Islanders respectively to become permanent New Zealand residents each year. A seasonal workers scheme for temporary migration was introduced in 2007 and in 2009 about 8,000 Pacific Islanders were employed under it.[106] New Zealand is involved in the Pacific Islands Forum, the Pacific Community, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (including the East Asia Summit).[103] New Zealand has been described as an emerging power.[107][108] The country is a member of the United Nations,[109] the Commonwealth of Nations[110] and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD),[111] and participates in the Five Power Defence Arrangements.[112]
+
+New Zealand's military services—the Defence Force—comprise the New Zealand Army, the Royal New Zealand Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Navy.[113] New Zealand's national defence needs are modest, since a direct attack is unlikely.[114] However, its military has had a global presence. The country fought in both world wars, with notable campaigns in Gallipoli, Crete,[115] El Alamein[116] and Cassino.[117] The Gallipoli campaign played an important part in fostering New Zealand's national identity[118][119] and strengthened the ANZAC tradition it shares with Australia.[120]
+
+In addition to Vietnam and the two world wars, New Zealand fought in the Second Boer War,[121] the Korean War,[122] the Malayan Emergency,[123] the Gulf War and the Afghanistan War. It has contributed forces to several regional and global peacekeeping missions, such as those in Cyprus, Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Sinai, Angola, Cambodia, the Iran–Iraq border, Bougainville, East Timor, and the Solomon Islands.[124]
+
+The early European settlers divided New Zealand into provinces, which had a degree of autonomy.[125] Because of financial pressures and the desire to consolidate railways, education, land sales and other policies, government was centralised and the provinces were abolished in 1876.[126] The provinces are remembered in regional public holidays[127] and sporting rivalries.[128]
+
+Since 1876, various councils have administered local areas under legislation determined by the central government.[125][129] In 1989, the government reorganised local government into the current two-tier structure of regional councils and territorial authorities.[130] The 249 municipalities[130] that existed in 1975 have now been consolidated into 67 territorial authorities and 11 regional councils.[131] The regional councils' role is to regulate "the natural environment with particular emphasis on resource management",[130] while territorial authorities are responsible for sewage, water, local roads, building consents and other local matters.[132][133] Five of the territorial councils are unitary authorities and also act as regional councils.[133] The territorial authorities consist of 13 city councils, 53 district councils, and the Chatham Islands Council. While officially the Chatham Islands Council is not a unitary authority, it undertakes many functions of a regional council.[134]
+
+The Realm of New Zealand, one of 16 Commonwealth realms,[135] is the entire area over which the queen of New Zealand is sovereign, and comprises New Zealand, Tokelau, the Ross Dependency, the Cook Islands and Niue.[68] The Cook Islands and Niue are self-governing states in free association with New Zealand.[136][137] The New Zealand Parliament cannot pass legislation for these countries, but with their consent can act on behalf of them in foreign affairs and defence. Tokelau is classified as a non-self-governing territory, but is administered by a council of three elders (one from each Tokelauan atoll).[138] The Ross Dependency is New Zealand's territorial claim in Antarctica, where it operates the Scott Base research facility.[139] New Zealand nationality law treats all parts of the realm equally, so most people born in New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau and the Ross Dependency are New Zealand citizens.[140][n 7]
+
+New Zealand is located near the centre of the water hemisphere and is made up of two main islands and a number of smaller islands. The two main islands (the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu) are separated by Cook Strait, 22 kilometres (14 mi) wide at its narrowest point.[142] Besides the North and South Islands, the five largest inhabited islands are Stewart Island (across the Foveaux Strait), Chatham Island, Great Barrier Island (in the Hauraki Gulf),[143] D'Urville Island (in the Marlborough Sounds)[144] and Waiheke Island (about 22 km (14 mi) from central Auckland).[145]
+
+New Zealand is long and narrow—over 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) along its north-north-east axis with a maximum width of 400 kilometres (250 mi)[146]—with about 15,000 km (9,300 mi) of coastline[147] and a total land area of 268,000 square kilometres (103,500 sq mi).[148] Because of its far-flung outlying islands and long coastline, the country has extensive marine resources. Its exclusive economic zone is one of the largest in the world, covering more than 15 times its land area.[149]
+
+The South Island is the largest landmass of New Zealand. It is divided along its length by the Southern Alps.[150] There are 18 peaks over 3,000 metres (9,800 ft), the highest of which is Aoraki / Mount Cook at 3,724 metres (12,218 ft).[151] Fiordland's steep mountains and deep fiords record the extensive ice age glaciation of this southwestern corner of the South Island.[152] The North Island is less mountainous but is marked by volcanism.[153] The highly active Taupo Volcanic Zone has formed a large volcanic plateau, punctuated by the North Island's highest mountain, Mount Ruapehu (2,797 metres (9,177 ft)). The plateau also hosts the country's largest lake, Lake Taupo,[154] nestled in the caldera of one of the world's most active supervolcanoes.[155]
+
+The country owes its varied topography, and perhaps even its emergence above the waves, to the dynamic boundary it straddles between the Pacific and Indo-Australian Plates.[156] New Zealand is part of Zealandia, a microcontinent nearly half the size of Australia that gradually submerged after breaking away from the Gondwanan supercontinent.[157][158] About 25 million years ago, a shift in plate tectonic movements began to contort and crumple the region. This is now most evident in the Southern Alps, formed by compression of the crust beside the Alpine Fault. Elsewhere the plate boundary involves the subduction of one plate under the other, producing the Puysegur Trench to the south, the Hikurangi Trench east of the North Island, and the Kermadec and Tonga Trenches[159] further north.[156]
+
+New Zealand is part of a region known as Australasia, together with Australia.[160] It also forms the southwestern extremity of the geographic and ethnographic region called Polynesia.[161] The term Oceania is often used to denote the wider region encompassing the Australian continent, New Zealand and various islands in the Pacific Ocean that are not included in the seven-continent model.[162]
+
+Rural scene near Queenstown
+
+The Emerald Lakes, Mt Tongariro
+
+Lake Gunn
+
+Pencarrow Head, Wellington
+
+New Zealand's climate is predominantly temperate maritime (Köppen: Cfb), with mean annual temperatures ranging from 10 °C (50 °F) in the south to 16 °C (61 °F) in the north.[163] Historical maxima and minima are 42.4 °C (108.32 °F) in Rangiora, Canterbury and −25.6 °C (−14.08 °F) in Ranfurly, Otago.[164] Conditions vary sharply across regions from extremely wet on the West Coast of the South Island to almost semi-arid in Central Otago and the Mackenzie Basin of inland Canterbury, and subtropical in Northland.[165][166] Of the seven largest cities, Christchurch is the driest, receiving on average only 640 millimetres (25 in) of rain per year and Wellington the wettest, receiving almost twice that amount.[167] Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch all receive a yearly average of more than 2,000 hours of sunshine. The southern and southwestern parts of the South Island have a cooler and cloudier climate, with around 1,400–1,600 hours; the northern and northeastern parts of the South Island are the sunniest areas of the country and receive about 2,400–2,500 hours.[168] The general snow season is early June until early October, though cold snaps can occur outside this season.[169] Snowfall is common in the eastern and southern parts of the South Island and mountain areas across the country.[163]
+
+The table below lists climate normals for the warmest and coldest months in New Zealand's six largest cities. North Island cities are generally warmest in February. South Island cities are warmest in January.
+
+New Zealand's geographic isolation for 80 million years[171] and island biogeography has influenced evolution of the country's species of animals, fungi and plants. Physical isolation has caused biological isolation, resulting in a dynamic evolutionary ecology with examples of very distinctive plants and animals as well as populations of widespread species.[172][173] About 82% of New Zealand's indigenous vascular plants are endemic, covering 1,944 species across 65 genera.[174][175] The number of fungi recorded from New Zealand, including lichen-forming species, is not known, nor is the proportion of those fungi which are endemic, but one estimate suggests there are about 2,300 species of lichen-forming fungi in New Zealand[174] and 40% of these are endemic.[176] The two main types of forest are those dominated by broadleaf trees with emergent podocarps, or by southern beech in cooler climates.[177] The remaining vegetation types consist of grasslands, the majority of which are tussock.[178]
+
+Before the arrival of humans, an estimated 80% of the land was covered in forest, with only high alpine, wet, infertile and volcanic areas without trees.[179] Massive deforestation occurred after humans arrived, with around half the forest cover lost to fire after Polynesian settlement.[180] Much of the remaining forest fell after European settlement, being logged or cleared to make room for pastoral farming, leaving forest occupying only 23% of the land.[181]
+
+The forests were dominated by birds, and the lack of mammalian predators led to some like the kiwi, kakapo, weka and takahē evolving flightlessness.[182] The arrival of humans, associated changes to habitat, and the introduction of rats, ferrets and other mammals led to the extinction of many bird species, including large birds like the moa and Haast's eagle.[183][184]
+
+Other indigenous animals are represented by reptiles (tuatara, skinks and geckos), frogs,[185] spiders,[186] insects (wētā)[187] and snails.[188] Some, such as the tuatara, are so unique that they have been called living fossils.[189] Three species of bats (one since extinct) were the only sign of native land mammals in New Zealand until the 2006 discovery of bones from a unique, mouse-sized land mammal at least 16 million years old.[190][191] Marine mammals however are abundant, with almost half the world's cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) and large numbers of fur seals reported in New Zealand waters.[192] Many seabirds breed in New Zealand, a third of them unique to the country.[193] More penguin species are found in New Zealand than in any other country.[194]
+
+Since human arrival, almost half of the country's vertebrate species have become extinct, including at least fifty-one birds, three frogs, three lizards, one freshwater fish, and one bat. Others are endangered or have had their range severely reduced.[183] However, New Zealand conservationists have pioneered several methods to help threatened wildlife recover, including island sanctuaries, pest control, wildlife translocation, fostering and ecological restoration of islands and other protected areas.[195][196][197][198]
+
+New Zealand has an advanced market economy,[199] ranked 16th in the 2018[update] Human Development Index[8] and third in the 2018[update] Index of Economic Freedom.[200] It is a high-income economy with a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of US$36,254.[6] The currency is the New Zealand dollar, informally known as the "Kiwi dollar"; it also circulates in the Cook Islands (see Cook Islands dollar), Niue, Tokelau, and the Pitcairn Islands.[201]
+
+Historically, extractive industries have contributed strongly to New Zealand's economy, focussing at different times on sealing, whaling, flax, gold, kauri gum, and native timber.[202] The first shipment of refrigerated meat on the Dunedin in 1882 led to the establishment of meat and dairy exports to Britain, a trade which provided the basis for strong economic growth in New Zealand.[203] High demand for agricultural products from the United Kingdom and the United States helped New Zealanders achieve higher living standards than both Australia and Western Europe in the 1950s and 1960s.[204] In 1973, New Zealand's export market was reduced when the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community[205] and other compounding factors, such as the 1973 oil and 1979 energy crises, led to a severe economic depression.[206] Living standards in New Zealand fell behind those of Australia and Western Europe, and by 1982 New Zealand had the lowest per-capita income of all the developed nations surveyed by the World Bank.[207] In the mid-1980s New Zealand deregulated its agricultural sector by phasing out subsidies over a three-year period.[208][209] Since 1984, successive governments engaged in major macroeconomic restructuring (known first as Rogernomics and then Ruthanasia), rapidly transforming New Zealand from a protected and highly regulated economy to a liberalised free-trade economy.[210][211]
+
+Unemployment peaked above 10% in 1991 and 1992,[213] following the 1987 share market crash, but eventually fell to a record low (since 1986) of 3.7% in 2007 (ranking third from twenty-seven comparable OECD nations).[213] However, the global financial crisis that followed had a major impact on New Zealand, with the GDP shrinking for five consecutive quarters, the longest recession in over thirty years,[214][215] and unemployment rising back to 7% in late 2009.[216] Unemployment rates for different age groups follow similar trends, but are consistently higher among youth. In the December 2014 quarter, the general unemployment rate was around 5.8%, while the unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 21 was 15.6%.[213] New Zealand has experienced a series of "brain drains" since the 1970s[217] that still continue today.[218] Nearly one quarter of highly skilled workers live overseas, mostly in Australia and Britain, which is the largest proportion from any developed nation.[219] In recent decades, however, a "brain gain" has brought in educated professionals from Europe and less developed countries.[220][221] Today New Zealand's economy benefits from a high level of innovation.[222]
+
+New Zealand is heavily dependent on international trade,[223] particularly in agricultural products.[224] Exports account for 24% of its output,[147] making New Zealand vulnerable to international commodity prices and global economic slowdowns. Food products made up 55% of the value of all the country's exports in 2014; wood was the second largest earner (7%).[225] New Zealand's main trading partners, as at June 2018[update], are China (NZ$27.8b), Australia ($26.2b), the European Union ($22.9b), the United States ($17.6b), and Japan ($8.4b).[226] On 7 April 2008, New Zealand and China signed the New Zealand–China Free Trade Agreement, the first such agreement China has signed with a developed country.[227] The service sector is the largest sector in the economy, followed by manufacturing and construction and then farming and raw material extraction.[147] Tourism plays a significant role in the economy, contributing $12.9 billion (or 5.6%) to New Zealand's total GDP and supporting 7.5% of the total workforce in 2016.[228] International visitor arrivals are expected to increase at a rate of 5.4% annually up to 2022.[228]
+
+Wool was New Zealand's major agricultural export during the late 19th century.[202] Even as late as the 1960s it made up over a third of all export revenues,[202] but since then its price has steadily dropped relative to other commodities[229] and wool is no longer profitable for many farmers.[230] In contrast dairy farming increased, with the number of dairy cows doubling between 1990 and 2007,[231] to become New Zealand's largest export earner.[232] In the year to June 2018, dairy products accounted for 17.7% ($14.1 billion) of total exports,[226] and the country's largest company, Fonterra, controls almost one-third of the international dairy trade.[233] Other exports in 2017-18 were meat (8.8%), wood and wood products (6.2%), fruit (3.6%), machinery (2.2%) and wine (2.1%).[226] New Zealand's wine industry has followed a similar trend to dairy, the number of vineyards doubling over the same period,[234] overtaking wool exports for the first time in 2007.[235][236]
+
+In 2015, renewable energy generated 40.1% of New Zealand's gross energy supply.[237]  The majority of the country's electricity supply is generated from hydroelectric power, with major schemes on the Waikato, Waitaki and Clutha rivers, as well as at Manapouri. Geothermal power is also a significant generator of electricity, with several large stations located across the Taupo Volcanic Zone in the North Island. The five main companies in the generation and retail market are Contact Energy, Genesis Energy, Mercury Energy, Meridian Energy, and TrustPower. State-owned Transpower operates the high-voltage transmission grids in the North and South Islands, as well as the Inter-Island HVDC link connecting the two together.[237]
+
+The provision of water supply and sanitation is generally of good quality. Regional authorities provide water abstraction, treatment and distribution infrastructure to most developed areas.[238][239]
+
+New Zealand's transport network comprises 94,000 kilometres (58,410 mi) of roads, including 199 kilometres (124 mi) of motorways,[240] and 4,128 kilometres (2,565 mi) of railway lines.[147] Most major cities and towns are linked by bus services, although the private car is the predominant mode of transport.[241] The railways were privatised in 1993, but were re-nationalised by the government in stages between 2004 and 2008. The state-owned enterprise KiwiRail now operates the railways, with the exception of commuter services in Auckland and Wellington which are operated by Transdev[242] and Metlink,[243] respectively. Railways run the length of the country, although most lines now carry freight rather than passengers.[244] The road and rail networks in the two main islands are linked by roll-on/roll-off ferries between Wellington and Picton, operated by Interislander (part of KiwiRail) and Bluebridge. Most international visitors arrive via air[245] and New Zealand has six international airports, but currently[update] only the Auckland and Christchurch airports connect directly with countries other than Australia or Fiji.[246]
+
+The New Zealand Post Office had a monopoly over telecommunications in New Zealand until 1987 when Telecom New Zealand was formed, initially as a state-owned enterprise and then privatised in 1990.[247] Chorus, which was split from Telecom (now Spark) in 2011,[248] still owns the majority of the telecommunications infrastructure, but competition from other providers has increased.[247] A large-scale rollout of gigabit-capable fibre to the premises, branded as Ultra-Fast Broadband, began in 2009 with a target of being available to 87% of the population by 2022.[249] As of 2017[update], the United Nations International Telecommunication Union ranks New Zealand 13th in the development of information and communications infrastructure.[250]
+
+Early indigenous contribution to science in New Zealand was by Māori tohunga accumulating knowledge of agricultural practice and the effects of herbal remedies in the treatment of illness and disease. Cook's voyages in the 1700s and Darwin's in 1835 had important scientific botanical and zoological objectives.[251] The establishment of universities in the 19th century fostered scientific discoveries by notable New Zealanders including Ernest Rutherford for splitting the atom, William Pickering for rocket science, Maurice Wilkins for helping discover DNA, Beatrice Tinsley for galaxy formation, and Alan MacDiarmid for conducting polymers.[252]
+
+Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) were formed in 1992 from existing government-owned research organisations. Their role is to research and develop new science, knowledge, products and services across the economic, environmental, social and cultural spectrum for the benefit of New Zealand.[253] The total gross expenditure on research and development (R&D) as a proportion of GDP rose to 1.37% in 2018, up from 1.23% in 2015. New Zealand ranks 21st in the OECD for its gross R&D spending as a percentage of GDP.[254]
+
+The 2018 New Zealand census enumerated a resident population of 4,699,755, an increase of 10.8% over the 2013 figure.[3] As of July 2020, the total population has risen to an estimated 5,010,290.[n 8][5] In May 2020 Statistics New Zealand reported that New Zealand's population had climbed above 5 million people in March 2020.[256]
+
+New Zealand is a predominantly urban country, with 83.6% of the population living in urban areas, and 52.3% of the population living in the seven cities with populations exceeding 100,000.[257] Auckland, with over 1 million residents, is by far the largest city.[257] New Zealand cities generally rank highly on international livability measures. For instance, in 2016 Auckland was ranked the world's third most liveable city and Wellington the twelfth by the Mercer Quality of Living Survey.[258]
+
+Life expectancy for New Zealanders in 2012 was 84 years for females, and 80.2 years for males.[259] Life expectancy at birth is forecast to increase from 80 years to 85 years in 2050 and infant mortality is expected to decline.[260] New Zealand's fertility rate of 2.1 is relatively high for a developed country, and natural births account for a significant proportion of population growth. Consequently, the country has a young population compared to most industrialised nations, with 20% of New Zealanders being 14 years old or younger.[147] In 2018 the median age of the New Zealand population was 38.1 years.[261] By 2050 the median age is projected to rise to 43 years and the percentage of people 60 years of age and older to rise from 18% to 29%.[260] In 2008 the leading cause of premature death was cancer, at 29.8%, followed by ischaemic heart disease, 19.7%, and then cerebrovascular disease, 9.2%.[262] As of 2016[update], total expenditure on health care (including private sector spending) is 9.2% of GDP.[263]
+
+
+
+In the 2018 census, 71.8% of New Zealand residents identified ethnically as European, and 16.5% as Māori. Other major ethnic groups include Asian (15.3%) and Pacific peoples (9.0%), two-thirds of whom live in the Auckland Region.[n 3][3] The population has become more diverse in recent decades: in 1961, the census reported that the population of New Zealand was 92% European and 7% Māori, with Asian and Pacific minorities sharing the remaining 1%.[264]
+
+While the demonym for a New Zealand citizen is New Zealander, the informal "Kiwi" is commonly used both internationally[265] and by locals.[266] The Māori loanword Pākehā has been used to refer to New Zealanders of European descent, although some reject this name. The word Pākehā today is increasingly used to refer to all non-Polynesian New Zealanders.[267]
+
+The Māori were the first people to reach New Zealand, followed by the early European settlers. Following colonisation, immigrants were predominantly from Britain, Ireland and Australia because of restrictive policies similar to the White Australia policy.[268] There was also significant Dutch, Dalmatian,[269] German, and Italian immigration, together with indirect European immigration through Australia, North America, South America and South Africa.[270][271] Net migration increased after the Second World War; in the 1970s and 1980s policies were relaxed and immigration from Asia was promoted.[271][272] In 2009–10, an annual target of 45,000–50,000 permanent residence approvals was set by the New Zealand Immigration Service—more than one new migrant for every 100 New Zealand residents.[273] In the 2018 census, 27.4% of people counted were not born in New Zealand, up from 25.2% in the 2013 census. Over half (52.4%) of New Zealand's overseas-born population lives in the Auckland Region.[274] The United Kingdom remains the largest source of New Zealand's immigrant population, with around a quarter of all overseas-born New Zealanders born there; other major sources of New Zealand's overseas-born population are China, India, Australia, South Africa, Fiji and Samoa.[275] The number of fee-paying international students increased sharply in the late 1990s, with more than 20,000 studying in public tertiary institutions in 2002.[276]
+
+English is the predominant language in New Zealand, spoken by 95.4% of the population.[3] New Zealand English is similar to Australian English and many speakers from the Northern Hemisphere are unable to tell the accents apart.[278] The most prominent differences between the New Zealand English dialect and other English dialects are the shifts in the short front vowels: the short-"i" sound (as in "kit") has centralised towards the schwa sound (the "a" in "comma" and "about"); the short-"e" sound (as in "dress") has moved towards the short-"i" sound; and the short-"a" sound (as in "trap") has moved to the short-"e" sound.[279]
+
+After the Second World War, Māori were discouraged from speaking their own language (te reo Māori) in schools and workplaces and it existed as a community language only in a few remote areas.[280] It has recently undergone a process of revitalisation,[281] being declared one of New Zealand's official languages in 1987,[282] and is spoken by 4.0% of the population.[3][n 9] There are now Māori language immersion schools and two television channels that broadcast predominantly in Māori.[284] Many places have both their Māori and English names officially recognised.[285]
+
+As recorded in the 2018 census,[3] Samoan is the most widely spoken non-official language (2.2%), followed by "Northern Chinese" (including Mandarin, 2.0%), Hindi (1.5%), and French (1.2%). 22,986 people (0.5%) reported the ability to use New Zealand Sign Language, which became one of New Zealand's official languages in 2006.[286]
+
+Christianity is the predominant religion in New Zealand, although its society is among the most secular in the world.[288][289] In the 2018 census, 44.7% of respondents identified with one or more religions, including 37.0% identifying as Christians. Another 48.5% indicated that they had no religion.[n 10][3] Of those who affiliate with a particular Christian denomination, the main responses are Anglicanism (6.7%), Roman Catholicism (6.3%), and Presbyterianism (4.7%).[3] The Māori-based Ringatū and Rātana religions (1.2%) are also Christian in origin.[3][287] Immigration and demographic change in recent decades has contributed to the growth of minority religions, such as Hinduism (2.6%), Islam (1.3%), Buddhism (1.1%), and Sikhism (0.9%).[3] The Auckland Region exhibited the greatest religious diversity.[290]
+
+Primary and secondary schooling is compulsory for children aged 6 to 16, with the majority attending from the age of 5.[291] There are 13 school years and attending state (public) schools is free to New Zealand citizens and permanent residents from a person's 5th birthday to the end of the calendar year following their 19th birthday.[292] New Zealand has an adult literacy rate of 99%,[147] and over half of the population aged 15 to 29 hold a tertiary qualification.[291] There are five types of government-owned tertiary institutions: universities, colleges of education, polytechnics, specialist colleges, and wānanga,[293] in addition to private training establishments.[294] In the adult population 14.2% have a bachelor's degree or higher, 30.4% have some form of secondary qualification as their highest qualification and 22.4% have no formal qualification.[295] The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment ranks New Zealand's education system as the seventh best in the world, with students performing exceptionally well in reading, mathematics and science.[296]
+
+Early Māori adapted the tropically based east Polynesian culture in line with the challenges associated with a larger and more diverse environment, eventually developing their own distinctive culture. Social organisation was largely communal with families (whānau), subtribes (hapū) and tribes (iwi) ruled by a chief (rangatira), whose position was subject to the community's approval.[297] The British and Irish immigrants brought aspects of their own culture to New Zealand and also influenced Māori culture,[298][299] particularly with the introduction of Christianity.[300] However, Māori still regard their allegiance to tribal groups as a vital part of their identity, and Māori kinship roles resemble those of other Polynesian peoples.[301] More recently American, Australian, Asian and other European cultures have exerted influence on New Zealand. Non-Māori Polynesian cultures are also apparent, with Pasifika, the world's largest Polynesian festival, now an annual event in Auckland.[302]
+
+The largely rural life in early New Zealand led to the image of New Zealanders being rugged, industrious problem solvers.[303] Modesty was expected and enforced through the "tall poppy syndrome", where high achievers received harsh criticism.[304] At the time New Zealand was not known as an intellectual country.[305] From the early 20th century until the late 1960s, Māori culture was suppressed by the attempted assimilation of Māori into British New Zealanders.[280] In the 1960s, as tertiary education became more available and cities expanded[306] urban culture began to dominate.[307] However, rural imagery and themes are common in New Zealand's art, literature and media.[308]
+
+New Zealand's national symbols are influenced by natural, historical, and Māori sources. The silver fern is an emblem appearing on army insignia and sporting team uniforms.[309] Certain items of popular culture thought to be unique to New Zealand are called "Kiwiana".[309]
+
+As part of the resurgence of Māori culture, the traditional crafts of carving and weaving are now more widely practised and Māori artists are increasing in number and influence.[310] Most Māori carvings feature human figures, generally with three fingers and either a natural-looking, detailed head or a grotesque head.[311] Surface patterns consisting of spirals, ridges, notches and fish scales decorate most carvings.[312] The pre-eminent Māori architecture consisted of carved meeting houses (wharenui) decorated with symbolic carvings and illustrations. These buildings were originally designed to be constantly rebuilt, changing and adapting to different whims or needs.[313]
+
+Māori decorated the white wood of buildings, canoes and cenotaphs using red (a mixture of red ochre and shark fat) and black (made from soot) paint and painted pictures of birds, reptiles and other designs on cave walls.[314] Māori tattoos (moko) consisting of coloured soot mixed with gum were cut into the flesh with a bone chisel.[315] Since European arrival paintings and photographs have been dominated by landscapes, originally not as works of art but as factual portrayals of New Zealand.[316] Portraits of Māori were also common, with early painters often portraying them as "noble savages", exotic beauties or friendly natives.[316] The country's isolation delayed the influence of European artistic trends allowing local artists to develop their own distinctive style of regionalism.[317] During the 1960s and 1970s many artists combined traditional Māori and Western techniques, creating unique art forms.[318] New Zealand art and craft has gradually achieved an international audience, with exhibitions in the Venice Biennale in 2001 and the "Paradise Now" exhibition in New York in 2004.[310][319]
+
+Māori cloaks are made of fine flax fibre and patterned with black, red and white triangles, diamonds and other geometric shapes.[320] Greenstone was fashioned into earrings and necklaces, with the most well-known design being the hei-tiki, a distorted human figure sitting cross-legged with its head tilted to the side.[321] Europeans brought English fashion etiquette to New Zealand, and until the 1950s most people dressed up for social occasions.[322] Standards have since relaxed and New Zealand fashion has received a reputation for being casual, practical and lacklustre.[323][324] However, the local fashion industry has grown significantly since 2000, doubling exports and increasing from a handful to about 50 established labels, with some labels gaining international recognition.[324]
+
+Māori quickly adopted writing as a means of sharing ideas, and many of their oral stories and poems were converted to the written form.[325] Most early English literature was obtained from Britain and it was not until the 1950s when local publishing outlets increased that New Zealand literature started to become widely known.[326] Although still largely influenced by global trends (modernism) and events (the Great Depression), writers in the 1930s began to develop stories increasingly focused on their experiences in New Zealand. During this period literature changed from a journalistic activity to a more academic pursuit.[327] Participation in the world wars gave some New Zealand writers a new perspective on New Zealand culture and with the post-war expansion of universities local literature flourished.[328] Dunedin is a UNESCO City of Literature.[329]
+
+New Zealand music has been influenced by blues, jazz, country, rock and roll and hip hop, with many of these genres given a unique New Zealand interpretation.[330] Māori developed traditional chants and songs from their ancient Southeast Asian origins, and after centuries of isolation created a unique "monotonous" and "doleful" sound.[331] Flutes and trumpets were used as musical instruments[332] or as signalling devices during war or special occasions.[333] Early settlers brought over their ethnic music, with brass bands and choral music being popular, and musicians began touring New Zealand in the 1860s.[334][335] Pipe bands became widespread during the early 20th century.[336] The New Zealand recording industry began to develop from 1940 onwards and many New Zealand musicians have obtained success in Britain and the United States.[330] Some artists release Māori language songs and the Māori tradition-based art of kapa haka (song and dance) has made a resurgence.[337] The New Zealand Music Awards are held annually by Recorded Music NZ; the awards were first held in 1965 by Reckitt & Colman as the Loxene Golden Disc awards.[338] Recorded Music NZ also publishes the country's official weekly record charts.[339]
+
+Public radio was introduced in New Zealand in 1922.[341] A state-owned television service began in 1960.[342] Deregulation in the 1980s saw a sudden increase in the numbers of radio and television stations.[343] New Zealand television primarily broadcasts American and British programming, along with many Australian and local shows.[344] The number of New Zealand films significantly increased during the 1970s. In 1978 the New Zealand Film Commission started assisting local film-makers and many films attained a world audience, some receiving international acknowledgement.[343] The highest-grossing New Zealand films are Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Boy, The World's Fastest Indian, Whale Rider, Once Were Warriors and The Piano.[345] The country's diverse scenery and compact size, plus government incentives,[346] have encouraged some producers to shoot big-budget productions in New Zealand, including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies, Avatar, The Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong, Wolverine and The Last Samurai.[347] The New Zealand media industry is dominated by a small number of companies, most of which are foreign-owned, although the state retains ownership of some television and radio stations.[348] Since 1994, Freedom House has consistently ranked New Zealand's press freedom in the top twenty, with the 19th freest media in 2015[update].[349]
+
+Most of the major sporting codes played in New Zealand have British origins.[350] Rugby union is considered the national sport[351] and attracts the most spectators.[352] Golf, netball, tennis and cricket have the highest rates of adult participation, while netball, rugby union and football (soccer) are particularly popular among young people.[352][353] Around 54% of New Zealand adolescents participate in sports for their school.[353] Victorious rugby tours to Australia and the United Kingdom in the late 1880s and the early 1900s played an early role in instilling a national identity.[354] Horseracing was also a popular spectator sport and became part of the "Rugby, Racing and Beer" culture during the 1960s.[355] Māori participation in European sports was particularly evident in rugby and the country's team performs a haka, a traditional Māori challenge, before international matches.[356] New Zealand is known for its extreme sports, adventure tourism[357] and strong mountaineering tradition, as seen in the success of notable New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary.[358][359] Other outdoor pursuits such as cycling, fishing, swimming, running, tramping, canoeing, hunting, snowsports, surfing and sailing are also popular.[360] New Zealand has seen regular sailing success in the America's Cup regatta since 1995.[361] The Polynesian sport of waka ama racing has experienced a resurgence of interest in New Zealand since the 1980s.[362]
+
+New Zealand has competitive international teams in rugby union, rugby league, netball, cricket, softball, and sailing. New Zealand participated at the Summer Olympics in 1908 and 1912 as a joint team with Australia, before first participating on its own in 1920.[363] The country has ranked highly on a medals-to-population ratio at recent Games.[364][365] The "All Blacks", the national rugby union team, are the most successful in the history of international rugby[366] and have won the World Cup three times.[367]
+
+The national cuisine has been described as Pacific Rim, incorporating the native Māori cuisine and diverse culinary traditions introduced by settlers and immigrants from Europe, Polynesia and Asia.[368] New Zealand yields produce from land and sea—most crops and livestock, such as maize, potatoes and pigs, were gradually introduced by the early European settlers.[369] Distinctive ingredients or dishes include lamb, salmon, kōura (crayfish),[370] dredge oysters, whitebait, pāua (abalone), mussels, scallops, pipis and tuatua (both are types of New Zealand shellfish),[371] kūmara (sweet potato), kiwifruit, tamarillo and pavlova (considered a national dish).[372][368] A hāngi is a traditional Māori method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven. After European colonisation, Māori began cooking with pots and ovens and the hāngi was used less frequently, although it is still used for formal occasions such as tangihanga.[373]
+
+Click on a coloured area to see an article about English in that country or region

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+Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior (Brazilian Portuguese: [nejˈmaʁ dɐ ˈsiwvɐ ˈsɐ̃tus ˈʒũɲoʁ]; born 5 February 1992), known as Neymar, is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain and the Brazil national team. He is widely considered as one of the best players in the world.
+
+Neymar came into prominence at Santos, where he made his professional debut aged 17. He helped the club win two successive Campeonato Paulista championships, a Copa do Brasil, and the 2011 Copa Libertadores; the latter being Santos' first since 1963. Neymar was twice named the South American Footballer of the Year, in 2011 and 2012, and soon relocated to Europe to join Barcelona. As part of Barcelona's attacking trio with Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez, he won the continental treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey, and the UEFA Champions League, and finished third for the FIFA Ballon d'Or in 2015 for his performances. He then attained a domestic double in the 2015–16 season. In 2017, Neymar transferred from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain in a move worth €222 million, making him the most expensive player ever.[note 1] In France, Neymar won three league titles, two Coupe de France, and a Coupe de la Ligue, which included a domestic treble and being voted Ligue 1 Player of the Year, in his debut season.[9]
+
+With 61 goals in 101 matches for Brazil since debuting at age 18, Neymar is the third highest goalscorer for his national team, trailing only Pelé and Ronaldo. He was a key player in Brazil's victories at the 2011 South American Youth Championship, where he finished as leading goalscorer, and the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, where he won the Golden Ball as player of the tournament. His participation in the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2015 Copa América was cut short by injury and a suspension, respectively, but, the following year, he captained Brazil to their first Olympic gold medal in men's football at the 2016 Summer Olympics, and two years later, featured at the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
+
+Off the pitch, Neymar ranks among the world's most prominent sportsmen; SportsPro named him the most marketable athlete in the world in 2012 and 2013, and ESPN cited him as the world's fourth-most famous athlete in 2016. In 2017, Neymar was included by Time in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world.[10] By 2018, France Football ranked Neymar the world's third highest-paid footballer, and in 2019, Forbes ranked him the world's third highest-paid athlete.[11]
+
+Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior was born in Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo, to Neymar Santos Sr. and Nadine da Silva. He inherited his name from his father, who is a former footballer and became his son's advisor as Neymar's talents began to grow.[12] Neymar comments on his father's role: "My father has been by my side since I was little. He takes care of things, my finances and my family."[13] Growing up, Neymar combined his love of futsal with street football.[14] Neymar said that futsal had a massive influence on him growing up, helping him develop his technique, speed of thought and ability to perform moves in tight spaces.[15]
+
+In 2003, Neymar moved with his family to São Vicente, where he began playing for youth side Portuguesa Santista.[16] Then, later in 2003, they moved to Santos, where Neymar joined Santos FC.[17] With the success of his youth career and added income, the family bought their first property, a house next to the Vila Belmiro. Their quality of family life improved, as at age 15, Neymar was earning 10,000 reais per month and at 16, 125,000 reais per month. At 17, he signed his first full professional contract, was upgraded to the Santos first team, and began signing his first sponsorship deals.[18]
+
+Neymar began playing football at an early age and he was soon spotted by Santos FC who offered him a contract in 2003, where he was inducted into their youth academy, which has, in the past, produced Brazilian internationals like Coutinho, Clodoaldo, Diego, Elano and Alex. He also joined the likes of Pepe, Pelé and Robinho in starting out his career at the club, nicknamed Peixe.[19] While in the youth academy, Neymar met Paulo Henrique Ganso, becoming good friends in the process. Aged 14, Neymar travelled to Spain to join the Real Madrid youth team, at the time when Real had stars like Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Roberto Carlos and Robinho.[20]
+
+Neymar made his professional debut on 7 March 2009, despite being only 17 years old; he was brought on for the last thirty minutes, in a 2–1 win against Oeste.[14] The following week he scored his first goal for Santos against Mogi Mirim. One month later, on 11 April, Neymar scored the decisive goal in a 2–1 win against Palmeiras in the 2009 Campeonato Paulista semi-final first leg.[21] In the final, however, Santos suffered a 4–2 aggregate defeat to the Corinthians.[22] In his first season, Neymar racked up 14 goals in 48 games.[14]
+
+—South American football journalist Tim Vickery on Neymar in 2010.[23]
+
+Neymar continued his ascendancy in 2010, and, on 15 April 2010, he scored five goals for Santos in an 8–1 rout of Guarani in the qualifying stages of the Brazilian Cup.[24] Following the 2010 Campeonato Paulista in which Neymar scored 14 goals in 19 games,[19] the club were crowned champions after a 5–5 aggregate win over Santo André in the finals.[25] Neymar was subsequently given the award for the best player in the competition.[26]
+Neymar's performances for Santos have drawn comparisons to other Brazilians, including Robinho and Brazilian legend Pelé.[27]
+
+In 2010, Santos rejected a £12 million bid for him from English Premier League team West Ham United,[28] and later an offer from another English club, Chelsea, reported to be in the region of £20 million.[29] Despite Santos unwillingness to sell and Neymar himself insisting "I'm focused only on Santos",[30] his agent, Wagner Ribeiro, indicated that Neymar's career was elsewhere, stating "He wants to become the best player in the world. The chances of him doing that while playing in Brazil are zero."[29] Although one year later Neymar admitted, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, that he had been happy with Chelsea's interest in him as it was a "dream" of his "to play in Europe", while also stating that at the time it had been the right decision to stay in Brazil.[31]
+
+On 30 November 2010, Santos sold a 5% share of future transfer fees that he would receive to an investment group, Terceira Estrela Investimentos S.A. (TEISA), for R$ 3,549,900 (€1.5 million).[32] The previous year, his family had sold a 40% stake in Neymar's sporting rights to the DIS Esporte group who had been a long-term strategic partner of Santos' football club.[33]
+
+Despite his first two seasons being highly successful, having ended the 2010 season with an impressive 42 goals in 60 games, problems had been identified, namely Neymar's apparent taste for diving when tackled, rather than attempting to continue his run, and his attitude. The latter came to the forefront during a match with Atlético Goianiense, on 15 September 2010, when the Santos' manager, Dorival Júnior, appointed another player to take the penalty awarded for a foul on Neymar. His decision was based on the fact that Neymar had missed a crucial penalty during the Copa do Brasil final of that year, even if Santos went on to win. Reacting to this, Neymar turned his back on his manager, had to be calmed down by a linesman and argued with his captain, Edu Dracena. The fallout from this event was that Dorival Júnior wished to have Neymar suspended for two weeks, but the board sided with the player and promptly sacked the manager. Despite Neymar's apologies over the incident, some doubts still remain about his attitude.[14] In December 2010, aged just 18, Neymar came third for the 2010 South American Footballer of the Year, behind Andrés D'Alessandro and Juan Sebastián Verón.[34]
+
+Neymar scored six goals during Santos run to the 2011 Copa Libertadores Finals, tying him for third top goalscorer,[35] including the clinching goal of Santos' 4–3 aggregate win over Cerro Porteño in the semi-finals.[36] In the two-legged final, Santos faced Uruguayan side Peñarol and drew the first leg 0–0 in Montevideo.[37] At home in the second leg, Neymar opened the scoring in the 46th minute as Santos held on for a 2–1 win and Neymar won Man of the Match honours.[38][39] The win brought Santos their first Copa Libertadores triumph since 1963, when Brazilian legend Pelé was playing for the club.[40][41]
+
+In September 2011, Santos club president Luís Ribeiro threatened to report Real Madrid to FIFA following reports that they had attempted to sign Neymar to a pre-contract agreement, and denied that such an agreement was in place.[42] On 9 November 2011, Neymar and Santos agreed to a contract extension that would see the player stay with the club until after the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. The deal reportedly increased Neymar's wages by 50%, to the levels that top European clubs would be paying him.[43] On 14 December 2011, Neymar scored the opening goal for Santos as they defeated Kashiwa Reysol 3–1 in the semi-finals of the FIFA Club World Cup at the Toyota Stadium in Toyota, Japan, but failed to score against Barcelona in the final on 18 December 2011, where Santos were defeated 4–0, finishing as runners-up in the competition.[44] He won the 2011 FIFA Puskás Award for scoring a solo goal in the Brasileirão Série A against Flamengo, in a 5–4 loss. On 31 December 2011, he won the 2011 South American Footballer of the Year award for the first time, by a record margin, following in the footsteps of Diego Maradona, Romário, Pelé and Zico.[45]
+
+On 5 February 2012, when he turned 20, Neymar scored his 100th goal as a professional football player, against Palmeiras in the Campeonato Paulista.[46][47] On 25 February 2012 – he scored two goals, one of which was from 25-yards – and created two assists to help his side to a 6–1 win over Ponte Preta.[48] On 7 March 2012, Neymar netted a hat-trick as Santos saw off Brazilian rivals Internacional 3–1 in the Copa Libertadores Group stage match.[49] On 29 March, he scored a brace against Guaratinguetá in a 5–0 victory.[50] In the fixture against São Paulo on 29 April 2012, Neymar scored a hat-trick with the match ending 3–1.[51] Thereafter, he went on to score twice in the first[52] and second legs[53] in the 2012 Campeonato Paulista Finals against Guarani, which ended 7–2 on aggregate. Neymar finished the 2012 Campeonato Paulista with 20 goals and was voted the Best player and Best Forward, and Santos were crowned champions. He was joint top scorer in the Copa Libertadores with eight goals, after Santos were beaten over two legs by eventual champions Corinthians in the semi-finals.
+
+On 25 August 2012, he scored a brace in the 2–1 away win at Palmeiras.[54] On 3 November 2012, in the Brasileiro Série A away fixture at Cruzeiro, Neymar scored a hat-trick and assisted Felipe Anderson's goal, to help his side to a 4–0 win.[55] Neymar finished off the 2012 season in style, first setting-up Victor Andrade's equaliser, then scoring twice, to give Santos a 3–1 home win over Palmeiras on 1 December 2012.[56] Neymar was voted the Best Player of the 2012 Recopa Sudamericana, with himself scoring in the second leg to win the title 2–0 on aggregate. He finished the 2012 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A with 14 goals and being voted the Best forward. Neymar finished the 2012 season, being award the Golden Ball, Arthur Friedenreich Award and Armando Nogueira Trophy. He was one of three finalists in the 2012 FIFA Puskás Award and finished runners-up behind Miroslav Stoch. He won the 2012 South American Footballer of the Year, retaining his award and winning it ahead of the likes of Ronaldinho.[citation needed]
+
+Neymar started the 2013 Campeonato Paulista scoring twice in the first match, which ended a 3–1 win over São Bernardo on 19 January 2013.[57] Four days later on 23 January 2013, Neymar scored again against Botafogo in a 3–0 win.[58] On 3 February 2013, in the Paulista fixture against São Paulo, where Santos won 3–1, with Neymar scoring and making two assists.[59] on 18 March 2013, Neymar told that he had a "dream of playing in Europe, for a big club like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Chelsea." But he went on to say, "There's no point in speculating when I'll leave Santos. I'll leave when I want to."[60]
+
+Neymar scored all four goals, had another disallowed and hit the post as Santos beat União Barbarense 4–0 in the Paulista on 13 April.[61] On 25 April 2013, his agent and father revealed that Neymar intended to leave for Europe before the 2014 FIFA World Cup.[62] Ahead of his last match for Santos, on 26 May against Flamengo, Neymar was in tears during the national anthem.[63]
+
+On 24 May 2013, Santos announced that they had received two offers for Neymar. The following day, Neymar announced he would sign with Barcelona on 27 May 2013 and join the team after playing in the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup. Neither Neymar nor the clubs released details on the transfer fee or personal terms, save to say he signed a five-year deal.[64] On 3 June 2013, Neymar was unveiled by Barcelona after passing medical tests and signing a contract that would keep him at the club through June 2018.[65]
+
+Neymar was presented at the Camp Nou in front of 56,500 fans, a record turnout for a Brazilian player.[66] Club vice-president Josep Maria Bartomeu initially said Neymar's transfer fee was €57.1 million and his release clause set at €190 million.[67][68] Barcelona's doctor suggested he might need to gain weight to be able to cope physically in Spanish football.[69]
+
+In January 2014, the prosecutor's office in Madrid began investigating the transfer fee that Barcelona paid for Neymar.[70] The documents submitted to the authorities on request contained contradictory information.[70] On 23 January 2014, Rosell resigned from his position as president.[71] A day later, the details of the transfer were revealed by Barcelona; the transfer had in fact cost them €86.2 million (£71.5 million),[72][73][74] with Neymar's parents confirmed to have received a €40 million sum.[75][76] In the aftermath, Barcelona and Bartomeu were charged with tax fraud.[77]
+
+On 30 July 2013, Barcelona drew 2–2 against Lechia Gdańsk in a pre-season friendly; Neymar made his unofficial debut when he came on as a substitute.[78] He scored his first goal for the club in a 7–1 win against a Thailand XI on 7 August. at the Rajamangala National Stadium[79]
+
+Neymar made his competitive debut for Barcelona during the opening game of the 2013–14 La Liga season as a 63rd-minute substitute for Alexis Sánchez in a 7–0 win against Levante.[80] On 21 August, he scored his first competitive goal for the club in the first leg of the 2013 Supercopa de España against Atlético Madrid: seven minutes after coming on as a substitute for Pedro, he headed Dani Alves' cross to equalise in a 1–1 draw at the Vicente Calderón Stadium as Barcelona won on the away goals rule for his first trophy at the club.[81] On 18 September, he made his UEFA Champions League debut, assisting a Gerard Piqué goal as Barça beat Ajax 4–0 in their opening match of the 2013–14 tournament.
+
+Six days later, Neymar scored his first goal in La Liga in Barcelona's 4–1 defeat of Real Sociedad at Camp Nou.[82] On 26 October, he made his first El Clásico appearance, scoring the opening goal and assisting the team's winning goal scored by Alexis Sánchez as Barcelona beat Real Madrid 2–1 at Camp Nou.[83][83] On 11 December, Neymar recorded his first three Champions League goals as he scored a hat-trick in a 6–1 win over Celtic in Barcelona's final Group H match.[84]
+
+On 13 September 2014, after appearing as a substitute, Neymar scored his first two goals of the 2014–15 season, helping Barcelona beat Athletic Bilbao 2–0. On 27 September, he scored a hat-trick against Granada in a 6–0 win[85] and scored in his next three La Liga matches, including the opening goal in a 1–3 loss to Real Madrid at Estadio Santiago Bernabéu.[86]
+
+On 24 January 2015, Neymar scored twice and assisted two more goals in a 6–0 win at Elche.[87] On 28 January, he scored his 20th goal of the season in a 3–2 Copa del Rey quarter-final win over Atlético Madrid.[88] On 4 March, Neymar scored twice in Barcelona's 3–1 Copa del Rey semi-final win over Villarreal to qualify the club for its 37th Spanish Cup final.[89] On 21 April, Neymar took his tally to 30 goals for the season by scoring twice in Barcelona's 2–0 Champions League quarter-final win over Paris Saint-Germain.[90]
+
+In May, the closing month of the season, Neymar scored the last goal in a 3–0 win against Bayern Munich in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final.[91] A week later, he scored both the team's goals in a 3–2-second leg defeat at the Allianz Arena to ensure Barça would qualify for the 2015 UEFA Champions League Final.[92] He also opened the scoring with a header in a 2–0 league win versus Real Sociedad, a result which gave Barça a four-point lead over Real Madrid with only two matches remaining.[93]
+
+After securing the league title on 17 May with a 1–0 win over Atlético Madrid at the Vicente Calderón, Barcelona defeated Athletic Bilbao 3–1 at Camp Nou in the 2015 Copa del Rey Final on 30 May, with Neymar scoring the second goal for Barça.[94] With Barcelona's victory likely, he performed tricks with the ball in the final stages of the game, which was deemed unsporting by opponent Andoni Iraola. Barcelona manager Luis Enrique claimed that it had to be understood that such behaviour was acceptable in Brazil, while Neymar himself did not apologise.[95]
+
+On 6 June 2015, Neymar scored the third goal for Barça in the 3–1 Champions League Final defeat of Italian champions Juventus at Berlin's Olympiastadion, ensuring the club won its fifth European Cup.[96] This made Barcelona the first club in history to win the treble of domestic league, domestic cup and European Cup twice.[97] On a personal note, he became the eighth player in football's history to win both the Copa Libertadores and the UEFA Champions League, and the first player to score in final victories in both competitions.[98]
+
+Neymar ended the season with 39 goals in all competitions and 10 in the Champions League, making him joint highest scorer with Cristiano Ronaldo and teammate Lionel Messi in the latter competition.[99] He was the first player apart from those two to top the competition's scoring list, since compatriot Kaká in 2006–07.[100] Barcelona's attacking trio of Messi, Luis Suárez and Neymar, dubbed "MSN", ended with 122 goals, the most in a season for an attacking trio in Spanish football history.[101]
+
+Due to having the mumps, Neymar was expected to miss the 2015 UEFA Super Cup and the 2015 Supercopa de España.[102] On 17 October, Neymar scored four goals in Barcelona's 5–2 home win over Rayo Vallecano in La Liga, taking his total to eight goals for the season.[103] On 21 November, Neymar scored one and provided a back heel assist for Andrés Iniesta in Barcelona's 4–0 away win against Real Madrid.[104] He scored twice in a 4–0 home win over Real Sociedad on 28 November, taking his La Liga total to 14 goals in 12 games.[105] On 30 November, Neymar was shortlisted for the 2015 FIFA Ballon d'Or alongside Messi and Ronaldo, and subsequently came third.[106][107] On 22 May 2016, Neymar scored a late goal in Barcelona's 2–0 extra time win over Sevilla in the 2016 Copa del Rey Final at the Vicente Calderón, as the club celebrated winning the domestic double for the second consecutive season, following their treble victory from the previous season.[108][109] The front three of Messi, Suárez and Neymar finished the season with 131 goals, breaking the record they had set the previous year for most goals by an attacking trio in a single season.[110]
+
+— Neymar after the 4–0 loss against PSGon 15 February 2017.[111]
+
+Neymar was the protagonist of the 6–1 victory over Paris Saint-Germain in the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League round of 16, scoring two goals and assisting the decisive goal of Sergi Roberto during the closing seven-minute sequence.[112][113] Overcoming the 4–0 loss to PSG in the first leg from 14 February 2017, this second leg match became the biggest comeback in Champions League history.[114]
+
+On 2 April 2017, Neymar scored his 100th goal for Barcelona in his 177th appearance for the club, netting in a 4–1 win over Granada.[115][116] On 27 May, Neymar scored in the 2017 Copa del Rey Final, his 105th goal for the club, as Barcelona defeated Alavés 3–1 at the Vicente Calderón in Madrid.[117]
+
+On 3 August 2017, Barcelona announced that Neymar's legal representatives made a payment of €222 million[118] to the club, equal to the release clause of his contract, which constituted the most expensive transfer ever. The club informed UEFA so that they can determine any disciplinary responsibilities that may arise from this case.[7] According to the BBC, in Spain, the release clause must be activated by the footballer himself. The situation was unusual, in that the fee was paid to the club directly, after La Liga had refused to receive the payment.[119][8] Usually, the buyout clause is deposited with La Liga in order to release the player from his contract, and the league then passes the money to the selling club. However, La Liga rejected the payment—citing violation of Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules by PSG, who are backed by money from Gulf state Qatar.[120]
+
+Neymar joined French club Paris Saint-Germain on a contract that would run until 2022.[121] He was offered the number 10 jersey by Javier Pastore as a "welcome gift".[122][123]
+
+On 27 August 2017, FC Barcelona filed a lawsuit against Neymar, demanding he return the contract renewal bonus he received as well as €8.5 million in damages and an additional 10% for the arrears. They claimed they are owed money that Neymar received as part of a renewal bonus when he signed a new contract in 2016. The club also requested Paris Saint-Germain to take on the responsibility for the payment of the fees if the player cannot do so himself.[124] Neymar's lawyers announced that they will contest the case.[125]
+
+He made his debut for Les Rouge-et-Bleu on 13 August, netting a goal for himself and also setting up another in a 3–0 away victory over Guingamp.[126] Neymar added two more goals to his tally in the next Ligue 1 fixture against Toulouse.[127] Forming a prolific attacking trio alongside teenage French prodigy Kylian Mbappé and Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani, Neymar scored one each in PSG's two opening games of the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League group stage, with the team winning 5–0 at Celtic and 3–0 at home over Bayern Munich respectively.[128][129]
+
+During a 3–0 defeat of rivals Olympique de Marseille on 25 February 2018, Neymar fractured the fifth metatarsal bone in his right foot. He travelled to Belo Horizonte and underwent a successful operation on his foot.[130] He failed to make another appearance for PSG while recovering from the injury, and consequently ended his first season in Paris with 28 goals in 30 matches.[131]
+
+On 12 August 2018, Neymar scored PSG's opening league goal of the 2018–19 season in a 3–0 win over Caen at Parc des Princes.[132] Neymar scored from a penalty in his next game as PSG won 3–1 against Guingamp in Ligue 1.[133] In the following league game, the front three of Neymar, Mbappé and Cavani all scored in a 3–1 win over Angers at home, with Neymar scoring from Mbappé's cut back and setting up Cavani to score the opener.[134]
+
+On 3 October 2018, Neymar scored a hattrick in a 6–1 win over Red Star Belgrade in a Champions League group stage fixture.[135] He suffered a foot injury in late January 2019 that kept him out of his side's Champions League round of 16 tie against Manchester United F.C.[136] After United eliminated PSG, Neymar went on Instagram insulting video review officials for awarding a stoppage-time penalty to United. UEFA banned Neymar for three matches for the insult.[137]
+
+On 27 April 2019, Neymar scored in the 2019 Coupe de France Final against Rennes, but Rennes made a comeback and won on penalties. After the match, Neymar was caught on video appearing to punch a spectator in the face.[138] The spectator had been filming and insulting PSG players. PSG said they supported Neymar "100 percent" over the incident.[137] Neymar admitted he was wrong, but argued that neither he nor anyone else could have stayed indifferent. PSG coach Thomas Tuchel responded: "It's not easy to climb the stairs after a defeat. [...] If we lose, we must show respect. You can't come into conflict with a spectator."[138]
+
+In July 2019, Neymar was absent from training with PSG, with the club talking disciplinary action.[139] Prior to the transfer deadline in late August, Neymar agreed to stay at PSG after talks broke down over a return to Barcelona.[140]
+
+Neymar made his first appearance for PSG in the 2019–20 season on 14 September 2019, in a 1–0 victory over Strasbourg in Ligue 1. He scored the winning goal in injury time in the second half from a bicycle kick.[141] One week later, he again scored a late winner, as PSG defeated Lyon 1–0 at the Parc Olympique Lyonnais.[142]
+
+Neymar suffered a hamstring injury in October while on international duty with Brazil,[143] and returned to play for PSG during their Champions League group match against Real Madrid on 26 November in a 2–2 draw. On 18 February 2020, in the Champions League Round of 16 against Borussia Dortmund, he scored a crucial away goal in the first leg at Signal Iduna Park, as PSG lost 2–1. In the second leg, Neymar's side defeated Dortmund and made a comeback of their own in the Champions League, winning the match 2–0 (3–2 on aggregate). He scored a header from a corner taken by Ángel Di María and also made a play which lead to his teammate, Juan Bernat, scoring the second goal.
+
+Neymar won his third league title after PSG were awarded Ligue 1 as the season finished early due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[144] On 24 July 2020, in Paris Saint-Germain's first professional game back after the pandemic, Neymar scored his side's lone goal in a 1–0 win over Saint-Étienne in the Coupe de France Final, winning his second Coupe de France title with the club.[145]
+
+Following Neymar's performances for Santos in their successful early 2010 season, including winning the 2010 Copa do Brasil, in which Neymar was the top goalscorer, and the 2010 Campeonato Paulista, in which Neymar scored 14 goals, former Brazilian football players Pelé and Romário reportedly urged coach Dunga to take Neymar to the 2010 World Cup.[30][146] Although the widespread opinion that Neymar deserved a place in Dunga's squad went as far as a 14,000 signature petition,[30][147] and despite the huge pressure on Dunga to pick Neymar,[148] he was omitted from both the squad of 23,[149][150] and the stand-by list.[151] Although Dunga described Neymar as "extremely talented", he claimed that he had not been tested sufficiently on the international level to earn a World Cup spot and he had failed to impress enough while on international duty.[152]
+
+On 26 July 2010, Neymar was selected for the first time in the Brazil senior team by new head coach Mano Menezes for a friendly match against the United States to be played in East Rutherford, New Jersey. On 10 August 2010 he made his debut with the national team in that game, aged 18 years old, starting the match and wearing the number 11 jersey. He scored on his debut after 28 minutes, a header coming from an André Santos cross in a 2–0 win for Brazil.[153] On 1 March 2011, Neymar said: "Being on the Brazilian team is a privilege, There are some marvelous players and I'm very happy to be among them."[13] On 27 March 2011, he scored twice in a 2–0 win against Scotland at the Emirates Stadium.[154] During the match against Scotland, a banana was thrown onto the pitch after he scored from the penalty spot, which led Neymar to complain about 'constant jeering and an atmosphere of racism', implying that Scottish fans exhibited racism.[155][156] While Scottish officials explained that Neymar had been booed solely for perceived injury-feigning, a German student who was in the stadium amongst Brazil supporters said that he threw the banana with no racist intentions. This led to the Scottish Football Association asking the Brazilian Football Confederation for an apology for the accusations made to the Scottish fans.[157][158] Neymar refused to apologise or retract his words, claiming he "did not accuse any person or any group of supporters".[159][160]
+
+Neymar was the leading goal scorer of the 2011 South American Youth Championship with nine goals, including two in the final, in Brazil's 6–0 win against Uruguay.[161] He also took part at the 2011 Copa América in Argentina, where he scored two goals in the first-round game against Ecuador. He was selected 'Man of the Match' in Brazil's first match against Venezuela, which ended a 1–1 draw. Brazil were eliminated in the quarter-finals in a penalty shoot-out against Paraguay (2–2 a.e.t.), with Neymar being substituted in the 80th minute.[162]
+
+On 11 May 2012, Neymar was selected for the squad of the Brazil Olympic football team to participate in the London 2012 Olympic Games.[163]
+In Brazil's first warm-up match on 20 July 2012, against the host nation Great Britain at Riverside Stadium, Neymar was involved in both goals of a 2–0 win, first making an assist with a free-kick into the six-yard box for Sandro's header, before converting a penalty.[164]
+
+On 26 July 2012, Neymar scored his first goal of the 2012 Summer Olympics in Brazil's opening fixture against Egypt, which ended a 3–2 victory for Brazil.[165] In the following match against Belarus at Old Trafford in Manchester, Neymar scored a free-kick from 25-yards into the top-right corner of the goal and set up goals for Alexandre Pato's header with a cross from the right and Oscar with a back heel as Brazil secured their place in the quarter-finals with a 3–1 win. Afterwards he said: "I scored and made two assists so for me it was perfect".[166][167]
+
+On 5 August 2012, in the quarter-final encounter against Honduras, Neymar scored a penalty, his third goal of the tournament and assisted in Leandro Damião's second goal on the match, to help Brazil to a 3–2 victory at St James' Park and book a place in the semi-finals.[168] On 11 August, Brazil lost 2–1 to Mexico in the final at Wembley Stadium in London.[169]
+
+Neymar scored his first full international hat-trick on 10 September 2012, in an 8–0 win over China at the Estádio José do Rego Maciel in Recife.[170] On 19 September, Neymar scored the winner against Argentina in a 2–1 win in the first leg of the 2012 Superclásico de las Américas at the Estádio Serra Dourada in Goiânia, Brazil.[171]
+
+Neymar was selected as part of Luiz Felipe Scolari's Brazil squad for the 2013 Confederations Cup on home soil. For the tournament he was assigned the number 10 shirt, having previously worn 11.[172]
+
+Neymar scored the first goal of the tournament in a 3–0 win over Japan at the Estádio Nacional Mané Garrincha on 15 June.[173] In their second match, Neymar scored after nine minutes and crossed for Jô's late goal to give Brazil a 2–0 win over Mexico.[174] He scored in his third consecutive match, with a powerful free kick from the edge of the penalty area, as Brazil beat Italy 4–2, and received his third consecutive man-of-the-match award.[175][176]
+
+On 30 June, Neymar was involved in Fred's opening goal and then subsequently scored Brazil's second in the 3–0 final victory over Spain.[177] Neymar's performances saw him receive the Golden Ball for player of the tournament.[178]
+
+On 5 March 2014, Neymar scored a hat-trick in a friendly win against South Africa in Johannesburg. He made headlines for his conduct after the final whistle when a young South African boy ran onto the pitch. As security staff began to escort the boy from the field, Neymar intervened and introduced him to his Brazil teammates before they all lifted him in the air during their celebrations.[179][180]
+
+On 2 June, Neymar was named to participate with Team Brazil in the 2014 FIFA World Cup.[181] Going into the tournament, as the team's star player, Neymar was the man expected to win Brazil its sixth World Cup on home soil.[182] One week prior to the team's opening match, Neymar scored once and made two assists in a 4–0 friendly win over Panama.[183]
+
+Neymar earned his 50th international cap in the opening match of the tournament, on 12 June against Croatia in São Paulo. In the 26th minute, with Croatia leading 1–0, Neymar elbowed Croatian midfielder Luka Modrić, after which Neymar was issued a yellow card.[184] Many critics agreed that Neymar's punishment was too lenient and that he should have been issued a red card.[185][186][187] He equalised before half-time with a shot from outside the box and gave Brazil the lead in the second half with a penalty kick, following a controversial decision by the referee, in an eventual 3–1 win.[188] In the third group match, he again scored twice as the Seleção defeated Cameroon 4–1 to reach the knockout stage.[189] In the round of 16 against Chile, the match finished 1–1 after 120 minutes and was decided by a penalty shoot-out with Neymar scoring what proved to be the winning kick for Brazil.[190]
+
+In the quarter-final defeat of Colombia, while challenging for the ball, Neymar was kneed in the back by Juan Camilo Zúñiga and had to be removed from the pitch on a stretcher. A hospital scan revealed that Neymar had suffered a fractured vertebra in his spine and he missed the rest of the World Cup.[191] Earlier in the match, Neymar assisted Thiago Silva's opening goal with a cross from a corner kick.[192] It was the second time in the tournament that a Neymar corner had led to a goal for Brazil, after his cross created David Luiz's goal in the previous round against Chile.[190] Without their injured talisman Neymar (and the suspended captain Thiago Silva), Brazil would ultimately lose in the semi-final in a stunning 7–1 defeat to Germany on 8 July.[193]
+
+On 11 July, Neymar was named on the 10-man shortlist for FIFA's Golden Ball award for the tournament's best player.[194] He won the Bronze Boot as the tournament's third top goalscorer and was named in the World Cup All Star XI.[195]
+
+With captain Thiago Silva ruled out through injury, new coach Dunga decided to make Neymar captain and confirmed on 5 September that the forward would stay on as skipper on a permanent basis.[196] On 14 October 2014, Neymar scored four goals in one game for the first time in his international career, scoring all of Brazil's goals in 4–0 friendly win against Japan at the National Stadium, Singapore.[197] At the age of just 22 years, Neymar had scored 40 goals in 58 internationals, and had become the fifth highest goalscorer for his national team.[197][198] On 26 March 2015, Neymar scored Brazil's second goal in a 3–1 friendly win over France in Paris.[199]
+
+On 14 June 2015, in Brazil's opening Copa América fixture, Neymar scored the equaliser and assisted the stoppage-time winning goal by Douglas Costa as Brazil came from 0–1 down to beat Peru 2–1 in Temuco.[200] After Brazil's second match, a 0–1 loss to Colombia in Santiago, Neymar was booked for handball, resulting in a suspension. After the final whistle, he was red carded for deliberately kicking the ball at Pablo Armero, and as a result was pushed over by Colombian striker Carlos Bacca, who was also dismissed.[201] CONMEBOL issued Neymar with a four-match ban, ruling him out for the remainder of the tournament, in addition to a $10,000 fine.[202]
+
+The CBF had wanted Neymar to play at the Copa América Centenario and the Olympics in Rio during the summer of 2016, but after a request from Barcelona manager Luis Enrique, he was rested from the first tournament.[203] In late June 2016, he was subsequently one of the three over-23 players to be included in Brazil's squad for the 2016 Summer Olympics on home soil, and was named the team's captain by the Olympic side's manager Rogério Micale.[204][205]
+
+In Brazil's quarter-final clash with Colombia on 13 August, Neymar scored Brazil's first goal of the match, from a direct free kick, and also set up his nation's second goal in an eventual 2–0 win.[206] In Brazil's semi-final clash with Honduras on 18 August, Neymar scored twice, Brazil's first and last goals of the match, in a 6–0 win.[207]
+
+In the final against Germany at the Maracanã in Rio on 20 August, Neymar opened the scoring with a free-kick after 27 minutes. The game finished 1–1 after Max Meyer equalised in the second-half. Brazil beat Germany 5–4 on penalties, and Neymar scored the winning penalty to bring Brazil its first Olympic gold medal in men's football.[208][209] Both during and prior to the tournament, he had been subjected to criticism over his conduct on and off the pitch, with several former Brazil players suggesting that he was not fit to captain the national team.[210] Neymar subsequently renounced the captaincy following their Olympic victory.[211]
+
+In May 2018, Neymar was named in Tite's final 23-man squad for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.[212] On 3 June 2018, he made his international comeback after a three-month absence from a foot injury and scored a goal in a 2–0 win over Croatia in a friendly match at Anfield.[213] The following week, he became Brazil's joint-third highest goalscorer alongside Romário when he scored his 55th international goal in a 3–0 friendly win over Austria.[214] In Brazil's second World Cup match, played against Costa Rica at the Krestovsky Stadium, Saint Petersburg, on 22 June, Neymar scored the team's second goal in injury time as Brazil won 2–0.[215] The goal, his 56th for Brazil, took him third in the all-time scoring chart behind only Pelé and Ronaldo.[216]
+
+On 2 July, Neymar scored his second goal of the World Cup in a 2–0 win over Mexico in the last 16, while also assisting Roberto Firmino for his goal.[217] After the Mexico game, BBC Sport wrote that despite Neymar's "good performances" coming up top in several statistics at the World Cup, "there is still a sense that he remains widely unpopular among neutrals" due to his "petulance and the play-acting". Meanwhile, Brazilian newspaper O Globo wrote that "Neymar has charmed Brazil, but annoyed the whole world".[218] On 6 July, Brazil were eliminated after losing 2–1 against Belgium in the quarter-finals, with Neymar denied an injury time equaliser by a finger-tip save from Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.[219]
+
+In May 2019, Neymar was included in Brazil's 23-man squad for the 2019 Copa América on home soil.[220] On 5 June, however, he suffered an ankle injury in a 2–0 friendly win over Qatar and was ruled out of the tournament, with Neymar expected to miss four weeks due to the injury.[221][222][223]
+
+On 10 October 2019, Neymar played his 100th match for Brazil in a friendly draw 1–1 with Senegal in Singapore.[224]
+
+Neymar primarily plays as either a central striker, second striker, winger or occasionally as an attacking midfielder, and has been described as "a true phenomenon".[226][227] He often plays as a left sided forward for both club and country in the team's 4–3–3 formation, drifting infield, due to his energetic pace and playmaking skills; this position allows him to shoot with his stronger foot, or create chances for teammates.[227] Neymar's dribbling skills, tricks and playmaking ability are reminiscent of compatriot Ronaldinho. His main traits are his creativity, vision, passing, finishing, dribbling, feints, touch, and technique, being described as both "electric" and "explosive".[228][229][230] He is a notable exponent of the rainbow flick.[231] A prolific goalscorer,[232] although naturally right-footed, he is capable of scoring with both feet, as well as with his head, and is an accurate free-kick and penalty taker.[227][233] Neymar stated: "I'm always trying to perfect everything – dribbling, shooting, headers and control. You can always improve".[13] He has been inspired by Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Andrés Iniesta, Xavi and Wayne Rooney.[234]
+
+Considered to be a highly promising player in his youth,[235] Brazilian playmaker Ronaldinho had also tipped Neymar on becoming the best player in the world, stating in 2013: "Neymar is young though, and I can't explain how special he will become. In the next two or three seasons he will become the best player."[236] Another Brazilian star, retired World Cup winner Ronaldo also believed that Neymar could become the best in the world, commenting: "Logically, Messi is better right now but Neymar is a great talent who will show the world that he will be number one".[237] Former Real Madrid sporting director Jorge Valdano has also praised Neymar, stating: "I like Neymar a lot. Many of his individual actions result in a goal and often it's a move that only seems to be happening with him on the pitch."[238] After joining Barcelona, Neymar consequently established himself as one of the best players in world football.[239]
+
+—Forbes on some of the traits associated with Neymar following a Champions League game for PSG against Borussia Dortmund, February 2020.[240]
+
+However, Neymar also has been known and criticised for his excessive diving[241][242][243][244] when tackled by another player for which Pelé has said, "[h]e is a player with a body that can't take a lot of hits. [...] A lot of times he will fall because he can't do anything else, but he was overdoing it." He continued: "Even when he is fouled, he can't make a spectacle out of it".[245] During the 2018 World Cup, Neymar's antics inspired on social media the Neymar Challenge for dramatic dives.[246][247] As the star player for Brazil (and PSG) he is often the most targeted player on the field; he was the most fouled player in Europe's top leagues in 2018.[248] A divisive figure in world football, he has been accused of exaggerating injury, with Eric Cantona stating Neymar is a "great actor", comparing him to a wheeled suitcase: "you barely touch it, and it turns round and round for hours."[249][250] In response to the criticism over his petulance and histrionics, Neymar starred in a post 2018 World Cup commercial where he admitted to not being able to deal with his frustrations which contributed to theatrics while on the pitch and promised to change for the better.[251] He has also struggled with injuries throughout his career.[252]
+
+The media have often drawn comparisons between Neymar and Brazilian legend Pelé,[233] as Neymar possesses similar attributes and also like Pelé came from the Santos Youth Academy and turned heads with his skill. Neymar has said that Pelé is his "role model" but also saying: "I don't like to make a comparison with Pelé".[253] He has also been compared to compatriot Ronaldinho.[254]
+
+Neymar's increasing reputation led both the media and former great players to draw comparisons between Neymar and Barcelona forward Lionel Messi, which Neymar has commented on saying: "Messi is above everyone, there is no use comparing me with him. [...] He is the best player in the world and I always get inspired when I watch good football."[255] Ronaldo stated: "Neymar is a great talent, the best we have in Brazil. He is very similar to Messi." Zico said: "I see Neymar like a [Cristiano] Ronaldo or a Messi, the type who appears and makes things happen."[256] After his hat-trick in a 3–1 victory against Internacional in the Copa Libertadores and Messi's five goals scored in the Champions League, Neymar said: "I am a Messi fan. I was told what he did today. I support him to score a lot of nice goals so I can keep copying and imitating him."[257][258]
+
+Neymar has a son, Davi Lucca, born on 13 August 2011, with former girlfriend Carolina Dantas.[259] Neymar later described the birth of his baby boy as: "2.8 kilograms of pure happiness" and also said: "Mother and baby are in good condition just after childbirth".[260][261] He has a very close sibling relationship with his sister Rafaella Beckran, and cemented this platonic closeness by tattooing her face on his arm, while Beckran tattooed her brother's eyes on her arm.[262]
+
+Neymar is a Christian,[263][264] and follows the Pentecostal branch of the religion.[265] Neymar has spoken about his faith saying: "Life only makes sense when our highest ideal is to serve Christ!"[266] Additionally, he has sometimes worn a headband with the words "100% Jesus".[267]
+Neymar reportedly also tithes (10%) his income to his church and has named Kaká as his religious role model.[268] Each year, Neymar organises a charity match with fellow Brazilian footballer Nenê in Nenê's hometown of Jundiaí, with the purpose of raising food for needy families.[269] In addition to his native Portuguese, Neymar also speaks Spanish.[270][271]
+
+In July 2019 police announced that a rape investigation against Neymar would be dropped due to insufficient evidence.[272]
+
+Neymar has signed many sponsorship deals since his reputation began to grow from the age of 17. In March 2011, he signed an 11-year contract with American sportswear company Nike.[273] In the same month, Panasonic paid US$2.4 million to secure Neymar's services for two years. Prior to signing for Barcelona, France Football had ranked Neymar 13th in its list of the world's richest players in 2012, with total earnings of $18.8 million for the previous 12 months.[274][275] He has also signed other sponsorships from Volkswagen, Tenys Pé Baruel, Lupo, Ambev, Claro, Unilever and Santander.[276][277][278][279] By 2018, France Football ranked Neymar the third highest paid footballer in the world, earning €81.5m ($95m) for a calendar year in combined income from salaries, bonuses and endorsements deals.[280] In 2019, Forbes ranked Neymar the world's third highest-paid athlete (after Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo) with earnings of $105 million for the calendar year.[11]
+
+On 8 May 2013, Neymar was rated by SportsPro magazine as the most marketable athlete in the world, ahead of Lionel Messi (2nd) and Cristiano Ronaldo (8th).[281] The same month, Neymar launched the Nike Hypervenom football boot.[282] In November 2012 advertising agency Loducca, created Neymar's own personal brand logo,[283] featuring the N, J and R (Neymar Junior) with the N styled to match Neymar's shirt number 11.[283] Neymar starred in a 2014 advert for Beats with other global football stars including Thierry Henry and Luis Suárez, with the theme of 'The Game Before The Game' and the players pre-game ritual of listening to music.[284]
+
+Neymar was featured on the front covers of the video games Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 on the North American version, after Konami Digital Entertainment announced that he had joined Pro Evolution Soccer.[285] Neymar joined Cristiano Ronaldo as a featured cover athlete.[286][287] Neymar also features in EA Sports' FIFA video game series: the trailer for FIFA 18 showed him in his PSG home jersey.[288] He appears alongside Cristiano Ronaldo on the Champions and Ultimate Edition packs for FIFA 19 – Neymar's ‘Hang Loose’ goal celebration also features in the game.[289][290]
+
+Neymar appeared on the cover of Time magazine in February 2013, the first Brazilian athlete to do so. The issue included an article by Bobby Ghosh entitled "The Next Pelé" and subtitled "How the career of Brazilian football star Neymar explains his country's economy".[291]
+
+Controversy erupted because of a cover by Brazilian football magazine Placar that depicted Neymar on a cross. The title read "A Crucificação de Neymar" (the Crucifixion of Neymar) and subtitled: "the Brazilian ace turns scapegoat in a sport where everyone plays dirty".[292]
+
+In April 2013, Brazilian cartoonist Mauricio de Sousa released a Monica's Gang comic book featuring a younger version of Neymar (called Neymar Jr.) as the main character.[293]
+
+In May 2013, SportsPro magazine named Neymar as the most marketable athlete on the planet for the second consecutive year. He topped the list ahead of Lionel Messi, Rory McIlroy, Usain Bolt and Cristiano Ronaldo, among other sportspeople.[294] The list measures the monetary value, the age, the force in domestic markets, the charisma and their market potential in the next three years.[294] In March 2015, Neymar had the fourth highest social media rank in the world among sportspeople, behind Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and David Beckham, with 52 million Facebook fans.[295][296] He has over 130 million Instagram followers, the third highest for a sportsperson (after Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi), and inside the top 10 most followed people.[297] In ESPN's list of active sportspeople in 2016, Neymar was ranked the fourth most famous athlete in the world.[298]
+
+To mark the World Cup commencing in Brazil, in June 2014, Neymar appeared with supermodel Gisele Bündchen on the front cover of Vogue's Brazilian edition.[citation needed] In November 2014, Neymar appeared in FIFA's "11 against Ebola" campaign with a selection of top football players from around the world, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, Xavi and Didier Drogba.[299] Under the slogan "Together, we can beat Ebola", FIFA's campaign was done in conjunction with the Confederation of African Football and health experts, with the players holding up eleven messages to raise awareness of the disease and ways to combat it.[299][300]
+
+In April 2017, Neymar was included in the Time 100, Time magazine's list of the most influential people in the world.[10] In 2019 ESPN again ranked him the world's fourth most famous athlete.[301]
+
+Neymar has become an icon in promoting Brazilian modern pop music, particularly Música sertaneja. The video in which Neymar dances in the Santos locker room dancing in front of teammates carrying his recorder making the round of the players and making them react to the tune of Michel Teló's hit "Ai se eu te pego!" went viral. He made a point of performing his dance antics to the song after scoring goals in football games and appeared live with Teló in one of the latter's concerts. He also supported sertanejo singer Gusttavo Lima performing live with Lima on renditions of the singer's hits "Balada" and "Fazer Beber". In 2012, he made cameo appearances in the music video for yet another sertanejo hit "Eu Quero Tchu, Eu Quero Tcha" by João Lucas & Marcelo. In 2013, Neymar appeared on a rap music video, "País do Futebol" by MC Guimê.[302]
+
+He made a cameo appearance as himself in the 2017 action film XXX: Return of Xander Cage.
+
+Santos[2]
+
+Barcelona[2]
+
+Paris Saint-Germain
+
+Brazil Youth[2]
+
+Brazil
+
+Awards
+
+Performances

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+Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior (Brazilian Portuguese: [nejˈmaʁ dɐ ˈsiwvɐ ˈsɐ̃tus ˈʒũɲoʁ]; born 5 February 1992), known as Neymar, is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain and the Brazil national team. He is widely considered as one of the best players in the world.
+
+Neymar came into prominence at Santos, where he made his professional debut aged 17. He helped the club win two successive Campeonato Paulista championships, a Copa do Brasil, and the 2011 Copa Libertadores; the latter being Santos' first since 1963. Neymar was twice named the South American Footballer of the Year, in 2011 and 2012, and soon relocated to Europe to join Barcelona. As part of Barcelona's attacking trio with Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez, he won the continental treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey, and the UEFA Champions League, and finished third for the FIFA Ballon d'Or in 2015 for his performances. He then attained a domestic double in the 2015–16 season. In 2017, Neymar transferred from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain in a move worth €222 million, making him the most expensive player ever.[note 1] In France, Neymar won three league titles, two Coupe de France, and a Coupe de la Ligue, which included a domestic treble and being voted Ligue 1 Player of the Year, in his debut season.[9]
+
+With 61 goals in 101 matches for Brazil since debuting at age 18, Neymar is the third highest goalscorer for his national team, trailing only Pelé and Ronaldo. He was a key player in Brazil's victories at the 2011 South American Youth Championship, where he finished as leading goalscorer, and the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, where he won the Golden Ball as player of the tournament. His participation in the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2015 Copa América was cut short by injury and a suspension, respectively, but, the following year, he captained Brazil to their first Olympic gold medal in men's football at the 2016 Summer Olympics, and two years later, featured at the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
+
+Off the pitch, Neymar ranks among the world's most prominent sportsmen; SportsPro named him the most marketable athlete in the world in 2012 and 2013, and ESPN cited him as the world's fourth-most famous athlete in 2016. In 2017, Neymar was included by Time in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world.[10] By 2018, France Football ranked Neymar the world's third highest-paid footballer, and in 2019, Forbes ranked him the world's third highest-paid athlete.[11]
+
+Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior was born in Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo, to Neymar Santos Sr. and Nadine da Silva. He inherited his name from his father, who is a former footballer and became his son's advisor as Neymar's talents began to grow.[12] Neymar comments on his father's role: "My father has been by my side since I was little. He takes care of things, my finances and my family."[13] Growing up, Neymar combined his love of futsal with street football.[14] Neymar said that futsal had a massive influence on him growing up, helping him develop his technique, speed of thought and ability to perform moves in tight spaces.[15]
+
+In 2003, Neymar moved with his family to São Vicente, where he began playing for youth side Portuguesa Santista.[16] Then, later in 2003, they moved to Santos, where Neymar joined Santos FC.[17] With the success of his youth career and added income, the family bought their first property, a house next to the Vila Belmiro. Their quality of family life improved, as at age 15, Neymar was earning 10,000 reais per month and at 16, 125,000 reais per month. At 17, he signed his first full professional contract, was upgraded to the Santos first team, and began signing his first sponsorship deals.[18]
+
+Neymar began playing football at an early age and he was soon spotted by Santos FC who offered him a contract in 2003, where he was inducted into their youth academy, which has, in the past, produced Brazilian internationals like Coutinho, Clodoaldo, Diego, Elano and Alex. He also joined the likes of Pepe, Pelé and Robinho in starting out his career at the club, nicknamed Peixe.[19] While in the youth academy, Neymar met Paulo Henrique Ganso, becoming good friends in the process. Aged 14, Neymar travelled to Spain to join the Real Madrid youth team, at the time when Real had stars like Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Roberto Carlos and Robinho.[20]
+
+Neymar made his professional debut on 7 March 2009, despite being only 17 years old; he was brought on for the last thirty minutes, in a 2–1 win against Oeste.[14] The following week he scored his first goal for Santos against Mogi Mirim. One month later, on 11 April, Neymar scored the decisive goal in a 2–1 win against Palmeiras in the 2009 Campeonato Paulista semi-final first leg.[21] In the final, however, Santos suffered a 4–2 aggregate defeat to the Corinthians.[22] In his first season, Neymar racked up 14 goals in 48 games.[14]
+
+—South American football journalist Tim Vickery on Neymar in 2010.[23]
+
+Neymar continued his ascendancy in 2010, and, on 15 April 2010, he scored five goals for Santos in an 8–1 rout of Guarani in the qualifying stages of the Brazilian Cup.[24] Following the 2010 Campeonato Paulista in which Neymar scored 14 goals in 19 games,[19] the club were crowned champions after a 5–5 aggregate win over Santo André in the finals.[25] Neymar was subsequently given the award for the best player in the competition.[26]
+Neymar's performances for Santos have drawn comparisons to other Brazilians, including Robinho and Brazilian legend Pelé.[27]
+
+In 2010, Santos rejected a £12 million bid for him from English Premier League team West Ham United,[28] and later an offer from another English club, Chelsea, reported to be in the region of £20 million.[29] Despite Santos unwillingness to sell and Neymar himself insisting "I'm focused only on Santos",[30] his agent, Wagner Ribeiro, indicated that Neymar's career was elsewhere, stating "He wants to become the best player in the world. The chances of him doing that while playing in Brazil are zero."[29] Although one year later Neymar admitted, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, that he had been happy with Chelsea's interest in him as it was a "dream" of his "to play in Europe", while also stating that at the time it had been the right decision to stay in Brazil.[31]
+
+On 30 November 2010, Santos sold a 5% share of future transfer fees that he would receive to an investment group, Terceira Estrela Investimentos S.A. (TEISA), for R$ 3,549,900 (€1.5 million).[32] The previous year, his family had sold a 40% stake in Neymar's sporting rights to the DIS Esporte group who had been a long-term strategic partner of Santos' football club.[33]
+
+Despite his first two seasons being highly successful, having ended the 2010 season with an impressive 42 goals in 60 games, problems had been identified, namely Neymar's apparent taste for diving when tackled, rather than attempting to continue his run, and his attitude. The latter came to the forefront during a match with Atlético Goianiense, on 15 September 2010, when the Santos' manager, Dorival Júnior, appointed another player to take the penalty awarded for a foul on Neymar. His decision was based on the fact that Neymar had missed a crucial penalty during the Copa do Brasil final of that year, even if Santos went on to win. Reacting to this, Neymar turned his back on his manager, had to be calmed down by a linesman and argued with his captain, Edu Dracena. The fallout from this event was that Dorival Júnior wished to have Neymar suspended for two weeks, but the board sided with the player and promptly sacked the manager. Despite Neymar's apologies over the incident, some doubts still remain about his attitude.[14] In December 2010, aged just 18, Neymar came third for the 2010 South American Footballer of the Year, behind Andrés D'Alessandro and Juan Sebastián Verón.[34]
+
+Neymar scored six goals during Santos run to the 2011 Copa Libertadores Finals, tying him for third top goalscorer,[35] including the clinching goal of Santos' 4–3 aggregate win over Cerro Porteño in the semi-finals.[36] In the two-legged final, Santos faced Uruguayan side Peñarol and drew the first leg 0–0 in Montevideo.[37] At home in the second leg, Neymar opened the scoring in the 46th minute as Santos held on for a 2–1 win and Neymar won Man of the Match honours.[38][39] The win brought Santos their first Copa Libertadores triumph since 1963, when Brazilian legend Pelé was playing for the club.[40][41]
+
+In September 2011, Santos club president Luís Ribeiro threatened to report Real Madrid to FIFA following reports that they had attempted to sign Neymar to a pre-contract agreement, and denied that such an agreement was in place.[42] On 9 November 2011, Neymar and Santos agreed to a contract extension that would see the player stay with the club until after the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. The deal reportedly increased Neymar's wages by 50%, to the levels that top European clubs would be paying him.[43] On 14 December 2011, Neymar scored the opening goal for Santos as they defeated Kashiwa Reysol 3–1 in the semi-finals of the FIFA Club World Cup at the Toyota Stadium in Toyota, Japan, but failed to score against Barcelona in the final on 18 December 2011, where Santos were defeated 4–0, finishing as runners-up in the competition.[44] He won the 2011 FIFA Puskás Award for scoring a solo goal in the Brasileirão Série A against Flamengo, in a 5–4 loss. On 31 December 2011, he won the 2011 South American Footballer of the Year award for the first time, by a record margin, following in the footsteps of Diego Maradona, Romário, Pelé and Zico.[45]
+
+On 5 February 2012, when he turned 20, Neymar scored his 100th goal as a professional football player, against Palmeiras in the Campeonato Paulista.[46][47] On 25 February 2012 – he scored two goals, one of which was from 25-yards – and created two assists to help his side to a 6–1 win over Ponte Preta.[48] On 7 March 2012, Neymar netted a hat-trick as Santos saw off Brazilian rivals Internacional 3–1 in the Copa Libertadores Group stage match.[49] On 29 March, he scored a brace against Guaratinguetá in a 5–0 victory.[50] In the fixture against São Paulo on 29 April 2012, Neymar scored a hat-trick with the match ending 3–1.[51] Thereafter, he went on to score twice in the first[52] and second legs[53] in the 2012 Campeonato Paulista Finals against Guarani, which ended 7–2 on aggregate. Neymar finished the 2012 Campeonato Paulista with 20 goals and was voted the Best player and Best Forward, and Santos were crowned champions. He was joint top scorer in the Copa Libertadores with eight goals, after Santos were beaten over two legs by eventual champions Corinthians in the semi-finals.
+
+On 25 August 2012, he scored a brace in the 2–1 away win at Palmeiras.[54] On 3 November 2012, in the Brasileiro Série A away fixture at Cruzeiro, Neymar scored a hat-trick and assisted Felipe Anderson's goal, to help his side to a 4–0 win.[55] Neymar finished off the 2012 season in style, first setting-up Victor Andrade's equaliser, then scoring twice, to give Santos a 3–1 home win over Palmeiras on 1 December 2012.[56] Neymar was voted the Best Player of the 2012 Recopa Sudamericana, with himself scoring in the second leg to win the title 2–0 on aggregate. He finished the 2012 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A with 14 goals and being voted the Best forward. Neymar finished the 2012 season, being award the Golden Ball, Arthur Friedenreich Award and Armando Nogueira Trophy. He was one of three finalists in the 2012 FIFA Puskás Award and finished runners-up behind Miroslav Stoch. He won the 2012 South American Footballer of the Year, retaining his award and winning it ahead of the likes of Ronaldinho.[citation needed]
+
+Neymar started the 2013 Campeonato Paulista scoring twice in the first match, which ended a 3–1 win over São Bernardo on 19 January 2013.[57] Four days later on 23 January 2013, Neymar scored again against Botafogo in a 3–0 win.[58] On 3 February 2013, in the Paulista fixture against São Paulo, where Santos won 3–1, with Neymar scoring and making two assists.[59] on 18 March 2013, Neymar told that he had a "dream of playing in Europe, for a big club like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Chelsea." But he went on to say, "There's no point in speculating when I'll leave Santos. I'll leave when I want to."[60]
+
+Neymar scored all four goals, had another disallowed and hit the post as Santos beat União Barbarense 4–0 in the Paulista on 13 April.[61] On 25 April 2013, his agent and father revealed that Neymar intended to leave for Europe before the 2014 FIFA World Cup.[62] Ahead of his last match for Santos, on 26 May against Flamengo, Neymar was in tears during the national anthem.[63]
+
+On 24 May 2013, Santos announced that they had received two offers for Neymar. The following day, Neymar announced he would sign with Barcelona on 27 May 2013 and join the team after playing in the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup. Neither Neymar nor the clubs released details on the transfer fee or personal terms, save to say he signed a five-year deal.[64] On 3 June 2013, Neymar was unveiled by Barcelona after passing medical tests and signing a contract that would keep him at the club through June 2018.[65]
+
+Neymar was presented at the Camp Nou in front of 56,500 fans, a record turnout for a Brazilian player.[66] Club vice-president Josep Maria Bartomeu initially said Neymar's transfer fee was €57.1 million and his release clause set at €190 million.[67][68] Barcelona's doctor suggested he might need to gain weight to be able to cope physically in Spanish football.[69]
+
+In January 2014, the prosecutor's office in Madrid began investigating the transfer fee that Barcelona paid for Neymar.[70] The documents submitted to the authorities on request contained contradictory information.[70] On 23 January 2014, Rosell resigned from his position as president.[71] A day later, the details of the transfer were revealed by Barcelona; the transfer had in fact cost them €86.2 million (£71.5 million),[72][73][74] with Neymar's parents confirmed to have received a €40 million sum.[75][76] In the aftermath, Barcelona and Bartomeu were charged with tax fraud.[77]
+
+On 30 July 2013, Barcelona drew 2–2 against Lechia Gdańsk in a pre-season friendly; Neymar made his unofficial debut when he came on as a substitute.[78] He scored his first goal for the club in a 7–1 win against a Thailand XI on 7 August. at the Rajamangala National Stadium[79]
+
+Neymar made his competitive debut for Barcelona during the opening game of the 2013–14 La Liga season as a 63rd-minute substitute for Alexis Sánchez in a 7–0 win against Levante.[80] On 21 August, he scored his first competitive goal for the club in the first leg of the 2013 Supercopa de España against Atlético Madrid: seven minutes after coming on as a substitute for Pedro, he headed Dani Alves' cross to equalise in a 1–1 draw at the Vicente Calderón Stadium as Barcelona won on the away goals rule for his first trophy at the club.[81] On 18 September, he made his UEFA Champions League debut, assisting a Gerard Piqué goal as Barça beat Ajax 4–0 in their opening match of the 2013–14 tournament.
+
+Six days later, Neymar scored his first goal in La Liga in Barcelona's 4–1 defeat of Real Sociedad at Camp Nou.[82] On 26 October, he made his first El Clásico appearance, scoring the opening goal and assisting the team's winning goal scored by Alexis Sánchez as Barcelona beat Real Madrid 2–1 at Camp Nou.[83][83] On 11 December, Neymar recorded his first three Champions League goals as he scored a hat-trick in a 6–1 win over Celtic in Barcelona's final Group H match.[84]
+
+On 13 September 2014, after appearing as a substitute, Neymar scored his first two goals of the 2014–15 season, helping Barcelona beat Athletic Bilbao 2–0. On 27 September, he scored a hat-trick against Granada in a 6–0 win[85] and scored in his next three La Liga matches, including the opening goal in a 1–3 loss to Real Madrid at Estadio Santiago Bernabéu.[86]
+
+On 24 January 2015, Neymar scored twice and assisted two more goals in a 6–0 win at Elche.[87] On 28 January, he scored his 20th goal of the season in a 3–2 Copa del Rey quarter-final win over Atlético Madrid.[88] On 4 March, Neymar scored twice in Barcelona's 3–1 Copa del Rey semi-final win over Villarreal to qualify the club for its 37th Spanish Cup final.[89] On 21 April, Neymar took his tally to 30 goals for the season by scoring twice in Barcelona's 2–0 Champions League quarter-final win over Paris Saint-Germain.[90]
+
+In May, the closing month of the season, Neymar scored the last goal in a 3–0 win against Bayern Munich in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final.[91] A week later, he scored both the team's goals in a 3–2-second leg defeat at the Allianz Arena to ensure Barça would qualify for the 2015 UEFA Champions League Final.[92] He also opened the scoring with a header in a 2–0 league win versus Real Sociedad, a result which gave Barça a four-point lead over Real Madrid with only two matches remaining.[93]
+
+After securing the league title on 17 May with a 1–0 win over Atlético Madrid at the Vicente Calderón, Barcelona defeated Athletic Bilbao 3–1 at Camp Nou in the 2015 Copa del Rey Final on 30 May, with Neymar scoring the second goal for Barça.[94] With Barcelona's victory likely, he performed tricks with the ball in the final stages of the game, which was deemed unsporting by opponent Andoni Iraola. Barcelona manager Luis Enrique claimed that it had to be understood that such behaviour was acceptable in Brazil, while Neymar himself did not apologise.[95]
+
+On 6 June 2015, Neymar scored the third goal for Barça in the 3–1 Champions League Final defeat of Italian champions Juventus at Berlin's Olympiastadion, ensuring the club won its fifth European Cup.[96] This made Barcelona the first club in history to win the treble of domestic league, domestic cup and European Cup twice.[97] On a personal note, he became the eighth player in football's history to win both the Copa Libertadores and the UEFA Champions League, and the first player to score in final victories in both competitions.[98]
+
+Neymar ended the season with 39 goals in all competitions and 10 in the Champions League, making him joint highest scorer with Cristiano Ronaldo and teammate Lionel Messi in the latter competition.[99] He was the first player apart from those two to top the competition's scoring list, since compatriot Kaká in 2006–07.[100] Barcelona's attacking trio of Messi, Luis Suárez and Neymar, dubbed "MSN", ended with 122 goals, the most in a season for an attacking trio in Spanish football history.[101]
+
+Due to having the mumps, Neymar was expected to miss the 2015 UEFA Super Cup and the 2015 Supercopa de España.[102] On 17 October, Neymar scored four goals in Barcelona's 5–2 home win over Rayo Vallecano in La Liga, taking his total to eight goals for the season.[103] On 21 November, Neymar scored one and provided a back heel assist for Andrés Iniesta in Barcelona's 4–0 away win against Real Madrid.[104] He scored twice in a 4–0 home win over Real Sociedad on 28 November, taking his La Liga total to 14 goals in 12 games.[105] On 30 November, Neymar was shortlisted for the 2015 FIFA Ballon d'Or alongside Messi and Ronaldo, and subsequently came third.[106][107] On 22 May 2016, Neymar scored a late goal in Barcelona's 2–0 extra time win over Sevilla in the 2016 Copa del Rey Final at the Vicente Calderón, as the club celebrated winning the domestic double for the second consecutive season, following their treble victory from the previous season.[108][109] The front three of Messi, Suárez and Neymar finished the season with 131 goals, breaking the record they had set the previous year for most goals by an attacking trio in a single season.[110]
+
+— Neymar after the 4–0 loss against PSGon 15 February 2017.[111]
+
+Neymar was the protagonist of the 6–1 victory over Paris Saint-Germain in the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League round of 16, scoring two goals and assisting the decisive goal of Sergi Roberto during the closing seven-minute sequence.[112][113] Overcoming the 4–0 loss to PSG in the first leg from 14 February 2017, this second leg match became the biggest comeback in Champions League history.[114]
+
+On 2 April 2017, Neymar scored his 100th goal for Barcelona in his 177th appearance for the club, netting in a 4–1 win over Granada.[115][116] On 27 May, Neymar scored in the 2017 Copa del Rey Final, his 105th goal for the club, as Barcelona defeated Alavés 3–1 at the Vicente Calderón in Madrid.[117]
+
+On 3 August 2017, Barcelona announced that Neymar's legal representatives made a payment of €222 million[118] to the club, equal to the release clause of his contract, which constituted the most expensive transfer ever. The club informed UEFA so that they can determine any disciplinary responsibilities that may arise from this case.[7] According to the BBC, in Spain, the release clause must be activated by the footballer himself. The situation was unusual, in that the fee was paid to the club directly, after La Liga had refused to receive the payment.[119][8] Usually, the buyout clause is deposited with La Liga in order to release the player from his contract, and the league then passes the money to the selling club. However, La Liga rejected the payment—citing violation of Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules by PSG, who are backed by money from Gulf state Qatar.[120]
+
+Neymar joined French club Paris Saint-Germain on a contract that would run until 2022.[121] He was offered the number 10 jersey by Javier Pastore as a "welcome gift".[122][123]
+
+On 27 August 2017, FC Barcelona filed a lawsuit against Neymar, demanding he return the contract renewal bonus he received as well as €8.5 million in damages and an additional 10% for the arrears. They claimed they are owed money that Neymar received as part of a renewal bonus when he signed a new contract in 2016. The club also requested Paris Saint-Germain to take on the responsibility for the payment of the fees if the player cannot do so himself.[124] Neymar's lawyers announced that they will contest the case.[125]
+
+He made his debut for Les Rouge-et-Bleu on 13 August, netting a goal for himself and also setting up another in a 3–0 away victory over Guingamp.[126] Neymar added two more goals to his tally in the next Ligue 1 fixture against Toulouse.[127] Forming a prolific attacking trio alongside teenage French prodigy Kylian Mbappé and Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani, Neymar scored one each in PSG's two opening games of the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League group stage, with the team winning 5–0 at Celtic and 3–0 at home over Bayern Munich respectively.[128][129]
+
+During a 3–0 defeat of rivals Olympique de Marseille on 25 February 2018, Neymar fractured the fifth metatarsal bone in his right foot. He travelled to Belo Horizonte and underwent a successful operation on his foot.[130] He failed to make another appearance for PSG while recovering from the injury, and consequently ended his first season in Paris with 28 goals in 30 matches.[131]
+
+On 12 August 2018, Neymar scored PSG's opening league goal of the 2018–19 season in a 3–0 win over Caen at Parc des Princes.[132] Neymar scored from a penalty in his next game as PSG won 3–1 against Guingamp in Ligue 1.[133] In the following league game, the front three of Neymar, Mbappé and Cavani all scored in a 3–1 win over Angers at home, with Neymar scoring from Mbappé's cut back and setting up Cavani to score the opener.[134]
+
+On 3 October 2018, Neymar scored a hattrick in a 6–1 win over Red Star Belgrade in a Champions League group stage fixture.[135] He suffered a foot injury in late January 2019 that kept him out of his side's Champions League round of 16 tie against Manchester United F.C.[136] After United eliminated PSG, Neymar went on Instagram insulting video review officials for awarding a stoppage-time penalty to United. UEFA banned Neymar for three matches for the insult.[137]
+
+On 27 April 2019, Neymar scored in the 2019 Coupe de France Final against Rennes, but Rennes made a comeback and won on penalties. After the match, Neymar was caught on video appearing to punch a spectator in the face.[138] The spectator had been filming and insulting PSG players. PSG said they supported Neymar "100 percent" over the incident.[137] Neymar admitted he was wrong, but argued that neither he nor anyone else could have stayed indifferent. PSG coach Thomas Tuchel responded: "It's not easy to climb the stairs after a defeat. [...] If we lose, we must show respect. You can't come into conflict with a spectator."[138]
+
+In July 2019, Neymar was absent from training with PSG, with the club talking disciplinary action.[139] Prior to the transfer deadline in late August, Neymar agreed to stay at PSG after talks broke down over a return to Barcelona.[140]
+
+Neymar made his first appearance for PSG in the 2019–20 season on 14 September 2019, in a 1–0 victory over Strasbourg in Ligue 1. He scored the winning goal in injury time in the second half from a bicycle kick.[141] One week later, he again scored a late winner, as PSG defeated Lyon 1–0 at the Parc Olympique Lyonnais.[142]
+
+Neymar suffered a hamstring injury in October while on international duty with Brazil,[143] and returned to play for PSG during their Champions League group match against Real Madrid on 26 November in a 2–2 draw. On 18 February 2020, in the Champions League Round of 16 against Borussia Dortmund, he scored a crucial away goal in the first leg at Signal Iduna Park, as PSG lost 2–1. In the second leg, Neymar's side defeated Dortmund and made a comeback of their own in the Champions League, winning the match 2–0 (3–2 on aggregate). He scored a header from a corner taken by Ángel Di María and also made a play which lead to his teammate, Juan Bernat, scoring the second goal.
+
+Neymar won his third league title after PSG were awarded Ligue 1 as the season finished early due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[144] On 24 July 2020, in Paris Saint-Germain's first professional game back after the pandemic, Neymar scored his side's lone goal in a 1–0 win over Saint-Étienne in the Coupe de France Final, winning his second Coupe de France title with the club.[145]
+
+Following Neymar's performances for Santos in their successful early 2010 season, including winning the 2010 Copa do Brasil, in which Neymar was the top goalscorer, and the 2010 Campeonato Paulista, in which Neymar scored 14 goals, former Brazilian football players Pelé and Romário reportedly urged coach Dunga to take Neymar to the 2010 World Cup.[30][146] Although the widespread opinion that Neymar deserved a place in Dunga's squad went as far as a 14,000 signature petition,[30][147] and despite the huge pressure on Dunga to pick Neymar,[148] he was omitted from both the squad of 23,[149][150] and the stand-by list.[151] Although Dunga described Neymar as "extremely talented", he claimed that he had not been tested sufficiently on the international level to earn a World Cup spot and he had failed to impress enough while on international duty.[152]
+
+On 26 July 2010, Neymar was selected for the first time in the Brazil senior team by new head coach Mano Menezes for a friendly match against the United States to be played in East Rutherford, New Jersey. On 10 August 2010 he made his debut with the national team in that game, aged 18 years old, starting the match and wearing the number 11 jersey. He scored on his debut after 28 minutes, a header coming from an André Santos cross in a 2–0 win for Brazil.[153] On 1 March 2011, Neymar said: "Being on the Brazilian team is a privilege, There are some marvelous players and I'm very happy to be among them."[13] On 27 March 2011, he scored twice in a 2–0 win against Scotland at the Emirates Stadium.[154] During the match against Scotland, a banana was thrown onto the pitch after he scored from the penalty spot, which led Neymar to complain about 'constant jeering and an atmosphere of racism', implying that Scottish fans exhibited racism.[155][156] While Scottish officials explained that Neymar had been booed solely for perceived injury-feigning, a German student who was in the stadium amongst Brazil supporters said that he threw the banana with no racist intentions. This led to the Scottish Football Association asking the Brazilian Football Confederation for an apology for the accusations made to the Scottish fans.[157][158] Neymar refused to apologise or retract his words, claiming he "did not accuse any person or any group of supporters".[159][160]
+
+Neymar was the leading goal scorer of the 2011 South American Youth Championship with nine goals, including two in the final, in Brazil's 6–0 win against Uruguay.[161] He also took part at the 2011 Copa América in Argentina, where he scored two goals in the first-round game against Ecuador. He was selected 'Man of the Match' in Brazil's first match against Venezuela, which ended a 1–1 draw. Brazil were eliminated in the quarter-finals in a penalty shoot-out against Paraguay (2–2 a.e.t.), with Neymar being substituted in the 80th minute.[162]
+
+On 11 May 2012, Neymar was selected for the squad of the Brazil Olympic football team to participate in the London 2012 Olympic Games.[163]
+In Brazil's first warm-up match on 20 July 2012, against the host nation Great Britain at Riverside Stadium, Neymar was involved in both goals of a 2–0 win, first making an assist with a free-kick into the six-yard box for Sandro's header, before converting a penalty.[164]
+
+On 26 July 2012, Neymar scored his first goal of the 2012 Summer Olympics in Brazil's opening fixture against Egypt, which ended a 3–2 victory for Brazil.[165] In the following match against Belarus at Old Trafford in Manchester, Neymar scored a free-kick from 25-yards into the top-right corner of the goal and set up goals for Alexandre Pato's header with a cross from the right and Oscar with a back heel as Brazil secured their place in the quarter-finals with a 3–1 win. Afterwards he said: "I scored and made two assists so for me it was perfect".[166][167]
+
+On 5 August 2012, in the quarter-final encounter against Honduras, Neymar scored a penalty, his third goal of the tournament and assisted in Leandro Damião's second goal on the match, to help Brazil to a 3–2 victory at St James' Park and book a place in the semi-finals.[168] On 11 August, Brazil lost 2–1 to Mexico in the final at Wembley Stadium in London.[169]
+
+Neymar scored his first full international hat-trick on 10 September 2012, in an 8–0 win over China at the Estádio José do Rego Maciel in Recife.[170] On 19 September, Neymar scored the winner against Argentina in a 2–1 win in the first leg of the 2012 Superclásico de las Américas at the Estádio Serra Dourada in Goiânia, Brazil.[171]
+
+Neymar was selected as part of Luiz Felipe Scolari's Brazil squad for the 2013 Confederations Cup on home soil. For the tournament he was assigned the number 10 shirt, having previously worn 11.[172]
+
+Neymar scored the first goal of the tournament in a 3–0 win over Japan at the Estádio Nacional Mané Garrincha on 15 June.[173] In their second match, Neymar scored after nine minutes and crossed for Jô's late goal to give Brazil a 2–0 win over Mexico.[174] He scored in his third consecutive match, with a powerful free kick from the edge of the penalty area, as Brazil beat Italy 4–2, and received his third consecutive man-of-the-match award.[175][176]
+
+On 30 June, Neymar was involved in Fred's opening goal and then subsequently scored Brazil's second in the 3–0 final victory over Spain.[177] Neymar's performances saw him receive the Golden Ball for player of the tournament.[178]
+
+On 5 March 2014, Neymar scored a hat-trick in a friendly win against South Africa in Johannesburg. He made headlines for his conduct after the final whistle when a young South African boy ran onto the pitch. As security staff began to escort the boy from the field, Neymar intervened and introduced him to his Brazil teammates before they all lifted him in the air during their celebrations.[179][180]
+
+On 2 June, Neymar was named to participate with Team Brazil in the 2014 FIFA World Cup.[181] Going into the tournament, as the team's star player, Neymar was the man expected to win Brazil its sixth World Cup on home soil.[182] One week prior to the team's opening match, Neymar scored once and made two assists in a 4–0 friendly win over Panama.[183]
+
+Neymar earned his 50th international cap in the opening match of the tournament, on 12 June against Croatia in São Paulo. In the 26th minute, with Croatia leading 1–0, Neymar elbowed Croatian midfielder Luka Modrić, after which Neymar was issued a yellow card.[184] Many critics agreed that Neymar's punishment was too lenient and that he should have been issued a red card.[185][186][187] He equalised before half-time with a shot from outside the box and gave Brazil the lead in the second half with a penalty kick, following a controversial decision by the referee, in an eventual 3–1 win.[188] In the third group match, he again scored twice as the Seleção defeated Cameroon 4–1 to reach the knockout stage.[189] In the round of 16 against Chile, the match finished 1–1 after 120 minutes and was decided by a penalty shoot-out with Neymar scoring what proved to be the winning kick for Brazil.[190]
+
+In the quarter-final defeat of Colombia, while challenging for the ball, Neymar was kneed in the back by Juan Camilo Zúñiga and had to be removed from the pitch on a stretcher. A hospital scan revealed that Neymar had suffered a fractured vertebra in his spine and he missed the rest of the World Cup.[191] Earlier in the match, Neymar assisted Thiago Silva's opening goal with a cross from a corner kick.[192] It was the second time in the tournament that a Neymar corner had led to a goal for Brazil, after his cross created David Luiz's goal in the previous round against Chile.[190] Without their injured talisman Neymar (and the suspended captain Thiago Silva), Brazil would ultimately lose in the semi-final in a stunning 7–1 defeat to Germany on 8 July.[193]
+
+On 11 July, Neymar was named on the 10-man shortlist for FIFA's Golden Ball award for the tournament's best player.[194] He won the Bronze Boot as the tournament's third top goalscorer and was named in the World Cup All Star XI.[195]
+
+With captain Thiago Silva ruled out through injury, new coach Dunga decided to make Neymar captain and confirmed on 5 September that the forward would stay on as skipper on a permanent basis.[196] On 14 October 2014, Neymar scored four goals in one game for the first time in his international career, scoring all of Brazil's goals in 4–0 friendly win against Japan at the National Stadium, Singapore.[197] At the age of just 22 years, Neymar had scored 40 goals in 58 internationals, and had become the fifth highest goalscorer for his national team.[197][198] On 26 March 2015, Neymar scored Brazil's second goal in a 3–1 friendly win over France in Paris.[199]
+
+On 14 June 2015, in Brazil's opening Copa América fixture, Neymar scored the equaliser and assisted the stoppage-time winning goal by Douglas Costa as Brazil came from 0–1 down to beat Peru 2–1 in Temuco.[200] After Brazil's second match, a 0–1 loss to Colombia in Santiago, Neymar was booked for handball, resulting in a suspension. After the final whistle, he was red carded for deliberately kicking the ball at Pablo Armero, and as a result was pushed over by Colombian striker Carlos Bacca, who was also dismissed.[201] CONMEBOL issued Neymar with a four-match ban, ruling him out for the remainder of the tournament, in addition to a $10,000 fine.[202]
+
+The CBF had wanted Neymar to play at the Copa América Centenario and the Olympics in Rio during the summer of 2016, but after a request from Barcelona manager Luis Enrique, he was rested from the first tournament.[203] In late June 2016, he was subsequently one of the three over-23 players to be included in Brazil's squad for the 2016 Summer Olympics on home soil, and was named the team's captain by the Olympic side's manager Rogério Micale.[204][205]
+
+In Brazil's quarter-final clash with Colombia on 13 August, Neymar scored Brazil's first goal of the match, from a direct free kick, and also set up his nation's second goal in an eventual 2–0 win.[206] In Brazil's semi-final clash with Honduras on 18 August, Neymar scored twice, Brazil's first and last goals of the match, in a 6–0 win.[207]
+
+In the final against Germany at the Maracanã in Rio on 20 August, Neymar opened the scoring with a free-kick after 27 minutes. The game finished 1–1 after Max Meyer equalised in the second-half. Brazil beat Germany 5–4 on penalties, and Neymar scored the winning penalty to bring Brazil its first Olympic gold medal in men's football.[208][209] Both during and prior to the tournament, he had been subjected to criticism over his conduct on and off the pitch, with several former Brazil players suggesting that he was not fit to captain the national team.[210] Neymar subsequently renounced the captaincy following their Olympic victory.[211]
+
+In May 2018, Neymar was named in Tite's final 23-man squad for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.[212] On 3 June 2018, he made his international comeback after a three-month absence from a foot injury and scored a goal in a 2–0 win over Croatia in a friendly match at Anfield.[213] The following week, he became Brazil's joint-third highest goalscorer alongside Romário when he scored his 55th international goal in a 3–0 friendly win over Austria.[214] In Brazil's second World Cup match, played against Costa Rica at the Krestovsky Stadium, Saint Petersburg, on 22 June, Neymar scored the team's second goal in injury time as Brazil won 2–0.[215] The goal, his 56th for Brazil, took him third in the all-time scoring chart behind only Pelé and Ronaldo.[216]
+
+On 2 July, Neymar scored his second goal of the World Cup in a 2–0 win over Mexico in the last 16, while also assisting Roberto Firmino for his goal.[217] After the Mexico game, BBC Sport wrote that despite Neymar's "good performances" coming up top in several statistics at the World Cup, "there is still a sense that he remains widely unpopular among neutrals" due to his "petulance and the play-acting". Meanwhile, Brazilian newspaper O Globo wrote that "Neymar has charmed Brazil, but annoyed the whole world".[218] On 6 July, Brazil were eliminated after losing 2–1 against Belgium in the quarter-finals, with Neymar denied an injury time equaliser by a finger-tip save from Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.[219]
+
+In May 2019, Neymar was included in Brazil's 23-man squad for the 2019 Copa América on home soil.[220] On 5 June, however, he suffered an ankle injury in a 2–0 friendly win over Qatar and was ruled out of the tournament, with Neymar expected to miss four weeks due to the injury.[221][222][223]
+
+On 10 October 2019, Neymar played his 100th match for Brazil in a friendly draw 1–1 with Senegal in Singapore.[224]
+
+Neymar primarily plays as either a central striker, second striker, winger or occasionally as an attacking midfielder, and has been described as "a true phenomenon".[226][227] He often plays as a left sided forward for both club and country in the team's 4–3–3 formation, drifting infield, due to his energetic pace and playmaking skills; this position allows him to shoot with his stronger foot, or create chances for teammates.[227] Neymar's dribbling skills, tricks and playmaking ability are reminiscent of compatriot Ronaldinho. His main traits are his creativity, vision, passing, finishing, dribbling, feints, touch, and technique, being described as both "electric" and "explosive".[228][229][230] He is a notable exponent of the rainbow flick.[231] A prolific goalscorer,[232] although naturally right-footed, he is capable of scoring with both feet, as well as with his head, and is an accurate free-kick and penalty taker.[227][233] Neymar stated: "I'm always trying to perfect everything – dribbling, shooting, headers and control. You can always improve".[13] He has been inspired by Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Andrés Iniesta, Xavi and Wayne Rooney.[234]
+
+Considered to be a highly promising player in his youth,[235] Brazilian playmaker Ronaldinho had also tipped Neymar on becoming the best player in the world, stating in 2013: "Neymar is young though, and I can't explain how special he will become. In the next two or three seasons he will become the best player."[236] Another Brazilian star, retired World Cup winner Ronaldo also believed that Neymar could become the best in the world, commenting: "Logically, Messi is better right now but Neymar is a great talent who will show the world that he will be number one".[237] Former Real Madrid sporting director Jorge Valdano has also praised Neymar, stating: "I like Neymar a lot. Many of his individual actions result in a goal and often it's a move that only seems to be happening with him on the pitch."[238] After joining Barcelona, Neymar consequently established himself as one of the best players in world football.[239]
+
+—Forbes on some of the traits associated with Neymar following a Champions League game for PSG against Borussia Dortmund, February 2020.[240]
+
+However, Neymar also has been known and criticised for his excessive diving[241][242][243][244] when tackled by another player for which Pelé has said, "[h]e is a player with a body that can't take a lot of hits. [...] A lot of times he will fall because he can't do anything else, but he was overdoing it." He continued: "Even when he is fouled, he can't make a spectacle out of it".[245] During the 2018 World Cup, Neymar's antics inspired on social media the Neymar Challenge for dramatic dives.[246][247] As the star player for Brazil (and PSG) he is often the most targeted player on the field; he was the most fouled player in Europe's top leagues in 2018.[248] A divisive figure in world football, he has been accused of exaggerating injury, with Eric Cantona stating Neymar is a "great actor", comparing him to a wheeled suitcase: "you barely touch it, and it turns round and round for hours."[249][250] In response to the criticism over his petulance and histrionics, Neymar starred in a post 2018 World Cup commercial where he admitted to not being able to deal with his frustrations which contributed to theatrics while on the pitch and promised to change for the better.[251] He has also struggled with injuries throughout his career.[252]
+
+The media have often drawn comparisons between Neymar and Brazilian legend Pelé,[233] as Neymar possesses similar attributes and also like Pelé came from the Santos Youth Academy and turned heads with his skill. Neymar has said that Pelé is his "role model" but also saying: "I don't like to make a comparison with Pelé".[253] He has also been compared to compatriot Ronaldinho.[254]
+
+Neymar's increasing reputation led both the media and former great players to draw comparisons between Neymar and Barcelona forward Lionel Messi, which Neymar has commented on saying: "Messi is above everyone, there is no use comparing me with him. [...] He is the best player in the world and I always get inspired when I watch good football."[255] Ronaldo stated: "Neymar is a great talent, the best we have in Brazil. He is very similar to Messi." Zico said: "I see Neymar like a [Cristiano] Ronaldo or a Messi, the type who appears and makes things happen."[256] After his hat-trick in a 3–1 victory against Internacional in the Copa Libertadores and Messi's five goals scored in the Champions League, Neymar said: "I am a Messi fan. I was told what he did today. I support him to score a lot of nice goals so I can keep copying and imitating him."[257][258]
+
+Neymar has a son, Davi Lucca, born on 13 August 2011, with former girlfriend Carolina Dantas.[259] Neymar later described the birth of his baby boy as: "2.8 kilograms of pure happiness" and also said: "Mother and baby are in good condition just after childbirth".[260][261] He has a very close sibling relationship with his sister Rafaella Beckran, and cemented this platonic closeness by tattooing her face on his arm, while Beckran tattooed her brother's eyes on her arm.[262]
+
+Neymar is a Christian,[263][264] and follows the Pentecostal branch of the religion.[265] Neymar has spoken about his faith saying: "Life only makes sense when our highest ideal is to serve Christ!"[266] Additionally, he has sometimes worn a headband with the words "100% Jesus".[267]
+Neymar reportedly also tithes (10%) his income to his church and has named Kaká as his religious role model.[268] Each year, Neymar organises a charity match with fellow Brazilian footballer Nenê in Nenê's hometown of Jundiaí, with the purpose of raising food for needy families.[269] In addition to his native Portuguese, Neymar also speaks Spanish.[270][271]
+
+In July 2019 police announced that a rape investigation against Neymar would be dropped due to insufficient evidence.[272]
+
+Neymar has signed many sponsorship deals since his reputation began to grow from the age of 17. In March 2011, he signed an 11-year contract with American sportswear company Nike.[273] In the same month, Panasonic paid US$2.4 million to secure Neymar's services for two years. Prior to signing for Barcelona, France Football had ranked Neymar 13th in its list of the world's richest players in 2012, with total earnings of $18.8 million for the previous 12 months.[274][275] He has also signed other sponsorships from Volkswagen, Tenys Pé Baruel, Lupo, Ambev, Claro, Unilever and Santander.[276][277][278][279] By 2018, France Football ranked Neymar the third highest paid footballer in the world, earning €81.5m ($95m) for a calendar year in combined income from salaries, bonuses and endorsements deals.[280] In 2019, Forbes ranked Neymar the world's third highest-paid athlete (after Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo) with earnings of $105 million for the calendar year.[11]
+
+On 8 May 2013, Neymar was rated by SportsPro magazine as the most marketable athlete in the world, ahead of Lionel Messi (2nd) and Cristiano Ronaldo (8th).[281] The same month, Neymar launched the Nike Hypervenom football boot.[282] In November 2012 advertising agency Loducca, created Neymar's own personal brand logo,[283] featuring the N, J and R (Neymar Junior) with the N styled to match Neymar's shirt number 11.[283] Neymar starred in a 2014 advert for Beats with other global football stars including Thierry Henry and Luis Suárez, with the theme of 'The Game Before The Game' and the players pre-game ritual of listening to music.[284]
+
+Neymar was featured on the front covers of the video games Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 on the North American version, after Konami Digital Entertainment announced that he had joined Pro Evolution Soccer.[285] Neymar joined Cristiano Ronaldo as a featured cover athlete.[286][287] Neymar also features in EA Sports' FIFA video game series: the trailer for FIFA 18 showed him in his PSG home jersey.[288] He appears alongside Cristiano Ronaldo on the Champions and Ultimate Edition packs for FIFA 19 – Neymar's ‘Hang Loose’ goal celebration also features in the game.[289][290]
+
+Neymar appeared on the cover of Time magazine in February 2013, the first Brazilian athlete to do so. The issue included an article by Bobby Ghosh entitled "The Next Pelé" and subtitled "How the career of Brazilian football star Neymar explains his country's economy".[291]
+
+Controversy erupted because of a cover by Brazilian football magazine Placar that depicted Neymar on a cross. The title read "A Crucificação de Neymar" (the Crucifixion of Neymar) and subtitled: "the Brazilian ace turns scapegoat in a sport where everyone plays dirty".[292]
+
+In April 2013, Brazilian cartoonist Mauricio de Sousa released a Monica's Gang comic book featuring a younger version of Neymar (called Neymar Jr.) as the main character.[293]
+
+In May 2013, SportsPro magazine named Neymar as the most marketable athlete on the planet for the second consecutive year. He topped the list ahead of Lionel Messi, Rory McIlroy, Usain Bolt and Cristiano Ronaldo, among other sportspeople.[294] The list measures the monetary value, the age, the force in domestic markets, the charisma and their market potential in the next three years.[294] In March 2015, Neymar had the fourth highest social media rank in the world among sportspeople, behind Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and David Beckham, with 52 million Facebook fans.[295][296] He has over 130 million Instagram followers, the third highest for a sportsperson (after Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi), and inside the top 10 most followed people.[297] In ESPN's list of active sportspeople in 2016, Neymar was ranked the fourth most famous athlete in the world.[298]
+
+To mark the World Cup commencing in Brazil, in June 2014, Neymar appeared with supermodel Gisele Bündchen on the front cover of Vogue's Brazilian edition.[citation needed] In November 2014, Neymar appeared in FIFA's "11 against Ebola" campaign with a selection of top football players from around the world, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, Xavi and Didier Drogba.[299] Under the slogan "Together, we can beat Ebola", FIFA's campaign was done in conjunction with the Confederation of African Football and health experts, with the players holding up eleven messages to raise awareness of the disease and ways to combat it.[299][300]
+
+In April 2017, Neymar was included in the Time 100, Time magazine's list of the most influential people in the world.[10] In 2019 ESPN again ranked him the world's fourth most famous athlete.[301]
+
+Neymar has become an icon in promoting Brazilian modern pop music, particularly Música sertaneja. The video in which Neymar dances in the Santos locker room dancing in front of teammates carrying his recorder making the round of the players and making them react to the tune of Michel Teló's hit "Ai se eu te pego!" went viral. He made a point of performing his dance antics to the song after scoring goals in football games and appeared live with Teló in one of the latter's concerts. He also supported sertanejo singer Gusttavo Lima performing live with Lima on renditions of the singer's hits "Balada" and "Fazer Beber". In 2012, he made cameo appearances in the music video for yet another sertanejo hit "Eu Quero Tchu, Eu Quero Tcha" by João Lucas & Marcelo. In 2013, Neymar appeared on a rap music video, "País do Futebol" by MC Guimê.[302]
+
+He made a cameo appearance as himself in the 2017 action film XXX: Return of Xander Cage.
+
+Santos[2]
+
+Barcelona[2]
+
+Paris Saint-Germain
+
+Brazil Youth[2]
+
+Brazil
+
+Awards
+
+Performances

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+
+
+A nose is a protuberance in vertebrates that houses the nostrils, or nares, which receive and expel air for respiration alongside the mouth. Behind the nose are the olfactory mucosa and the sinuses. Behind the nasal cavity, air next passes through the pharynx, shared with the digestive system, and then into the rest of the respiratory system. In humans, the nose is located centrally on the face and serves as an alternative respiratory passage especially during suckling for infants.[1][2][3]
+
+Acting as the first interface between the external environment and an animal's delicate internal lungs, a nose conditions incoming air, both as a function of thermal regulation and filtration during respiration, as well as enabling the sensory perception of smell.[4]
+
+Hair inside nostrils filter incoming air, as a first line of defense against dust particles, smoke, and other potential obstructions that would otherwise inhibit respiration, and as a kind of filter against airborne illness. In addition to acting as a filter, mucus produced within the nose supplements the body's effort to maintain temperature, as well as contributes moisture to integral components of the respiratory system. Capillary structures of the nose warm and humidify air entering the body; later, this role in retaining moisture enables conditions for alveoli to properly exchange O2 for CO2 (i.e., respiration) within the lungs. During exhalation, the capillaries then aid recovery of some moisture, mostly as a function of thermal regulation, again.[5]
+
+The wet nose of dogs is useful for the perception of direction. The sensitive cold receptors in the skin detect the place where the nose is cooled the most and this is the direction a particular smell that the animal just picked up comes from.[6]
+
+In amphibians and lungfish, the nostrils open into small sacs that, in turn, open into the forward roof of the mouth through the choanae. These sacs contain a small amount of olfactory epithelium, which, in the case of caecilians, also lines a number of neighbouring tentacles. Despite the general similarity in structure to those of amphibians, the nostrils of lungfish are not used in respiration, since these animals breathe through their mouths. Amphibians also have a vomeronasal organ, lined by olfactory epithelium, but, unlike those of amniotes, this is generally a simple sac that, except in salamanders, has little connection with the rest of the nasal system.[7]
+
+In reptiles, the nasal chamber is generally larger, with the choanae located much further back in the roof of the mouth. In crocodilians, the chamber is exceptionally long, helping the animal to breathe while partially submerged. The reptilian nasal chamber is divided into three parts: an anterior vestibule, the main olfactory chamber, and a posterior nasopharynx. The olfactory chamber is lined by olfactory epithelium on its upper surface and possesses a number of turbinates to increase the sensory area. The vomeronasal organ is well-developed in lizards and snakes, in which it no longer connects with the nasal cavity, opening directly into the roof of the mouth. It is smaller in turtles, in which it retains its original nasal connection, and is absent in adult crocodilians.[7]
+
+Birds have a similar nose to reptiles, with the nostrils located at the upper rear part of the beak. Since they generally have a poor sense of smell, the olfactory chamber is small, although it does contain three turbinates, which sometimes have a complex structure similar to that of mammals. In many birds, including doves and fowls, the nostrils are covered by a horny protective shield. The vomeronasal organ of birds is either under-developed or altogether absent, depending on the species.[7]
+
+The nasal cavities in mammals are both fused into one. Among most species they are exceptionally large, typically occupying up to half the length of the skull. In some groups, however, including primates, bats, and cetaceans, the nose has been secondarily reduced, and these animals consequently have a relatively poor sense of smell. The nasal cavity of mammals has been enlarged, in part, by the development of a palate cutting off the entire upper surface of the original oral cavity, which consequently becomes part of the nose, leaving the palate as the new roof of the mouth. The enlarged nasal cavity contains complex turbinates forming coiled scroll-like shapes that help to warm the air before it reaches the lungs. The cavity also extends into neighbouring skull bones, forming additional air cavities known as paranasal sinuses.[7]
+
+In cetaceans, the nose has been reduced to the nostrils, which have migrated to the top of the head, producing a more streamlined body shape and the ability to breathe while mostly submerged. Conversely, the elephant's nose has elaborated into a long, muscular, manipulative organ called the trunk.
+
+The vomeronasal organ of mammals is generally similar to that of reptiles. In most species, it is located in the floor of the nasal cavity, and opens into the mouth via two nasopalatine ducts running through the palate, but it opens directly into the nose in many rodents. It is, however, lost in bats, and in many primates, including humans.[7]
+
+Fish have a relatively good sense of smell.[8] Unlike that of tetrapods, the nose has no connection with the mouth, nor any role in respiration. Instead, it generally consists of a pair of small pouches located behind the nostrils at the front or sides of the head. In many cases, each of the nostrils is divided into two by a fold of skin, allowing water to flow into the nose through one side and out through the other.[7]
+
+The pouches are lined by olfactory epithelium, and commonly include a series of internal folds to increase the surface area. In some teleosts, the pouches branch off into additional sinus-like cavities, while in coelacanths, they form a series of tubes. Unlike tetrapods, the nasal epithelium of fishes does not include any mucus-secreting cells, since it is already naturally moist.[7]
+
+In the most primitive living vertebrates, the lampreys and hagfish, there is only one nostril and olfactory pouch. Indeed, the nostril also opens into the hypophysis. This is not necessarily, however, a primitive trait, but one that may have arisen later in the evolution of these particular groups. For example, the fossil heterostracans had paired nostrils, and these were also a very early vertebrate group.[7]

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+
+
+Niamey (French pronunciation: ​[njamɛ]) is the capital and largest city of the West African country of Niger.  Niamey lies on the Niger River, primarily situated on the east bank. Niamey's population was counted as 978,029 as of the 2012 census; the Niamey Capital District, covering 670 km2, had 1,026,848 people. As of 2017, population projections show the capital district growing at a slower rate than the country as a whole, which has the world's highest fertility rate.[4]
+
+The city is located in a pearl millet growing region, while manufacturing industries include bricks, ceramic goods, cement and weaving.
+
+Niamey was probably founded in the 18th century and originated as a cluster of small villages (Gaweye, Kalley, Maourey, Zongo and Foulani Koira).[5] Niamey was of little importance until the French developed it as a colonial centre in the late 1890s. The town, then with an estimated population of some 1,800, was chosen as the capital of the newly created Military Territory of Niger in 1905, however the capital was shifted to the more established city of Zinder in 1912.[5] Zinder's proximity to the Nigerian border and distance from French-controlled ports prompted the French to move the capital back to Niamey in 1926, by which time the city had some 3,000 inhabitants.[5] A series of devastating droughts prompted significant population growth during this period, and by 1945 the population was about 8,000.[5]
+
+Prior to 1926-27 the Upper Volta-Niger border ran along the Niger river, meaning that Niamey lay directly on the boundary.[6]
+
+At the time of independence in 1960 the population had grown to around 30,000.[7][1][5] The period from 1970 to 1988 was one in which the economy of Niger boomed, driven by revenue from the uranium mines at Arlit. As a result, the population of Niamey grew from 108,000 to 398,365 inhabitants and the city expanded from 1,367 hectares (3,380 acres) in 1970 to 4,400 hectares (11,000 acres) by 1977, in the process annexing peripheral villages such as Lazaret.[8] Continuing droughts also caused many rural Nigeriens to move to the growing city.[5]
+
+In 1992 Niamey and its immediate hinterland were split off from Niamey Region to form the much smaller Niamey Capital District, enclaved within the new Tillabéri Region.[9]
+
+By some estimates the population had reached 700,000 in 2000.[5] In 2011, government press estimated the total urban population at over 1.5 million. A major cause of the increase has been in migration for work and during droughts, as well a high population growth.[1] This last factor means that demographically a majority of the city's citizens are young people.[1]
+
+Covering an area of over 250 km2 (97 sq mi), the metropolitan area sits atop two plateaux reaching 218 m (715 ft) in altitude, bisected by the Niger River. At Niamey, the river, running almost straight SSE from Gao, Mali, makes a series of wide bends. The city was founded on the east ("left bank") of the river as it meanders from a west to east flow to run almost directly south. A series of marshy islands begin at Niamey and extend south in the river.
+
+The vast majority of the population and government and commercial buildings are located on the eastern bank of the river. The very centre of the centre contains a number of wide boulevards linking roundabouts. Two bridges connect the two sides - the Kennedy Bridge and the Friendship Bridge. The western bank area consists mainly of residential areas such as Gaweye, Saguia, Lamorde, Saga and Karadje, as well as Abdou Moumouni University.
+
+The climate is hot semi-arid (Köppen climate classification BSh), with an expected rainfall of between 500 mm (20 in) and 750 mm (30 in) a year, mostly beginning with a few storms in May, then transitioning to a rainy season, usually lasting from sometime in June to early September, when the rains taper off rather quickly. Most of the rainfall is from late June to mid-September. There is practically no rain from October to April. Niamey is remarkably hot throughout the year. In fact, it is one of the hottest major cities on the planet. Average monthly high temperatures reach 38 °C (100 °F) four months out of the year and in no month do average high temperatures fall below 32 °C (90 °F). During the dry season, particularly from November through February, nights are generally cool. Average nighttime lows between November and February range from 14–18 °C (57–64 °F).
+
+Niamey's population has grown exponentially since independence - the droughts of the early 1970s and 1980s, along with the economic crisis of the early 1980s, have propelled an exodus of rural inhabitants to Niger's largest city.[9] Under the military government of General Seyni Kountché, there were strict controls on residency and the government would regularly round up and "deport" those without permits back to their villages.[13] The growing freedoms of the late 1980s and 1990s, along with the Tuareg Rebellion of the 1990s and famine in the 2000s, have reinforced this process of internal migration, with large informal settlements appearing on the outskirts of the city. Noticeable in the city's centre since the 1980s are groups of poor, young, or handicapped beggars.[citation needed] Within the richer or more trafficked neighbourhoods, these beggars have in fact formed a well-regulated hierarchical system in which beggars garner sadaka according to cultural and religious norms.[13]
+
+A major attraction in the city is the Niger National Museum, which incorporates a zoo, a museum of vernacular architecture, a craft centre, and exhibits including dinosaur skeletons and the Tree of Ténéré. Other places of interest include the American, French and Nigerien cultural centres, seven major market centres (including the large Niamey Grand Market), a traditional wrestling arena and a horse racing track. Most of the colourful pottery sold in Niamey is hand made in the nearby village of Boubon.[citation needed]
+
+In December 2005, it was the host of the Jeux de la Francophonie.[citation needed]
+
+Niger being a predominantly Muslim country, mosques are the most common places of worship, with the Grande Mosquée being the largest in the city. There are also various Christian churches, most notably the Cathedral de Maourey.[14][5]
+
+Niamey makes up a special capital district of Niger, which is surrounded by the Region of Tillabéri.
+
+The city of Niamey itself is governed as an autonomous first-level administrative block, the Niamey Urban Community (Fr. Communauté Urbaine de Niamey, or CUN). It includes five Urban Communes, divided into 44 "Districts" and 99 "Quartiers", including formerly independent towns. It is a co-equal first division subdivision with the seven Regions of Niger. The Niamey Urban Community includes an administration and Governor appointed by national leaders.[1] Like the rest of Niger, Niamey has seen a decentralisation of governance since 2000. Government Ordinance n°2010–56 and Presidential Decree n°2010-679 of September 2010 mandated an elected City Council for the city of Niamey, subsumed under the CUN. This excludes some outlying areas of the CUN.[1] Forty-five councillors are popularly elected and in turn elect the Mayor of the City of Niamey. In July 2011 the first Mayor under the new system, Oumarou Dogari Moumouni, was installed by the Governor of the CUN Mrs. Aïchatou Boulama Kané and the City Council.[1] The City Council and Mayor have limited roles compared to the CUN Governor. Niamey has a third layer of government in the Commune system. Each Commune elects its own council, and outside major cities, these function like independent cities. Niamey and other major cities have been, since the advent of decentralisation, developing co-ordination of Commune governments in large cities made up of multiple Communes.[1]
+
+Under this devolution process[15] formalised  in the 1999 Constitution of Niger, the CUN contains five "Urban Communes" and no "Rural Communes".  As all Nigerien Urban Communes, they are divided into Quarters ("Quartiers") with elected boards.
+
+The CUN includes 99 Quarters:[16]
+
+The CUN includes land where there were formerly several surrounding towns and villages which the city of Niamey has now annexed. These include Soudouré, Lamordé, Gamkallé, Yantala, and Gaweye.[17]
+
+The CUN covers a territory of 239.30 km2 (92.39 sq mi),[18] or 0.02% of the nation's territory.[19]
+
+Until 1998, all of greater Niamey was part of Tillabéri Region, which prior to 1992 was named the Niamey Department. The CUN remains surrounded on all sides by Tillabéri Region.[17]
+
+Niamey is served by the Diori Hamani International Airport, located 12 km south-east of the city and is crossed by the RN1 highway. Niamey railway station, officially inaugurated in April 2014, is the first one built in Niger.[20][21] Boats are also used to travel the Niger river.[5]
+
+The city is also the site of the National School of Administration, Abdou Moumouni University, the Higher Institute of Mining, Industry and Geology which lies on the right bank of the river, and many institutes (Centre numérique de Niamey, IRD, ICRISAT, Hydrologic Institute, etc.) Niamey hosts the African Centre of Meteorological Application for Development.[22]

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+
+
+Nicaragua (/ˌnɪkəˈrɑːɡwə, -ˈræɡ-, -ɡjuə/ (listen); Spanish: [nikaˈɾaɣwa] (listen)), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (Spanish: República de Nicaragua (help·info)), is the largest country in the Central American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the northwest, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Managua is the country's capital and largest city and is also the third-largest city in Central America, behind Tegucigalpa and Guatemala City. The multi-ethnic population of six million includes people of indigenous, European, African, and Asian heritage. The main language is Spanish. Indigenous tribes on the Mosquito Coast speak their own languages and English.
+
+Originally inhabited by various indigenous cultures since ancient times, the region was conquered by the Spanish Empire in the 16th century. Nicaragua gained independence from Spain in 1821. The Mosquito Coast followed a different historical path, being colonized by the English in the 17th century and later coming under British rule. It became an autonomous territory of Nicaragua in 1860 and its northernmost part was transferred to Honduras in 1960. Since its independence, Nicaragua has undergone periods of political unrest, dictatorship, occupation and fiscal crisis, including the Nicaraguan Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s and the Contra War of the 1980s.
+
+The mixture of cultural traditions has generated substantial diversity in folklore, cuisine, music, and literature, particularly the latter, given the literary contributions of Nicaraguan poets and writers such as Rubén Darío. Known as the "land of lakes and volcanoes",[10][11] Nicaragua is also home to the second-largest rainforest of the Americas. The biological diversity, warm tropical climate and active volcanoes make Nicaragua an increasingly popular tourist destination.[12][13]
+
+There are two prevailing theories on how the name "Nicaragua" came to be. The first is that the name was coined by Spanish colonists based on the name Nicarao,[14] who was the chieftain or cacique of a powerful indigenous tribe encountered by the Spanish conquistador Gil González Dávila during his entry into southwestern Nicaragua in 1522. This theory holds that the name Nicaragua was formed from Nicarao and agua (Spanish for "water"), to reference the fact that there are two large lakes and several other bodies of water within the country.[15] However, as of 2002, it was determined that the cacique's real name was Macuilmiquiztli, which meant "Five Deaths" in the Nahuatl language, rather than Nicarao.[16][17][18][19]
+
+The second theory is that the country's name comes from any of the following Nahuatl words: nic-anahuac, which meant "Anahuac reached this far", or "the Nahuas came this far", or "those who come from Anahuac came this far"; nican-nahua, which meant "here are the Nahuas"; or nic-atl-nahuac, which meant "here by the water" or "surrounded by water".[14][15][20][21]
+
+Paleo-Americans first inhabited what is now known as Nicaragua as far back as 12,000 BCE.[22] In later pre-Columbian times, Nicaragua's indigenous people were part of the Intermediate Area,[23]:33 between the Mesoamerican and Andean cultural regions, and within the influence of the Isthmo-Colombian area. Nicaragua's central region and its Caribbean coast were inhabited by Macro-Chibchan language ethnic groups.[23]:20 They had coalesced in Central America and migrated also to present-day northern Colombia and nearby areas.[24] They lived a life based primarily on hunting and gathering, as well as fishing, and performing slash-and-burn agriculture.[23]:33[25][26]:65
+
+At the end of the 15th century, western Nicaragua was inhabited by several different indigenous peoples related by culture to the Mesoamerican civilizations of the Aztec and Maya, and by language to the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area.[27] The Chorotegas were Mangue language ethnic groups who had arrived in Nicaragua from what is now the Mexican state of Chiapas sometime around 800 CE.[20][26]:26–33 The Pipil-Nicarao people were a branch of Nahuas who spoke the Nahuat dialect, and like the Chorotegas, they too had come from Chiapas to Nicaragua in approximately 1200 CE.[28] Prior to that, the Pipil-Nicaraos had been associated with the Toltec civilization.[26]:26–33[28][29][30][31] Both the Chorotegas and the Pipil-Nicaraos were originally from Mexico's Cholula valley,[28] and had gradually migrated southward.[26]:26–33 Additionally, there were trade-related colonies in Nicaragua that had been set up by the Aztecs starting in the 14th century.[26]:26–33
+
+In 1502, on his fourth voyage, Christopher Columbus became the first European known to have reached what is now Nicaragua as he sailed southeast toward the Isthmus of Panama.[23]:193[26]:92 Columbus explored the Mosquito Coast on the Atlantic side of Nicaragua[32] but did not encounter any indigenous people. 20 years later, the Spaniards returned to Nicaragua, this time to its southwestern part. The first attempt to conquer Nicaragua was by the conquistador Gil González Dávila,[33] who had arrived in Panama in January 1520. In 1522, González Dávila ventured into the area that later became known as the Rivas Department of Nicaragua.[23]:35[26]:92 It was there that he encountered an indigenous Nahua tribe led by a chieftain named Macuilmiquiztli, whose name has sometimes been erroneously referred to as "Nicarao" or "Nicaragua". At the time, the tribe's capital city was called Quauhcapolca.[19][34][35] González Dávila had brought along two indigenous interpreters who had been taught the Spanish language, and thus he was able to have a discourse with Macuilmiquiztli.[18] After exploring and gathering gold[19][23]:35[26]:55 in the fertile western valleys, González Dávila and his men were attacked and driven off by the Chorotega, led by the chieftain Diriangén.[19][36] The Spanish attempted to convert the tribes to Christianity; the people in Macuilmiquiztli's tribe were baptized,[19][26]:86 but Diriangén, however, was openly hostile to the Spaniards.
+
+The first Spanish permanent settlements were founded in 1524.[33] That year, the conquistador Francisco Hernández de Córdoba founded two of Nicaragua's principal cities: Granada on Lake Nicaragua was the first settlement, followed by León at a location west of Lake Managua.[23]:35, 193[26]:92 Córdoba soon built defenses for the cities and fought against incursions by other conquistadors.[26]:92 Córdoba was later publicly beheaded as a consequence for having defied the authority of his superior, Pedro Arias Dávila.[23]:35 Córdoba's tomb and remains were discovered in 2000 in the ruins of León Viejo.[37]
+
+The clashes among Spanish forces did not impede their destruction of the indigenous people and their culture. The series of battles came to be known as the "War of the Captains".[38] Pedro Arias Dávila was a winner;[23]:35 although he had lost control of Panama, he moved to Nicaragua and successfully established his base in León.[39] In 1527, León became the capital of the colony.[26]:93[39] Through adroit diplomatic machinations, Arias Dávila became the colony's first governor.[37]
+
+Without women in their parties,[26]:123 the Spanish conquerors took Nahua and Chorotega wives and partners, beginning the multiethnic mix of indigenous and European stock now known as "mestizo", which constitutes the great majority of the population in western Nicaragua.[27] Many indigenous people died as a result of new infectious diseases, compounded by neglect by the Spaniards, who controlled their subsistence.[33] Furthermore, a large number of other indigenous peoples were captured and transported to Panama and Peru between 1526 and 1540, where they were forced to perform slave labor.[23]:193[26]:104–105
+
+In 1610, the Momotombo volcano erupted, destroying the city of León.[40] The city was rebuilt northwest of the original,[39][40] which is now known as the ruins of León Viejo. During the American Revolutionary War, Central America was subject to conflict between Britain and Spain. British navy admiral Horatio Nelson led expeditions in the Battle of San Fernando de Omoa in 1779 and on the San Juan River in 1780, the latter of which had temporary success before being abandoned due to disease.
+
+The Captaincy General of Guatemala was dissolved in September 1821 with the Act of Independence of Central America, and Nicaragua soon became part of the First Mexican Empire. After the monarchy of the First Mexican Empire was overthrown in 1823, Nicaragua joined the newly formed United Provinces of Central America, which was later renamed as the Federal Republic of Central America. Nicaragua finally became an independent republic in 1838.[41]
+
+Rivalry between the Liberal elite of León and the Conservative elite of Granada characterized the early years of independence and often degenerated into civil war, particularly during the 1840s and 1850s. Managua was chosen as the nation's capital in 1852 to allay the rivalry between the two feuding cities.[42][43] During the days of the California Gold Rush, Nicaragua provided a route for travelers from the eastern United States to journey to California by sea, via the use of the San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua.[23]:81 Invited by the Liberals in 1855 to join their struggle against the Conservatives, a United States adventurer and filibuster named William Walker set himself up as President of Nicaragua, after conducting a farcical election in 1856. Costa Rica, Honduras, and other Central American countries united to drive Walker out of Nicaragua in 1857,[44][45][46] after which a period of three decades of Conservative rule ensued.
+
+Great Britain, which had claimed the Mosquito Coast as a protectorate since 1655, delegated the area to Honduras in 1859 before transferring it to Nicaragua in 1860. The Mosquito Coast remained an autonomous area until 1894. José Santos Zelaya, President of Nicaragua from 1893 to 1909, negotiated the annexation of the Mosquito Coast to the rest of Nicaragua. In his honor, the region was named "Zelaya Department".
+
+Throughout the late 19th century, the United States and several European powers considered a scheme to build a canal across Nicaragua, linking the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic.[47]
+
+In 1909, the United States supported the conservative-led forces rebelling against President Zelaya. U.S. motives included differences over the proposed Nicaragua Canal, Nicaragua's potential as a destabilizing influence in the region, and Zelaya's attempts to regulate foreign access to Nicaraguan natural resources. On November 18, 1909, U.S. warships were sent to the area after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) were executed by order of Zelaya. The U.S. justified the intervention by claiming to protect U.S. lives and property. Zelaya resigned later that year.
+
+In August 1912, the President of Nicaragua, Adolfo Díaz, requested the secretary of war, General Luis Mena, to resign for fear he was leading an insurrection. Mena fled Managua with his brother, the chief of police of Managua, to start an insurrection. When the U.S. delegation asked President Díaz to ensure the safety of American citizens and property during the insurrection, he replied he could not, and asked the United States to intervene in the conflict.[48][neutrality is disputed]
+
+United States Marines occupied Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933,[23]:111, 197[49] except for a nine-month period beginning in 1925. In 1914, the Bryan–Chamorro Treaty was signed, giving the U.S. control over a proposed canal through Nicaragua, as well as leases for potential canal defenses.[50] Following the evacuation of U.S. Marines, another violent conflict between Liberals and Conservatives took place in 1926, which resulted in the return of U.S. Marines.[51]
+
+From 1927 until 1933, rebel general Augusto César Sandino led a sustained guerrilla war first against the Conservative regime and subsequently against the U.S. Marines, whom he fought for over five years.[52] When the Americans left in 1933, they set up the Guardia Nacional (national guard),[53] a combined military and police force trained and equipped by the Americans and designed to be loyal to U.S. interests.
+
+After the U.S. Marines withdrew from Nicaragua in January 1933, Sandino and the newly elected administration of President Juan Bautista Sacasa reached an agreement by which Sandino would cease his guerrilla activities in return for amnesty, a grant of land for an agricultural colony, and retention of an armed band of 100 men for a year.[54] However, due to a growing hostility between Sandino and National Guard director Anastasio Somoza García and a fear of armed opposition from Sandino, Somoza García decided to order his assassination.[53][55][56] Sandino was invited by Sacasa to have dinner and sign a peace treaty at the Presidential House in Managua on the night of February 21, 1934. After leaving the Presidential House, Sandino's car was stopped by soldiers of the National Guard and they kidnapped him. Later that night, Sandino was assassinated by soldiers of the National Guard. Hundreds of men, women, and children from Sandino's agricultural colony were executed later.[57]
+
+Nicaragua has experienced several military dictatorships, the longest being the hereditary dictatorship of the Somoza family, who ruled for 43 nonconsecutive years during the 20th century.[58] The Somoza family came to power as part of a U.S.-engineered pact in 1927 that stipulated the formation of the Guardia Nacional to replace the marines who had long reigned in the country.[59] Somoza García slowly eliminated officers in the national guard who might have stood in his way, and then deposed Sacasa and became president on January 1, 1937, in a rigged election.[53]
+
+In 1941, during the Second World War, Nicaragua declared war on Japan (8 December), Germany (11 December), Italy (11 December), Bulgaria (19 December), Hungary (19 December) and Romania (19 December). Out of these six Axis countries, only Romania reciprocated, declaring war on Nicaragua on the same day (19 December 1941).[60] No soldiers were sent to the war, but Somoza García did seize the occasion to confiscate properties held by German Nicaraguan residents.[61] In 1945, Nicaragua was among the first countries to ratify the United Nations Charter.[62]
+
+On September 21, 1956, Somoza García was shot to death by Rigoberto López Pérez, a 27-year-old Liberal Nicaraguan poet. Luis Somoza Debayle, the eldest son of the late president, was appointed president by the congress and officially took charge of the country.[53] He is remembered by some for being moderate, but was in power only for a few years and then died of a heart attack. His successor as president was René Schick Gutiérrez, whom most Nicaraguans viewed "as nothing more than a puppet of the Somozas".[63] Somoza García's youngest son, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, often referred to simply as "Somoza", became president in 1967.
+
+An earthquake in 1972 destroyed nearly 90% of Managua, resulting in massive destruction to the city's infrastructure.[64] Instead of helping to rebuild Managua, Somoza siphoned off relief money. The mishandling of relief money also prompted Pittsburgh Pirates star Roberto Clemente to personally fly to Managua on December 31, 1972, but he died en route in an airplane accident.[65] Even the economic elite were reluctant to support Somoza, as he had acquired monopolies in industries that were key to rebuilding the nation.[66]
+
+The Somoza family was among a few families or groups of influential firms which reaped most of the benefits of the country's growth from the 1950s to the 1970s. When Somoza was deposed by the Sandinistas in 1979, the family's worth was estimated to be between $500 million and $1.5 billion.[67]
+
+In 1961, Carlos Fonseca looked back to the historical figure of Sandino, and along with two other people (one of whom was believed to be Casimiro Sotelo, who was later assassinated), founded the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).[53] After the 1972 earthquake and Somoza's apparent corruption, the ranks of the Sandinistas were flooded with young disaffected Nicaraguans who no longer had anything to lose.[68]
+
+In December 1974, a group of the FSLN, in an attempt to kidnap U.S. ambassador Turner Shelton, held some Managuan partygoers hostage (after killing the host, former agriculture minister, Jose Maria Castillo), until the Somozan government met their demands for a large ransom and free transport to Cuba. Somoza granted this, then subsequently sent his national guard out into the countryside to look for the perpetrators of the kidnapping, described by opponents of the kidnapping as "terrorists".[69]
+
+On January 10, 1978, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, the editor of the national newspaper La Prensa and ardent opponent of Somoza, was assassinated.[70] It is alleged that the planners and perpetrators of the murder were at the highest echelons of the Somoza regime.[70]
+
+The Sandinistas forcefully took power in July 1979, ousting Somoza, and prompting the exodus of the majority of Nicaragua's middle class, wealthy landowners, and professionals, many of whom settled in the United States.[71][72][73] The Carter administration decided to work with the new government, while attaching a provision for aid forfeiture if it was found to be assisting insurgencies in neighboring countries.[74] Somoza fled the country and eventually ended up in Paraguay, where he was assassinated in September 1980, allegedly by members of the Argentinian Revolutionary Workers' Party.[75]
+
+In 1980, the Carter administration provided $60 million in aid to Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, but the aid was suspended when the administration obtained evidence of Nicaraguan shipment of arms to El Salvadoran rebels.[76] In response to the coming to power of the Sandinistas, various rebel groups collectively known as the "contras" were formed to oppose the new government. The Reagan administration authorized the CIA to help the contra rebels with funding, armaments, and training.[77] The contras operated out of camps in the neighboring countries of Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south.[77]
+
+They engaged in a systematic campaign of terror among the rural Nicaraguan population to disrupt the social reform projects of the Sandinistas. Several historians have criticized the contra campaign and the Reagan administration's support for it, citing the brutality and numerous human rights violations of the contras. LaRamee and Polakoff, for example, describe the destruction of health centers, schools, and cooperatives at the hands of the rebels,[78] and others have contended that murder, rape, and torture occurred on a large scale in contra-dominated areas.[79] The United States also carried out a campaign of economic sabotage, and disrupted shipping by planting underwater mines in Nicaragua's port of Corinto,[80] an action condemned by the International Court of Justice as illegal.[81] The U.S. also sought to place economic pressure on the Sandinistas, and the Reagan administration imposed a full trade embargo.[82] The Sandinistas were also accused of human rights abuses.[83][84][85]
+
+In the Nicaraguan general elections of 1984, which were judged to have been free and fair, the Sandinistas won the parliamentary election and their leader Daniel Ortega won the presidential election.[86][87] The Reagan administration criticized the elections as a "sham" based on the charge that Arturo Cruz, the candidate nominated by the Coordinadora Democrática Nicaragüense, comprising three right wing political parties, did not participate in the elections. However, the administration privately argued against Cruz's participation for fear his involvement would legitimize the elections, and thus weaken the case for American aid to the contras.[88] According to Martin Kriele, the results of the election were rigged.[89][90][91][92]
+
+After the U.S. Congress prohibited federal funding of the contras in 1983, the Reagan administration nonetheless illegally continued to back them by covertly selling arms to Iran and channeling the proceeds to the contras (the Iran–Contra affair), for which several members of the Reagan administration were convicted of felonies.[93] The International Court of Justice, in regard to the case of Nicaragua v. United States in 1984, found, "the United States of America was under an obligation to make reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused to Nicaragua by certain breaches of obligations under customary international law and treaty-law committed by the United States of America".[94] During the war between the contras and the Sandinistas, 30,000 people were killed.[95]
+
+In the Nicaraguan general election, 1990, a coalition of anti-Sandinista parties (from the left and right of the political spectrum) led by Violeta Chamorro, the widow of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, defeated the Sandinistas. The defeat shocked the Sandinistas, who had expected to win.[96]
+
+Exit polls of Nicaraguans reported Chamorro's victory over Ortega was achieved with a 55% majority.[97] Chamorro was the first woman president of Nicaragua. Ortega vowed he would govern desde abajo (from below).[98] Chamorro came to office with an economy in ruins, primarily because of the financial and social costs of the contra war with the Sandinista-led government.[99] In the next election, the Nicaraguan general election, 1996, Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas of the FSLN were defeated again, this time by Arnoldo Alemán of the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC).
+
+In the 2001 elections, the PLC again defeated the FSLN, with Alemán's Vice President Enrique Bolaños succeeding him as President. Subsequently, however, Alemán was convicted and sentenced in 2003 to 20 years in prison for embezzlement, money laundering, and corruption;[100] liberal and Sandinista parliament members subsequently combined to strip the presidential powers of President Bolaños and his ministers, calling for his resignation and threatening impeachment. The Sandinistas said they no longer supported Bolaños after U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told Bolaños to keep his distance from the FSLN.[101] This "slow motion coup d'état" was averted partially by pressure from the Central American presidents, who vowed not to recognize any movement that removed Bolaños; the U.S., the OAS, and the European Union also opposed the action.[102]
+
+Before the general elections on November 5, 2006, the National Assembly passed a bill further restricting abortion in Nicaragua.[103] As a result, Nicaragua is one of five countries in the world where abortion is illegal with no exceptions.[104] Legislative and presidential elections took place on November 5, 2006. Ortega returned to the presidency with 37.99% of the vote. This percentage was enough to win the presidency outright, because of a change in electoral law which lowered the percentage requiring a runoff election from 45% to 35% (with a 5% margin of victory).[105] Nicaragua's 2011 general election resulted in re-election of Ortega, with a landslide victory and 62.46% of the vote. In 2014 the National Assembly approved changes to the constitution allowing Ortega to run for a third successive term.[106]
+
+In November 2016, Ortega was elected for his third consecutive term (his fourth overall). International monitoring of the elections was initially prohibited, and as a result the validity of the elections has been disputed, but observation by the OAS was announced in October.[107][108] Ortega was reported by Nicaraguan election officials as having received 72% of the vote. However the Broad Front for Democracy (FAD), having promoted boycotts of the elections, claimed that 70% of voters had abstained (while election officials claimed 65.8% participation).[109]
+
+In April 2018, demonstrations opposed a decree increasing taxes and reducing benefits in the country's pension system. Local independent press organizations had documented at least 19 dead and over 100 missing in the ensuing conflict.[110] A reporter from NPR spoke to protestors who explained that while the initial issue was about the pension reform, the uprisings that spread across the country reflected many grievances about the government's time in office, and that the fight is for President Ortega and his Vice President wife to step down.[111] April 24, 2018 marked the day of the greatest march in opposition of the Sandinista party. On May 2, 2018, university-student leaders publicly announced that they give the government seven days to set a date and time for a dialogue that was promised to the people due to the recent events of repression. The students also scheduled another march on that same day for a peaceful protest. As of May 2018, estimates of the death toll were as high as 63, many of them student protesters, and the wounded totalled more than 400.[112] Following a working visit from May 17 to 21, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights adopted precautionary measures aimed at protecting members of the student movement and their families after testimonies indicated the majority of them had suffered acts of violence and death threats for their participation.[113] In the last week of May, thousands who accuse Mr. Ortega and his wife of acting like dictators joined in resuming anti-government rallies after attempted peace talks have remained unresolved.[114]
+
+Nicaragua occupies a landmass of 130,967 km2 (50,567 sq mi), which makes it slightly larger than England. Nicaragua has three distinct geographical regions: the Pacific lowlands – fertile valleys which the Spanish colonists settled, the Amerrisque Mountains (North-central highlands), and the Mosquito Coast (Atlantic lowlands/Caribbean lowlands).
+
+The low plains of the Atlantic Coast are 97 km (60 mi) wide in areas. They have long been exploited for their natural resources.
+
+On the Pacific side of Nicaragua are the two largest fresh water lakes in Central America—Lake Managua and Lake Nicaragua. Surrounding these lakes and extending to their northwest along the rift valley of the Gulf of Fonseca are fertile lowland plains, with soil highly enriched by ash from nearby volcanoes of the central highlands. Nicaragua's abundance of biologically significant and unique ecosystems contribute to Mesoamerica's designation as a biodiversity hotspot. Nicaragua has made efforts to become less dependent on fossil fuels, and it expects to acquire 90% of its energy from renewable resources by the year 2020.[115][116]
+
+Nearly one fifth of Nicaragua is designated as protected areas like national parks, nature reserves, and biological reserves. Geophysically, Nicaragua is surrounded by the Caribbean Plate, an oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Cocos Plate. Since Central America is a major subduction zone, Nicaragua hosts most of the Central American Volcanic Arc.
+
+In the west of the country, these lowlands consist of a broad, hot, fertile plain. Punctuating this plain are several large volcanoes of the Cordillera Los Maribios mountain range, including Mombacho just outside Granada, and Momotombo near León. The lowland area runs from the Gulf of Fonseca to Nicaragua's Pacific border with Costa Rica south of Lake Nicaragua. Lake Nicaragua is the largest freshwater lake in Central America (20th largest in the world),[117] and is home to some of the world's rare freshwater sharks (Nicaraguan shark).[118] The Pacific lowlands region is the most populous, with over half of the nation's population.
+
+The eruptions of western Nicaragua's 40 volcanoes, many of which are still active, have sometimes devastated settlements but also have enriched the land with layers of fertile ash. The geologic activity that produces vulcanism also breeds powerful earthquakes. Tremors occur regularly throughout the Pacific zone, and earthquakes have nearly destroyed the capital city, Managua, more than once.[119]
+
+Most of the Pacific zone is tierra caliente, the "hot land" of tropical Spanish America at elevations under 610 metres (2,000 ft). Temperatures remain virtually constant throughout the year, with highs ranging between 29.4 and 32.2 °C (85 and 90 °F). After a dry season lasting from November to April, rains begin in May and continue to October, giving the Pacific lowlands 1,016 to 1,524 millimetres (40 to 60 in) of precipitation. Good soils and a favourable climate combine to make western Nicaragua the country's economic and demographic centre. The southwestern shore of Lake Nicaragua lies within 24 kilometres (15 mi) of the Pacific Ocean. Thus the lake and the San Juan River were often proposed in the 19th century as the longest part of a canal route across the Central American isthmus. Canal proposals were periodically revived in the 20th and 21st centuries.[119][120] Roughly a century after the opening of the Panama Canal, the prospect of a Nicaraguan ecocanal remains a topic of interest.[121][122][123][124]
+
+In addition to its beach and resort communities, the Pacific lowlands contains most of Nicaragua's Spanish colonial architecture and artifacts. Cities such as León and Granada abound in colonial architecture; founded in 1524, Granada is the oldest colonial city in the Americas.[125]
+
+Northern Nicaragua is the most diversified region producing coffee, cattle, milk products, vegetables, wood, gold, and flowers. Its extensive forests, rivers and geography are suited for ecotourism.
+
+The central highlands are a significantly less populated and economically developed area in the north, between Lake Nicaragua and the Caribbean. Forming the country's tierra templada, or "temperate land", at elevations between 610 and 1,524 metres (2,000 and 5,000 ft), the highlands enjoy mild temperatures with daily highs of 23.9 to 26.7 °C (75 to 80 °F). This region has a longer, wetter rainy season than the Pacific lowlands, making erosion a problem on its steep slopes. Rugged terrain, poor soils, and low population density characterize the area as a whole, but the northwestern valleys are fertile and well settled.[119]
+
+The area has a cooler climate than the Pacific lowlands. About a quarter of the country's agriculture takes place in this region, with coffee grown on the higher slopes. Oaks, pines, moss, ferns and orchids are abundant in the cloud forests of the region.
+
+Bird life in the forests of the central region includes resplendent quetzals, goldfinches, hummingbirds, jays and toucanets.
+
+This large rainforest region is irrigated by several large rivers and is sparsely populated. The area has 57% of the territory of the nation and most of its mineral resources. It has been heavily exploited, but much natural diversity remains. The Rio Coco is the largest river in Central America; it forms the border with Honduras. The Caribbean coastline is much more sinuous than its generally straight Pacific counterpart; lagoons and deltas make it very irregular.[citation needed]
+
+Nicaragua's Bosawás Biosphere Reserve is in the Atlantic lowlands, part of which is located in the municipality of Siuna; it protects 7,300 square kilometres (1,800,000 acres) of La Mosquitia forest – almost 7% of the country's area – making it the largest rainforest north of the Amazon in Brazil.[126]
+
+The municipalities of Siuna, Rosita, and Bonanza, known as the "Mining Triangle", are located in the region known as the RAAN, in the Caribbean lowlands. Bonanza still contains an active gold mine owned by HEMCO. Siuna and Rosita do not have active mines but panning for gold is still very common in the region.[citation needed]
+
+Nicaragua's tropical east coast is very different from the rest of the country. The climate is predominantly tropical, with high temperature and high humidity. Around the area's principal city of Bluefields, English is widely spoken along with the official Spanish. The population more closely resembles that found in many typical Caribbean ports than the rest of Nicaragua.[127]
+
+A great variety of birds can be observed including eagles, toucans, parakeets and macaws. Other animal life in the area includes different species of monkeys, anteaters, white-tailed deer and tapirs.[128]
+
+Nicaragua is home to a rich variety of plants and animals. Nicaragua is located in the middle of the Americas and this privileged location has enabled the country to serve as host to a great biodiversity. This factor, along with the weather and light altitudinal variations, allows the country to harbor 248 species of amphibians and reptiles, 183 species of mammals, 705 bird species, 640 fish species, and about 5,796 species of plants.
+
+The region of great forests is located on the eastern side of the country. Rainforests are found in the Río San Juan Department and in the autonomous regions of RAAN and RAAS. This biome groups together the greatest biodiversity in the country and is largely protected by the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve in the south and the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve in the north. The Nicaraguan jungles, which represent about 9,700 square kilometres (2.4 million acres), are considered the lungs of Central America and comprise the second largest-sized rainforest of the Americas.[129][130]
+
+There are currently 78 protected areas in Nicaragua, covering more than 22,000 square kilometres (8,500 sq mi), or about 17% of its landmass. These include wildlife refuges and nature reserves that shelter a wide range of ecosystems. There are more than 1,400 animal species classified thus far in Nicaragua. Some 12,000 species of plants have been classified thus far in Nicaragua, with an estimated 5,000 species not yet classified.[131]
+
+The bull shark is a species of shark that can survive for an extended period of time in fresh water. It can be found in Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan River, where it is often referred to as the "Nicaragua shark".[132] Nicaragua has recently banned freshwater fishing of the Nicaragua shark and the sawfish in response to the declining populations of these animals.[133]
+
+Nicaragua was one of the few countries that did not enter an INDC at COP21.[134][135] Nicaragua initially chose not to join the Paris Climate Accord because it felt that "much more action is required" by individual countries on restricting global temperature rise.[115] However, in October 2017, Nicaragua made the decision to join the agreement.[136][137][138] It ratified this agreement on November 22, 2017.[139]
+
+Politics of Nicaragua takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Nicaragua is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the national assembly. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
+
+Between 2007 and 2009, Nicaragua's major political parties discussed the possibility of going from a presidential system to a parliamentary system. Their reason: there would be a clear differentiation between the head of government (prime minister) and the head of state (president). Nevertheless, it was later argued that the true reason behind this proposal was to find a legal way for President Ortega to stay in power after January 2012, when his second and last government period was expected to end. Ortega was reelected to a third term in November 2016.
+
+Nicaragua pursues an independent foreign policy. Nicaragua is in territorial disputes with Colombia over the Archipelago de San Andrés y Providencia and Quita Sueño Bank and with Costa Rica over a boundary dispute involving the San Juan River.
+
+The International Court of Justice, in regard to the case of Nicaragua v. United States in 1984, found that the United States was "in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State", "not to intervene in its affairs", "not to violate its sovereignty", "not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce".[94]
+
+The armed forces of Nicaragua consists of various military contingents. Nicaragua has an army, navy and an air force. There are roughly 14,000 active duty personnel, which is much less compared to the numbers seen during the Nicaraguan Revolution. Although the army has had a rough military history, a portion of its forces, which were known as the national guard, became integrated with what is now the National Police of Nicaragua. In essence, the police became a gendarmerie. The National Police of Nicaragua are rarely, if ever, labeled as a gendarmerie. The other elements and manpower that were not devoted to the national police were sent over to cultivate the new Army of Nicaragua.
+
+The age to serve in the armed forces is 17 and conscription is not imminent. As of 2006[update], the military budget was roughly 0.7% of Nicaragua's expenditures.
+
+In 2017, Nicaragua signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[140]
+
+The National Police of Nicaragua Force (in Spanish: La Policía Nacional Nicaragüense) is the national police of Nicaragua. The force is in charge of regular police functions and, at times, works in conjunction with the Nicaraguan military, making it an indirect and rather subtle version of a gendarmerie.[citation needed] However, the Nicaraguan National Police work separately and have a different established set of norms than the nation's military.[citation needed] According to a recent US Department of State report, corruption is endemic, especially within law enforcement and the judiciary, and arbitrary arrests, torture, and harsh prison conditions are the norm.[141]
+
+Nicaragua is the safest country in Central America and one of the safest in Latin America, according to the United Nations Development Program, with a homicide rate of 8.7 per 100,000 inhabitants.[142]
+
+Nicaragua is a unitary republic. For administrative purposes it is divided into 15 departments (departamentos) and two self-governing regions (autonomous communities) based on the Spanish model. The departments are then subdivided into 153 municipios (municipalities). The two autonomous regions are the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region
+and South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region, often referred to as RACCN and RACCS, respectively.[143]
+
+Nicaragua is among the poorest countries in the Americas.[144][145][146] Its gross domestic product (GDP) in purchasing power parity (PPP) in 2008 was estimated at US$17.37 billion.[4] Agriculture represents 15.5% of GDP, the highest percentage in Central America.[147] Remittances account for over 15% of the Nicaraguan GDP. Close to one billion dollars are sent to the country by Nicaraguans living abroad.[148] The economy grew at a rate of about 4% in 2011.[4] By 2019, given restrictive taxes and a civil conflict, it recorded a negative growth of - 3.9%; the International Monetary Fund forecast for 2020 is a further decline of 6% due to COVID-19.[149]
+
+The restrictive tax measures put in place in 2019 and a political crisis over social security negatively affected the country's weak public spending and investor confidence in sovereign debt. According to the update IMF forecasts from 14th April 2020, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19, GDP growth is expected to fall to -6% in 2020.
+
+According to the United Nations Development Programme, 48% of the population of Nicaragua live below the poverty line,[150] 79.9% of the population live with less than $2 per day,[151] According to UN figures, 80% of the indigenous people (who make up 5% of the population) live on less than $1 per day.[152]
+
+According to the World Bank, Nicaragua ranked as the 123rd out of 190 best economy for starting a business.[153] In 2007, Nicaragua's economy was labelled "62.7% free" by the Heritage Foundation, with high levels of fiscal, government, labor, investment, financial, and trade freedom.[154] It ranked as the 61st freest economy, and 14th (of 29) in the Americas.
+
+In March 2007, Poland and Nicaragua signed an agreement to write off 30.6 million dollars which was borrowed by the Nicaraguan government in the 1980s.[155] Inflation reduced from 33,500% in 1988 to 9.45% in 2006, and the foreign debt was cut in half.[156]
+
+Nicaragua is primarily an agricultural country; agriculture constitutes 60% of its total exports which annually yield approximately US$300 million.[157] Nearly two-thirds of the coffee crop comes from the northern part of the central highlands, in the area north and east of the town of Estelí.[119] Tobacco, grown in the same northern highlands region as coffee, has become an increasingly important cash crop since the 1990s, with annual exports of leaf and cigars in the neighborhood of $200 million per year.[158] Soil erosion and pollution from the heavy use of pesticides have become serious concerns in the cotton district. Yields and exports have both been declining since 1985.[119] Today most of Nicaragua's bananas are grown in the northwestern part of the country near the port of Corinto; sugarcane is also grown in the same district.[119] Cassava, a root crop somewhat similar to the potato, is an important food in tropical regions. Cassava is also the main ingredient in tapioca pudding.[119] Nicaragua's agricultural sector has benefited because of the country's strong ties to Venezuela. It is estimated that Venezuela will import approximately $200 million in agricultural goods.[159] In the 1990s, the government initiated efforts to diversify agriculture. Some of the new export-oriented crops were peanuts, sesame, melons, and onions.[119]
+
+Fishing boats on the Caribbean side bring shrimp as well as lobsters into processing plants at Puerto Cabezas, Bluefields, and Laguna de Perlas.[119] A turtle fishery thrived on the Caribbean coast before it collapsed from overexploitation.[119]
+
+Mining is becoming a major industry in Nicaragua,[160] contributing less than 1% of gross domestic product (GDP). Restrictions are being placed on lumbering due to increased environmental concerns about destruction of the rain forests. But lumbering continues despite these obstacles; indeed, a single hardwood tree may be worth thousands of dollars.[119]
+
+During the war between the US-backed Contras and the government of the Sandinistas in the 1980s, much of the country's infrastructure was damaged or destroyed.[161] Transportation throughout the nation is often inadequate. For example, it was until recently impossible to travel all the way by highway from Managua to the Caribbean coast. A new road between Nueva Guinea and Bluefields is almost complete (February 2019), and already allows a regular bus service to the capital.[119][failed verification] The Centroamérica power plant on the Tuma River in the Central highlands has been expanded, and other hydroelectric projects have been undertaken to help provide electricity to the nation's newer industries.[119] Nicaragua has long been considered as a possible site for a new sea-level canal that could supplement the Panama Canal.[119]
+
+Nicaragua's minimum wage is among the lowest in the Americas and in the world.[162][163][164][165] Remittances are equivalent to roughly 15% of the country's gross domestic product.[4] Growth in the maquila sector slowed in the first decade of the 21st century with rising competition from Asian markets, particularly China.[119] Land is the traditional basis of wealth in Nicaragua, with great fortunes coming from the export of staples such as coffee, cotton, beef, and sugar. Almost all of the upper class and nearly a quarter of the middle class are substantial landowners.
+
+A 1985 government study classified 69.4 percent of the population as poor on the basis that they were unable to satisfy one or more of their basic needs in housing, sanitary services (water, sewage, and garbage collection), education, and employment. The defining standards for this study were very low; housing was considered substandard if it was constructed of discarded materials with dirt floors or if it was occupied by more than four persons per room.
+
+Rural workers are dependent on agricultural wage labor, especially in coffee and cotton. Only a small fraction hold permanent jobs. Most are migrants who follow crops during the harvest period and find other work during the off-season. The "lower" peasants are typically smallholders without sufficient land to sustain a family; they also join the harvest labor force. The "upper" peasants have sufficient resources to be economically independent. They produce enough surplus, beyond their personal needs, to allow them to participate in the national and world markets.
+
+The urban lower class is characterized by the informal sector of the economy. The informal sector consists of small-scale enterprises that utilize traditional technologies and operate outside the legal regime of labor protections and taxation. Workers in the informal sector are self-employed, unsalaried family workers or employees of small-enterprises, and they are generally poor.
+
+Nicaragua's informal sector workers include tinsmiths, mattress makers, seamstresses, bakers, shoemakers, and carpenters; people who take in laundry and ironing or prepare food for sale in the streets; and thousands of peddlers, owners of small businesses (often operating out of their own homes), and market stall operators. Some work alone, but others labor in the small talleres (workshops/factories) that are responsible for a large share of the country's industrial production. Because informal sector earnings are generally very low, few families can subsist on one income.[166] Like most Latin American nations Nicaragua is also characterized by a very small upper-class, roughly 2% of the population, that is very wealthy and wields the political and economic power in the country that is not in the hands of foreign corporations and private industries. These families are oligarchical in nature and have ruled Nicaragua for generations and their wealth is politically and economically horizontally and vertically integrated.
+
+Nicaragua is currently a member of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, which is also known as ALBA. ALBA has proposed creating a new currency, the Sucre, for use among its members. In essence, this means that the Nicaraguan córdoba will be replaced with the Sucre. Other nations that will follow a similar pattern include: Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, Cuba, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda.[167]
+
+Nicaragua is considering construction of a canal linking the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, which President Daniel Ortega has said will give Nicaragua its "economic independence."[168] Scientists have raised concerns about environmental impacts, but the government has maintained that the canal will benefit the country by creating new jobs and potentially increasing its annual growth to an average of 8% per year.[169] The project was scheduled to begin construction in December 2014,[170] however the Nicaragua Canal has yet to be started.[171]
+
+By 2006, tourism had become the second largest industry in Nicaragua.[172] Previously, tourism had grown about 70% nationwide during a period of 7 years, with rates of 10%–16% annually.[173] The increase and growth led to the income from tourism to rise more than 300% over a period of 10 years.[174] The growth in tourism has also positively affected the agricultural, commercial, and finance industries, as well as the construction industry. President Daniel Ortega has stated his intention to use tourism to combat poverty throughout the country.[175] The results for Nicaragua's tourism-driven economy have been significant, with the nation welcoming one million tourists in a calendar year for the first time in its history in 2010.[176]
+
+Every year about 60,000 U.S. citizens visit Nicaragua, primarily business people, tourists, and those visiting relatives.[177] Some 5,300 people from the U.S. reside in Nicaragua. The majority of tourists who visit Nicaragua are from the U.S., Central or South America, and Europe. According to the Ministry of Tourism of Nicaragua (INTUR),[178] the colonial cities of León and Granada are the preferred spots for tourists. Also, the cities of Masaya, Rivas and the likes of San Juan del Sur, El Ostional, the Fortress of the Immaculate Conception, Ometepe Island, the Mombacho volcano, and the Corn Islands among other locations are the main tourist attractions. In addition, ecotourism, sport fishing and surfing attract many tourists to Nicaragua.
+
+According to the TV Noticias news program, the main attractions in Nicaragua for tourists are the beaches, the scenic routes, the architecture of cities such as León and Granada, ecotourism, and agritourism particularly in northern Nicaragua.[173] As a result of increased tourism, Nicaragua has seen its foreign direct investment increase by 79.1% from 2007 to 2009.[179]
+
+Nicaragua is referred to as "the land of lakes and volcanoes" due to the number of lagoons and lakes, and the chain of volcanoes that runs from the north to the south along the country's Pacific side.[10][11][180] Today, only 7 of the 50 volcanoes in Nicaragua are considered active. Many of these volcanoes offer some great possibilities for tourists with activities such as hiking, climbing, camping, and swimming in crater lakes.
+
+The Apoyo Lagoon Natural Reserve was created by the eruption of the Apoyo Volcano about 23,000 years ago, which left a huge 7 km-wide crater that gradually filled with water. It is surrounded by the old crater wall.[181] The rim of the lagoon is lined with restaurants, many of which have kayaks available. Besides exploring the forest around it, many water sports are practiced in the lagoon, most notably kayaking.[182]
+
+Sand skiing has become a popular attraction at the Cerro Negro volcano in León. Both dormant and active volcanoes can be climbed. Some of the most visited volcanoes include the Masaya Volcano, Momotombo, Mombacho, Cosigüina and Ometepe's Maderas and Concepción.
+
+Ecotourism aims to be ecologically and socially conscious; it focuses on local culture, wilderness, and adventure. Nicaragua's ecotourism is growing with every passing year.[183] It boasts a number of ecotourist tours and perfect places for adventurers. Nicaragua has three eco-regions (the Pacific, Central, and Atlantic) which contain volcanoes, tropical rainforests, and agricultural land.[184] The majority of the eco-lodges and other environmentally-focused touristic destinations are found on Ometepe Island,[185] located in the middle of Lake Nicaragua just an hour's boat ride from Granada. While some are foreign-owned, others are owned by local families.
+
+According to a 2014 research published in the journal Genetics and Molecular Biology, European ancestry predominates in 69% of Nicaraguans, followed by African ancestry in 20%, and lastly indigenous ancestry in 11%.[188] A Japanese research of "Genomic Components in America's demography" demonstrated that, on average, the ancestry of Nicaraguans is 58–62% European, 28% Native American, and 14% African, with a very small Near Eastern contribution.[189] Non-genetic data from the CIA World Factbook establish that from Nicaragua's 2016 population of 5,966,798, around 69% are mestizo, 17% white, 5% Native American, and 9% black and other races.[4] This fluctuates with changes in migration patterns. The population is 58% urban as of 2013[update].[190]
+
+The capital Managua is the biggest city, with an estimated population of 1,042,641 in 2016.[191] In 2005, over 5 million people lived in the Pacific, Central and North regions, and 700,000 in the Caribbean region.[192]
+
+There is a growing expatriate community,[193] the majority of whom move for business, investment or retirement from across the world, such as from the US, Canada, Taiwan, and European countries; the majority have settled in Managua, Granada and San Juan del Sur.
+
+Many Nicaraguans live abroad, particularly in Costa Rica, the United States, Spain, Canada, and other Central American countries.[194]
+
+Nicaragua has a population growth rate of 1.5% as of 2013[update].[195] This is the result of one of the highest birth rates in the Western Hemisphere:[citation needed] 17.7 per 1,000 as of 2017.[196] The death rate was 4.7 per 1,000 during the same period according to the United Nations.[197]
+
+The majority of the Nicaraguan population is composed of mestizos, roughly 69%. 17% of Nicaragua's population is of unmixed European stock, with the majority of them being of Spanish descent, while others are of German, Italian, English, Turkish, Danish or French ancestry.
+
+About 9% of Nicaragua's population is black and mainly resides on the country's Caribbean (or Atlantic) coast. The black population is mostly composed of black English-speaking Creoles who are the descendants of escaped or shipwrecked slaves; many carry the name of Scottish settlers who brought slaves with them, such as Campbell, Gordon, Downs, and Hodgeson. Although many Creoles supported Somoza because of his close association with the US, they rallied to the Sandinista cause in July 1979 only to reject the revolution soon afterwards in response to a new phase of 'westernization' and imposition of central rule from Managua.[198] There is a smaller number of Garifuna, a people of mixed West African, Carib and Arawak descent. In the mid-1980s, the government divided the Zelaya Department – consisting of the eastern half of the country – into two autonomous regions and granted the black and indigenous people of this region limited self-rule within the republic.
+
+
+
+The remaining 5% of Nicaraguans are indigenous, the descendants of the country's original inhabitants. Nicaragua's pre-Columbian population consisted of many indigenous groups. In the western region, the Nahua (Pipil-Nicarao) people were present along with other groups such as the Chorotega people and the Subtiabas (also known as Maribios or Hokan Xiu). The central region and the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua were inhabited by indigenous peoples who were Macro-Chibchan language groups that had migrated to and from South America in ancient times, primarily what is now Colombia and Venezuela. These groups include the present-day Matagalpas, Miskitos, Ramas, as well as Mayangnas and Ulwas who are also known as Sumos.[23]:20 In the 19th century, there was a substantial indigenous minority, but this group was largely assimilated culturally into the mestizo majority.
+
+Nicaraguan Spanish has many indigenous influences and several distinguishing characteristics. For example, some Nicaraguans have a tendency to replace /s/ with /h/ when speaking.[199] Although Spanish is spoken throughout, the country has great variety: vocabulary, accents and colloquial language can vary between towns and departments.[200]
+
+On the Caribbean coast, indigenous languages, English-based creoles, and Spanish are spoken. The Miskito language, spoken by the Miskito people as a first language and some other indigenous and Afro-descendants people as a second, third, or fourth language, is the most commonly spoken indigenous language. The indigenous Misumalpan languages of Mayangna and Ulwa are spoken by the respective peoples of the same names. Many Miskito, Mayangna, and Ulwa people also speak Miskito Coast Creole, and a large majority also speak Spanish. Fewer than three dozen of nearly 2,000 Rama people speak their Chibchan language fluently, with nearly all Ramas speaking Rama Cay Creole and the vast majority speaking Spanish. Linguists have attempted to document and revitalize the language over the past three decades.[201]
+
+The Garifuna people, descendants of indigenous and Afro-descendant people who came to Nicaragua from Honduras in the early twentieth century, have recently attempted to revitalize their Arawakan language. The majority speak Miskito Coast Creole as their first language and Spanish as their second. The Creole or Kriol people, descendants of enslaved Africans brought to the Mosquito Coast during the British colonial period and European, Chinese, Arab, and British West Indian immigrants, also speak Miskito Coast Creole as their first language and Spanish as their second.[202]
+
+Religion plays a significant part of the culture of Nicaragua and is afforded special protections in the constitution. Religious freedom, which has been guaranteed since 1939, and religious tolerance are promoted by the government and the constitution.
+
+Nicaragua has no official religion. Catholic bishops are expected to lend their authority to important state occasions, and their pronouncements on national issues are closely followed. They can be called upon to mediate between contending parties at moments of political crisis.[203] In 1979, Miguel D'Escoto Brockman, a priest who had embraced Liberation Theology, served in the government as foreign minister when the Sandinistas came to power. The largest denomination, and traditionally the religion of the majority, is the Roman Catholic Church. It came to Nicaragua in the 16th century with the Spanish conquest and remained, until 1939, the established faith.
+
+The number of practicing Roman Catholics has been declining, while membership of evangelical Protestant groups and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) has been growing rapidly since the 1990s. There is a significant LDS missionary effort in Nicaragua. There are two missions and 95,768 members of the LDS Church (1.54% of the population).[204] There are also strong Anglican and Moravian communities on the Caribbean coast in what once constituted the sparsely populated Mosquito Coast colony. It was under British influence for nearly three centuries. Protestantism was brought to the Mosquito Coast mainly by British and German colonists in forms of Anglicanism and the Moravian Church. Other kinds of Protestant and other Christian denominations were introduced to the rest of Nicaragua during the 19th century.
+
+Popular religion revolves around the saints, who are perceived as intercessors between human beings and God. Most localities, from the capital of Managua to small rural communities, honour patron saints, selected from the Roman Catholic calendar, with annual fiestas. In many communities, a rich lore has grown up around the celebrations of patron saints, such as Managua's Saint Dominic (Santo Domingo), honoured in August with two colourful, often riotous, day-long processions through the city. The high point of Nicaragua's religious calendar for the masses is neither Christmas nor Easter, but La Purísima, a week of festivities in early December dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, during which elaborate altars to the Virgin Mary are constructed in homes and workplaces.[203]
+
+Buddhism has increased with a steady influx of immigration.[205]
+
+Relative to its population, Nicaragua has not experienced large waves of immigration. The number of immigrants in Nicaragua, from other Latin American countries or other countries, never surpassed 1% of its total population before 1995. The 2005 census showed the foreign-born population at 1.2%, having risen a mere .06% in 10 years.[192]
+
+In the 19th century, Nicaragua experienced modest waves of immigration from Europe. In particular, families from Germany, Italy, Spain, France and Belgium immigrated to Nicaragua, particularly the departments in the Central and Pacific region.
+
+Also present is a small Middle Eastern-Nicaraguan community of Syrians, Armenians, Jewish Nicaraguans, and Lebanese people in Nicaragua. This community numbers about 30,000. There is an East Asian community mostly consisting of Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese. The Chinese Nicaraguan population is estimated at around 12,000.[206] The Chinese arrived in the late 19th century but were unsubstantiated until the 1920s.
+
+The Civil War forced many Nicaraguans to start lives outside of their country. Many people emigrated during the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century due to the lack of employment opportunities and poverty. The majority of the Nicaraguan Diaspora migrated to the United States and Costa Rica. Today one in six Nicaraguans live in these two countries.[207]
+
+The diaspora has seen Nicaraguans settling around in smaller communities in other parts of the world, particularly Western Europe. Small communities of Nicaraguans are found in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Communities also exist in Australia and New Zealand. Canada, Brazil and Argentina host small groups of these communities. In Asia, Japan hosts a small Nicaraguan community.
+
+Due to extreme poverty at home, many Nicaraguans are now living and working in neighboring El Salvador, a country that has the US dollar as currency.[208][209]
+
+Although Nicaragua's health outcomes have improved over the past few decades with the efficient utilization of resources relative to other Central American nations, healthcare in Nicaragua still confronts challenges responding to its populations' diverse healthcare needs.[210]
+
+The Nicaraguan government guarantees universal free health care for its citizens.[211] However, limitations of current delivery models and unequal distribution of resources and medical personnel contribute to the persistent lack of quality care in more remote areas of Nicaragua, especially among rural communities in the Central and Atlantic region.[210] To respond to the dynamic needs of localities, the government has adopted a decentralized model that emphasizes community-based preventive and primary medical care.[212]
+
+The adult literacy rate in 2005 was 78.0%.[213]
+
+Primary education is free in Nicaragua. A system of private schools exists, many of which are religiously affiliated and often have more robust English programs.[214] As of 1979, the educational system was one of the poorest in Latin America.[215] One of the first acts of the newly elected Sandinista government in 1980 was an extensive and successful literacy campaign, using secondary school students, university students and teachers as volunteer teachers: it reduced the overall illiteracy rate from 50.3% to 12.9% within only five months.[216] This was one of a number of large-scale programs which received international recognition for their gains in literacy, health care, education, childcare, unions, and land reform.[217][218] The Sandinistas also added a leftist ideological content to the curriculum, which was removed after 1990.[119] In September 1980, UNESCO awarded Nicaragua the Soviet Union sponsored Nadezhda Krupskaya award for the literacy campaign.[219]
+
+When it comes to gender equality in Latin America, Nicaragua ranks high among the other countries in the region.[220] When it came to global rankings regarding gender equality, the World Economic Forum ranked Nicaragua at number twelve in 2015,[220] and in its 2020 report Nicaragua ranked number five, behind only northern European countries.[221]
+
+Nicaragua was among the many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which aimed to promote women's rights.[222]
+
+In 2009, a Special Ombudsman for Sexual Diversity position was created within its Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman. And, in 2014, the Health Ministry in 2014 banned discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.[223]  Nevertheless, discrimination against LGBTQ individuals is common, particularly in housing, education, and the workplace.[224]
+
+The Human Development Report ranked Nicaragua 106 out of 160 countries in the Gender Inequality Index (GII) in 2017. It reflects gender-based inequalities in three dimensions - reproductive health, empowerment, and economic activity.[225]
+
+Nicaraguan culture has strong folklore, music and religious traditions, deeply influenced by European culture but also including Native American sounds and flavors. Nicaraguan culture can further be defined in several distinct strands. The Pacific coast has strong folklore, music and religious traditions, deeply influenced by Europeans. It was colonized by Spain and has a similar culture to other Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. The indigenous groups that historically inhabited the Pacific coast have largely been assimilated into the mestizo culture.
+
+The Caribbean coast of Nicaragua was once a British protectorate. English is still predominant in this region and spoken domestically along with Spanish and indigenous languages. Its culture is similar to that of Caribbean nations that were or are British possessions, such as Jamaica, Belize, the Cayman Islands, etc. Unlike on the west coast, the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean coast have maintained distinct identities, and some still speak their native languages as first languages.
+
+Nicaraguan music is a mixture of indigenous and Spanish influences. Musical instruments include the marimba and others common across Central America. The marimba of Nicaragua is played by a sitting performer holding the instrument on his knees. He is usually accompanied by a bass fiddle, guitar and guitarrilla (a small guitar like a mandolin). This music is played at social functions as a sort of background music.
+
+The marimba is made with hardwood plates placed over bamboo or metal tubes of varying lengths. It is played with two or four hammers. The Caribbean coast of Nicaragua is known for a lively, sensual form of dance music called Palo de Mayo which is popular throughout the country. It is especially loud and celebrated during the Palo de Mayo festival in May. The Garifuna community (Afro-Native American) is known for its popular music called Punta.
+
+Nicaragua enjoys a variety of international influence in the music arena. Bachata, Merengue, Salsa and Cumbia have gained prominence in cultural centres such as Managua, Leon and Granada. Cumbia dancing has grown popular with the introduction of Nicaraguan artists, including Gustavo Leyton, on Ometepe Island and in Managua. Salsa dancing has become extremely popular in Managua's nightclubs. With various influences, the form of salsa dancing varies in Nicaragua. New York style and Cuban Salsa (Salsa Casino) elements have gained popularity across the country.
+
+Dance in Nicaragua varies depending upon the region. Rural areas tend to have a stronger focus on movement of the hips and turns. The dance style in cities focuses primarily on more sophisticated footwork in addition to movement and turns. Combinations of styles from the Dominican Republic and the United States can be found throughout Nicaragua. Bachata dancing is popular in Nicaragua. A considerable amount of Bachata dancing influence comes from Nicaraguans living abroad, in cities that include Miami, Los Angeles and, to a much lesser extent, New York City. Tango has also surfaced recently in cultural cities and ballroom dance occasions.
+
+The origin of Nicaraguan literature can arguably be traced to pre-Columbian times. The myths and oral literature formed the cosmogenic view of the world of the indigenous people. Some of these stories are still known in Nicaragua. Like many Latin American countries, the Spanish conquerors have had the most effect on both the culture and the literature. Nicaraguan literature has historically been an important source of poetry in the Spanish-speaking world, with internationally renowned contributors such as Rubén Darío who is regarded as the most important literary figure in Nicaragua. He is called the "Father of Modernism" for leading the modernismo literary movement at the end of the 19th century.[227] Other literary figures include Carlos Martinez Rivas, Pablo Antonio Cuadra, Alberto Cuadra Mejia, Manolo Cuadra, Pablo Alberto Cuadra Arguello, Orlando Cuadra Downing, Alfredo Alegría Rosales, Sergio Ramirez Mercado, Ernesto Cardenal, Gioconda Belli, Claribel Alegría and José Coronel Urtecho, among others.[228]
+
+The satirical drama El Güegüense was the first literary work of post-Columbian Nicaragua. Written in both Aztec Nahuatl and Spanish it is regarded as one of Latin America's most distinctive colonial-era expressions and as Nicaragua's signature folkloric masterpiece, a work of resistance to Spanish colonialism that combined music, dance and theatre.[227] The theatrical play was written by an anonymous author in the 16th century, making it one of the oldest indigenous theatrical/dance works of the Western Hemisphere. In 2005 it was recognized by UNESCO as "a patrimony of humanity".[229] After centuries of popular performance, the play was first published in a book in 1942.[230]
+
+Nicaraguan cuisine is a mixture of Spanish food and dishes of a pre-Columbian origin.[231] Traditional cuisine changes from the Pacific to the Caribbean coast. The Pacific coast's main staple revolves around local fruits and corn, the Caribbean coast cuisine makes use of seafood and the coconut.
+
+As in many other Latin American countries, maize is a staple food and is used in many of the widely consumed dishes, such as the nacatamal, and indio viejo. Maize is also an ingredient for drinks such as pinolillo and chicha as well as sweets and desserts. In addition to corn, rice and beans are eaten very often.
+
+Gallo pinto, Nicaragua's national dish, is made with white rice and red beans that are cooked individually and then fried together. The dish has several variations including the addition of coconut milk and/or grated coconut on the Caribbean coast. Most Nicaraguans begin their day with gallo pinto. Gallo pinto is most usually served with carne asada, a salad, fried cheese, plantains or maduros.
+
+Many of Nicaragua's dishes include indigenous fruits and vegetables such as jocote, mango, papaya, tamarindo, pipian, banana, avocado, yuca, and herbs such as cilantro, oregano and achiote.[231]
+
+Traditional street food snacks found in Nicaragua include "quesillo", a thick tortilla with soft cheese and cream, "tajadas", deep-fried plantain chips, "maduros", sautéed ripe plantain, and "fresco", fresh juices such as hibiscus and tamarind commonly served in a plastic bag with a straw.[232]
+
+Nicaraguans have been known to eat guinea pigs,[233] known as cuy. Tapirs, iguanas, turtle eggs, armadillos and boas are also sometimes eaten, but because of extinction threats to these wild creatures, there are efforts to curb this custom.[231]
+
+For most Nicaraguans radio and TV are the main sources of news. There are more than 100 radio stations and several TV networks. Cable TV is available in most urban areas.[234]
+
+The Nicaraguan print media are varied and partisan, representing pro and anti-government positions. Publications include La Prensa, El Nuevo Diario, Confidencial, Hoy, and Mercurio. Online news publications include Confidencial and The Nicaragua Dispatch.
+
+Baseball is the most popular sport in Nicaragua. Although some professional Nicaraguan baseball teams have recently folded, the country still enjoys a strong tradition of American-style baseball.
+
+Baseball was introduced to Nicaragua during the 19th century. In the Caribbean coast, locals from Bluefields were taught how to play baseball in 1888 by Albert Addlesberg, a retailer from the United States.[235] Baseball did not catch on in the Pacific coast until 1891 when a group of mostly college students from the United States formed "La Sociedad de Recreo" (Society of Recreation) where they played various sports, baseball being the most popular.[235]
+
+Nicaragua has had its share of MLB players, including shortstop Everth Cabrera and pitcher Vicente Padilla, but the most notable is Dennis Martínez, who was the first baseball player from Nicaragua to play in Major League Baseball.[236] He became the first Latin-born pitcher to throw a perfect game, and the 13th in the major league history, when he played with the Montreal Expos against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium in 1991.[237]
+
+Boxing is the second most popular sport in Nicaragua.[238] The country has had world champions such as Alexis Argüello and Ricardo Mayorga as well as Román González. Recently, football has gained popularity. The Dennis Martínez National Stadium has served as a venue for both baseball and football. The first ever national football-only stadium in Managua, the Nicaragua National Football Stadium, was completed in 2011.[239]
+
+Coordinates: 13°8′N 85°7′W / 13.133°N 85.117°W / 13.133; -85.117

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+Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty (born December 8, 1982), known professionally as Nicki Minaj (/mɪˈnɑːʒ/), is a Trinidadian-born rapper, singer, songwriter, actress, and model.[3] Born in the Saint James district of Port of Spain and raised in the Queens borough of New York City, she gained public recognition after releasing the mixtapes Playtime Is Over (2007), Sucka Free (2008), and Beam Me Up Scotty (2009).
+
+Early in her career, Minaj was known for her colorful costumes and wigs. Her rapping is distinctive for its fast flow and the use of alter egos and accents, primarily British cockney.[4] After signing with Young Money Entertainment in 2009, Minaj released her first studio album, Pink Friday (2010), which peaked at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[5] Her second album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, was released in 2012 and debuted atop the charts in several countries. Minaj made her film debut in the 2012 animated film Ice Age: Continental Drift. In 2013, she was a judge on the twelfth season of American Idol. Minaj's third studio album, The Pinkprint, was released in 2014. She subsequently played supporting roles in the films The Other Woman (2014) and Barbershop: The Next Cut (2016). Her fourth studio album, Queen, was released in 2018.
+
+Cited as one of the most influential female rap artists of all time,[4][6][7] Minaj has accumulated the most entries among women of all genres on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She has topped the Hot 100 twice, as a featured artist on the remix of Doja Cat's "Say So" and as a lead artist for her collaboration with 6ix9ine, "Trollz", both in 2020. She has additionally earned multiple top-five entries on the Hot 100 as a lead artist: "Super Bass" in 2011, "Starships" in 2012, and "Bang Bang" and "Anaconda", both in 2014. Minaj was ranked 15th on Billboard's list of the top artists of the 2010s, being the highest female rap artist on the list.[8]
+
+Minaj has sold an estimated 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the world's best selling music artists.[9] Throughout her career, Minaj has received numerous accolades, including six American Music Awards, twelve BET Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, and two Billboard Women in Music Awards. She has also been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards. In 2016, Minaj was included on the annual Time list of the 100 most influential people in the world.[10]
+
+Onika Tanya Maraj was born in Saint James on December 8, 1982,[11][12] Her father, Robert Maraj, a financial executive and part-time gospel singer, is of Dougla (Afro-Trinidadian mother and Indo-Trinidadian father) descent.[13][14] Her mother, Carol Maraj, is also a gospel singer with Afro-Trinidadian ancestry.[15][13] Carol worked in payroll and accounting departments during Minaj's youth.[16][17] Minaj's father was addicted to alcohol and other drugs, and had a violent temper, burning down their house in December 1987.[18] She has an elder brother named Jelani, an older sister named Maya, a younger brother named Micaiah, and a younger sister named Ming.[19]
+
+As a small child, Minaj and a sibling lived with her grandmother in Saint James.[13][18] Her mother, who had moved to the Bronx in New York City to attend Monroe College,[18] brought the family to Queens when Minaj was five.[13] By then, the family had a house on 147th Street.[18] Minaj recalled, "I don't think I had a lot of discipline in my household. My mom motivated me, but it wasn't a strict household. I kind of wanted a strict household."[20]  Minaj successfully auditioned for admission to Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, which focuses on visual and performing arts.[11] After graduation, Minaj wanted to become an actress, and she was cast in the Off-Broadway play In Case You Forget in 2001.[21]
+
+At the age of 19, as she struggled with her acting career, she worked as a waitress at a Red Lobster in the Bronx, but was fired for discourtesy to customers.[22] She said she was fired from "at least 15 jobs" for similar reasons.[23]
+
+Minaj briefly signed with Brooklyn group Full Force, in which she rapped in a quartet called The Hoodstars composed of Lou$tar (son of "Bowlegged Lou"), Safaree Samuels (Scaff Beezy) and 7even Up.[24][25] In 2004, the group recorded the entrance song for WWE Diva Victoria, "Don't Mess With", which was featured on the compilation album ThemeAddict: WWE The Music, Vol.6. Minaj later left Full Force and uploaded songs on her Myspace profile, sending several of her songs to people in the music industry. At the time, she was managed by Debra Antney. Later, Fendi, CEO of Brooklyn label Dirty Money Entertainment, signed Minaj to his label in 2007 under a 180-day contract.[26] Originally adopting the stage name Nicki Maraj, she eventually changed it to Nicki Minaj stating that "my real name is Maraj. Fendi flipped it when he met me because I had such a nasty flow!"[27]
+
+Minaj released her first mixtape, Playtime Is Over, on July 5, 2007,[28] and her second, Sucka Free, on April 12, 2008.[29] That year, she was named Female Artist of the Year at the 2008 Underground Music Awards.[30] She released her third mixtape, Beam Me Up Scotty, on April 18, 2009;[31] it received favorable coverage on BET and MTV.[32][33] One of its tracks, "I Get Crazy", reached number 20 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart and number 37 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.[34] After Minaj was discovered by fellow rapper Lil Wayne,[35] in August 2009 it was reported that she signed a recording contract with his Young Money Entertainment.[36] That November, she appeared with Gucci Mane and Trina on the remix of "5 Star Bitch" by Yo Gotti.[37] Minaj also appeared on "BedRock" and "Roger That"[38] on the compilation album, We Are Young Money (2009).[39] The singles peaked at numbers two and 56, respectively, on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100;[40] their parent album reached number-nine on the U.S. Billboard 200, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[40][41] At Jay-Z's suggestion, Robin Thicke featured Minaj on his single "Shakin' It 4 Daddy".[42]
+
+On March 29, 2010, Minaj released "Massive Attack".[43] Intended as the lead single from her forthcoming debut album, Pink Friday,[44] the song was dropped from the album due to poor commercial performance[45] and the next single, "Your Love", released on June 1, became the album's lead single,[46] peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number-one on the Billboard Rap Songs chart.[34] In September, Minaj released "Check It Out" and "Right Thru Me" as follow-up singles.[47][48] She also became the first female rap artist to ever perform at Yankee Stadium in 2010.[49] In October, Minaj became the first female solo artist to have seven songs on the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously and the first woman to appear on MTV's Annual Hottest MC List.[50][51] In 2010, Minaj received her first Grammy Award nomination for her guest verse on Ludacris' song "My Chick Bad".[52]
+
+Pink Friday was released on November 19, 2010,[53] debuting at number-two on the Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 375,000 copies.[54] Upon release, the album received generally positive reviews from critics. Sam Wolfson of NME complimented Minaj's "pop sensibility" and found her "volatility and quirks ... reminiscent of heyday Lil Wayne".[55] Entertainment Weekly's Brad Wete commended Minaj's "knack for melody" and "boasting lyrics".[56] Allison Stewart of The Washington Post wrote that the album "nibbles at the edges of what female rappers are allowed to do, even as it provides a steady helping of pop hits".[57] The album was certified platinum in December, and eventually reached number-one in the United States in February 2011.[58]
+
+"Moment 4 Life" was released as the fourth single from Pink Friday shortly after the album's release.[59] The song serves as the third single off the album, released as a single on December 7, 2010. Minaj performed "Right Thru Me" and "Moment 4 Life" as the musical guest on the January 29, 2011 episode of Saturday Night Live.[60] "Super Bass", the album's fifth single, was released in April 2011,[61] and became a sleeper hit and commercial success; it ultimately peaked at number-three on the Billboard Hot 100 and was eventually certified octuple-platinum in the U.S.[34][62]
+
+Minaj was one of the opening acts on Britney Spears' 2011 Femme Fatale Tour.[63] She and Kesha appeared on the remix of Spears' "Till the World Ends", which peaked at number-three on the Billboard Hot 100.[64] On August 7, 2011, Nicki experienced a "nip slip" during a live performance on Good Morning America. Minaj was criticized for wearing the low-cut shirt during her performance which led to the brief exposure of her breast on a live telecast. ABC apologized for incident.[65] Minaj, while interviewed on ABC's Nightline show, apologized for the incident and denied that she intentionally sought to expose herself on live television as a publicity stunt.[66] The incident attracted protest from the Parents Television Council.[67] Despite this, Minaj continued to perform at high-profile events throughout 2011; Donatella Versace invited her to perform with Prince for the introduction of a Versace collection for H&M, and she performed "Super Bass" at the 2011 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.[68] In December 2011, Minaj was nominated for three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist and Best Rap Album for Pink Friday.[69] Also that year, she won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Hip-Hop Video for "Super Bass", marking her first VMA win.[70]
+
+"Starships" was released in February 2012 as the lead single from Minaj's forthcoming second album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded.[71] The song reached number-five on the Billboard Hot 100,[34] and went on to become the fifth best-selling single of 2012 and one of the best-selling singles of all time.[72] Minaj's crossover into pop music was criticized by some, despite her commercial success.[73] Minaj was sued by Chicago artist Clive Tanaka in September 2013 for its alleged copyright infringement.[74] Follow-up singles "Beez in the Trap" and "Right by My Side" were released shortly after.[75][76] Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded was eventually released on April 2, 2012, two months later than planned.[77] The album was preceded by the promotional singles "Roman in Moscow" and "Stupid Hoe".[78][79] The album debuted at number-one on the Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 253,000 copies,[54] and was certified platinum by the RIAA in June 2012.[80] However, its mix of hip-hop songs and mainstream pop material received mixed reviews from music critics.[81] Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times commended its "minimal, bouncy hip-hop tracks" for highlighting Minaj's "charm and achievement", but wrote that the "disjointed, artistically confused" album "drives off a cliff" with "dance pop songs as simple as they are generic".[82] Slant Magazine's Matthew Cole panned it as a "mediocre rap album".[83] In a positive review for Rolling Stone, journalist Jody Rosen called it a "filler-free mega-pop album" and commented that "the energy never flags".[84] "Pound the Alarm" and "Va Va Voom" were later released as the final singles from the album.[85][86]
+
+Minaj and rapper M.I.A. joined Madonna to perform the single, "Give Me All Your Luvin'", during the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show on February 6, 2012.[87] Minaj was the first solo female rapper to perform at the Grammy Awards, premiering "Roman Holiday" during the 2012 ceremony on February 12.[88] Her exorcism-themed performance was controversial, with the American Catholic League criticizing Minaj for bringing a fake "Pope" to escort her on the red carpet. The "exorcism" scene that was performed during her appearance was criticized as well.[89][90] Catholic League president Bill Donohue called Minaj's performance "vulgar".[90][91]
+
+Minaj began her headlining Pink Friday Tour on May 16, 2012,[92] which was followed by the Pink Friday: Reloaded Tour beginning October 14, 2012.[93] Although she was scheduled to headline the June 3 Hot 97 Summer Jam at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, at the request of Lil Wayne she canceled her appearance the day of the show after Peter Rosenberg of the station dismissed her single "Starships" as "not real hip-hop".[94]
+
+The following month, Minaj voiced Steffie in the animated film Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012).[95] She won awards for Best Female Video (for "Starships") at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards and Best Hip-Hop at the 2012 MTV Europe Music Awards.[96] Her collaboration with Pearl Future on the song "Looking At Me" made it to the top 20 in BBC Radio 1.[97] An expanded version of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, subtitled The Re-Up, was released on November 19, 2012.[98] That month, Minaj was the subject of a three-part E! documentary titled Nicki Minaj: My Truth.[99] She announced plans for her own record label after signing Parker Ighile, Brinx, Keisha, and Blackout Movement.[100]
+
+In September, Minaj joined the judges' panel for the twelfth season of American Idol with Mariah Carey, Keith Urban, and Randy Jackson.[101] In 2012, Minaj was a big contributor in help with raising $250 million for an AIDS campaign. She worked alongside Ricky Martin to advocate MAC Cosmetics' Viva Glam[102] products in which the earnings went right to the MAC AIDS fund.[103] That year, Minaj was the most-charted female rapper in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, with 44 entries, tying Mariah Carey among women of all genres.[104] Her seven nominations led those for rap musicians at the 2013 Billboard Music Awards,[105] and she was the first rapper to win the BET Best Female Hip-Hop Artist Award four consecutive times.[106] Before any other female artist, she was on the Forbes Hip-Hop Cash King List where she was ranked fourth in 2013, earning $29 million.[107]
+
+Minaj's first live-action theatrical film The Other Woman was filmed in spring 2013 and premiered on April 25, 2014.[108] She played Lydia, assistant to Carly (played by Cameron Diaz).[109][110] In 2013, Minaj described her then-forthcoming third album, The Pinkprint, as "a continuation of The Re-Up with a lot more" and said it would focus on her "hip-hop roots".[111][112] During an MTV interview, she said that her third album would be "next level" and that she has "much to talk about".[113]
+
+In February 2014, Malcolm X's daughter Ilyasah Shabazz voiced her displeasure by the artwork of her slain father used "inappropriately" for Minaj's single "Lookin' Ass Nigga".[114] A statement from the Malcolm X estate read: "Ms. Minaj's artwork for her single does not depict the truth of Malcolm X's legacy, is completely disrespectful, and in no way is endorsed by [Shabazz or the Malcolm X] family."[114] Minaj released an apology to the estate,[114] however the rapper received backlash after remarks were made towards Shabazz in a mixtape recording ("Chi-Raq") that went: "Malcolm X daughter came at me/lookin' ass niggas ain't happy/rolled out with some Latin Kings and some eses in them plain khaki's."[115]
+
+"Pills n Potions" was released as the lead single from The Pinkprint in May 2014.[116] "Anaconda" was released in August as the second single, peaking at number-two on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her highest-charting single in the U.S. to date.[117][118] The music video for "Anaconda" attracted significant controversy and went viral upon release online; it set a 24-hour Vevo record, accumulating 19.6 million views on its first day of release, breaking the record previously held by Miley Cyrus for "Wrecking Ball".[119] In December of that year, Minaj received two Grammy Award nominations, for Best Rap Song ("Anaconda") and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance ("Bang Bang" with Jessie J and Ariana Grande).[120]
+
+The Pinkprint was officially released on December 15, 2014, and debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200, with first week sales of 244,000 equivalent units (198,000 in pure album sales and 46,000 combined album-equivalent units and streams).[121][122] Upon release, the album received generally positive reviews from critics. Billboard magazine's Niki McGloster called it "her best album to date".[123] Sheldon Pearce of The A.V. Club thought that The Pinkprint is "the closest Nicki Minaj has ever gotten to balancing her tendencies".[124] Randall Roberts from the Los Angeles Times wrote that throughout the album, "she's intent on channeling her talent to explore and document her many moods. The combination is often, if not always, intoxicating".[125] At the 58th Grammy Awards, Minaj received three more Grammy Award nominations, including a second Best Rap Album nomination for The Pinkprint.[126]
+
+In November 2014, Minaj released a video containing Nazi-style imagery for her third single "Only". There was immediate backlash from the Anti Defamation League, who stated that it was "troubling that no one among Minaj's group of producers, publicists and managers raised a red flag about the use of such imagery before ushering the video into public release." They called the video "insensitive to Holocaust survivors and a trivialization of the history of that era."[127][128]
+
+On November 9, 2014, Minaj hosted the 2014 MTV Europe Music Awards at The SSE Hydro, Glasgow, Scotland.[129] She also won the Best Hip-Hop Award for a second time.[129] In March 2015, Minaj embarked on her third world tour entitled The Pinkprint Tour and also became the first female artist to chart four songs simultaneously in the top 10 of Billboard's Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop airplay chart.[130] At the 2015 BET Awards, Minaj won her sixth consecutive award for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist, becoming the female rapper with most wins in that category.[131]
+
+In September 2015, it was announced that Minaj would executive produce and appear in a scripted single-camera comedy series for ABC Family (now Freeform) based on her life growing up in Queens, New York.[132] The show was titled Nicki and the pilot episode was filmed in Minaj's hometown in January 2016.[132] In October 2016, Minaj stated the filming was postponed for undisclosed reasons.[133]
+
+In May 2015, it was announced that Minaj would feature in the third installment of the Barbershop film series, alongside Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, Eve, and other original cast members.[134] Titled Barbershop: The Next Cut, the film was released on April 15, 2016, and received critical acclaim, earning an average score of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes; the site's critical consensus reads, "Heartfelt, thought-provoking, and above all funny, Barbershop: The Next Cut is the rare belated sequel that more than lives up to the standard set by its predecessors."[135] Minaj's character in the film is a "sassy" hairdresser named Draya.[134] For her performance, she was nominated for a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress: Comedy.[136]
+
+In February 2017, Minaj was featured on Jason Derulo's single "Swalla",[137] which reached the top ten in several countries, including a peak of number six in the UK singles chart.[138] The following month, Minaj signed with the major modeling agency, Wilhelmina Models.[139] On March 20, 2017, when her singles "No Frauds", "Changed It", and "Regret in Your Tears" were released simultaneously, Minaj broke the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 entries for a female artist, which was previously held by Aretha Franklin.[140] In May, Minaj opened the 2017 Billboard Music Awards with a medley performance that was described by a Rolling Stone writer as "flamboyantly produced" and "dexterous".[141]
+
+Throughout the remainder of 2017, Minaj performed guest verses on several singles, including Migos' "MotorSport" and Yo Gotti's "Rake It Up", both of which peaked inside the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, at numbers six and eight, respectively.[142] She also featured on Katy Perry's "Swish Swish", which peaked at 46 on the chart and was certified platinum in the US and Canada.[143]
+
+Minaj officially announced her fourth album, Queen, on the red carpet at the 2018 Met Gala; the album was scheduled to be released on June 15, 2018.[144] Its lead single, "Chun-Li", was released on April 12, 2018, and peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.[145] Another single, "Barbie Tingz", was also released alongside "Chun-Li", but ultimately did not make the final album cut. It is, however, included on the Target version of the album.[146] A promotional single, "Rich Sex", featuring American rapper Lil Wayne, was released on June 11, 2018.[147] The album's second single, "Bed", featuring Ariana Grande, was released on June 14, 2018 alongside the album pre-order, and peaked at number 42 on the Hot 100.[148][147][149]
+
+On May 19, 2018, Minaj was the musical guest for the finale of the 43rd season of Saturday Night Live; the show was hosted by Tina Fey and Minaj performed "Chun-Li" and "Poke It Out", alongside rapper Playboi Carti.[150] Minaj later announced via her Instagram account that she was pushing back the release date of Queen from June 15 to August 10, 2018.[151] In early June 2018, Minaj released the cover art for the album on Twitter, shot by Mert and Marcus, which features Minaj topless, wearing pasties, with a Cleopatra-inspired head-dress,[152][153] and revealed that her next tour would be a double-header with rapper Future.[154] On June 23, 2018, she performed a medley of "Chun-Li" and "Rich Sex" at the 2018 BET Awards.[155]
+
+On July 22, 2018, Tekashi 6ix9ine's single "Fefe", which featured Minaj, debuted at number four, and later peaked at number three, on the Billboard Hot 100.[156] "Fefe" marked Minaj's highest bow on the Hot 100 chart as a featured artist, besting the sixth place start of "Bang Bang" in 2014.[157] Minaj was also featured on 6ix9ine's song "Mama", along with Kanye West. Both songs were included on 6ix9ine's debut album Dummy Boy.[158]
+
+On August 1, 2018, Minaj pushed back Queen once again, to August 17, 2018.[159] Minaj ultimately released Queen on August 10, 2018, a week ahead of schedule.[160] The day before the release of the album, Minaj launched her own Beats 1 radio show, Queen Radio.[161][162] Queen debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 with 185,000 album-equivalent units, of which 78,000 came from pure album sales.[163] It also debuted at number five in the UK and at number four in Australia, marking the highest debut of Minaj's career in the latter country.[164][165] Upon debuting second on the Billboard 200, Minaj expressed frustration and criticized several people in a series of tweets, including Travis Scott, whose album Astroworld claimed the top spot for a second week in a row, blocking Queen from the top spot.[166] Queen's roll-out and the ensuing controversy was criticized by several news outlets and commentators.[167][168][169][170] "Fefe" was added to the album in the middle of its first tracking week.[171]
+
+Queen received generally favorable reviews, though some critics took issue with the album's length and lyrical content. Mosi Reeves of Rolling Stone wrote that Queen "brings a new Nicki Minaj character: the regal, haughty monarch, a woman who insists on sword-sharpened rhymes as a prerogative for excellence", however noted it to have "a flabby, meandering mid-section". In a mixed review, Bryan Rolli of Forbes concluded that Queen is "a great 10-song album hiding inside a messy 19-song album", though complimented Minaj's lyricism, and said the album "gives fans plenty to sink their teeth into".[172] For The Washington Post, Chris Richards said, "Queen only feels connected to the current rap zeitgeist in the saddest way — as another portrait of a visionary rapper in decline [...] A great Nicki Minaj comeback album would be the first great Nicki Minaj album, period."[173]
+
+Before her release of Queen, she did a guest appearance on VH1 TV show Black Ink Crew: Chicago which aired on August 1, 2018 where she is seen getting a tattoo from the cast member Ryan whom is an artist and owner of the shop 9Mag.[174][175] Following the release of Queen, Minaj released a music video for the album's opening track, "Ganja Burn".[176] "Barbie Dreams" was sent to rhythmic contemporary radio on August 14, 2018, as the album's third single.[177] On August 20, Minaj won her fourth MTV Video Music Award for the "Chun-Li" music video, at the 35th annual ceremony.[178] Later that month, BTS' single, "Idol", featuring Minaj, was released; it debuted and peaked at number 11 on Billboard Hot 100, marking it as the group's second highest charting song.[179] On September 2, 2018, Minaj co-headlined the annual Made in America Festival.[180][181] The following week, on September 4, Minaj appeared as a guest and performed several songs on The Ellen Degeneres Show.[182] Throughout the episode, Minaj and Degeneres, with the participation of Walmart, gave out over $150,000 in donations to fans.[183][166]
+
+On October 12, 2018, British girl group Little Mix released their single, "Woman Like Me", which features Minaj.[184] The single debuted at number 5 in the UK.[185] A music video, which features Minaj wearing "Elizabethan ruff and not much else", was released the same month.[186][187] A BBC writer opined that the video "tackle[s] gender stereotypes".[188] Minaj was featured on Tyga's song "Dip", which reached number 63 on the Hot 100, becoming her 100th entry on the chart, thus extending her record as the female artist with the most entries and fourth overall.[189]
+
+In November 2018, Minaj was invited to the DWP music festival in China. It was supposed to be her first appearance in China, but she didn't perform on the stage due to problems with the Chinese company she worked with. Later, she said, "I will find a better partner and then come back to China to bring better performances to fans."[190]
+
+In April 2019, Minaj made a guest appearance at the 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival during Ariana Grande's set. She performed alongside Grande to their collab hits such as "Side to Side" and "Bang Bang". Minaj's appearance was praised despite the technical difficulties that occurred in which Minaj's earpiece was not working.[191] In April 2019, a news report reveals that Nicki Minaj has decided to part ways with her longtime management team. The report reveals that Minaj and her management team of Gee Roberson, Cortez Bryant and Blueprint/Maverick Management have mutually decided to separate.[192]
+
+In June 2019, Minaj released her first solo song of 2019, titled "Megatron". In July, she provided information on her forthcoming fifth studio album, appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon stating "You're the first to find out ... of course there's a new album."[193] She appeared on the song "Hot Girl Summer" alongside Megan Thee Stallion in August 2019, which debuted and peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.[194] On November 1, 2019, Minaj appeared on the Charlie's Angels: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack on the song "Bad To You", along with Ariana Grande and Normani. The song peaked at 51 in the UK.[195]
+
+Minaj had a voice role in The Angry Birds Movie 2, released in August 2019.[196]
+
+On November 7, 2019, "Tusa", Minaj's collaboration with Colombian singer Karol G was released to streaming platforms. The track later peaked at number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top of many other charts, notably the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart.[197]
+
+Minaj attended the Billboard Women in Music event on December 12, 2019, at which she was awarded the Game Changer Award after "becoming the first woman to notch 100 appearances on the Billboard Hot 100 chart".[198]
+
+After a social media hiatus, she returned to both Twitter and Instagram on January 30, 2020, to announce her appearance as a guest judge on the premiere episode of the twelfth season on the American reality competition series RuPaul's Drag Race.[199]
+
+The next day, her collaboration with American singer Meghan Trainor entitled "Nice to Meet Ya" was released accompanied by a music video.[200] Soon after posting a snippet of a new, untitled track, Minaj announced that she would be returning to music with her first solo song of 2020, titled "Yikes" which would be released on February 7, 2020.[201][202]
+
+On May 1, 2020, American rapper Doja Cat featured Minaj on two remixes of her song "Say So". That week, the remix topped the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Minaj's first single to reach number-one on the chart.[203] It also marked the first time that a song by two female rap artists reached the top,[204] and the first female collaboration since "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX (2014) to peak atop the chart.[205] Minaj also broke the record for having the longest wait to reach the top of the Hot 100, as the remix became her 109th entry on the chart.[205] Minaj charted for two weeks as a featured artist.[206]
+
+On June 12, 2020, 6ix9ine and Minaj released "Trollz", which became their third collaboration. It debuted atop the Hot 100, becoming Minaj's second number-one single.[207] This made Minaj the second female rapper to debut atop the Hot 100 chart since Lauryn Hill did so in 1998 with "Doo Wop (That Thing)".[208] "Trollz" dropped to number 34 in its second week, breaking the record for largest fall from number one in the country.[209]
+
+— Minaj on her rapping technique in a Billboard interview[23]
+
+Minaj is known for her animated rapping style and her unique flow. Her rapping is distinctive for its speed and the use of alter egos and accents, primarily British cockney.[210][4] She often both sings and raps in her songs and combines metaphors, punch lines, and word play into her work. The alter egos are incorporated with her lyrics in British accents (Roman Zolanski) or soft-spokenness (Harajuku Barbie). Ice-T said about Minaj's rapping style, "[Minaj] does her thing. She has her own way of doing it. She has an ill vocal delivery. She kind of reminds me of a female Busta Rhymes, like how she throws her voice in different directions."[211]
+
+The New York Times called Minaj "a sparkling rapper with a gift for comic accents and unexpected turns of phrase. She's a walking exaggeration, outsize in sound, personality and look. And she's a rapid evolver, discarding old modes as easily as adopting new ones."[4] Although many critics describe her technique as bubblegum rap, Minaj said: "What people don't know is that before I was doing that craziness I was doing me, I was just doing regular sounding rap that anyone could hear and identify with. But once I started doing all that weird shit—I'm not mad at it because it got everyone's attention."[212]
+
+Noted as a rap artist, she lends herself to electronic music genres (especially electropop).[213] Pink Friday marked her exploration of the genres, spawning electro songs including the pop-laden "Super Bass".[214][215] Also combining rap with synthesizer music, Minaj's second album had a number of electro-hop and electro pop songs: "HOV Lane", "Whip It", "Automatic", "Come on a Cone", "Young Forever", "Fire Burns",[216] "Roman Holiday"[217] and "Beez in the Trap";[218] while "Starships" is a eurodance song.[219] She collaborated with other artists, producing more electronic songs: "The Boys" with singer Cassie and "Beauty and a Beat" with Justin Bieber.[220]
+
+Her verse on Kanye West's "Monster" was critically acclaimed and contributed greatly to her popularity; many critics said she had the best verse in the song.[221][222] Her verse was listed by Complex as the best rap verse of the 2010s.[223] West claimed at one point he considered deleting her verse from the track, because he was worried it would outshine his own work:
+
+It was like that moment when I thought about taking Nicki's verse off of "Monster" because I knew people would say that was the best verse on the best Hip Hop album of all time or arguably top ten albums of all time. And I would do all that work, eight months of work on "Dark Fantasy" and people to this day would say to me 'My favorite thing was Nicki Minaj's verse.' So if I let my ego get the best of me instead of letting that girl get the shot to get that platform to be all she could be, I would take it off or marginalize her, try to stop her from having that shining moment…[224]
+
+With her parents frequently fighting during her childhood, Minaj lived through characters she created as a means of escape. She recalled that "fantasy was my reality" and her first identity was Cookie, who became Harajuku Barbie and (later) Nicki Minaj.[225] In November 2010, Minaj assumed the alter ego Nicki Teresa, wearing a colorful headdress and calling herself "healer to her fans" during a visit to the Garden of Dreams Foundation at Fuse Studios in New York.[226] She introduced another alter ego, Rosa (pronounced with an exaggerated R), to commemorate her December 2010 appearance on Lopez Tonight.[227]
+
+For Pink Friday, Minaj created another alter ego: Roman Zolanski, "a demon inside her", Minaj's "twin brother" whose character she assumes when she is angry.[228] Roman has been compared to Eminem's alter ego Slim Shady, and on "Roman's Revenge" Minaj and Eminem collaborate as their alter egos.[229] On her next album, she said that there would be a lot of Roman: "And if you're not familiar with Roman, then you will be familiar with him very soon. He's the boy that lives inside of me. He's a lunatic and he's gay and he'll be on there a lot."[230] Roman has a mother, Martha Zolanski,[231] who appeared on "Roman's Revenge" with a British accent[232] and singing on "Roman Holiday" for the first time.[233][234] Martha appeared in the "Moment 4 Life" video as Minaj's apparent fairy godmother. Although Minaj was rapping in songs such as "All I Do Is Win (Remix)", she promised to introduce Nicki, Roman and Onika on her first album.[228]
+
+Minaj cites Foxy Brown and Jay-Z as major influences: "I really loved [Foxy] as a female rapper. I was really interested in her mind and her aura [and] I was really, really into Jay-Z. Me and my friends in high school, we were reciting all of the Jay lyrics. His words were our words in our conversations all the time."[235] She said, further: "I never really told Foxy how much she has influenced me and how much she changed my life, and you've gotta tell people that when they're alive to even be able to take the compliment, instead of paying tribute to them when they're no longer here", adding that Foxy Brown was "the most influential female rapper" for her,[236] though she initially was compared to Lil Kim when she debuted. Nicki and Lil Kim, often cited as Foxy's main rap rival, have reportedly exchanged words with each other, on social media and in their music.[237]
+
+Jada Pinkett Smith is one of Minaj's role models in her acting career.[238] Minaj was inspired by R&B singer Monica, singing "Why I Love You So Much" at every talent show she entered. While performing in Atlanta as part of her Pink Friday Tour, she called Monica one of her all-time greatest musical influences.[239] Minaj has also cited Madonna,[240] Enya,[241] Lil Wayne,[242] Eminem,[242] Beyoncé, Kanye West, Trina and Drake as influences.[243]
+
+She called Betsey Johnson a fashion inspiration: "[Betsey] is a free spirit. When I met her the other day, I felt like I knew her for my whole life. She's so warm and considerate and caring. She's amazingly talented and I've been wearing her clothes forever, so to meet her was like, 'Yay!' [I was] bowing down to her; she's dope!"[244] Minaj has also expressed appreciation for Cyndi Lauper's style and how her videos inspired her as a teenager: "When I first went to get my hair colored, I was about 14 and I wanted blonde highlights. The beautician said, 'No, you have to get your mother on the phone,' and I was just crying and begging. I've always been experimenting. Cyndi Lauper's videos – that's what intrigued me."[245]
+
+Minaj has been considered to be one of the most influential female rap artists.[4][246][247] In 2012, a New York Times editor said that some consider her to be "the most influential female rapper of all time".[248] Minaj has been called the "black Lady Gaga" because of her colorful costumes and wigs. In one interview, Minaj rejected the comparison,[249] but in another interview, she said that she is inspired by Gaga's creativity.[250] Minaj has cited Alexander McQueen, Gianni Versace, and Christian Louboutin as her favorite designers.[251] The Huffington Post described her style as "risk-taking" and "far-out", with "bold sartorial choices";[252] Yahoo! called her dress "colorful" and "crazy", and wrote that "the fashion and music world would certainly be very quiet without Ms Minaj".[253]
+
+Minaj has been included on the annual Maxim Hot 100 list several times.[254][255] Her physique, notably her buttocks, has attracted significant attention from the media.[256][257]
+
+Early in her career, she made autographing breasts part of her movement to empower women.[258] In 2010, she said that although she originally felt obligated to mimic the provocative behavior of the "female rappers of [her] day", she intended to subdue her sexuality because she "[wants] people—especially young girls—to know that in life, nothing is going to be based on sex appeal. You've got to have something else to go with that."[259][260] However, later in her career, Minaj embraced her sexuality and frequently attracted media attention for her sexually explicit and provocative lyrics, performances, and social media presence. Commentators and critics often debate whether Minaj's work empowers or objectifies women.[261] The cover art and music video for her 2014 single "Anaconda", both attracted significant controversy upon release.[262] The music video was viewed 19.6 million times in its first 24 hours of release.[263] Detractors called the video and cover art "too racy",[264] while others praised Minaj for "owning her sexuality",[265] examining her work through a feminist perspective.[262][266][267][268] A writer for The Guardian said, of the "Anaconda" song and music video: "Minaj is literally butting into Sir Mix-A-Lot’s ode to buttocks with Anaconda, turning the classic song into a conversation, and refusing to let the camera objectify her lap dance by keeping it zoomed out, at a distance."[269]
+
+In 2015, Madame Tussauds unveiled a wax figure of Minaj, which depicted her bent down on her hands and knees—the pose from the "Anaconda" music video.[270][271] The attraction received criticism from some, including rapper Azealia Banks and The Independent, who called it "sexist" and "racist".[272][273] Despite this, Minaj voiced her approval of the wax figure on social media.[274] After numerous visitors began taking sexually suggestive photos with Minaj's statue,[275] the museum instituted extra security.[274][276]
+
+Minaj talked about feminism in an interview with Vogue in 2015, saying "There are things that I do that feminists don't like, and there are things that I do that they do like. I don't label myself."[277] In 2018, an interview with Elle, in which she discussed sex workers, her own sex appeal, and sexuality in music and on social media, attracted criticism.[278][279] In The New York Times Magazine, music critic Vanessa Grigoriadis said that Minaj "has become expert at modelling the ways that women can wield power in the industry. But she has also drawn attention to the ways in which power can be embodied by a woman standing up for herself and speaking her own mind."[3]
+
+Billboard listed Minaj the fourth-most-active musician on social media on its March 2011 Social 50 chart.[280] As of 2018, Minaj is the world's most followed rapper on Instagram.[281] On Twitter, she is one of the most followed rappers, with over 20 million followers on the app, as of 2018.[282]
+
+In 2010, Minaj performed for service members during the 2010 VH1 Divas Salute the Troops concert. In 2012, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Minaj donated $15,000 to the Food Bank For New York City and held a turkey drive at her alma mater, PS 45.[283]
+
+In May 2017, Minaj offered via Twitter to pay college tuition fees and student loans for 30 of her fans. She appeared to grant their requests, ranging from $500 to school supplies to $6,000 for tuition, promising to respond to more requests in a month or two.[284] She also announced that she would launch an official charity for student loans and tuition payments in the near future.[285] In the same month, Minaj revealed on Instagram that she has been donating money to a village in India for a few years via her pastor, Lydia Sloley. These donations helped the village get a computer center, a tailoring institute, a reading program, and two water wells. "This is the kind of thing that makes me feel the most proud", she said about the new additions to the village.[286]
+
+In August 2017, after Hurricane Harvey hit the city of Houston, Texas, Minaj answered a social media challenge by comedian and actor Kevin Hart and donated $25,000 to the Red Cross, saying she was "praying for everyone there".[287][288]
+
+Minaj has often been dubbed as the "Queen of Rap" by several media outlets.[289][290][291][292][293] In 2017, Patrik Sandberg of Dazed argued that Minaj "has, by any available metric, surpassed every other female hip hop artist to become the most successful in history."[247] Sowmya Krishnamurthy of NPR noted that Minaj has portrayed "the quirky, life-size Barbie, glamorous vixen and girl-next-door", arguing that she "changed the landscape for artists in hip-hop for the past decade" with the mentioned alter egos and "incarnations".[290]
+
+She has been credited by BIllboard for bringing female rap back to the mainstream in the US.[294] In 2011, Minaj was ranked sixth on the Rolling Stone master ranking of the "Kings of Hip Hop" which is based on record sales and social media metrics.[295] Minaj is the first woman to have appeared on the Forbes "Hip Hop Cash Kings" list since its inception in 2007, having made four consecutive appearances between 2011 and 2014.[296][297][298][299]
+
+In 2016, she was listed on the Time 100 annual list of the most influential people in the world; she was also featured on one of the physical covers of the issue.[300][301] In 2019, Complex ranked her eighth on their list of best rappers of the 2010s as well as being the only female on the list.[302]
+
+Minaj's work has influenced several artists, including Tinashe,[303] Asian Da Brat,[304] and Saweetie.[305]
+
+Minaj has been affiliated with several manufacturing companies and has endorsed a number of products during her career. Her first collaboration was a November 2010 endorsement deal with MAC Cosmetics which sold a lipstick, "Pink 4 Friday", for four consecutive Fridays to promote her album Pink Friday.[306]
+
+In 2011, Minaj helped introduce the Casio TRYX in Times Square, and created a six-piece nail polish collection for OPI Products with colors named after her songs.[307][308] That December, Mattel produced a custom-made, Minaj-themed Barbie doll valued at about $15,000 for auction on charitybuzz.[309][310]
+
+In April 2012, Minaj helped launch the Nokia Lumia 900 in Times Square.[311] The following month, Minaj appeared in television and internet advertisements for Pepsi's "LiveForNow" campaign, which featured a remix of her single "Moment 4 Life".[312][313] She endorsed the 2012 Viva Glam campaign with Ricky Martin, which raised $270 million for the Mac AIDS Fund.[314][315]
+
+With designer Jeremy Scott, Minaj signed an endorsement deal with Adidas' fall and winter 2012 campaign to appear in internet advertisements and commercials for Adidas Originals. Set to her song, "Masquerade", her segment of the advertisement was filmed in Brooklyn and also featured Big Sean, Derrick Rose, Sky Ferreira and 2NE1 in other locations worldwide.[316][317]
+
+In early 2013, Minaj fronted the Viva Glam campaign by herself, which included the introduction of "Nicki 2 lipstick and lip gloss". She also introduced the "Nicki Minaj Collection" clothing line for Kmart, composed of clothing, accessories and housewares.[318][319] In February 2013, Bluewater Comics announced that Minaj would star in the Fame biographical-comic series, debuting in Fame: Nicki Minaj.[320] She partnered with Beats Electronics to introduce her "Pink Pill" speakers in April 2013, appearing with DeRay Davis in a commercial for the speakers that same month.[321][322]
+
+In June 2013, Minaj lead an ad campaign for Myx Fusions, a fruit-infused, single serve moscato wine beverage of which she is a part owner.[323][324]
+
+Minaj has a prominent fragrance line, which was first launched in September 2012. She partnered with 'Give Back Brands' to introduce her first fragrance, "Pink Friday",[325] which was nominated for three 2013 FiFi Awards for Fragrance of the Year, Best Packaging, and Media Campaign of the Year.[326] A "Pink Friday: Special Edition" was released in April 2013.[327] A deluxe edition version of the fragrance, titled "Pink Friday: Deluxe Edition", was also launched in December 2013.[328]
+
+Her second fragrance line, "Minajesty", was launched in September 2013.[329] A flanker fragrance, "Minajesty: Exotic Edition", was released exclusively to the Home Shopping Network in June 2014. This was followed by the launch of her third fragrance line, "Onika", in September 2014.[330]
+
+In December 2014, Minaj was announced as the new face of the Roberto Cavalli spring/summer 2015 campaign.[331] The campaign images, shot in Los Angeles by Italian photographer Francesco Carrozzini, see Minaj posing in flowy bohemian dresses, defined by embroideries and animal prints typical of the Cavalli brand.[331] On March 30, 2015, it was announced that Minaj is a co-owner of the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. In addition to Minaj and company owner Jay Z, sixteen stakeholders including Beyoncé, Madonna, Rihanna, and Kanye West own a 3% equity stake in the service.[332]
+
+In 2016, Minaj stated she has learned the ins and outs of business so she could do it herself.[333] In the same year, she launched her new fragrance "Trini Girl".[334]
+
+In 2017, she starred in H&M's holiday campaign along with Anna Ewers, Mariacarla Boscono, Jesse Williams, Charlee Fraser, and Elibeidy Dani. In 2018, Minaj began a partnership with the luxury clothing company Fendi to create a capsule collection with the design team.[335]
+
+In July 2018, Minaj received backlash for her choice to collaborate with 6ix9ine for their collaborative single "Fefe".[336][337] That year, the controversial rapper had pleaded guilty to one felony count after posting explicit videos of a sexual performance with a 13-year-old child in 2015.[337][338]
+
+Fellow American rapper Azealia Banks criticized Minaj in a series of tweets and Instagram posts for both collaborating and touring with 6ix9ine. She said, "I'm sorry. Dude gets convicted and you ’re still trying to help him out of it? That is very dark," and described working with 6ix9ine as a "slap [to] all of your 8-15 year old fans and their moms in the face". She added that "pedophilia is absolutely gross and evil. Anyone who supports that shit is a lunatic".[339][340] Minaj's decision to work with him on the single and the sexually provocative nature of its music video was criticized as willfully ignorant in the wake of the #MeToo movement.[341] An article published on Pitchfork discussed at length the cultural normalization of predatory behavior.[341]
+
+Minaj responded by pointing out that "Do What U Want," the 2013 collaboration single of Lady Gaga and R. Kelly, had been praised by the very same publication despite public allegations of child pornography against him.[336][342][336][343] She called the move bullying and claimed this demonstrated a double standard within the music industry.[344] After numerous requests, Minaj later on deleted her tweets.[345]
+
+In 2019, She sparked outrage among many for announcing a planned concert in Saudi Arabia, citing what they say is its egregious record on human - more specifically women and LGBTQ+ - rights. Minaj eventually cancelled the gig, heeding calls by several rights activists.[346]
+
+Disagreements between Minaj and rapper Remy Ma originated in 2007, when Ma took note of Minaj's freestyle record, nicknamed "Dirty Money", from her mixtape Playtime Is Over (2007).[347] In the record, Minaj recites: "Tell that bitch with the crown to run it like Chris Brown/she won three rounds, I'ma need a hundred thou/like 'Chinatown'—bitches better bow down/oh you ain't know, betcha bitches know now/fuck I got a gun—let her know that I'm the one".[348] Minaj reportedly never confirmed or denied that the song was about Ma.[347] Although Ma and Minaj shared words of encouragement in recent years,[349] their relationship soon soured, and they began releasing verses and songs with lyrics aimed at each other, including Ma's "Money Showers" with Fat Joe and Minaj's "Make Love" with Gucci Mane.[350] On February 25, 2017, Ma released "Shether".[351] On March 3, 2017, during a visit to The Wendy Williams Show, Ma accused Minaj of "trying to keep [her] off of red carpets" and "trying to make sure awards don't go to [her]".[352] A week later, in an interview hosted by BuzzFeed News, Ma stated that she had second thoughts about releasing the diss track, and commented on the difficulties of being a woman in the music industry.[353] Minaj subsequently responded with the song "No Frauds."[354]
+
+Minaj has been embroiled in a feud with rapper Lil' Kim since her success with Pink Friday.[355] Kim accused Minaj of copying her image, saying: "If you are going to steal my swag, you gonna have to pay. Something gotta give. You help me, I help you. That's how it goes to me."[355] Minaj's single "Roman's Revenge" with Eminem was believed to be a response to Kim's comments,[356] although she later denied this.[357] She responded to the situation in an interview with HOT 97's Angie Martinez saying, "She picked a fight with Foxy, then she picked a fight with Eve, then she picked a fight with Remy, then it was Mrs. Wallace, then it was Nicki Minaj. Every time you in the news, it's 'cause you gettin' at somebody! Where's your music? Put your music out, and when I see your name on Billboard, that's when I'll respond to you. Other than that, goodbye. It's Barbie, bitch."[358] Lil' Kim reignited the feud with the release of her mixtape Black Friday (the title of which directly referenced Minaj). The artwork portrays Lil' Kim decapitating Minaj with a sword.[355] A fragment of a diss track called "Tragedy" was released in response by Minaj in April 2011.[359] Following the release of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, critics suggested that the track "Stupid Hoe"[360] may have contained attacks directed at Kim. Lil' Kim later suggested in an interview with 105's Breakfast Club that the song "Automatic" was similar to her unreleased material, also calling Minaj "obnoxious" and "catty".[361]
+
+Disagreements between Mariah Carey and Minaj began in 2013, despite working together in 2010 on "Up Out My Face". Rumours of the two not working well together surfaced during their time as judges on the 12th season of American Idol.[362][363] Tensions escalated after Carey said that Minaj did not have a number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100 during a live broadcast in May 2013.[364] That October, a leaked video circulated online, which showed Minaj and Carey in a heated argument during auditions in Charlotte, North Carolina.[365] Carey accused Minaj of saying, "If I had a gun, I would shoot that bitch", but Minaj denied the allegation.[366] Carey said that Minaj created an "unsafe work environment", increasing her security as a result.[367] Minaj and Carey left the series that month, at the end of the season.[368]
+
+During New York Fashion Week 2018, at an after party hosted by Harper's Bazaar, fellow rapper Cardi B caused significant controversy when she threw one of her high heel shoes at, and attempted to physically fight, Minaj.[369] Cardi B later stated that Minaj had previously "liked" comments made by other users on social media, who spoke negatively about Cardi B's abilities to take care of her newly born daughter.[370] Minaj subsequently discussed the incident in an episode of her Beats 1 radio show, Queen Radio, in which she denied the accusations and called the altercation "humiliating".[371][372]
+
+In her song "All Things Go", Minaj revealed that she had an abortion as a teenager.[373] Minaj has said that although it has "haunted" her, she stands by her decision.[374]
+
+In July 2011, her cousin Nicholas Telemaque was murdered near his home in Brooklyn, an incident she references in her songs "All Things Go" and "Champion".[375][376]
+
+Early in her career, Minaj claimed to be bisexual. However, she eventually stated in a Rolling Stone interview that she only said that to get attention: "I think girls are sexy, but I'm not going to lie and say that I date girls."[377] In May 2020, she once again addressed her sexuality, stating in a verse on Doja Cat's "Say So" remix, "Used to be bi, but now I'm just hetero." The lyric was met with controversy from the LGBTQ+ community, with bisexual erasure cited as one of the problematic aspects of Minaj's words.[378][379][380]
+
+In late 2014, Minaj separated from her longtime boyfriend Safaree Samuels, whom she had dated since 2000. Several tracks on The Pinkprint are believed to have been inspired by the end of their relationship.[381] Minaj began dating rapper Meek Mill in early 2015.[382] In January 2017, she announced that she had ended their relationship.[383][384][385] In December 2018, Minaj began dating her childhood friend Kenneth "Zoo" Petty and filed for a marriage license in August 2019.[386] She announced that they had officially married on October 21.[387] She hyphenated his last name to hers upon marriage, becoming Maraj-Petty.[388] Her husband registered as sex offender in California in 2020, having been convicted of attempted rape in the first degree in 1995 in New York.[389]
+
+In November 2017, Minaj's brother Jelani was convicted of predatory sexual assault against a child and endangering the welfare of a child. On January 27, 2020, he was sentenced by Nassau County Supreme Court Judge Robert McDonald to 25 years to life.[390][391][392]
+
+In July 2020, Minaj announced via Instagram she is expecting her first child.[393]
+
+Throughout her career, Minaj has won numerous awards, including six American Music Awards, 10 BET Awards, seven BET Hip Hop Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, five MTV Video Music Awards, six MTV Europe Music Awards, two People's Choice Awards, one Soul Train Music Award, and four Teen Choice Awards.
+
+Between 2011 and 2016, Minaj received a total of 10 Grammy Award nominations. She received her first Grammy nomination in 2010 for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for the single "My Chick Bad" with fellow rapper Ludacris. For the 54th Grammy Awards in 2012, Minaj received three nominations, including Best New Artist and Best Rap Album for her debut album Pink Friday. Minaj received her second nomination for Best Rap Album at the 58th Grammy Awards for The Pinkprint.
+
+Minaj won the American Music Awards for Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Artist and Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album in three different years for her first three albums. She has won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Hip-Hop Video three times, for "Super Bass", "Anaconda", and "Chun-Li", and has won the Best Female Video Award once, for "Starships". Billboard Women in Music ceremony honoured Minaj with the Game Changer Award in 2019.[394][395]
+

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+
+Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix (French: Astérix or Astérix le Gaulois [asteʁiks lə ɡolwa]; lit. "Asterix the Gaul") is a French bande dessinée series about Gaulish warriors, who have adventures and fight the Roman Empire during the era of Julius Caesar. The series first appeared in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote on 29 October 1959. It was written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo until Goscinny's death in 1977. Uderzo then took over the writing until 2009, when he sold the rights to publishing company Hachette; he died in 2020. In 2013, a new team consisting of Jean-Yves Ferri (script) and Didier Conrad (artwork) took over. As of 2019[update], 38 volumes have been released, with the most recent released in October 2019.
+
+Each Asterix comic starts with the following introduction:
+
+The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium...[1][2]
+
+The series follows the adventures of a village of Gauls as they resist Roman occupation in 50 BCE. They do so by means of a magic potion, brewed by their druid Getafix (Panoramix in the French version), which temporarily gives the recipient superhuman strength. The protagonists, the title character Asterix and his friend Obelix, have various adventures. The "-ix" ending of both names (as well as all the other pseudo-Gaulish "-ix" names in the series) alludes to the "-rix" suffix (meaning "king") present in the names of many real Gaulish chieftains such as Vercingetorix, Orgetorix, and Dumnorix.
+
+In many of the stories, they travel to foreign countries, though other tales are set in and around their village. For much of the history of the series (Volumes 4 through 29), settings in Gaul and abroad alternated, with even-numbered volumes set abroad and odd-numbered volumes set in Gaul, mostly in the village.
+
+The Asterix series is one of the most popular Franco-Belgian comics in the world, with the series being translated into 111 languages and dialects as of 2009[update].[3]
+
+The success of the series has led to the adaptation of its books into 13 films: nine animated, and four live action (one of which, Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, was a major box office success in France). There have also been a number of games based on the characters, and a theme park near Paris, Parc Astérix. The very first French satellite, Astérix, launched in 1965, was also named after the comics character. As of 2017, 370 million copies of Asterix books have been sold worldwide,[4] with co-creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo being France's best-selling authors abroad.[5][6]
+
+Prior to creating the Asterix series, Goscinny and Uderzo had previously had success with their series Oumpah-pah, which was published in Tintin magazine.[8]
+Astérix was originally serialised in Pilote magazine, debuting in the first issue on 29 October 1959.[9] In 1961 the first book was put together, titled Asterix the Gaul. From then on, books were released generally on a yearly basis. Their success was exponential; the first book sold 6,000 copies in its year of publication; a year later, the second sold 20,000. In 1963, the third sold 40,000; the fourth, released in 1964, sold 150,000. A year later, the fifth sold 300,000; 1966's Asterix and the Big Fight sold 400,000 upon initial publication. The ninth Asterix volume, when first released in 1967, sold 1.2 million copies in two days.
+
+Uderzo's first preliminary sketches portrayed Asterix as a huge and strong traditional Gaulish warrior. But Goscinny had a different picture in his mind, visualizing Asterix as a shrewd, compact warrior who would possess intelligence and wit more than raw strength. However, Uderzo felt that the downsized hero needed a strong but dim companion, to which Goscinny agreed. Hence, Obelix was born.[10] Despite the growing popularity of Asterix with the readers, the financial backing for the publication Pilote ceased. Pilote was taken over by Georges Dargaud.[10]
+
+When Goscinny died in 1977, Uderzo continued the series by popular demand of the readers, who implored him to continue. He continued to issue new volumes of the series, but on a less-frequent basis. Many critics and fans of the series prefer the earlier collaborations with Goscinny.[11] Uderzo created his own publishing company, Les Editions Albert-René, which published every album drawn and written by Uderzo alone since then.[10] However, Dargaud, the initial publisher of the series, kept the publishing rights on the 24 first albums made by both Uderzo and Goscinny. In 1990, the Uderzo and Goscinny families decided to sue Dargaud to take over the rights. In 1998, after a long trial, Dargaud lost the rights to publish and sell the albums. Uderzo decided to sell these rights to Hachette instead of Albert-René, but the publishing rights on new albums were still owned by Albert Uderzo (40%), Sylvie Uderzo (20%) and Anne Goscinny (40%).[citation needed]
+
+In December 2008, Uderzo sold his stake to Hachette, which took over the company.[12] In a letter published in the French newspaper Le Monde in 2009, Uderzo's daughter, Sylvie, attacked her father's decision to sell the family publishing firm and the rights to produce new Astérix adventures after his death. She said:
+
+... the co-creator of Astérix, France's comic strip hero, has betrayed the Gaulish warrior to the modern-day Romans – the men of industry and finance.[13][14]
+
+However, René Goscinny's daughter, Anne, also gave her agreement to the continuation of the series and sold her rights at the same time. She is reported to have said that "Asterix has already had two lives: one during my father's lifetime and one after it. Why not a third?".[15] A few months later, Uderzo appointed three illustrators, who had been his assistants for many years, to continue the series.[11] In 2011, Uderzo announced that a new Asterix album was due out in 2013, with Jean-Yves Ferri writing the story and Frédéric Mébarki drawing it.[16] A year later, in 2012, the publisher Albert-René announced that Frédéric Mébarki had withdrawn from drawing the new album, due to the pressure he felt in following in the steps of Uderzo. Comic artist Didier Conrad was officially announced to take over drawing duties from Mébarki, with the due date of the new album in 2013 unchanged.[17][18]
+
+In January 2015, after the murders of seven cartoonists at the satirical Paris weekly Charlie Hebdo, Astérix creator Albert Uderzo came out of retirement to draw two Astérix pictures honouring the memories of the victims.[19]
+
+Numbers 1–24, 32 and 34 are by Goscinny and Uderzo. Numbers 25–31 and 33 are by Uderzo alone. Numbers 35–38 are by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad. Years stated are for their initial album release.
+
+Asterix Conquers Rome is a comics adaptation of the animated film The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. It was released in 1976, and was the 23rd volume to be published, but it has been rarely reprinted and is not considered to be canonical to the series. The only English translations ever to be published were in the Asterix Annual 1980 and never an English standalone volume. A picture-book version of the same story was published in English translation as The Twelve Tasks of Asterix by Hodder & Stoughton in 1978.
+
+In 1996, a tribute album in honour of Albert Uderzo was released titled "Uderzo Croqué par ses Amis", a volume containing 21 short stories with Uderzo in Ancient Gaul. This volume was published by Soleil Productions and has not been translated into English
+
+In 2007, Les Editions Albert René released a tribute volume titled Astérix et ses Amis, a 60-page volume of one-to-four-page short stories. It was a tribute to Albert Uderzo on his 80th birthday by 34 European cartoonists. The volume was translated into nine languages. As of 2016[update], it has not been translated into English.[23]
+
+In 2016, the French publisher Hachette, along with Anne Goscinny and Albert Uderzo decided to make the special issue album The XII Tasks of Asterix for the 40th anniversary of the film The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. There was no English edition.
+
+The main setting for the series is an unnamed coastal village (rumoured to be inspired by Erquy[by whom?]) in Armorica (present-day Brittany), a province of Gaul (modern France), in the year 50 BC. Julius Caesar has conquered nearly all of Gaul for the Roman Empire. The little Armorican village, however, has held out because the villagers can gain temporary superhuman strength by drinking a magic potion brewed by the local village druid, Getafix. His chief is Vitalstatistix.
+
+The main protagonist and hero of the village is Asterix, who, because of his shrewdness, is usually entrusted with the most important affairs of the village. He is aided in his adventures by his rather corpulent and slower thinking friend, Obelix, who, because he fell into the druid's cauldron of the potion as a baby, has permanent superhuman strength (because of this, Getafix steadily refuses to allow Obelix to drink the potion, as doing so would have a dangerous and unpredictable result). Obelix is usually accompanied by Dogmatix, his little dog. (Except for Asterix and Obelix, the names of the characters change with the language. For example, Obelix's dog's name is "Dogmatix" in English, but "Idéfix" in the original French edition.)
+
+Asterix and Obelix (and sometimes other members of the village) go on various adventures both within the village and in far away lands. Places visited in the series include parts of Gaul (Lutetia, Corsica etc.), neighbouring nations (Belgium, Spain, Britain, Germany etc.), and far away lands (North America, Middle East, India etc.).
+
+The series employs science-fiction and fantasy elements in the more recent books; for instance, the use of extraterrestrials in Asterix and the Falling Sky and the city of Atlantis in Asterix and Obelix All at Sea.
+
+The humour encountered in the Asterix comics often centers around puns, caricatures, and tongue-in-cheek stereotypes of contemporary European nations and French regions. Much of the humour in the initial Asterix books was French-specific, which delayed the translation of the books into other languages for fear of losing the jokes and the spirit of the story. Some translations have actually added local humour: In the Italian translation, the Roman legionaries are made to speak in 20th-century Roman dialect, and Obelix's famous Ils sont fous ces romains ("These Romans are crazy") is translated properly as Sono pazzi questi romani, humorously alluding to the Roman abbreviation SPQR. In another example: Hiccups are written onomatopoeically in French as hips, but in English as "hic", allowing Roman legionaries in more than one of the English translations to decline their hiccups absurdly in Latin (hic, haec, hoc). The newer albums share a more universal humour, both written and visual.[24]
+
+All the fictional characters in Asterix have names which are puns on their roles or personalities, and which follow certain patterns specific to nationality. Certain rules are followed (most of the time) such as Gauls (and their neighbours) having an "-ix" suffix for the men and ending in "-a" for the women; for example, Chief Vitalstatistix (so called due to his portly stature) and his wife Impedimenta (often at odds with the chief). The male Roman names end in "-us", echoing Latin nominative male singular form, as in Gluteus Maximus, a muscle-bound athlete whose name is literally the butt of the joke. Gothic names (present-day Germany) end in "-ic", after Gothic chiefs such as Alaric and Theoderic; for example Rhetoric the interpreter. Greek names end in "-os" or "-es"; for example, Thermos the restaurateur. British names end in "-ax" and are often puns on the taxation associated with the later United Kingdom; examples include Valuaddedtax the druid, and Selectivemploymentax the mercenary. Other nationalities are treated to pidgin translations from their language, like Huevos y Bacon, a Spanish chieftain (whose name, meaning eggs and bacon, is often guidebook Spanish for tourists), or literary and other popular media references, like Dubbelosix (a sly reference to James Bond's codename "007").
+
+Most of these jokes, and hence the names of the characters, are specific to the translation; for example, the druid named Getafix in English translation - "get a fix", referring to the character's role in dispensing the magic potion - is Panoramix in the original French and Miraculix in German.[25] Even so, occasionally the wordplay has been preserved: Obelix's dog, known in the original French as Idéfix (from idée fixe, a "fixed idea" or obsession), is called Dogmatix in English, which not only renders the original meaning strikingly closely ("dogmatic") but in fact adds another layer of wordplay with the syllable "Dog-" at the beginning of the name.
+
+The name Asterix, French Astérix, comes from astérisque, meaning "asterisk", which is the typographical symbol * indicating a footnote, from the Greek word αστήρ (aster), meaning a "star". His name is usually left unchanged in translations, aside from accents and the use of local alphabets. For example, in Esperanto, Polish, Slovene, Latvian, and Turkish it is Asteriks (in Turkish he was first named Bücür meaning "shorty", but the name was then standardised). Two exceptions include Icelandic, in which he is known as Ástríkur ("Rich of love"), and Sinhala, where he is known as සූර පප්පා (Soora Pappa), which can be interpreted as "Hero".
+
+For explanations of some of the other names, see List of Asterix characters.
+
+Many of the Asterix adventures take place in other countries away from their homeland in Gaul. In every album that takes place abroad, the characters meet (usually modern-day) stereotypes for each country, as seen by the French.
+
+When the Gauls see foreigners speaking their foreign languages, these have different representation in the cartoon speech bubbles:
+
+The various volumes have been translated into more than 100 languages and dialects. Besides the original French language, most albums are available in Estonian, English, Czech, Dutch, German, Galician, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Turkish, Slovene, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Latvian, Welsh,[26] as well as Latin.[27]
+
+Selected albums have also been translated into languages such as Esperanto, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Scots, Indonesian, Persian, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Bengali, Afrikaans, Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew, Frisian, Romansch, Vietnamese, Sinhala, Ancient Greek, and Luxembourgish.[26]
+
+In Europe, several volumes were translated into a variety of regional languages and dialects, such as Alsatian, Breton, Chtimi (Picard), and Corsican in France; Bavarian, Swabian, and Low German in Germany; and Savo, Karelia, Rauma, and Helsinki slang dialects in Finland. Also, in Portugal, a special edition of the first volume, Asterix the Gaul, was translated into local language Mirandese.[28] In Greece, a number of volumes have appeared in the Cretan Greek, Cypriot Greek, and Pontic Greek dialects.[29] In the Italian version, while the Gauls speak standard Italian, the legionaries speak in the Romanesque dialect. In the former Yugoslavia, the "Forum" publishing house translated Corsican text in Asterix in Corsica into the Montenegrin dialect of Serbo-Croatian (today called Montenegrin).
+
+In the Netherlands, several volumes were translated into West Frisian, a Germanic language spoken in the province of Friesland; into Limburgish, a regional language spoken not only in Dutch Limburg but also in Belgian Limburg and North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany; and into Tweants, a dialect in the region of Twente in the eastern province of Overijssel. Hungarian-language books have been published in Yugoslavia for the Hungarian minority living in Serbia. Although not translated into a fully autonomous dialect, the books differ slightly from the language of the books issued in Hungary. In Sri Lanka, the cartoon series was adapted into Sinhala as Sura Pappa.[28]
+
+Most volumes have been translated into Latin and Ancient Greek, with accompanying teachers' guides, as a way of teaching these ancient languages.
+
+Before Asterix became famous, translations of some strips were published in British comics including Valiant, Ranger, and Look & Learn, under names Little Fred and Big Ed[30] and Beric the Bold, set in Roman-occupied Britain. These were included in an exhibition on Goscinny's life and career, and Asterix, in London's Jewish Museum in 2018.[31][32]
+
+The first 33 Asterix books were translated into English by Derek Hockridge and Anthea Bell, who were widely praised for maintaining the spirit and humour of the original French versions. Derek Hockridge died in 2013, so Anthea Bell translated books 34 to 36 by herself, before retiring in 2016 for health reasons. She died in 2018.[33] Adriana Hunter is the present translator.
+
+US publisher Papercutz in December 2019 announced it would begin publishing "all-new more American translations" of the Asterix books, starting on 19 May 2020.[34] The launch was postponed to 15 July 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.[35] The new translator is Joe Johnson (Dr. Edward Joseph Johnson), a Professor of French and Spanish at Clayton State University.[36]
+
+The series has been adapted into various media. There are 14 films, 15 board games, 40 video games, and 1 theme park.
+
+Many gamebooks, board games and video games are based upon the Asterix series. In particular, many video games were released by various computer game publishers.
+
+Parc Astérix, a theme park 22 miles north of Paris, based upon the series, was opened in 1989. It is one of the most visited sites in France, with around 1.6 million visitors per year.

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+Nicolaus Copernicus (/koʊˈpɜːrnɪkəs, kə-/;[2][3][4] Polish: Mikołaj Kopernik;[b] German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; Niklas Koppernigk; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at the center of the universe, in all likelihood independently of Aristarchus of Samos, who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier.[5][c][d]
+
+The publication of Copernicus' model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), just before his death in 1543, was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution.[7]
+
+Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a region that had been part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466.  A polyglot and polymath, he obtained a doctorate in canon law and was also a mathematician, astronomer, physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist. In 1517 he derived a quantity theory of money—a key concept in economics—and in 1519 he formulated an economic principle that later came to be called Gresham's law.[e]
+
+Nicolaus Copernicus was born on 19 February 1473 in the city of Toruń (Thorn), in the province of Royal Prussia, in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.[9][10]
+His father was a merchant from Kraków and his mother was the daughter of a wealthy Toruń merchant.[11] Nicolaus was the youngest of four children. His brother Andreas (Andrew) became an Augustinian canon at Frombork (Frauenburg).[11] His sister Barbara, named after her mother, became a Benedictine nun and, in her final years, prioress of a convent in Chełmno (Kulm); she died after 1517.[11] His sister Katharina married the businessman and Toruń city councilor Barthel Gertner and left five children, whom Copernicus looked after to the end of his life.[11] Copernicus never married and is not known to have had children, but from at least 1531 until 1539 his relations with Anna Schilling, a live-in housekeeper, were seen as scandalous by two bishops of Warmia who urged him over the years to break off relations with his "mistress".[12]
+
+Copernicus' father's family can be traced to a village in Silesia near Nysa (Neiße). The village's name has been variously spelled Kopernik,[f] Copernik, Copernic, Kopernic, Coprirnik, and today Koperniki.[14]
+In the 14th century, members of the family began moving to various other Silesian cities, to the Polish capital, Kraków (1367), and to Toruń (1400).[14] The father, Mikołaj the Elder, likely the son of Jan, came from the Kraków line.[14]
+
+Nicolaus was named after his father, who appears in records for the first time as a well-to-do merchant who dealt in copper, selling it mostly in Danzig (Gdańsk).[15][16] He moved from Kraków to Toruń around 1458.[17] Toruń, situated on the Vistula River, was at that time embroiled in the Thirteen Years' War, in which the Kingdom of Poland and the Prussian Confederation, an alliance of Prussian cities, gentry and clergy, fought the Teutonic Order over control of the region. In this war, Hanseatic cities like Danzig and Toruń, Nicolaus Copernicus's hometown, chose to support the Polish King, Casimir IV Jagiellon, who promised to respect the cities' traditional vast independence, which the Teutonic Order had challenged. Nicolaus' father was actively engaged in the politics of the day and supported Poland and the cities against the Teutonic Order.[18] In 1454 he mediated negotiations between Poland's Cardinal Zbigniew Oleśnicki and the Prussian cities for repayment of war loans.[14] In the Second Peace of Thorn (1466), the Teutonic Order formally relinquished all claims to its western province, which as Royal Prussia remained a region of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland until the First (1772) and Second (1793) Partitions of Poland.
+
+Copernicus's father married Barbara Watzenrode, the astronomer's mother, between 1461 and 1464.[14] He died about 1483.[11]
+
+Nicolaus' mother, Barbara Watzenrode, was the daughter of a wealthy Toruń patrician and city councillor, Lucas Watzenrode the Elder (deceased 1462), and Katarzyna (widow of Jan Peckau), mentioned in other sources as Katarzyna Rüdiger gente Modlibóg (deceased 1476).[11] The Modlibógs were a prominent Polish family who had been well known in Poland's history since 1271.[19] The Watzenrode family, like the Kopernik family, had come from Silesia from near Świdnica (Schweidnitz), and after 1360 had settled in Toruń. They soon became one of the wealthiest and most influential patrician families.[11] Through the Watzenrodes' extensive family relationships by marriage, Copernicus was related to wealthy families of Toruń (Thorn), Gdańsk (Danzig) and Elbląg (Elbing), and to prominent Polish noble families of Prussia: the Czapskis, Działyńskis, Konopackis and Kościeleckis.[11] Lucas and Katherine had three children: Lucas Watzenrode the Younger (1447–1512), who would become Bishop of Warmia and Copernicus's patron; Barbara, the astronomer's mother (deceased after 1495); and Christina (deceased before 1502), who in 1459 married the Toruń merchant and mayor, Tiedeman von Allen.[11]
+
+Lucas Watzenrode the Elder, a wealthy merchant and in 1439–62 president of the judicial bench, was a decided opponent of the Teutonic Knights.[11] In 1453 he was the delegate from Toruń at the Grudziądz (Graudenz) conference that planned the uprising against them.[11] During the ensuing Thirteen Years' War (1454–66), he actively supported the Prussian cities' war effort with substantial monetary subsidies (only part of which he later re-claimed), with political activity in Toruń and Danzig, and by personally fighting in battles at Łasin (Lessen) and Malbork (Marienburg).[11] He died in 1462.[11]
+
+Lucas Watzenrode the Younger, the astronomer's maternal uncle and patron, was educated at the University of Kraków (now Jagiellonian University) and at the universities of Cologne and Bologna. He was a bitter opponent of the Teutonic Order,[g] and its Grand Master once referred to him as "the devil incarnate".[h] In 1489 Watzenrode was elected Bishop of Warmia (Ermeland, Ermland) against the preference of King Casimir IV, who had hoped to install his own son in that seat.[22] As a result, Watzenrode quarreled with the king until Casimir IV's death three years later.[23] Watzenrode was then able to form close relations with three successive Polish monarchs: John I Albert, Alexander Jagiellon, and Sigismund I the Old. He was a friend and key advisor to each ruler, and his influence greatly strengthened the ties between Warmia and Poland proper.[24] Watzenrode came to be considered the most powerful man in Warmia, and his wealth, connections and influence allowed him to secure Copernicus' education and career as a canon at Frombork Cathedral.[22][i]
+
+Copernicus is postulated to have spoken Latin, German, and Polish with equal fluency; he also spoke Greek and Italian, and had some knowledge of Hebrew.[j][k][l][m] The vast majority of Copernicus's extant writings are in Latin, the language of European academia in his lifetime.
+
+Arguments for German being Copernicus's native tongue are that he was born into a predominantly German-speaking urban patrician class using German, next to Latin, as language of trade and commerce in written documents,[34] and that, while studying canon law at Bologna in 1496, he signed into the German natio (Natio Germanorum)—a student organization which, according to its 1497 by-laws, was open to students of all kingdoms and states whose mother-tongue was German.[35] However, according to French philosopher Alexandre Koyré, Copernicus's registration with the Natio Germanorum does not in itself imply that Copernicus considered himself German, since students from Prussia and Silesia were routinely so categorized, which carried certain privileges that made it a natural choice for German-speaking students, regardless of their ethnicity or self-identification.[35][n][o][38]
+
+The surname Kopernik, Copernik, Koppernigk, in various spellings, is recorded in Kraków from c. 1350, apparently given to people from the village of Koperniki (prior to 1845 rendered Kopernik, Copernik, Copirnik, and Koppirnik) in the Duchy of Nysa, 10 km south of Nysa, and now 10 km north of the Polish-Czech border. Nicolaus Copernicus' great-grandfather is recorded as having received citizenship in Kraków in 1386. The toponym Kopernik (modern Koperniki) has been variously tied to the Polish word for "dill" (koper) and the German word for "copper" (Kupfer).[p] The suffix -nik (or plural, -niki) denotes a Slavic and Polish agent noun.
+
+As was common in the period, the spellings of both the toponym and the surname vary greatly. Copernicus "was rather indifferent about orthography".[39] During his childhood, about 1480, the name of his father (and thus of the future astronomer) was recorded in Thorn as Niclas Koppernigk.[40]
+At Kraków he signed himself, in Latin, Nicolaus Nicolai de Torunia (Nicolaus, son of Nicolaus, of Toruń).[q] At Bologna, in 1496, he registered in the Matricula Nobilissimi Germanorum Collegii, resp. Annales Clarissimae Nacionis Germanorum, of the Natio Germanica Bononiae, as Dominus Nicolaus Kopperlingk de Thorn – IX grosseti.[42][43] At Padua he signed himself "Nicolaus Copernik", later "Coppernicus".[39] The astronomer thus Latinized his name to Coppernicus, generally with two "p"s (in 23 of 31 documents studied),[44] but later in life he used a single "p". On the title page of De revolutionibus, Rheticus published the name (in the genitive, or possessive, case) as "Nicolai Copernici".[r]
+
+Upon his father's death, young Nicolaus' maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode the Younger (1447–1512), took the boy under his wing and saw to his education and career.[11] Watzenrode maintained contacts with leading intellectual figures in Poland and was a friend of the influential Italian-born humanist and Kraków courtier, Filippo Buonaccorsi.[45] There are no surviving primary documents on the early years of Copernicus's childhood and education.[11] Copernicus biographers assume that Watzenrode first sent young Copernicus to St. John's School, at Toruń, where he himself had been a master.[11] Later, according to Armitage,[s] the boy attended the Cathedral School at Włocławek, up the Vistula River from Toruń, which prepared pupils for entrance to the University of Kraków, Watzenrode's alma mater in Poland's capital.[46]
+
+In the winter semester of 1491–92 Copernicus, as "Nicolaus Nicolai de Thuronia", matriculated together with his brother Andrew at the University of Kraków (now Jagiellonian University).[11] Copernicus began his studies in the Department of Arts (from the fall of 1491, presumably until the summer or fall of 1495) in the heyday of the Kraków astronomical-mathematical school, acquiring the foundations for his subsequent mathematical achievements.[11] According to a later but credible tradition (Jan Brożek), Copernicus was a pupil of Albert Brudzewski, who by then (from 1491) was a professor of Aristotelian philosophy but taught astronomy privately outside the university; Copernicus became familiar with Brudzewski's widely read commentary to Georg von Peuerbach's Theoricæ novæ planetarum and almost certainly attended the lectures of Bernard of Biskupie and Wojciech Krypa of Szamotuły, and probably other astronomical lectures by Jan of Głogów, Michał of Wrocław (Breslau), Wojciech of Pniewy, and Marcin Bylica of Olkusz.[47]
+
+Copernicus' Kraków studies gave him a thorough grounding in the mathematical astronomy taught at the University (arithmetic, geometry, geometric optics, cosmography, theoretical and computational astronomy) and a good knowledge of the philosophical and natural-science writings of Aristotle (De coelo, Metaphysics) and Averroes (which in the future would play an important role in the shaping of Copernicus' theory), stimulating his interest in learning and making him conversant with humanistic culture.[22] Copernicus broadened the knowledge that he took from the university lecture halls with independent reading of books that he acquired during his Kraków years (Euclid, Haly Abenragel, the Alfonsine Tables, Johannes Regiomontanus' Tabulae directionum); to this period, probably, also date his earliest scientific notes, now preserved partly at Uppsala University.[22] At Kraków Copernicus began collecting a large library on astronomy; it would later be carried off as war booty by the Swedes during the Deluge in the 1650s and is now at the Uppsala University Library.[48]
+
+Copernicus' four years at Kraków played an important role in the development of his critical faculties and initiated his analysis of logical contradictions in the two "official" systems of astronomy—Aristotle's theory of homocentric spheres, and Ptolemy's mechanism of eccentrics and epicycles—the surmounting and discarding of which would be the first step toward the creation of Copernicus' own doctrine of the structure of the universe.[22]
+
+Without taking a degree, probably in the fall of 1495, Copernicus left Kraków for the court of his uncle Watzenrode, who in 1489 had been elevated to Prince-Bishop of Warmia and soon (before November 1495) sought to place his nephew in the Warmia canonry vacated by the 26 August 1495 death of its previous tenant, Jan Czanow. For unclear reasons—probably due to opposition from part of the chapter, who appealed to Rome—Copernicus' installation was delayed, inclining Watzenrode to send both his nephews to study canon law in Italy, seemingly with a view to furthering their ecclesiastic careers and thereby also strengthening his own influence in the Warmia chapter.[22]
+
+On 20 October 1497, Copernicus, by proxy, formally succeeded to the Warmia canonry which had been granted to him two years earlier. To this, by a document dated 10 January 1503 at Padua, he would add a sinecure at the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross and St. Bartholomew in Wrocław (at the time in the Kingdom of Bohemia). Despite having been granted a papal indult on 29 November 1508 to receive further benefices, through his ecclesiastic career Copernicus not only did not acquire further prebends and higher stations (prelacies) at the chapter, but in 1538 he relinquished the Wrocław sinecure. It is unclear whether he was ever ordained a priest.[49] Edward Rosen asserts that he was not.[50][51] Copernicus did take minor orders, which sufficed for assuming a chapter canonry.[22] The Catholic Encyclopedia proposes that his ordination was probable, as in 1537 he was one of four candidates for the episcopal seat of Warmia, a position which required ordination.[52]
+
+Meanwhile, leaving Warmia in mid-1496—possibly with the retinue of the chapter's chancellor, Jerzy Pranghe, who was going to Italy—in the fall, possibly in October, Copernicus arrived in Bologna and a few months later (after 6 January 1497) signed himself into the register of the Bologna University of Jurists' "German nation", which included young Poles from Silesia, Prussia and Pomerania as well as students of other nationalities.[22]
+
+During his three-year stay at Bologna, which occurred between fall 1496 and spring 1501, Copernicus seems to have devoted himself less keenly to studying canon law (he received his doctorate in law only after seven years, following a second return to Italy in 1503) than to studying the humanities—probably attending lectures by Filippo Beroaldo, Antonio Urceo, called Codro, Giovanni Garzoni, and Alessandro Achillini—and to studying astronomy. He met the famous astronomer Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara and became his disciple and assistant.[22] Copernicus was developing new ideas inspired by reading the "Epitome of the Almagest" (Epitome in Almagestum Ptolemei) by George von Peuerbach and Johannes Regiomontanus (Venice, 1496). He verified its observations about certain peculiarities in Ptolemy's theory of the Moon's motion, by conducting on 9 March 1497 at Bologna a memorable observation of the occultation of Aldebaran, the brightest star in the Taurus constellation, by the moon. Copernicus the humanist sought confirmation for his growing doubts through close reading of Greek and Latin authors (Pythagoras, Aristarchos of Samos, Cleomedes, Cicero, Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, Philolaus, Heraclides, Ecphantos, Plato), gathering, especially while at Padua, fragmentary historic information about ancient astronomical, cosmological and calendar systems.[53]
+
+Copernicus spent the jubilee year 1500 in Rome, where he arrived with his brother Andrew that spring, doubtless to perform an apprenticeship at the Papal Curia. Here, too, however, he continued his astronomical work begun at Bologna, observing, for example, a lunar eclipse on the night of 5–6 November 1500. According to a later account by Rheticus, Copernicus also—probably privately, rather than at the Roman Sapienza—as a "Professor Mathematum" (professor of astronomy) delivered, "to numerous... students and... leading masters of the science", public lectures devoted probably to a critique of the mathematical solutions of contemporary astronomy.[54]
+
+On his return journey doubtless stopping briefly at Bologna, in mid-1501 Copernicus arrived back in Warmia. After on 28 July receiving from the chapter a two-year extension of leave in order to study medicine (since "he may in future be a useful medical advisor to our Reverend Superior [Bishop Lucas Watzenrode] and the gentlemen of the chapter"), in late summer or in the fall he returned again to Italy, probably accompanied by his brother Andrew[t] and by Canon Bernhard Sculteti. This time he studied at the University of Padua, famous as a seat of medical learning, and—except for a brief visit to Ferrara in May–June 1503 to pass examinations for, and receive, his doctorate in canon law—he remained at Padua from fall 1501 to summer 1503.[54]
+
+Copernicus studied medicine probably under the direction of leading Padua professors—Bartolomeo da Montagnana, Girolamo Fracastoro, Gabriele Zerbi, Alessandro Benedetti—and read medical treatises that he acquired at this time, by Valescus de Taranta, Jan Mesue, Hugo Senensis, Jan Ketham, Arnold de Villa Nova, and Michele Savonarola, which would form the embryo of his later medical library.[54]
+
+One of the subjects that Copernicus must have studied was astrology, since it was considered an important part of a medical education.[56] However, unlike most other prominent Renaissance astronomers, he appears never to have practiced or expressed any interest in astrology.[57]
+
+As at Bologna, Copernicus did not limit himself to his official studies. It was probably the Padua years that saw the beginning of his Hellenistic interests. He familiarized himself with Greek language and culture with the aid of Theodorus Gaza's grammar (1495) and J.B. Chrestonius' dictionary (1499), expanding his studies of antiquity, begun at Bologna, to the writings of Basilius Bessarion, Lorenzo Valla and others. There also seems to be evidence that it was during his Padua stay that the idea finally crystallized, of basing a new system of the world on the movement of the Earth.[54]
+As the time approached for Copernicus to return home, in spring 1503 he journeyed to Ferrara where, on 31 May 1503, having passed the obligatory examinations, he was granted the degree of Doctor of Canon Law (Nicolaus Copernich de Prusia, Jure Canonico ... et doctoratus[58]). No doubt it was soon after (at latest, in fall 1503) that he left Italy for good to return to Warmia.[54]
+
+Copernicus made three observations of Mercury, with errors of −3, −15 and −1 minutes of arc. He made one of Venus, with an error of −24 minutes. Four were made of Mars, with errors of 2, 20, 77, and 137 minutes. Four observations were made of Jupiter, with errors of 32, 51, −11 and 25 minutes. He made four of Saturn, with errors of 31, 20, 23 and −4 minutes.[59]
+
+Having completed all his studies in Italy, 30-year-old Copernicus returned to Warmia, where he would live out the remaining 40 years of his life, apart from brief journeys to Kraków and to nearby Prussian cities: Toruń (Thorn), Gdańsk (Danzig), Elbląg (Elbing), Grudziądz (Graudenz), Malbork (Marienburg), Königsberg (Królewiec).[54]
+
+The Prince-Bishopric of Warmia enjoyed substantial autonomy, with its own diet (parliament) and monetary unit (the same as in the other parts of Royal Prussia) and treasury.[60]
+
+Copernicus was his uncle's secretary and physician from 1503 to 1510 (or perhaps till his uncle's death on 29 March 1512) and resided in the Bishop's castle at Lidzbark (Heilsberg), where he began work on his heliocentric theory. In his official capacity, he took part in nearly all his uncle's political, ecclesiastic and administrative-economic duties. From the beginning of 1504, Copernicus accompanied Watzenrode to sessions of the Royal Prussian diet held at Malbork and Elbląg and, write Dobrzycki and Hajdukiewicz, "participated... in all the more important events in the complex diplomatic game that ambitious politician and statesman played in defense of the particular interests of Prussia and Warmia, between hostility to the [Teutonic] Order and loyalty to the Polish Crown."[54]
+
+In 1504–12 Copernicus made numerous journeys as part of his uncle's retinue—in 1504, to Toruń and Gdańsk, to a session of the Royal Prussian Council in the presence of Poland's King Alexander Jagiellon; to sessions of the Prussian diet at Malbork (1506), Elbląg (1507) and Sztum (Stuhm) (1512); and he may have attended a Poznań (Posen) session (1510) and the coronation of Poland's King Sigismund I the Old in Kraków (1507). Watzenrode's itinerary suggests that in spring 1509 Copernicus may have attended the Kraków sejm.[54]
+
+It was probably on the latter occasion, in Kraków, that Copernicus submitted for printing at Jan Haller's press his translation, from Greek to Latin, of a collection, by the 7th-century Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta, of 85 brief poems called Epistles, or letters, supposed to have passed between various characters in a Greek story. They are of three kinds—"moral," offering advice on how people should live; "pastoral", giving little pictures of shepherd life; and "amorous", comprising love poems. They are arranged to follow one another in a regular rotation of subjects. Copernicus had translated the Greek verses into Latin prose, and he now published his version as Theophilacti scolastici Simocati epistolae morales, rurales et amatoriae interpretatione latina, which he dedicated to his uncle in gratitude for all the benefits he had received from him. With this translation, Copernicus declared himself on the side of the humanists in the struggle over the question whether Greek literature should be revived.[29] Copernicus's first poetic work was a Greek epigram, composed probably during a visit to Kraków, for Johannes Dantiscus' epithalamium for Barbara Zapolya's 1512 wedding to King Zygmunt I the Old.[61]
+
+Some time before 1514, Copernicus wrote an initial outline of his heliocentric theory known only from later transcripts, by the title (perhaps given to it by a copyist), Nicolai Copernici de hypothesibus motuum coelestium a se constitutis commentariolus—commonly referred to as the Commentariolus. It was a succinct theoretical description of the world's heliocentric mechanism, without mathematical apparatus, and differed in some important details of geometric construction from De revolutionibus; but it was already based on the same assumptions regarding Earth's triple motions. The Commentariolus, which Copernicus consciously saw as merely a first sketch for his planned book, was not intended for printed distribution. He made only a very few manuscript copies available to his closest acquaintances, including, it seems, several Kraków astronomers with whom he collaborated in 1515–30 in observing eclipses. Tycho Brahe would include a fragment from the Commentariolus in his own treatise, Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata, published in Prague in 1602, based on a manuscript that he had received from the Bohemian physician and astronomer Tadeáš Hájek, a friend of Rheticus. The Commentariolus would appear complete in print for the first time only in 1878.[61]
+
+In 1510 or 1512 Copernicus moved to Frombork, a town to the northwest at the Vistula Lagoon on the Baltic Sea coast. There, in April 1512, he participated in the election of Fabian of Lossainen as Prince-Bishop of Warmia. It was only in early June 1512 that the chapter gave Copernicus an "external curia"—a house outside the defensive walls of the cathedral mount. In 1514 he purchased the northwestern tower within the walls of the Frombork stronghold. He would maintain both these residences to the end of his life, despite the devastation of the chapter's buildings by a raid against Frauenburg carried out by the Teutonic Order in January 1520, during which Copernicus's astronomical instruments were probably destroyed. Copernicus conducted astronomical observations in 1513–16 presumably from his external curia; and in 1522–43, from an unidentified "small tower" (turricula), using primitive instruments modeled on ancient ones—the quadrant, triquetrum, armillary sphere. At Frombork Copernicus conducted over half of his more than 60 registered astronomical observations.[61]
+
+Having settled permanently at Frombork, where he would reside to the end of his life, with interruptions in 1516–19 and 1520–21, Copernicus found himself at the Warmia chapter's economic and administrative center, which was also one of Warmia's two chief centers of political life. In the difficult, politically complex situation of Warmia, threatened externally by the Teutonic Order's aggressions (attacks by Teutonic bands; the Polish-Teutonic War of 1519–21; Albert's plans to annex Warmia), internally subject to strong separatist pressures (the selection of the prince-bishops of Warmia; currency reform), he, together with part of the chapter, represented a program of strict cooperation with the Polish Crown and demonstrated in all his public activities (the defense of his country against the Order's plans of conquest; proposals to unify its monetary system with the Polish Crown's; support for Poland's interests in the Warmia dominion's ecclesiastic administration) that he was consciously a citizen of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic. Soon after the death of uncle Bishop Watzenrode, he participated in the signing of the Second Treaty of Piotrków Trybunalski (7 December 1512), governing the appointment of the Bishop of Warmia, declaring, despite opposition from part of the chapter, for loyal cooperation with the Polish Crown.[61]
+
+That same year (before 8 November 1512) Copernicus assumed responsibility, as magister pistoriae, for administering the chapter's economic enterprises (he would hold this office again in 1530), having already since 1511 fulfilled the duties of chancellor and visitor of the chapter's estates.[61]
+
+His administrative and economic dutes did not distract Copernicus, in 1512–15, from intensive observational activity. The results of his observations of Mars and Saturn in this period, and especially a series of four observations of the Sun made in 1515, led to discovery of the variability of Earth's eccentricity and of the movement of the solar apogee in relation to the fixed stars, which in 1515–19 prompted his first revisions of certain assumptions of his system. Some of the observations that he made in this period may have had a connection with a proposed reform of the Julian calendar made in the first half of 1513 at the request of the Bishop of Fossombrone, Paul of Middelburg. Their contacts in this matter in the period of the Fifth Lateran Council were later memorialized in a complimentary mention in Copernicus's dedicatory epistle in Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium and in a treatise by Paul of Middelburg, Secundum compendium correctionis Calendarii (1516), which mentions Copernicus among the learned men who had sent the Council proposals for the calendar's emendation.[62]
+
+During 1516–21, Copernicus resided at Olsztyn (Allenstein) Castle as economic administrator of Warmia, including Olsztyn (Allenstein) and Pieniężno (Mehlsack). While there, he wrote a manuscript, Locationes mansorum desertorum (Locations of Deserted Fiefs), with a view to populating those fiefs with industrious farmers and so bolstering the economy of Warmia. When Olsztyn was besieged by the Teutonic Knights during the Polish–Teutonic War, Copernicus directed the defense of Olsztyn and Warmia by Royal Polish forces. He also represented the Polish side in the ensuing peace negotiations.[63]
+
+Copernicus for years advised the Royal Prussian sejmik on monetary reform, particularly in the 1520s when that was a major question in regional Prussian politics.[64] In 1526 he wrote a study on the value of money, "Monetae cudendae ratio". In it he formulated an early iteration of the theory, now called Gresham's law, that "bad" (debased) coinage drives "good" (un-debased) coinage out of circulation—several decades before Thomas Gresham. He also, in 1517, set down a quantity theory of money, a principal concept in economics to the present day. Copernicus's recommendations on monetary reform were widely read by leaders of both Prussia and Poland in their attempts to stabilize currency.[65]
+
+In 1533, Johann Widmanstetter, secretary to Pope Clement VII, explained Copernicus's heliocentric system to the Pope and two cardinals. The Pope was so pleased that he gave Widmanstetter a valuable gift.[66] In 1535 Bernard Wapowski wrote a letter to a gentleman in Vienna, urging him to publish an enclosed almanac, which he claimed had been written by Copernicus. This is the only mention of a Copernicus almanac in the historical records. The "almanac" was likely Copernicus's tables of planetary positions. Wapowski's letter mentions Copernicus's theory about the motions of the earth. Nothing came of Wapowski's request, because he died a couple of weeks later.[66]
+
+Following the death of Prince-Bishop of Warmia Mauritius Ferber (1 July 1537), Copernicus participated in the election of his successor, Johannes Dantiscus (20 September 1537). Copernicus was one of four candidates for the post, written in at the initiative of Tiedemann Giese; but his candidacy was actually pro forma, since Dantiscus had earlier been named coadjutor bishop to Ferber and since Dantiscus had the backing of Poland's King Sigismund I.[67] At first Copernicus maintained friendly relations with the new Prince-Bishop, assisting him medically in spring 1538 and accompanying him that summer on an inspection tour of Chapter holdings. But that autumn, their friendship was strained by suspicions over Copernicus's housekeeper, Anna Schilling, whom Dantiscus banished from Frombork in spring 1539.[67]
+
+In his younger days, Copernicus the physician had treated his uncle, brother and other chapter members. In later years he was called upon to attend the elderly bishops who in turn occupied the see of Warmia—Mauritius Ferber and Johannes Dantiscus—and, in 1539, his old friend Tiedemann Giese, Bishop of Chełmno (Kulm). In treating such important patients, he sometimes sought consultations from other physicians, including the physician to Duke Albert and, by letter, the Polish Royal Physician.[68]
+
+In the spring of 1541, Duke Albert—former Grand Master of the Teutonic Order who had converted the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights into a Lutheran and hereditary realm, the Duchy of Prussia, upon doing homage to his uncle, the King of Poland, Sigismund I—summoned Copernicus to Königsberg to attend the Duke's counselor, George von Kunheim, who had fallen seriously ill, and for whom the Prussian doctors seemed unable to do anything. Copernicus went willingly; he had met von Kunheim during negotiations over reform of the coinage. And Copernicus had come to feel that Albert himself was not such a bad person; the two had many intellectual interests in common. The Chapter readily gave Copernicus permission to go, as it wished to remain on good terms with the Duke, despite his Lutheran faith. In about a month the patient recovered, and Copernicus returned to Frombork. For a time, he continued to receive reports on von Kunheim's condition, and to send him medical advice by letter.[70]
+
+Some of Copernicus's close friends turned Protestant, but Copernicus never showed a tendency in that direction. The first attacks on him came from Protestants. Wilhelm Gnapheus, a Dutch refugee settled in Elbląg, wrote a comedy in Latin, Morosophus (The Foolish Sage), and staged it at the Latin school that he had established there. In the play, Copernicus was caricatured as the eponymous Morosophus, a haughty, cold, aloof man who dabbled in astrology, considered himself inspired by God, and was rumored to have written a large work that was moldering in a chest.[45]
+
+Elsewhere Protestants were the first to react to news of Copernicus's theory. Melanchthon wrote:
+
+Some people believe that it is excellent and correct to work out a thing as absurd as did that Sarmatian [i.e., Polish] astronomer who moves the earth and stops the sun. Indeed, wise rulers should have curbed such light-mindedness.[45]
+
+Nevertheless, in 1551, eight years after Copernicus's death, astronomer Erasmus Reinhold published, under the sponsorship of Copernicus's former military adversary, the Protestant Duke Albert, the Prussian Tables, a set of astronomical tables based on Copernicus's work. Astronomers and astrologers quickly adopted it in place of its predecessors.[71]
+
+Some time before 1514 Copernicus made available to friends his "Commentariolus" ("Little Commentary"), a manuscript describing his ideas about the heliocentric hypothesis.[u] It contained seven basic assumptions (detailed below).[72] Thereafter he continued gathering data for a more detailed work.
+
+At about 1532 Copernicus had basically completed his work on the manuscript of Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium; but despite urging by his closest friends, he resisted openly publishing his views, not wishing—as he confessed—to risk the scorn "to which he would expose himself on account of the novelty and incomprehensibility of his theses."[67]
+
+In 1533, Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter delivered a series of lectures in Rome outlining Copernicus's theory. Pope Clement VII and several Catholic cardinals heard the lectures and were interested in the theory. On 1 November 1536, Cardinal Nikolaus von Schönberg, Archbishop of Capua, wrote to Copernicus from Rome:
+
+Some years ago word reached me concerning your proficiency, of which everybody constantly spoke. At that time I began to have a very high regard for you... For I had learned that you had not merely mastered the discoveries of the ancient astronomers uncommonly well but had also formulated a new cosmology. In it you maintain that the earth moves; that the sun occupies the lowest, and thus the central, place in the universe... Therefore with the utmost earnestness I entreat you, most learned sir, unless I inconvenience you, to communicate this discovery of yours to scholars, and at the earliest possible moment to send me your writings on the sphere of the universe together with the tables and whatever else you have that is relevant to this subject ...[73]
+
+By then Copernicus's work was nearing its definitive form, and rumors about his theory had reached educated people all over Europe. Despite urgings from many quarters, Copernicus delayed publication of his book, perhaps from fear of criticism—a fear delicately expressed in the subsequent dedication of his masterpiece to Pope Paul III. Scholars disagree on whether Copernicus's concern was limited to possible astronomical and philosophical objections, or whether he was also concerned about religious objections.[v]
+
+Copernicus was still working on De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (even if not certain that he wanted to publish it) when in 1539 Georg Joachim Rheticus, a Wittenberg mathematician, arrived in Frombork. Philipp Melanchthon, a close theological ally of Martin Luther, had arranged for Rheticus to visit several astronomers and study with them. Rheticus became Copernicus's pupil, staying with him for two years and writing a book, Narratio prima (First Account), outlining the essence of Copernicus's theory. In 1542 Rheticus published a treatise on trigonometry by Copernicus (later included as chapters 13 and 14 of Book I of De revolutionibus).[74]
+Under strong pressure from Rheticus, and having seen the favorable first general reception of his work, Copernicus finally agreed to give De revolutionibus to his close friend, Tiedemann Giese, bishop of Chełmno (Kulm), to be delivered to Rheticus for printing by the German printer Johannes Petreius at Nuremberg (Nürnberg), Germany. While Rheticus initially supervised the printing, he had to leave Nuremberg before it was completed, and he handed over the task of supervising the rest of the printing to a Lutheran theologian, Andreas Osiander.[75]
+
+Osiander added an unauthorised and unsigned preface, defending Copernicus' work against those who might be offended by its novel hypotheses.  He argued that "different hypotheses are sometimes offered for one and the same motion [and therefore] the astronomer will take as his first choice that hypothesis which is the easiest to grasp."  According to Osiander, "these hypotheses need not be true nor even probable.  [I]f they provide a calculus consistent with the observations, that alone is enough."[76]
+
+Toward the close of 1542, Copernicus was seized with apoplexy and paralysis, and he died at age 70 on 24 May 1543. Legend has it that he was presented with the final printed pages of his Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium on the very day that he died, allowing him to take farewell of his life's work.[w] He is reputed to have awoken from a stroke-induced coma, looked at his book, and then died peacefully.[x]
+
+Copernicus was reportedly buried in Frombork Cathedral, where a 1580 epitaph stood until being defaced; it was replaced in 1735. For over two centuries, archaeologists searched the cathedral in vain for Copernicus' remains. Efforts to locate them in 1802, 1909, 1939 had come to nought. In 2004 a team led by Jerzy Gąssowski, head of an archaeology and anthropology institute in Pułtusk, began a new search, guided by the research of historian Jerzy Sikorski.[77][78] In August 2005, after scanning beneath the cathedral floor, they discovered what they believed to be Copernicus's remains.[79]
+
+The discovery was announced only after further research, on 3 November 2008. Gąssowski said he was "almost 100 percent sure it is Copernicus".[80] Forensic expert Capt. Dariusz Zajdel of the Polish Police Central Forensic Laboratory used the skull to reconstruct a face that closely resembled the features—including a broken nose and a scar above the left eye—on a Copernicus self-portrait.[80] The expert also determined that the skull belonged to a man who had died around age 70—Copernicus's age at the time of his death.[79]
+
+The grave was in poor condition, and not all the remains of the skeleton were found; missing, among other things, was the lower jaw.[81] The DNA from the bones found in the grave matched hair samples taken from a book owned by Copernicus which was kept at the library of the University of Uppsala in Sweden.[78][82]
+
+On 22 May 2010 Copernicus was given a second funeral in a Mass led by Józef Kowalczyk, the former papal nuncio to Poland and newly named Primate of Poland. Copernicus's remains were reburied in the same spot in Frombork Cathedral where part of his skull and other bones had been found. A black granite tombstone now identifies him as the founder of the heliocentric theory and also a church canon. The tombstone bears a representation of Copernicus's model of the Solar System—a golden Sun encircled by six of the planets.[83]
+
+Philolaus (c. 480–385 BCE) described an astronomical system in which a Central Fire (different from the Sun) occupied the centre of the universe, and a counter-Earth, the Earth, Moon, the Sun itself, planets, and stars all revolved around it, in that order outward from the centre.[84] Heraclides Ponticus (387–312 BCE) proposed that the Earth rotates on its axis.[85]
+Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310 BCE – c. 230 BCE) was the first to advance a theory that the earth orbited the sun.[86] Further mathematical details of Aristarchus' heliocentric system were worked out around 150 BCE by the Hellenistic astronomer Seleucus of Seleucia. Though Aristarchus' original text has been lost, a reference in Archimedes' book The Sand Reckoner (Archimedis Syracusani Arenarius & Dimensio Circuli) describes a work by Aristarchus in which he advanced the heliocentric model. Thomas Heath gives the following English translation of Archimedes' text:[87]
+
+You are now aware ['you' being King Gelon] that the "universe" is the name given by most astronomers to the sphere the centre of which is the centre of the earth, while its radius is equal to the straight line between the centre of the sun and the centre of the earth. This is the common account (τά γραφόμενα) as you have heard from astronomers. But Aristarchus has brought out a book consisting of certain hypotheses, wherein it appears, as a consequence of the assumptions made, that the universe is many times greater than the "universe" just mentioned. His hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the sun remain unmoved, that the earth revolves about the sun on the circumference of a circle, the sun lying in the middle of the orbit, and that the sphere of the fixed stars, situated about the same centre as the sun, is so great that the circle in which he supposes the earth to revolve bears such a proportion to the distance of the fixed stars as the centre of the sphere bears to its surface.
+
+Copernicus cited Aristarchus of Samos in an early (unpublished) manuscript of De Revolutionibus (which still survives), though he removed the reference from his final published manuscript.[6]
+
+Copernicus was probably aware that Pythagoras's system involved a moving Earth. The Pythagorean system was mentioned by Aristotle.[88]
+
+Copernicus owned a copy of Giorgio Valla's De expetendis et fugiendis rebus, which included a translation of Plutarch's reference to Aristarchus's heliostaticism.[89]
+
+In Copernicus' dedication of On the Revolutions to Pope Paul III—which Copernicus hoped would dampen criticism of his heliocentric theory by "babblers... completely ignorant of [astronomy]"—the book's author wrote that, in rereading all of philosophy, in the pages of Cicero and Plutarch he had found references to those few thinkers who dared to move the Earth "against the traditional opinion of astronomers and almost against common sense."
+
+The prevailing theory during Copernicus's lifetime was the one that Ptolemy published in his Almagest c. 150 CE; the Earth was the stationary center of the universe. Stars were embedded in a large outer sphere which rotated rapidly, approximately daily, while each of the planets, the Sun, and the Moon were embedded in their own, smaller spheres. Ptolemy's system employed devices, including epicycles, deferents and equants, to account for observations that the paths of these bodies differed from simple, circular orbits centered on the Earth.[90]
+
+Beginning in the 10th century, a tradition criticizing Ptolemy developed within Islamic astronomy, which climaxed with Ibn al-Haytham of Basra's Al-Shukūk 'alā Baṭalamiyūs ("Doubts Concerning Ptolemy").[91] Several Islamic astronomers questioned the Earth's apparent immobility,[92][93] and centrality within the universe.[94] Some accepted that the earth rotates around its axis, such as Abu Sa'id al-Sijzi (d. c. 1020).[95][96] According to al-Biruni, al-Sijzi invented an astrolabe based on a belief held by some of his contemporaries "that the motion we see is due to the Earth's movement and not to that of the sky."[96][97] That others besides al-Sijzi held this view is further confirmed by a reference from an Arabic work in the 13th century which states:
+
+According to the geometers [or engineers] (muhandisīn), the earth is in constant circular motion, and what appears to be the motion of the heavens is actually due to the motion of the earth and not the stars.[96]
+
+In the 12th century, Nur ad-Din al-Bitruji proposed a complete alternative to the Ptolemaic system (although not heliocentric).[98][99] He declared the Ptolemaic system as an imaginary model, successful at predicting planetary positions, but not real or physical.[98][99] Al-Bitruji's alternative system spread through most of Europe during the 13th century, with debates and refutations of his ideas continued up to the 16th century.[99]
+
+Mathematical techniques developed in the 13th to 14th centuries by Mo'ayyeduddin al-Urdi, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, and Ibn al-Shatir for geocentric models of planetary motions closely resemble some of those used later by Copernicus in his heliocentric models.[100] Copernicus used what is now known as the Urdi lemma and the Tusi couple in the same planetary models as found in Arabic sources.[101] Furthermore, the exact replacement of the equant by two epicycles used by Copernicus in the Commentariolus was found in an earlier work by Ibn al-Shatir (d. c. 1375) of Damascus.[102] Ibn al-Shatir's lunar and Mercury models are also identical to those of Copernicus.[103] This has led some scholars to argue that Copernicus must have had access to some yet to be identified work on the ideas of those earlier astronomers.[104] However, no likely candidate for this conjectured work has yet come to light, and other scholars have argued that Copernicus could well have developed these ideas independently of the late Islamic tradition.[105] Nevertheless, Copernicus cited some of the Islamic astronomers whose theories and observations he used in De Revolutionibus, namely al-Battani, Thabit ibn Qurra, al-Zarqali, Averroes, and al-Bitruji.[106]
+
+Copernicus' major work on his heliocentric theory was Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), published in the year of his death, 1543.  He had formulated his theory by 1510.  "He wrote out a short overview of his new heavenly arrangement [known as the Commentariolus, or Brief Sketch], also probably in 1510 [but no later than May 1514], and sent it off to at least one correspondent beyond Varmia [the Latin for "Warmia"].  That person in turn copied the document for further circulation, and presumably the new recipients did, too..."[108]
+
+Copernicus' Commentariolus summarized his heliocentric theory. It listed the "assumptions" upon which the theory was based, as follows:[109]
+
+1. There is no one center of all the celestial circles[110] or spheres.[111]
+2. The center of the earth is not the center of the universe, but only the center towards which heavy bodies move and the center of the lunar sphere.
+3. All the spheres surround the sun as if it were in the middle of them all, and therefore the center of the universe is near the sun.
+4. The ratio of the earth's distance from the sun to the height of the firmament (outermost celestial sphere containing the stars) is so much smaller than the ratio of the earth's radius to its distance from the sun that the distance from the earth to the sun is imperceptible in comparison with the height of the firmament.
+5. Whatever motion appears in the firmament arises not from any motion of the firmament, but from the earth's motion. The earth together with its circumjacent elements performs a complete rotation on its fixed poles in a daily motion, while the firmament and highest heaven abide unchanged.
+6. What appear to us as motions of the sun arise not from its motion but from the motion of the earth and our sphere, with which we revolve about the sun like any other planet. The earth has, then, more than one motion.
+
+7. The apparent retrograde and direct motion of the planets arises not from their motion but from the earth's. The motion of the earth alone, therefore, suffices to explain so many apparent inequalities in the heavens.
+
+De revolutionibus itself was divided into six sections or parts, called "books":[112]
+
+Georg Joachim Rheticus could have been Copernicus's successor, but did not rise to the occasion.[66] Erasmus Reinhold could have been his successor, but died prematurely.[66] The first of the great successors was Tycho Brahe[66] (though he did not think the Earth orbited the Sun), followed by Johannes Kepler,[66] who had collaborated with Tycho in Prague and benefited from Tycho's decades' worth of detailed observational data.[113]
+
+Despite the near universal acceptance later of the heliocentric idea (though not the epicycles or the circular orbits), Copernicus's theory was originally slow to catch on. Scholars hold that sixty years after the publication of The Revolutions there were only around 15 astronomers espousing Copernicanism in all of Europe: "Thomas Digges and Thomas Harriot in England; Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei in Italy; Diego Zuniga in Spain; Simon Stevin in the Low Countries; and in Germany, the largest group—Georg Joachim Rheticus, Michael Maestlin, Christoph Rothmann (who may have later recanted),[114] and Johannes Kepler."[114] Additional possibilities are Englishman William Gilbert, along with Achilles Gasser, Georg Vogelin, Valentin Otto, and Tiedemann Giese.[114]
+
+Arthur Koestler, in his popular book The Sleepwalkers, asserted that Copernicus's book had not been widely read on its first publication.[115] This claim was trenchantly criticised by Edward Rosen,[y] and has been decisively disproved by Owen Gingerich, who examined nearly every surviving copy of the first two editions and found copious marginal notes by their owners throughout many of them. Gingerich published his conclusions in 2004 in The Book Nobody Read.[116]
+
+The intellectual climate of the time "remained dominated by Aristotelian philosophy and the corresponding Ptolemaic astronomy. At that time there was no reason to accept the Copernican theory, except for its mathematical simplicity [by avoiding using the equant in determining planetary positions]."[117] Tycho Brahe's system ("that the earth is stationary, the sun revolves about the earth, and the other planets revolve about the sun")[117] also directly competed with Copernicus's. It was only a half century later with the work of Kepler and Galileo that any substantial evidence defending Copernicanism appeared, starting "from the time when Galileo formulated the principle of inertia...[which] helped to explain why everything would not fall off the earth if it were in motion."[117]   "[Not until] after Isaac Newton formulated the universal law of gravitation and the laws of mechanics [in his 1687 Principia], which unified terrestrial and celestial mechanics, was the heliocentric view generally accepted."[117]
+
+The immediate result of the 1543 publication of Copernicus's book was only mild controversy. At the Council of Trent (1545–63) neither Copernicus's theory nor calendar reform (which would later use tables deduced from Copernicus's calculations) were discussed.[118] It has been much debated why it was not until six decades after the publication of De revolutionibus that the Catholic Church took any official action against it, even the efforts of Tolosani going unheeded. Catholic side opposition only commenced seventy-three years later, when it was occasioned by Galileo.[119]
+
+The first notable to move against Copernicanism was the Magister of the Holy Palace (i.e., the Catholic Church's chief censor), Dominican Bartolomeo Spina, who "expressed a desire to stamp out the Copernican doctrine".[120] But with Spina's death in 1546, his cause fell to his friend, the well known theologian-astronomer, the Dominican Giovanni Maria Tolosani of the Convent of St. Mark in Florence. Tolosani had written a treatise on reforming the calendar (in which astronomy would play a large role) and had attended the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–1517) to discuss the matter. He had obtained a copy of De Revolutionibus in 1544. His denunciation of Copernicanism was written a year later, in 1545, in an appendix to his unpublished work, On the Truth of Sacred Scripture.[121]
+
+Emulating the rationalistic style of Thomas Aquinas, Tolosani sought to refute Copernicanism by philosophical argument.  Copernicanism was absurd, according to Tolosani, because it was scientifically unproven and unfounded. First, Copernicus had assumed the motion of the Earth but offered no physical theory whereby one would deduce this motion. (No one realized that the investigation into Copernicanism would result in a rethinking of the entire field of physics.) Second, Tolosani charged that Copernicus's thought process was backwards. He held that Copernicus had come up with his idea and then sought phenomena that would support it, rather than observing phenomena and deducing from them the idea of what caused them. In this, Tolosani was linking Copernicus's mathematical equations with the practices of the Pythagoreans (whom Aristotle had made arguments against, which were later picked up by Thomas Aquinas). It was argued that mathematical numbers were a mere product of the intellect without any physical reality, and as such could not provide physical causes in the investigation of nature.[122]
+
+Some astronomical hypotheses at the time (such as epicycles and eccentrics) were seen as mere mathematical devices to adjust calculations of where the heavenly bodies would appear, rather than an explanation of the cause of those motions. (As Copernicus still maintained the idea of perfectly spherical orbits, he relied on epicycles.) This "saving the phenomena" was seen as proof that astronomy and mathematics could not be taken as serious means to determine physical causes. Tolosani invoked this view in his final critique of Copernicus, saying that his biggest error was that he had started with "inferior" fields of science to make pronouncements about "superior" fields. Copernicus had used mathematics and astronomy to postulate about physics and cosmology, rather than beginning with the accepted principles of physics and cosmology to determine things about astronomy and mathematics.  Thus Copernicus seemed to be undermining the whole system of the philosophy of science at the time. Tolosani held that Copernicus had fallen into philosophical error because he had not been versed in physics and logic; anyone without such knowledge would make a poor astronomer and be unable to distinguish truth from falsehood. Because Copernicanism had not met the criteria for scientific truth set out by Thomas Aquinas, Tolosani held that it could only be viewed as a wild unproven theory.[123][124]
+
+Tolosani recognized that the Ad Lectorem preface to Copernicus's book was not actually by him. Its thesis that astronomy as a whole would never be able to make truth claims was rejected by Tolosani (though he still held that Copernicus's attempt to describe physical reality had been faulty); he found it ridiculous that Ad Lectorem had been included in the book (unaware that Copernicus had not authorized its inclusion). Tolosani wrote:  "By means of these words [of the Ad Lectorem], the foolishness of this book's author is rebuked. For by a foolish effort he [Copernicus] tried to revive the weak Pythagorean opinion [that the element of fire was at the center of the Universe], long ago deservedly destroyed, since it is expressly contrary to human reason and also opposes holy writ. From this situation, there could easily arise disagreements between Catholic expositors of holy scripture and those who might wish to adhere obstinately to this false opinion."[125] Tolosani declared:  "Nicolaus Copernicus neither read nor understood the arguments of Aristotle the philosopher and Ptolemy the astronomer."[121] Tolosani wrote that Copernicus "is expert indeed in the sciences of mathematics and astronomy, but he is very deficient in the sciences of physics and logic. Moreover, it appears that he is unskilled with regard to [the interpretation of] holy scripture, since he contradicts several of its principles, not without danger of infidelity to himself and the readers of his book. ...his arguments have no force and can very easily be taken apart. For it is stupid to contradict an opinion accepted by everyone over a very long time for the strongest reasons, unless the impugner uses more powerful and insoluble demonstrations and completely dissolves the opposed reasons. But he does not do this in the least."[125]
+
+Tolosani declared that he had written against Copernicus "for the purpose of preserving the truth to the common advantage of the Holy Church."[126] Despite this, his work remained unpublished and there is no evidence that it received serious consideration.  Robert Westman describes it as becoming a "dormant" viewpoint with "no audience in the Catholic world" of the late sixteenth century, but also notes that there is some evidence that it did become known to Tommaso Caccini, who would criticize Galileo in a sermon in December 1613.[126]
+
+Tolosani may have criticized the Copernican theory as scientifically unproven and unfounded, but the theory also conflicted with the theology of the time, as can be seen in a sample of the works of John Calvin. In his Commentary on Genesis he said that "We indeed are not ignorant that the circuit of the heavens is finite, and that the earth, like a little globe, is placed in the centre."[127] In his commentary on Psalms 93:1 he states that "The heavens revolve daily, and, immense as is their fabric and inconceivable the rapidity of their revolutions, we experience no concussion.... How could the earth hang suspended in the air were it not upheld by God's hand? By what means could it maintain itself unmoved, while the heavens above are in constant rapid motion, did not its Divine Maker fix and establish it."[128] One sharp point of conflict between Copernicus's theory and the Bible concerned the story of the Battle of Gibeon in the Book of Joshua where the Hebrew forces were winning but whose opponents were likely to escape once night fell. This is averted by Joshua's prayers causing the Sun and the Moon to stand still. Martin Luther once made a remark about Copernicus, although without mentioning his name. According to Anthony Lauterbach, while eating with Martin Luther the topic of Copernicus arose during dinner on 4 June 1539 (in the same year as professor George Joachim Rheticus of the local University had been granted leave to visit him). Luther is said to have remarked "So it goes now. Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing others esteem. He must do something of his own. This is what that fellow does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down. Even in these things that are thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth."[117] These remarks were made four years before the publication of On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres and a year before Rheticus' Narratio Prima. In John Aurifaber's account of the conversation Luther calls Copernicus "that fool" rather than "that fellow", this version is viewed by historians as less reliably sourced.[117]
+
+Luther's collaborator Philipp Melanchthon also took issue with Copernicanism. After receiving the first pages of Narratio Prima from Rheticus himself, Melanchthon wrote to Mithobius (physician and mathematician Burkard Mithob of Feldkirch) on 16 October 1541 condemning the theory and calling for it to be repressed by governmental force, writing "certain people believe it is a marvelous achievement to extol so crazy a thing, like that Polish astronomer who makes the earth move and the sun stand still. Really, wise governments ought to repress impudence of mind."[129] It had appeared to Rheticus that Melanchton would understand the theory and would be open to it. This was because Melanchton had taught Ptolemaic astronomy and had even recommended his friend Rheticus to an appointment to the Deanship of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at the University of Wittenberg after he had returned from studying with Copernicus.[130]
+
+Rheticus' hopes were dashed when six years after the publication of De Revolutionibus Melanchthon published his Initia Doctrinae Physicae presenting three grounds to reject Copernicanism.  These were "the evidence of the senses, the thousand-year consensus of men of science, and the authority of the Bible".[131] Blasting the new theory Melanchthon wrote, "Out of love for novelty or in order to make a show of their cleverness, some people have argued that the earth moves. They maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the sun moves, whereas they attribute motion to the other celestial spheres, and also place the earth among the heavenly bodies. Nor were these jokes invented recently. There is still extant Archimedes' book on The Sand Reckoner; in which he reports that Aristarchus of Samos propounded the paradox that the sun stands still and the earth revolves around the sun. Even though subtle experts institute many investigations for the sake of exercising their ingenuity, nevertheless public proclamation of absurd opinions is indecent and sets a harmful example."[129] Melanchthon went on to cite Bible passages and then declare "Encouraged by this divine evidence, let us cherish the truth and let us not permit ourselves to be alienated from it by the tricks of those who deem it an intellectual honor to introduce confusion into the arts."[129] In the first edition of Initia Doctrinae Physicae, Melanchthon even questioned Copernicus's character claiming his motivation was "either from love of novelty or from desire to appear clever", these more personal attacks were largely removed by the second edition in 1550.[131]
+
+Another Protestant theologian who disparaged heliocentrism on scriptural grounds was John Owen.  In a passing remark in an essay on the origin of the sabbath, he characterised "the late hypothesis, fixing the sun as in the centre of the world" as being "built on fallible phenomena, and advanced by many arbitrary presumptions against evident testimonies of Scripture."[132]
+
+In Roman Catholic circles, German Jesuit Nicolaus Serarius was one of the first to write against Copernicus's theory as heretical, citing the Joshua passage, in a work published in 1609–1610, and again in a book in 1612.[133] In his 12 April 1615 letter to a Catholic defender of Copernicus, Paolo Antonio Foscarini, Catholic Cardinal Robert Bellarmine condemned Copernican theory, writing "...not only the Holy Fathers, but also the modern commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Joshua, you will find all agreeing in the literal interpretation that the sun is in heaven and turns around the earth with great speed, and that the earth is very far from heaven and sits motionless at the center of the world...Nor can one answer that this is not a matter of faith, since if it is not a matter of faith 'as regards the topic,' it is a matter of faith 'as regards the speaker': and so it would be heretical to say that Abraham did not have two children and Jacob twelve, as well as to say that Christ was not born of a virgin, because both are said by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of prophets and apostles."[134]
+
+Perhaps the most influential opponent of the Copernican theory was Francesco Ingoli, a Catholic priest. Ingoli wrote a January 1616 essay to Galileo presenting more than twenty arguments against the Copernican theory.[135] Though "it is not certain, it is probable that he [Ingoli] was commissioned by the Inquisition to write an expert opinion on the controversy",[136] (after the Congregation of the Index's decree against Copernicanism on 5 March 1616, Ingoli was officially appointed its consultant).[136] Galileo himself was of the opinion that the essay played an important role in the rejection of the theory by church authorities, writing in a later letter to Ingoli that he was concerned that people thought the theory was rejected because Ingoli was right.[135] Ingoli presented five physical arguments against the theory, thirteen mathematical arguments (plus a separate discussion of the sizes of stars), and four theological arguments.  The physical and mathematical arguments were of uneven quality, but many of them came directly from the writings of Tycho Brahe, and Ingoli repeatedly cited Brahe, the leading astronomer of the era.  These included arguments about the effect of a moving Earth on the trajectory of projectiles, and about parallax and Brahe's argument that the Copernican theory required that stars be absurdly large.[137]
+
+Two of Ingoli's theological issues with the Copernican theory were "common Catholic beliefs not directly traceable to Scripture: the doctrine that hell is located at the center of Earth and is most distant from heaven; and the explicit assertion that Earth is motionless in a hymn sung on Tuesdays as part of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Divine Office prayers regularly recited by priests."[138] Ingoli cited Robert Bellarmine in regards to both of these arguments, and may have been trying to convey to Galileo a sense of Bellarmine's opinion.[139] Ingoli also cited Genesis 1:14 where God places "lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night."  Ingoli did not think the central location of the Sun in the Copernican theory was compatible with it being described as one of the lights placed in the firmament.[138] Like previous commentators Ingoli also pointed to the passages about the Battle of Gibeon.  He dismissed arguments that they should be taken metaphorically, saying "Replies which assert that Scripture speaks according to our mode of understanding are not satisfactory: both because in explaining the Sacred Writings the rule is always to preserve the literal sense, when it is possible, as it is in this case; and also because all the [Church] Fathers unanimously take this passage to mean that the Sun which was truly moving stopped at Joshua's request. An interpretation which is contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers is condemned by the Council of Trent, Session IV, in the decree on the edition and use of the Sacred Books. Furthermore, although the Council speaks about matters of faith and morals, nevertheless it cannot be denied that the Holy Fathers would be displeased with an interpretation of Sacred Scriptures which is contrary to their common agreement."[138] However, Ingoli closed the essay by suggesting Galileo respond primarily to the better of his physical and mathematical arguments rather than to his theological arguments, writing "Let it be your choice to respond to this either entirely of in part—clearly at least to the mathematical and physical arguments, and not to all even of these, but to the more weighty ones."[140] When Galileo wrote a letter in reply to Ingoli years later, he in fact only addressed the mathematical and physical arguments.[140]
+
+In March 1616, in connection with the Galileo affair, the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation of the Index issued a decree suspending De revolutionibus until it could be "corrected," on the grounds of ensuring that Copernicanism, which it described as a "false Pythagorean doctrine, altogether contrary to the Holy Scripture," would not "creep any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth."[141] The corrections consisted largely of removing or altering wording that spoke of heliocentrism as a fact, rather than a hypothesis.[142] The corrections were made based largely on work by Ingoli.[136]
+
+On the orders of Pope Paul V, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine gave Galileo prior notice that the decree was about to be issued, and warned him that he could not "hold or defend" the Copernican doctrine.[z] The corrections to De revolutionibus, which omitted or altered nine sentences, were issued four years later, in 1620.[143]
+
+In 1633 Galileo Galilei was convicted of grave suspicion of heresy for "following the position of Copernicus, which is contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture",[144] and was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.[145][146]
+
+At the instance of Roger Boscovich, the Catholic Church's 1758 Index of Prohibited Books omitted the general prohibition of works defending heliocentrism,[147] but retained the specific prohibitions of the original uncensored versions of De revolutionibus and Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Those prohibitions were finally dropped from the 1835 Index.[148]
+
+There has been discussion of Copernicus' nationality and of whether it is meaningful to ascribe to him a nationality in the modern sense.
+
+Nicolaus Copernicus was born and raised in Royal Prussia, a semiautonomous and polyglot region of the Kingdom of Poland.[149][150] He was the child of German-speaking parents and grew up with German as his mother tongue.[151][152][153] His first alma mater was the University of Kraków in Poland. When he later studied in Italy, at the University of Bologna, he joined the German Nation, a student organization for German-speakers of all allegiances (Germany would not become a nation-state until 1871).[154][155] His family stood against the Teutonic Order and actively supported the city of Toruń during the Thirteen Years' War (1454–66). Copernicus' father lent money to Poland's King Casimir IV Jagiellon to finance the war against the Teutonic Knights,[156] but the inhabitants of Royal Prussia also resisted the Polish crown's efforts for greater control over the region.[149]
+
+Encyclopædia Britannica,[157] Encyclopedia Americana,[158] The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia,[159] The Oxford World Encyclopedia,[160] and World Book Encyclopedia[161] refer to Copernicus as a "Polish astronomer". Sheila Rabin, writing in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, describes Copernicus as a "child of a German family [who] was a subject of the Polish crown",[10] while Manfred Weissenbacher writes that Copernicus's father was a Germanized Pole.[162]
+
+No Polish texts by Copernicus survive due to the rarity of Polish literary language before the writings of the Polish Renaissance poets Mikołaj Rej and Jan Kochanowski (educated Poles had generally written in Latin); but it is known that Copernicus knew Polish on a par with German and Latin.[163]
+
+Historian Michael Burleigh describes the nationality debate as a "totally insignificant battle" between German and Polish scholars during the interwar period.[164] Polish astronomer Konrad Rudnicki calls the discussion a "fierce scholarly quarrel in ... times of nationalism" and describes Copernicus as an inhabitant of a German-speaking territory that belonged to Poland, himself being of mixed Polish-German extraction.[165]
+
+Czesław Miłosz describes the debate as an "absurd" projection of a modern understanding of nationality onto Renaissance people, who identified with their home territories rather than with a nation.[166] Similarly, historian Norman Davies writes that Copernicus, as was common in his era, was "largely indifferent" to nationality, being a local patriot who considered himself "Prussian".[167] Miłosz and Davies both write that Copernicus had a German-language cultural background, while his working language was Latin in accord with the usage of the time.[166][167] Additionally, according to Davies, "there is ample evidence that he knew the Polish language".[167] Davies concludes that, "Taking everything into consideration, there is good reason to regard him both as a German and as a Pole: and yet, in the sense that modern nationalists understand it, he was neither."[167]
+
+Copernicia, a genus of palm trees native to South America and the Greater Antilles, was named after Copernicus in 1837. In some of the species, the leaves are coated with a thin layer of wax, known as carnauba wax.
+
+On 14 July 2009, the discoverers, from the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany, of chemical element 112 (temporarily named ununbium) proposed to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) that its permanent name be "copernicium" (symbol Cn). "After we had named elements after our city and our state, we wanted to make a statement with a name that was known to everyone," said Hofmann. "We didn't want to select someone who was a German. We were looking world-wide."[168] On the 537th anniversary of his birthday the official naming was released to the public.[169]
+
+In July 2014 the International Astronomical Union launched a process for giving proper names to certain exoplanets and their host stars.[170] The process involved public nomination and voting for the new names.[171] In December 2015, the IAU announced the winning name for 55 Cancri A was Copernicus.[172]
+
+Copernicus is honored, together with Johannes Kepler, in the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (US), with a feast day on 23 May.[173]
+
+Wrocław-Strachowice International Airport is named after Nicolaus Copernicus (Copernicus Airport Wrocław)
+
+Contemporary literary and artistic works inspired by Copernicus:

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+
+Marseille (/mɑːrˈseɪ/ mar-SAY, also spelled in English as Marseilles; French: [maʁsɛj] (listen), locally [maʁˈsɛjə] (listen); Occitan: Marselha [maʀˈsejɔ, -ˈsijɔ]) is the prefecture of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône and region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur in France. It is located on the Mediterranean coast near the mouth of the Rhône. Marseille is the second largest city in France, covering an area of 241 km2 (93 sq mi) and had a population of 870,018 in 2016.[5] Its metropolitan area, which extends over 3,173 km2 (1,225 sq mi) is the third-largest in France after those of Paris and Lyon, with a population of 1,831,500 as of 2010.[3]
+
+It was known to the ancient Greeks as Massalia (Greek: Μασσαλία, romanized: Massalía) and Romans as Massilia.[6][7] Marseille is now France's largest city on the Mediterranean coast and the largest port for commerce, freight and cruise ships. The city was European Capital of Culture in 2013 and European Capital of Sport in 2017; it hosted matches at the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2016. It is home to Aix-Marseille University.
+
+Marseille is the second-largest metropolitan area in France after Paris. To the east, starting in the small fishing village of Callelongue on the outskirts of Marseille and stretching as far as Cassis, are the Calanques, a rugged coastal area interspersed with small fjord-like inlets. Farther east still are the Sainte-Baume (a 1,147 m (3,763 ft) mountain ridge rising from a forest of deciduous trees), the city of Toulon and the French Riviera. To the north of Marseille, beyond the low Garlaban and Etoile mountain ranges, is the 1,011 m (3,317 ft) Mont Sainte Victoire. To the west of Marseille is the former artists' colony of l'Estaque; farther west are the Côte Bleue, the Gulf of Lion and the Camargue region in the Rhône delta. The airport lies to the north west of the city at Marignane on the Étang de Berre.[8]
+
+The city's main thoroughfare (the wide boulevard called the Canebière) stretches eastward from the Old Port to the Réformés quarter. Two large forts flank the entrance to the Old Port—Fort Saint-Nicolas on the south side and Fort Saint-Jean on the north. Farther out in the Bay of Marseille is the Frioul archipelago which comprises four islands, one of which, If, is the location of Château d'If, made famous by the Dumas novel The Count of Monte Cristo. The main commercial centre of the city intersects with the Canebière at Rue St Ferréol and the Centre Bourse (one of the city's main shopping malls). The centre of Marseille has several pedestrianised zones, most notably Rue St Ferréol, Cours Julien near the Music Conservatory, the Cours Honoré-d'Estienne-d'Orves off the Old Port and the area around the Hôtel de Ville. To the south east of central Marseille in the 6th arrondissement are the Prefecture and the monumental fountain of Place Castellane, an important bus and metro interchange. To the south west are the hills of the 7th and 8th arrondissements, dominated by the basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde. Marseille's main railway station—Gare de Marseille Saint-Charles—is north of the Centre Bourse in the 1st arrondissement; it is linked by the Boulevard d'Athènes to the Canebière.[8]
+
+Marseille was a Gauls port center that became the Greek colony of Massalia circa 600 BC, and was populated by Greeks settlers from Phocaea (modern Foça, Turkey). It became the preeminent Greek polis in the Hellenized region of southern Gaul.[9] The city-state sided with the Roman Republic against Carthage during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), retaining its independence and commercial empire throughout the western Mediterranean even as Rome expanded into Western Europe and North Africa. However, the city lost its independence following the Roman Siege of Massilia in 49 BC, during Caesar's Civil War, in which Massalia sided with the exiled faction at war with Julius Caesar. Afterward the Gallo-Roman culture was initiated.
+
+Marseille continued to prosper as a Gallo-Roman city, becoming an early center of Christianity during the Western Roman Empire. The city maintained its position as a premier maritime trading hub even after its capture by the Visigoths in the 5th century AD, although the city went into decline following the sack of 739 AD by the forces of Charles Martel. It became part of the County of Provence during the 10th century, although its renewed prosperity was curtailed by the Black Death of the 14th century and sack of the city by the Crown of Aragon in 1423. The city's fortunes rebounded with the ambitious building projects of René of Anjou, Count of Provence, who strengthened the city's fortifications during the mid-15th century. During the 16th century the city hosted a naval fleet with the combined forces of the Franco-Ottoman alliance, which threatened the ports and navies of Genoa and the Holy Roman Empire.
+
+Marseille lost a significant portion of its population during the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720, but the population had recovered by mid-century. In 1792 the city became a focal point of the French Revolution and though France's national anthem was born in Strasbourg, it was first sang in Paris by volunteers from Marseille, hence the name the crowd gave it: La Marseillaise. The Industrial Revolution and establishment of the French Empire during the 19th century allowed for further expansion of the city, although it was occupied by the German Wehrmacht in November 1942 and subsequently heavily damaged during World War II. The city has since become a major center for immigrant communities from former French colonies, such as French Algeria.
+
+Marseille is a major French centre for trade and industry, with excellent transportation infrastructure (roads, sea port and airport). Marseille Provence Airport is the fourth largest in France. In May 2005, the French financial magazine L'Expansion named Marseille the most dynamic of France's large cities, citing figures showing that 7,200 companies had been created in the city since 2000.[10] Marseille is also France's second largest research centre with 3,000 research scientists within Aix Marseille University.[citation needed]
+As of 2014[update], the Marseille metropolitan area had a GDP amounting to $60.3 billion, or $36,127 per capita (purchasing power parity).[11]
+
+Historically, the economy of Marseille was dominated by its role as a port of the French Empire, linking the North African colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia with Metropolitan France. The Old Port was replaced as the main port for trade by the Port de la Joliette during the Second Empire and now contains restaurants, offices, bars and hotels and functions mostly as a private marina. The majority of the port and docks, which experienced decline in the 1970s after the oil crisis, have been recently redeveloped with funds from the European Union. Fishing remains important in Marseille and the food economy of Marseille is fed by the local catch; a daily fish market is still held on the Quai des Belges of the Old Port.
+
+The economy of Marseille and its region is still linked to its commercial port, the first French port and the fifth European port by cargo tonnage, which lies north of the Old Port and eastern in Fos-sur-Mer. Some 45,000 jobs are linked to the port activities and it represents 4 billion euros added value to the regional economy.[12] 100 million tons of freight pass annually through the port, 60% of which is petroleum, making it number one in France and the Mediterranean and number three in Europe. However, in the early 2000s, the growth in container traffic was being stifled by the constant strikes and social upheaval.[13] The port is among the 20th firsts in Europe for container traffic with 1,062,408 TEU and new infrastructures have already raised the capacity to 2M TEU.[14] Petroleum refining and shipbuilding are the principal industries, but chemicals, soap, glass, sugar, building materials, plastics, textiles, olive oil, and processed foods are also important products.[citation needed] Marseille is connected with the Rhône via a canal and thus has access to the extensive waterway network of France. Petroleum is shipped northward to the Paris basin by pipeline. The city also serves as France's leading centre of oil refining.
+
+In recent years, the city has also experienced a large growth in service sector employment and a switch from light manufacturing to a cultural, high-tech economy.[citation needed] The Marseille region is home to thousands of companies, 90% of which are small and medium enterprises with less than 500 employees.[15][full citation needed] Among the most famous ones are CMA CGM, container-shipping giant; Compagnie maritime d'expertises (Comex), world leader in sub-sea engineering and hydraulic systems; Airbus Helicopters, an Airbus division; Azur Promotel, an active real estate development company; La Provence, the local daily newspaper; RTM, Marseille's public transport company; and Société Nationale Maritime Corse Méditerranée (SNCM), a major operator in passenger, vehicle and freight transportation in the Western Mediterranean. The urban operation Euroméditerranée has developed a large offer of offices and thus Marseille hosts one of the main business district in France.
+
+Marseille is the home of three main technopoles: Château-Gombert (technological innovations), Luminy (biotechnology) and La Belle de Mai (17,000 sq.m. of offices dedicated to multimedia activities).[16][17]
+
+The port is also an important arrival base for millions of people each year, with 2.4 million including 890,100 from cruise ships.[12]
+With its beaches, history, architecture and culture (24 museums and 42 theatres), Marseille is one of the most visited cities in France, with 4.1 million visitors in 2012.[18]
+Marseille is ranked 86th in the world for business tourism and events, advancing from the 150th spot one year before.[citation needed] The number of congress days hosted on its territory increased from 109,000 in 1996 to almost 300,000 in 2011.[citation needed]
+
+They take place in three main sites, the Palais du Pharo, Palais des Congrès et des Expositions (Parc Chanot) and World Trade Center.[19] In 2012 Marseille hosted the World Water Forum.
+Several urban projects have been developed to make Marseille attractive. Thus new parks, museums, public spaces and real estate projects aim to improve the city's quality of life (Parc du 26e Centenaire, Old Port of Marseille,[20] numerous places in Euroméditerranée) to attract firms and people. Marseille municipality acts to develop Marseille as a regional nexus for entertainment in the south of France with high concentration of museums, cinemas, theatres, clubs, bars, restaurants, fashion shops, hotels, and art galleries.
+
+Unemployment in the economy fell from 20% in 1995 to 14% in 2004.[21] However, Marseille unemployment rate remains higher than the national average. In some parts of Marseille, youth unemployment is reported to be as high as 40%.[22]
+
+The city of Marseille is divided into 16 municipal arrondissements, which are themselves informally divided into 111 neighbourhoods (French: quartiers). The arrondissements are regrouped in pairs, into 8 sectors, each with a mayor and council (like the arrondissements in Paris and Lyon).[23] Municipal elections are held every six years and are carried out by sector. There are 303 councilmembers in total, two-thirds sitting in the sector councils and one third in the city council.
+
+The 9th arrondissement of Marseille is the largest in terms of area because it comprises parts of Calanques National Park. With a population of 89,316 (2007), the 13th arrondissement of Marseille is the most populous one.
+
+From 1950 to the mid-1990s, Marseille was a Socialist (PS) and Communist (PCF) stronghold. Gaston Defferre (PS) was consecutively reelected six times as Mayor of Marseille from 1953 until his death in 1986. He was succeeded by Robert Vigouroux of the European Democratic and Social Rally (RDSE). Jean-Claude Gaudin of the right-wing UMP was elected Mayor of Marseille in 1995. Gaudin was reelected in 2001, 2008 and 2014.
+
+In recent years, the Communist Party has lost most of its strength in the northern boroughs of the city, whereas the National Front has received significant support. At the last municipal election in 2014, Marseille was divided between the northern arrondissements dominated by the left (PS) and far-right (FN) and the southern part of town dominated by the right-wing (UMP). Marseille is also divided in twelve cantons, each of them sending two members to the Departmental Council of the Bouches-du-Rhône department.
+
+Because of its pre-eminence as a Mediterranean port, Marseille has always been one of the main gateways into France. This has attracted many immigrants and made Marseille a cosmopolitan melting pot. By the end of the 18th century about half the population originated from elsewhere in Provence mostly and also from southern France.[24][25][page needed]
+
+Economic conditions and political unrest in Europe and the rest of the world brought several other waves of immigrants during the 20th century: Greeks and Italians started arriving at the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century, up to 40% of the city's population was of Italian origin;[26] Russians in 1917; Armenians in 1915 and 1923; Vietnamese in the 1920s, 1954 and after 1975;[27] Corsicans during the 1920s and 1930s; Spanish after 1936; Maghrebis (both Arab and Berber) in the inter-war period; Sub-Saharan Africans after 1945; Maghrebi Jews in the 1950s and 1960s; the Pieds-Noirs from the former French Algeria in 1962; and then from Comoros. In 2006, it was reported that 70,000 city residents were considered to be of Maghrebi origin, mostly from Algeria. The second largest group in Marseille in terms of single nationalities were from the Comoros, amounting to some 45,000 people.[26]
+
+Currently, over one third of the population of Marseille can trace their roots back to Italy.[28] Marseille also has the second-largest Corsican and Armenian populations of France. Other significant communities include Maghrebis, Turks, Comorians, Chinese, and Vietnamese.[29]
+
+In 1999, in several arrondissements, about 40% of the young people under 18 were of Maghrebi origin (at least one immigrant parent).[30]
+
+Since 2013 a significant number of Eastern European immigrants have settled in Marseille, attracted by better job opportunities and the good climate of this Mediterranean city. The main nationalities of the immigrants are Romanians and Poles.[31]
+
+2 An immigrant is a person born in a foreign country not having French citizenship at birth. Note that an immigrant may have acquired French citizenship since moving to France, but is still considered an immigrant in French statistics. On the other hand, persons born in France with foreign citizenship (the children of immigrants) are not listed as immigrants.
+
+According to data from 2010, major religious communities in Marseille include:
+
+Marseille is a city that has its own unique culture and is proud of its differences from the rest of France.[35] Today it is a regional centre for culture and entertainment with an important opera house, historical and maritime museums, five art galleries and numerous cinemas, clubs, bars and restaurants.
+
+Marseille has a large number of theatres, including La Criée, Le Gymnase and the Théâtre Toursky. There is also an extensive arts centre in La Friche, a former match factory behind the Saint-Charles station. The Alcazar, until the 1960s a well known music hall and variety theatre, has recently been completely remodelled behind its original façade and now houses the central municipal library.[36] Other music venues in Marseille include Le Silo (also a theatre) and GRIM.
+
+Marseille has also been important in the arts. It has been the birthplace and home of many French writers and poets, including Victor Gélu [fr], Valère Bernard, Pierre Bertas,[37] Edmond Rostand and André Roussin. The small port of l'Estaque on the far end of the Bay of Marseille became a favourite haunt for artists, including Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne (who frequently visited from his home in Aix), Georges Braque and Raoul Dufy.
+
+Rich and poor neighborhoods exist side-by-side. Although the city is not without crime, Marseille has a larger degree of multicultural tolerance. Urban geographers[38] say the city's geography, being surrounded by mountains, helps explain why Marseille does not have the same problems as Paris. In Paris, ethnic areas are segregated and concentrated in the periphery of the city.  Residents of Marseille are of diverse origins, yet appear to share a similar particular identity.[39][40] An example is how Marseille responded in 2005, when ethnic populations living in other French cities' suburbs rioted, but Marseille remained relatively calm.[41]
+
+Marseille served as the European Capital of Culture for 2013 along with Košice.[42] It was chosen to give a 'human face' to the European Union to celebrate cultural diversity and to increase understanding between Europeans.[43] One of the intentions of highlighting culture is to help reposition Marseille internationally, stimulate the economy, and help to build better interconnection between groups.[44] Marseille-Provence 2013 (MP2013) featured more than 900 cultural events held throughout Marseille and the surrounding communities. These cultural events generated more than 11 million visits.[45] The European Capital of Culture was also the occasion to unveil more than 600 million euros in new cultural infrastructure in Marseille and its environs, including the MuCEM designed by Rudy Ricciotti.
+
+Early on, immigrants came to Marseille locally from the surrounding Provence region. By the 1890s immigrants came from other regions of France as well as Italy.[46] Marseille became one of Europe’s busiest port by 1900.[40] Marseille has served as a major port where immigrants from around the Mediterranean arrive.[46] Marseille continued to be multicultural. Armenians from the Ottoman empire began arriving in 1913. In the 1930s, Italians settled in Marseille. After World War II, a wave of Jewish immigrants from North Africa arrived. In 1962, a number of French colonies gained their independence, and the French citizens from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia arrived in Marseille.[47] The city had an economic downturn and lost many jobs. Those who could afford to move left and the poorest remained. For a while, the mafia appeared to run the city, and for a period of time the communist party was prominent.[47]
+
+Multi-cultural Marseille can be observed by a visitor at the market at Noailles, also called Marché des Capucins, in old town near the Old Port.  There, Lebanese bakeries, an African spice market, Chinese and Vietnamese groceries, fresh vegetables and fruit, shops selling couscous, shops selling Caribbean food are side by side with stalls selling shoes and clothing from around the Mediterranean. Nearby, people sell fresh fish and men from Tunisia drink tea.[47]
+
+The most commonly used tarot deck takes its name from the city; it has been called the Tarot de Marseille since the 1930s—a name coined for commercial use by the French cardmaker and cartomancer Paul Marteau, owner of B–P Grimaud. Previously this deck was called Tarot italien (Italian Tarot) and even earlier it was simply called Tarot. Before being de Marseille, it was used to play the local variant of tarocchi before it became used in cartomancy at the end of the 18th century, following the trend set by Antoine Court de Gébelin. The name Tarot de Marseille (Marteau used the name ancien Tarot de Marseille) was used by contrast to other types of Tarots such as Tarot de Besançon; those names were simply associated with cities where there were many cardmakers in the 18th century (previously several cities in France were involved in cardmaking).[48]
+
+Another local tradition is the making of santons, small hand-crafted figurines for the traditional Provençal Christmas creche. Since 1803, starting on the last Sunday of November, there has been a Santon Fair in Marseille; it is currently held in the Cours d'Estienne d'Orves, a large square off the Vieux-Port.
+
+Marseille's main cultural attraction was, since its creation at the end of the 18th century and until the late 1970s, the Opéra. Located near the Old Port and the Canebière, at the very heart of the city, its architectural style was comparable to the classical trend found in other opera houses built at the same time in Lyon and Bordeaux. In 1919, a fire almost completely destroyed the house, leaving only the stone colonnade and peristyle from the original façade.[49][50] The classical façade was restored and the opera house reconstructed in a predominantly Art Deco style, as the result of a major competition. Currently the Opéra de Marseille stages six or seven operas each year.[51]
+
+Since 1972, the Ballet national de Marseille has performed at the opera house; its director from its foundation to 1998 was Roland Petit.
+
+There are several popular festivals in different neighborhoods, with concerts, animations, and outdoor bars, like the Fête du Panier in June. On 21 June, there are dozens of free concerts in the city as part of France's Fête de la Musique, featuring music from all over the world. Being free events, many Marseille residents attend.
+
+Marseille hosts a Gay Pride event in early July. In 2013, Marseille hosted Europride, an international LGBT event, 10 July–20.[52] At the beginning of July, there is the International Documentary Festival.[53]
+At the end of September, the electronic music festival Marsatac takes place.
+In October, the Fiesta des Suds offers many concerts of world music.[54]
+
+Marseille is also well known in France for its hip hop music.[55] Bands like IAM originated from Marseille and initiated the rap phenomenon in France. Other known groups include Fonky Family, Psy 4 de la Rime (including rappers Soprano and Alonzo), and Keny Arkana.
+In a slightly different way, ragga music is represented by Massilia Sound System.
+
+Marseille has been the setting for many films.
+
+Marseille is listed as a major centre of art and history. The city has many museums and galleries and there are many ancient buildings and churches of historical interest.
+
+Most of the attractions of Marseille (including shopping areas) are located in the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th arrondissements. These include:[66][67]
+
+In addition to the two in the Centre de la Vieille Charité, described above, the main museums are:[70]
+
+The MuCEM, Musée Regards de Provence and Villa Mediterannée, with Notre Dame de la Majeur on the right
+
+The sixteenth century Maison Diamantée which houses the Musée du Vieux Marseille
+
+The music room in the Grobet-Labadié museum
+
+The Palais Longchamp with its monumental fountain
+
+The main attractions outside the city centre include:[67]
+
+A number of the faculties of the three universities that comprise Aix-Marseille University are located in Marseille:
+
+In addition Marseille has four grandes écoles:
+
+The main French research bodies including the CNRS, INSERM and INRA are all well represented in Marseille. Scientific research is concentrated at several sites across the city, including Luminy, where there are institutes in developmental biology (the IBDML), immunology (CIML), marine sciences and neurobiology (INMED), at the CNRS Joseph Aiguier campus (a world-renowned institute of molecular and environmental microbiology) and at the Timone hospital site (known for work in medical microbiology). Marseille is also home to the headquarters of the IRD, which promotes research into questions affecting developing countries.[citation needed]
+
+The city is served by an international airport, Marseille Provence Airport, located in Marignane. The airport is the fifth busiest French airport, and known the 4th most important European traffic growth in 2012.[84] An extensive network of motorways connects Marseille to the north and west (A7), Aix-en-Provence in the north (A51), Toulon (A50) and the French Riviera (A8) to the east.
+
+Gare de Marseille Saint-Charles is Marseille's main railway station. It operates direct regional services to Aix-en-Provence, Briançon, Toulon, Avignon, Nice, Montpellier, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, etc. Gare Saint-Charles is also one of the main terminal stations for the TGV in the south of France making Marseille reachable in three hours from Paris (a distance of over 750 km) and just over one and a half hours from Lyon. There are also direct TGV lines to Lille, Brussels, Nantes, Geneva, Strasbourg and Frankfurt as well as Eurostar services to London (just in the summer) and Thello services to Milan (just one a day), via Nice and Genoa.
+
+There is a new long distance bus station adjacent to new modern extension to the Gare Saint-Charles with destinations mostly to other Bouches-du-Rhône towns, including buses to Aix-en-Provence, Cassis, La Ciotat and Aubagne. The city is also served with 11 other regional trains stations in the east and the north of the city.
+
+Marseille has a large ferry terminal, the Gare Maritime, with services to
+Corsica, Sardinia, Algeria and Tunisia.
+
+Marseille is connected by the Marseille Métro train system operated by the Régie des transports de Marseille (RTM). It consists of two lines: Line 1 (blue) between Castellane and La Rose opened in 1977 and Line 2 (red) between Sainte-Marguerite-Dromel and Bougainville opened between 1984 and 1987. An extension of the Line 1 from Castellane to La Timone was completed in 1992, another extension from La Timone to La Fourragère (2.5 km (1.6 mi) and 4 new stations) was opened in May 2010. The Métro system operates on a turnstile system, with tickets purchased at the nearby adjacent automated booths. Both lines of the Métro intersect at Gare Saint-Charles and Castellane. Three bus rapid transit lines are under construction to better connect the Métro to farther places (Castellane -> Luminy; Capitaine Gèze – La Cabucelle -> Vallon des Tuves; La Rose -> Château Gombert – Saint Jérome).
+
+An extensive bus network serves the city and suburbs of Marseille, with 104 lines and 633 buses. The three lines of the tramway,[85] opened in 2007, go from the CMA CGM Tower towards Les Caillols.
+
+As in many other French cities, a bike-sharing service nicknamed "Le vélo", free for trips of less than half an hour, was introduced by the city council in 2007.[86]
+
+A free ferry service operates between the two opposite quays of the Old Port. From 2011 ferry shuttle services operate between the Old Port and Pointe Rouge; in spring 2013 it will also run to l'Estaque.[87] There are also ferry services and boat trips available from the Old Port to Frioul, the Calanques and Cassis.
+
+The city boasts a wide variety of sports facilities and teams. The most popular team is the city's football club, Olympique de Marseille, which was the finalist of the UEFA Champions League in 1991, before winning the competition in 1993. The club also became finalists of the UEFA Europa League in 1999, 2004 and 2018. The club had a history of success under then-owner Bernard Tapie. The club's home, the Stade Vélodrome, which can seat around 67,000 people, also functions for other local sports, as well as the national rugby team. Stade Velodrome hosted a number of games during the 1998 FIFA World Cup, 2007 Rugby World Cup, and UEFA Euro 2016. The local rugby teams are Marseille XIII and Marseille Vitrolles Rugby.[citation needed]
+Marseille is famous for its important pétanque activity, it is even renowned as the pétanque capitale.[88] In 2012 Marseille hosted the Pétanque World Championship and the city hosts every year the Mondial la Marseillaise de pétanque, the main pétanque competition.
+
+Sailing is a major sport in Marseille. The wind conditions allow regattas in the warm waters of the Mediterranean.[citation needed] Throughout most seasons of the year it can be windy while the sea remains smooth enough to allow sailing. Marseille has been the host of 8 (2010) Match Race France events which are part of the World Match Racing Tour. The event draws the world's best sailing teams to Marseille. The identical supplied boats (J Boats J-80 racing yachts) are raced two at a time in an on the water dogfight which tests the sailors and skippers to the limits of their physical abilities.
+Points accrued count towards the World Match Racing Tour and a place in the final event, with the overall winner taking the title ISAF World Match Racing Tour Champion. Match racing is an ideal sport for spectators in Marseille, as racing in close proximity to the shore provides excellent views. The city was also considered as a possible venue for 2007 America's Cup.[89]
+
+Marseille is also a place for other water sports such as windsurfing and powerboating. Marseille has three golf courses. The city has dozens of gyms and several public swimming pools. Running is also popular in many of Marseille's parks such as Le Pharo and Le Jardin Pierre Puget. An annual footrace is held between the city and neighbouring Cassis: the Marseille-Cassis Classique Internationale.[citation needed]
+
+The city has a hot-summer mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa) with cool-mild winters with moderate rainfall and hot, mostly dry summers.[90] December, January, and February are the coldest months, averaging temperatures of around 12 °C (54 °F) during the day and 4 °C (39 °F) at night. July and August are the hottest months, averaging temperatures of around 28–30 °C (82–86 °F) during the day and 19 °C (66 °F) at night in the Marignane airport (35 km (22 mi) from Marseille) but in the city near the sea the average high temperature is 27 °C (81 °F) in July.[91]
+
+Marseille is officially the sunniest major city in France with over 2,800 hours of sunshine while the average sunshine in the country is around 1,950 hours. It is also the driest major city with only 512 mm (20 in) of precipitation annually, especially thanks to the Mistral, a cold, dry wind originating in the Rhône Valley that occurs mostly in winter and spring and which generally brings clear skies and sunny weather to the region. Less frequent is the Sirocco, a hot, sand-bearing wind, coming from the Sahara Desert. Snowfalls are infrequent; over 50% of years do not experience a single snowfall.[citation needed]
+
+The hottest temperature was 40.6 °C (105.1 °F) on 26 July 1983 during a great heat wave, the lowest temperature was −14.3 °C (6.3 °F) on 13 February 1929 during a strong cold wave.[92]
+
+Marseille was the birthplace of:
+
+Marseille is twinned with 14 cities, all of them being a port city, with the exception of Marrakech.[103]
+
+In addition, Marseille has signed various types of formal agreements of cooperation with 27 cities all over the world:[104]
+

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+Marseille (/mɑːrˈseɪ/ mar-SAY, also spelled in English as Marseilles; French: [maʁsɛj] (listen), locally [maʁˈsɛjə] (listen); Occitan: Marselha [maʀˈsejɔ, -ˈsijɔ]) is the prefecture of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône and region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur in France. It is located on the Mediterranean coast near the mouth of the Rhône. Marseille is the second largest city in France, covering an area of 241 km2 (93 sq mi) and had a population of 870,018 in 2016.[5] Its metropolitan area, which extends over 3,173 km2 (1,225 sq mi) is the third-largest in France after those of Paris and Lyon, with a population of 1,831,500 as of 2010.[3]
+
+It was known to the ancient Greeks as Massalia (Greek: Μασσαλία, romanized: Massalía) and Romans as Massilia.[6][7] Marseille is now France's largest city on the Mediterranean coast and the largest port for commerce, freight and cruise ships. The city was European Capital of Culture in 2013 and European Capital of Sport in 2017; it hosted matches at the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2016. It is home to Aix-Marseille University.
+
+Marseille is the second-largest metropolitan area in France after Paris. To the east, starting in the small fishing village of Callelongue on the outskirts of Marseille and stretching as far as Cassis, are the Calanques, a rugged coastal area interspersed with small fjord-like inlets. Farther east still are the Sainte-Baume (a 1,147 m (3,763 ft) mountain ridge rising from a forest of deciduous trees), the city of Toulon and the French Riviera. To the north of Marseille, beyond the low Garlaban and Etoile mountain ranges, is the 1,011 m (3,317 ft) Mont Sainte Victoire. To the west of Marseille is the former artists' colony of l'Estaque; farther west are the Côte Bleue, the Gulf of Lion and the Camargue region in the Rhône delta. The airport lies to the north west of the city at Marignane on the Étang de Berre.[8]
+
+The city's main thoroughfare (the wide boulevard called the Canebière) stretches eastward from the Old Port to the Réformés quarter. Two large forts flank the entrance to the Old Port—Fort Saint-Nicolas on the south side and Fort Saint-Jean on the north. Farther out in the Bay of Marseille is the Frioul archipelago which comprises four islands, one of which, If, is the location of Château d'If, made famous by the Dumas novel The Count of Monte Cristo. The main commercial centre of the city intersects with the Canebière at Rue St Ferréol and the Centre Bourse (one of the city's main shopping malls). The centre of Marseille has several pedestrianised zones, most notably Rue St Ferréol, Cours Julien near the Music Conservatory, the Cours Honoré-d'Estienne-d'Orves off the Old Port and the area around the Hôtel de Ville. To the south east of central Marseille in the 6th arrondissement are the Prefecture and the monumental fountain of Place Castellane, an important bus and metro interchange. To the south west are the hills of the 7th and 8th arrondissements, dominated by the basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde. Marseille's main railway station—Gare de Marseille Saint-Charles—is north of the Centre Bourse in the 1st arrondissement; it is linked by the Boulevard d'Athènes to the Canebière.[8]
+
+Marseille was a Gauls port center that became the Greek colony of Massalia circa 600 BC, and was populated by Greeks settlers from Phocaea (modern Foça, Turkey). It became the preeminent Greek polis in the Hellenized region of southern Gaul.[9] The city-state sided with the Roman Republic against Carthage during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), retaining its independence and commercial empire throughout the western Mediterranean even as Rome expanded into Western Europe and North Africa. However, the city lost its independence following the Roman Siege of Massilia in 49 BC, during Caesar's Civil War, in which Massalia sided with the exiled faction at war with Julius Caesar. Afterward the Gallo-Roman culture was initiated.
+
+Marseille continued to prosper as a Gallo-Roman city, becoming an early center of Christianity during the Western Roman Empire. The city maintained its position as a premier maritime trading hub even after its capture by the Visigoths in the 5th century AD, although the city went into decline following the sack of 739 AD by the forces of Charles Martel. It became part of the County of Provence during the 10th century, although its renewed prosperity was curtailed by the Black Death of the 14th century and sack of the city by the Crown of Aragon in 1423. The city's fortunes rebounded with the ambitious building projects of René of Anjou, Count of Provence, who strengthened the city's fortifications during the mid-15th century. During the 16th century the city hosted a naval fleet with the combined forces of the Franco-Ottoman alliance, which threatened the ports and navies of Genoa and the Holy Roman Empire.
+
+Marseille lost a significant portion of its population during the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720, but the population had recovered by mid-century. In 1792 the city became a focal point of the French Revolution and though France's national anthem was born in Strasbourg, it was first sang in Paris by volunteers from Marseille, hence the name the crowd gave it: La Marseillaise. The Industrial Revolution and establishment of the French Empire during the 19th century allowed for further expansion of the city, although it was occupied by the German Wehrmacht in November 1942 and subsequently heavily damaged during World War II. The city has since become a major center for immigrant communities from former French colonies, such as French Algeria.
+
+Marseille is a major French centre for trade and industry, with excellent transportation infrastructure (roads, sea port and airport). Marseille Provence Airport is the fourth largest in France. In May 2005, the French financial magazine L'Expansion named Marseille the most dynamic of France's large cities, citing figures showing that 7,200 companies had been created in the city since 2000.[10] Marseille is also France's second largest research centre with 3,000 research scientists within Aix Marseille University.[citation needed]
+As of 2014[update], the Marseille metropolitan area had a GDP amounting to $60.3 billion, or $36,127 per capita (purchasing power parity).[11]
+
+Historically, the economy of Marseille was dominated by its role as a port of the French Empire, linking the North African colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia with Metropolitan France. The Old Port was replaced as the main port for trade by the Port de la Joliette during the Second Empire and now contains restaurants, offices, bars and hotels and functions mostly as a private marina. The majority of the port and docks, which experienced decline in the 1970s after the oil crisis, have been recently redeveloped with funds from the European Union. Fishing remains important in Marseille and the food economy of Marseille is fed by the local catch; a daily fish market is still held on the Quai des Belges of the Old Port.
+
+The economy of Marseille and its region is still linked to its commercial port, the first French port and the fifth European port by cargo tonnage, which lies north of the Old Port and eastern in Fos-sur-Mer. Some 45,000 jobs are linked to the port activities and it represents 4 billion euros added value to the regional economy.[12] 100 million tons of freight pass annually through the port, 60% of which is petroleum, making it number one in France and the Mediterranean and number three in Europe. However, in the early 2000s, the growth in container traffic was being stifled by the constant strikes and social upheaval.[13] The port is among the 20th firsts in Europe for container traffic with 1,062,408 TEU and new infrastructures have already raised the capacity to 2M TEU.[14] Petroleum refining and shipbuilding are the principal industries, but chemicals, soap, glass, sugar, building materials, plastics, textiles, olive oil, and processed foods are also important products.[citation needed] Marseille is connected with the Rhône via a canal and thus has access to the extensive waterway network of France. Petroleum is shipped northward to the Paris basin by pipeline. The city also serves as France's leading centre of oil refining.
+
+In recent years, the city has also experienced a large growth in service sector employment and a switch from light manufacturing to a cultural, high-tech economy.[citation needed] The Marseille region is home to thousands of companies, 90% of which are small and medium enterprises with less than 500 employees.[15][full citation needed] Among the most famous ones are CMA CGM, container-shipping giant; Compagnie maritime d'expertises (Comex), world leader in sub-sea engineering and hydraulic systems; Airbus Helicopters, an Airbus division; Azur Promotel, an active real estate development company; La Provence, the local daily newspaper; RTM, Marseille's public transport company; and Société Nationale Maritime Corse Méditerranée (SNCM), a major operator in passenger, vehicle and freight transportation in the Western Mediterranean. The urban operation Euroméditerranée has developed a large offer of offices and thus Marseille hosts one of the main business district in France.
+
+Marseille is the home of three main technopoles: Château-Gombert (technological innovations), Luminy (biotechnology) and La Belle de Mai (17,000 sq.m. of offices dedicated to multimedia activities).[16][17]
+
+The port is also an important arrival base for millions of people each year, with 2.4 million including 890,100 from cruise ships.[12]
+With its beaches, history, architecture and culture (24 museums and 42 theatres), Marseille is one of the most visited cities in France, with 4.1 million visitors in 2012.[18]
+Marseille is ranked 86th in the world for business tourism and events, advancing from the 150th spot one year before.[citation needed] The number of congress days hosted on its territory increased from 109,000 in 1996 to almost 300,000 in 2011.[citation needed]
+
+They take place in three main sites, the Palais du Pharo, Palais des Congrès et des Expositions (Parc Chanot) and World Trade Center.[19] In 2012 Marseille hosted the World Water Forum.
+Several urban projects have been developed to make Marseille attractive. Thus new parks, museums, public spaces and real estate projects aim to improve the city's quality of life (Parc du 26e Centenaire, Old Port of Marseille,[20] numerous places in Euroméditerranée) to attract firms and people. Marseille municipality acts to develop Marseille as a regional nexus for entertainment in the south of France with high concentration of museums, cinemas, theatres, clubs, bars, restaurants, fashion shops, hotels, and art galleries.
+
+Unemployment in the economy fell from 20% in 1995 to 14% in 2004.[21] However, Marseille unemployment rate remains higher than the national average. In some parts of Marseille, youth unemployment is reported to be as high as 40%.[22]
+
+The city of Marseille is divided into 16 municipal arrondissements, which are themselves informally divided into 111 neighbourhoods (French: quartiers). The arrondissements are regrouped in pairs, into 8 sectors, each with a mayor and council (like the arrondissements in Paris and Lyon).[23] Municipal elections are held every six years and are carried out by sector. There are 303 councilmembers in total, two-thirds sitting in the sector councils and one third in the city council.
+
+The 9th arrondissement of Marseille is the largest in terms of area because it comprises parts of Calanques National Park. With a population of 89,316 (2007), the 13th arrondissement of Marseille is the most populous one.
+
+From 1950 to the mid-1990s, Marseille was a Socialist (PS) and Communist (PCF) stronghold. Gaston Defferre (PS) was consecutively reelected six times as Mayor of Marseille from 1953 until his death in 1986. He was succeeded by Robert Vigouroux of the European Democratic and Social Rally (RDSE). Jean-Claude Gaudin of the right-wing UMP was elected Mayor of Marseille in 1995. Gaudin was reelected in 2001, 2008 and 2014.
+
+In recent years, the Communist Party has lost most of its strength in the northern boroughs of the city, whereas the National Front has received significant support. At the last municipal election in 2014, Marseille was divided between the northern arrondissements dominated by the left (PS) and far-right (FN) and the southern part of town dominated by the right-wing (UMP). Marseille is also divided in twelve cantons, each of them sending two members to the Departmental Council of the Bouches-du-Rhône department.
+
+Because of its pre-eminence as a Mediterranean port, Marseille has always been one of the main gateways into France. This has attracted many immigrants and made Marseille a cosmopolitan melting pot. By the end of the 18th century about half the population originated from elsewhere in Provence mostly and also from southern France.[24][25][page needed]
+
+Economic conditions and political unrest in Europe and the rest of the world brought several other waves of immigrants during the 20th century: Greeks and Italians started arriving at the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century, up to 40% of the city's population was of Italian origin;[26] Russians in 1917; Armenians in 1915 and 1923; Vietnamese in the 1920s, 1954 and after 1975;[27] Corsicans during the 1920s and 1930s; Spanish after 1936; Maghrebis (both Arab and Berber) in the inter-war period; Sub-Saharan Africans after 1945; Maghrebi Jews in the 1950s and 1960s; the Pieds-Noirs from the former French Algeria in 1962; and then from Comoros. In 2006, it was reported that 70,000 city residents were considered to be of Maghrebi origin, mostly from Algeria. The second largest group in Marseille in terms of single nationalities were from the Comoros, amounting to some 45,000 people.[26]
+
+Currently, over one third of the population of Marseille can trace their roots back to Italy.[28] Marseille also has the second-largest Corsican and Armenian populations of France. Other significant communities include Maghrebis, Turks, Comorians, Chinese, and Vietnamese.[29]
+
+In 1999, in several arrondissements, about 40% of the young people under 18 were of Maghrebi origin (at least one immigrant parent).[30]
+
+Since 2013 a significant number of Eastern European immigrants have settled in Marseille, attracted by better job opportunities and the good climate of this Mediterranean city. The main nationalities of the immigrants are Romanians and Poles.[31]
+
+2 An immigrant is a person born in a foreign country not having French citizenship at birth. Note that an immigrant may have acquired French citizenship since moving to France, but is still considered an immigrant in French statistics. On the other hand, persons born in France with foreign citizenship (the children of immigrants) are not listed as immigrants.
+
+According to data from 2010, major religious communities in Marseille include:
+
+Marseille is a city that has its own unique culture and is proud of its differences from the rest of France.[35] Today it is a regional centre for culture and entertainment with an important opera house, historical and maritime museums, five art galleries and numerous cinemas, clubs, bars and restaurants.
+
+Marseille has a large number of theatres, including La Criée, Le Gymnase and the Théâtre Toursky. There is also an extensive arts centre in La Friche, a former match factory behind the Saint-Charles station. The Alcazar, until the 1960s a well known music hall and variety theatre, has recently been completely remodelled behind its original façade and now houses the central municipal library.[36] Other music venues in Marseille include Le Silo (also a theatre) and GRIM.
+
+Marseille has also been important in the arts. It has been the birthplace and home of many French writers and poets, including Victor Gélu [fr], Valère Bernard, Pierre Bertas,[37] Edmond Rostand and André Roussin. The small port of l'Estaque on the far end of the Bay of Marseille became a favourite haunt for artists, including Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne (who frequently visited from his home in Aix), Georges Braque and Raoul Dufy.
+
+Rich and poor neighborhoods exist side-by-side. Although the city is not without crime, Marseille has a larger degree of multicultural tolerance. Urban geographers[38] say the city's geography, being surrounded by mountains, helps explain why Marseille does not have the same problems as Paris. In Paris, ethnic areas are segregated and concentrated in the periphery of the city.  Residents of Marseille are of diverse origins, yet appear to share a similar particular identity.[39][40] An example is how Marseille responded in 2005, when ethnic populations living in other French cities' suburbs rioted, but Marseille remained relatively calm.[41]
+
+Marseille served as the European Capital of Culture for 2013 along with Košice.[42] It was chosen to give a 'human face' to the European Union to celebrate cultural diversity and to increase understanding between Europeans.[43] One of the intentions of highlighting culture is to help reposition Marseille internationally, stimulate the economy, and help to build better interconnection between groups.[44] Marseille-Provence 2013 (MP2013) featured more than 900 cultural events held throughout Marseille and the surrounding communities. These cultural events generated more than 11 million visits.[45] The European Capital of Culture was also the occasion to unveil more than 600 million euros in new cultural infrastructure in Marseille and its environs, including the MuCEM designed by Rudy Ricciotti.
+
+Early on, immigrants came to Marseille locally from the surrounding Provence region. By the 1890s immigrants came from other regions of France as well as Italy.[46] Marseille became one of Europe’s busiest port by 1900.[40] Marseille has served as a major port where immigrants from around the Mediterranean arrive.[46] Marseille continued to be multicultural. Armenians from the Ottoman empire began arriving in 1913. In the 1930s, Italians settled in Marseille. After World War II, a wave of Jewish immigrants from North Africa arrived. In 1962, a number of French colonies gained their independence, and the French citizens from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia arrived in Marseille.[47] The city had an economic downturn and lost many jobs. Those who could afford to move left and the poorest remained. For a while, the mafia appeared to run the city, and for a period of time the communist party was prominent.[47]
+
+Multi-cultural Marseille can be observed by a visitor at the market at Noailles, also called Marché des Capucins, in old town near the Old Port.  There, Lebanese bakeries, an African spice market, Chinese and Vietnamese groceries, fresh vegetables and fruit, shops selling couscous, shops selling Caribbean food are side by side with stalls selling shoes and clothing from around the Mediterranean. Nearby, people sell fresh fish and men from Tunisia drink tea.[47]
+
+The most commonly used tarot deck takes its name from the city; it has been called the Tarot de Marseille since the 1930s—a name coined for commercial use by the French cardmaker and cartomancer Paul Marteau, owner of B–P Grimaud. Previously this deck was called Tarot italien (Italian Tarot) and even earlier it was simply called Tarot. Before being de Marseille, it was used to play the local variant of tarocchi before it became used in cartomancy at the end of the 18th century, following the trend set by Antoine Court de Gébelin. The name Tarot de Marseille (Marteau used the name ancien Tarot de Marseille) was used by contrast to other types of Tarots such as Tarot de Besançon; those names were simply associated with cities where there were many cardmakers in the 18th century (previously several cities in France were involved in cardmaking).[48]
+
+Another local tradition is the making of santons, small hand-crafted figurines for the traditional Provençal Christmas creche. Since 1803, starting on the last Sunday of November, there has been a Santon Fair in Marseille; it is currently held in the Cours d'Estienne d'Orves, a large square off the Vieux-Port.
+
+Marseille's main cultural attraction was, since its creation at the end of the 18th century and until the late 1970s, the Opéra. Located near the Old Port and the Canebière, at the very heart of the city, its architectural style was comparable to the classical trend found in other opera houses built at the same time in Lyon and Bordeaux. In 1919, a fire almost completely destroyed the house, leaving only the stone colonnade and peristyle from the original façade.[49][50] The classical façade was restored and the opera house reconstructed in a predominantly Art Deco style, as the result of a major competition. Currently the Opéra de Marseille stages six or seven operas each year.[51]
+
+Since 1972, the Ballet national de Marseille has performed at the opera house; its director from its foundation to 1998 was Roland Petit.
+
+There are several popular festivals in different neighborhoods, with concerts, animations, and outdoor bars, like the Fête du Panier in June. On 21 June, there are dozens of free concerts in the city as part of France's Fête de la Musique, featuring music from all over the world. Being free events, many Marseille residents attend.
+
+Marseille hosts a Gay Pride event in early July. In 2013, Marseille hosted Europride, an international LGBT event, 10 July–20.[52] At the beginning of July, there is the International Documentary Festival.[53]
+At the end of September, the electronic music festival Marsatac takes place.
+In October, the Fiesta des Suds offers many concerts of world music.[54]
+
+Marseille is also well known in France for its hip hop music.[55] Bands like IAM originated from Marseille and initiated the rap phenomenon in France. Other known groups include Fonky Family, Psy 4 de la Rime (including rappers Soprano and Alonzo), and Keny Arkana.
+In a slightly different way, ragga music is represented by Massilia Sound System.
+
+Marseille has been the setting for many films.
+
+Marseille is listed as a major centre of art and history. The city has many museums and galleries and there are many ancient buildings and churches of historical interest.
+
+Most of the attractions of Marseille (including shopping areas) are located in the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th arrondissements. These include:[66][67]
+
+In addition to the two in the Centre de la Vieille Charité, described above, the main museums are:[70]
+
+The MuCEM, Musée Regards de Provence and Villa Mediterannée, with Notre Dame de la Majeur on the right
+
+The sixteenth century Maison Diamantée which houses the Musée du Vieux Marseille
+
+The music room in the Grobet-Labadié museum
+
+The Palais Longchamp with its monumental fountain
+
+The main attractions outside the city centre include:[67]
+
+A number of the faculties of the three universities that comprise Aix-Marseille University are located in Marseille:
+
+In addition Marseille has four grandes écoles:
+
+The main French research bodies including the CNRS, INSERM and INRA are all well represented in Marseille. Scientific research is concentrated at several sites across the city, including Luminy, where there are institutes in developmental biology (the IBDML), immunology (CIML), marine sciences and neurobiology (INMED), at the CNRS Joseph Aiguier campus (a world-renowned institute of molecular and environmental microbiology) and at the Timone hospital site (known for work in medical microbiology). Marseille is also home to the headquarters of the IRD, which promotes research into questions affecting developing countries.[citation needed]
+
+The city is served by an international airport, Marseille Provence Airport, located in Marignane. The airport is the fifth busiest French airport, and known the 4th most important European traffic growth in 2012.[84] An extensive network of motorways connects Marseille to the north and west (A7), Aix-en-Provence in the north (A51), Toulon (A50) and the French Riviera (A8) to the east.
+
+Gare de Marseille Saint-Charles is Marseille's main railway station. It operates direct regional services to Aix-en-Provence, Briançon, Toulon, Avignon, Nice, Montpellier, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, etc. Gare Saint-Charles is also one of the main terminal stations for the TGV in the south of France making Marseille reachable in three hours from Paris (a distance of over 750 km) and just over one and a half hours from Lyon. There are also direct TGV lines to Lille, Brussels, Nantes, Geneva, Strasbourg and Frankfurt as well as Eurostar services to London (just in the summer) and Thello services to Milan (just one a day), via Nice and Genoa.
+
+There is a new long distance bus station adjacent to new modern extension to the Gare Saint-Charles with destinations mostly to other Bouches-du-Rhône towns, including buses to Aix-en-Provence, Cassis, La Ciotat and Aubagne. The city is also served with 11 other regional trains stations in the east and the north of the city.
+
+Marseille has a large ferry terminal, the Gare Maritime, with services to
+Corsica, Sardinia, Algeria and Tunisia.
+
+Marseille is connected by the Marseille Métro train system operated by the Régie des transports de Marseille (RTM). It consists of two lines: Line 1 (blue) between Castellane and La Rose opened in 1977 and Line 2 (red) between Sainte-Marguerite-Dromel and Bougainville opened between 1984 and 1987. An extension of the Line 1 from Castellane to La Timone was completed in 1992, another extension from La Timone to La Fourragère (2.5 km (1.6 mi) and 4 new stations) was opened in May 2010. The Métro system operates on a turnstile system, with tickets purchased at the nearby adjacent automated booths. Both lines of the Métro intersect at Gare Saint-Charles and Castellane. Three bus rapid transit lines are under construction to better connect the Métro to farther places (Castellane -> Luminy; Capitaine Gèze – La Cabucelle -> Vallon des Tuves; La Rose -> Château Gombert – Saint Jérome).
+
+An extensive bus network serves the city and suburbs of Marseille, with 104 lines and 633 buses. The three lines of the tramway,[85] opened in 2007, go from the CMA CGM Tower towards Les Caillols.
+
+As in many other French cities, a bike-sharing service nicknamed "Le vélo", free for trips of less than half an hour, was introduced by the city council in 2007.[86]
+
+A free ferry service operates between the two opposite quays of the Old Port. From 2011 ferry shuttle services operate between the Old Port and Pointe Rouge; in spring 2013 it will also run to l'Estaque.[87] There are also ferry services and boat trips available from the Old Port to Frioul, the Calanques and Cassis.
+
+The city boasts a wide variety of sports facilities and teams. The most popular team is the city's football club, Olympique de Marseille, which was the finalist of the UEFA Champions League in 1991, before winning the competition in 1993. The club also became finalists of the UEFA Europa League in 1999, 2004 and 2018. The club had a history of success under then-owner Bernard Tapie. The club's home, the Stade Vélodrome, which can seat around 67,000 people, also functions for other local sports, as well as the national rugby team. Stade Velodrome hosted a number of games during the 1998 FIFA World Cup, 2007 Rugby World Cup, and UEFA Euro 2016. The local rugby teams are Marseille XIII and Marseille Vitrolles Rugby.[citation needed]
+Marseille is famous for its important pétanque activity, it is even renowned as the pétanque capitale.[88] In 2012 Marseille hosted the Pétanque World Championship and the city hosts every year the Mondial la Marseillaise de pétanque, the main pétanque competition.
+
+Sailing is a major sport in Marseille. The wind conditions allow regattas in the warm waters of the Mediterranean.[citation needed] Throughout most seasons of the year it can be windy while the sea remains smooth enough to allow sailing. Marseille has been the host of 8 (2010) Match Race France events which are part of the World Match Racing Tour. The event draws the world's best sailing teams to Marseille. The identical supplied boats (J Boats J-80 racing yachts) are raced two at a time in an on the water dogfight which tests the sailors and skippers to the limits of their physical abilities.
+Points accrued count towards the World Match Racing Tour and a place in the final event, with the overall winner taking the title ISAF World Match Racing Tour Champion. Match racing is an ideal sport for spectators in Marseille, as racing in close proximity to the shore provides excellent views. The city was also considered as a possible venue for 2007 America's Cup.[89]
+
+Marseille is also a place for other water sports such as windsurfing and powerboating. Marseille has three golf courses. The city has dozens of gyms and several public swimming pools. Running is also popular in many of Marseille's parks such as Le Pharo and Le Jardin Pierre Puget. An annual footrace is held between the city and neighbouring Cassis: the Marseille-Cassis Classique Internationale.[citation needed]
+
+The city has a hot-summer mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa) with cool-mild winters with moderate rainfall and hot, mostly dry summers.[90] December, January, and February are the coldest months, averaging temperatures of around 12 °C (54 °F) during the day and 4 °C (39 °F) at night. July and August are the hottest months, averaging temperatures of around 28–30 °C (82–86 °F) during the day and 19 °C (66 °F) at night in the Marignane airport (35 km (22 mi) from Marseille) but in the city near the sea the average high temperature is 27 °C (81 °F) in July.[91]
+
+Marseille is officially the sunniest major city in France with over 2,800 hours of sunshine while the average sunshine in the country is around 1,950 hours. It is also the driest major city with only 512 mm (20 in) of precipitation annually, especially thanks to the Mistral, a cold, dry wind originating in the Rhône Valley that occurs mostly in winter and spring and which generally brings clear skies and sunny weather to the region. Less frequent is the Sirocco, a hot, sand-bearing wind, coming from the Sahara Desert. Snowfalls are infrequent; over 50% of years do not experience a single snowfall.[citation needed]
+
+The hottest temperature was 40.6 °C (105.1 °F) on 26 July 1983 during a great heat wave, the lowest temperature was −14.3 °C (6.3 °F) on 13 February 1929 during a strong cold wave.[92]
+
+Marseille was the birthplace of:
+
+Marseille is twinned with 14 cities, all of them being a port city, with the exception of Marrakech.[103]
+
+In addition, Marseille has signed various types of formal agreements of cooperation with 27 cities all over the world:[104]
+

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+
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+Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (/sɑːrˈkoʊzi/; French: [nikɔla pɔl stefan saʁkɔzi də naʒi bɔksa] (listen); born 28 January 1955) is a retired French politician who served as President of France and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012.
+
+Born in Paris, he is of 1/2 Hungarian Protestant, 1/4 Greek Jewish, and 1/4 French Catholic origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine from 1983 to 2002, he was Minister of the Budget under Prime Minister Édouard Balladur (1993–1995) during François Mitterrand's second term. During Jacques Chirac's second presidential term he served as Minister of the Interior and as Minister of Finances. He was the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party from 2004 to 2007.
+
+He won the 2007 French presidential election by a 53.1% to 46.9% margin to Socialist Ségolène Royal. During his term, he faced the late-2000s financial crisis (causing a recession, the European sovereign debt crisis), the Russo-Georgian War (for which he negotiated a ceasefire) and the Arab Spring (especially in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria). He initiated the reform of French universities (2007) and the pension reform (2010). He married Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni in 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
+
+In the 2012 election, François Hollande, candidate of the Socialist Party, defeated Sarkozy by a 3.2% margin. After leaving the presidential office, Sarkozy vowed to retire from public life before coming back in 2014, being subsequently reelected as UMP leader (renamed The Republicans in 2015). Being defeated at the Republican presidential primary in 2016, he retired from public life. He has been charged with corruption by French prosecutors in two cases, notably concerning the alleged Libyan interference in the 2007 French elections.
+
+Sarkozy was born in Paris, and is the son of Pál István Ernő Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa[note 1] (Hungarian: nagybócsai Sárközy Pál; [ˈnɒɟboːt͡ʃɒi ˈʃaːrkøzi ˈpaːl] (listen)—in some sources Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy Pál István Ernő),[1] (born 5 May 1928), a Protestant Hungarian aristocrat, and Andrée Jeanne "Dadu" Mallah (12 October 1925 – 12 December 2017),[2] whose Greek Jewish father converted to Catholicism to marry Sarkozy's French Catholic maternal grandmother.[3][4] They were married in the Saint-François-de-Sales church, 17th arrondissement of Paris, on 8 February 1950, and divorced in 1959.[5]
+
+During Sarkozy's childhood, his father founded his own advertising agency and became wealthy. The family lived in a mansion owned by Sarkozy's maternal grandfather, Benedict Mallah, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. The family later moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of the Île-de-France région immediately west of Paris. According to Sarkozy, his staunchly Gaullist grandfather was more of an influence on him than his father, whom he rarely saw. Sarkozy was raised Catholic.[3]
+
+Sarkozy said that being abandoned by his father shaped much of who he is today. He also has said that, in his early years, he felt inferior in relation to his wealthier and taller classmates.[6] "What made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during childhood", he said later.[7]
+
+Sarkozy was enrolled in the Lycée Chaptal, a well regarded public middle and high school in Paris' 8th arrondissement, where he failed his sixième. His family then sent him to the Cours Saint-Louis de Monceau, a private Catholic school in the 17th arrondissement, where he was reportedly a mediocre student,[8] but where he nonetheless obtained his baccalauréat in 1973.
+
+Sarkozy enrolled at the Université Paris X Nanterre, where he graduated with an M.A. in private law and, later, with a D.E.A. degree in business law. Paris X Nanterre had been the starting place for the May '68 student movement and was still a stronghold of leftist students. Described as a quiet student, Sarkozy soon joined the right-wing student organization, in which he was very active.[citation needed] He completed his military service as a part-time Air Force cleaner.[9]
+
+After graduating from university, Sarkozy entered Sciences Po, where he studied between 1979 and 1981, but failed to graduate[10] due to an insufficient command of the English language.[11]
+
+After passing the bar, Sarkozy became a lawyer specializing in business and family law[11] and was one of Silvio Berlusconi's French lawyers.[12][13][14]
+
+Sarkozy married his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, on 23 September 1982; her father was a pharmacist from Vico (a village north of Ajaccio, Corsica), her uncle was Achille Peretti, the mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine from 1947–1983 and Sarkozy's political mentor. They had two sons, Pierre (born in 1985), now a hip-hop producer,[15] and Jean (born in 1986) now a local politician in the city of Neuilly-sur-Seine where Sarkozy started his own political career. Sarkozy's best man was the prominent right-wing politician Charles Pasqua, later to become a political opponent.[16] Sarkozy divorced Culioli in 1996, after they had been separated for several years.
+
+As mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Sarkozy met former fashion model and public relations executive Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz (great-granddaughter of composer Isaac Albéniz and daughter of a Moldovan father), when he officiated at her wedding[17] to television host Jacques Martin. In 1988, she left her husband for Sarkozy, and divorced one year later. She and Sarkozy married in October 1996, with witnesses Martin Bouygues and Bernard Arnault.[18] They have one son, Louis, born 23 April 1997.
+
+Between 2002 and 2005, the couple often appeared together on public occasions, with Cécilia Sarkozy acting as the chief aide for her husband.[19] On 25 May 2005, however, the Swiss newspaper Le Matin revealed that she had left Sarkozy for French-Moroccan national Richard Attias, head of Publicis in New York.[20] There were other accusations of a private nature in Le Matin, which led to Sarkozy suing the paper.[21] In the meantime, he was said to have had an affair with a journalist of Le Figaro, Anne Fulda.[22]
+
+Sarkozy and Cécilia ultimately divorced on 15 October 2007, soon after his election as president.[23]
+
+Less than a month after separating from Cécilia, Sarkozy met Italian-born singer, songwriter and former fashion model Carla Bruni at a dinner party, and soon entered a relationship with her.[24] They married on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.[25]
+
+The couple have a daughter, Giulia, born on 19 October 2011.[26] It was the first time a French president has publicly had a child while in office.[27]
+
+Sarkozy declared to the Constitutional Council a net worth of €2 million, most of the assets being in the form of life insurance policies.[28] As the French President, one of his first actions was to give himself a pay raise: his yearly salary went from €101,000 to €240,000 to match his European counterparts[clarification needed].[29] He is also entitled to a mayoral, parliamentarian and presidential pension as a former Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, member of the National Assembly and President of France.
+
+Sarkozy is recognized by French parties on both the Right and Left as a skilled politician and striking orator.[30] His supporters within France emphasize his charisma, political innovation and willingness to "make a dramatic break" amid mounting disaffection against "politics as usual". Overall, he is considered more pro-American and pro-Israeli than most French politicians.
+
+From 2004 to 2007, Sarkozy was president of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), France's major right-wing political party, and he was Minister of the Interior in the government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, with the honorific title of Minister of State, making him effectively the number three official in the French State after President Jacques Chirac and Villepin. His ministerial responsibilities included law enforcement and working to co-ordinate relationships between the national and local governments, as well as Minister of Worship (in this role he created the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM). Previously, he was a deputy to the French National Assembly. He was forced to resign this position in order to accept his ministerial appointment. He previously also held several ministerial posts, including Finance Minister.
+
+Sarkozy's political career began when he was 23, when he became a city councillor in Neuilly-sur-Seine. A member of the Neo-Gaullist party RPR, he went on to be elected mayor of that town, after the death of the incumbent mayor Achille Peretti. Sarkozy had been close to Peretti, as his mother was Peretti's secretary. A more senior RPR councillor, Charles Pasqua, wanted to become mayor, and asked Sarkozy to organize his campaign. Instead Sarkozy took that opportunity to propel himself into the office of mayor.[31] He was the youngest mayor of any town in France with a population of over 50,000. He served from 1983 to 2002. In 1988, he became a deputy in the National Assembly.
+
+In 1993, Sarkozy was in the national news for personally negotiating with the "Human Bomb", a man who had taken small children hostage in a kindergarten in Neuilly.[32] The "Human Bomb" was killed after two days of talks by policemen of the RAID, who entered the school stealthily while the attacker was resting.
+
+At the same time, from 1993 to 1995, he was Minister for the Budget and spokesman for the executive in the cabinet of Prime Minister Édouard Balladur. Throughout most of his early career, Sarkozy had been seen as a protégé of Jacques Chirac. During his tenure, he increased France's public debt more than any other French Budget Minister, by the equivalent of €200 billion (US$260 billion) (FY 1994–1996). The first two budgets he submitted to the parliament (budgets for FY1994 and FY1995) assumed a yearly budget deficit equivalent to six percent of GDP.[note 2] According to the Maastricht Treaty, the French yearly budget deficit may not exceed three percent of France's GDP.
+
+In 1995, he spurned Chirac and backed Édouard Balladur for President of France. After Chirac won the election, Sarkozy lost his position as Minister for the Budget, and found himself outside the circles of power.
+
+However, he returned after the right-wing defeat at the 1997 parliamentary election, as the number two candidate of the RPR. When the party leader Philippe Séguin resigned, in 1999, he took the leadership of the Neo-Gaullist party. But it obtained its worst result at the 1999 European Parliament election, winning 12.7% of the votes, less than the dissident Rally for France of Charles Pasqua. Sarkozy lost the RPR leadership.
+
+In 2002, however, after his re-election as President of the French Republic (see 2002 French presidential election), Chirac appointed Sarkozy as French Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, despite Sarkozy's support of Edouard Balladur for French President in 1995.[33] Following Chirac's 14 July keynote speech on road safety, Sarkozy as interior minister pushed through new legislation leading to the mass purchase of speed cameras and a campaign to increase the awareness of dangers on the roads.
+
+In the cabinet reshuffle of 30 April 2004, Sarkozy became Finance Minister. Tensions continued to build between Sarkozy and Chirac and within the UMP party, as Sarkozy's intentions of becoming head of the party after the resignation of Alain Juppé became clear.
+
+In party elections of 10 November 2004, Sarkozy became leader of the UMP with 85% of the vote. In accordance with an agreement with Chirac, he resigned as Finance Minister. Sarkozy's ascent was marked by the division of UMP between sarkozystes, such as Sarkozy's "first lieutenant", Brice Hortefeux, and Chirac loyalists, such as Jean-Louis Debré.
+
+Sarkozy was made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by President Chirac in February 2005. He was re-elected on 13 March 2005 to the National Assembly. (As required by the constitution,[34] he had to resign as a deputy when he became minister in 2002.)
+
+On 31 May 2005 the main French news radio station France Info reported a rumour that Sarkozy was to be reappointed Minister of the Interior in the government of Dominique de Villepin without resigning from the UMP leadership. This was confirmed on 2 June 2005, when the members of the government were officially announced.
+
+Towards the end of his first term as Minister of the Interior, in 2004, Sarkozy was the most divisive conservative politician in France, according to polls conducted at the beginning of 2004.
+
+Sarkozy has sought to ease the sometimes tense relationships between the general French population and the Muslim community. Unlike the Catholic Church in France with their official leaders or Protestants with their umbrella organisations, the French Muslim community had a lack of structure with no group that could legitimately deal with the French government on their behalf. Sarkozy supported the foundation in May 2003 of the private non-profit Conseil français du culte musulman ("French Council of the Muslim Faith"), an organisation meant to be representative of French Muslims.[35] In addition, Sarkozy has suggested amending the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State, mostly in order to be able to finance mosques and other Muslim institutions with public funds[36] so that they are less reliant on money from outside France. It was not followed by any concrete measure.
+
+During his short appointment as Minister of Finance, Sarkozy was responsible for introducing a number of policies. The degree to which this reflected libéralisme (a hands-off approach to running the economy) or more traditional French state dirigisme (intervention) is controversial. He resigned the day following his election as president of the UMP.
+
+During his second term at the Ministry of the Interior, Sarkozy was initially more discreet about his ministerial activities: instead of focusing on his own topic of law and order, many of his declarations addressed wider issues, since he was expressing his opinions as head of the UMP party.
+
+However, the civil unrest in autumn 2005 put law enforcement in the spotlight again. Sarkozy was accused of having provoked the unrest by calling young delinquents from housing projects a "rabble" ("racaille") in Argenteuil near Paris, and controversially suggested cleansing the minority suburbs with a Kärcher. After the accidental death of two youths, which sparked the riots, Sarkozy first blamed it on "hoodlums" and gangsters. These remarks were sharply criticised by many on the left wing and by a member of his own government, Delegate Minister for Equal Opportunities Azouz Begag.[41]
+
+After the rioting, he made a number of announcements on future policy: selection of immigrants,  greater tracking of immigrants, and a reform on the 1945 ordinance government justice measures for young delinquents.
+
+Before he was elected President of France, Sarkozy was president of UMP, the French conservative party, elected with 85 percent of the vote. During his presidency, the number of members has significantly increased. In 2005, he supported a "yes" vote in the French referendum on the European Constitution, but the "No" vote won.
+
+Throughout 2005, Sarkozy called for radical changes in France's economic and social policies. These calls culminated in an interview with Le Monde on 8 September 2005, during which he claimed that the French had been misled for 30 years by false promises.[42] Among other issues:
+
+Such policies are what are called in France libéral (that is, in favour of laissez-faire economic policies) or, with a pejorative undertone, ultra-libéral. Sarkozy rejects this label of libéral and prefers to call himself a pragmatist.
+
+Sarkozy opened another avenue of controversy by declaring that he wanted a reform of the immigration system, with quotas designed to admit the skilled workers needed by the French economy. He also wants to reform the current French system for foreign students, saying that it enables foreign students to take open-ended curricula in order to obtain residency in France; instead, he wants to select the best students to the best curricula in France.
+
+In early 2006, the French parliament adopted a controversial bill known as DADVSI, which reforms French copyright law. Since his party was divided on the issue, Sarkozy stepped in and organised meetings between various parties involved. Later, groups such as the Odebi League and EUCD.info alleged that Sarkozy personally and unofficially supported certain amendments to the law, which enacted strong penalties against designers of peer-to-peer systems.
+
+Sarkozy was a likely candidate for the presidency in 2007; in an oft-repeated comment made on television channel France 2, when asked by a journalist whether he thought about the presidential election when he shaved in the morning, Sarkozy commented, "Not just when I shave".[43]
+
+On 14 January 2007, Sarkozy was chosen by the UMP to be its candidate in the 2007 presidential election. Sarkozy, who was running unopposed, won 98 percent of the votes. Of the 327,000 UMP members who could vote, 69 percent participated in the online ballot.[44]
+
+In February 2007, Sarkozy appeared on a televised debate on TF1 where he expressed his support for affirmative action and the freedom to work overtime. Despite his opposition to same-sex marriage, he advocated civil unions and the possibility for same-sex partners to inherit under the same regime as married couples. The law was voted in July 2007.[note 3]
+
+On 7 February, Sarkozy decided in favour of a projected second, non-nuclear, aircraft carrier for the national Navy (adding to the nuclear Charles de Gaulle), during an official visit in Toulon with Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie. "This would allow permanently having an operational ship, taking into account the constraints of maintenance", he explained.[45]
+
+On 21 March, President Jacques Chirac announced his support for Sarkozy. Chirac pointed out that Sarkozy had been chosen as presidential candidate for the ruling UMP party, and said: "So it is totally natural that I give him my vote and my support." To focus on his campaign, Sarkozy stepped down as interior minister on 26 March.[46]
+
+During the campaign, rival candidates had accused Sarkozy of being a "candidate for brutality" and of presenting hard-line views about France's future.[47] Opponents also accused him of courting conservative voters in policy-making in a bid to capitalise on right-wing sentiments among some communities. However, his popularity was sufficient to see him polling as the frontrunner throughout the later campaign period, consistently ahead of rival Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal.
+
+The first round of the presidential election was held on 22 April 2007. Sarkozy came in first with 31.18 percent of the votes, ahead of Ségolène Royal of the Socialists with 25.87 percent. In the second round, Sarkozy came out on top to win the election with 53.06 percent of the votes ahead of Ségolène Royal with 46.94 percent.[48] In his speech immediately following the announcement of the election results, Sarkozy stressed the need for France's modernisation, but also called for national unity, mentioning that Royal was in his thoughts. In that speech, he claimed "The French have chosen to break with the ideas, habits and behaviour of the past. I will restore the value of work, authority, merit and respect for the nation."
+
+On 6 May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy became the sixth person to be elected President of the Fifth Republic (which was established in 1958), and the 23rd President in French history.
+
+The official transfer of power from Chirac to Sarkozy took place on 16 May at 11:00 am (9:00 UTC) at the Élysée Palace, where he was given the authorization codes of the French nuclear arsenal.[49] In the afternoon, the new President flew to Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
+
+Under Sarkozy's government, François Fillon replaced Dominique de Villepin as Prime Minister.[50] Sarkozy appointed Bernard Kouchner, the left-wing founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, as his Foreign Minister, leading to Kouchner's expulsion from the Socialist Party. In addition to Kouchner, three more Sarkozy ministers are from the left, including Éric Besson, who served as Ségolène Royal's economic adviser at the beginning of her campaign. Sarkozy also appointed seven women to form a total cabinet of 15; one, Justice Minister Rachida Dati, is the first woman of Northern African origin to serve in a French cabinet. Of the 15, two attended the elite École nationale d'administration (ENA).[51] The ministers were reorganised, with the controversial creation of a 'Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development'—given to his right-hand man Brice Hortefeux—and of a 'Ministry of Budget, Public Accounts and Civil Administration'—handed out to Éric Wœrth, supposed to prepare the replacement of only a third of all civil servants who retire. However, after 17 June parliamentary elections, the Cabinet was adjusted to 15 ministers and 16 deputy ministers, totalling 31 officials.
+
+Sarkozy broke with the custom of amnestying traffic tickets and of releasing thousands of prisoners from overcrowded jails on Bastille Day, a tradition that Napoleon had started in 1802 to commemorate the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution.[52]
+
+In the 2007 and 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy,[53] Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Quebec Premier Jean Charest[54] all spoke in favour of a Canada – EU free trade agreement.  In October 2008, Sarkozy became the first French President to address the National Assembly of Quebec.  In his speech he spoke out against Quebec separatism, but recognized Quebec as a nation within Canada.  He said that, to France, Canada was a friend, and Quebec was family.[53]
+
+Shortly after taking office, Sarkozy began negotiations with Colombian president Álvaro Uribe and the left-wing guerrilla FARC, regarding the release of hostages held by the rebel group, especially Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt. According to some sources, Sarkozy himself asked for Uribe to release FARC's "chancellor" Rodrigo Granda.[55]
+
+Furthermore, he announced on 24 July 2007, that French and European representatives had obtained the extradition of the Bulgarian nurses detained in Libya to their country. In exchange, he signed with Muammar Gaddafi security, health care and immigration pacts—and a $230 million (168 million euros) MILAN antitank missile sale.[52] The contract was the first made by Libya since 2004, and was negotiated with MBDA, a subsidiary of EADS. Another 128 million euro contract would have been signed, according to Tripoli, with EADS for a TETRA radio system. The Socialist Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PCF) criticised a "state affair" and a "barter" with a "Rogue state".[56] The leader of the PS, François Hollande, requested the opening of a parliamentary investigation.[57]
+
+On 8 June 2007, during the 33rd G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Sarkozy set a goal of reducing French CO2 emissions by 50 percent by 2050 in order to prevent global warming. He then pushed forward Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn as European nominee to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).[58] Critics alleged that Sarkozy proposed to nominate Strauss-Kahn as managing director of the IMF to deprive the Socialist Party of one of its more popular figures.[59]
+
+In 2010, a study of Yale and Columbia universities ranked France the most respectful country of the G20 concerning the environment.[60]
+
+The Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Sarkozy's party, won a majority at the June 2007 legislative election, although by less than expected. In July, the UMP majority, seconded by the Nouveau Centre, ratified one of Sarkozy's electoral promises, which was to partially revoke the inheritance tax.[61][62] The inheritance tax formerly brought eight billion euros into state coffers.[63]
+
+Sarkozy's UMP majority prepared a budget that reduced taxes, in particular for upper middle-class people, allegedly in an effort to boost GDP growth, but did not reduce state expenditures. He was criticised by the European Commission for doing so.
+
+On 23 July 2008, parliament voted the "loi de modernisation de l'économie" (Modernization of the Economy Law) which loosened restrictions on retail prices and reduced limitations on the creation of businesses. The Government has also made changes to long-standing French work-hour regulations, allowing employers to negotiate overtime with employees and making all hours worked past the traditional French 35-hour week tax-free.[64]
+
+However, as a result of the global financial crisis that came to a head in September 2008, Sarkozy has returned to the state interventionism of his predecessors, declaring that "laissez-faire capitalism is over" and denouncing the "dictatorship of the market". Confronted with the suggestion that he had become a socialist, he responded: "Have I become socialist? Perhaps." He has also pledged to create 100,000 state-subsidised jobs.[65] This reversion to dirigisme is seen as an attempt to stem the growing popularity of revolutionary socialist leader Olivier Besancenot.[66]
+
+Sarkozy's government issued a decree on 7 August 2007 to generalise a voluntary biometric profiling program of travellers in airports. The program, called 'Parafes', was to use fingerprints. The new database would be interconnected with the Schengen Information System (SIS) as well as with a national database of wanted persons (FPR). The Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL) protested against this new decree, opposing itself to the recording of fingerprints and to the interconnection between the SIS and the FPR.[67]
+
+On 21 July 2008, the French parliament passed constitutional reforms which Sarkozy had made one of the key pledges of his presidential campaign. The vote was 539 to 357, one vote over the three-fifths majority required; the changes are not yet finalized. They would introduce a two-term limit for the presidency, and end the president's right of collective pardon. They would allow the president to address parliament in-session, and parliament, to set its own agenda. They would give parliament a veto over some presidential appointments, while ending government control over parliament's committee system. He has claimed that these reforms strengthen parliament, while some opposition socialist lawmakers have described it as a "consolidation of a monocracy".[68]
+
+During his 2007 presidential campaign, Sarkozy promised a strengthening of the entente cordiale with the United Kingdom[69] and closer cooperation with the United States.[70]
+
+Sarkozy wielded special international power when France held the rotating EU Council Presidency from July 2008 through December 2008. Sarkozy has publicly stated his intention to attain EU approval of a progressive energy package before the end of his EU Presidency. This energy package would clearly define climate change objectives for the EU and hold members to specific reductions in emissions. In further support of his collaborative outlook on climate change, Sarkozy has led the EU into a partnership with China.[71] On 6 December 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy, as part of France's then presidency of the Council of the EU, met the Dalai Lama in Poland and outraged China, which has announced that it would postpone the China-EU summit indefinitely.[72]
+
+On 3 April 2009, at the NATO Summit in Strasbourg, Sarkozy announced that France would offer asylum to a former Guantanamo captive.[73][74]
+"We are on the path to failure if we continue to act as we have", French President Nicolas Sarkozy cautioned at the U.N. Climate Summit on 22 September 2009.[75]
+
+On 5 January 2009, Sarkozy called for a ceasefire plan for the Gaza Strip Conflict.[76] The plan, which was jointly proposed by Sarkozy and Egyptian ex-President Hosni Mubarak envisions the continuation of the delivery of aid to Gaza and talks with Israel on border security, a key issue for Israel as it says Hamas smuggles its rockets into Gaza through the Egyptian border. Welcoming the proposal, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for a "ceasefire that can endure and that can bring real security".[77]
+
+Muammar Gaddafi's official visit to Nicolas Sarkozy in December 2007 triggered a strong wave of protests against the President in France.[78]
+
+In March 2011, after having been criticized for his unwillingness to support the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, and persuaded by the philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy to have France actively engage against the forces of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, Nicolas Sarkozy was amongst the first Heads of State to demand the resignation of Gaddafi and his government, which was then fighting a civil war in Libya. On 10 March 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed to the Elysee Palace, three emissaries from the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC), brought to him by Bernard-Henri Levy who mediated at the meeting. Nicolas Sarkozy promised them a no-fly zone would be imposed on Gaddafi's aeroplanes. He also promised them French military assistance. On 17 March 2011, at the behest of France, resolution 1973 was adopted by the Security Council of the United Nations, permitting the creation of a "no fly" zone over Libya, and for the undertaking of "necessary measures" for the protection of the country's civilian population. On 19 March 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy officially announced the beginning of a military intervention in Libya, with France's participation. These actions of Nicolas Sarkozy were favorably received by the majority of the French political class and public opinion.[79][80][81]
+
+In 2016, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament published a report stating that the military intervention "was based on erroneous assumptions" that the threat of a massacre of civilian populations has been "overvalued" and that the coalition "Has not verified the real threat to civilians"; He also believes that the true motivations of Nicolas Sarkozy were to serve French interests and to "improve his political situation in France".[82]
+
+Sarkozy was one of ten candidates who qualified for the first round of voting.[83] François Hollande, the Socialist Party candidate, received the most votes in the first round held on 22 April election, with Sarkozy coming second, meaning that both progressed to the second round of voting on 5–6 May 2012.[84] Sarkozy lost in the runoff and conceded to Hollande. He received an estimated 48.38% compared to Hollande's 51.62%.[85]
+
+After his defeat at the 2012 election, Nicolas Sarkozy asked his supporters to respect Hollande's victory. He invited his successor to attend his last 8 May Victory in Europe Day commemoration in office. His last day as President of the French Republic was 15 May.
+
+Shortly after, Sarkozy briefly considered a career in private equity and secured a €250 million commitment from the Qatar Investment Authority to back his planned buyout firm. He abandoned his private equity plans when he decided to make a political comeback in 2014.[86][87]
+
+On 19 September 2014, Sarkozy announced that he was returning to politics and would run for chairman of the UMP party.[88] and was elected to the post on 29 November 2014.[89] Led by Sarkozy, UMP won over two-thirds of the 102 local departements in the nationwide elections on 29 March 2015.[90] On 13 December, the Republicans won the majority of regional office races, another set of national elections.[91] (On 30 May the UMP's name was changed to the Republicans.)
+
+In January 2016, Sarkozy published the book La France pour la vie. In August 2016, he announced his candidacy for 2016 Republican presidential primary in November 2016, but only came in third place behind François Fillon and Alain Juppé. He decided to endorse Fillon and to retire from politics.[92]
+
+Sarkozy was named the 68th best-dressed person in the world by Vanity Fair, alongside David Beckham and Brad Pitt.[99] However, Sarkozy has also been named as the third worst-dressed person in the world by GQ,[100] a listing that has been disputed.[101] Beside publicising, at times, and at others, refusing to publicise his ex-wife Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz's image,[102] Sarkozy takes care of his own personal image, sometimes to the point of censorship—such as in the Paris Match affair, when he allegedly forced its director to resign following an article on his ex-wife and her affair with Publicis executive Richard Attias, or pressures exercised on the Journal du dimanche, which was preparing to publish an article concerning Ciganer-Albéniz's decision not to vote in the second round of the 2007 presidential election.[103] In its edition of 9 August 2007, Paris Match retouched a photo of Sarkozy in order to erase a love handle.[104][105][106] His official portrait destined for all French town halls was done by Sipa Press photographer Philippe Warrin, better known for his paparazzi work.[107]
+
+Former Daily Telegraph journalist Colin Randall has highlighted Sarkozy's tighter control of his image and frequent interventions in the media: "he censors a book, or fires the chief editor of a weekly."[107] Sarkozy is reported by Reuters to be sensitive about his height (believed to be 165 cm (5 ft 5 in)).[108] The French media have pointed out that Carla Bruni frequently wears flats when in public with him. In 2009, a worker at a factory where Sarkozy gave a speech said she was asked to stand next to him because she was of a similar height to Sarkozy. (This story was corroborated by some trade union officials.) This was the subject of a political row: the president's office called the accusation "completely absurd and grotesque", while the Socialist Party mocked his fastidious preparation.[109]
+
+Sarkozy lost a suit against a manufacturer of Sarkozy voodoo dolls, in which he claimed that he had a right to his own image.[110]
+
+Sarkozy was nicknamed as Hyper-president or hyperpresident  by some French media[111] after his 2007 election as president. It is a portmanteau of hyper and president to insist on the desire of Sarkozy to control everything.[112] Whereas in the history of the Fifth Republic, the successive presidents were traditionally focused on the foreign policy of the country and on international relations, leaving the Prime Minister and the government to determine the domestic policy, as the Constitution states it,[113] Nicolas Sarkozy appeared to determine both the foreign and domestic policy.[citation needed] Some compared Nicolas Sarkozy to Napoléon Bonaparte and Louis XIV.[114] Indeed, he appointed a very close friend of his, François Fillon, as a Prime Minister.[115] François Fillon was accused of being an instrument of the President's power.[citation needed]
+
+The biopic The Conquest is a 2011 film that dramatizes Sarkozy's rise to power, with candid portrayals of Sarkozy himself, Chirac and Villepin.[116] It was shown at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.[117]
+
+Sarkozy is generally disliked by the left and has been criticised by some on the right, most vocally by moderate Gaullist supporters of Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin.[118][119] The communist-leaning magazine L'Humanité accused Sarkozy of populism.[120]
+
+In 2004 Sarkozy co-authored a book, La République, les religions, l'espérance (The Republic, Religions, and Hope),[121] in which he argued that the young should not be brought up solely on secular or republican values. He advocated reducing the separation of church and state, arguing for the government subsidies for mosques to encourage Islamic integration into French society.[122] He has opposed financing of religious institutions with funds from outside France. After meeting with Tom Cruise, Sarkozy was criticized by some for meeting with a member of the Church of Scientology, which has been seen by some as a cult.[123] Sarkozy was criticized by some Christians after he claimed "the roots of France are essentially Christian" at a December 2007 speech in Rome. Similarly, he drew criticism from Christians after he called Islam "one of the greatest and most beautiful civilizations the world has known" at a speech in Riyadh in January 2008.[124]
+
+In the midst of a tense period and following the accidental death of an 11-year-old boy in the Paris suburb of La Courneuve in June 2005, Sarkozy quoted a local resident and vowed to clean the area out "with a Kärcher" (a high-pressure hose). Two days before the 2005 Paris riots he referred to young criminals of nearby housing projects as "voyous" ("thugs") and "racaille", a slang term which can be translated into English as "rabble", "scum" or "riff-raff", in answer to resident who addressed Sarkozy with "Quand nous débarrassez-vous de cette racaille?" ("When will you rid us of these dregs?")[125] The French Communist Party publication, L'Humanité, branded this language as inappropriate.[126] Following Sarkozy's use of the word racaille many people in the banlieues identified him as a politician of the far right. His period as Interior Minister saw the use of police as shock troops in the "banlieues", and a police "raid" on the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois in October 2005 led to two boys being electrocuted in a power sub-station. The riots began that night.[127]
+
+In September 2005 Sarkozy was accused of pushing for a hasty inquiry into an arson attack on a police station in Pau, of which the alleged perpetrators were acquitted for lack of proof.[128] On 22 June 2005 Sarkozy told law enforcement officials that he had questioned the Minister of Justice about the future of "the judge" who had freed a man on parole who had later committed a murder.[129]
+
+A few weeks before the first round of the 2007 presidential elections, Sarkozy had an interview with philosopher Michel Onfray.[130] Sarkozy stated that disorders such as paedophilia and depression have a genetic as well as social basis, saying "... I'd be inclined to think that one is born a paedophile, and it is actually a problem that we do not know how to cure this disease"; he claimed that suicides among youth were linked to genetic predispositions by stating, "I don't want to give parents a complex. It's not exclusively the parents' fault every time a youngster commits suicide." These statements were criticised by some scientists, including geneticist Axel Kahn.[131][132] Sarkozy later added, "What part is innate and what part is acquired? At least let's debate it, let's not close the door to all debate."[133]
+
+On 27 July 2007, Sarkozy delivered a speech in Dakar, Senegal, written by Henri Guaino, in which he claimed that "the African has never really entered into history".[134][135] The controversial remarks were widely condemned by Africans, with some viewing them as racist.[135][136] South African president Thabo Mbeki praised Sarkozy's speech, which raised criticism by some in the South African media.[135]
+
+On 30 July 2010, Sarkozy suggested a new policy of security, and he proposed "stripping foreign-born French citizens who opted to acquire their nationality at their majority of their citizenship if they are convicted of threatening the life of a police officer or other serious crimes".[137] This policy has been criticized for example by the US newspaper The New York Times,[137] by Sarkozy's political opponents, including the Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry,[138] and by experts of French law, including the  ex-member of the Constitutional Council of France, Robert Badinter, who said that such action would be unconstitutional.[139]
+
+He called for coercive methods to promote "métissage," cultural mixing (which can sometimes include genetic mixing), which he called an "obligation" during a press conference on 17 December 2008.[140]
+
+On 23 February 2008, Sarkozy was filmed by a reporter for French newspaper Le Parisien having the following exchange while visiting the Paris International Agricultural Show:[141]
+
+While quickly crossing the hall Saturday morning, in the middle of the crowd, Sarkozy encounters a recalcitrant visitor who refuses to shake his hand. "Ah no, don't touch me!", said the man. The president retorted immediately: "Get lost, then." "You're making me dirty", yelled the man. With a frozen smile, Sarkozy says, his teeth glistening, a refined "Get lost, then, poor dumb-ass, go."[note 4]
+
+A precise translation into English has many possible variations.[142][143][144]
+
+On 28 August 2008, Hervé Eon, from Laval came to an anti-Sarkozy demonstration with a sign bearing the words Casse-toi pov' con, the exact words Sarkozy had uttered. Eon was arrested for causing offence to the presidential function and the prosecutor, who in France indirectly reports to the president, requested a fine of €1000.[145][146] The court eventually imposed a symbolic €30 suspended fine, which has generally been interpreted as a defeat for the prosecution side.[147] This incident was widely reported on, in particular as Sarkozy, as president of the Republic, is immune from prosecution, notably restricting Eon's rights to sue Sarkozy for defamation.[148]
+
+Sarkozy opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. However, he was critical of the way Chirac and his foreign minister Dominique de Villepin expressed France's opposition to the war. Talking at the French-American Foundation in Washington, D.C. on 12 September 2006, he denounced what he called the "French arrogance" and said: "It is bad manners to embarrass one's allies or sound like one is taking delight in their troubles."[149] He added: "We must never again turn our disagreements into a crisis." Chirac reportedly said in private that Sarkozy's speech was "appalling" and "a shameful act".[149]
+
+In October 2009, Sarkozy was accused of nepotism for helping his son, Jean, try to become head of the public body running France's biggest business district EPAD.[150][151][152] On 3 July 2012, French police raided Sarkozy's residence and office as part of a probe into claims that Sarkozy was involved in illegal political campaign financing.[153]
+
+On 5 July 2010, following its investigations on the Bettencourt affair, online newspaper Mediapart ran an article in which Claire Thibout, a former accountant of billionairess Liliane Bettencourt, accused Sarkozy and Eric Woerth of receiving illegal campaign donations in 2007, in cash.[154][155]
+
+On 1 July 2014 Sarkozy was detained for questioning by police over claims he had promised a prestigious role in Monaco to a high-ranking judge, Gilbert Azibert, in exchange for information about the investigation into alleged illegal campaign funding.  Mr Azibert, one of the most senior judges at the Court of Appeal, was called in for questioning on 30 June 2014.[156]  It is believed to be the first time a former French president has been held in police custody, although his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was found guilty of embezzlement and breach of trust while he was mayor of Paris and given a suspended prison sentence in 2011.[157] After 15 hours in police custody, Sarkozy was put under official investigation for "active corruption", "misuse of influence" and "obtained through a breach of professional secrecy" on 2 July 2014.[158] Mr Azibert and Sarkozy's lawyer, Thierry Herzog, are also now under official investigation. The two accusations carry sentences of up to 10 years in prison.[159] The developments were seen as a blow to Sarkozy's attempts to challenge for the presidency in 2017.[160][161] Nevertheless, he later stood as a candidate for the Republican party nomination,[162] but was eliminated from the contest in November 2016.[163]
+
+On 16 February 2016, Sarkozy was indicted on "illegal financing of political campaign" charges related to overspending in his 2012 presidential campaign and retained as witness in connection with the Bygmalion scandal.[164][165][166][167]
+
+In April 2016, Arnaud Claude, former law partner of Sarkozy, was named in the Panama Papers.[168]
+
+Shortly after Sarkozy's inauguration as President of France in 2007, he invited Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to France over the objections of both the political opposition, and members of his own government.[169] The visit marked the first time Gaddafi had been to France in more than 35 years and, during it, France agreed to sell Libya 21 Airbus aircraft and signed a nuclear cooperation agreement.[169] Negotiations for the purchase of more than a dozen Dassault Rafale fighter jets, plus military helicopters, were also initiated during the trip.[170]
+
+During the 2011 Libyan Civil War – a conflict in which France intervened – Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi said in an interview with euronews that the Libyan state had donated €50 million to Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign in exchange for access and favors by Sarkozy.[171][172]
+
+We funded it and we have all the details and are ready to reveal everything. The first thing we want this clown to do is to give the money back to the Libyan people. He was given assistance so that he could help them. But he’s disappointed us: give us back our money.[173]
+
+Saif al-Islam Gaddafi's claim was later repeated by former Libyan prime minister Baghdadi Mahmudi in October of that year, though Sarkozy denied its veracity.[171] Investigative website Mediapart subsequently published several documents appearing to prove a payment of €50 million, and also published a claim by Ziad Takieddine that he had personally handed three briefcases stuffed with cash to Sarkozy.[171][174] French magistrates later acquired diaries of former Libyan oil minister Shukri Ghanem in which payments to Sarkozy were mentioned.[175] Shortly thereafter, however, Ghanem was found dead, floating in the Danube in Austria and thereby preventing his corroboration of the diaries.[172][175]
+
+A judicial investigation against then-unidentified persons was initiated in April 2013 in Paris.[171]
+
+In January 2018, British police arrested Alexandre Djouhri on a European Arrest Warrant.[176] Djouhri was an associate of Sarkozy and had refused to respond to a French judicial summons for questioning over allegations he had helped launder Libyan funds on behalf of Sarkozy.[176] The following month, Asharq Al-Awsat quoted a source who alleged Sarkozy had promised Libyan representatives improved relations between France and Libya should he be elected president, and that he would wrap-up the matter of the bombing of UTA Flight 772.[177]
+
+On 20 March, Sarkozy was arrested by French police and held for questioning concerning the various allegations about a Libyan connection, the first time he had been interrogated in relation to the matter.[178][179] Brice Hortefeux was also brought in by police for questioning.[174]
+
+Following Sarkozy's arrest, Saif al-Islam expressed a willingness to testify in any future trial.[180] He also claimed that a former officer of the Libyan intelligence service was in possession of a recording of a meeting between his father and Sarkozy in Tripoli in 2007 at which payments were discussed.[180] The Republicans, meanwhile, issued a statement in which the party said the former president had their full support.[181] Spokesman Christian Jacob later suggested that the accusations against Sarkozy were politically motivated.[181]
+
+On 20 and 21 March 2018, Sarkozy was put into police custody and held for questioning concerning the Libyan connection.[182] He was formally charged with bribery and accepting illegal campaign contributions  at the issue of this custody.[183]
+
+Governmental functions
+
+Electoral mandates
+
+European Parliament
+
+National Assembly of France
+
+Regional Council
+
+General Council
+
+Municipal Council
+
+Political functions

en/4124.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,164 @@
+
+
+Nicosia (/ˌnɪkəˈsiːə/ NIK-ə-SEE-ə; Greek: Λευκωσία, romanized: Lefkosía [lefkoˈsi.a]; Turkish: Lefkoşa [lefˈkoʃa]) is the largest city, capital, and seat of government of Cyprus. It is located near the centre of the Mesaoria plain, on the banks of the River Pedieos.
+
+Nicosia is the southeasternmost of all EU member states' capitals. It has been continuously inhabited for over 4,500 years and has been the capital of Cyprus since the 10th century. The Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities of Nicosia segregated into the south and north of the city respectively in early 1964, following the fighting of the Cyprus crisis of 1963–64 that broke out in the city. This separation became a militarised border between the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus after Turkey invaded the island of Cyprus in 1974, occupying the north of the island, including northern Nicosia. Today North Nicosia is the capital of Northern Cyprus, a state recognized only by Turkey, that is considered to be occupied Cypriot territory by the international community.
+
+Apart from its legislative and administrative functions, Nicosia has established itself as the island's financial capital and its main international business centre.[3] In 2018, Nicosia was the 32nd richest city in the world in relative purchasing power.[4]
+
+The earliest mention of Nicosia is in the clay prism of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon in 672 BC. This is a mention to the city-state of Ledra located on the site of Nicosia, and the city is named "Lidir". The name Ledra and variations (such as Ledroi) remained in use as late as 392 AD, when it was used in writing by Saint Jerome. However, that text also refers the city as "Leucotheon", and early Christian sources of this period are the first to use similar variations of the name Lefkosia (e.g. Leuteonos).[5] The origin of the name "Lefkosia" is considered by scholars to be a "toponymic puzzle". The name is recorded in the majority of Byzantine sources as "Leukousia", and it is accepted in literature that the name "most probably" derives from the Greek phrase "leuke ousia" ("white estate").[6]
+
+Nicosia has been in continuous habitation since the beginning of the Bronze Age 2500 years BC, when the first inhabitants settled in the fertile plain of Mesaoria.[7] Nicosia later became a city-state known as Ledra or Ledrae, one of the twelve kingdoms of ancient Cyprus built by Achaeans after the end of the Trojan War.[citation needed] Remains of old Ledra today can be found in the Ayia Paraskevi hill in the south east of the city. Only one king of Ledra is known: Onasagoras. The kingdom of Ledra was destroyed early. Under Assyrian rule of Cyprus, Onasagoras was recorded as paying tribute to Esarhaddon of Assyria in 672 BC. By 330 BC, Ledra was recorded to be a small unimportant town.[8] It is thought that the settlement was economically and politically dependent on the nearby town of Chytri.[9] The main activity of the town inhabitants was farming. During this era, Ledra did not have the huge growth that the other Cypriot coastal towns had, which was primarily based on trade.[10]
+
+In Byzantine times, the town was also referred to as Λευκωσία (Lefkosia) or as Καλληνίκησις (Kallenikesis). In the 4th century AD, the town became the seat of bishopric, with bishop Saint Tryphillius (Trifillios), a student of Saint Spyridon.[11] Archaeological evidence indicates that the town regained much of its earlier significance in the early Christian period,[5] and the presence of two or three basilicas with opus sectile decorations, along with marbles decorated with high relief indicate the presence of a relatively prosperous and sophisticated Christian society.[12]
+
+After the destruction of Salamis, the existing capital of Cyprus, by Arab raids in 647, along with extensive damage to other coastal settlements, the economy of the island became much more inward-looking and inland towns gained relative significance. Nicosia benefited from this and functioned as an outlet of the agricultural products from its hinterland, the Mesaoria plain. It further was at an advantageous position due to its ample water supply. As such, the town developed enough for the Byzantine Empire to choose Nicosia as the capital of the island around 965, when Cyprus rejoined the Byzantine Empire.[13] The Byzantines moved the island's administration seat to Nicosia primarily for security reasons as coastal towns were often suffering from raids. From that point on it has remained as the capital of Cyprus. Nicosia was the seat of the Byzantine governor of Cyprus; the last Byzantine governor was Isaac Komnenos, who declared himself emperor of the island and ruled the island from 1183 to 1191.[14] Testimony as late as 1211 indicates that Nicosia was not a walled city at that point and thus that the Byzantines did not build a city wall, thinking that the city's inland location would be sufficient for defense purposes. The Byzantines did, however, build a relatively weak fort within the city.[15] The economy under Byzantine rule consisted mostly of the trading of agricultural goods, but the town also produced luxury items and metalware due to the presence of the imperial administration.[16]
+
+On his way to the Holy Land during the Third Crusade in 1187, Richard I of England's fleet was plagued by storms. He himself stopped first at Crete and then at Rhodes. Three ships continued on, one of which was carrying Joan of England, Queen of Sicily and Berengaria of Navarre, Richard's bride-to-be. Two of the ships were wrecked off Cyprus, but the ship bearing Joan and Berengaria made it safely to Limassol. Joan refused to come ashore, fearing she would be captured and held hostage by Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus, who hated all Franks. Her ship sat at anchor for a full week before Richard finally arrived on 8 May. Outraged at the treatment of his sister and his future bride, Richard invaded.[17][citation needed]
+
+Richard laid siege to Nicosia, finally met and defeated Isaac Komnenos at Tremetousia and became ruler of the island, but sold it to the Knights Templar.
+
+The Frankish rule of Cyprus started from 1192 and lasted until 1489. During this time, Nicosia was the capital of the medieval Kingdom of Cyprus, the seat of Lusignan kings, the Latin Church and the Frankish administration of the island. During the Frankish rule, the walls of the city were built along with many other palaces and buildings, including the gothic St. Sophia Cathedral. The tombs of the Lusignan kings can be found there. The exonym Nicosia appeared with the arrival of the Lusignans. The French-speaking Crusaders either could not, or did not care to, pronounce the name Lefkosia, and tended to say "Nicosie" translated into Italian and then internationally known as "Nicosia".[citation needed]
+
+In 1374 Nicosia was occupied and ravaged by the Republic of Genoa and in 1426 from the Mamluk Sultanate.[citation needed]
+
+In 1489, when Cyprus came under the rule of the Republic of Venice, Nicosia became their administrative centre and the seat of the Republic. The Venetian Governors saw it as a necessity for all the cities of Cyprus to be fortified due to the Ottoman threat.[18] In 1567 Venetians built the new fortifications of Nicosia, which are well-preserved until today, demolishing the old walls built by the Franks as well as other important buildings of the Frankish era including the King's Palace, other private palaces and churches and monasteries of both Orthodox and Latin Christians.[19] The new walls took the shape of a star with eleven bastions. The design of the bastion is more suitable for artillery and a better control for the defenders. The walls have three gates, to the North Kyrenia Gate, to the west Paphos Gate and to the east Famagusta Gate.[19] The river Pedieos used to flow through the Venetian walled city. In 1567 it was later diverted outside onto the newly built moat for strategic reasons, due to the expected Ottoman attack.[20]
+
+On 1 July 1570, the Ottomans invaded the island. On 22 July, Piyale Pasha having captured Paphos, Limassol and Larnaca marched his army towards Nicosia and laid siege to the city.[21] The city managed to last 40 days under siege until its fall on 9 September 1570. The story of the Cypriot martyr Arnaude de Rocas dates from the fall of Nicosia. Some 20,000 residents died during the siege and every church, public building, and palace was looted.[22] Nicosia had an estimated population of 21,000 before the Ottoman conquest, and based on the Ottoman census data of 1572, the population had been reduced to 1,100–1,200. The devastation of the city was so extensive that for the few years after the conquest, a number of villages in the island had a larger population than Nicosia.[23][24] The main Latin churches were converted into mosques, such as the conversion of the Saint Sophia Cathedral.
+
+Nicosia was the seat of the Pasha, the Greek Archbishop, the Dragoman and the Qadi. The Palazzo del Governo of Venetian times became the seat of the Pasha, the governor of Cyprus, and the building was renamed as the Konak or Seraglio (Saray). The square outside was known as Seraglio Square or Sarayonu (literally front of the Saray), as it is known to the present day. The saray was demolished in 1904 and the present block of Government Offices built on the site.[25]
+
+When the newly settled Turkish population arrived they generally lived in the north of the old riverbed. Greek Cypriots remained concentrated in the south, where the Archbishopric of the Orthodox Church was built. Other ethnic minority groups such as the Armenians and Latins came to be settled near the western entry into the city at Paphos Gate.[26]
+
+The names of the 12 quarters into which Nicosia was originally divided at the time of the Ottoman Conquest are said to be derived from the 12 generals in command of divisions of the Ottoman army at the time. Each general being posted to a quarter, that quarter (with two exceptions) was known by his name as follows:
+
+The names of the generals in command of the last two quarters have been lost:
+
+Later the number of neighbourhoods was increased to 24. Each neighbourhood was organised around a mosque or a church, where mainly the respective Muslim and Christian communities lived.[27]
+
+Nicosia came under the rule of the United Kingdom on 5 July 1878 in consequence of the Cyprus Convention[why?].[29]
+The old Ottoman administrative headquarters (the Saray) was replaced in 1904 by a new building containing Law Courts, the Land Registry, and the Forestry, Customs, 
+and Nicosia Commissioner's Offices.[25] Adjacent was the Nicosia Police headquarters, while opposite were the General Post Office and the Telegraph Office.[30] A Venetian Column, previously in a fenced courtyard near the Saray,[31] was restored on a new site in the summer of 1915 in the middle of Saray Square. The Nicosia column was presumably erected in compliment to the reigning Doge Francesco Donati about the year 1550.[25]
+
+Just after the British Occupation a Municipal Council was constituted in Nicosia in 1882 for the general administration of public affairs within the city and for a certain area without the walls, under the presidency of a Mayor.[25] The first municipal offices were in Municipality Square (now the central municipal market), but in 1944 the offices were transferred temporarily to the d'Avila bastion and in 1952 this was made permanent with a decision to renovate the building.[32]
+
+In 1923 the municipal limits were extended further (see map) and this new area was divided among several of the existing intramural Neighbourhoods.[33] In 1938 the boundary was extended to the present limits in the west and to the boundaries of Ayii Omoloyites, Palouriotissa, Kaimakli and Omorfita.[34] In 1944 the village authority of Ayii Omoloyites was absorbed, then, shortly after independence, Palouriotissa, Kaimakli and Omorfita were annexed to the city in 1968.[35]
+
+In 1955 an armed struggle against British rule began aiming to unite the island with Greece, Enosis. The struggle was led by EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist military resistance organisation,[36][37] and supported by the vast majority of Greek Cypriots. The unification with Greece failed and instead the independence of Cyprus was declared in 1960. During the period of the struggle, Nicosia was the scene of violent protests against British rule.[38][39]
+
+In 1960 Nicosia became the capital of the Republic of Cyprus, a state established by the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. In 1963, the Greek Cypriot side proposed amendments to the constitution, which were rejected by the Turkish Cypriot community.[40] During the aftermath of this crisis, on 21 December 1963, intercommunal violence broke out between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Nicosia was divided into Greek and Turkish Cypriot quarters with the Green Line, named after the colour of the pen used by the United Nations officer to draw the line on a map of the city.[41] This resulted in Turkish Cypriots withdrawing from the government, and following more intercommunal violence in 1964, a number of Turkish Cypriots moved to the Turkish quarter of Nicosia, causing serious overcrowding.[42]
+
+On 15 July 1974, there was an attempted coup d'état led by the Greek military junta to unite the island with Greece. The coup ousted president Makarios III and replaced him with pro-enosis nationalist Nikos Sampson.[43]
+
+On 20 July 1974, the coup d'état precipitated the invasion of the island by the Turkish army.[44] The operation included two phases. The second phase of the Turkish invasion was performed on 14 August 1974, where the Turkish army advanced their positions, eventually capturing a total of 37% of Cypriot territory including the northern part of Nicosia. The fighting left the island with a massive refugee problem on both sides.[45]
+
+On 13 February 1975 the Turkish Cypriot community declared the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in the area occupied by Turkish forces.[46] On 15 November 1983, Turkish Cypriots proclaimed their independence as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
+
+On 23 April 2003, the Ledra Palace crossing was opened through the Green Line, the first time that crossing was allowed since 1974.[47] This was followed by the opening of Ayios Dometios/Metehan crossing point on 9 May 2003.[48] On 3 April 2008, the Ledra Street crossing was also reopened.[49]
+
+From 30 October 2016 onwards, Nicosia became the only capital city in the world to have two time zones, after the parliament of the de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus abolished standard time and decided that Northern Cyprus remains at UTC+03:00 year-round, following Turkey's example.[50][51] The following year, due to criticism from the Turkish Cypriot public in the north, the Turkish Cypriot government decided to go back to standard time, following the rest of Europe.
+
+Nicosia has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSh) due to its low annual precipitation totals and annual temperature range.[52] The city experiences long, hot, dry summers, and cool to mild winters, with most of the rainfall occurring in winter. Winter precipitation is occasionally accompanied by sleet but rarely by snow. The accumulation of snow is particularly rare (last events occurred in 1950,1974 and 1997). There is occasionally light frost during the winter nights. At the Lefkopa weather station in Nicosia, the temperature reached 44.7 °C on 2 July 2017.[53]
+
+Ledra Street is in the middle of the walled city. The street has historically been the busiest shopping street of the capital and adjacent streets lead to the most lively part of the old city with narrow streets, boutiques, bars and art-cafés. The street today is a historic monument on its own. It is about 1 km (0.6 mi) long and connects the south and north parts of the old city. During the EOKA struggle that ran from 1955 to 1959, the street acquired the informal nickname The Murder Mile in reference to the frequent targeting of the British colonialists by nationalist fighters along its course.[57][58] In 1963, during the outbreak of hostilities between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, following the announcement of amendments to the Cypriot Constitution, Turkish Cypriots withdrew to the northern part of Nicosia which became one of the many Turkish Cypriot enclaves which existed throughout the island. Various streets which ran between the northern and southern part of the city, including Ledra Street, were blockaded. During the Turkish army invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Turkish troops occupied northern Nicosia (as well as the northern part of Cyprus). A buffer zone was established across the island along the ceasefire line to separate the northern Turkish controlled part of the island, and the south. The buffer zone runs through Ledra Street. After many failed attempts on reaching agreement between the two communities, Ledra Street was reopened on 3 April 2008.
+
+To the east of Ledra Street, Faneromeni Square was the centre of Nicosia before 1974. It hosts a number of historical buildings and monuments including Faneromeni Church, Faneromeni School, Faneromeni Library and the Marble Mausoleum. Faneromeni Church, is a church built in 1872 in the stead of another church located at the same site, constructed with the remains of La Cava castle and a convent. There rest the archbishop and the other bishops who were executed by the Ottomans in the Saray Square during the 1821 revolt. The Palace of the Archbishop can be found at Archbishop Kyprianos Square. Although it seems very old, it is a wonderful imitation of typical Venetian style, built in 1956. Next to the palace is the late Gothic Saint John cathedral (1665) with picturesque frescos. The square leads to Onasagorou Street, another busy shopping street in the historical centre.
+
+The walls surrounding the old city have three gates. In The Kyrenia Gate which was responsible to the transport to the north, and especially Kyrenia, the Famagusta Gate which was responsible for the transport from Famagusta, Larnaca and Limassol and Karpasia, and the Paphos Gate for transport to the west and especially Paphos. All three gates are well-preserved.[59]
+
+The historical centre is clearly present inside the walls, but the modern city has grown beyond.
+Presently, the main square of the city is Eleftheria (Freedom) Square, with the city hall, the post office and the library. The square, which is under renovation, connects the old city with the new city where one can find the main shopping streets such as the prestigious Stasikratous Street, Themistokli Dervi Avenue and Makarios Avenue.
+
+Nicosia is also known for its fine museums. The Archbishop's Palace contains a Byzantine museum containing the largest collection of religious icons on the island. Leventis Municipal Museum is the only historical museum of Nicosia and revives the old ways of life in the capital from ancient times up to our days. Other interesting museums include the Folk Art Museum, National Struggle Museum (witnessing the rebellion against the British administration in the 1950s), Cyprus Ethnological Museum (House of Dragoman Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios, 18th century) and the Handicrafts Centre.
+
+Nicosia also hosts an Armenian archbishopric, a small Buddhist temple, a Maronite archbishopric, and a Roman Catholic church.
+
+At the center of the walled city lies the Sarayönü Square. The square has been dubbed as "the heart of Nicosia" and historically has been the cultural center of the Turkish Cypriot community.[60] In the middle of the square stands the Venetian Column, known simply as "the Obelisk" ("Dikiltaş") to the locals and symbolic of the country's government.[60] The column was brought from the ancient city of Salamis by the Venetians in 1550.[61] The Girne Avenue connects Sarayönü to the Kyrenia Gate and the İnönü Square in front of it. The avenue has been described as "the symbol of the walled city", and is filled with numerous shops and restaurants.[62]
+
+Next to the Ledra Street checkpoint is the Arasta area. The area was pedestrianized in 2013 and is home to a network of historic shopping streets, reflecting an eastern shopping tradition with food and traditional items.[63] Nearby Büyük Han, the largest caravanserai in the island and considered to be one of the finest buildings in Cyprus, was built in 1572 by the Ottomans and functions as a cultural center.[64][65] To the west of the Girne Avenue lies the Samanbahçe neighborhood, built in the 19th century by the government, considered to be the first example of social housing in the island. Still a residential area, the neighborhood is considered to be one of the best representations of the Cypriot culture.[66] Another central point in the walled city is the Selimiye Mosque, originally built as the St. Sophia Cathedral. The mosque is the chief religious center in Northern Cyprus. It was built between 1209 and 1228 by the Latin Church of Cyprus, in a Gothic style resembling French cathedrals.[67] Next to the mosque is the Bedesten, a large Greek church in the Byzantine and Gothic styles, built in the 14th century. It was used as a marketplace in the Ottoman era. Today, it is used as a cultural center where various cultural activities such as concerts and festivals take place.[68][69]
+
+The quarters of Nicosia outside the walled city are more spacious than the walled city, with wider roads and junctions. These areas are characterized by multi-floor concrete buildings. In the outskirts of the city, a number large and imposing villas have been built that belong to the middle and upper-classes.[70] The Dereboyu Avenue serves as the modern heart of the northern part and is its center of entertainment.
+
+Greater Nicosia is administered by several municipalities. In the centre is the city municipality of Nicosia itself (see below). Other municipalities are Strovolos, Lakatamia, Latsia, Aglandjia, Engomi, Agios Dhometios and the newly formed (as of 2011[update]) Yeri & Tseri.
+
+The population of the conurbation is 300,000 (2011 census, plus Turkish Cypriot administered census of 2006) of which 100,000 live within the Nicosia municipal area. Because Nicosia municipality has separate communal municipal administrations, the population of Strovolos (67,904 (2011 Census)) is actually the largest of all the local authorities in Greater Nicosia.
+
+Within Nicosia municipality, most of the population resides in the more recently annexed outlying areas of Kaimakli, Pallouriotissa, Omorfita and Ayii Omoloyites.
+
+There is no metropolitan authority as such for Greater Nicosia and various roles, responsibilities and functions for the wider area are undertaken by the Nicosia District administration, bodies such as the Nicosia Water Board and, to some extent, Nicosia municipality.
+
+The Nicosia Water Board supplies water to the following municipalities:
+Nicosia,
+Strovolos,
+Aglandjia,
+Engomi,
+Ay. Dometios,
+Latsia,
+Geri and
+Tseri.
+The board consists of three persons nominated by the Council of each municipality, plus three members appointed by the government, who are usually the District Officer of Nicosia District, who chairs the Board, the Accountant General and the Director of the Water Department. The board also supply Anthoupolis and Ergates, for whom the government provide representatives. Thus the board is in the majority controlled by the municipalities of Greater Nicosia in providing this vital local government service.[71]
+
+The Nicosia Sewerage Board, is likewise majority controlled by the municipalities of Greater Nicosia. It is chaired ex officio by the Mayor of Nicosia and consists of members chosen by the municipalities of Nicosia (6 members), Strovolos (5 members),
+Aglandjia (2 members),
+Lakatamia (2 members),
+Ay. Dometios (2 members),
+Engomi (2 members),
+Latsia (1 member).
+The sewage treatment plant is at Mia Milia. The Nicosia Sewerage System serves a population of approximately 140,000 and an area of 20 km2 (8 sq mi). Approximately 30% of the influent is contributed by the Turkish Cypriot Side.[72]
+
+Public transport is not controlled by the local authorities, but comes under the Nicosia District administration, which is an arm of the Ministry of the Interior. Transport services (primarily bus and taxi) are provided by private operators such as OSEL. [73] In late 2019 the contract for providing transport services in the district of Nicosia was awarded via tender to a private consortium which is expected to take over the system on Jyly 5th 2020. [74] [75]
+
+The Nicosia Municipality is responsible for all the municipal duties within the walled city and the immediately adjacent areas. The Constitution states that various main government buildings and headquarters must be situated within the Nicosia municipal boundaries.[76] However separate municipalities are prescribed by the constitution for in the five largest towns, including Nicosia,[77] and in the case of Nicosia the separate administration was established in 1958. The Turkish Municipal Committees (Temporary Provisions) Law, 1959[78] established a municipal authority run by a "Turkish Municipal Committee", defined as "the body of persons set up on or after the first day of July, 1958, in the towns of Nicosia, Limassol, Famagusta, Larnaca and Paphos by the Turkish inhabitants thereof for the purpose of performing municipal functions within the municipal limits of such towns".The Nicosia Turkish Municipality, founded in 1958, carries out municipal duties in the northern and north-western part of city.[79] The remaining areas, in the south and east of the city, are administered by Nicosia Municipality.
+
+The first attempt to establish a Nicosia Turkish Municipality was made in 1958. In October 1959, the British Colonial Administration passed the Turkish Municipality Committees law. In 1960 with the declaration of independence of Cyprus, the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus gave Turkish Cypriots the right to establish their own municipality.[80][81][82] As negotiations between the two sides to establish separate municipalities failed in 1962, implementing legislation was never passed.[83][84] Since the complete division of Nicosia following the Turkish Invasion in 1974, the Nicosia Turkish Municipality has become the de facto local authority of northern Nicosia. The Nicosia Turkish Municipality is a member the Union of Cyprus Turkish Municipalities.[85] The mayor is Mehmet Harmancı from the Communal Democracy Party.
+
+Until 1986 there were no suburban municipalities. Then, following the procedures in the Municipal Law 111/1985, Strovolos, Engomi, Ay. Dometios, Aglandjia, Latsia and Lakatamia were erected into municipalities.[86] Each municipal council has the number of members described in the Municipal Law 111/1985 depending on the population figures. All members of the council are elected directly by the people for a period of 5 years.
+
+Nicosia within the city limits is divided into 29 administrative units, according to the latest census. This unit is termed in English as quarter, neighbourhood, parish, enoria or mahalla. These units are: Ayios Andreas(formerly Tophane), Trypiotis, Nebethane, Tabakhane, Phaneromeni, Ayios Savvas, Omerie, Ayios Antonios (St. Anthony), St. John, Taht-el-kale, Chrysaliniotissa, Ayios Kassianos (Kafesli), Kaïmakli, Panayia, St Constantine & Helen, Ayioi Omoloyites, Arab Ahmet, Yeni Jami, Omorfita, Ibrahim Pasha, Mahmut Pasha, Abu Kavouk, St. Luke, Abdi Chavush, Iplik Pazar and Korkut Effendi, Ayia Sophia, Haydar Pasha, Karamanzade,[87] and Yenişehir/Neapolis.[88]
+
+The municipality of Strovolos, established in 1986, is the second largest municipal authority in Cyprus in terms of population after Limassol and encompasses the southern suburbs of the capital immediately adjacent to Nicosia municipality.[89] Lakatamia, Latsia, Geri and Aglandjia are other separate municipalities in the Nicosia metropolitan area.
+
+The town of Gönyeli is now conurbated with the northern suburbs. Previously a village authority, it now functions as a municipality[90] within the same area[91] The suburbs immediately to the north of the city have not been erected into municipalities. The village authority of Hamitköy (also known as Hamid Mandres) was heavily urbanized[92] and was included within the borders of Nicosia Turkish Municipality[93] as a Nicosia neighbourhood headed by a muhtar.[94] Ortakeuy Village authority[95] has similarly been redefined as a neighbourhood of Nicosia Turkish Municipality.
+
+The Cyprus Museum in Nicosia is the largest and oldest archaeological museum in Cyprus. In old Nicosia, the Ethnological Museum (Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios Mansion) is the most important example of urban architecture of the last century of Ottoman domination which survives in old Nicosia. Today, the mansion which was awarded the Europa Nostra prize for its exemplary renovation work, functions as a museum where a collection of artifacts from the Byzantine, Medieval and Ottoman periods are displayed. Other museums in Nicosia include the Cyprus Museum of Natural History and the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia and Von World Pens Hall in the south. In the north, the Dervish Pasha Mansion, similar in architecture to the Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios Mansion, serves as an ethnological museum, displaying Ottoman and archaeological artifacts.[96] Other museums include the Lusignan House,[97] the Mevlevi Tekke Museum, associated with the sect of the Whirling Dervishes,[98] and the Lapidary Museum.[99]
+
+Art galleries in Nicosia include the Leventis Gallery, which hosts over 800 paintings from Cypriot, Greek or European artists.
+
+Nicosia offers a wide variety of musical and theatrical events, organized either by the municipality or independent organizations. Halls and theatres used for this purpose include:
+
+Nicosia's universities also boast an impressive array of facilities, and many churches and outdoor spaces are used to host cultural events.[citation needed] The Near East University hosts the Atatürk Cultural and Conference Centre, with 700 seats.[108]
+
+Nicosia hosted the Miss Universe 2000 pageant.[109]
+
+In June 2011, Nicosia launched a failed campaign to become the European Capital of Culture for 2017.[110]
+
+Nicosia has a large student community as it is the seat of eight universities, the University of Cyprus (UCY), the University of Nicosia,
+the European University Cyprus, the Open University of Cyprus, Frederick University, Near East University, the University of Mediterranean Karpasia, Cyprus International University.
+
+Nicosia is the financial and business heart of Cyprus. The city hosts the headquarters of all Cypriot banks namely the former Cyprus Popular Bank (also known as Laiki Bank), Bank of Cyprus, the Hellenic Bank. Further, the Central Bank of Cyprus is located in the Acropolis area of the Cypriot capital. A number of international businesses base their Cypriot headquarters in Nicosia, such as the big four audit firms PWC, Deloitte, KPMG and Ernst & Young. International technology companies such as NCR and TSYS have their regional headquarters in Nicosia. The city is also home to local financial newspapers such as the Financial Mirror and Stockwatch. Cyprus Airways had its head offices in the entrance of Makariou Avenue.[111] According to a recent UBS survey in August 2011, Nicosia is the wealthiest per capita city of the Eastern Mediterranean and the tenth richest city in the world by purchasing power in 2011.[112]
+
+Nicosia is linked with other major cities in Cyprus via a modern motorway network. The A1 connects Nicosia with Limassol in the south with the A6 going from Limassol onto Paphos.
+The A2 links Nicosia with the south eastern city of Larnaca with the A3 going from Larnaca to Ayia Napa. The A9 connects Nicosia to the west Nicosia district villages and the Troodos mountains. The capital is also linked to the 2 international airports: Larnaca International Airport and Paphos International Airport. (Nicosia International Airport ceased commercial operations in 1974; it is located within the Green Line buffer zone, and is used as the headquarters of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus.)
+
+Public transport within the city is served by a new bus service. Bus services in Nicosia are run by OSEL.[113] In the northern part, the company of LETTAŞ provides this service.[114] Many taxi companies operate in Nicosia. Fares are regulated by law and taxi drivers are obliged to use a taximeter.
+
+In 2010, as part of the Nicosia Integrated Mobility Plan, a pre-feasibility study for a proposed tram network has taken place and sponsored by the Ministry of Communications and Works. The study compared two scenarios, with and without the operation of a tramway in terms of emitted polluting loads.[115]
+
+In 2011, the Nicosia Municipality introduced the Bike in Action scheme, a bicycle sharing system which covers the Greater Nicosia area. The scheme is run by the Inter-Municipal Bicycle Company of Nicosia (DEPL).[116]
+
+There is no train network in Cyprus however plans for the creation of an intercity railway are under way. The first railway line on the island was the Cyprus Government Railway which operated from 1905 to 1951. It was closed down due to financial reasons.[117]
+
+Football is the most popular sport in Cyprus, and Nicosia is home of three major teams of the island; APOEL, Omonia and Olympiakos. APOEL and Omonia are dominant in Cypriot football. There are also many other football clubs in Nicosia and the suburbs. The city also hosts Çetinkaya, Yenicami, Küçük Kaymaklı and Gönyeli, four of the major Turkish Cypriot clubs. Nicosia is also home to Ararat FC, the island's only Armenian FC.
+
+Nicosia is also the home for many clubs for basketball, handball and other sports. APOEL and Omonia have basketball and volleyball sections and Keravnos is one of the major basketball teams of the island. The Gymnastic Club Pancypria (GSP), the owner of the Neo GSP Stadium, is one of the major athletics clubs of the island. Also, all teams in the Futsal First Division are from Nicosia. In Addition, European University and SPE Strovolou are the two best handball teams in Cyprus and they are both located in Nicosia.
+
+Nicosia has some of the biggest venues in the island; the Neo GSP Stadium, with capacity of 23,400, is the home for the national team, APOEL, Olympiakos and Omonia. Makario Stadium has a capacity of 16,000. In the north, the Nicosia Atatürk Stadium has a capacity of 28,000.[118]
+The Eleftheria Indoor Hall is the biggest basketball stadium in Cyprus, with capacity of 6,500 seats and is the home for
+the national team, APOEL and Omonia.
+The Lefkotheo indoor arena is the volleyball stadium for APOEL and Omonia.
+
+In Nicosia in 2010 and 2012. took place Nicosia Marathon, organized by Athanasios Ktorides Foundation, and attracted more than 7,000 participants.[119][120]
+
+Nicosia hosted the 2000 ISSF World Cup Final shooting events for the shotgun. Also the city hosted two basketball events; the European Saporta Cup in 1997 and the 2005 FIBA Europe All Star Game in the Eleftheria Indoor Hall. Another event which was hosted in Nicosia were the Games of the Small States of Europe in 1989 and 2009.
+
+Twinnings:[121]

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+
+
+Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (/ˈniːtʃə, ˈniːtʃi/;[13][14] German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtʃə] (listen) or [ˈniːtsʃə];[15][16][17] 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, and philologist whose work has exerted a profound influence on modern intellectual history.[18][19][20][21][22] He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24.[23] Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade.[24] In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties.[25] He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900.[26]
+
+Nietzsche's writing spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony.[27] Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favor of perspectivism; genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and related theory of master–slave morality;[19][28][i] aesthetic affirmation of existence in response to the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism;[19] notion of the Apollonian and Dionysian; and characterization of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power.[29] He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and the doctrine of eternal return.[30][31] In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome social, cultural and moral contexts in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health.[22] His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew early inspiration from figures such as philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer,[7] composer Richard Wagner,[7] and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.[7]
+
+After his death, his sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of Nietzsche's manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German nationalist ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism;[32] 20th-century scholars contested this interpretation and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th and early-21st century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, psychology, politics, and popular culture.[20][21][22][33][34]
+
+
+
+Born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the town of Röcken (now part of Lützen), near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was named after King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, who turned 49 on the day of Nietzsche's birth (Nietzsche later dropped his middle name Wilhelm).[35] Nietzsche's parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813–1849), a Lutheran pastor and former teacher; and Franziska Nietzsche [de] (née Oehler) (1826–1897), married in 1843, the year before their son's birth. They had two other children: a daughter, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, born in 1846; and a second son, Ludwig Joseph, born in 1848. Nietzsche's father died from a brain ailment in 1849; Ludwig Joseph died six months later at age two.[36] The family then moved to Naumburg, where they lived with Nietzsche's maternal grandmother and his father's two unmarried sisters. After the death of Nietzsche's grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now Nietzsche-Haus, a museum and Nietzsche study centre.
+
+Nietzsche attended a boys' school and then a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug and Wilhelm Pinder, all three of whom came from highly respected families. Academic records from one of the schools attended by Nietzsche noted that he excelled in Christian theology.[37][better source needed]
+
+In 1854, he began to attend Domgymnasium in Naumburg. Because his father had worked for the state (as a pastor) the now-fatherless Nietzsche was offered a scholarship to study at the internationally recognized Schulpforta (the claim that Nietzsche was admitted on the strength of his academic competence has been debunked: his grades were not near the top of the class).[38] He studied there from 1858 to 1864, becoming friends with Paul Deussen and Carl von Gersdorff. He also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. Nietzsche led "Germania", a music and literature club, during his summers in Naumburg.[36] At Schulpforta, Nietzsche received an important grounding in languages—Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and French—so as to be able to read important primary sources;[39] he also experienced for the first time being away from his family life in a small-town conservative environment. His end-of-semester exams in March 1864 showed a 1 in Religion and German; a 2a in Greek and Latin; a 2b in French, History, and Physics; and a "lackluster" 3 in Hebrew and Mathematics.[40]
+
+While at Pforta, Nietzsche pursued subjects that were considered unbecoming. He became acquainted with the work of the then almost-unknown poet Friedrich Hölderlin, calling him "my favorite poet" and composing an essay in which he said that the mad poet raised consciousness to "the most sublime ideality".[41] The teacher who corrected the essay gave it a good mark but commented that Nietzsche should concern himself in the future with healthier, more lucid, and more "German" writers. Additionally, he became acquainted with Ernst Ortlepp, an eccentric, blasphemous, and often drunken poet who was found dead in a ditch weeks after meeting the young Nietzsche but who may have introduced Nietzsche to the music and writing of Richard Wagner.[42] Perhaps under Ortlepp's influence, he and a student named Richter returned to school drunk and encountered a teacher, resulting in Nietzsche's demotion from first in his class and the end of his status as a prefect.[43]
+
+After graduation in September 1864,[44] Nietzsche began studying theology and classical philology at the University of Bonn in the hope of becoming a minister. For a short time, he and Deussen became members of the Burschenschaft Frankonia. After one semester (and to the anger of his mother), he stopped his theological studies and lost his faith.[45] As early as his 1862 essay "Fate and History", Nietzsche had argued that historical research had discredited the central teachings of Christianity,[46] but David Strauss's Life of Jesus also seems to have had a profound effect on the young man.[45] In addition, Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity influenced young Nietzsche with its argument that people created God, and not the other way around.[47] In June 1865, at the age of 20, Nietzsche wrote to his sister Elisabeth, who was deeply religious, a letter regarding his loss of faith. This letter contains the following statement:
+
+Hence the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire …[48]
+
+Nietzsche subsequently concentrated on studying philology under Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, whom he followed to the University of Leipzig in 1865.[25] There, he became close friends with his fellow student Erwin Rohde. Nietzsche's first philological publications appeared soon after.
+
+In 1865, Nietzsche thoroughly studied the works of Arthur Schopenhauer. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation and later admitted that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers whom he respected, dedicating the essay "Schopenhauer as Educator" in the Untimely Meditations to him.
+
+In 1866, he read Friedrich Albert Lange's History of Materialism. Lange's descriptions of Kant's anti-materialistic philosophy, the rise of European Materialism, Europe's increased concern with science, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and the general rebellion against tradition and authority intrigued Nietzsche greatly. Nietzsche would ultimately argue the impossibility of an evolutionary explanation of the human aesthetic sense.[49]
+
+In 1867, Nietzsche signed up for one year of voluntary service with the Prussian artillery division in Naumburg. He was regarded as one of the finest riders among his fellow recruits, and his officers predicted that he would soon reach the rank of captain. However, in March 1868, while jumping into the saddle of his horse, Nietzsche struck his chest against the pommel and tore two muscles in his left side, leaving him exhausted and unable to walk for months.[50][51] Consequently, he turned his attention to his studies again, completing them in 1868. Nietzsche also met Richard Wagner for the first time later that year.[52]
+
+
+
+With Ritschl's support, Nietzsche received a remarkable offer, in 1869, to become professor of classical philology at the University of Basel in Switzerland. He was only 24 years old and had neither completed his doctorate nor received a teaching certificate ("habilitation"). He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Leipzig, again with Ritschl's support.[53]
+
+Despite his offer coming at a time when he was considering giving up philology for science, he accepted.[54] To this day, Nietzsche is still among the youngest of the tenured Classics professors on record.[55]
+
+Nietzsche's 1870 projected doctoral thesis, "Contribution toward the Study and the Critique of the Sources of Diogenes Laertius" ("Beiträge zur Quellenkunde und Kritik des Laertius Diogenes"), examined the origins of the ideas of Diogenes Laërtius.[56] Though never submitted, it was later published as a gratulationsschrift ('congratulatory publication') in Basel.[57][ii]
+
+Before moving to Basel, Nietzsche renounced his Prussian citizenship: for the rest of his life he remained officially stateless.[58][59]
+
+Nevertheless, Nietzsche served in the Prussian forces during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) as a medical orderly. In his short time in the military, he experienced much and witnessed the traumatic effects of battle. He also contracted diphtheria and dysentery.[60] Walter Kaufmann speculates that he might also have contracted syphilis at a brothel along with his other infections at this time.[61][62] On returning to Basel in 1870, Nietzsche observed the establishment of the German Empire and Otto von Bismarck's subsequent policies as an outsider and with a degree of skepticism regarding their genuineness. His inaugural lecture at the university was "Homer and Classical Philology". Nietzsche also met Franz Overbeck, a professor of theology who remained his friend throughout his life. Afrikan Spir, a little-known Russian philosopher responsible for the 1873 Thought and Reality and Nietzsche's colleague, the famed historian Jacob Burckhardt, whose lectures Nietzsche frequently attended, began to exercise significant influence on him.[63]
+
+Nietzsche had already met Richard Wagner in Leipzig in 1868 and later Wagner's wife, Cosima. Nietzsche admired both greatly and during his time at Basel frequently visited Wagner's house in Tribschen in Lucerne. The Wagners brought Nietzsche into their most intimate circle—including Franz Liszt, of whom Nietzsche colloquially described: "Liszt or the art of running after women!"[64] Nietzsche enjoyed the attention he gave to the beginning of the Bayreuth Festival. In 1870, he gave Cosima Wagner the manuscript of "The Genesis of the Tragic Idea" as a birthday gift. In 1872, Nietzsche published his first book, The Birth of Tragedy. However, his colleagues within his field, including Ritschl, expressed little enthusiasm for the work in which Nietzsche eschewed the classical philologic method in favor of a more speculative approach. In his polemic Philology of the Future, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff damped the book's reception and increased its notoriety. In response, Rohde (then a professor in Kiel) and Wagner came to Nietzsche's defense. Nietzsche remarked freely about the isolation he felt within the philological community and attempted unsuccessfully to transfer to a position in philosophy at Basel.
+
+In 1873, Nietzsche began to accumulate notes that would be posthumously published as Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. Between 1873 and 1876, he published four separate long essays: "David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer", "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life", "Schopenhauer as Educator", and "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth". These four later appeared in a collected edition under the title Untimely Meditations. The essays shared the orientation of a cultural critique, challenging the developing German culture suggested by Schopenhauer and Wagner. During this time in the circle of the Wagners, he met Malwida von Meysenbug and Hans von Bülow. He also began a friendship with Paul Rée who, in 1876, influenced him into dismissing the pessimism in his early writings. However, he was deeply disappointed by the Bayreuth Festival of 1876, where the banality of the shows and baseness of the public repelled him. He was also alienated by Wagner's championing of "German culture", which Nietzsche felt a contradiction in terms as well as by Wagner's celebration of his fame among the German public. All this contributed to his subsequent decision to distance himself from Wagner.
+
+With the publication in 1878 of Human, All Too Human (a book of aphorisms ranging from metaphysics to morality to religion), a new style of Nietzsche's work became clear, highly influenced by Afrikan Spir's Thought and Reality[65] and reacting against the pessimistic philosophy of Wagner and Schopenhauer. Nietzsche's friendship with Deussen and Rohde cooled as well. In 1879, after a significant decline in health, Nietzsche had to resign his position at Basel. Since his childhood, various disruptive illnesses had plagued him, including moments of short-sightedness that left him nearly blind, migraine headaches, and violent indigestion. The 1868 riding accident and diseases in 1870 may have aggravated these persistent conditions, which continued to affect him through his years at Basel, forcing him to take longer and longer holidays until regular work became impractical.
+
+
+
+Living off his pension from Basel and aid from friends, Nietzsche travelled frequently to find climates more conducive to his health and lived until 1889 as an independent author in different cities. He spent many summers in Sils Maria near St. Moritz in Switzerland. He spent his winters in the Italian cities of Genoa, Rapallo, and Turin and the French city of Nice. In 1881, when France occupied Tunisia, he planned to travel to Tunis to view Europe from the outside but later abandoned that idea, probably for health reasons.[66] Nietzsche occasionally returned to Naumburg to visit his family, and, especially during this time, he and his sister had repeated periods of conflict and reconciliation.
+
+While in Genoa, Nietzsche's failing eyesight prompted him to explore the use of typewriters as a means of continuing to write. He is known to have tried using the Hansen Writing Ball, a contemporary typewriter device. In the end, a past student of his, Heinrich Köselitz or Peter Gast, became a private secretary to Nietzsche. In 1876, Gast transcribed the crabbed, nearly illegible handwriting of Nietzsche's first time with Richard Wagner in Bayreuth.[67] He subsequently transcribed and proofread the galleys for almost all of Nietzsche's work. On at least one occasion, on 23 February 1880, the usually poor Gast received 200 marks from their mutual friend, Paul Rée.[68] Gast was one of the very few friends Nietzsche allowed to criticize him. In responding most enthusiastically to Also sprach Zarathustra ('Thus Spoke Zarathustra'), Gast did feel it necessary to point out that what were described as "superfluous" people were in fact quite necessary. He went on to list the number of people Epicurus, for example, had to rely on to supply his simple diet of goat cheese.[69]
+
+To the end of his life, Gast and Overbeck remained consistently faithful friends. Malwida von Meysenbug remained like a motherly patron even outside the Wagner circle. Soon Nietzsche made contact with the music-critic Carl Fuchs. Nietzsche stood at the beginning of his most productive period. Beginning with Human, All Too Human in 1878, Nietzsche published one book or major section of a book each year until 1888, his last year of writing; that year, he completed five.
+
+In 1882, Nietzsche published the first part of The Gay Science. That year he also met Lou Andreas-Salomé,[70] through Malwida von Meysenbug and Paul Rée.
+
+Salomé's mother took her to Rome when Salomé was 21. At a literary salon in the city, Salomé became acquainted with Paul Rée. Rée proposed marriage to her, but she, instead, proposed that they should live and study together as "brother and sister", along with another man for company, where they would establish an academic commune.[71] Rée accepted the idea, and suggested that they be joined by his friend Nietzsche. The two met Nietzsche in Rome in April 1882, and Nietzsche is believed to have instantly fallen in love with Salome, as Rée had done. Nietzsche asked Rée to propose marriage to Salome, which she rejected. She had been interested in Nietzsche as a friend, but not as a husband.[71] Nietzsche nonetheless was content to join together with Rée and Salome touring through Switzerland and Italy together, planning their commune. The three traveled with Salomé's mother through Italy and considered where they would set up their "Winterplan" commune. They intended to set up their commune in an abandoned monastery, but no suitable location was found. On 13 May, in Lucerne, when Nietzsche was alone with Salome, he earnestly proposed marriage to her again, which she rejected. He nonetheless was happy to continue with the plans for an academic commune.[71] After discovering the situation, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became determined to get Nietzsche away from the "immoral woman".[72]
+Nietzsche and Salomé spent the summer together in Tautenburg in Thuringia, often with Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth as a chaperone. Salomé reports that he asked her to marry him on three separate occasions and that she refused, though the reliability of her reports of events is questionable.[73] Arriving in Leipzig, (Germany) in October, Salomé and Rée separated from Nietzsche after a falling-out between Nietzsche and Salomé, in which Salomé believed that Nietzsche was desperately in love with her.
+
+While the three spent a number of weeks together in Leipzig in October 1882, the following month Rée and Salome ditched Nietzsche, leaving for Stibbe (today Zdbowo in Poland)[74] without any plans to meet again. Nietzsche soon fell into a period of mental anguish, although he continued to write to Rée, stating "We shall see one another from time to time, won't we?"[75] In later recriminations, Nietzsche would blame on separate occasions the failure in his attempts to woo Salome on Salome, Rée, and on the intrigues of his sister (who had written letters to the families of Salome and Rée to disrupt the plans for the commune). Nietzsche wrote of the affair in 1883, that he now felt "genuine hatred for my sister".[75]
+
+Amidst renewed bouts of illness, living in near-isolation after a falling out with his mother and sister regarding Salomé, Nietzsche fled to Rapallo, where he wrote the first part of Also sprach Zarathustra in only ten days.
+
+By 1882, Nietzsche was taking huge doses of opium, but he was still having trouble sleeping.[76] In 1883, while staying in Nice, he was writing out his own prescriptions for the sedative chloral hydrate, signing them "Dr. Nietzsche".[77]
+
+After severing his philosophical ties with Schopenhauer (who was long dead and never met Nietzsche) and his social ties with Wagner, Nietzsche had few remaining friends. Now, with the new style of Zarathustra, his work became even more alienating, and the market received it only to the degree required by politeness. Nietzsche recognized this and maintained his solitude, though he often complained. His books remained largely unsold. In 1885, he printed only 40 copies of the fourth part of Zarathustra and distributed a fraction of them among close friends, including Helene von Druskowitz.
+
+In 1883, he tried and failed to obtain a lecturing post at the University of Leipzig. It was made clear to him that, in view of his attitude towards Christianity and his concept of God, he had become effectively unemployable by any German university. The subsequent "feelings of revenge and resentment" embittered him:[78]
+
+And hence my rage since I have grasped in the broadest possible sense what wretched means (the depreciation of my good name, my character, and my aims) suffice to take from me the trust of, and therewith the possibility of obtaining, pupils.
+
+In 1886, Nietzsche broke with his publisher Ernst Schmeitzner, disgusted by his antisemitic opinions. Nietzsche saw his own writings as "completely buried and unexhumeable in this anti-Semitic dump" of Schmeitzner—associating the publisher with a movement that should be "utterly rejected with cold contempt by every sensible mind."[79] He then printed Beyond Good and Evil at his own expense. He also acquired the publication rights for his earlier works and over the next year issued second editions of The Birth of Tragedy, Human, All Too Human, Daybreak, and of The Gay Science with new prefaces placing the body of his work in a more coherent perspective. Thereafter, he saw his work as completed for a time and hoped that soon a readership would develop. In fact, interest in Nietzsche's thought did increase at this time, if rather slowly and hardly perceptibly to him. During these years Nietzsche met Meta von Salis, Carl Spitteler, and Gottfried Keller.
+
+In 1886, his sister Elisabeth married the antisemite Bernhard Förster and travelled to Paraguay to found Nueva Germania, a "Germanic" colony—a plan Nietzsche responded to with mocking laughter.[80][81] Through correspondence, Nietzsche's relationship with Elisabeth continued through cycles of conflict and reconciliation, but they met again only after his collapse. He continued to have frequent and painful attacks of illness, which made prolonged work impossible.
+
+In 1887, Nietzsche wrote the polemic On the Genealogy of Morality. During the same year, he encountered the work of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, to whom he felt an immediate kinship.[82] He also exchanged letters with Hippolyte Taine and Georg Brandes. Brandes, who had started to teach the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard in the 1870s, wrote to Nietzsche asking him to read Kierkegaard, to which Nietzsche replied that he would come to Copenhagen and read Kierkegaard with him. However, before fulfilling this promise, he slipped too far into illness. In the beginning of 1888, Brandes delivered in Copenhagen one of the first lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy.
+
+Although Nietzsche had previously announced at the end of On the Genealogy of Morality a new work with the title The Will to Power: Attempt at a Revaluation of All Values, he seems to have abandoned this idea and, instead, used some of the draft passages to compose Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist in 1888.[83]
+
+His health improved and he spent the summer in high spirits. In the fall of 1888, his writings and letters began to reveal a higher estimation of his own status and "fate". He overestimated the increasing response to his writings, however, especially to the recent polemic, The Case of Wagner. On his 44th birthday, after completing Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist, he decided to write the autobiography Ecce Homo. In its preface—which suggests Nietzsche was well aware of the interpretive difficulties his work would generate—he declares, "Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else."[84] In December, Nietzsche began a correspondence with August Strindberg and thought that, short of an international breakthrough, he would attempt to buy back his older writings from the publisher and have them translated into other European languages. Moreover, he planned the publication of the compilation Nietzsche contra Wagner and of the poems that made up his collection Dionysian-Dithyrambs.
+
+
+
+On 3 January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a mental breakdown.[85] Two policemen approached him after he caused a public disturbance in the streets of Turin. What happened remains unknown, but an often-repeated tale from shortly after his death states that Nietzsche witnessed the flogging of a horse at the other end of the Piazza Carlo Alberto, ran to the horse, threw his arms around its neck to protect it, then collapsed to the ground.[86][87]
+
+In the following few days, Nietzsche sent short writings—known as the Wahnzettel ("Madness Letters")—to a number of friends including Cosima Wagner and Jacob Burckhardt. Most of them were signed "Dionysus", though some were also signed "der Gekreuzigte" meaning "the crucified one". To his former colleague Burckhardt, Nietzsche wrote:[88]
+
+I have had Caiaphas put in fetters. Also, last year I was crucified by the German doctors in a very drawn-out manner. Wilhelm, Bismarck, and all anti-Semites abolished.
+
+Additionally, he commanded the German emperor to go to Rome to be shot and summoned the European powers to take military action against Germany,[89] that the pope should be put in jail and that he, Nietzsche, created the world and was in the process of having all anti-Semites shot dead.[90]
+
+On 6 January 1889, Burckhardt showed the letter he had received from Nietzsche to Overbeck. The following day, Overbeck received a similar letter and decided that Nietzsche's friends had to bring him back to Basel. Overbeck traveled to Turin and brought Nietzsche to a psychiatric clinic in Basel. By that time Nietzsche appeared fully in the grip of a serious mental illness,[91] and his mother Franziska decided to transfer him to a clinic in Jena under the direction of Otto Binswanger.[92] In January 1889, they proceeded with the planned release of Twilight of the Idols, by that time already printed and bound. From November 1889 to February 1890, the art historian Julius Langbehn attempted to cure Nietzsche, claiming that the methods of the medical doctors were ineffective in treating Nietzsche's condition.[93] Langbehn assumed progressively greater control of Nietzsche until his secretiveness discredited him. In March 1890, Franziska removed Nietzsche from the clinic and, in May 1890, brought him to her home in Naumburg.[91] During this process Overbeck and Gast contemplated what to do with Nietzsche's unpublished works. In February, they ordered a fifty-copy private edition of Nietzsche contra Wagner, but the publisher C. G. Naumann secretly printed one hundred. Overbeck and Gast decided to withhold publishing The Antichrist and Ecce Homo because of their more radical content.[91] Nietzsche's reception and recognition enjoyed their first surge.[94]
+
+In 1893, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth returned from Nueva Germania in Paraguay following the suicide of her husband. She studied Nietzsche's works and, piece by piece, took control of their publication. Overbeck was dismissed and Gast finally co-operated. After the death of Franziska in 1897, Nietzsche lived in Weimar, where Elisabeth cared for him and allowed visitors, including Rudolf Steiner (who in 1895 had written Friedrich Nietzsche: a Fighter Against His Time, one of the first books praising Nietzsche),[95] to meet her uncommunicative brother. Elisabeth employed Steiner as a tutor to help her to understand her brother's philosophy. Steiner abandoned the attempt after only a few months, declaring that it was impossible to teach her anything about philosophy.[96]
+
+Nietzsche's mental illness was originally diagnosed as tertiary syphilis, in accordance with a prevailing medical paradigm of the time. Although most commentators regard his breakdown as unrelated to his philosophy, Georges Bataille dropped dark hints ("'Man incarnate' must also go mad")[97] and René Girard's postmortem psychoanalysis posits a worshipful rivalry with Richard Wagner.[98] Nietzsche had previously written, "All superior men who were irresistibly drawn to throw off the yoke of any kind of morality and to frame new laws had, if they were not actually mad, no alternative but to make themselves or pretend to be mad." (Daybreak, 14) The diagnosis of syphilis has since been challenged and a diagnosis of "manic-depressive illness with periodic psychosis followed by vascular dementia" was put forward by Cybulska prior to Schain's study.[99][100] Leonard Sax suggested the slow growth of a right-sided retro-orbital meningioma as an explanation of Nietzsche's dementia;[101] Orth and Trimble postulated frontotemporal dementia[102] while other researchers have proposed a hereditary stroke disorder called CADASIL.[103] Poisoning by mercury, a treatment for syphilis at the time of Nietzsche's death,[104] has also been suggested.[105]
+
+In 1898 and 1899, Nietzsche suffered at least two strokes. They partially paralyzed him, leaving him unable to speak or walk. He likely suffered from clinical hemiparesis/hemiplegia on the left side of his body by 1899. After contracting pneumonia in mid-August 1900, he had another stroke during the night of 24–25 August and died at about noon on 25 August.[106] Elisabeth had him buried beside his father at the church in Röcken bei Lützen. His friend and secretary Gast gave his funeral oration, proclaiming: "Holy be your name to all future generations!"[107]
+
+Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche compiled The Will to Power from Nietzsche's unpublished notebooks and published it posthumously. Because his sister arranged the book based on her own conflation of several of Nietzsche's early outlines and took liberties with the material, the scholarly consensus has been that it does not reflect Nietzsche's intent. (For example, Elisabeth removed aphorism 35 of The Antichrist, where Nietzsche rewrote a passage of the Bible.) Indeed, Mazzino Montinari, the editor of Nietzsche's Nachlass, called it a forgery.[108]
+
+General commentators and Nietzsche scholars, whether emphasizing his cultural background or his language, overwhelmingly label Nietzsche as a "German philosopher."[23][109][25][110] Others do not assign him a national category.[111][112][113] Germany had not yet been unified into a nation-state, but Nietzsche was born a citizen of Prussia, which was then part of the German Confederation.[114] His birthplace, Röcken, is in the modern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. When he accepted his post at Basel, Nietzsche applied for annulment of his Prussian citizenship.[115] The official revocation of his citizenship came in a document dated 17 April 1869,[116] and for the rest of his life he remained officially stateless.
+
+At least toward the end of his life, Nietzsche believed his ancestors were Polish,[117]. He wore a signet ring bearing the Radwan coat of arms, traceable back to Polish nobility of medieval times[118] and the surname "Nicki" of the Polish noble (szlachta) family bearing that coat of arms.[119][120] Gotard Nietzsche, a member of the Nicki family, left Poland for Prussia. His descendants later settled in the Electorate of Saxony circa the year 1700.[121] Nietzsche wrote in 1888, "My ancestors were Polish noblemen (Nietzky); the type seems to have been well preserved despite three generations of German mothers."[122] At one point, Nietzsche becomes even more adamant about his Polish identity. "I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood."[123] On yet another occasion, Nietzsche stated, "Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins… I am proud of my Polish descent."[124] Nietzsche believed his name might have been Germanized, in one letter claiming, "I was taught to ascribe the origin of my blood and name to Polish noblemen who were called Niëtzky and left their home and nobleness about a hundred years ago, finally yielding to unbearable suppression: they were Protestants."[125]
+
+Most scholars dispute Nietzsche's account of his family's origins. Hans von Müller debunked the genealogy put forward by Nietzsche's sister in favor of a Polish noble heritage.[126] Max Oehler, Nietzsche's cousin and curator of the Nietzsche Archive at Weimar, argued that all of Nietzsche's ancestors bore German names, including the wives' families.[122] Oehler claims that Nietzsche came from a long line of German Lutheran clergymen on both sides of his family, and modern scholars regard the claim of Nietzsche's Polish ancestry as "pure invention."[127] Colli and Montinari, the editors of Nietzsche's assembled letters, gloss Nietzsche's claims as a "mistaken belief" and "without foundation."[128][129] The name Nietzsche itself is not a Polish name, but an exceptionally common one throughout central Germany, in this and cognate forms (such as Nitsche and Nitzke). The name derives from the forename Nikolaus, abbreviated to Nick; assimilated with the Slavic Nitz';' it first became Nitsche and then Nietzsche.[122]
+
+It is not known why Nietzsche wanted to be thought of as Polish nobility. According to biographer R. J. Hollingdale, Nietzsche's propagation of the Polish ancestry myth may have been part of his "campaign against Germany."[122]
+
+Nietzsche never married. He proposed to Lou Salomé three times and each time was rejected.[130] One theory blames Salomé's view on sexuality as one of the reasons for her alienation from Nietzsche. As articulated in the 1898 novella Fenitschka, she viewed the idea of sexual intercourse as prohibitive and marriage as a violation, with some suggesting that they indicated sexual repression and neurosis.[131] Reflecting on unrequited love, Nietzsche considered that "indispensable…to the lover is his unrequited love, which he would at no price relinquish for a state of indifference."[iii]
+
+Deussen cited the episode of Cologne's brothel in February 1865 as instrumental to understand the philosopher's way of thinking, mostly about women. Nietzsche was surreptitiously accompanied to a "call house" from which he clumsily escaped upon seeing "a half dozen apparitions dressed with sequins and veils." According to Deussen, Nietzsche "never decided to remain unmarried all his life. For him women had to sacrifice themselves to the care and benefit of men."[60] Nietzsche scholar Joachim Köhler [de] has attempted to explain Nietzsche's life history and philosophy by claiming that he was homosexual. Köhler argues that Nietzsche's syphilis, which is "... usually considered to be the product of his encounter with a prostitute in a brothel in Cologne or Leipzig, is equally likely. Some maintain that Nietzsche contracted it in a male brothel in Genoa."[132] The acquisition of the infection from a homosexual brothel was confirmed by Sigmund Freud, who cited Otto Binswanger as his source.[133] Köhler also suggests Nietzsche may have had a romantic relationship, as well as a friendship, with Paul Rée.[134] There is the claim that Nietzsche's homosexuality was widely known in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, with Nietzsche's friend Paul Deussen claiming that "he was a man who had never touched a woman."[135][136]
+
+Köhler's views have not found wide acceptance among Nietzsche scholars and commentators. Allan Megill argues that, while Köhler's claim that Nietzsche was conflicted about his homosexual desire cannot simply be dismissed, "the evidence is very weak," and Köhler may be projecting twentieth-century understandings of sexuality on nineteenth-century notions of friendship.[134] It is also known that Nietzsche frequented heterosexual brothels.[133] Nigel Rodgers and Mel Thompson have argued that continuous sickness and headaches hindered Nietzsche from engaging much with women. Yet they offer other examples in which Nietzsche expressed his affections to women, including Wagner's wife Cosima Wagner.[137]
+
+Other scholars have argued that Köhler's sexuality-based interpretation is not helpful in understanding Nietzsche's philosophy.[138][139] However, there are also those who stress that, if Nietzsche preferred men—with this preference constituting his psycho-sexual make-up—but could not admit his desires to himself, it meant he acted in conflict with his philosophy.[140]
+
+Nietzsche composed several works for voice, piano, and violin beginning in 1858 at the Schulpforta in Naumburg, when he started to work on musical compositions. Richard Wagner was dismissive of Nietzsche's music, allegedly mocking a birthday gift of a piano composition sent by Nietzsche in 1871 to his wife Cosima. German conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow also described another of Nietzsche's pieces as "the most undelightful and the most antimusical draft on musical paper that I have faced in a long time."[141]
+
+In a letter of 1887, Nietzsche claimed, "There has never been a philosopher who has been in essence a musician to such an extent as I am," although he also admitted that he "might be a thoroughly unsuccessful musician."[142]
+
+Because of Nietzsche's evocative style and provocative ideas, his philosophy generates passionate reactions. His works remain controversial, due to varying interpretations and misinterpretations. In Western philosophy, Nietzsche's writings have been described as a case of free revolutionary thought, that is, revolutionary in its structure and problems, although not tied to any revolutionary project.[143] His writings have also been described as a revolutionary project in which his philosophy serves as the foundation of a European cultural rebirth.[144][145]
+
+The Apollonian and Dionysian is a two-fold philosophical concept, based on features of ancient Greek mythology: Apollo and Dionysus. Even though the concept is famously related to The Birth of Tragedy, the poet Hölderlin had already spoken of it, and Winckelmann had talked of Bacchus. One year before the publication of The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche wrote a fragment titled "On Music and Words".[146] In it, he asserted the Schopenhauerian judgment that music is a primary expression of the essence of everything. Secondarily derivative are lyrical poetry and drama, which represent phenomenal appearances of objects. In this way, tragedy is born from music.
+
+Nietzsche found in classical Athenian tragedy an art form that transcended the pessimism found in the so-called wisdom of Silenus. The Greek spectators, by looking into the abyss of human suffering depicted by characters on stage, passionately and joyously affirmed life, finding it worth living. A main theme in The Birth of Tragedy is that the fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian Kunsttrieben ("artistic impulses") forms dramatic arts, or tragedies. He argued that this fusion has not been achieved since the ancient Greek tragedians. Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity, and logic, whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion, and ecstasy. Nietzsche used these two forces because, for him, the world of mind and order on one side, and passion and chaos on the other, formed principles that were fundamental to the Greek culture:[147][148] the Apollonian a dreaming state, full of illusions; and Dionysian a state of intoxication, representing the liberations of instinct and dissolution of boundaries. In this mold, man appears as the satyr. He is the horror of the annihilation of the principle of individuality and at the same time someone who delights in its destruction.[149] Both of these principles are meant to represent cognitive states that appear through art as the power of nature in man.[150]
+
+Apollonian and Dionysian juxtapositions appear in the interplay of tragedy: the tragic hero of the drama, the main protagonist, struggles to make (Apollonian) order of his unjust and chaotic (Dionysian) fate, though he dies unfulfilled. Elaborating on the conception of Hamlet as an intellectual who cannot make up his mind, and is a living antithesis to the man of action, Nietzsche argues that a Dionysian figure possesses the knowledge that his actions cannot change the eternal balance of things, and it disgusts him enough not to act at all. Hamlet falls under this category—he glimpsed the supernatural reality through the Ghost, he has gained true knowledge, and knows that no action of his has the power to change this.[151][152] For the audience of such drama, this tragedy allows them to sense what Nietzsche called the Primordial Unity, which revives Dionysian nature. He describes primordial unity as the increase of strength, experience of fullness and plenitude bestowed by frenzy. Frenzy acts as an intoxication, and is crucial for the physiological condition that enables the creation of any art.[153] Stimulated by this state, a person's artistic will is enhanced:
+
+In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever wills is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power—until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is—art.
+
+Nietzsche is adamant that the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles represent the apex of artistic creation, the true realization of tragedy; it is with Euripides, that tragedy begins its Untergang (literally 'going under' or 'downward-way;' meaning decline, deterioration, downfall, death, etc.). Nietzsche objects to Euripides' use of Socratic rationalism and morality in his tragedies, claiming that the infusion of ethics and reason robs tragedy of its foundation, namely the fragile balance of the Dionysian and Apollonian. Socrates emphasized reason to such a degree that he diffused the value of myth and suffering to human knowledge. Plato continued along this path in his dialogues, and the modern world eventually inherited reason at the expense of artistic impulses found in the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy. This leads to his conclusion that European culture, from the time of Socrates, had always been only Apollonian, thus decadent and unhealthy.[154] He notes that whenever Apollonian culture dominates, the Dionysian lacks the structure to make a coherent art, and when Dionysian dominates, the Apollonian lacks the necessary passion. Only the fertile interplay of these two forces, brought together as an art, represented the best of Greek tragedy.[155]
+
+An example of the impact of this idea can be seen in the book Patterns of Culture, where anthropologist Ruth Benedict acknowledges Nietzschean opposites of "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" as the stimulus for her thoughts about Native American cultures.[156] Carl Jung has written extensively on the dichotomy in Psychological Types.[157] Michel Foucault commented that his own book Madness and Civilization should be read "under the sun of the great Nietzschean inquiry". Here Foucault referenced Nietzsche's description of the birth and death of tragedy and his explanation that the subsequent tragedy of the Western world was the refusal of the tragic and, with that, refusal of the sacred.[158] Painter Mark Rothko was influenced by Nietzsche's view of tragedy presented in The Birth of Tragedy.
+
+Nietzsche claimed the death of God would eventually lead to the loss of any universal perspective on things, and along with it any coherent sense of objective truth.[159][160][161] Nietzsche himself rejected the idea of objective reality, arguing that knowledge is contingent and conditional, relative to various fluid perspectives or interests.[162] This leads to constant reassessment of rules (i.e., those of philosophy, the scientific method, etc.) according to the circumstances of individual perspectives.[163] This view has acquired the name perspectivism.
+
+In Also sprach Zarathustra, Nietzsche proclaims that a table of values hangs above every great person. He points out that what is common among different peoples is the act of esteeming, of creating values, even if the values are different from one people to the next. Nietzsche asserts that what made people great was not the content of their beliefs, but the act of valuing. Thus the values a community strives to articulate are not as important as the collective will to see those values come to pass. The willing is more essential than the merit of the goal itself, according to Nietzsche. "A thousand goals have there been so far", says Zarathustra, "for there are a thousand peoples. Only the yoke for the thousand necks is still lacking: the one goal is lacking. Humanity still has no goal." Hence, the title of the aphorism, "On The Thousand And One Goals". The idea that one value-system is no more worthy than the next, although it may not be directly ascribed to Nietzsche, has become a common premise in modern social science. Max Weber and Martin Heidegger absorbed it and made it their own. It shaped their philosophical and cultural endeavor, as well as their political understanding. Weber, for example, relies on Nietzsche's perspectivism by maintaining that objectivity is still possible—but only after a particular perspective, value, or end has been established.[164][165]
+
+Among his critique of traditional philosophy of Kant, Descartes and Plato in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche attacked thing in itself and cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") as unfalsifiable beliefs based on naive acceptance of previous notions and fallacies.[166] Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre puts Nietzsche in a high place in the history of philosophy. While criticizing nihilism and Nietzsche together as a sign of general decay,[167] he still commends him for recognizing psychological motives behind Kant and Hume's moral philosophy:[168]
+
+For it was Nietzsche's historic achievement to understand more clearly than any other philosopher…not only that what purported to be appeals of objectivity were in fact expressions of subjective will, but also the nature of the problems that this posed for philosophy.[169]
+
+In Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche's genealogical account of the development of modern moral systems occupies a central place. For Nietzsche, a fundamental shift took place during human history from thinking in terms of "good and bad" toward "good and evil."
+
+The initial form of morality was set by a warrior aristocracy and other ruling castes of ancient civilizations. Aristocratic values of good and bad coincided with and reflected their relationship to lower castes such as slaves. Nietzsche presents this "master morality" as the original system of morality—perhaps best associated with Homeric Greece.[170] To be "good" was to be happy and to have the things related to happiness: wealth, strength, health, power, etc. To be "bad" was to be like the slaves over whom the aristocracy ruled: poor, weak, sick, pathetic—objects of pity or disgust rather than hatred.[171]
+
+"Slave morality" developed as a reaction to master morality. Here, value emerges from the contrast between good and evil: good being associated with other-worldliness, charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and submission; while evil is worldly, cruel, selfish, wealthy, and aggressive. Nietzsche sees slave morality as pessimistic and fearful, its values emerging to improve the self-perception of slaves. He associates slave morality with the Jewish and Christian traditions, as it is born out of the ressentiment of slaves. Nietzsche argued that the idea of equality allowed slaves to overcome their own condition without despising themselves. And by denying the inherent inequality of people—in success, strength, beauty, and intelligence—slaves acquired a method of escape, namely by generating new values on the basis of rejecting master morality, which frustrated them. It was used to overcome the slave's own sense of inferiority before their (better-off) masters. It does so by making out slave weakness, for example, to be a matter of choice, by relabeling it as "meekness". The "good man" of master morality is precisely the "evil man" of slave morality, while the "bad man" is recast as the "good man".[170]
+
+Nietzsche sees slave morality as a source of the nihilism that has overtaken Europe. Modern Europe and Christianity exist in a hypocritical state due to a tension between master and slave morality, both contradictory values determining, to varying degrees, the values of most Europeans (who are "motley"). Nietzsche calls for exceptional people to no longer be ashamed in the face of a supposed morality-for-all, which he deems to be harmful to the flourishing of exceptional people. He cautions, however, that morality, per se, is not bad; it is good for the masses, and should be left to them. Exceptional people, on the other hand, should follow their own "inner law".[170] A favorite motto of Nietzsche, taken from Pindar, reads: "Become what you are."[172]
+
+A long-standing assumption about Nietzsche is that he preferred master over slave morality. However, eminent Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann rejected this interpretation, writing that Nietzsche's analyses of these two types of morality were used only in a descriptive and historic sense; they were not meant for any kind of acceptance or glorification.[173] On the other hand, it is clear from his own writings that Nietzsche hoped for the victory of master morality. He linked the "salvation and future of the human race with the unconditional dominance"[174] of master morality and called master morality "a higher order of values, the noble ones, those that say Yes to life, those that guarantee the future."[175] Just as "there is an order of rank between man and man", there is also an order of rank "between morality and morality."[176] Indeed, Nietzsche waged a philosophic war against the slave morality of Christianity in his "revaluation of all values" in order to bring about the victory of a new master morality that he called the "philosophy of the future" (Beyond Good and Evil is subtitled Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future).[177]
+
+In Daybreak, Nietzsche begins his "Campaign against Morality".[178][179] He calls himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticizes the prominent moral philosophies of his day: Christianity, Kantianism, and utilitarianism. Nietzsche's concept "God is dead" applies to the doctrines of Christendom, though not to all other faiths: he claimed that Buddhism is a successful religion that he compliments for fostering critical thought.[180] Still, Nietzsche saw his philosophy as a counter-movement to nihilism through appreciation of art:
+
+Art as the single superior counterforce against all will to negation of life, art as the anti-Christian, anti-Buddhist, anti-Nihilist par excellence.[153]
+
+Nietzsche claimed that the Christian faith as practiced was not a proper representation of Jesus' teachings, as it forced people merely to believe in the way of Jesus but not to act as Jesus did; in particular, his example of refusing to judge people, something that Christians had constantly done.[180] He condemned institutionalized Christianity for emphasizing a morality of pity (Mitleid), which assumes an inherent illness in society:[181]
+
+Christianity is called the religion of pity. Pity stands opposed to the tonic emotions which heighten our vitality: it has a depressing effect. We are deprived of strength when we feel pity. That loss of strength which suffering as such inflicts on life is still further increased and multiplied by pity. Pity makes suffering contagious.[182]
+
+In Ecce Homo Nietzsche called the establishment of moral systems based on a dichotomy of good and evil a "calamitous error",[183] and wished to initiate a re-evaluation of the values of the Judeo-Christian world.[184] He indicates his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself.
+
+While Nietzsche attacked the principles of Judaism, he was not antisemitic: in his work On the Genealogy of Morality, he explicitly condemns antisemitism, and points out that his attack on Judaism was not an attack on contemporary Jewish people but specifically an attack upon the ancient Jewish priesthood who he claims antisemitic Christians paradoxically based their views upon.[185] An Israeli historian who performed a statistical analysis of everything Nietzsche wrote about Jews claims that cross-references and context make clear that almost all (85%) negative comments are actually attacks on Christian doctrine or, sarcastically, on Richard Wagner.[186]
+
+Nietzsche felt that modern antisemitism was "despicable" and contrary to  European ideals.[187] Its cause, in his opinion, was the growth in European nationalism and the endemic "jealousy and hatred" of Jewish success.[187] He wrote that Jews should be thanked for helping uphold a respect for the philosophies of ancient Greece,[187] and for giving rise to "the noblest human being (Christ), the purest philosopher (Baruch Spinoza), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral code in the world."[188]
+
+The statement "God is dead," occurring in several of Nietzsche's works (notably in The Gay Science), has become one of his best-known remarks. On the basis of it, most commentators[189] regard Nietzsche as an atheist; others (such as Kaufmann) suggest that this statement reflects a more subtle understanding of divinity. Recent developments in modern science and the increasing secularization of European society had effectively 'killed' the Abrahamic God, who had served as the basis for meaning and value in the West for more than a thousand years. The death of God may lead beyond bare perspectivism to outright nihilism, the belief that nothing has any inherent importance and that life lacks purpose. Here he states that the Christian moral doctrine provides people with intrinsic value, belief in God (which justifies the evil in the world) and a basis for objective knowledge. In this sense, in constructing a world where objective knowledge is possible, Christianity is an antidote to a primal form of nihilism—the despair of meaninglessness. As Heidegger put the problem, "If God as the suprasensory ground and goal of all reality is dead, if the suprasensory world of the ideas has suffered the loss of its obligatory and above it its vitalizing and upbuilding power, then nothing more remains to which man can cling and by which he can orient himself."[190]
+
+One such reaction to the loss of meaning is what Nietzsche calls passive nihilism, which he recognizes in the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's doctrine—which Nietzsche also refers to as Western Buddhism—advocates separating oneself from will and desires in order to reduce suffering. Nietzsche characterizes this ascetic attitude as a "will to nothingness", whereby life turns away from itself, as there is nothing of value to be found in the world. This moving away of all value in the world is characteristic of the nihilist, although in this, the nihilist appears to be inconsistent; this "will to nothingness" is still a (disavowed) form of willing.[191]
+
+A nihilist is a man who judges that the real world ought not to be, and that the world as it ought to be does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: this 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos—an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.
+
+Nietzsche approaches the problem of nihilism as a deeply personal one, stating that this problem of the modern world has "become conscious" in him.[192] Furthermore, he emphasizes both the danger of nihilism and the possibilities it offers, as seen in his statement that "I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength!"[193] According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation on which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure. Heidegger interprets the death of God with what he explains as the death of metaphysics. He concludes that metaphysics has reached its potential and that the ultimate fate and downfall of metaphysics was proclaimed with the statement "God is dead."[194]
+
+A basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical outlook is the "will to power" (der Wille zur Macht), which he maintained provides a basis for understanding human behavior—more so than competing explanations, such as the ones based on pressure for adaptation or survival.[195][196][197] As such, according to Nietzsche, the drive for conservation appears as the major motivator of human or animal behavior only in exceptions, as the general condition of life is not one of emergency, of 'struggle for existence.'[198] More often than not, self-conservation is but a consequence of a creature's will to exert its strength on the outside world.
+
+In presenting his theory of human behavior, Nietzsche also addressed, and attacked, concepts from philosophies popularly embraced in his days, such as Schopenhauer's notion of an aimless will or that of utilitarianism. Utilitarians claim that what moves people is mainly the desire to be happy, to accumulate pleasure in their lives. But such a conception of happiness Nietzsche rejected as something limited to, and characteristic of, the bourgeois lifestyle of the English society,[199] and instead put forth the idea that happiness is not an aim per se—it is instead a consequence of a successful pursuit of one's aims, of the overcoming of hurdles to one's actions—in other words, of the fulfillment of the will.[200]
+
+Related to his theory of the will to power is his speculation, which he did not deem final,[201] regarding the reality of the physical world, including inorganic matter—that, like man's affections and impulses, the material world is also set by the dynamics of a form of the will to power. At the core of his theory is a rejection of atomism—the idea that matter is composed of stable, indivisible units (atoms). Instead, he seems to have accepted the conclusions of Ruđer Bošković, who explained the qualities of matter as a result of an interplay of forces.[iv][202] One study of Nietzsche defines his fully developed concept of the will to power as "the element from which derive both the quantitative difference of related forces and the quality that devolves into each force in this relation" revealing the will to power as "the principle of the synthesis of forces."[203] Of such forces Nietzsche said they could perhaps be viewed as a primitive form of the will. Likewise he rejected as a mere interpretation the view that the movement of bodies is ruled by inexorable laws of nature, positing instead that movement was governed by the power relations between bodies and forces.[204] Other scholars disagree that Nietzsche considered the material world to be a form of the will to power: Nietzsche thoroughly criticized metaphysics, and by including the will to power in the material world, he would simply be setting up a new metaphysics. Other than Aphorism 36 in Beyond Good and Evil, where he raised a question regarding will to power as being in the material world, they argue, it was only in his notes (unpublished by himself), where he wrote about a metaphysical will to power. And they also claim that Nietzsche directed his landlord to burn those notes in 1888 when he left Sils Maria for the last time.[205] According to these scholars, the 'burning' story supports their thesis that at the end of his lucid life, Nietzsche rejected his project on the will to power. However, a recent study (Huang 2019) shows that although it is true that in 1888 Nietzsche wanted some of his notes burned, the 'burning' story indicates little about his project on the will to power, not only because only 11 'aphorisms' saved from the flames were ultimately incorporated into The Will to Power (this book contains 1067 'aphorisms'), but also because these abandoned notes mainly focus on topics such as critique of morality while touching upon the 'feeling of power' only once.[206]
+
+"Eternal return" (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a hypothetical concept that posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form for an infinite number of times across infinite time or space. It is a purely physical concept, involving no supernatural reincarnation, but the return of beings in the same bodies. Nietzsche first invokes the idea of eternal return in a parable in Section 341 of The Gay Science, and also in the chapter "Of the Vision and the Riddle" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, among other places.[207] Nietzsche contemplates the idea as potentially "horrifying and paralyzing", and says that its burden is the "heaviest weight" imaginable ("das schwerste Gewicht").[208] The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life, a reaction to Schopenhauer's praise of denying the will‐to‐live. To comprehend eternal recurrence in his thought, and to not merely come to peace with it but to embrace it, requires amor fati, "love of fate".[209] As Heidegger points out in his lectures on Nietzsche, Nietzsche's first mention of eternal recurrence presents this concept as a hypothetical question rather than postulating it as a fact. According to Heidegger, it is the burden imposed by the question of eternal recurrence—whether or not such a thing could possibly be true—that is so significant in modern thought: "The way Nietzsche here patterns the first communication of the thought of the 'greatest burden' [of eternal recurrence] makes it clear that this 'thought of thoughts' is at the same time 'the most burdensome thought.'"[210]
+
+Nietzsche posits not only that the universe is recurring over infinite time and space, but that the different versions of events that have occurred in the past may at one point or another take place again, hence "all configurations that have previously existed on this earth must yet meet".[211] And with each version of events is hoping that some knowledge or awareness is gained to better the individual, hence "And thus it will happen one day that a man will be born again, just like me and a woman will be born, just like Mary—only that it is hoped to be that the head of this man may contain a little less foolishness …."[211]
+
+Alexander Nehamas writes in Nietzsche: Life as Literature of three ways of seeing the eternal recurrence:
+
+Nehamas draws the conclusion that if individuals constitute themselves through their actions, then they can only maintain themselves in their current state by living in a recurrence of past actions (Nehamas, 153). Nietzsche's thought is the negation of the idea of a history of salvation.[212]
+
+Another concept important to an understanding of Nietzsche's thought is the Übermensch.[213][214][215][216] Developing the idea of nihilism, Nietzsche wrote Also sprach Zarathustra, therein introducing the concept of a value-creating Übermensch, not as a project, but as an anti-project, the absence of any project.[143] According to Laurence Lampert, "the death of God must be followed by a long twilight of piety and nihilism (II. 19; III. 8). Zarathustra's gift of the overman is given to a mankind not aware of the problem to which the overman is the solution."[217] Zarathustra presents the overman as the creator of new values, and he appears as a solution to the problem of the death of God and nihilism. The overman does not follow the morality of common people since that favors mediocrity but instead rises above the notion of good and evil and above the "herd".[218] In this way Zarathustra proclaims his ultimate goal as the journey towards the state of overman. He wants a kind of spiritual evolution of self-awareness and overcoming of traditional views on morality and justice that stem from the superstition beliefs still deeply rooted or related to the notion of God and Christianity.[219]
+
+While interpretations of Nietzsche's overman vary wildly, here is one of his quotations from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Prologue, §§ 3–4):[220]
+
+I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? ... All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is ape to man? A laughing stock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be that to overman: a laughing stock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape ... The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth ... Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss ... what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.
+
+Zarathustra contrasts the overman with the last man of egalitarian modernity (most obvious example being democracy), an alternative goal humanity might set for itself. The last man is possible only by mankind's having bred an apathetic creature who has no great passion or commitment, who is unable to dream, who merely earns his living and keeps warm. This concept appears only in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and is presented as a condition that would render the creation of the overman impossible.[221]
+
+Some have suggested that the notion of eternal return is related to the overman, since willing the eternal return of the same is a necessary step if the overman is to create new values, untainted by the spirit of gravity or asceticism. Values involve a rank-ordering of things, and so are inseparable from approval and disapproval; yet it was dissatisfaction that prompted men to seek refuge in other-worldliness and embrace other-worldly values. It could seem that the overman, in being devoted to any values at all, would necessarily fail to create values that did not share some bit of asceticism. Willing the eternal recurrence is presented as accepting the existence of the low while still recognizing it as the low, and thus as overcoming the spirit of gravity or asceticism. One must have the strength of the overman in order to will the eternal recurrence; that is, only the overman will have the strength to fully accept all of his past life, including his failures and misdeeds, and to truly will their eternal return. This action nearly kills Zarathustra, for example, and most human beings cannot avoid other-worldliness because they really are sick, not because of any choice they made.
+
+The Nazis tried to incorporate the concept into their ideology. After his death, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche became the curator and editor of her brother's manuscripts. She reworked Nietzsche's unpublished writings to fit her own German nationalist ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism;[32] 20th century scholars contested this interpretation of his work, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available.
+
+Although Nietzsche has famously been misrepresented as a predecessor to Nazism, he criticized anti-Semitism, pan-Germanism and, to a lesser extent, nationalism.[222] Thus, he broke with his editor in 1886 because of his opposition to his editor's anti-Semitic stances, and his rupture with Richard Wagner, expressed in The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche contra Wagner, both of which he wrote in 1888, had much to do with Wagner's endorsement of pan-Germanism and anti-Semitism—and also of his rallying to Christianity. In a 29 March 1887 letter to Theodor Fritsch, Nietzsche mocked anti-Semites, Fritsch, Eugen Dühring, Wagner, Ebrard, Wahrmund, and the leading advocate of pan-Germanism, Paul de Lagarde, who would become, along with Wagner and Houston Chamberlain, the main official influences of Nazism.[97] This 1887 letter to Fritsch ended by: "And finally, how do you think I feel when the name Zarathustra is mouthed by anti-Semites?"[223]
+
+Friedrich Nietzsche held a pessimistic view on modern society and culture. His views stand against the concept of popular culture. He believed the press and mass culture led to conformity and brought about mediocrity. Nietzsche saw a lack of intellectual progress, leading to the decline of the human species. According to Nietzsche, individuals needed to overcome this form of mass culture. He believed some people were able to become superior individuals through the use of will power. By rising above mass culture, society would produce higher, brighter and healthier human beings.[224]
+
+A trained philologist, Nietzsche had a thorough knowledge of Greek philosophy. He read Kant, Plato, Mill, Schopenhauer and Spir,[225] who became his main opponents in his philosophy, and later Baruch Spinoza, whom he saw as his "precursor" in many respects[226] but as a personification of the "ascetic ideal" in others. However, Nietzsche referred to Kant as a "moral fanatic", Plato as "boring", Mill as a "blockhead", and of Spinoza he said: "How much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray?"[227] He likewise expressed contempt for British author George Eliot.[228]
+
+Nietzsche's philosophy, while innovative and revolutionary, was indebted to many predecessors. While at Basel, Nietzsche offered lecture courses on pre-Platonic philosophers for several years, and the text of this lecture series has been characterized as a "lost link" in the development of his thought. "In it concepts such as the will to power, the eternal return of the same, the overman, gay science, self-overcoming and so on receive rough, unnamed formulations and are linked to specific pre-Platonics, especially Heraclitus, who emerges as a pre-Platonic Nietzsche."[229] The pre-Socratic thinker Heraclitus was known for the rejection of the concept of being as a constant and eternal principle of universe, and his embrace of "flux" and incessant change. His symbolism of the world as "child play" marked by amoral spontaneity and lack of definite rules was appreciated by Nietzsche.[230] From his Heraclitean sympathy, Nietzsche was also a vociferous detractor of Parmenides, who opposed Heraclitus and believed all world is a single Being with no change at all.[231]
+
+In his Egotism in German Philosophy, Santayana claimed that Nietzsche's whole philosophy was a reaction to Schopenhauer. Santayana wrote that Nietzsche's work was "an emendation of that of Schopenhauer. The will to live would become the will to dominate; pessimism founded on reflection would become optimism founded on courage; the suspense of the will in contemplation would yield to a more biological account of intelligence and taste; finally in the place of pity and asceticism (Schopenhauer's two principles of morals) Nietzsche would set up the duty of asserting the will at all costs and being cruelly but beautifully strong. These points of difference from Schopenhauer cover the whole philosophy of Nietzsche."[232]
+
+Nietzsche expressed admiration for 17th-century French moralists such as La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère and Vauvenargues,[233] as well as for Stendhal.[234] The organicism of Paul Bourget influenced Nietzsche,[235] as did that of Rudolf Virchow and Alfred Espinas.[236] Nietzsche wrote in a letter in 1867 that he was trying to improve his German style of writing with the help of Lessing, Lichtenberg and Schopenhauer. It was probably Lichtenberg (along with Paul Rée) whose aphoristic style of writing contributed to Nietzsche's own use of aphorism instead of an essay.[237] Nietzsche early learned of Darwinism through Friedrich Albert Lange.[238] The essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson had a profound influence on Nietzsche, who "loved Emerson from first to last",[239] wrote "Never have I felt so much at home in a book", and called him "[the] author who has been richest in ideas in this century so far".[240] Hippolyte Taine influenced Nietzsche's view on Rousseau and Napoleon.[241] Notably, he also read some of the posthumous works of Charles Baudelaire,[242] Tolstoy's My Religion, Ernest Renan's Life of Jesus, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Demons.[242][243] Nietzsche called Dostoyevsky "the only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn."[244] While Nietzsche never mentions Max Stirner, the similarities in their ideas have prompted a minority of interpreters to suggest a relationship between the two.[245][246][247][248][249][250][251]
+
+In 1861 Nietzsche wrote an enthusiastic essay on his "favorite poet," Friedrich Hölderlin, mostly forgotten at that time.[252] He also expressed deep appreciation for Stifter's Indian Summer,[253] Byron's Manfred and Twain's Tom Sawyer.[254]
+
+Nietzsche's works did not reach a wide readership during his active writing career. However, in 1888 the influential Danish critic Georg Brandes aroused considerable excitement about Nietzsche through a series of lectures he gave at the University of Copenhagen. In the years after Nietzsche's death in 1900, his works became better known, and readers have responded to them in complex and sometimes controversial ways.[255] Many Germans eventually discovered his appeals for greater individualism and personality development in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but responded to them divergently. He had some following among left-wing Germans in the 1890s; in 1894–1895 German conservatives wanted to ban his work as subversive. During the late 19th century Nietzsche's ideas were commonly associated with anarchist movements and appear to have had influence within them, particularly in France and the United States.[256][257][258] H.L. Mencken produced the first book on Nietzsche in English in 1907, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, and in 1910 a book of translated paragraphs from Nietzsche, increasing knowledge of his philosophy in the United States.[259] Nietzsche is known today as a precursor to existentialism, post-structuralism and postmodernism.[260]
+
+W.B. Yeats and Arthur Symons described Nietzsche as the intellectual heir to William Blake.[261] Symons went on to compare the ideas of the two thinkers in The Symbolist Movement in Literature, while Yeats tried to raise awareness of Nietzsche in Ireland.[262][263][264] A similar notion was espoused by W.H. Auden who wrote of Nietzsche in his New Year Letter (released in 1941 in The Double Man): "O masterly debunker of our liberal fallacies…all your life you stormed, like your English forerunner Blake."[265][266][267] Nietzsche made an impact on composers during the 1890s. Writer on music Donald Mitchell notes that Gustav Mahler was "attracted to the poetic fire of Zarathustra, but repelled by the intellectual core of its writings." He also quotes Mahler himself, and adds that he was influenced by Nietzsche's conception and affirmative approach to nature, which Mahler presented in his Third Symphony using Zarathustra's roundelay. Frederick Delius produced a piece of choral music, A Mass of Life, based on a text of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, while Richard Strauss (who also based his Also sprach Zarathustra on the same book), was only interested in finishing "another chapter of symphonic autobiography."[268] Famous writers and poets influenced by Nietzsche include André Gide, August Strindberg, Robinson Jeffers, Pío Baroja, D.H. Lawrence, Edith Södergran and Yukio Mishima.[citation needed]
+
+Nietzsche was an early influence on the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke.[citation needed] Knut Hamsun counted Nietzsche, along with Strindberg and Dostoyevsky, as one of his primary influences.[269] Author Jack London wrote that he was more stimulated by Nietzsche than by any other writer.[270] Critics have suggested that the character of David Grief in A Son of the Sun was based on Nietzsche.[271] Nietzsche's influence on Muhammad Iqbal is most evidenced in Asrar-i-Khudi (The Secrets of the Self).[272] Wallace Stevens[273] was another reader of Nietzsche, and elements of Nietzsche's philosophy were found throughout Stevens's poetry collection Harmonium.[274][275] Olaf Stapledon was influenced by the idea of the Übermensch and it is a central theme in his books Odd John and Sirius.[276] In Russia, Nietzsche has influenced Russian symbolism[277] and figures such as Dmitry Merezhkovsky,[278] Andrei Bely,[279] Vyacheslav Ivanov and Alexander Scriabin have all incorporated or discussed parts of Nietzsche philosophy in their works. Thomas Mann's novel Death in Venice[280] shows a use of Apollonian and Dionysian, and in Doctor Faustus Nietzsche was a central source for the character of Adrian Leverkühn.[281][282] Hermann Hesse, similarly, in his Narcissus and Goldmund presents two main characters in the sense of Apollonian and Dionysian as the two opposite yet intertwined spirits. Painter Giovanni Segantini was fascinated by Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and he drew an illustration for the first Italian translation of the book. The Russian painter Lena Hades created the oil painting cycle Also Sprach Zarathustra dedicated to the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra.[283]
+
+By World War I, Nietzsche had acquired a reputation as an inspiration for both right-wing German militarism and leftist politics. German soldiers received copies of Thus Spoke Zarathustra as gifts during World War I.[284][285] The Dreyfus affair provides a contrasting example of his reception: the French antisemitic Right labelled the Jewish and leftist intellectuals who defended Alfred Dreyfus as "Nietzscheans".[286] Nietzsche had a distinct appeal for many Zionist thinkers around the start of the 20th century, most notable being Ahad Ha'am,[287] Hillel Zeitlin,[288] Micha Josef Berdyczewski, A.D. Gordon[289] and Martin Buber, who went so far as to extoll Nietzsche as a "creator" and "emissary of life".[290] Chaim Weizmann was a great admirer of Nietzsche; the first president of Israel sent Nietzsche's books to his wife, adding a comment in a letter that "This was the best and finest thing I can send to you."[291] Israel Eldad, the ideological chief of the Stern Gang that fought the British in Palestine in the 1940s, wrote about Nietzsche in his underground newspaper and later translated most of Nietzsche's books into Hebrew.[292] Eugene O'Neill remarked that Zarathustra influenced him more than any other book he ever read. He also shared Nietzsche's view of tragedy.[293] Plays The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed are an example of Nietzsche's influence on O'Neill.[294][295][296] Nietzsche's influence on the works of Frankfurt School philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno[297] can be seen in the popular Dialectic of Enlightenment. Adorno summed up Nietzsche's philosophy as expressing the "humane in a world in which humanity has become a sham."[298]
+
+Nietzsche's growing prominence suffered a severe setback when his works became closely associated with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Many political leaders of the twentieth century were at least superficially familiar with Nietzsche's ideas, although it is not always possible to determine whether they actually read his work. It is debated among scholars whether Hitler read Nietzsche, although if he did his reading of him may not have been extensive.[v][vi][299][300] He was a frequent visitor to the Nietzsche museum in Weimar and used expressions of Nietzsche's, such as "lords of the earth" in Mein Kampf.[301] The Nazis made selective use of Nietzsche's philosophy. Mussolini,[302][303] Charles de Gaulle[304] and Huey P. Newton[305] read Nietzsche. Richard Nixon read Nietzsche with "curious interest", and his book Beyond Peace might have taken its title from Nietzsche's book Beyond Good and Evil which Nixon read beforehand.[306] Bertrand Russell wrote that Nietzsche had exerted great influence on philosophers and on people of literary and artistic culture, but warned that the attempt to put Nietzsche's philosophy of aristocracy into practice could only be done by an organization similar to the Fascist or the Nazi party.[21]
+
+A decade after World War II, there was a revival of Nietzsche's philosophical writings thanks to exhaustive translations and analyses by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. Others, well known philosophers in their own right, wrote commentaries on Nietzsche's philosophy, including Martin Heidegger, who produced a four-volume study, and Lev Shestov, who wrote a book called Dostoyevski, Tolstoy and Nietzsche where he portrays Nietzsche and Dostoyevski as the "thinkers of tragedy".[307] Georg Simmel compares Nietzsche's importance to ethics to that of Copernicus for cosmology.[308] Sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies read Nietzsche avidly from his early life, and later frequently discussed many of his concepts in his own works. Nietzsche has influenced philosophers such as Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre,[309] Oswald Spengler,[310] George Grant,[311] Emil Cioran,[312] Albert Camus, Ayn Rand,[313] Jacques Derrida,[citation needed] Leo Strauss,[314] Max Scheler, Michel Foucault and Bernard Williams.[citation needed] Camus described Nietzsche as "the only artist to have derived the extreme consequences of an aesthetics of the absurd".[315] Paul Ricœur called Nietzsche one of the masters of the "school of suspicion", alongside Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.[316] Carl Jung was also influenced by Nietzsche.[317] In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, a biography transcribed by his secretary, he cites Nietzsche as a large influence.[318] Aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy, especially his ideas of the self and his relation to society, also run through much of late-twentieth and early twenty-first century thought.[319][320] His deepening of the romantic-heroic tradition of the nineteenth century, for example, as expressed in the ideal of the "grand striver" appears in the work of thinkers from Cornelius Castoriadis to Roberto Mangabeira Unger.[321] For Nietzsche this grand striver overcomes obstacles, engages in epic struggles, pursues new goals, embraces recurrent novelty, and transcends existing structures and contexts.[319]:195

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+Coordinates: 16°N 8°E / 16°N 8°E / 16; 8
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+Niger or the Niger[11][12] (/niːˈʒɛər/ or /ˈnaɪdʒər/;[13][14] French: [niʒɛʁ]), officially the Republic of the Niger,[11][12] is a landlocked country in West Africa named after the Niger River. Niger is bordered by Libya to the northeast, Chad to the east, Nigeria to the south, Benin to the southwest, Mali to the north-west, Burkina Faso to the south-west, and Algeria to the northwest. Niger covers a land area of almost 1,270,000 km2 (490,000 sq mi), making it the largest country in West Africa. Over 80% of its land area lies in the Sahara Desert. The country's predominantly Muslim population of about 22 million[15][16] live mostly in clusters in the far south and west of the country. The capital and largest city is Niamey, located in Niger's southwest corner.
+
+Niger is a developing country, which consistently ranks near the bottom in the United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI); it was ranked 187th of 188 countries for 2015 and 189th out of 189 countries in the 2018 and 2019 reports.[17] Many of the non-desert portions of the country are threatened by periodic drought and desertification. The economy is concentrated around subsistence, with some export agriculture in the more fertile south, and export of raw materials, especially uranium ore. Niger faces serious challenges to development due to its landlocked position, desert terrain, inefficient agriculture, high fertility rates without birth control, and the resulting overpopulation,[18] the poor educational level and poverty of its people, lack of infrastructure, poor healthcare, and environmental degradation.
+
+Nigerien society reflects a diversity drawn from the long independent histories of its several ethnic groups and regions and their relatively short period living in a single state. Historically, what is now Niger has been on the fringes of several large states. Since independence, Nigeriens have lived under five constitutions and three periods of military rule. After the military coup in 2010, Niger became a democratic, multi-party state. A majority of the population lives in rural areas and has little access to advanced education.
+
+The country's name comes from the Niger river which flows through the west of the country; the origin of the river's name is uncertain, though a popular theory is that it comes from the Tuareg n'eghirren, meaning 'flowing water'.[19] The most common pronunciation is the French one of /niːˈʒɛər/, though in Anglophone media /ˈnaɪdʒər/ is also occasionally used.
+
+Humans have inhabited the territory of modern Niger for millennia; stone tools, some dating as far back as 280,000 BC, have been found in Adrar Bous, Bilma and Djado in the northern Agadez Region.[20] Some of these finds have been linked with the Aterian and Mousterian tool cultures of the Middle Paleolithic period, which flourished in northern Africa circa 90,000 BC-20,000 BC.[21][20] It is thought that these early humans lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.[20] In prehistoric times the climate of the Sahara desert was much wetter and more fertile than it is today, a phenomenon archaeologists refer to as the 'Green Sahara', which provided favourable conditions for hunting and later agriculture and livestock herding.[22][23]
+
+The Neolithic era began circa 10,000 BC; this period saw a number of important changes, such as the introduction of pottery (as evidenced at Tagalagal, Temet and Tin Ouffadene), the spread of cattle husbandry, and the burying of the dead in stone tumuli.[20] As the climate changed in the period 4000–2800 BC the Sahara gradually began drying out, forcing a change in settlement patterns to the south and east.[24] Agriculture became widespread, notably the planting of millet and sorghum, as well as pottery production.[20] Iron and copper items first appear in this era, with early find including those at Azawagh, Takedda, Marendet and the Termit Massif.[25][26][27] The Kiffian (circa 8000–6000 BC) and later Tenerian (circa 5000–2500 BC) cultures, centred on Adrar Bous and Gobero where numerous skeletons have been uncovered, flourished during this period.[28][28][29][30][31][32]
+
+Towards the end of this period, up till the first centuries AD, societies continued to grow and become more complex, with regional differentiation in agricultural and funerary practices. A notable culture of this late period is the Bura culture (circa 200–1300 AD), named for the Bura archaeological site. where a burial replete with many iron and ceramic statuettes were discovered.[33] The Neolithic era also saw the flourishing of Saharan rock art, most notably in the Aïr Mountains, Termit Massif, Djado Plateau, Iwelene, Arakao, Tamakon, Tzerzait, Iferouane, Mammanet and Dabous; the art spans the period from 10,000BC to 100AD and depicts a range of subjects, from the varied fauna of the landscape to depictions of spear-carrying figures dubbed 'Libyan warriors'.[34][35][36]
+
+Our knowledge of early Nigerien history is limited by the lack of written sources, though it is known that by at least the 5th century BC the territory of modern Niger had become an area of trans-Saharan trade. Led by Tuareg tribes from the north, camels were as a well-adapted means of transportation through what was now an immense desert.[37][38] This mobility, which would continue in waves for several centuries, was accompanied with further migration to the south and intermixing between sub-Saharan African and North African populations, as well as the gradual spread of Islam.[39] It was also aided by the Arab invasion of North Africa at the end of the 7th century, which resulted in population movements to the south.[24] Several empires and kingdoms flourished in the Sahel during this era. Their history does not fit easily within the modern boundaries of Niger, which were created during the period of European colonialism; the following adopts a roughly chronological account of the main empires.
+
+The Mali Empire was a Mandinka empire founded by Sundiata Keita (r. 1230–1255) in circa 1230 and existed up to 1600. As detailed in the Epic of Sundiata, Mali emerged as a breakaway region of the Sosso Empire, which itself had split from the earlier Ghana Empire. Thereafter Mali defeated the Sosso at the Battle of Kirina in 1235 and then Ghana in 1240.[40][41][42] From its heartland around the modern Guinea-Mali border region, the empire expanded considerably under successive kings and came to dominate the Trans-Saharan trade routes, reaching its greatest extent during the rule of Mansa Musa (r. 1312-1337).[41] At this point parts of what are now Niger's Tillabéri Region fell under Malian rule.[40] A Muslim, Mansa Musa performed the hajj in 1324–25 and encouraged the spread of Islam in the empire, though it appears that most ordinary citizens continued to maintain their traditional animist beliefs instead of or alongside the new religion.[40][43] The empire began declining in the 15th century due to a combination of internecine strife over the royal succession, weak kings, the shift of European trade routes to the coast, and rebellions in the empire's periphery by Mossi, Wolof, Tuareg and Songhai peoples.[43] However a rump Mali kingdom continued to exist until late 1600s.[41]
+
+The Songhai Empire was named for its main ethnic group, the Songhai or Sonrai, and was centred on the bend of the Niger River in modern Mali. Songhai began settling this region from the 7th to 9th centuries;[44] by the early 11th century Gao (capital of the former Kingdom of Gao) had become the empire's capital.[44][45][46] From 1000 to 1325, the Songhai Empire prospered and managed to maintain peace with the Mali Empire, its powerful neighbour to the west. In 1325 Songhai was conquered by Mali until regaining its independence in 1375.[44] Under king Sonni Ali (r. 1464–1492) Songhai adopted an expansionist policy which reached its apogee during the reign of Askia Mohammad I (r. 1493–1528); at this point the empire had expanded considerably from its Niger-bend heartland, including to the east where much of modern western Niger fell under its rule, including Agadez, which was conquered in 1496.[20][47][48] However the empire was unable to withstand repeated attacks from the Saadi Dynasty of Morocco and was decisively defeated at the Battle of Tondibi in 1591; the empire then collapsed into a number of smaller kingdoms.[44][46]
+
+In c. 1449 in the north of what is now Niger, the Sultanate of Aïr was founded by Sultan Ilisawan, based in Agadez.[20] Formerly a small trading post inhabited by a mixture of Hausa and Tuaregs, the sultanate grew rich due to its strategic position on the Trans-Saharan trade routes. In 1515 Aïr was conquered by Songhai, remaining a part of that empire until its collapse in 1591.[20][39] The following centuries present a somewhat confused picture, though it seems that the sultanate entered a decline marked by internecine wars and clan conflicts.[39] When Europeans began exploring the region in the 19th century much of Agadez lay in ruins, and it was taken over, though with difficulty, by the French (see below).[20][39]
+
+To the east, the Kanem-Bornu Empire dominated the region around Lake Chad for much of this period.[46] It was founded by the Zaghawa around the 8th century and based in Njimi, north-east of the lake. The kingdom gradually expanded, especially during the rule of the Sayfawa Dynasty which began in c. 1075 under Mai (king) Hummay.[49][50] The kingdom reached its greatest extent in the 1200s, largely thanks to the effort of Mai Dunama Dibbalemi (r. 1210–1259), and grew rich from its control of many Trans-Saharan trade routes; much of eastern and south-eastern Niger, notably Bilma and Kaouar, was under Kanem's control in this period.[51] Islam had been introduced to the kingdom by Arab traders from the 11th century, gradually gaining more converts over the following centuries.[49] Attacks by the Bulala people in the late 14th century forced Kanem to shift westwards of Lake Chad, where it became known as the Bornu Empire, ruled from its capital Ngazargamu on the modern Niger-Nigeria border.[52][49][53] Bornu prospered during the rule of Mai Idris Alooma (r. circa 1575–1610) and re-conquered much of the traditional lands of Kanem, hence the designation 'Kanem-Bornu' for the empire. By the late 17th century and into the 18th the Bornu kingdom had entered a long period of decline, gradually shrinking back to its Lake Chad heartland, though it remained an important player in the region.[46][49]
+
+Circa 1730–40 a group of Kanuri settlers led by Mallam Yunus left Kanem and founded the Sultanate of Damagaram, centred on the town of Zinder.[39] The sultanate remained nominally subject to the Borno Empire until the reign of Sultan Tanimoune Dan Souleymane in the mid-to-late 19th century, who declared independence and initiated a phase of vigorous expansion.[20] The sultanate managed to resist the advance of the Sokoto Caliphate (see below), but was later captured by the French in 1899.[20]
+
+Between the Niger River and Lake Chad lay various Hausa Kingdoms kingdoms, encompassing the cultural-linguistic area known as Hausaland which straddles the modern Niger-Nigeria border.[54] The origins of the Hausa are obscure, though they are thought to be a mixture of autochthonous peoples and migrant peoples from the north and/or east, emerging as a distinct people sometime in the 900s–1400s when the kingdoms were founded.[54][20][55] They gradually adopted Islam from the 14th century, though often this existed alongside traditional religions, developing into unique syncretic forms; some Hausa groups, such as the Azna, resisted Islam altogether (the area of Dogondoutchi remains an animist stronghold to this day).[20][46] The Hausa kingdoms were not a compact entity but several federations of kingdoms more or less independent of one other. Their organisation was hierarchical though also somewhat democratic: the Hausa kings were elected by the notables of the country and could be removed by them.[45] The Hausa Kingdoms began as seven states founded, according to the Bayajidda legend, by the six sons of Bawo.[54][46] Bawo was the only son of the Hausa queen Daurama and Bayajidda or (Abu Yazid according to certain Nigerien historians) who came from Baghdad. The seven original Hausa states (often referred to as the 'Hausa bakwai') were: Daura (state of queen Daurama), Kano, Rano, Zaria, Gobir, Katsina and Biram.[45][20][55] An extension of the legend states that Bawo had a further seven sons with a concubine, who went on to the found the so-called 'Banza (illegitmate) Bakwai': Zamfara, Kebbi, Nupe, Gwari, Yauri, Ilorin and Kwararafa.[55] A smaller state not fitting into this scheme was Konni, centred on Birni-N'Konni.[39]
+
+The Fulani (also called Peul, Fulbe etc.), a pastoral people found throughout the Sahel, began migrating to Hausaland during the 1200s–1500s.[46][54] During the later 18th century many Fulani were unhappy with the syncretic form of Islam practised there; exploiting also the populace's disdain with corruption amongst the Hausa elite, the Fulani scholar Usman Dan Fodio (from Gobir) declared a jihad in 1804.[39][20][56] After conquering most of Hausaland (though not the Bornu Kingdom, which remained independent) he proclaimed the Sokoto Caliphate in 1809.[54] Some of the Hausa states survived by fleeing south, such as the Katsina who moved to Maradi in the south of modern Niger.[46] Many of these surviving states harassed the Caliphate and a long period of small-scale wars and skirmishes commenced, with some states (such as Katsina and Gobir) maintaining independence, whereas elsewhere new ones were formed (such as the Sultanate of Tessaoua). The Caliphate managed to survive until, fatally weakened by the invasions of Chad-based warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, it finally fell to the British in 1903, with its lands later being partitioned between Britain and France.[57]
+
+Other smaller kingdoms of the period include the Dosso Kingdom, a Zarma polity founded in 1750 which resisted the rule of Hausa and Sokoto states; and the Dendi Kingdom on the Niger river, which had been founded by refugees fleeing the collapse of the Songhai Empire in 1591.[39]
+
+In the 19th century Europeans began to take a greater interest in Africa; several European explorers travelled in the area of modern Niger, such as Mungo Park (in 1805–06), the Oudney-Denham-Clapperton expedition (1822–25), Heinrich Barth (1850–55; with James Richardson and Adolf Overweg), Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs (1865–67), Gustav Nachtigal (1869–74) and Parfait-Louis Monteil (1890–92).[20]
+
+Several European countries already possessed littoral colonies in Africa, and in the latter half of the century they began to turn their eyes towards the interior of the continent. This process, known as the 'Scramble for Africa', culminated in the 1885 Berlin conference in which the colonial powers outlined the division of Africa into spheres of influence. As a result of this, France gained control of the upper valley of the Niger River (roughly equivalent to the areas of modern Mali and Niger).[58] France then set about making a reality of their rule on the ground. In 1897 the French officer Marius Gabriel Cazemajou was sent to Niger; he reached the Sultanate of Damagaram in 1898 and stayed in Zinder at the court of Sultan Amadou Kouran Daga—however he was later killed as Daga feared he would ally with the Chad-based warlord Rabih az-Zubayr.[39] In 1899–1900 France coordinated three expeditions—the Gentil Mission from French Congo, the Foureau-Lamy Mission from Algeria and the Voulet–Chanoine Mission from Timbuktu—with the aim of linking France's African possessions.[58] The three eventually met at Kousséri (in the far north of Cameroon) and defeated Rabih az-Zubayr's forces at the Battle of Kousséri. The Voulet-Chanoine Mission was marred by numerous atrocities, and became notorious for pillaging, looting, raping and killing many local civilians on its passage throughout southern Niger.[39][20] On 8 May 1899, in retaliation for the resistance of queen Sarraounia, captain Voulet and his men murdered all the inhabitants of the village of Birni-N'Konni in what is regarded as one of the worst massacres in French colonial history.[39] The brutal methods of Voulet and Chanoine caused a scandal and Paris was forced to intervene; however when Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-François Klobb caught up with the mission near Tessaoua to relieve them of command he was killed. Lt. Paul Joalland, Klobb's former officer, and Lt. Octave Meynier eventually took over the mission following a mutiny in which Voulet and Chanoine were killed.[20]
+
+The Military Territory of Niger was subsequently created within the Upper Senegal and Niger colony (modern Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger) in December 1904 with its capital at Niamey, then little more than a large village.[20] The border with Britain's colony of Nigeria to the south was finalised in 1910, a rough delimitation having already been agreed by the two powers via several treaties during the period 1898–1906.[58] The capital of the territory was moved to Zinder in 1912 when the Niger Military Territory was split off from Upper Senegal and Niger, before being moved back to Niamey in 1922 when Niger became a fully-fledged colony within French West Africa.[20][39] The borders of Niger were drawn up in various stages and had been fixed at their current position by the late 1930s. Various territorial adjustments took place in this period: the areas west of the Niger river were only attached to Niger in 1926–27, and during the dissolution of Upper Volta (modern Burkina Faso) in 1932–47 much of the east of that territory was added to Niger;[59][39] and in the east the Tibesti Mountains were transferred to Chad in 1931.[60]
+
+The French generally adopted a form of indirect rule, allowing existing native structures to continue to exist within the colonial framework of governance providing that they acknowledged French supremacy.[20] The Zarma of the Dosso Kingdom in particular proved amenable to French rule, using them as allies against the encroachments of Hausa and other nearby states; over time the Zarma thus became one of the more educated and westernised groups in Niger.[39] However, perceived threats to French rule, such as the Kobkitanda rebellion in Dosso Region (1905–06), led by the blind cleric Alfa Saibou, and the Karma revolt in the Niger valley (December 1905–March 1906) led by Oumarou Karma were suppressed with force, as were the latter Hamallayya and Hauka religious movements.[20][39][61] Though largely successful in subduing the sedentary populations of the south, the French faced considerably more difficulty with the Tuareg in the north (centered on the Sultanate of Aïr in Agadez), and France was unable to occupy Agadez until 1906.[20] Tuareg resistance continued however, culminating in the Kaocen revolt of 1916–17, led by Ag Mohammed Wau Teguidda Kaocen, with backing from the Senussi in Fezzan; the revolt was violently suppressed and Kaocen fled to Fezzan, where he was later killed.[39] A puppet sultan was set up by the French and the decline and marginalisation of the north of the colony continued, exacerbated by a series of droughts.[39] Though it remained something of a backwater, some limited economic development took place in Niger during the colonial years, such as the introduction of groundnut cultivation.[20] Various measures to improve food security following a series of devastating famines in 1913, 1920 and 1931 were also introduced.[20][39]
+
+During the Second World War, during which time mainland France was occupied by Nazi Germany, Charles de Gaulle issued the Brazzaville Declaration, declaring that the French colonial empire would be replaced post-war with a less centralised French Union.[62] The French Union, which lasted from 1946–58, conferred a limited form of French citizenship on the inhabitants of the colonies, with some decentralisation of power and limited participation in political life for local advisory assemblies. It was during this period that the Nigerien Progressive Party (Parti Progressiste Nigérien, or PPN, originally a branch of the African Democratic Rally, or Rassemblement Démocratique Africain – RDA) was formed under the leadership of former teacher Hamani Diori, as well as the left-wing Mouvement Socialiste Africain-Sawaba (MSA) led by Djibo Bakary. Following the Overseas Reform Act (Loi Cadre) of 23 July 1956 and the establishment of the Fifth French Republic on 4 December 1958, Niger became an autonomous state within the French Community. On 18 December 1958, an autonomous Republic of Niger was officially created under the leadership of Hamani Diori. The MSA was banned in 1959 for its perceived excessive anti-French stance.[63] On 11 July 1960, Niger decided to leave the French Community and acquired full independence on 3 August 1960; Diori thus became the first president of the country.
+
+For its first 14 years as an independent state Niger was run by a single-party civilian regime under the presidency of Hamani Diori.[64] The 1960s were largely peaceful, and saw a large expansion of the education system and some limited economic development and industrialisation.[39] Links with France remained deep, with Diori allowing the development of French-led uranium mining in Arlit and supporting France in the Algerian War.[39] Relations with other African states were mostly positive, with the exception of Dahomey (Benin), owing to an ongoing border dispute. Niger remained a one-party state throughout this period, with Diori surviving a planned coup in 1963 and an assassination attempt in 1965; much of this activity was masterminded by Djibo Bakary's MSA-Sawaba group, which had launched an abortive rebellion in 1964.[39][65] In the early 1970s, a combination of economic difficulties, devastating droughts and accusations of rampant corruption and mismanagement of food supplies resulted in a coup d'état that overthrew the Diori regime.
+
+The coup had been masterminded by Col. Seyni Kountché and a small military group under the name of the Conseil Militaire Supreme, with Kountché going on to rule the country until his death in 1987.[39] The first action of the military government was to address the food crisis.[66] Whilst political prisoners of the Diori regime were released after the coup and the country was stabilised, political and individual freedoms in general deteriorated during this period. There were several attempted coups (in 1975, 1976 and 1984) which were thwarted, their instigators being severely punished.[39]
+
+Despite the restriction in freedom, the country enjoyed improved economic development as Kountché sought to create a 'development society', funded largely by the uranium mines in Agadez Region.[39] Several parastatal companies were created, major infrastructure (building and new roads, schools, health centres) constructed, and there was minimal corruption in government agencies, which Kountché did not hesitate to punish severely.[67] In the 1980s Kountché began cautiously loosening the grip of the military, with some relaxation of state censorship and attempts made to 'civilianise' the regime.[39] However the economic boom ended following the collapse in uranium prices, and IMF-led austerity and privatisation measures provoked opposition by many Nigerians.[39] In 1985 a small Tuareg revolt in Tchintabaraden was suppressed.[39] Kountché died in November 1987 from a brain tumour, and was succeeded by his Chief of Staff, Col. Ali Saibou, who was confirmed as Chief of the Supreme Military Council four days later.[39]
+
+Saibou significantly curtailed the most repressive aspects of the Kountché era (such as the secret police and media censorship), and set about introducing a process of political reform under the overall direction of a single party (the Mouvement National pour la Société du Développement, or MNSD).[39] A Second Republic was declared and a new constitution was drawn up, which was adopted following a referendum in 1989.[39] General Saibou became the first president of the Second Republic after winning the presidential election on 10 December 1989.[68]
+
+President Saibou's efforts to control political reforms failed in the face of trade union and student demands to institute a multi-party democratic system. On 9 February 1990, a violently repressed student march in Niamey led to the death of three students, which led to increased national and international pressure for further democratic reform.[39] The Saibou regime acquiesced to these demands by the end of 1990.[39] Meanwhile, trouble re-emerged in Agadez Region when a group of armed Tuaregs attacked the town of Tchintabaraden (generally seen as the start of the first Tuareg Rebellion), prompting a severe military crackdown which led to many deaths (the precise numbers are disputed, with estimates ranging from 70 to up to 1,000).[39]
+
+The National Sovereign Conference of 1991 marked a turning point in the post-independence history of Niger and brought about multi-party democracy. From 29 July to 3 November, a national conference gathered together all elements of society to make recommendations for the future direction of the country. The conference was presided over by Prof. André Salifou and developed a plan for a transitional government; this was then installed in November 1991 to manage the affairs of state until the institutions of the Third Republic were put into place in April 1993. After the National Sovereign Conference, the transitional government drafted a new constitution that eliminated the previous single-party system of the 1989 Constitution and guaranteed more freedoms. The new constitution was adopted by a referendum on 26 December 1992.[69] Following this, presidential elections were held and Mahamane Ousmane became the first president of the Third Republic on 27 March 1993.[39][68] Ousmane's presidency was characterised by political turbulence, with four government changes and early legislative elections in 1995, as well a severe economic slump which the coalition government proved unable to effectively address.[39]
+
+The violence in Agadez Region continued during this period, prompting the Nigerien government to sign a truce with Tuareg rebels in 1992 which was however ineffective owing to internal dissension within the Tuareg ranks.[39] Another rebellion, led by dissatisfied Toubou peoples claiming that, like the Tuareg, the Nigerien government had neglected their region, broke out in the east of the country.[39] In April 1995 a peace deal with the main Tuareg rebel group was signed, with the government agreeing to absorb some former rebels into the military and, with French assistance, help others return to a productive civilian life.[70]
+
+The governmental paralysis prompted the military to intervene; on 27 January 1996, Col. Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara led a coup that deposed President Ousmane and ended the Third Republic.[71][72] Maïnassara headed a Conseil de Salut National (National Salvation Council) composed of military official which carried out a six-month transition period, during which a new constitution was drafted and adopted on 12 May 1996.[39]
+
+Presidential campaigns were organised in the months that followed. Maïnassara entered the campaign as an independent candidate and won the election on 8 July 1996, however the elections were viewed nationally and internationally as irregular, as the electoral commission was replaced during the campaign.[39] Meanwhile, Maïnassara instigated an IMF and World Bank-approved privatisation programme which enriched many of his supporters but were opposed by the trade unions.[39] Following fraudulent local elections in 1999 the opposition ceased any cooperation with the Maïnassara regime.[39] In unclear circumstance (possibly attempting to flee the country), Maïnassara was assassinated at Niamey Airport on 9 April 1999.[73][74]
+
+Maj. Daouda Malam Wanké then took over, establishing a transitional National Reconciliation Council to oversee the drafting of a constitution with a French-style semi-presidential system. This was adopted on 9 August 1999 and was followed by presidential and legislative elections in October and November of the same year.[75] The elections were generally found to be free and fair by international observers. Wanké then withdrew from governmental affairs.[39]
+
+After winning the election in November 1999, President Tandja Mamadou was sworn in office on 22 December 1999 as the first president of the Fifth Republic. Mamadou brought about many administrative and economic reforms that had been halted due to the military coups since the Third Republic, as well as helped peacefully resolve a decades-long boundary dispute with Benin.[76][77] In August 2002, serious unrest within military camps occurred in Niamey, Diffa, and Nguigmi, but the government was able to restore order within several days. On 24 July 2004, the first municipal elections in the history of Niger were held to elect local representatives, previously appointed by the government. These elections were followed by presidential elections, in which Mamadou was re-elected for a second term, thus becoming the first president of the republic to win consecutive elections without being deposed by military coups.[39][78] The legislative and executive configuration remained quite similar to that of the first term of the President: Hama Amadou was reappointed as Prime Minister and Mahamane Ousmane, the head of the CDS party, was re-elected as the President of the National Assembly (parliament) by his peers.
+
+By 2007, the relationship between President Tandja Mamadou and his prime minister had deteriorated, leading to the replacement of the latter in June 2007 by Seyni Oumarou following a successful vote of no confidence at the Assembly.[39] The political environment worsened in the following year as President Tandja Mamadou sought out to extend his presidency by modifying the constitution which limited presidential terms in Niger. Proponents of the extended presidency, rallied behind the 'Tazartche' (Hausa for 'overstay') movement, were countered by opponents ('anti-Tazartche') composed of opposition party militants and civil society activists.[39]
+
+The situation in the north also deteriorated significantly in this period, resulting in the outbreak of a Second Tuareg Rebellion in 2007 led by the Mouvement des Nigériens pour la justice (MNJ). Despite a number of high-profile kidnappings the rebellion had largely fizzled out inconclusively by 2009.[39] However the poor security situation in the region is thought to have allowed elements of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to gain a foothold in the country.[39]
+
+In 2009, President Tandja Mamadou decided to organize a constitutional referendum seeking to extend his presidency, which was opposed by other political parties, as well as being against the decision of the Constitutional Court which had ruled that the referendum would be unconstitutional. Mamadou then modified and adopted a new constitution by referendum, which was declared illegal by the Constitutional Court, prompting Mamadou to dissolve the Court and assume emergency powers.[79][80] The opposition boycotted the referendum and the new constitution was adopted with 92.5% of voters and a 68% turnout, according to official results. The adoption of the new constitution created a Sixth Republic, with a presidential system, as well as the suspension of the 1999 Constitution and a three-year interim government with Tandja Mamadou as president. The events generated severe political and social unrest throughout the country.[39]
+
+In a coup d'état in February 2010, a military junta led by captain Salou Djibo was established in response to Tandja's attempted extension of his political term by modifying the constitution.[81] The Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, led by General Salou Djibo, carried out a one-year transition plan, drafted a new constitution and held elections in 2011 that were judged internationally as free and fair.
+
+Following the adoption of a new constitution in 2010 and presidential elections a year later, Mahamadou Issoufou was elected as the first president of the Seventh Republic; he was then re-elected in 2016.[82][39] An attempted coup against him in 2011 was thwarted and its ringleaders arrested.[83] Issoufou's time in office has been marked by numerous threats to the country's security, stemming from the fallout from the Libyan Civil War and Northern Mali conflict, a rise in attacks by AQIM, the use of Niger as a transit country for migrants (often organised by criminal gangs), and the spillover of Nigeria's Boko Haram insurgency into south-eastern Niger.[84] French and American forces are currently assisting Niger in countering these threats.[85]
+
+Niger is a landlocked nation in West Africa located along the border between the Sahara and Sub-Saharan regions. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east.
+
+Niger lies between latitudes 11° and 24°N, and longitudes 0° and 16°E. Niger's area is 1,267,000 square kilometres (489,191 sq mi) of which 300 square kilometres (116 sq mi) is water. This makes it slightly less than twice the size of France, and the world's twenty-second largest country.[86]
+
+Niger borders seven countries and has a total perimeter of 5,697 kilometres (3,540 mi). The longest border is with Nigeria to the south (1,497 km or 930 mi). This is followed by Chad to the east, at 1,175 km (730 mi), Algeria to the north-northwest (956 km or 594 mi), and Mali at 821 km (510 mi). Niger also has small borders in its far southwest with Burkina Faso at 628 km (390 mi) and Benin at 266 km (165 mi) and to the north-northeast Libya at 354 km (220 mi).
+
+The lowest point is the Niger River, with an elevation of 200 metres (656 ft). The highest point is Mont Idoukal-n-Taghès in the Aïr Mountains at 2,022 m (6,634 ft).
+
+Niger's subtropical climate is mainly very hot and very dry, with much desert area. In the extreme south there is a tropical climate on the edges of the Niger River basin. The terrain is predominantly desert plains and sand dunes, with flat to rolling savanna in the south and hills in the north.
+
+The north of Niger is covered by large deserts and semi deserts. The typical mammal fauna consists of Addax antelopes, Scimitar-horned oryx, gazelles and in mountains Barbary sheep. One of the largest reserves of the world, the Aïr and Ténéré National Nature Reserve, was founded in the northern parts of the Niger to protect these rare species.
+
+The southern parts of Niger are naturally dominated savannahs. The W National Park, situated in the bordering area to Burkina Faso and Benin, belongs to one of the most important areas for wildlife in Western Africa, which is called the WAP (W–Arli–Pendjari) Complex. It has the most important population of the rare West African lion and one of the last populations of the Northwest African cheetah.
+
+Other wildlife includes elephants, buffaloes, roan antelopes, kob antelopes and warthogs. The West African giraffe is currently not found in the W National Park, but further north in Niger, where it has its last relict population.
+
+Environmental issues in Niger include destructive farming practices as a result of population pressure. Illegal hunting, bush fires in some areas and human encroachment upon the flood plains of the Niger River for paddy cultivation are environmental issues. Dams constructed on the Niger River in the neighboring countries of Mali and Guinea and also within Niger itself are also cited as a reason for a reduction of water flow in the Niger River—which has a direct effect upon the environment. A lack of adequate staff to guard wildlife in the parks and reserves is another factor cited for loss of wildlife.[87]
+
+Niger's new constitution was approved on 31 October 2010. It restored the semi-presidential system of government of the 1999 constitution (Fifth Republic) in which the president of the republic, elected by universal suffrage for a five-year term, and a prime minister named by the president share executive power.
+
+As a reflection of Niger's increasing population, the unicameral National Assembly was expanded in 2004 to 113 deputies elected for a five-year term under a majority system of representation. Political parties must attain at least 5 percent of the vote in order to gain a seat in the legislature.
+
+The constitution also provides for the popular election of municipal and local officials, and the first-ever successful municipal elections took place on 24 July 2004. The National Assembly passed in June 2002 a series of decentralization bills. As a first step, administrative powers will be distributed among 265 communes (local councils); in later stages, regions and departments will be established as decentralized entities. A new electoral code was adopted to reflect the decentralization context. The country is currently divided into 8 regions, which are subdivided into 36 districts (departments). The chief administrator (Governor) in each department is appointed by the government and functions primarily as the local agent of the central authorities.
+
+On 26 May 2009, President Tandja dissolved parliament after the country's constitutional court ruled against plans to hold a referendum on whether to allow him a third term in office. According to the constitution, a new parliament was elected within three months.[88] This began a political struggle between Tandja, trying to extend his term-limited authority beyond 2009 through the establishment of a Sixth Republic, and his opponents who demanded that he step down at the end of his second term in December 2009. See 2009 Nigerien constitutional crisis. The military took over the country and President Tandja was put in prison, charged with corruption.
+
+The military kept their promise to return the country to democratic civilian rule. A constitutional referendum and national elections were held. A presidential election was held on 31 January 2011, but as no clear winner emerged, run-off elections were held on 12 March 2011. Mahamadou Issoufou of the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism was elected president. A parliamentary election was held at the same time.[89][90][91]
+
+Niger pursues a moderate foreign policy and maintains friendly relations with the West and the Islamic world as well as non-aligned countries. It belongs to the UN and its main specialized agencies and in 1980–81 served on the UN Security Council. Niger maintains a special relationship with former colonial power France and has close relations with its West African neighbors.
+
+It is a charter member of the African Union and the West African Monetary Union and also belongs to the Niger Basin Authority and Lake Chad Basin Commission, the Economic Community of West African States, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). The westernmost regions of Niger are joined with contiguous regions of Mali and Burkina Faso under the Liptako-Gourma Authority.
+
+The border dispute with Benin, inherited from colonial times and concerning inter alia Lété Island in the Niger River, was solved by the International Court of Justice in 2005 to Niger's advantage.
+
+Government finance is derived revenue exports (Mining, oil and agricultural exports) as well as various forms of taxes collected by the government. In the past, foreign aid has contributed to large percentages of the budget. In 2013, Niger's government has adopted a zero-deficit budget of 1.279 trillion CFA francs ($2.53 billion) which is claimed to balance revenues and expenditures by an 11% reduction in the budget from the previous year.[92]
+
+The 2014 budget was 1.867 trillion CFA which is distributed as follows according to: public debt (76,703,692,000 CFA), personnel expenditures (210,979,633,960 CFA), operating expenditures (128,988,777,711 CFA); subsidies and transfers: 308,379,641,366 CFA) and Investment (1,142,513,658,712 CFA).[93]
+
+The importance of external support for Niger's development is demonstrated by the fact that about 45% of the government's FY 2002 budget, including 80% of its capital budget, derives from donor resources.[94] The most important donors in Niger are France, the European Union, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and various United Nations agencies (UNDP, UNICEF, FAO, World Food Program, and United Nations Population Fund).
+
+Other principal donors include the United States, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and Saudi Arabia. While USAID does not have an office in Niger, the United States is a major donor, contributing nearly $10 million each year to Niger's development. The U.S. also is a major partner in policy coordination in such areas as food security and HIV/AIDS.
+
+The current Judiciary of Niger was established with the creation of the Fourth Republic in 1999. The constitution of December 1992 was revised by national referendum on 12 May 1996 and, again, by referendum, revised to the current version on 18 July 1999. It is based on the Code Napoleon "Inquisitorial system", established in Niger during French colonial rule and the 1960 Constitution of Niger. The Court of Appeals reviews questions of fact and law, while the Supreme Court reviews application of the law and constitutional questions. The High Court of Justice (HCJ) deals with cases involving senior government officials. The justice system also includes civil criminal courts, customary courts, traditional mediation, and a military court.[95] The military court provides the same rights as civil criminal courts; however, customary courts do not. The military court cannot try civilians.[96]
+
+Law enforcement in Niger is the responsibility of the Ministry of Defense through the National Gendarmerie and the Ministry of the Interior through the National Police and the National Guard. The National Police is primarily responsible for law enforcement in urban areas. Outside big cities and in rural areas, this responsibility falls on the National Gendarmerie and the National Guard.
+
+The Niger Armed Forces (Forces armées nigériennes) are the military and paramilitary forces of Niger, under the president as supreme commander. They consist of the Niger Army (Armée de Terre), the Niger Air Force (Armée de l'Air) and the auxiliary paramilitary forces, such as the National Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie nationale) and the National Guard (Garde Nationale). Both paramilitary forces are trained in military fashion and have some military responsibilities in wartime. In peace time their duties are mostly policing duties.
+
+The armed forces are composed of approximately 12,900 personnel, including 3,700 gendarmes, 3200 national guards, 300 air force personnel, and 6,000 army personnel. The armed forces of Niger have been involved several military coups over the years with the most recent in 2010. Niger's armed forces have a long history of military cooperation with France and the United States. As of 2013[update], Niamey is home to a U.S. drone base.
+
+Niger is divided into 7 Regions and one capital district. These Regions are subdivided into 36 departments. The 36 Departments are currently broken down into Communes of varying types. As of 2006[update] there were 265 communes, including communes urbaines (Urban Communes: as subdivisions of major cities), communes rurales (Rural Communes), in sparsely populated areas and postes administratifs (Administrative Posts) for largely uninhabited desert areas or military zones.
+
+Rural communes may contain official villages and settlements, while Urban Communes are divided into quarters. Niger subvisions were renamed in 2002, in the implementation of a decentralisation project, first begun in 1998. Previously, Niger was divided into 7 Departments, 36 Arrondissements, and Communes. These subdivisions were administered by officials appointed by the national government. These offices will be replaced in the future by democratically elected councils at each level.
+
+The pre-2002 departments (renamed as regions) and capital district are:
+
+The economy of Niger centers on subsistence crops, livestock, and some of the world's largest uranium deposits. Drought cycles, desertification, a 2.9% population growth rate, and the drop in world demand for uranium have undercut the economy.
+
+Niger shares a common currency, the CFA franc, and a common central bank, the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), with seven other members of the West African Monetary Union. Niger is also a member of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA).[98]
+
+In December 2000, Niger qualified for enhanced debt relief under the International Monetary Fund program for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and concluded an agreement with the Fund for Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). Debt relief provided under the enhanced HIPC initiative significantly reduces Niger's annual debt service obligations, freeing funds for expenditures on basic health care, primary education, HIV/AIDS prevention, rural infrastructure, and other programs geared at poverty reduction.
+
+In December 2005, it was announced that Niger had received 100% multilateral debt relief from the IMF, which translates into the forgiveness of approximately US$86 million in debts to the IMF, excluding the remaining assistance under HIPC. Nearly half of the government's budget is derived from foreign donor resources. Future growth may be sustained by exploitation of oil, gold, coal, and other mineral resources. Uranium prices have recovered somewhat in the last few years. A drought and locust infestation in 2005 led to food shortages for as many as 2.5 million Nigeriens.
+
+As of 2018[update], the population of Niger was 22,442,831[15][16]. Expanding from a population of 3.4 million in 1960, Niger's population has rapidly increased with a current growth rate of 3.3% (7.1 children per mother).[99][100]
+
+This growth rate is one of the highest in the world and is a source of concern for the government and international agencies.[101] The population is predominantly young, with 49.2% under 15 years old and 2.7% over 65 years, and predominantly rural with only 21% living in urban areas.[99]
+
+A 2005 study stated that over 800,000 people (nearly 8% of the population) in Niger are enslaved.[102][103][104]
+
+Niger has a wide variety of ethnic groups as in most West African countries. The ethnic makeup of Niger in 2001 is as follows: Hausa (55.4%), Zarma-Songhai (21%), Tuareg (9.3%), Fula (French: Peuls; Fula: Fulɓe) (8.5%), Kanuri Manga (4.7%), Tubu (0.4%), Arab (0.4%), Gourmantche (0.4%), other (0.1%).[99] The Zarma-Songhai dominate the Dosso, Tillabéri, and Niamey régions, the Hausa dominate the Zinder, Maradi, and Tahoua regions, Kanuri Manga dominate the Diffa region, and Touaregs dominate the Agadez region in Northern Niger.[106]
+
+French, inherited from the colonial period, is the official language. It is spoken mainly as a second language by people who have received a formal western education and serves as the administrative language. Niger has been a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie since 1970.
+
+Niger has ten recognized national languages, namely Arabic, Buduma, Fulfulde, Gourmanchéma, Hausa, Kanuri, Zarma & Songhai, Tamasheq, Tassawaq, Tebu.[1] Each is spoken as a first language primarily by the ethnic group with which it is associated.[107][108] Hausa and Zarma-Songhai, the two most spoken languages, are widely spoken throughout the country as first or second languages.
+
+Niger is a secular country and separation of state and religion is guaranteed by Articles 3 and 175 of the 2010 Constitution, which dictate that future amendments or revisions may not modify the secular nature of the republic of Niger. Religious freedom is protected by Article 30 of the same constitution. Islam, widespread in the region since the 10th century, has greatly shaped the culture and mores of the people of Niger. Islam is the most dominant religion, practiced by 99.3% of the population according to the 2012 census.[109]
+
+The other two main religions of Niger are Christianity, practiced by 0.3% of the population, and Animism (traditional indigenous religious beliefs), practiced by 0.2% of the population.[109] Christianity was established earlier in the country by missionaries during the French colonial years. Other urban Christian expatriate communities from Europe and West Africa are also presented. Religious persecution is rare in Niger which is ranked last (#50) on the World Watch List for severity of persecution that Christians face for actively pursuing their faith.
+
+The numbers of Animist practitioners are a point of contention. As recently as the late 19th century, much of the south center of the nation was unreached by Islam, and the conversion of some rural areas has been only partial. There are still areas where animist based festivals and traditions (such as the Bori religion) are practiced by syncretic Muslim communities (in some Hausa areas as well as among some Toubou and Wodaabe pastoralists), as opposed to several small communities who maintain their pre-Islamic religion. These include the Hausa-speaking Maouri (or Azna, the Hausa word for "pagan") community in Dogondoutci in the south-southwest and the Kanuri speaking Manga near Zinder, both of whom practice variations of the pre-Islamic Hausa Maguzawa religion. There are also some tiny Boudouma and Songhay animist communities in the southwest.[110]
+
+The majority of Muslims in Niger are Sunni, 7% are Shi'a, 5% are Ahmadiyya and 20% non-denominational.[111][112] Islam was spread into what is now Niger beginning in the 15th century, by both the expansion of the Songhai Empire in the west, and the influence of the Trans-Saharan trade traveling from the Maghreb and Egypt. Tuareg expansion from the north, culminating in their seizure of the far eastern oases from the Kanem-Bornu Empire in the 17th centuries, spread distinctively Berber practices.
+
+Both Zarma and Hausa areas were greatly influenced by the 18th- and 19th-century Fula led Sufi brotherhoods, most notably the Sokoto Caliphate (in today's Nigeria). Modern Muslim practice in Niger is often tied to the Tijaniya Sufi brotherhoods, although there are small minority groups tied to Hammallism and Nyassist Sufi orders in the west, and the Sanusiya in the far northeast.[110]
+
+A small center of followers of Salafi movement within Sunni Islam have appeared in the last thirty years, in the capital and in Maradi.[113] These small groups, linked to similar groups in Jos, Nigeria, came to public prominence in the 1990s during a series of religious riots.[114][115][116]
+
+Despite this, Niger maintains a tradition as a secular state, protected by law.[117] Interfaith relations are deemed very good, and the forms of Islam traditionally practiced in most of the country are marked by tolerance of other faiths and lack of restrictions on personal freedom.[118] Divorce and polygyny are unremarkable, women are not secluded, and head coverings are not mandatory—they are often a rarity in urban areas.[119] Alcohol, such as the locally produced Bière Niger, is sold openly in most of the country.
+
+The literacy rate of Niger is among the lowest in the world; in 2005 it was estimated to be only 28.7% (42.9% male and 15.1% female).[120] Primary education in Niger is compulsory for six years.[121] The primary school enrollment and attendance rates are low, particularly for girls.[121] In 1997, the gross primary enrollment rate was 29.3 percent, and in 1996, the net primary enrollment rate was 24.5 percent.[121]
+
+About 60 percent of children who finish primary schools are boys, as the majority of girls rarely attend school for more than a few years.[121] Children are often forced to work rather than attend school, particularly during planting or harvest periods.[121] Nomadic children in the north of the country often do not have access to schools.[121]
+
+The child mortality rate in Niger (deaths among children between the ages of 1 and 4) is high (248 per 1,000) due to generally poor health conditions and inadequate nutrition for most of the country's children. According to the organization Save the Children, Niger has the world's highest infant mortality rate.[122]
+
+Niger also has the highest fertility rate in the world (6.49 births per woman according to 2017 estimates[123]); this means that nearly half (49%) of the Nigerien population is under age 15. Niger has the 11th highest maternal mortality rate in the world at 820 deaths/100,000 live births.[124] There were 3 physicians and 22 nurses per 100,000 persons in 2006.[125]
+
+Nigerien culture is marked by variation, evidence of the cultural crossroads which French colonialism formed into a unified state from the beginning of the 20th century. What is now Niger was created from four distinct cultural areas in the pre-colonial era: the Zarma dominated Niger River valley in the southwest; the northern periphery of Hausaland, made mostly of those states which had resisted the Sokoto Caliphate, and ranged along the long southern border with Nigeria; the Lake Chad basin and Kaouar in the far east, populated by Kanuri farmers and Toubou pastoralists who had once been part of the Kanem-Bornu Empire; and the Tuareg nomads of the Aïr Mountains and Saharan desert in the vast north.
+
+Each of these communities, along with smaller ethnic groups like the pastoral Wodaabe Fula, brought their own cultural traditions to the new state of Niger. While successive post-independence governments have tried to forge a shared national culture, this has been slow forming, in part because the major Nigerien communities have their own cultural histories, and in part because Nigerien ethnic groups such as the Hausa, Tuareg and Kanuri are but part of larger ethnic communities which cross borders introduced under colonialism.
+
+Until the 1990s, government and politics was inordinately dominated by Niamey and the Zarma people of the surrounding region. At the same time the plurality of the population, in the Hausa borderlands between Birni-N'Konni and Maine-Soroa, have often looked culturally more to Hausaland in Nigeria than Niamey. Between 1996 and 2003, primary school attendance was around 30%,[126] including 36% of males and only 25% of females. Additional education occurs through madrasas.
+
+The Guérewol festival is a traditional Wodaabe cultural event that takes place in Abalak in Tahoua region or In'Gall in Agadez Region. It is an annual traditional courtship ritual practiced by the Wodaabe (Fula) people of Niger. During this ceremony, young men dressed in elaborate ornamentation and made up in traditional face painting gather in lines to dance and sing, vying for the attention of marriageable young women. The Guérewol festival is an international attraction and was featured in films and magazines as prominent as the National Geographic.
+
+"La Cure salée" (English: Salt Cure) is a yearly festival of Tuareg and Wodaabe nomads in In'Gall in Agadez Region traditionally to celebrate the end of the rainy season. For three days, the festival features a parade of Tuareg camel riders followed with camel and horse races, songs, dances, and storytelling.
+
+Niger began developing diverse media in the late 1990s. Prior to the Third Republic, Nigeriens only had access to tightly controlled state media.[127] Now Niamey contains scores of newspapers and magazines; some, like Le Sahel, are government operated, while many are critical of the government.[128][129] Radio is the most important medium, as television sets are beyond the buying power of many of the rural poor, and illiteracy prevents print media from becoming a mass medium.[87]
+
+In addition to the national and regional radio services of the state broadcaster ORTN, there are four privately owned radio networks which total more than 100 stations. Three of them—the Anfani Group, Sarounia and Tenere—are urban-based commercial-format FM networks in the major towns.[130] There is also a network of over 80 community radio stations spread across all seven regions of the country, governed by the Comité de Pilotage de Radios de Proximité (CPRP), a civil society organisation. The independent-sector radio networks are collectively estimated by CPRP officials to cover some 7.6 million people, or about 73% of the population (2005).
+
+Aside from Nigerien radio stations, the BBC's Hausa service is listened to on FM repeaters across wide parts of the country, particularly in the south, close to the border with Nigeria. Radio France Internationale also rebroadcasts in French through some of the commercial stations, via satellite. Tenere FM also runs a national independent television station of the same name.[130]
+
+Despite relative freedom at the national level, Nigerien journalists say they are often pressured by local authorities.[131] The state ORTN network depends financially on the government, partly through a surcharge on electricity bills, and partly through direct subsidy. The sector is governed by the Conseil Supérieur de Communications, established as an independent body in the early 1990s, since 2007 headed by Daouda Diallo. International human rights groups have criticised the government since at least 1996 as using regulation and police to punish criticism of the state.[132][133]
+
+Trade

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+Nigeria (/naɪˈdʒɪəriə/ (listen)), officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a sovereign country located in West Africa bordering Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located.
+
+Nigeria has been home to a number of ancient and indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms over the millennia. The modern state originated from British colonial rule beginning in the 19th century, and took its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Frederick Lugard. The British set up administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms; Nigeria became a formally independent federation on October 1, 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970. It thereafter alternated between democratically-elected civilian governments and military dictatorships until it achieved a stable democracy in 1999, with the 2015 presidential election marking the first time an incumbent president had lost re-election.[6]
+
+A multinational state, Nigeria is inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups with over 500 distinct languages all identifying with a wide variety of cultures.[7][8][9] The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east; comprising over 60% of the total population.[10] The official language of Nigeria is English, chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level.[11] Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Christians, who live mostly in the southern part of the country, and Muslims, who live mostly in the north. Nigeria has respectively, the fifth-largest Muslim population in the world and the sixth-largest Christian population in the world,[12] with the constitution ensuring freedom of religion.[13] A minority of the population practice religions indigenous to Nigeria, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities.[14]
+
+Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa[15][16] and the seventh most populous country in the world, with an estimated 206 million inhabitants as of late 2019.[17] Nigeria has the third-largest youth population in the world, after India and China, with more than 90 million of its population under the age of eighteen.[18][19] Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa and is the world's 24th largest economy according to the list by the IMF (2020 estimates), worth more than $500 billion and $1 trillion in terms of nominal GDP and purchasing power parity, respectively.[20][21] The 2013 debt-to-GDP ratio was 11 percent as of 2019 it has risen to an approximated figure of 16 percent.[22] Nigeria is a lower middle-income economy with a gross national income per capita between $1,026 and $3,986.[23] Nigeria is often referred to as the "Giant of Africa", owing to its large population and economy,[24] it is also considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank;[25] it has been identified as a regional power on the African continent,[26][27][28] a middle power in international affairs,[29][30][31][32] and has also been identified as an emerging global power.[33][34][35] However, its Human Development Index ranks 158th in the world.
+
+Nigeria is a member of the MINT group of countries, which are widely seen as the globe's next "BRIC-like" economies. It is also listed among the "Next Eleven" economies set to become among the biggest in the world. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many other international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the ECOWAS, and OPEC.
+
+The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was coined on January 8, 1897 by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The origin of the name Niger, which originally applied to only the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name egerew n-igerewen used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu prior to 19th-century European colonialism.[36]Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
+[37][38][39][40] and smelted iron by about 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier.[41][42][43] Evidence of iron smelting has also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria: dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja (Uzomaka 2009)[44] and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi. The Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911.[45][46] Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture. Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri.[47] In West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost-wax process were from Igbo-Ukwu, a city under Nri influence.[45] The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th[48][49] and 14th[50] centuries, respectively. The oldest signs of human settlement at Ife's current site date back to the 9th century,[48] and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures.
+
+The Kano Chronicle highlights an ancient history dating to around 999 AD of the Hausa Sahelian city-state of Kano, with other major Hausa cities (or Hausa Bakwai) of: Daura, Hadeija, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Rano, and Gobir all having recorded histories dating back to the 10th century. With the spread of Islam from the 7th century AD, the area became known as Sudan or as Bilad Al Sudan (English: Land of the Blacks; Arabic: بلاد السودان‎). Since the populations were partially affiliated with the Arab Muslim culture of North Africa, they started to trade and be referred to by the Arabic speakers as Al-Sudan (meaning "The Blacks") as they were considered an extended part of the Muslim world. There are early historical references by medieval Arab and Muslim historians and geographers which refer to the Kanem-Bornu Empire as the regions major centre for Islamic civilization. It is likely that the medieval Hausa Kingdoms formed trading ties with the Bornu Empire, which became increasingly wealthy as the main transshipment centre for the captured sub-Saharan African Zanj slaves along the Arab slave trade. Hausa rulers also likely provided Sudanic peoples as a tributary to the Bornu Empire in order to avert war with the Empire.
+
+In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to begin significant, direct trade with peoples of Southern Nigeria, at the port they named Lagos and in Calabar along the region Slave Coast. Europeans traded goods with peoples at the coast; coastal trade with Europeans also marked the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade.[51] The port of Calabar on the historical Bight of Biafra (now commonly referred to as the Bight of Bonny) became one of the largest slave trading posts in West Africa in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Other major slaving ports in Nigeria were located in Badagry, Lagos on the Bight of Benin and on Bonny Island on the Bight of Biafra.[51][52] The majority of those enslaved and taken to these ports were captured in raids and wars.[53] Usually the captives were taken back to the conquerors' territory as forced labour; after time, they were sometimes acculturated and absorbed into the conquerors' society. A number of slave routes were established throughout Nigeria linking the hinterland areas with the major coastal ports. Some of the more prolific slave trading kingdoms who participated in the transatlantic slave trade were linked with the Edo's Benin Empire in the south, Oyo Empire in the southwest, and the Aro Confederacy in the southeast.[51][52] Benin's power lasted between the 15th and 19th centuries. Their dominance reached as far as the city of Eko (an Edo name later changed to Lagos by the Portuguese) and further.[54] Oyo, at its territorial zenith in the late 17th to early 18th centuries, extended its influence from western Nigeria to modern-day Togo. The Edo's Benin Empire is located in southwestern Nigeria.
+
+In the north, the incessant fighting amongst the Hausa city-states and the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the Fulani people gaining headway into the region. Until this point, the Fulani a nomadic ethnic group primarily traversed the semi-desert Sahelian region, north of the Sudan, with cattle and avoided trade and intermingling with the Sudanic peoples. At the beginning of the 19th century, Usman dan Fodio led a successful jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms founding the centralised Sokoto Caliphate (also known as the Fulani Empire). The empire with Arabic as its official language grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast landlocked empire connected the East with the West Sudan region and made inroads down south conquering parts of the Oyo Empire (modern day Kwara), and advanced towards the Yoruba heartland of Ibadan, with the goal of reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The territory controlled by the Empire included much of modern-day northern and central Nigeria. The Sultan sent out emirs to establish a suzerainty over the conquered territories and promote Islamic civilization, the Emirs in turn became increasingly rich and powerful though trade and slavery. By the 1890s, the largest slave population in the world, about two million, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture.[55] By the time of its break-up in 1903 into various European colonies, the Sokoto Caliphate was one of the largest pre-colonial African states.[56]
+
+A changing legal imperative (transatlantic slave trade outlawed by Britain in 1807) and economic imperative (a desire for political and social stability) led most European powers to support widespread cultivation of agricultural products, such as the palm, for use in European industry. The Atlantic slave trade was engaged in by European companies until it was outlawed in 1807. After that illegal smugglers purchased slaves along the coast by native slavers. Britain's West Africa Squadron sought to intercept the smugglers at sea. The rescued slaves were taken to Freetown, a colony in West Africa originally established for the resettlement of freed slaves from Britain. Britain intervened in the Lagos Kingship power struggle by bombarding Lagos in 1851, deposing the slave trade friendly Oba Kosoko, helping to install the amenable Oba Akitoye, and signing the Treaty between Great Britain and Lagos on 1 January 1852. Britain annexed Lagos as a Crown Colony in August 1861 with the Lagos Treaty of Cession. British missionaries expanded their operations and traveled further inland. In 1864, Samuel Ajayi Crowther became the first African bishop of the Anglican Church.[57]
+
+In 1885, British claims to a West African sphere of influence received recognition from other European nations at the Berlin Conference. The following year, it chartered the Royal Niger Company under the leadership of Sir George Taubman Goldie. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the company had vastly succeeded in subjugating the independent southern kingdoms along the Niger River, the British conquered Benin in 1897, and, in the Anglo-Aro War (1901–1902), defeated other opponents. The defeat of these states opened up the Niger area to British rule. In 1900, the company's territory came under the direct control of the British government and established the Southern Nigeria Protectorate as a British protectorate and part of the British Empire, the foremost world power at the time.
+
+By 1902, the British had begun plans to move north into the Sokoto Caliphate. Lord Frederick Lugard a British general, was tasked by the Colonial Office to implement the agenda. Lugard used rivalries between many of the emirs in the southern reach of the caliphate and the central Sokoto administration to prevent any defense as he worked towards the capital. As the British approached the city of Sokoto, the new Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru I organized a quick defense of the city and fought the advancing British-led forces. The British force quickly won, sending Attahiru I and thousands of followers on a Mahdist hijra. In the northeast, the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the British-controlled Borno Emirate which established Abubakar Garbai of Borno as the ruler.
+
+In 1903, the British-victory in the Battle of Kano gave them a logistical edge in pacifying the heartland of the Sokoto Caliphate and parts of the former Bornu Empire. On March 13, 1903 at the grand market square of Sokoto, the last Vizier of the Caliphate officially conceded to British rule. The British appointed Muhammadu Attahiru II as the new Caliph. Fredrick Lugard abolished the Caliphate, but retained the title Sultan as a symbolic position in the newly organized Northern Nigeria Protectorate. This remnant became known as "Sokoto Sultanate Council". In June 1903, the British defeated the remaining forces of Attahiru I and killed him; by 1906 resistance to British rule had ended.
+
+Amalgamation
+
+On 1 January 1914, the British formally united the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Administratively, Nigeria remained divided into the Northern and Southern Protectorates and Lagos Colony. Inhabitants of the southern region sustained more interaction, economic and cultural, with the British and other Europeans owing to the coastal economy.[58]
+
+Christian missions established Western educational institutions in the Protectorates. Under Britain's policy of indirect rule and validation of Islamic tradition, the Crown did not encourage the operation of Christian missions in the northern, Islamic part of the country.[59] Some children of the southern elite went to Great Britain to pursue higher education. By independence in 1960, regional differences in modern educational access were marked. The legacy, though less pronounced, continues to the present day. Imbalances between North and South were expressed in Nigeria's political life as well. For instance, northern Nigeria did not outlaw slavery until 1936 whilst in other parts of Nigeria slavery was abolished soon after colonialism.[60][52]
+
+Following World War II, in response to the growth of Nigerian nationalism and demands for independence, successive constitutions legislated by the British government moved Nigeria toward self-government on a representative and increasingly federal basis. By the middle of the 20th century, a great wave for independence was sweeping across Africa. Nigeria achieved independence in 1960.[61]
+
+Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on 1 October 1960, as the Federation of Nigeria, while retaining the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as nominal head of state and Queen of Nigeria. Independent Nigeria's founding government was a coalition of conservative parties: the Northern People's Congress (NPC) led by Sir Ahmadu Bello, a party dominated by Muslim Northerners, and the Igbo and Christian-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) led by Nnamdi Azikiwe. Azikiwe replaced the colonial governor-general in November 1960. The opposition comprised the comparatively liberal Action Group (AG), which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. At independence, the cultural and political differences were sharp among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa–Fulani ('Northerners'), Igbo ('Easterners') and Yoruba ('Westerners').[62] An imbalance was created in the polity by the result of the 1961 plebiscite. Southern Cameroons (since renamed by separatists as Ambazonia) opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while Northern Cameroons chose to remain in Nigeria. The northern part of the country then became larger than the southern part. In 1963, the nation established a Federal Republic, with Azikiwe as its first president. When elections were held in 1965, the Nigerian National Democratic Party came to power in Nigeria's Western Region.
+
+The disequilibrium and perceived corruption of the electoral and political process led, in 1966, to back-to-back military coups. The first coup was in January 1966 and was led mostly by Igbo soldiers under Majors Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The coup plotters succeeded in assassinating Sir Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa alongside prominent leaders of the Northern Region and also Premier Samuel Akintola of the Western Region, but the coup plotters struggled to form a central government. President Nwafor Orizu handed over government control to the Army, then under the command of another Igbo officer, General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi. Later, the counter-coup of 1966, supported primarily by Northern military officers, facilitated the rise of Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon to head of state. Tension rose between North and South; Igbos in Northern cities suffered persecution and many fled to the Eastern Region.[63]
+
+In May 1967, the Southern Region declared independence as a state called the Republic of Biafra, under the leadership of Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu.[64] The Nigerian Civil War began as the official Nigerian government side attacked Biafra on 6 July 1967 at Garkem. The 30-month war, with a long siege of Biafra and its isolation from trade and supplies, ended in January 1970.[65] Estimates of the number of dead in the former Eastern Region during the 30-month civil war range from one to three million.[66] France, Egypt, the Soviet Union, Britain, Israel, and others were deeply involved in the civil war behind the scenes. Britain and the Soviet Union were the main military backers of the Nigerian government while France and others aided the Biafrans. The Congolese government, under President Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, took an early stand on the Biafran secession, voicing strong support for the Nigerian federal government[67] and deploying thousands of troops to fight against the secessionists.[68][69] Nigeria used Egyptian pilots for their air force.[70][71]
+
+Following the war, Nigeria enjoyed the oil boom of the 1970s, during which the country joined OPEC and received huge oil revenues. Despite these revenues, the military government did little to improve the standard of living of the population, help small and medium businesses, or invest in infrastructure. As oil revenues fueled the rise of federal subsidies to states, the federal government became the centre of political struggle and the threshold of power in the country. As oil production and revenue rose, the Nigerian government became increasingly dependent on oil revenues and international commodity markets for budgetary and economic concerns.[72]
+
+In 1977, constituent assembly was elected to draft a new constitution, which was published on September 21, 1978, when the ban on political activity was lifted. In 1979, five political parties competed in a series of elections in which Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was elected president. Obasanjo peacefully transferred power to Shagari, becoming the first head of state in Nigerian history to willingly step down. All five parties won representation in the National Assembly. In August 1983 Shagari and the NPN were returned to power in a landslide victory, with a majority of seats in the National Assembly and control of 12 state governments. But the elections were marred by violence and allegations of widespread vote rigging and electoral malfeasance led to legal battles over the results. In the widely monitored 1979 election, Alhaji Shehu Shagari was elected on the NPN platform.
+
+Beginning in 1979, Nigerians participated in a return to democracy when Olusegun Obasanjo transferred power to the civilian regime of Shehu Shagari. On October 1, 1979, Shehu Shagari was sworn in as the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The military carefully planned the return to civil rule putting in place measures to ensure that political parties have broader support than witnessed during the first republic. The Shagari government became viewed as corrupt by virtually all sectors of Nigerian society. In 1983 the inspectors of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) began to notice "the slow poisoning of the waters of this country".[73][74] But there were also uncertainties, such as that first republic, political leaders may be unable to govern properly which would bring another batch of new military rulers.
+
+The 1983 military coup d'état took place on New Years eve of that year. It was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military and led to the overthrow of the Second Nigerian Republic and the installation of Major General Muhammadu Buhari as Head of State. The military coup of Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the regime's re-election in 1984 was generally viewed as a positive development.[75] Buhari promised major reforms, but his government fared little better than its predecessor. His regime was overthrown by another military coup in 1985.[76]
+
+General Buhari was overthrown in 1985 military coup d'état led by General Ibrahim Babangida, who established the Armed Forces Ruling Council and became military president and commander in chief of the armed forces. In 1986, he established the Nigerian Political Bureau of 1986 which made recommendations for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. In 1989, Babangida started making plans for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. He legalized the formation of political parties, and formed the two-party system with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) ahead of the 1992 general elections. He urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties, which the late Chief Bola Ige famously referred to as "two leper hands." The two-party state had been a Political Bureau recommendation. In November 1991, after a census was conducted, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) announced on 24 January 1992 that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held later that year. A process of voting was adopted, referred to as Option A4. This process advocated that any candidate needed to pass through adoption for all elective positions from the local government, state government and federal government.[77]
+
+Babangida survived the 1990 Nigerian coup d'état attempt, then postponed a promised return to democracy to 1992. The 1993 presidential election held on June 12, the first since the military coup of 1983. The results though not officially declared by the National Electoral Commission – showed the duo of Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) defeated Bashir Tofa and Slyvester Ugoh of the National Republican Convention (NRC) by over 2.3 million votes. However, Babangida annulled the elections, leading to massive civilian protests that effectively shut down the country for weeks. In August 1993, Babangida finally kept his promise to relinquish power to a civilian government, but not before appointing Ernest Shonekan head of the Interim National Government.[78] Babangida's regime has been considered the most corrupt, and responsible for creating a culture of corruption in Nigeria.[79]
+
+In late 1993, Shonekan's interim government, the shortest in the political history of the country was overthrown in the 1993 military coup d'état led by General Sani Abacha, who used military force on a wide scale to suppress the continuing civilian unrest. In 1995 the government hanged environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa on trumped-up charges in the deaths of four Ogoni elders. Lawsuits under the American Alien Tort Statute against Royal Dutch Shell and Brian Anderson, the head of Shell's Nigerian operation, settled out of court with Shell continuing to deny liability.[80] Several hundred million dollars in accounts traced to Abacha were discovered in 1999.[81] The regime came to an end in 1998, when the dictator died in the villa. He looted money to offshore accounts in western European banks and defeated coup plots by arresting and bribing generals and politicians. His successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, adopted a new constitution on 5 May 1999 which provided for multiparty elections.
+
+On 29 May 1999, Abubakar transferred power to the winner of the 1999 presidential election, former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo as the second democratically elected civilian President of Nigeria. This ended almost 33 years of military rule from 1966 until 1999, excluding the short-lived second republic (between 1979 and 1983) by military dictators who seized power in coups d'état and counter-coups during the Nigerian military juntas of 1966–1979 and 1983–1999. Obasanjo's election heralded the beginning of the Fourth Nigerian Republic.[82]
+
+Although the elections that brought Obasanjo to power in the 1999 presidential election and for a second term in the 2003 presidential election were condemned as unfree and unfair, , Nigeria has shown marked improvements in attempts to tackle government corruption and hasten development.[83] Ethnic violence for control over the oil-producing Niger Delta region and inadequate infrastructures are some of the issues facing the country. Umaru Yar'Adua of the People's Democratic Party came into power in the general election of 2007. The international community, which had been observing Nigerian elections to encourage a free and fair process, condemned this one as being severely flawed.[84] The then-president, Olusegun Obasanjo, acknowledged fraud and other electoral "lapses" but said the result reflected opinion polls. In a national television address in 2007, he added that if Nigerians did not like the victory of his handpicked successor, they would have an opportunity to vote again in four years.[85] Yar'Adua died on 5 May 2010.  Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as Yar'Adua's,[86] becoming the 14th Head of State.[87][88] Goodluck Jonathan served as acting president of Nigeria until 16 April 2011, when a new presidential election in Nigeria was conducted. He went on to win the elections, with the international media reporting the elections as having run smoothly with relatively little violence or voter fraud, in contrast to previous elections.[89]
+
+Ahead of the general election of 2015, a merger of the three biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria(ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the new PDP (nPDP), a faction of serving governors of the then ruling People's Democratic Party – formed the All Progressives Congress (APC). In the 2015 presidential election, former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari, leader of the CPC faction of the APC – who had previously contested in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential elections as the APC presidential candidate defeated incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by over two million votes, ending the party's sixteen year rule in the country, and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate. Observers generally praised the election as being fair. Jonathan was generally praised for conceding defeat and limiting the risk of unrest.[90][91][92][93] In the 2019 presidential election, Muhammadu Buhari was re-elected for a second term in office defeating his closet rival Atiku Abubakar.[94]
+
+Nigeria is a federal republic modelled after the United States,[95] with executive power exercised by the President. It is influenced by the Westminster System model[citation needed] in the composition and management of the upper and lower houses of the bicameral legislature. The president is both head of state and head of the federal government; the leader is elected by popular vote to a maximum of two four-year terms.[96] The president's power is checked by a Senate and a House of Representatives, which are combined in a bicameral body called the National Assembly. The Senate is a 109-seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The House contains 360 seats, with the number of seats per state determined by population.[96]
+
+Ethnocentrism, tribalism, religious persecution, and prebendalism have affected Nigerian politics both prior and subsequent to independence in 1960. All major parties have practised vote-rigging and other means of coercion to remain competitive. In the period before 1983 election, a report of experts prepared by the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies showed that only the 1959 and 1979 elections were held without systematic rigging.[97] In 2012, Nigeria was estimated to have lost over $400 billion to corruption since independence.[98] Kin-selective altruism has made its way into Nigerian politics, resulting in tribalist efforts to concentrate Federal power to a particular region of their interests through.[99]
+
+Nigeria's three largest ethnic groups the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo have maintained historical preeminence in Nigerian politics; competition amongst these three groups has fuelled animosity.[100] Following the bloody civil war, nationalism has seen an increase in the southern part of the country leading to active secessionist movements such as the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).
+
+Because of the above issues, Nigeria's political parties are pan-national and secular in character (though this does not preclude the continuing preeminence of the dominant ethnicities).[100][101] The two major political parties are the People's Democratic Party of Nigeria and the All Progressives Congress with twenty minor opposition parties are registered. As in many other African societies, prebendalism and high rates of corruption continue to constitute major challenges to Nigeria.
+
+The country has a judicial branch, with the highest court being the Supreme Court of Nigeria.[96]There are three distinct systems of law in Nigeria:
+
+The Nigerian military are charged with protecting the Federal Republic of Nigeria, promoting Nigeria's global security interests, and supporting peacekeeping efforts, especially in West Africa. This is in support of the doctrine sometimes called Pax Nigeriana.
+
+The Nigerian Military consist of an army, a navy, and an air force.[96] The military in Nigeria have played a major role in the country's history since independence. Various juntas have seized control of the country and ruled it through most of its history. Its last period of military rule ended in 1999 following the sudden death of former dictator Sani Abacha in 1998. His successor, Abdulsalam Abubakar, handed over power to the democratically-elected government of Olusegun Obasanjo the next year.
+
+As Africa's most populated country, Nigeria has repositioned its military as a peacekeeping force on the continent. Since 1995, the Nigerian military, through ECOMOG mandates, have been deployed as peacekeepers in Liberia (1997), Ivory Coast (1997–1999), and Sierra Leone (1997–1999).[103] Under an African Union mandate, it has stationed forces in Sudan's Darfur region to try to establish peace.
+
+Nigeria has been pervaded by political corruption. Nigeria was ranked 143 out of 182 countries in Transparency International's 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index; however, it improved to 136th position in 2014.[104] More than $400 billion were stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.[105] In 2015, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari said corrupt officials have stolen $150 billion from Nigeria in the last 10 years.[106]
+
+Upon gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria made African unity the centrepiece of its foreign policy and played a leading role in the fight against the apartheid government in South Africa.[107] One exception to the African focus was Nigeria's close relationship developed with Israel throughout the 1960s. The latter nation sponsored and oversaw the construction of Nigeria's parliament buildings.[108]
+
+Nigeria's foreign policy was tested in the 1970s after the country emerged united from its own civil war. It supported movements against white minority governments in the Southern Africa sub-region. Nigeria backed the African National Congress (ANC) by taking a committed tough line with regard to the South African government and their military actions in southern Africa. Nigeria was also a founding member of the Organisation for African Unity (now the African Union), and has tremendous influence in West Africa and Africa on the whole. Nigeria has additionally founded regional cooperative efforts in West Africa, functioning as standard-bearer for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and ECOMOG, economic and military organizations, respectively.
+
+With this Africa-centred stance, Nigeria readily sent troops to the Congo at the behest of the United Nations shortly after independence (and has maintained membership since that time). Nigeria also supported several Pan-African and pro-self government causes in the 1970s, including garnering support for Angola's MPLA, SWAPO in Namibia, and aiding opposition to the minority governments of Portuguese Mozambique, and Rhodesia.
+
+Nigeria retains membership in the Non-Aligned Movement. In late November 2006, it organised an Africa-South America Summit in Abuja to promote what some attendees termed "South-South" linkages on a variety of fronts.[109] Nigeria is also a member of the International Criminal Court, and the Commonwealth of Nations. It was temporarily expelled from the latter in 1995 when ruled by the Abacha regime.
+
+Nigeria has remained a key player in the international oil industry since the 1970s, and maintains membership in Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which it joined in July 1971. Its status as a major petroleum producer figures prominently in its sometimes volatile international relations with developed countries, notably the United States, and with developing countries.[110]
+
+Millions of Nigerians have emigrated during times of economic hardship, primarily to Europe, North America and Australia. It is estimated that over a million Nigerians have emigrated to the United States and constitute the Nigerian American populace. Individuals in many such Diasporic communities have joined the "Egbe Omo Yoruba" society, a national association of Yoruba descendants in North America.[111]
+
+In July 2019, UN ambassadors of 37 countries, including Nigeria, have signed a joint letter to the UNHRC defending China's treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.[112]
+
+Since 2000, Sino-Nigerian trade relations have risen exponentially. There has been an increase in total trade of over 10,384 million dollars between the two nations from 2000 to 2016.[113] However the structure of the Sino-Nigerian trade relationship has become a major political issue for the Nigerian state. This is illustrated by the fact that Chinese exports account for around 80 percent of total bilateral trade volumes.[114] This has resulted in a serious trade imbalance, with Nigeria importing ten times more than it exports to China.[115] Subsequently, Nigeria's economy is becoming over-reliant on cheap foreign imports to sustain itself, resulting in a clear decline in Nigerian Industry under such arrangements.[116]
+
+Nigeria may suffer a deterioration of its position in international affairs if the global transition to renewable energy is completed and international demand for its petroleum resources ceases. It is ranked 149 out of 156 countries in the index of Geopolitical Gains and Losses after energy transition (GeGaLo).[117]
+
+Nigeria is divided into thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory, which are further sub-divided into 774 Local Government Areas. In some contexts, the states are aggregated into six geopolitical zones: North West, North East, North Central, South West, South East, and South South.[118][119]  Nigeria has five cities with a population of over a million (from largest to smallest): Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Benin City and Port Harcourt. Lagos is the largest city in Africa, with a population of over 12 million in its urban area.[120]
+
+Nigeria is located in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea and has a total area of 923,768 km2 (356,669 sq mi),[121] making it the world's 32nd-largest country. It is comparable in size to Venezuela, and is about twice the size of the U.S. state of California. Its borders span 4,047 kilometres (2,515 mi), and it shares borders with Benin (773 km or 480 mi), Niger (1,497 km or 930 mi), Chad (87 km or 54 mi), and Cameroon (including the separatist Ambazonia) 1,690 km or 1,050 mi. Its coastline is at least 853 km (530 mi).[122] Nigeria lies between latitudes 4° and 14°N, and longitudes 2° and 15°E.
+
+The highest point in Nigeria is Chappal Waddi at 2,419 m (7,936 ft). The main rivers are the Niger and the Benue, which converge and empty into the Niger Delta. This is one of the world's largest river deltas, and the location of a large area of Central African mangroves.
+
+Nigeria has a varied landscape. The far south is defined by its tropical rainforest climate, where annual rainfall is 60 to 80 inches (1,500 to 2,000 mm) a year.[123] In the southeast stands the Obudu Plateau. Coastal plains are found in both the southwest and the southeast.[124] This forest zone's most southerly portion is defined as "salt water swamp", also known as a mangrove swamp because of the large amount of mangroves in the area. North of this is fresh water swamp, containing different vegetation from the salt water swamp, and north of that is rainforest.[125]
+
+Nigeria's most expansive topographical region is that of the valleys of the Niger and Benue river valleys (which merge and form a Y-shape).[124] To the southwest of the Niger is "rugged" highland. To the southeast of the Benue are hills and mountains, which form the Mambilla Plateau, the highest plateau in Nigeria. This plateau extends through the border with Cameroon, where the montane land is part of the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon.
+
+The area near the border with Cameroon close to the coast is rich rainforest and part of the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests ecoregion, an important centre for biodiversity. It is habitat for the drill monkey, which is found in the wild only in this area and across the border in Cameroon. The areas surrounding Calabar, Cross River State, also in this forest, are believed to contain the world's largest diversity of butterflies. The area of southern Nigeria between the Niger and the Cross Rivers has lost most of its forest because of development and harvesting by increased population, with it being replaced by grassland (see Cross-Niger transition forests).
+
+Everything in between the far south and the far north is savannah (insignificant tree cover, with grasses and flowers located between trees). Rainfall is more limited, to between 500 and 1,500 millimetres (20 and 60 in) per year.[123] The savannah zone's three categories are Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, Sudan savannah, and Sahel savannah. Guinean forest-savanna mosaic is plains of tall grass interrupted by trees. Sudan savannah is similar but with shorter grasses and shorter trees. Sahel savannah consists of patches of grass and sand, found in the northeast.[125] In the Sahel region, rain is less than 500 millimetres (20 in) per year and the Sahara Desert is encroaching.[123] In the dry northeast corner of the country lies Lake Chad, which Nigeria shares with Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
+
+Nigeria is greatly endowed with numerous tree species of which the majority of them are native while few are exotic. Report[126] shows that high percentage of man-made forests in the country is dominated with exotic species. This culminated from the assumption that exotic trees are fast growing. However, studies have also investigated the growth of indigenous trees in with that of exotic species.
+
+Many countries in Africa are affected by Invasive Alien Species (IAS). In 2004, the IUCN–World Conservation Union identified 81 IAS in South Africa, 49 in Mauritius, 37 in Algeria and Madagascar, 35 in Kenya, 28 in Egypt, 26 in Ghana and Zimbabwe, and 22 in Ethiopia.[127] However, very little is known about IAS in Nigeria, with most technical reports and literatures reporting fewer than 10 invasive plants in the country. Aside from plant invaders, Rattus rattus and Avian influenza virus were also considered IAS in Nigeria.[128] The initial entry of IAS into Nigeria was mainly through exotic plant introductions by the colonial rulers either for forest tree plantations or for ornamental purposes. The entry of exotic plants into Nigeria during the post-independence era was encouraged by increasing economic activity, commencement of commercial oil explorations, introduction through ships, and introduction of ornamental plants by commercial floriculturists.[128]
+
+Due to overexploitation, the remaining natural ecosystems and primary forests in Nigeria are restricted to the protected areas which include one biosphere reserve, seven national parks, one World Heritage site, 12 Strict Nature Reserves (SNRs), 32 game reserves/wildlife sanctuaries, and hundreds of forest reserves. These are in addition to several ex-situ conservation sites such as arboreta, botanical gardens, zoological gardens, and gene banks managed by several tertiary and research institutions[129]
+
+In the semi-arid and dry sub-humid savanna's of West Africa, including Nigeria, numerous species of herbaceous dicots especially from the genera Crotalaria, Alysicarpus, Cassia and Ipomea are known to be widely used in livestock production. Quite often they are plucked or cut, and fed either as fresh or conserved fodders. The utilization of these and many other herbs growing naturally within the farm environment is opportunistic.[129]
+
+Many other species native to Nigeria, including Soybean and its varieties, serve as an important source of oil and protein in this region.[citation needed] There are also many plants with medicinal purposes that are used to aid the therapy in many organs. Some of these vegetations include, Euphorbiaceae, that serve purposed to aid malaria, gastrointestinal disorders and many other infections. Different stress factors such as droughts, low soil nutrients and susceptibility to pests has contributed to Maize plantations being an integral part of agriculture in this region.[130]
+
+As industrialization has increased, it has also put species of trees in the forest at risk to air pollution and studies have shown that in certain part of Nigeria, trees have shown tolerance and grow in areas that have a significant amount air pollution[131]
+
+Nigeria's Delta region, home of the large oil industry, experiences serious oil spills and other environmental problems, which has caused conflict.
+
+Waste management including sewage treatment, the linked processes of deforestation and soil degradation, and climate change or global warming are the major environmental problems in Nigeria. Waste management presents problems in a mega city like Lagos and other major Nigerian cities which are linked with economic development, population growth and the inability of municipal councils to manage the resulting rise in industrial and domestic waste. This huge waste management problem is also attributable to unsustainable environmental management lifestyles of Kubwa Community in the Federal Capital Territory, where there are habits of indiscriminate disposal of waste, dumping of waste along or into the canals, sewerage systems that are channels for water flows, and the like.
+
+Haphazard industrial planning, increased urbanisation, poverty and lack of competence of the municipal government are seen as the major reasons for high levels of waste pollution in major cities of the country. Some of the 'solutions' have been disastrous to the environment, resulting in untreated waste being dumped in places where it can pollute waterways and groundwater.[132]
+
+In 2005 Nigeria had the highest rate of deforestation in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).[133] That year, 12.2%, the equivalent of 11,089,000 hectares had been forested in the country. Between 1990 and 2000, Nigeria lost an average of 409,700 hectares of forest every year equal to an average annual deforestation rate of 2.4%. Between 1990 and 2005, in total Nigeria lost 35.7% of its forest cover, or around 6,145,000 hectares.[134]
+
+In 2010, thousands of people were inadvertently exposed to lead-containing soil / ore from informal gold mining within the northern state of Zamfara. While estimates vary, it is thought that upwards of 400 children died of acute lead poisoning, making this perhaps the largest lead poisoning fatality epidemic ever encountered.[135] As of 2016, efforts to manage the exposure are ongoing.
+
+Nigeria is classified as a mixed economy emerging market. It has reached lower middle income status according to the World Bank,[136] with its abundant supply of natural resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, transport sectors and stock exchange (the Nigerian Stock Exchange), which is the second largest in Africa.
+
+Nigeria was ranked 21st in the world in terms of GDP (PPP) in 2015.[137] Nigeria is the United States' largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa and supplies a fifth of its oil (11% of oil imports). It has the seventh-largest trade surplus with the U.S. of any country worldwide. Nigeria is the 50th-largest export market for U.S. goods and the 14th-largest exporter of goods to the U.S. The United States is the country's largest foreign investor.[138] Following the oil price collapse in 2014–2016, combined with negative production shocks, the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate dropped to 2.7% in 2015. In 2016 during its first recession in 25 years, the economy contracted by 1.6%.[139] Fiscal year 2016 was characterized by currency depreciation and the attendant higher prices of petroleum products, electricity and imported foods pushed inflation to 18.55% in December 2016 from 9.55% in December 2015. By 2019, the economy began to recover slightly with the nation's real GDP growing by 2.3% and the IMF estimating another increase of 2.3% in 2020.
+
+In 2019, the economy began to recover slightly with the nation's real GDP growing by 2.3% and the IMF estimating another increase of 2.3% in 2020.
+
+Economic development has been hindered by years of military rule, corruption, and mismanagement. The restoration of democracy and subsequent economic reforms have successfully put Nigeria back on track towards achieving its full economic potential. As of 2014[update] it is the largest economy in Africa, having overtaken South Africa. Next to petrodollars, the second biggest source of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria are remittances sent home by Nigerians living abroad.[140][140]
+
+During the oil boom of the 1970s, Nigeria accumulated a significant foreign debt to finance major infrastructural investments. With the fall of oil prices during the 1980s oil glut Nigeria struggled to keep up with its loan payments and eventually defaulted on its principal debt repayments, limiting repayment to the interest portion of the loans. Arrears and penalty interest accumulated on the unpaid principal, which increased the size of the debt. After negotiations by the Nigerian authorities, in October 2005 Nigeria and its Paris Club creditors reached an agreement under which Nigeria repurchased its debt at a discount of approximately 60%. Nigeria used part of its oil profits to pay the residual 40%, freeing up at least $1.15 billion annually for poverty reduction programmes. Nigeria made history in April 2006 by becoming the first African country to completely pay off its debt (estimated $30 billion) owed to the Paris Club.
+
+Nigeria is trying to reach the first of the Sustainable Development Goals, which is to end poverty in all its forms by 2030.
+
+As of 2010[update], about 30% of Nigerians are employed in agriculture.[141] Agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner of Nigeria.[142]
+
+Major crops include beans, sesame, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, groundnuts, gum arabic, kolanut, maize (corn), melon, millet, palm kernels, palm oil, plantains, rice, rubber, sorghum, soybeans and yams.[143] Cocoa is the leading non-oil foreign exchange earner.[143] Rubber is the second-largest non-oil foreign exchange earner.[143]
+
+Prior to the Nigerian civil war, Nigeria was self-sufficient in food.[143] Agriculture has failed to keep pace with Nigeria's rapid population growth, and Nigeria now relies upon food imports to sustain itself.[143] The Nigerian government promoted the use of inorganic fertilizers in the 1970s.[144] In August 2019, Nigeria closed its border with Benin to stop rice smuggling into the country as part of efforts to boost the local production.[145]
+
+Nigeria is the 12th largest producer of petroleum in the world and the 8th largest exporter, and has the 10th largest proven reserves. (The country joined OPEC in 1971.) Petroleum plays a large role in the Nigerian economy, accounting for 40% of GDP and 80% of Government earnings. However, agitation for better resource control in the Niger Delta, its main oil-producing region, has led to disruptions in oil production and prevents the country from exporting at 100% capacity.[146]
+
+The Niger Delta Nembe Creek Oil field was discovered in 1973 and produces from middle Miocene deltaic sandstone-shale in an anticline structural trap at a depth of 2 to 4 kilometres (1.2 to 2.5 miles).[147] In June 2013, Shell announced a strategic review of its operations in Nigeria, hinting that assets could be divested. While many international oil companies have operated there for decades, by 2014 most were making moves to divest their interests, citing a range of issues including oil theft. In August 2014, Shell Oil Company said it was finalising its interests in four Nigerian oil fields.[148]
+
+Nigeria has a total of 159 oil fields and 1,481 wells in operation according to the Department of Petroleum Resources.[149] The most productive region of the nation is the coastal Niger Delta Basin in the Niger Delta or "South-south" region which encompasses 78 of the 159 oil fields. Most of Nigeria's oil fields are small and scattered, and as of 1990, these small fields accounted for 62.1% of all Nigerian production. This contrasts with the sixteen largest fields which produced 37.9% of Nigeria's petroleum at that time.[150]
+
+In addition to its petroleum resources, Nigeria also has a wide array of underexploited mineral resources which include natural gas, coal, bauxite, tantalite, gold, tin, iron ore, limestone, niobium, lead and zinc.[151] Despite huge deposits of these natural resources, the mining industry in Nigeria is still in its infancy.
+
+Nigeria has a highly developed financial services sector, with a mix of local and international banks, asset management companies, brokerage houses, insurance companies and brokers, private equity funds and investment banks.[152] Nigeria has one of the fastest growing telecommunications markets in the world, major emerging market operators (like MTN, 9mobile, Airtel and Globacom) basing their largest and most profitable centres in the country.[153]  Nigeria's ICT sector has experienced a lot of growth, representing 10% of the nation's GDP in 2018 as compared to just 1% in 2001.[154] Lagos is regarded as one of the largest technology hubs in Africa with its thriving tech ecosysytem.[155] Several startups like Paystack, Interswitch, Bolt and Piggyvest are leveraging technology to solve issues across different sectors.
+
+Tourism in Nigeria centers largely on events, due to the country's ample amount of ethnic groups, but also includes rain forests, savannah, waterfalls, and other natural attractions.[156]
+
+Abuja is home to several parks and green areas. The largest, Millennium Park, was designed by architect Manfredi Nicoletti and officially opened in December 2003.
+Lagos, subsequent to the re-modernization project achieved by the previous administration of Governor Raji Babatunde Fashola, is gradually becoming a major tourist destination, being one of the largest cities in Africa and in the world. Lagos is currently taking steps to become a global city. The 2009 Eyo carnival (a yearly festival originated from Iperu Remo, Ogun State), which took place on 25 April, was a step toward world city status. Currently, Lagos is primarily known as a business-oriented and a fast-paced community.[157]Lagos has become an important location for African and "black" cultural identity.[158] Many festivals are held in Lagos; festivals vary in offerings each year and may be held in different months. Some of the festivals are Festac Food Fair held in Festac Town Annually, Eyo Festival, Lagos Black Heritage Carnival, Lagos Carnival, Eko International Film Festival, Lagos Seafood Festac Festival, LAGOS PHOTO Festival and the Lagos Jazz Series, which is a unique franchise for high-quality live music in all genres with a focus on jazz. Established in 2010, the event takes place over a 3–5 day period at selected high quality outdoor venues. The music is as varied as the audience itself and features a diverse mix of musical genres from rhythm and blues to soul, Afrobeat, hip hop, bebop, and traditional jazz. The festivals provide entertainment of dance and song to add excitement to travelers during a stay in Lagos.
+
+Lagos has a number of sandy beaches by the Atlantic Ocean, including Elegushi Beach and Alpha Beach. Lagos also has a number of private beach resorts including Inagbe Grand Beach Resort and several others in the outskirts. Lagos has a variety of hotels ranging from three star to five star hotels, with a mixture of local hotels such as Eko Hotels and Suites, Federal Palace Hotel and franchises of multinational chains such as Intercontinental Hotel, Sheraton and Four Points by Hilton. Other places of interest include the Tafawa Balewa Square, Festac town, The Nike Art Gallery, Freedom Park, Lagos and the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos.
+
+Nigeria has a manufacturing industry that includes leather and textiles (centred in Kano, Abeokuta, Onitsha, and Lagos), Nigeria currently has an indigenous auto manufacturing company; Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing[159] located in Nnewi. It produces Buses and SUVs.car manufacturing (for the French car manufacturer Peugeot as well as for the English truck manufacturer Bedford, now a subsidiary of General Motors), T-shirts, plastics and processed food. In this regard, some foreign vehicle manufacturing companies like Nissan have made known their plans to have manufacturing plants in Nigeria.[160] Ogun is considered to be Nigeria's current industrial hub, as most factories are located in Ogun and more companies are moving there, followed by Lagos.[161][162][163]
+
+Nigeria in recent years has been embracing industrialisation. It currently has an indigenous vehicle manufacturing company, Innoson Motors, which manufactures saloon cars, rapid transit buses, ambulances, firefighting trucks and SUVs.[164] Nigeria also has a few electronic manufacturers like Zinox, the first branded Nigerian computer, and manufacturers of electronic gadgets such as tablet PCs.[165] In 2013, Nigeria introduced a policy regarding import duty on vehicles to encourage local manufacturing companies in the country.[166][167]  The city of Aba in the south-eastern part of the country are well known for their handicrafts and shoes, known as "Aba made".
+
+Nigeria's primary energy consumption was about 108 Mtoe in 2011. Most of the energy comes from traditional biomass and waste, which account for 83% of total primary production. The rest is from fossil fuels (16%) and hydropower (1%).
+
+From independence, Nigeria has tried to develop a domestic nuclear industry for energy. Since 2004, Nigeria has a Chinese-origin research reactor at Ahmadu Bello University, and has sought the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop plans for up to 4,000 MWe of nuclear capacity by 2027 according to the National Program for the Deployment of Nuclear Power for Generation of Electricity. Nigeria hoped to begin construction in 2011 and start nuclear power production in 2017-2020. On 27 July 2007 Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua urged the country to embrace nuclear power in order to meet its growing energy needs. Construction has not begun but plans have not been canceled by 2016. In 2017, Nigeria signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[168]
+
+In April 2015, Nigeria began talks with Russia's state-owned Rosatom to collaborate on the design, construction and operation of four nuclear power plants by 2035, the first of which will be in operation by 2025. In June 2015, Nigeria selected two sites for the planned construction of the nuclear plants. Neither the Nigerian government nor Rosatom would disclose the specific locations of the sites, but it is believed that the nuclear plants will be sited in Akwa Ibom State, in South-South Nigeria, and Kogi State, in the central northern part of the country. Both sites are planned to house two plants each. In 2017 agreements were signed for the construction of the Itu nuclear power plant.
+
+Nigeria suffers from lack of adequate transportation infrastructure. As of 199, it's 194,394 kilometers of road networks are the main means of transportation. Of which 60,068 kilometers (including 1,194km of expressways) are paved roads and as of 1998 (west.), 134,326 kilometers ar unpaved roads of city, town and village roads. The railways have undergone a massive revamping with projects such as the Lagos-Kano Standard Gauge Railway being completed connecting northern cities of Kano, Kaduna, Abuja, Ibadan and Lagos.
+
+There are 54 airports in Nigeria; the principal airports are Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. Three other international airports are Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu and Port Harcourt International Airport in Port Harcourt. As with other transportation facilities, the airports suffer from a poor reputation for safety and operational efficiency.
+
+The government has recently begun expanding this infrastructure to space based communications. Nigeria has a space satellite that is monitored at the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency Headquarters in Abuja. The Nigerian government has commissioned the overseas production and launch of four satellites.
+
+NigComSat-1, was the first Nigerian satellite built in 2004, was Nigeria's third satellite and Africa's first communication satellite. It was launched on 13 May 2007, aboard a Chinese Long March 3B carrier rocket, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China. The spacecraft was operated by NigComSat and the Nigerian Space Research and Development Agency. On 11 November 2008, NigComSat-1 failed in orbit after running out of power because of an anomaly in its solar array. It was based on the Chinese DFH-4 satellite bus, and carries a variety of transponders: four C-band; fourteen Ku-band; eight Ka-band; and two L-band. It was designed to provide coverage to many parts of Africa, and the Ka-band transponders would also cover Italy. The satellite was launched from Russia on 27 September 2003. Nigeriasat-1 was part of the worldwide Disaster Monitoring Constellation System.[169] The primary objectives of the Nigeriasat-1 were: to give early warning signals of environmental disaster; to help detect and control desertification in the northern part of Nigeria; to assist in demographic planning; to establish the relationship between malaria vectors and the environment that breeds malaria and to give early warning signals on future outbreaks of meningitis using remote sensing technology; to provide the technology needed to bring education to all parts of the country through distant learning; and to aid in conflict resolution and border disputes by mapping out state and International borders.
+
+NigeriaSat-2, Nigeria's second satellite, was built as a high-resolution earth satellite by Surrey Space Technology Limited, a United Kingdom-based satellite technology company. It has 2.5-metre resolution panchromatic (very high resolution), 5-metre multispectral (high resolution, NIR red, green and red bands), and 32-metre multispectral (medium resolution, NIR red, green and red bands) antennas, with a ground receiving station in Abuja. The NigeriaSat-2 spacecraft alone was built at a cost of over £35 million. This satellite was launched into orbit from a military base in China.[170] On 10 November 2008 (0900 GMT), the satellite was reportedly switched off for analysis and to avoid a possible collision with other satellites. According to Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited, it was put into "emergency mode operation in order to effect mitigation and repairs".[171] The satellite eventually failed after losing power on 11 November 2008. On 24 March 2009, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, NigComSat Ltd. and CGWIC signed another contract for the in-orbit delivery of the NigComSat-1R satellite. NigComSat-1R was also a DFH-4 satellite, and the replacement for the failed NigComSat-1 was successfully launched into orbit by China in Xichang on 19 December 2011.[172][173] The satellite, was stated to have a positive impact on national development in various sectors such as communications, internet services, health, agriculture, environmental protection and national security.[174]
+
+NigeriaEduSat-1 was a satellite designed, built, and owned by the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), in conjunction with Nigeria's National Space Research and Development Agency and Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology. It was equipped with 0.3 megapixel and 5 megapixel cameras, and with the rest of the satellite fleet took images of Nigeria. The satellite transmitted songs and poems as an outreach project to generate Nigerian interest in science. The signal could be received by amateur radio operators. The satellite constellation also conducted measurements of the atmospheric density 400 kilometres (250 mi) above the Earth. The satellite cost about US$500,000 to manufacture and launch.
+
+Nigeria's population increased by 57 million from 1990 to 2008, a 60% growth rate in less than two decades.[175] As of 2017, the population stood at 191 million. Around 42.5% of the population were 14 years or younger, 19.6% were aged 15–24, 30.7% were aged 25–54, 4.0% aged 55–64, and 3.1% aged 65 years or older. The median age in 2017 was 18.4 years.[177] Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and accounts for about 17% of the continent's total population as of 2017; however, exactly how populous is a subject of speculation.[176]
+
+The United Nations estimates that the population in 2018 was at 195,874,685[178][179], distributed as 51.7% rural and 48.3% urban, and with a population density of 167.5 people per square kilometre. National census results in the past few decades have been disputed. The results of the most recent census were released in December 2006 and gave a population of 140,003,542. The only breakdown available was by gender: males numbered 71,709,859, females numbered 68,293,008. In June 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan said Nigerians should limit their number of children.[180]
+
+According to the United Nations, Nigeria has been undergoing explosive population growth and has one of the highest growth and fertility rates in the world. By their projections, Nigeria is one of eight countries expected to account collectively for half of the world's total population increase in 2005–2050.[181] By 2100 the UN estimates that the Nigerian population will be between 505 million and 1.03 billion people (middle estimate: 730 million).[182] In 1950, Nigeria had only 33 million people.[183]
+
+One in six Africans is Nigerian as of 2019.[184][better source needed] Presently, Nigeria is the seventh most populous country in the world. The birth rate is 35.2-births/1,000 population and the death rate is 9.6 deaths/1,000 population as of 2017, while the total fertility rate is 5.07 children born/woman.[177]
+
+Nigeria's largest city is Lagos. Lagos has grown from about 300,000 in 1950[185] to an estimated 13.4 million in 2017.[186]
+
+See:List of ethnic groups in Nigeria
+
+Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups, with varying languages and customs, creating a country of rich ethnic diversity. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, together accounting for more than 70% of the population, while the Edo, Ijaw, Fulɓe, Kanuri, Urhobo-Isoko, Ibibio, Ebira, Nupe, Gbagyi, Jukun, Igala, Idoma and Tiv comprise between 25 and 30%; other minorities make up the remaining 5%.[187]
+
+The middle belt of Nigeria is known for its diversity of ethnic groups, including the Pyem, Goemai, and Kofyar. The official population count of each of Nigeria's ethnicities has always remained controversial and disputed as members of different ethnic groups believe the census is rigged to give a particular group (usually believed to be northern groups) numerical superiority.[188][189][190]
+
+There are small minorities of British, American, Indian, Chinese (est. 50,000),[191] white Zimbabwean,[192] Japanese, Greek, Syrian and Lebanese immigrants in Nigeria. Immigrants also include those from other West African or East African nations. These minorities mostly reside in major cities such as Lagos and Abuja, or in the Niger Delta as employees for the major oil companies. A number of Cubans settled in Nigeria as political refugees following the Cuban Revolution.
+
+In the middle of the 19th century, a number of ex-slaves of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian descent[193] and emigrants from Sierra Leone established communities in Lagos and other regions of Nigeria. Many ex-slaves came to Nigeria following the emancipation of slaves in the Americas. Many of the immigrants, sometimes called Saro (immigrants from Sierra Leone) and Amaro (ex-slaves from Brazil)[194] later became prominent merchants and missionaries in these cities.
+
+There are 521 languages that have been spoken in Nigeria; nine of them are now extinct.
+
+In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one language. The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960.
+
+Many French speakers from surrounding countries have influenced the English spoken in the border regions of Nigeria and some Nigerian citizens have become fluent enough in French to work in the surrounding countries. The French spoken in Nigeria may be mixed with some native languages but is mostly spoken like the French spoken in Benin. French may also be mixed with English as it is in Cameroon.
+
+The major languages spoken in Nigeria represent three major families of languages of Africa: the majority are Niger-Congo languages, such as Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Fulfulde, Ogoni, and Edo. Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, primarily in Borno and Yobe State, is part of the Nilo-Saharan family, and Hausa is an Afroasiatic language.
+
+Even though most ethnic groups prefer to communicate in their own languages, English as the official language is widely used for education, business transactions and for official purposes. English as a first language is used by only a small minority of the country's urban elite, and it is not spoken at all in some rural areas. Hausa is the most widely spoken of the three main languages spoken in Nigeria itself.
+
+With the majority of Nigeria's populace in the rural areas, the major languages of communication in the country remain indigenous languages. Some of the largest of these, notably Yoruba and Igbo, have derived standardised languages from a number of different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups. Nigerian Pidgin English, often known simply as "Pidgin" or "Broken" (Broken English), is also a popular lingua franca, though with varying regional influences on dialect and slang. The pidgin English or Nigerian English is widely spoken within the Niger Delta Regions, predominantly in Warri, Sapele, Port Harcourt, Agenebode, Ewu, and Benin City.[195]
+
+Religion in Nigeria (2013)[196]
+
+Nigeria is a religiously diverse society, with Islam and Christianity being the most widely professed religions. Nigerians are nearly equally divided into Muslims and Christians, with a tiny minority of adherents of Traditional African religions and other religions.[196] As common in other parts of Africa where Islam and Christianity are dominant, religious syncretism with the Traditional African religions is common throughout Nigeria.[197]
+
+Islam dominates North Western (Hausa, Fulani and others) and a good portion of Northern Eastern (Kanuri, Fulani and other groups) Nigeria. It also has a number of adherents in the South Western, Yoruba part of the country. Nigeria has the largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa. Protestant and locally cultivated Christianity are also widely practiced in Western areas, while Roman Catholicism is a more prominent Christian feature of South Eastern Nigeria. Both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are observed in the Ibibio, Annang, Efik, Ijo and Ogoni lands of the south.
+
+The 1963 census indicated that 47% of Nigerians were Muslim, 34% Christian, and 18% members of local indigenous religions.[198] The vast majority of Muslims in Nigeria are Sunni belonging to Maliki school of jurisprudence; however, a sizeable minority also belongs to Shafi Madhhab. A large number of Sunni Muslims are members of Sufi brotherhoods. Most Sufis follow the Qadiriyya, Tijaniyyah and/or the Mouride movements. A significant Shia minority exists (see Shia in Nigeria). Some northern states have incorporated Sharia law into their previously secular legal systems, which has brought about some controversy.[199] Kano State has sought to incorporate Sharia law into its constitution.[200] The majority of Quranists follow the Kalo Kato or Quraniyyun movement. There are also Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya minorities,[201] as well as Bahá'ís.[202]
+
+According to a 2001 report[203] from The World Factbook by CIA, about 47% of Nigeria's population is Muslim, 43% are Christians and 10% adhere to local religions.[204] An 18 December 2012 report on religion and public life by the Pew Research Center stated that in 2010, 49.3 percent of Nigeria's population was Christian, 48.8 percent was Muslim, and 1.9 percent were followers of indigenous and other religions, or unaffiliated.[205] However, in a 2019 report released by Pew Research Center in 2015 the Muslim population was estimated to be 50% and in 2060 according to the report Muslims will account for 60% of the Country.[206]
+
+The 2010 census of Association of Religion Data Archives has also reported that 46.5% of the total population was Christian, slightly larger than the Muslim population of 45.5%, while 7.7% were members of other religions.[207] However, these estimates should be taken with caution because sample data is mostly collected from major urban areas in the south, which are predominantly Christian.[208][209][210]
+
+Among Christians, the Pew Research survey found that 74% were Protestant, 25% were Catholic, and 1% belonged to other Christian denominations, including a small Orthodox Christian community.[211]
+In terms of Nigeria's major ethnic groups, the Hausa ethnic group (predominant in the north) was found to be 95% Muslim and 5% Christian, the Yoruba tribe (predominant in the west) was equally split between Christians and Muslims with 10% adherents of traditional religions, while the Igbos (predominant in the east) and the Ijaw (south) were 98% Christian, with 2% practicing traditional religions.[212] The middle belt of Nigeria contains the largest number of minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, who were found to be mostly Christians and members of traditional religions, with a small proportion of Muslims.[213][214]
+
+Leading Protestant churches in the country include the Church of Nigeria of the Anglican Communion, the Assemblies of God Church, the Nigerian Baptist Convention and The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations. Since the 1990s, there has been significant growth in many other churches, independently started in Africa by Africans, particularly the evangelical Protestant ones. These include the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Winners' Chapel, Christ Apostolic Church (the first Aladura Movement in Nigeria), Living Faith Church Worldwide, Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Evangelical Church of West Africa, Mountain of Fire and Miracles, Christ Embassy, Lord's Chosen Charismatic Revival Movement, Celestial Church of Christ, and Dominion City.[215] In addition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Aladura Church, the Seventh-day Adventist and various indigenous churches have also experienced growth.[216][217]
+
+The Yoruba area contains a large Anglican population, while Igboland is a mix of Roman Catholics and Protestants, and the Edo area is composed predominantly of members of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God, which was introduced into Nigeria by Augustus Ehurie Wogu and his associates at Old Umuahia. For the Yoruba, the precise percentage of Muslims and Christians is unknown but in states like Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Kwara, and Kogi it’s equally split between Christians and Muslims while the Yoruba states of Ekiti and Ondo are predominantly Christian.
+
+Further, Nigeria has become an African hub for the Grail Movement and the Hare Krishnas,[218] and the largest temple of the Eckankar religion is in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, with a total capacity of 10,000.
+
+The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) announced creation of new Owerri mission in Nigeria in 2016.[219]
+
+Health care delivery in Nigeria is a concurrent responsibility of the three tiers of government in the country, and the private sector.[220] Nigeria has been reorganising its health system since the Bamako Initiative of 1987, which formally promoted community-based methods of increasing accessibility of drugs and health care services to the population, in part by implementing user fees.[221] The new strategy dramatically increased accessibility through community-based health care reform, resulting in more efficient and equitable provision of services.
+A comprehensive approach strategy was extended to all areas of health care, with subsequent improvement in the health care indicators and improvement in health care efficiency and cost.[222]
+
+HIV/AIDS rate in Nigeria is much lower compared to the other African nations such as Kenya or South Africa whose prevalence (percentage) rates are in the double digits. As of 2012[update], the HIV prevalence rate among adults ages 15–49 was just 3.1 percent.[223][224] As of 2014[update], life expectancy in Nigeria is 52.62 years on average according to CIA,[225] and just over half the population have access to potable water and appropriate sanitation; As of 2010[update], the infant mortality is 8.4 deaths per 1000 live births.[226]
+
+Nigeria was the only country in Africa to have never eradicated polio, which it periodically exported to other African countries;[227] Polio was cut 98% between 2009 and 2010. However, a major breakthrough came in December 2014, when it was reported that Nigeria had recorded zero polio cases in six months.[228][229] In 2012, a new bone marrow donor program was launched by the University of Nigeria to help people with leukaemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell disease to find a compatible donor for a life-saving bone marrow transplant, which cures them of their conditions. Nigeria became the second African country to have successfully carried out this surgery.[230] In the 2014 ebola outbreak, Nigeria was the first country to effectively contain and eliminate the Ebola threat that was ravaging three other countries in the West African region, the unique method of contact tracing employed by Nigeria became an effective method later used by countries such as the United States, when ebola threats were discovered.[231][232][233]
+
+The Nigerian health care system is continuously faced with a shortage of doctors known as 'brain drain', because of emigration by skilled Nigerian doctors to North America and Europe. In 1995, an estimated 21,000 Nigerian doctors were practising in the United States alone, which is about the same as the number of doctors working in the Nigerian public service. Retaining these expensively trained professionals has been identified as one of the goals of the government.[234]
+
+Education in Nigeria is overseen by the Ministry of Education. Local authorities take responsibility for implementing policy for state-controlled public education and state schools at a regional level. The education system is divided into Kindergarten, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education. After the 1970s oil boom, tertiary education was improved so it would reach every subregion of Nigeria. 68% of the Nigerian population is literate, and the rate for men (75.7%) is higher than that for women (60.6%).[235]
+
+Nigeria provides free, government-supported education, but attendance is not compulsory at any level, and certain groups, such as nomads and the handicapped, are under-served. The education system consists of six years of primary school, three years of junior secondary school, three years of senior secondary school, and four, five or six years of university education leading to a bachelor's degree.[235] The government has majority control of university education. Tertiary education in Nigeria consists of Universities (Public and Private), Polytechnics, Monotechnics, and Colleges of education. The country has a total of 129 universities registered by NUC among which federal and state government own 40 and 39 respectively while 50 universities are privately owned. In order to increase the number of universities in Nigeria from 129 to 138 the Federal Government gave nine new private universities their licences in May 2015. The names of the universities that got licenses in Abuja included, Augustine University, Ilara, Lagos; Chrisland University, Owode, Ogun State; Christopher University, Mowe, Ogun State; Hallmark University, Ijebu-Itele, Ogun State; Kings University, Ode-Omu, Osun State; Micheal and Cecilia Ibru University, Owhrode, Delta State; Mountain Top University, Makogi/Oba Ogun state; Ritman University, Ikot-Epene, Akwa- Ibom State and Summit University, Offa, Kwara State.
+
+First year entry requirements into most universities in Nigeria include: Minimum of SSCE/GCE Ordinary Level Credits at maximum of two sittings; Minimum cut-off marks in Joint Admission and Matriculation Board Entrance Examination (JAMB) of 180 and above out of a maximum of 400 marks are required. Candidates with minimum of Merit Pass in National Certificate of Education (NCE), National Diploma (ND) and other Advanced Level Certificates minimum qualifications with minimum of 5O/L Credits are given direct entry admission into the appropriate undergraduate degree programs.[236] Students with required documents[237] typically enter university from age 17–18 onwards and study for an academic degree.
+
+Nigeria is home to a substantial network of organised crime, active especially in drug trafficking. Nigerian criminal groups are heavily involved in drug trafficking, shipping heroin from Asian countries to Europe and America; and cocaine from South America to Europe and South Africa.[238] Various Nigerian Confraternities or student "campus cults" are active in both organised crime and in political violence as well as providing a network of corruption within Nigeria. As confraternities have extensive connections with political and military figures, they offer excellent alumni networking opportunities. The Supreme Vikings Confraternity, for example, boasts that twelve members of the Rivers State House of Assembly are cult members.[239]
+
+There is some major piracy in Nigeria, with attacks directed at all types of vessels. Consistent with the rise of Nigeria as an increasingly dangerous hot spot, 28 of the 30 seafarers kidnapped globally between January and June 2013 were in Nigeria.[240]On lower levels of society, there are the "area boys", organised gangs mostly active in Lagos who specialise in mugging and small-scale drug dealing. Gang violence in Lagos resulted in 273 civilians and 84 policemen killed in the period of August 2000 to May 2001.[241]
+
+Internationally, Nigeria is infamous for a form of bank fraud dubbed 419, a type of advance fee fraud (named after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code) along with the "Nigerian scam", a form of confidence trick practised by individuals and criminal syndicates.[242] These scams involve a complicit Nigerian bank (the laws being set up loosely to allow it) and a scammer who claims to have money he needs to obtain from that bank. The victim is talked into exchanging bank account information on the premise that the money will be transferred to them and they will get to keep a cut. In reality, money is taken out instead, and/or large fees (which seem small in comparison with the imaginary wealth he awaits) are deducted. In 2003, the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (or EFCC) was created, ostensibly to combat this and other forms of organised financial crime.[243]
+
+Nigeria is described as the "poverty capital of the world",[244] over 89 million of its population live in extreme poverty.[245] Nigeria has largely failed to overcome the three reasons for this persistent poverty: income inequality, ethnic conflict, and political instability.
+
+Because of its multitude of diverse, sometimes competing ethno-linguistic groups, Nigeria prior to independence was faced with sectarian tensions and violence, particularly in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, where both state and civilian forces employ varying methods of coercion in attempts to gain control over regional petroleum resources. Some of the ethnic groups like the Ogoni, have experienced severe environmental degradation due to petroleum extraction.
+
+Since the end of the civil war in 1970, some ethnic violence has persisted. There has subsequently been a period of relative harmony[when?] since the Federal Government introduced tough new measures against religious violence in all affected parts of the country. The 2002 Miss World pageant was moved from Abuja to London in the wake of violent protests by Muslims in the Northern part of the country that left at least a hundred dead and more than 500 injured.[246]The rioting erupted after Muslims in the country reacted in anger to comments made by a newspaper reporter. Muslim rioters in Kaduna killed an estimated 105 men, women, and children with a further 521 injured taken to hospital.
+
+Since 2002, the country has seen sectarian violence by Boko Haram, a movement that seeks to abolish the secular system of government and establish Sharia law in the country.[247][248] In the 2010 Jos riots, more than 500 people were killed by religious violence.[249]
+
+Between 2011 and 2018, Boko Haram has been responsible for more than 37,000 deaths in the region.[250] The group's targets include both civilians and Nigerian security forces.[251][252] In May 2014 Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger joined Nigeria in a united effort to combat Boko Haram in the aftermath of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls.[253]
+
+In April 2016, more than 500 people in ten villages in predominantly Christian areas in Agatu were murdered by Fulani herdsmen. A visiting Nigerian Senator reported that all the primary and post-primary schools, health centres, worship centres as well as the police station in the area were destroyed. The UNHCR representative said in 20 years of work, she had "never seen such a level of destruction".[254] 130 Fulani adults and children were massacred in the Kaduna State in February 2019.[255]
+
+Nigeria is a state party of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women[256] It also has signed Maputo Protocol, an international treaty on women's rights, and the African Union Women's Rights Framework.[257] Discrimination based on sex is a significant human rights issue, however. Forced marriages are common.[258]
+
+Child marriage remains common in Northern Nigeria.[259] 39% of girls are married before age 15, although the Marriage Rights Act banning marriage of girls below 18 years of age was introduced on a federal level in 2008.[260]
+
+There is polygamy in Nigeria.[261] Submission of the wife to her husband and domestic violence are common. Women have less land rights.[262] Maternal mortality was at 814 per 100,000 live births in 2015.[263] Female genital mutilation is common. In 2015, there was a federal ban.[264]
+
+In Nigeria, at least half a million suffer from vaginal fistula, largely as a result of lack of medical care.[265][266] Early marriages can result in fistula.[267] Most workers in the informal sector are women.[268]
+
+Women also face a large amount of inequality Politically in Nigeria, being subjugated to a bias which is sexist and reinforced by socio-cultural, economic and oppressive ways.[269] Despite being politically emancipated, for many women in Nigeria their husbands still dictate their political choice, which upholds the patriarchal system.[270]
+
+Women's representation in government since Independence from Britain is also very poor. Women have been reduced to sideline roles in appointive posts throughout all levels in government, and still make an up a tiny minority of elected officials.[270]
+
+Nigeria's human rights record remains poor.[271] According to the U.S. Department of State,[271] the most significant human rights problems are: use of excessive force by security forces; impunity for abuses by security forces; arbitrary arrests; prolonged pretrial detention; judicial corruption and executive influence on the judiciary; rape, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees and suspects; harsh and life‑threatening prison and detention centre conditions; human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution and forced labour; societal violence and vigilante killings; child labour, child abuse and child sexual exploitation; domestic violence; discrimination based on ethnicity, region and religion.
+
+Under the Shari'a penal code that applies to Muslims in twelve northern states, offences such as alcohol consumption, homosexuality,[272] infidelity and theft carry harsh sentences, including amputation, lashing, stoning and long prison terms.[273] According to 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 98% of Nigerians believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.[274]
+
+Under a law signed in early 2014,[275] same-sex couples who marry face up to 14 years each in prison. Witnesses or anyone who helps gay couples marry will be sentenced to 10 years behind bars. The bill also punishes the "public show of same-sex amorous relationships directly or indirectly" with ten years in prison. Another portion of the bill mandates 10 years in prison for those found guilty of organising, operating or supporting gay clubs, organizations and meetings.
+
+In the Nigerian state of Akwa Ibom, about 15,000 children were branded as witches; most of them ended up abandoned and abused on the streets.[276]
+
+On 28 April 2020, Nigerian authorities arrested Mubarak Bala, a prominent Nigerian humanist and president of the Nigerian Humanist Association. He has been detained incommunicado and accused of blasphemy, after he wrote a post on Facebook expressing his beliefs. He has been denied access to his family and his lawyer and also been subjected to ill-treatment in police custody.[277]
+
+Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi, the Shehu of Borno
+
+Idia, the Iyoba of Benin
+
+Jaja, the Amanyanaboh of Opobo
+
+Nigerian citizens have authored many influential works of post-colonial literature in the English language. Nigeria's best-known writers are Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature, and Chinua Achebe, best known for the novel Things Fall Apart (1958) and his controversial critique of Joseph Conrad.
+
+Other Nigerian writers and poets who are well known internationally include John Pepper Clark, Ben Okri, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, Helon Habila, T. M. Aluko, Isaac Delano, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel O. Fagunwa, Femi Osofisan  and Ken Saro Wiwa, who was executed in 1995 by the military regime.
+
+Critically acclaimed writers of a younger generation include Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Chris Abani, Sefi Atta, Helon Habila, Helen Oyeyemi, Nnedi Okorafor, Kachi A. Ozumba, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, and Chika Unigwe.
+
+Nigeria has had a huge role in the development of various genres of African music, including West African highlife, Afrobeat, Afrobeats, and palm-wine music, which fuses native rhythms with techniques that have been linked to the Congo, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica and worldwide.
+
+Many late 20th-century musicians such as Fela Kuti have famously fused cultural elements of various indigenous music with American jazz and soul to form Afrobeat which has in turn influenced hip hop music.[279] JuJu music, which is percussion music fused with traditional music from the Yoruba nation and made famous by King Sunny Adé, is from Nigeria. Fuji music, a Yoruba percussion style, was created and popularised by Mr. Fuji, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.
+
+Afan Music was invented and popularised by the Ewu-born poet and musician Umuobuarie Igberaese. There is a budding hip-hop movement in Nigeria. Kennis Music, the self-proclaimed number-one record label in Africa, and one of Nigeria's biggest record labels, has a roster almost entirely dominated by hip-hop artists.
+
+Notable musicians from Nigeria include: Sade Adu, King Sunny Adé, Onyeka Onwenu, Dele Sosimi, Adewale Ayuba, Ezebuiro Obinna, Ebenezer Obey, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Dr. Alban, Bola Abimbola, Tuface Idibia, Aṣa, Nneka, Wale, P Square, Wizkid, Skepta, CB and D'Banj.
+
+In November 2008, Nigeria's music scene (and that of Africa) received international attention when MTV hosted the continent's first African music awards show in Abuja.[280] Additionally, the very first music video played on MTV Base Africa (the 100th station on the MTV network) was Tuface Idibia's pan-African hit "African Queen".
+
+The Nigerian film industry is known as Nollywood (a blend of Nigeria and Hollywood[281]) and is now the 2nd-largest producer of movies in the world after India's Bollywood. Nigerian film studios are based in Lagos, Kano and Enugu, forming a major portion of the local economy of these cities. Nigerian cinema is Africa's largest movie industry in terms of both value and the number of movies produced per year. Although Nigerian films have been produced since the 1960s, the country's film industry has been aided by the rise of affordable digital filming and editing technologies.
+
+Some films and audio documentaries include:
+
+The 2009 thriller film The Figurine is generally considered the game changer, which heightened the media attention towards New Nigerian Cinema revolution. The film was a critical and commercial success in Nigeria, and it was also screened in international film festivals.[282] The 2010 film Ijé by Chineze Anyaene, overtook The Figurine to become the highest grossing Nigerian film; a record it held for four years, until it was overtaken in 2014 by Half of a Yellow Sun(2013).[283][284] By 2016, this record was held by The Wedding Party, a film by Kemi Adetiba.
+
+By the end of 2013, the film industry reportedly hit a record breaking revenue of ₦1.72 trillion (US$11 billion). As of 2014, the industry was worth ₦853.9 billion (US$5.1 billion) making it the third most valuable film industry in the world, behind the United States and India. It contributed about 1.4% to Nigeria's economy; this was attributed to the increase in the number of quality films produced and more formal distribution methods.[285][286]
+
+T.B. Joshua's Emmanuel TV, originating from Nigeria, is one of the most viewed television stations across Africa.[287]
+
+There are many festivals in Nigeria, some of which date to the period before the arrival of the major religions in this ethnically and culturally diverse society. The main Muslim and Christian festivals are often celebrated in ways that are unique to Nigeria or unique to the people of a locality.[288] The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation has been working with the states to upgrade the traditional festivals, which may become important sources of tourism revenue.[289]
+
+Nigerian cuisine, like West African cuisine in general, is known for its richness and variety. Many different spices, herbs and flavourings are used in conjunction with palm oil or groundnut oil to create deeply flavoured sauces and soups often made very hot with chili peppers. Nigerian feasts are colourful and lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried in oil are plentiful and varied.[290]
+
+Football is largely considered Nigeria's national sport and the country has its own Premier League of football. Nigeria's national football team, known as the "Super Eagles", has made the World Cup on Six occasions 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014, and most recently in 2018. In April 1994, the Super Eagles ranked 5th in the FIFA World Rankings, the highest ranking achieved by an African football team. They won the African Cup of Nations in 1980, 1994, and 2013, and have also hosted the U-17 & U-20 World Cup. They won the gold medal for football in the 1996 Summer Olympics (in which they beat Argentina) becoming the first African football team to win gold in Olympic football.
+
+The nation's cadet team from Japan '93 produced some international players notably Nwankwo Kanu, a two-time African Footballer of the year who won the European Champions League with Ajax Amsterdam and later played with Inter Milan, Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion and Portsmouth. Other players who graduated from the junior teams are Nduka Ugbade, Jonathan Akpoborie, Victor Ikpeba, Celestine Babayaro, Wilson Oruma and Taye Taiwo. Some other famous Nigerian footballers include John Obi Mikel, Obafemi Martins, Vincent Enyeama, Yakubu, Rashidi Yekini, Peter Odemwingie and Jay-Jay Okocha.
+
+According to the official May 2010 FIFA World Rankings, Nigeria was the second top-ranked football nation in Africa and the 21st highest in the world. Nigeria is also involved in other sports such as basketball, cricket and track and field.[291] Boxing is also an important sport in Nigeria; Dick Tiger and Samuel Peter are both former World Champions.
+
+Nigeria's national basketball team made the headlines internationally when it qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics as it beat heavily favoured world elite teams such as Greece and Lithuania.[292] Nigeria has been home to numerous internationally recognised basketball players in the world's top leagues in America, Europe and Asia. These players include Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, and later NBA draft picks Solomon Alabi, Yinka Dare, Obinna Ekezie, Festus Ezeli, Al-Farouq Aminu and Olumide Oyedeji.
+
+Nigeria made history by qualifying the first bobsled team for the Winter Olympics from Africa when their women's two-man team qualified for the bobsled competition at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.[293]
+
+In the early 1990s, Scrabble was made an official sport in Nigeria. By the end of 2017, there were around 4,000 players in more than 100 clubs in the country.[294] In 2015, Wellington Jighere became the first African player to win World Scrabble Championship.[295]
+
+Click on a coloured area to see an article about English in that country or region
+
+Coordinates: 8°N 10°E / 8°N 10°E / 8; 10

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+Nigeria (/naɪˈdʒɪəriə/ (listen)), officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a sovereign country located in West Africa bordering Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located.
+
+Nigeria has been home to a number of ancient and indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms over the millennia. The modern state originated from British colonial rule beginning in the 19th century, and took its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Frederick Lugard. The British set up administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms; Nigeria became a formally independent federation on October 1, 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970. It thereafter alternated between democratically-elected civilian governments and military dictatorships until it achieved a stable democracy in 1999, with the 2015 presidential election marking the first time an incumbent president had lost re-election.[6]
+
+A multinational state, Nigeria is inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups with over 500 distinct languages all identifying with a wide variety of cultures.[7][8][9] The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east; comprising over 60% of the total population.[10] The official language of Nigeria is English, chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level.[11] Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Christians, who live mostly in the southern part of the country, and Muslims, who live mostly in the north. Nigeria has respectively, the fifth-largest Muslim population in the world and the sixth-largest Christian population in the world,[12] with the constitution ensuring freedom of religion.[13] A minority of the population practice religions indigenous to Nigeria, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities.[14]
+
+Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa[15][16] and the seventh most populous country in the world, with an estimated 206 million inhabitants as of late 2019.[17] Nigeria has the third-largest youth population in the world, after India and China, with more than 90 million of its population under the age of eighteen.[18][19] Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa and is the world's 24th largest economy according to the list by the IMF (2020 estimates), worth more than $500 billion and $1 trillion in terms of nominal GDP and purchasing power parity, respectively.[20][21] The 2013 debt-to-GDP ratio was 11 percent as of 2019 it has risen to an approximated figure of 16 percent.[22] Nigeria is a lower middle-income economy with a gross national income per capita between $1,026 and $3,986.[23] Nigeria is often referred to as the "Giant of Africa", owing to its large population and economy,[24] it is also considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank;[25] it has been identified as a regional power on the African continent,[26][27][28] a middle power in international affairs,[29][30][31][32] and has also been identified as an emerging global power.[33][34][35] However, its Human Development Index ranks 158th in the world.
+
+Nigeria is a member of the MINT group of countries, which are widely seen as the globe's next "BRIC-like" economies. It is also listed among the "Next Eleven" economies set to become among the biggest in the world. Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many other international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the ECOWAS, and OPEC.
+
+The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was coined on January 8, 1897 by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The origin of the name Niger, which originally applied to only the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name egerew n-igerewen used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu prior to 19th-century European colonialism.[36]Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
+[37][38][39][40] and smelted iron by about 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier.[41][42][43] Evidence of iron smelting has also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria: dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja (Uzomaka 2009)[44] and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi. The Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911.[45][46] Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture. Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri.[47] In West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost-wax process were from Igbo-Ukwu, a city under Nri influence.[45] The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th[48][49] and 14th[50] centuries, respectively. The oldest signs of human settlement at Ife's current site date back to the 9th century,[48] and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures.
+
+The Kano Chronicle highlights an ancient history dating to around 999 AD of the Hausa Sahelian city-state of Kano, with other major Hausa cities (or Hausa Bakwai) of: Daura, Hadeija, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Rano, and Gobir all having recorded histories dating back to the 10th century. With the spread of Islam from the 7th century AD, the area became known as Sudan or as Bilad Al Sudan (English: Land of the Blacks; Arabic: بلاد السودان‎). Since the populations were partially affiliated with the Arab Muslim culture of North Africa, they started to trade and be referred to by the Arabic speakers as Al-Sudan (meaning "The Blacks") as they were considered an extended part of the Muslim world. There are early historical references by medieval Arab and Muslim historians and geographers which refer to the Kanem-Bornu Empire as the regions major centre for Islamic civilization. It is likely that the medieval Hausa Kingdoms formed trading ties with the Bornu Empire, which became increasingly wealthy as the main transshipment centre for the captured sub-Saharan African Zanj slaves along the Arab slave trade. Hausa rulers also likely provided Sudanic peoples as a tributary to the Bornu Empire in order to avert war with the Empire.
+
+In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to begin significant, direct trade with peoples of Southern Nigeria, at the port they named Lagos and in Calabar along the region Slave Coast. Europeans traded goods with peoples at the coast; coastal trade with Europeans also marked the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade.[51] The port of Calabar on the historical Bight of Biafra (now commonly referred to as the Bight of Bonny) became one of the largest slave trading posts in West Africa in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Other major slaving ports in Nigeria were located in Badagry, Lagos on the Bight of Benin and on Bonny Island on the Bight of Biafra.[51][52] The majority of those enslaved and taken to these ports were captured in raids and wars.[53] Usually the captives were taken back to the conquerors' territory as forced labour; after time, they were sometimes acculturated and absorbed into the conquerors' society. A number of slave routes were established throughout Nigeria linking the hinterland areas with the major coastal ports. Some of the more prolific slave trading kingdoms who participated in the transatlantic slave trade were linked with the Edo's Benin Empire in the south, Oyo Empire in the southwest, and the Aro Confederacy in the southeast.[51][52] Benin's power lasted between the 15th and 19th centuries. Their dominance reached as far as the city of Eko (an Edo name later changed to Lagos by the Portuguese) and further.[54] Oyo, at its territorial zenith in the late 17th to early 18th centuries, extended its influence from western Nigeria to modern-day Togo. The Edo's Benin Empire is located in southwestern Nigeria.
+
+In the north, the incessant fighting amongst the Hausa city-states and the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the Fulani people gaining headway into the region. Until this point, the Fulani a nomadic ethnic group primarily traversed the semi-desert Sahelian region, north of the Sudan, with cattle and avoided trade and intermingling with the Sudanic peoples. At the beginning of the 19th century, Usman dan Fodio led a successful jihad against the Hausa Kingdoms founding the centralised Sokoto Caliphate (also known as the Fulani Empire). The empire with Arabic as its official language grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast landlocked empire connected the East with the West Sudan region and made inroads down south conquering parts of the Oyo Empire (modern day Kwara), and advanced towards the Yoruba heartland of Ibadan, with the goal of reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The territory controlled by the Empire included much of modern-day northern and central Nigeria. The Sultan sent out emirs to establish a suzerainty over the conquered territories and promote Islamic civilization, the Emirs in turn became increasingly rich and powerful though trade and slavery. By the 1890s, the largest slave population in the world, about two million, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture.[55] By the time of its break-up in 1903 into various European colonies, the Sokoto Caliphate was one of the largest pre-colonial African states.[56]
+
+A changing legal imperative (transatlantic slave trade outlawed by Britain in 1807) and economic imperative (a desire for political and social stability) led most European powers to support widespread cultivation of agricultural products, such as the palm, for use in European industry. The Atlantic slave trade was engaged in by European companies until it was outlawed in 1807. After that illegal smugglers purchased slaves along the coast by native slavers. Britain's West Africa Squadron sought to intercept the smugglers at sea. The rescued slaves were taken to Freetown, a colony in West Africa originally established for the resettlement of freed slaves from Britain. Britain intervened in the Lagos Kingship power struggle by bombarding Lagos in 1851, deposing the slave trade friendly Oba Kosoko, helping to install the amenable Oba Akitoye, and signing the Treaty between Great Britain and Lagos on 1 January 1852. Britain annexed Lagos as a Crown Colony in August 1861 with the Lagos Treaty of Cession. British missionaries expanded their operations and traveled further inland. In 1864, Samuel Ajayi Crowther became the first African bishop of the Anglican Church.[57]
+
+In 1885, British claims to a West African sphere of influence received recognition from other European nations at the Berlin Conference. The following year, it chartered the Royal Niger Company under the leadership of Sir George Taubman Goldie. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the company had vastly succeeded in subjugating the independent southern kingdoms along the Niger River, the British conquered Benin in 1897, and, in the Anglo-Aro War (1901–1902), defeated other opponents. The defeat of these states opened up the Niger area to British rule. In 1900, the company's territory came under the direct control of the British government and established the Southern Nigeria Protectorate as a British protectorate and part of the British Empire, the foremost world power at the time.
+
+By 1902, the British had begun plans to move north into the Sokoto Caliphate. Lord Frederick Lugard a British general, was tasked by the Colonial Office to implement the agenda. Lugard used rivalries between many of the emirs in the southern reach of the caliphate and the central Sokoto administration to prevent any defense as he worked towards the capital. As the British approached the city of Sokoto, the new Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru I organized a quick defense of the city and fought the advancing British-led forces. The British force quickly won, sending Attahiru I and thousands of followers on a Mahdist hijra. In the northeast, the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the British-controlled Borno Emirate which established Abubakar Garbai of Borno as the ruler.
+
+In 1903, the British-victory in the Battle of Kano gave them a logistical edge in pacifying the heartland of the Sokoto Caliphate and parts of the former Bornu Empire. On March 13, 1903 at the grand market square of Sokoto, the last Vizier of the Caliphate officially conceded to British rule. The British appointed Muhammadu Attahiru II as the new Caliph. Fredrick Lugard abolished the Caliphate, but retained the title Sultan as a symbolic position in the newly organized Northern Nigeria Protectorate. This remnant became known as "Sokoto Sultanate Council". In June 1903, the British defeated the remaining forces of Attahiru I and killed him; by 1906 resistance to British rule had ended.
+
+Amalgamation
+
+On 1 January 1914, the British formally united the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and the Northern Nigeria Protectorate into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. Administratively, Nigeria remained divided into the Northern and Southern Protectorates and Lagos Colony. Inhabitants of the southern region sustained more interaction, economic and cultural, with the British and other Europeans owing to the coastal economy.[58]
+
+Christian missions established Western educational institutions in the Protectorates. Under Britain's policy of indirect rule and validation of Islamic tradition, the Crown did not encourage the operation of Christian missions in the northern, Islamic part of the country.[59] Some children of the southern elite went to Great Britain to pursue higher education. By independence in 1960, regional differences in modern educational access were marked. The legacy, though less pronounced, continues to the present day. Imbalances between North and South were expressed in Nigeria's political life as well. For instance, northern Nigeria did not outlaw slavery until 1936 whilst in other parts of Nigeria slavery was abolished soon after colonialism.[60][52]
+
+Following World War II, in response to the growth of Nigerian nationalism and demands for independence, successive constitutions legislated by the British government moved Nigeria toward self-government on a representative and increasingly federal basis. By the middle of the 20th century, a great wave for independence was sweeping across Africa. Nigeria achieved independence in 1960.[61]
+
+Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on 1 October 1960, as the Federation of Nigeria, while retaining the British monarch, Elizabeth II, as nominal head of state and Queen of Nigeria. Independent Nigeria's founding government was a coalition of conservative parties: the Northern People's Congress (NPC) led by Sir Ahmadu Bello, a party dominated by Muslim Northerners, and the Igbo and Christian-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) led by Nnamdi Azikiwe. Azikiwe replaced the colonial governor-general in November 1960. The opposition comprised the comparatively liberal Action Group (AG), which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. At independence, the cultural and political differences were sharp among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa–Fulani ('Northerners'), Igbo ('Easterners') and Yoruba ('Westerners').[62] An imbalance was created in the polity by the result of the 1961 plebiscite. Southern Cameroons (since renamed by separatists as Ambazonia) opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while Northern Cameroons chose to remain in Nigeria. The northern part of the country then became larger than the southern part. In 1963, the nation established a Federal Republic, with Azikiwe as its first president. When elections were held in 1965, the Nigerian National Democratic Party came to power in Nigeria's Western Region.
+
+The disequilibrium and perceived corruption of the electoral and political process led, in 1966, to back-to-back military coups. The first coup was in January 1966 and was led mostly by Igbo soldiers under Majors Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The coup plotters succeeded in assassinating Sir Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa alongside prominent leaders of the Northern Region and also Premier Samuel Akintola of the Western Region, but the coup plotters struggled to form a central government. President Nwafor Orizu handed over government control to the Army, then under the command of another Igbo officer, General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi. Later, the counter-coup of 1966, supported primarily by Northern military officers, facilitated the rise of Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon to head of state. Tension rose between North and South; Igbos in Northern cities suffered persecution and many fled to the Eastern Region.[63]
+
+In May 1967, the Southern Region declared independence as a state called the Republic of Biafra, under the leadership of Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu.[64] The Nigerian Civil War began as the official Nigerian government side attacked Biafra on 6 July 1967 at Garkem. The 30-month war, with a long siege of Biafra and its isolation from trade and supplies, ended in January 1970.[65] Estimates of the number of dead in the former Eastern Region during the 30-month civil war range from one to three million.[66] France, Egypt, the Soviet Union, Britain, Israel, and others were deeply involved in the civil war behind the scenes. Britain and the Soviet Union were the main military backers of the Nigerian government while France and others aided the Biafrans. The Congolese government, under President Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, took an early stand on the Biafran secession, voicing strong support for the Nigerian federal government[67] and deploying thousands of troops to fight against the secessionists.[68][69] Nigeria used Egyptian pilots for their air force.[70][71]
+
+Following the war, Nigeria enjoyed the oil boom of the 1970s, during which the country joined OPEC and received huge oil revenues. Despite these revenues, the military government did little to improve the standard of living of the population, help small and medium businesses, or invest in infrastructure. As oil revenues fueled the rise of federal subsidies to states, the federal government became the centre of political struggle and the threshold of power in the country. As oil production and revenue rose, the Nigerian government became increasingly dependent on oil revenues and international commodity markets for budgetary and economic concerns.[72]
+
+In 1977, constituent assembly was elected to draft a new constitution, which was published on September 21, 1978, when the ban on political activity was lifted. In 1979, five political parties competed in a series of elections in which Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was elected president. Obasanjo peacefully transferred power to Shagari, becoming the first head of state in Nigerian history to willingly step down. All five parties won representation in the National Assembly. In August 1983 Shagari and the NPN were returned to power in a landslide victory, with a majority of seats in the National Assembly and control of 12 state governments. But the elections were marred by violence and allegations of widespread vote rigging and electoral malfeasance led to legal battles over the results. In the widely monitored 1979 election, Alhaji Shehu Shagari was elected on the NPN platform.
+
+Beginning in 1979, Nigerians participated in a return to democracy when Olusegun Obasanjo transferred power to the civilian regime of Shehu Shagari. On October 1, 1979, Shehu Shagari was sworn in as the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The military carefully planned the return to civil rule putting in place measures to ensure that political parties have broader support than witnessed during the first republic. The Shagari government became viewed as corrupt by virtually all sectors of Nigerian society. In 1983 the inspectors of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) began to notice "the slow poisoning of the waters of this country".[73][74] But there were also uncertainties, such as that first republic, political leaders may be unable to govern properly which would bring another batch of new military rulers.
+
+The 1983 military coup d'état took place on New Years eve of that year. It was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military and led to the overthrow of the Second Nigerian Republic and the installation of Major General Muhammadu Buhari as Head of State. The military coup of Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the regime's re-election in 1984 was generally viewed as a positive development.[75] Buhari promised major reforms, but his government fared little better than its predecessor. His regime was overthrown by another military coup in 1985.[76]
+
+General Buhari was overthrown in 1985 military coup d'état led by General Ibrahim Babangida, who established the Armed Forces Ruling Council and became military president and commander in chief of the armed forces. In 1986, he established the Nigerian Political Bureau of 1986 which made recommendations for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. In 1989, Babangida started making plans for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. He legalized the formation of political parties, and formed the two-party system with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) ahead of the 1992 general elections. He urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties, which the late Chief Bola Ige famously referred to as "two leper hands." The two-party state had been a Political Bureau recommendation. In November 1991, after a census was conducted, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) announced on 24 January 1992 that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held later that year. A process of voting was adopted, referred to as Option A4. This process advocated that any candidate needed to pass through adoption for all elective positions from the local government, state government and federal government.[77]
+
+Babangida survived the 1990 Nigerian coup d'état attempt, then postponed a promised return to democracy to 1992. The 1993 presidential election held on June 12, the first since the military coup of 1983. The results though not officially declared by the National Electoral Commission – showed the duo of Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) defeated Bashir Tofa and Slyvester Ugoh of the National Republican Convention (NRC) by over 2.3 million votes. However, Babangida annulled the elections, leading to massive civilian protests that effectively shut down the country for weeks. In August 1993, Babangida finally kept his promise to relinquish power to a civilian government, but not before appointing Ernest Shonekan head of the Interim National Government.[78] Babangida's regime has been considered the most corrupt, and responsible for creating a culture of corruption in Nigeria.[79]
+
+In late 1993, Shonekan's interim government, the shortest in the political history of the country was overthrown in the 1993 military coup d'état led by General Sani Abacha, who used military force on a wide scale to suppress the continuing civilian unrest. In 1995 the government hanged environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa on trumped-up charges in the deaths of four Ogoni elders. Lawsuits under the American Alien Tort Statute against Royal Dutch Shell and Brian Anderson, the head of Shell's Nigerian operation, settled out of court with Shell continuing to deny liability.[80] Several hundred million dollars in accounts traced to Abacha were discovered in 1999.[81] The regime came to an end in 1998, when the dictator died in the villa. He looted money to offshore accounts in western European banks and defeated coup plots by arresting and bribing generals and politicians. His successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, adopted a new constitution on 5 May 1999 which provided for multiparty elections.
+
+On 29 May 1999, Abubakar transferred power to the winner of the 1999 presidential election, former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo as the second democratically elected civilian President of Nigeria. This ended almost 33 years of military rule from 1966 until 1999, excluding the short-lived second republic (between 1979 and 1983) by military dictators who seized power in coups d'état and counter-coups during the Nigerian military juntas of 1966–1979 and 1983–1999. Obasanjo's election heralded the beginning of the Fourth Nigerian Republic.[82]
+
+Although the elections that brought Obasanjo to power in the 1999 presidential election and for a second term in the 2003 presidential election were condemned as unfree and unfair, , Nigeria has shown marked improvements in attempts to tackle government corruption and hasten development.[83] Ethnic violence for control over the oil-producing Niger Delta region and inadequate infrastructures are some of the issues facing the country. Umaru Yar'Adua of the People's Democratic Party came into power in the general election of 2007. The international community, which had been observing Nigerian elections to encourage a free and fair process, condemned this one as being severely flawed.[84] The then-president, Olusegun Obasanjo, acknowledged fraud and other electoral "lapses" but said the result reflected opinion polls. In a national television address in 2007, he added that if Nigerians did not like the victory of his handpicked successor, they would have an opportunity to vote again in four years.[85] Yar'Adua died on 5 May 2010.  Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as Yar'Adua's,[86] becoming the 14th Head of State.[87][88] Goodluck Jonathan served as acting president of Nigeria until 16 April 2011, when a new presidential election in Nigeria was conducted. He went on to win the elections, with the international media reporting the elections as having run smoothly with relatively little violence or voter fraud, in contrast to previous elections.[89]
+
+Ahead of the general election of 2015, a merger of the three biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria(ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the new PDP (nPDP), a faction of serving governors of the then ruling People's Democratic Party – formed the All Progressives Congress (APC). In the 2015 presidential election, former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari, leader of the CPC faction of the APC – who had previously contested in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential elections as the APC presidential candidate defeated incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by over two million votes, ending the party's sixteen year rule in the country, and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate. Observers generally praised the election as being fair. Jonathan was generally praised for conceding defeat and limiting the risk of unrest.[90][91][92][93] In the 2019 presidential election, Muhammadu Buhari was re-elected for a second term in office defeating his closet rival Atiku Abubakar.[94]
+
+Nigeria is a federal republic modelled after the United States,[95] with executive power exercised by the President. It is influenced by the Westminster System model[citation needed] in the composition and management of the upper and lower houses of the bicameral legislature. The president is both head of state and head of the federal government; the leader is elected by popular vote to a maximum of two four-year terms.[96] The president's power is checked by a Senate and a House of Representatives, which are combined in a bicameral body called the National Assembly. The Senate is a 109-seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The House contains 360 seats, with the number of seats per state determined by population.[96]
+
+Ethnocentrism, tribalism, religious persecution, and prebendalism have affected Nigerian politics both prior and subsequent to independence in 1960. All major parties have practised vote-rigging and other means of coercion to remain competitive. In the period before 1983 election, a report of experts prepared by the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies showed that only the 1959 and 1979 elections were held without systematic rigging.[97] In 2012, Nigeria was estimated to have lost over $400 billion to corruption since independence.[98] Kin-selective altruism has made its way into Nigerian politics, resulting in tribalist efforts to concentrate Federal power to a particular region of their interests through.[99]
+
+Nigeria's three largest ethnic groups the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo have maintained historical preeminence in Nigerian politics; competition amongst these three groups has fuelled animosity.[100] Following the bloody civil war, nationalism has seen an increase in the southern part of the country leading to active secessionist movements such as the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).
+
+Because of the above issues, Nigeria's political parties are pan-national and secular in character (though this does not preclude the continuing preeminence of the dominant ethnicities).[100][101] The two major political parties are the People's Democratic Party of Nigeria and the All Progressives Congress with twenty minor opposition parties are registered. As in many other African societies, prebendalism and high rates of corruption continue to constitute major challenges to Nigeria.
+
+The country has a judicial branch, with the highest court being the Supreme Court of Nigeria.[96]There are three distinct systems of law in Nigeria:
+
+The Nigerian military are charged with protecting the Federal Republic of Nigeria, promoting Nigeria's global security interests, and supporting peacekeeping efforts, especially in West Africa. This is in support of the doctrine sometimes called Pax Nigeriana.
+
+The Nigerian Military consist of an army, a navy, and an air force.[96] The military in Nigeria have played a major role in the country's history since independence. Various juntas have seized control of the country and ruled it through most of its history. Its last period of military rule ended in 1999 following the sudden death of former dictator Sani Abacha in 1998. His successor, Abdulsalam Abubakar, handed over power to the democratically-elected government of Olusegun Obasanjo the next year.
+
+As Africa's most populated country, Nigeria has repositioned its military as a peacekeeping force on the continent. Since 1995, the Nigerian military, through ECOMOG mandates, have been deployed as peacekeepers in Liberia (1997), Ivory Coast (1997–1999), and Sierra Leone (1997–1999).[103] Under an African Union mandate, it has stationed forces in Sudan's Darfur region to try to establish peace.
+
+Nigeria has been pervaded by political corruption. Nigeria was ranked 143 out of 182 countries in Transparency International's 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index; however, it improved to 136th position in 2014.[104] More than $400 billion were stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.[105] In 2015, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari said corrupt officials have stolen $150 billion from Nigeria in the last 10 years.[106]
+
+Upon gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria made African unity the centrepiece of its foreign policy and played a leading role in the fight against the apartheid government in South Africa.[107] One exception to the African focus was Nigeria's close relationship developed with Israel throughout the 1960s. The latter nation sponsored and oversaw the construction of Nigeria's parliament buildings.[108]
+
+Nigeria's foreign policy was tested in the 1970s after the country emerged united from its own civil war. It supported movements against white minority governments in the Southern Africa sub-region. Nigeria backed the African National Congress (ANC) by taking a committed tough line with regard to the South African government and their military actions in southern Africa. Nigeria was also a founding member of the Organisation for African Unity (now the African Union), and has tremendous influence in West Africa and Africa on the whole. Nigeria has additionally founded regional cooperative efforts in West Africa, functioning as standard-bearer for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and ECOMOG, economic and military organizations, respectively.
+
+With this Africa-centred stance, Nigeria readily sent troops to the Congo at the behest of the United Nations shortly after independence (and has maintained membership since that time). Nigeria also supported several Pan-African and pro-self government causes in the 1970s, including garnering support for Angola's MPLA, SWAPO in Namibia, and aiding opposition to the minority governments of Portuguese Mozambique, and Rhodesia.
+
+Nigeria retains membership in the Non-Aligned Movement. In late November 2006, it organised an Africa-South America Summit in Abuja to promote what some attendees termed "South-South" linkages on a variety of fronts.[109] Nigeria is also a member of the International Criminal Court, and the Commonwealth of Nations. It was temporarily expelled from the latter in 1995 when ruled by the Abacha regime.
+
+Nigeria has remained a key player in the international oil industry since the 1970s, and maintains membership in Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which it joined in July 1971. Its status as a major petroleum producer figures prominently in its sometimes volatile international relations with developed countries, notably the United States, and with developing countries.[110]
+
+Millions of Nigerians have emigrated during times of economic hardship, primarily to Europe, North America and Australia. It is estimated that over a million Nigerians have emigrated to the United States and constitute the Nigerian American populace. Individuals in many such Diasporic communities have joined the "Egbe Omo Yoruba" society, a national association of Yoruba descendants in North America.[111]
+
+In July 2019, UN ambassadors of 37 countries, including Nigeria, have signed a joint letter to the UNHRC defending China's treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.[112]
+
+Since 2000, Sino-Nigerian trade relations have risen exponentially. There has been an increase in total trade of over 10,384 million dollars between the two nations from 2000 to 2016.[113] However the structure of the Sino-Nigerian trade relationship has become a major political issue for the Nigerian state. This is illustrated by the fact that Chinese exports account for around 80 percent of total bilateral trade volumes.[114] This has resulted in a serious trade imbalance, with Nigeria importing ten times more than it exports to China.[115] Subsequently, Nigeria's economy is becoming over-reliant on cheap foreign imports to sustain itself, resulting in a clear decline in Nigerian Industry under such arrangements.[116]
+
+Nigeria may suffer a deterioration of its position in international affairs if the global transition to renewable energy is completed and international demand for its petroleum resources ceases. It is ranked 149 out of 156 countries in the index of Geopolitical Gains and Losses after energy transition (GeGaLo).[117]
+
+Nigeria is divided into thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory, which are further sub-divided into 774 Local Government Areas. In some contexts, the states are aggregated into six geopolitical zones: North West, North East, North Central, South West, South East, and South South.[118][119]  Nigeria has five cities with a population of over a million (from largest to smallest): Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Benin City and Port Harcourt. Lagos is the largest city in Africa, with a population of over 12 million in its urban area.[120]
+
+Nigeria is located in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea and has a total area of 923,768 km2 (356,669 sq mi),[121] making it the world's 32nd-largest country. It is comparable in size to Venezuela, and is about twice the size of the U.S. state of California. Its borders span 4,047 kilometres (2,515 mi), and it shares borders with Benin (773 km or 480 mi), Niger (1,497 km or 930 mi), Chad (87 km or 54 mi), and Cameroon (including the separatist Ambazonia) 1,690 km or 1,050 mi. Its coastline is at least 853 km (530 mi).[122] Nigeria lies between latitudes 4° and 14°N, and longitudes 2° and 15°E.
+
+The highest point in Nigeria is Chappal Waddi at 2,419 m (7,936 ft). The main rivers are the Niger and the Benue, which converge and empty into the Niger Delta. This is one of the world's largest river deltas, and the location of a large area of Central African mangroves.
+
+Nigeria has a varied landscape. The far south is defined by its tropical rainforest climate, where annual rainfall is 60 to 80 inches (1,500 to 2,000 mm) a year.[123] In the southeast stands the Obudu Plateau. Coastal plains are found in both the southwest and the southeast.[124] This forest zone's most southerly portion is defined as "salt water swamp", also known as a mangrove swamp because of the large amount of mangroves in the area. North of this is fresh water swamp, containing different vegetation from the salt water swamp, and north of that is rainforest.[125]
+
+Nigeria's most expansive topographical region is that of the valleys of the Niger and Benue river valleys (which merge and form a Y-shape).[124] To the southwest of the Niger is "rugged" highland. To the southeast of the Benue are hills and mountains, which form the Mambilla Plateau, the highest plateau in Nigeria. This plateau extends through the border with Cameroon, where the montane land is part of the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon.
+
+The area near the border with Cameroon close to the coast is rich rainforest and part of the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests ecoregion, an important centre for biodiversity. It is habitat for the drill monkey, which is found in the wild only in this area and across the border in Cameroon. The areas surrounding Calabar, Cross River State, also in this forest, are believed to contain the world's largest diversity of butterflies. The area of southern Nigeria between the Niger and the Cross Rivers has lost most of its forest because of development and harvesting by increased population, with it being replaced by grassland (see Cross-Niger transition forests).
+
+Everything in between the far south and the far north is savannah (insignificant tree cover, with grasses and flowers located between trees). Rainfall is more limited, to between 500 and 1,500 millimetres (20 and 60 in) per year.[123] The savannah zone's three categories are Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, Sudan savannah, and Sahel savannah. Guinean forest-savanna mosaic is plains of tall grass interrupted by trees. Sudan savannah is similar but with shorter grasses and shorter trees. Sahel savannah consists of patches of grass and sand, found in the northeast.[125] In the Sahel region, rain is less than 500 millimetres (20 in) per year and the Sahara Desert is encroaching.[123] In the dry northeast corner of the country lies Lake Chad, which Nigeria shares with Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
+
+Nigeria is greatly endowed with numerous tree species of which the majority of them are native while few are exotic. Report[126] shows that high percentage of man-made forests in the country is dominated with exotic species. This culminated from the assumption that exotic trees are fast growing. However, studies have also investigated the growth of indigenous trees in with that of exotic species.
+
+Many countries in Africa are affected by Invasive Alien Species (IAS). In 2004, the IUCN–World Conservation Union identified 81 IAS in South Africa, 49 in Mauritius, 37 in Algeria and Madagascar, 35 in Kenya, 28 in Egypt, 26 in Ghana and Zimbabwe, and 22 in Ethiopia.[127] However, very little is known about IAS in Nigeria, with most technical reports and literatures reporting fewer than 10 invasive plants in the country. Aside from plant invaders, Rattus rattus and Avian influenza virus were also considered IAS in Nigeria.[128] The initial entry of IAS into Nigeria was mainly through exotic plant introductions by the colonial rulers either for forest tree plantations or for ornamental purposes. The entry of exotic plants into Nigeria during the post-independence era was encouraged by increasing economic activity, commencement of commercial oil explorations, introduction through ships, and introduction of ornamental plants by commercial floriculturists.[128]
+
+Due to overexploitation, the remaining natural ecosystems and primary forests in Nigeria are restricted to the protected areas which include one biosphere reserve, seven national parks, one World Heritage site, 12 Strict Nature Reserves (SNRs), 32 game reserves/wildlife sanctuaries, and hundreds of forest reserves. These are in addition to several ex-situ conservation sites such as arboreta, botanical gardens, zoological gardens, and gene banks managed by several tertiary and research institutions[129]
+
+In the semi-arid and dry sub-humid savanna's of West Africa, including Nigeria, numerous species of herbaceous dicots especially from the genera Crotalaria, Alysicarpus, Cassia and Ipomea are known to be widely used in livestock production. Quite often they are plucked or cut, and fed either as fresh or conserved fodders. The utilization of these and many other herbs growing naturally within the farm environment is opportunistic.[129]
+
+Many other species native to Nigeria, including Soybean and its varieties, serve as an important source of oil and protein in this region.[citation needed] There are also many plants with medicinal purposes that are used to aid the therapy in many organs. Some of these vegetations include, Euphorbiaceae, that serve purposed to aid malaria, gastrointestinal disorders and many other infections. Different stress factors such as droughts, low soil nutrients and susceptibility to pests has contributed to Maize plantations being an integral part of agriculture in this region.[130]
+
+As industrialization has increased, it has also put species of trees in the forest at risk to air pollution and studies have shown that in certain part of Nigeria, trees have shown tolerance and grow in areas that have a significant amount air pollution[131]
+
+Nigeria's Delta region, home of the large oil industry, experiences serious oil spills and other environmental problems, which has caused conflict.
+
+Waste management including sewage treatment, the linked processes of deforestation and soil degradation, and climate change or global warming are the major environmental problems in Nigeria. Waste management presents problems in a mega city like Lagos and other major Nigerian cities which are linked with economic development, population growth and the inability of municipal councils to manage the resulting rise in industrial and domestic waste. This huge waste management problem is also attributable to unsustainable environmental management lifestyles of Kubwa Community in the Federal Capital Territory, where there are habits of indiscriminate disposal of waste, dumping of waste along or into the canals, sewerage systems that are channels for water flows, and the like.
+
+Haphazard industrial planning, increased urbanisation, poverty and lack of competence of the municipal government are seen as the major reasons for high levels of waste pollution in major cities of the country. Some of the 'solutions' have been disastrous to the environment, resulting in untreated waste being dumped in places where it can pollute waterways and groundwater.[132]
+
+In 2005 Nigeria had the highest rate of deforestation in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).[133] That year, 12.2%, the equivalent of 11,089,000 hectares had been forested in the country. Between 1990 and 2000, Nigeria lost an average of 409,700 hectares of forest every year equal to an average annual deforestation rate of 2.4%. Between 1990 and 2005, in total Nigeria lost 35.7% of its forest cover, or around 6,145,000 hectares.[134]
+
+In 2010, thousands of people were inadvertently exposed to lead-containing soil / ore from informal gold mining within the northern state of Zamfara. While estimates vary, it is thought that upwards of 400 children died of acute lead poisoning, making this perhaps the largest lead poisoning fatality epidemic ever encountered.[135] As of 2016, efforts to manage the exposure are ongoing.
+
+Nigeria is classified as a mixed economy emerging market. It has reached lower middle income status according to the World Bank,[136] with its abundant supply of natural resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, transport sectors and stock exchange (the Nigerian Stock Exchange), which is the second largest in Africa.
+
+Nigeria was ranked 21st in the world in terms of GDP (PPP) in 2015.[137] Nigeria is the United States' largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa and supplies a fifth of its oil (11% of oil imports). It has the seventh-largest trade surplus with the U.S. of any country worldwide. Nigeria is the 50th-largest export market for U.S. goods and the 14th-largest exporter of goods to the U.S. The United States is the country's largest foreign investor.[138] Following the oil price collapse in 2014–2016, combined with negative production shocks, the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate dropped to 2.7% in 2015. In 2016 during its first recession in 25 years, the economy contracted by 1.6%.[139] Fiscal year 2016 was characterized by currency depreciation and the attendant higher prices of petroleum products, electricity and imported foods pushed inflation to 18.55% in December 2016 from 9.55% in December 2015. By 2019, the economy began to recover slightly with the nation's real GDP growing by 2.3% and the IMF estimating another increase of 2.3% in 2020.
+
+In 2019, the economy began to recover slightly with the nation's real GDP growing by 2.3% and the IMF estimating another increase of 2.3% in 2020.
+
+Economic development has been hindered by years of military rule, corruption, and mismanagement. The restoration of democracy and subsequent economic reforms have successfully put Nigeria back on track towards achieving its full economic potential. As of 2014[update] it is the largest economy in Africa, having overtaken South Africa. Next to petrodollars, the second biggest source of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria are remittances sent home by Nigerians living abroad.[140][140]
+
+During the oil boom of the 1970s, Nigeria accumulated a significant foreign debt to finance major infrastructural investments. With the fall of oil prices during the 1980s oil glut Nigeria struggled to keep up with its loan payments and eventually defaulted on its principal debt repayments, limiting repayment to the interest portion of the loans. Arrears and penalty interest accumulated on the unpaid principal, which increased the size of the debt. After negotiations by the Nigerian authorities, in October 2005 Nigeria and its Paris Club creditors reached an agreement under which Nigeria repurchased its debt at a discount of approximately 60%. Nigeria used part of its oil profits to pay the residual 40%, freeing up at least $1.15 billion annually for poverty reduction programmes. Nigeria made history in April 2006 by becoming the first African country to completely pay off its debt (estimated $30 billion) owed to the Paris Club.
+
+Nigeria is trying to reach the first of the Sustainable Development Goals, which is to end poverty in all its forms by 2030.
+
+As of 2010[update], about 30% of Nigerians are employed in agriculture.[141] Agriculture used to be the principal foreign exchange earner of Nigeria.[142]
+
+Major crops include beans, sesame, cashew nuts, cassava, cocoa beans, groundnuts, gum arabic, kolanut, maize (corn), melon, millet, palm kernels, palm oil, plantains, rice, rubber, sorghum, soybeans and yams.[143] Cocoa is the leading non-oil foreign exchange earner.[143] Rubber is the second-largest non-oil foreign exchange earner.[143]
+
+Prior to the Nigerian civil war, Nigeria was self-sufficient in food.[143] Agriculture has failed to keep pace with Nigeria's rapid population growth, and Nigeria now relies upon food imports to sustain itself.[143] The Nigerian government promoted the use of inorganic fertilizers in the 1970s.[144] In August 2019, Nigeria closed its border with Benin to stop rice smuggling into the country as part of efforts to boost the local production.[145]
+
+Nigeria is the 12th largest producer of petroleum in the world and the 8th largest exporter, and has the 10th largest proven reserves. (The country joined OPEC in 1971.) Petroleum plays a large role in the Nigerian economy, accounting for 40% of GDP and 80% of Government earnings. However, agitation for better resource control in the Niger Delta, its main oil-producing region, has led to disruptions in oil production and prevents the country from exporting at 100% capacity.[146]
+
+The Niger Delta Nembe Creek Oil field was discovered in 1973 and produces from middle Miocene deltaic sandstone-shale in an anticline structural trap at a depth of 2 to 4 kilometres (1.2 to 2.5 miles).[147] In June 2013, Shell announced a strategic review of its operations in Nigeria, hinting that assets could be divested. While many international oil companies have operated there for decades, by 2014 most were making moves to divest their interests, citing a range of issues including oil theft. In August 2014, Shell Oil Company said it was finalising its interests in four Nigerian oil fields.[148]
+
+Nigeria has a total of 159 oil fields and 1,481 wells in operation according to the Department of Petroleum Resources.[149] The most productive region of the nation is the coastal Niger Delta Basin in the Niger Delta or "South-south" region which encompasses 78 of the 159 oil fields. Most of Nigeria's oil fields are small and scattered, and as of 1990, these small fields accounted for 62.1% of all Nigerian production. This contrasts with the sixteen largest fields which produced 37.9% of Nigeria's petroleum at that time.[150]
+
+In addition to its petroleum resources, Nigeria also has a wide array of underexploited mineral resources which include natural gas, coal, bauxite, tantalite, gold, tin, iron ore, limestone, niobium, lead and zinc.[151] Despite huge deposits of these natural resources, the mining industry in Nigeria is still in its infancy.
+
+Nigeria has a highly developed financial services sector, with a mix of local and international banks, asset management companies, brokerage houses, insurance companies and brokers, private equity funds and investment banks.[152] Nigeria has one of the fastest growing telecommunications markets in the world, major emerging market operators (like MTN, 9mobile, Airtel and Globacom) basing their largest and most profitable centres in the country.[153]  Nigeria's ICT sector has experienced a lot of growth, representing 10% of the nation's GDP in 2018 as compared to just 1% in 2001.[154] Lagos is regarded as one of the largest technology hubs in Africa with its thriving tech ecosysytem.[155] Several startups like Paystack, Interswitch, Bolt and Piggyvest are leveraging technology to solve issues across different sectors.
+
+Tourism in Nigeria centers largely on events, due to the country's ample amount of ethnic groups, but also includes rain forests, savannah, waterfalls, and other natural attractions.[156]
+
+Abuja is home to several parks and green areas. The largest, Millennium Park, was designed by architect Manfredi Nicoletti and officially opened in December 2003.
+Lagos, subsequent to the re-modernization project achieved by the previous administration of Governor Raji Babatunde Fashola, is gradually becoming a major tourist destination, being one of the largest cities in Africa and in the world. Lagos is currently taking steps to become a global city. The 2009 Eyo carnival (a yearly festival originated from Iperu Remo, Ogun State), which took place on 25 April, was a step toward world city status. Currently, Lagos is primarily known as a business-oriented and a fast-paced community.[157]Lagos has become an important location for African and "black" cultural identity.[158] Many festivals are held in Lagos; festivals vary in offerings each year and may be held in different months. Some of the festivals are Festac Food Fair held in Festac Town Annually, Eyo Festival, Lagos Black Heritage Carnival, Lagos Carnival, Eko International Film Festival, Lagos Seafood Festac Festival, LAGOS PHOTO Festival and the Lagos Jazz Series, which is a unique franchise for high-quality live music in all genres with a focus on jazz. Established in 2010, the event takes place over a 3–5 day period at selected high quality outdoor venues. The music is as varied as the audience itself and features a diverse mix of musical genres from rhythm and blues to soul, Afrobeat, hip hop, bebop, and traditional jazz. The festivals provide entertainment of dance and song to add excitement to travelers during a stay in Lagos.
+
+Lagos has a number of sandy beaches by the Atlantic Ocean, including Elegushi Beach and Alpha Beach. Lagos also has a number of private beach resorts including Inagbe Grand Beach Resort and several others in the outskirts. Lagos has a variety of hotels ranging from three star to five star hotels, with a mixture of local hotels such as Eko Hotels and Suites, Federal Palace Hotel and franchises of multinational chains such as Intercontinental Hotel, Sheraton and Four Points by Hilton. Other places of interest include the Tafawa Balewa Square, Festac town, The Nike Art Gallery, Freedom Park, Lagos and the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos.
+
+Nigeria has a manufacturing industry that includes leather and textiles (centred in Kano, Abeokuta, Onitsha, and Lagos), Nigeria currently has an indigenous auto manufacturing company; Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing[159] located in Nnewi. It produces Buses and SUVs.car manufacturing (for the French car manufacturer Peugeot as well as for the English truck manufacturer Bedford, now a subsidiary of General Motors), T-shirts, plastics and processed food. In this regard, some foreign vehicle manufacturing companies like Nissan have made known their plans to have manufacturing plants in Nigeria.[160] Ogun is considered to be Nigeria's current industrial hub, as most factories are located in Ogun and more companies are moving there, followed by Lagos.[161][162][163]
+
+Nigeria in recent years has been embracing industrialisation. It currently has an indigenous vehicle manufacturing company, Innoson Motors, which manufactures saloon cars, rapid transit buses, ambulances, firefighting trucks and SUVs.[164] Nigeria also has a few electronic manufacturers like Zinox, the first branded Nigerian computer, and manufacturers of electronic gadgets such as tablet PCs.[165] In 2013, Nigeria introduced a policy regarding import duty on vehicles to encourage local manufacturing companies in the country.[166][167]  The city of Aba in the south-eastern part of the country are well known for their handicrafts and shoes, known as "Aba made".
+
+Nigeria's primary energy consumption was about 108 Mtoe in 2011. Most of the energy comes from traditional biomass and waste, which account for 83% of total primary production. The rest is from fossil fuels (16%) and hydropower (1%).
+
+From independence, Nigeria has tried to develop a domestic nuclear industry for energy. Since 2004, Nigeria has a Chinese-origin research reactor at Ahmadu Bello University, and has sought the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop plans for up to 4,000 MWe of nuclear capacity by 2027 according to the National Program for the Deployment of Nuclear Power for Generation of Electricity. Nigeria hoped to begin construction in 2011 and start nuclear power production in 2017-2020. On 27 July 2007 Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua urged the country to embrace nuclear power in order to meet its growing energy needs. Construction has not begun but plans have not been canceled by 2016. In 2017, Nigeria signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[168]
+
+In April 2015, Nigeria began talks with Russia's state-owned Rosatom to collaborate on the design, construction and operation of four nuclear power plants by 2035, the first of which will be in operation by 2025. In June 2015, Nigeria selected two sites for the planned construction of the nuclear plants. Neither the Nigerian government nor Rosatom would disclose the specific locations of the sites, but it is believed that the nuclear plants will be sited in Akwa Ibom State, in South-South Nigeria, and Kogi State, in the central northern part of the country. Both sites are planned to house two plants each. In 2017 agreements were signed for the construction of the Itu nuclear power plant.
+
+Nigeria suffers from lack of adequate transportation infrastructure. As of 199, it's 194,394 kilometers of road networks are the main means of transportation. Of which 60,068 kilometers (including 1,194km of expressways) are paved roads and as of 1998 (west.), 134,326 kilometers ar unpaved roads of city, town and village roads. The railways have undergone a massive revamping with projects such as the Lagos-Kano Standard Gauge Railway being completed connecting northern cities of Kano, Kaduna, Abuja, Ibadan and Lagos.
+
+There are 54 airports in Nigeria; the principal airports are Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. Three other international airports are Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu and Port Harcourt International Airport in Port Harcourt. As with other transportation facilities, the airports suffer from a poor reputation for safety and operational efficiency.
+
+The government has recently begun expanding this infrastructure to space based communications. Nigeria has a space satellite that is monitored at the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency Headquarters in Abuja. The Nigerian government has commissioned the overseas production and launch of four satellites.
+
+NigComSat-1, was the first Nigerian satellite built in 2004, was Nigeria's third satellite and Africa's first communication satellite. It was launched on 13 May 2007, aboard a Chinese Long March 3B carrier rocket, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China. The spacecraft was operated by NigComSat and the Nigerian Space Research and Development Agency. On 11 November 2008, NigComSat-1 failed in orbit after running out of power because of an anomaly in its solar array. It was based on the Chinese DFH-4 satellite bus, and carries a variety of transponders: four C-band; fourteen Ku-band; eight Ka-band; and two L-band. It was designed to provide coverage to many parts of Africa, and the Ka-band transponders would also cover Italy. The satellite was launched from Russia on 27 September 2003. Nigeriasat-1 was part of the worldwide Disaster Monitoring Constellation System.[169] The primary objectives of the Nigeriasat-1 were: to give early warning signals of environmental disaster; to help detect and control desertification in the northern part of Nigeria; to assist in demographic planning; to establish the relationship between malaria vectors and the environment that breeds malaria and to give early warning signals on future outbreaks of meningitis using remote sensing technology; to provide the technology needed to bring education to all parts of the country through distant learning; and to aid in conflict resolution and border disputes by mapping out state and International borders.
+
+NigeriaSat-2, Nigeria's second satellite, was built as a high-resolution earth satellite by Surrey Space Technology Limited, a United Kingdom-based satellite technology company. It has 2.5-metre resolution panchromatic (very high resolution), 5-metre multispectral (high resolution, NIR red, green and red bands), and 32-metre multispectral (medium resolution, NIR red, green and red bands) antennas, with a ground receiving station in Abuja. The NigeriaSat-2 spacecraft alone was built at a cost of over £35 million. This satellite was launched into orbit from a military base in China.[170] On 10 November 2008 (0900 GMT), the satellite was reportedly switched off for analysis and to avoid a possible collision with other satellites. According to Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited, it was put into "emergency mode operation in order to effect mitigation and repairs".[171] The satellite eventually failed after losing power on 11 November 2008. On 24 March 2009, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, NigComSat Ltd. and CGWIC signed another contract for the in-orbit delivery of the NigComSat-1R satellite. NigComSat-1R was also a DFH-4 satellite, and the replacement for the failed NigComSat-1 was successfully launched into orbit by China in Xichang on 19 December 2011.[172][173] The satellite, was stated to have a positive impact on national development in various sectors such as communications, internet services, health, agriculture, environmental protection and national security.[174]
+
+NigeriaEduSat-1 was a satellite designed, built, and owned by the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), in conjunction with Nigeria's National Space Research and Development Agency and Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology. It was equipped with 0.3 megapixel and 5 megapixel cameras, and with the rest of the satellite fleet took images of Nigeria. The satellite transmitted songs and poems as an outreach project to generate Nigerian interest in science. The signal could be received by amateur radio operators. The satellite constellation also conducted measurements of the atmospheric density 400 kilometres (250 mi) above the Earth. The satellite cost about US$500,000 to manufacture and launch.
+
+Nigeria's population increased by 57 million from 1990 to 2008, a 60% growth rate in less than two decades.[175] As of 2017, the population stood at 191 million. Around 42.5% of the population were 14 years or younger, 19.6% were aged 15–24, 30.7% were aged 25–54, 4.0% aged 55–64, and 3.1% aged 65 years or older. The median age in 2017 was 18.4 years.[177] Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and accounts for about 17% of the continent's total population as of 2017; however, exactly how populous is a subject of speculation.[176]
+
+The United Nations estimates that the population in 2018 was at 195,874,685[178][179], distributed as 51.7% rural and 48.3% urban, and with a population density of 167.5 people per square kilometre. National census results in the past few decades have been disputed. The results of the most recent census were released in December 2006 and gave a population of 140,003,542. The only breakdown available was by gender: males numbered 71,709,859, females numbered 68,293,008. In June 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan said Nigerians should limit their number of children.[180]
+
+According to the United Nations, Nigeria has been undergoing explosive population growth and has one of the highest growth and fertility rates in the world. By their projections, Nigeria is one of eight countries expected to account collectively for half of the world's total population increase in 2005–2050.[181] By 2100 the UN estimates that the Nigerian population will be between 505 million and 1.03 billion people (middle estimate: 730 million).[182] In 1950, Nigeria had only 33 million people.[183]
+
+One in six Africans is Nigerian as of 2019.[184][better source needed] Presently, Nigeria is the seventh most populous country in the world. The birth rate is 35.2-births/1,000 population and the death rate is 9.6 deaths/1,000 population as of 2017, while the total fertility rate is 5.07 children born/woman.[177]
+
+Nigeria's largest city is Lagos. Lagos has grown from about 300,000 in 1950[185] to an estimated 13.4 million in 2017.[186]
+
+See:List of ethnic groups in Nigeria
+
+Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups, with varying languages and customs, creating a country of rich ethnic diversity. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, together accounting for more than 70% of the population, while the Edo, Ijaw, Fulɓe, Kanuri, Urhobo-Isoko, Ibibio, Ebira, Nupe, Gbagyi, Jukun, Igala, Idoma and Tiv comprise between 25 and 30%; other minorities make up the remaining 5%.[187]
+
+The middle belt of Nigeria is known for its diversity of ethnic groups, including the Pyem, Goemai, and Kofyar. The official population count of each of Nigeria's ethnicities has always remained controversial and disputed as members of different ethnic groups believe the census is rigged to give a particular group (usually believed to be northern groups) numerical superiority.[188][189][190]
+
+There are small minorities of British, American, Indian, Chinese (est. 50,000),[191] white Zimbabwean,[192] Japanese, Greek, Syrian and Lebanese immigrants in Nigeria. Immigrants also include those from other West African or East African nations. These minorities mostly reside in major cities such as Lagos and Abuja, or in the Niger Delta as employees for the major oil companies. A number of Cubans settled in Nigeria as political refugees following the Cuban Revolution.
+
+In the middle of the 19th century, a number of ex-slaves of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian descent[193] and emigrants from Sierra Leone established communities in Lagos and other regions of Nigeria. Many ex-slaves came to Nigeria following the emancipation of slaves in the Americas. Many of the immigrants, sometimes called Saro (immigrants from Sierra Leone) and Amaro (ex-slaves from Brazil)[194] later became prominent merchants and missionaries in these cities.
+
+There are 521 languages that have been spoken in Nigeria; nine of them are now extinct.
+
+In some areas of Nigeria, ethnic groups speak more than one language. The official language of Nigeria, English, was chosen to facilitate the cultural and linguistic unity of the country, owing to the influence of British colonisation which ended in 1960.
+
+Many French speakers from surrounding countries have influenced the English spoken in the border regions of Nigeria and some Nigerian citizens have become fluent enough in French to work in the surrounding countries. The French spoken in Nigeria may be mixed with some native languages but is mostly spoken like the French spoken in Benin. French may also be mixed with English as it is in Cameroon.
+
+The major languages spoken in Nigeria represent three major families of languages of Africa: the majority are Niger-Congo languages, such as Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Fulfulde, Ogoni, and Edo. Kanuri, spoken in the northeast, primarily in Borno and Yobe State, is part of the Nilo-Saharan family, and Hausa is an Afroasiatic language.
+
+Even though most ethnic groups prefer to communicate in their own languages, English as the official language is widely used for education, business transactions and for official purposes. English as a first language is used by only a small minority of the country's urban elite, and it is not spoken at all in some rural areas. Hausa is the most widely spoken of the three main languages spoken in Nigeria itself.
+
+With the majority of Nigeria's populace in the rural areas, the major languages of communication in the country remain indigenous languages. Some of the largest of these, notably Yoruba and Igbo, have derived standardised languages from a number of different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups. Nigerian Pidgin English, often known simply as "Pidgin" or "Broken" (Broken English), is also a popular lingua franca, though with varying regional influences on dialect and slang. The pidgin English or Nigerian English is widely spoken within the Niger Delta Regions, predominantly in Warri, Sapele, Port Harcourt, Agenebode, Ewu, and Benin City.[195]
+
+Religion in Nigeria (2013)[196]
+
+Nigeria is a religiously diverse society, with Islam and Christianity being the most widely professed religions. Nigerians are nearly equally divided into Muslims and Christians, with a tiny minority of adherents of Traditional African religions and other religions.[196] As common in other parts of Africa where Islam and Christianity are dominant, religious syncretism with the Traditional African religions is common throughout Nigeria.[197]
+
+Islam dominates North Western (Hausa, Fulani and others) and a good portion of Northern Eastern (Kanuri, Fulani and other groups) Nigeria. It also has a number of adherents in the South Western, Yoruba part of the country. Nigeria has the largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa. Protestant and locally cultivated Christianity are also widely practiced in Western areas, while Roman Catholicism is a more prominent Christian feature of South Eastern Nigeria. Both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are observed in the Ibibio, Annang, Efik, Ijo and Ogoni lands of the south.
+
+The 1963 census indicated that 47% of Nigerians were Muslim, 34% Christian, and 18% members of local indigenous religions.[198] The vast majority of Muslims in Nigeria are Sunni belonging to Maliki school of jurisprudence; however, a sizeable minority also belongs to Shafi Madhhab. A large number of Sunni Muslims are members of Sufi brotherhoods. Most Sufis follow the Qadiriyya, Tijaniyyah and/or the Mouride movements. A significant Shia minority exists (see Shia in Nigeria). Some northern states have incorporated Sharia law into their previously secular legal systems, which has brought about some controversy.[199] Kano State has sought to incorporate Sharia law into its constitution.[200] The majority of Quranists follow the Kalo Kato or Quraniyyun movement. There are also Ahmadiyya and Mahdiyya minorities,[201] as well as Bahá'ís.[202]
+
+According to a 2001 report[203] from The World Factbook by CIA, about 47% of Nigeria's population is Muslim, 43% are Christians and 10% adhere to local religions.[204] An 18 December 2012 report on religion and public life by the Pew Research Center stated that in 2010, 49.3 percent of Nigeria's population was Christian, 48.8 percent was Muslim, and 1.9 percent were followers of indigenous and other religions, or unaffiliated.[205] However, in a 2019 report released by Pew Research Center in 2015 the Muslim population was estimated to be 50% and in 2060 according to the report Muslims will account for 60% of the Country.[206]
+
+The 2010 census of Association of Religion Data Archives has also reported that 46.5% of the total population was Christian, slightly larger than the Muslim population of 45.5%, while 7.7% were members of other religions.[207] However, these estimates should be taken with caution because sample data is mostly collected from major urban areas in the south, which are predominantly Christian.[208][209][210]
+
+Among Christians, the Pew Research survey found that 74% were Protestant, 25% were Catholic, and 1% belonged to other Christian denominations, including a small Orthodox Christian community.[211]
+In terms of Nigeria's major ethnic groups, the Hausa ethnic group (predominant in the north) was found to be 95% Muslim and 5% Christian, the Yoruba tribe (predominant in the west) was equally split between Christians and Muslims with 10% adherents of traditional religions, while the Igbos (predominant in the east) and the Ijaw (south) were 98% Christian, with 2% practicing traditional religions.[212] The middle belt of Nigeria contains the largest number of minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, who were found to be mostly Christians and members of traditional religions, with a small proportion of Muslims.[213][214]
+
+Leading Protestant churches in the country include the Church of Nigeria of the Anglican Communion, the Assemblies of God Church, the Nigerian Baptist Convention and The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations. Since the 1990s, there has been significant growth in many other churches, independently started in Africa by Africans, particularly the evangelical Protestant ones. These include the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Winners' Chapel, Christ Apostolic Church (the first Aladura Movement in Nigeria), Living Faith Church Worldwide, Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Evangelical Church of West Africa, Mountain of Fire and Miracles, Christ Embassy, Lord's Chosen Charismatic Revival Movement, Celestial Church of Christ, and Dominion City.[215] In addition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Aladura Church, the Seventh-day Adventist and various indigenous churches have also experienced growth.[216][217]
+
+The Yoruba area contains a large Anglican population, while Igboland is a mix of Roman Catholics and Protestants, and the Edo area is composed predominantly of members of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God, which was introduced into Nigeria by Augustus Ehurie Wogu and his associates at Old Umuahia. For the Yoruba, the precise percentage of Muslims and Christians is unknown but in states like Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Kwara, and Kogi it’s equally split between Christians and Muslims while the Yoruba states of Ekiti and Ondo are predominantly Christian.
+
+Further, Nigeria has become an African hub for the Grail Movement and the Hare Krishnas,[218] and the largest temple of the Eckankar religion is in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, with a total capacity of 10,000.
+
+The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) announced creation of new Owerri mission in Nigeria in 2016.[219]
+
+Health care delivery in Nigeria is a concurrent responsibility of the three tiers of government in the country, and the private sector.[220] Nigeria has been reorganising its health system since the Bamako Initiative of 1987, which formally promoted community-based methods of increasing accessibility of drugs and health care services to the population, in part by implementing user fees.[221] The new strategy dramatically increased accessibility through community-based health care reform, resulting in more efficient and equitable provision of services.
+A comprehensive approach strategy was extended to all areas of health care, with subsequent improvement in the health care indicators and improvement in health care efficiency and cost.[222]
+
+HIV/AIDS rate in Nigeria is much lower compared to the other African nations such as Kenya or South Africa whose prevalence (percentage) rates are in the double digits. As of 2012[update], the HIV prevalence rate among adults ages 15–49 was just 3.1 percent.[223][224] As of 2014[update], life expectancy in Nigeria is 52.62 years on average according to CIA,[225] and just over half the population have access to potable water and appropriate sanitation; As of 2010[update], the infant mortality is 8.4 deaths per 1000 live births.[226]
+
+Nigeria was the only country in Africa to have never eradicated polio, which it periodically exported to other African countries;[227] Polio was cut 98% between 2009 and 2010. However, a major breakthrough came in December 2014, when it was reported that Nigeria had recorded zero polio cases in six months.[228][229] In 2012, a new bone marrow donor program was launched by the University of Nigeria to help people with leukaemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell disease to find a compatible donor for a life-saving bone marrow transplant, which cures them of their conditions. Nigeria became the second African country to have successfully carried out this surgery.[230] In the 2014 ebola outbreak, Nigeria was the first country to effectively contain and eliminate the Ebola threat that was ravaging three other countries in the West African region, the unique method of contact tracing employed by Nigeria became an effective method later used by countries such as the United States, when ebola threats were discovered.[231][232][233]
+
+The Nigerian health care system is continuously faced with a shortage of doctors known as 'brain drain', because of emigration by skilled Nigerian doctors to North America and Europe. In 1995, an estimated 21,000 Nigerian doctors were practising in the United States alone, which is about the same as the number of doctors working in the Nigerian public service. Retaining these expensively trained professionals has been identified as one of the goals of the government.[234]
+
+Education in Nigeria is overseen by the Ministry of Education. Local authorities take responsibility for implementing policy for state-controlled public education and state schools at a regional level. The education system is divided into Kindergarten, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education. After the 1970s oil boom, tertiary education was improved so it would reach every subregion of Nigeria. 68% of the Nigerian population is literate, and the rate for men (75.7%) is higher than that for women (60.6%).[235]
+
+Nigeria provides free, government-supported education, but attendance is not compulsory at any level, and certain groups, such as nomads and the handicapped, are under-served. The education system consists of six years of primary school, three years of junior secondary school, three years of senior secondary school, and four, five or six years of university education leading to a bachelor's degree.[235] The government has majority control of university education. Tertiary education in Nigeria consists of Universities (Public and Private), Polytechnics, Monotechnics, and Colleges of education. The country has a total of 129 universities registered by NUC among which federal and state government own 40 and 39 respectively while 50 universities are privately owned. In order to increase the number of universities in Nigeria from 129 to 138 the Federal Government gave nine new private universities their licences in May 2015. The names of the universities that got licenses in Abuja included, Augustine University, Ilara, Lagos; Chrisland University, Owode, Ogun State; Christopher University, Mowe, Ogun State; Hallmark University, Ijebu-Itele, Ogun State; Kings University, Ode-Omu, Osun State; Micheal and Cecilia Ibru University, Owhrode, Delta State; Mountain Top University, Makogi/Oba Ogun state; Ritman University, Ikot-Epene, Akwa- Ibom State and Summit University, Offa, Kwara State.
+
+First year entry requirements into most universities in Nigeria include: Minimum of SSCE/GCE Ordinary Level Credits at maximum of two sittings; Minimum cut-off marks in Joint Admission and Matriculation Board Entrance Examination (JAMB) of 180 and above out of a maximum of 400 marks are required. Candidates with minimum of Merit Pass in National Certificate of Education (NCE), National Diploma (ND) and other Advanced Level Certificates minimum qualifications with minimum of 5O/L Credits are given direct entry admission into the appropriate undergraduate degree programs.[236] Students with required documents[237] typically enter university from age 17–18 onwards and study for an academic degree.
+
+Nigeria is home to a substantial network of organised crime, active especially in drug trafficking. Nigerian criminal groups are heavily involved in drug trafficking, shipping heroin from Asian countries to Europe and America; and cocaine from South America to Europe and South Africa.[238] Various Nigerian Confraternities or student "campus cults" are active in both organised crime and in political violence as well as providing a network of corruption within Nigeria. As confraternities have extensive connections with political and military figures, they offer excellent alumni networking opportunities. The Supreme Vikings Confraternity, for example, boasts that twelve members of the Rivers State House of Assembly are cult members.[239]
+
+There is some major piracy in Nigeria, with attacks directed at all types of vessels. Consistent with the rise of Nigeria as an increasingly dangerous hot spot, 28 of the 30 seafarers kidnapped globally between January and June 2013 were in Nigeria.[240]On lower levels of society, there are the "area boys", organised gangs mostly active in Lagos who specialise in mugging and small-scale drug dealing. Gang violence in Lagos resulted in 273 civilians and 84 policemen killed in the period of August 2000 to May 2001.[241]
+
+Internationally, Nigeria is infamous for a form of bank fraud dubbed 419, a type of advance fee fraud (named after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code) along with the "Nigerian scam", a form of confidence trick practised by individuals and criminal syndicates.[242] These scams involve a complicit Nigerian bank (the laws being set up loosely to allow it) and a scammer who claims to have money he needs to obtain from that bank. The victim is talked into exchanging bank account information on the premise that the money will be transferred to them and they will get to keep a cut. In reality, money is taken out instead, and/or large fees (which seem small in comparison with the imaginary wealth he awaits) are deducted. In 2003, the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (or EFCC) was created, ostensibly to combat this and other forms of organised financial crime.[243]
+
+Nigeria is described as the "poverty capital of the world",[244] over 89 million of its population live in extreme poverty.[245] Nigeria has largely failed to overcome the three reasons for this persistent poverty: income inequality, ethnic conflict, and political instability.
+
+Because of its multitude of diverse, sometimes competing ethno-linguistic groups, Nigeria prior to independence was faced with sectarian tensions and violence, particularly in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, where both state and civilian forces employ varying methods of coercion in attempts to gain control over regional petroleum resources. Some of the ethnic groups like the Ogoni, have experienced severe environmental degradation due to petroleum extraction.
+
+Since the end of the civil war in 1970, some ethnic violence has persisted. There has subsequently been a period of relative harmony[when?] since the Federal Government introduced tough new measures against religious violence in all affected parts of the country. The 2002 Miss World pageant was moved from Abuja to London in the wake of violent protests by Muslims in the Northern part of the country that left at least a hundred dead and more than 500 injured.[246]The rioting erupted after Muslims in the country reacted in anger to comments made by a newspaper reporter. Muslim rioters in Kaduna killed an estimated 105 men, women, and children with a further 521 injured taken to hospital.
+
+Since 2002, the country has seen sectarian violence by Boko Haram, a movement that seeks to abolish the secular system of government and establish Sharia law in the country.[247][248] In the 2010 Jos riots, more than 500 people were killed by religious violence.[249]
+
+Between 2011 and 2018, Boko Haram has been responsible for more than 37,000 deaths in the region.[250] The group's targets include both civilians and Nigerian security forces.[251][252] In May 2014 Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger joined Nigeria in a united effort to combat Boko Haram in the aftermath of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls.[253]
+
+In April 2016, more than 500 people in ten villages in predominantly Christian areas in Agatu were murdered by Fulani herdsmen. A visiting Nigerian Senator reported that all the primary and post-primary schools, health centres, worship centres as well as the police station in the area were destroyed. The UNHCR representative said in 20 years of work, she had "never seen such a level of destruction".[254] 130 Fulani adults and children were massacred in the Kaduna State in February 2019.[255]
+
+Nigeria is a state party of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women[256] It also has signed Maputo Protocol, an international treaty on women's rights, and the African Union Women's Rights Framework.[257] Discrimination based on sex is a significant human rights issue, however. Forced marriages are common.[258]
+
+Child marriage remains common in Northern Nigeria.[259] 39% of girls are married before age 15, although the Marriage Rights Act banning marriage of girls below 18 years of age was introduced on a federal level in 2008.[260]
+
+There is polygamy in Nigeria.[261] Submission of the wife to her husband and domestic violence are common. Women have less land rights.[262] Maternal mortality was at 814 per 100,000 live births in 2015.[263] Female genital mutilation is common. In 2015, there was a federal ban.[264]
+
+In Nigeria, at least half a million suffer from vaginal fistula, largely as a result of lack of medical care.[265][266] Early marriages can result in fistula.[267] Most workers in the informal sector are women.[268]
+
+Women also face a large amount of inequality Politically in Nigeria, being subjugated to a bias which is sexist and reinforced by socio-cultural, economic and oppressive ways.[269] Despite being politically emancipated, for many women in Nigeria their husbands still dictate their political choice, which upholds the patriarchal system.[270]
+
+Women's representation in government since Independence from Britain is also very poor. Women have been reduced to sideline roles in appointive posts throughout all levels in government, and still make an up a tiny minority of elected officials.[270]
+
+Nigeria's human rights record remains poor.[271] According to the U.S. Department of State,[271] the most significant human rights problems are: use of excessive force by security forces; impunity for abuses by security forces; arbitrary arrests; prolonged pretrial detention; judicial corruption and executive influence on the judiciary; rape, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees and suspects; harsh and life‑threatening prison and detention centre conditions; human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution and forced labour; societal violence and vigilante killings; child labour, child abuse and child sexual exploitation; domestic violence; discrimination based on ethnicity, region and religion.
+
+Under the Shari'a penal code that applies to Muslims in twelve northern states, offences such as alcohol consumption, homosexuality,[272] infidelity and theft carry harsh sentences, including amputation, lashing, stoning and long prison terms.[273] According to 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 98% of Nigerians believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.[274]
+
+Under a law signed in early 2014,[275] same-sex couples who marry face up to 14 years each in prison. Witnesses or anyone who helps gay couples marry will be sentenced to 10 years behind bars. The bill also punishes the "public show of same-sex amorous relationships directly or indirectly" with ten years in prison. Another portion of the bill mandates 10 years in prison for those found guilty of organising, operating or supporting gay clubs, organizations and meetings.
+
+In the Nigerian state of Akwa Ibom, about 15,000 children were branded as witches; most of them ended up abandoned and abused on the streets.[276]
+
+On 28 April 2020, Nigerian authorities arrested Mubarak Bala, a prominent Nigerian humanist and president of the Nigerian Humanist Association. He has been detained incommunicado and accused of blasphemy, after he wrote a post on Facebook expressing his beliefs. He has been denied access to his family and his lawyer and also been subjected to ill-treatment in police custody.[277]
+
+Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi, the Shehu of Borno
+
+Idia, the Iyoba of Benin
+
+Jaja, the Amanyanaboh of Opobo
+
+Nigerian citizens have authored many influential works of post-colonial literature in the English language. Nigeria's best-known writers are Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel Laureate in Literature, and Chinua Achebe, best known for the novel Things Fall Apart (1958) and his controversial critique of Joseph Conrad.
+
+Other Nigerian writers and poets who are well known internationally include John Pepper Clark, Ben Okri, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, Helon Habila, T. M. Aluko, Isaac Delano, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel O. Fagunwa, Femi Osofisan  and Ken Saro Wiwa, who was executed in 1995 by the military regime.
+
+Critically acclaimed writers of a younger generation include Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Chris Abani, Sefi Atta, Helon Habila, Helen Oyeyemi, Nnedi Okorafor, Kachi A. Ozumba, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, and Chika Unigwe.
+
+Nigeria has had a huge role in the development of various genres of African music, including West African highlife, Afrobeat, Afrobeats, and palm-wine music, which fuses native rhythms with techniques that have been linked to the Congo, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica and worldwide.
+
+Many late 20th-century musicians such as Fela Kuti have famously fused cultural elements of various indigenous music with American jazz and soul to form Afrobeat which has in turn influenced hip hop music.[279] JuJu music, which is percussion music fused with traditional music from the Yoruba nation and made famous by King Sunny Adé, is from Nigeria. Fuji music, a Yoruba percussion style, was created and popularised by Mr. Fuji, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.
+
+Afan Music was invented and popularised by the Ewu-born poet and musician Umuobuarie Igberaese. There is a budding hip-hop movement in Nigeria. Kennis Music, the self-proclaimed number-one record label in Africa, and one of Nigeria's biggest record labels, has a roster almost entirely dominated by hip-hop artists.
+
+Notable musicians from Nigeria include: Sade Adu, King Sunny Adé, Onyeka Onwenu, Dele Sosimi, Adewale Ayuba, Ezebuiro Obinna, Ebenezer Obey, Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Dr. Alban, Bola Abimbola, Tuface Idibia, Aṣa, Nneka, Wale, P Square, Wizkid, Skepta, CB and D'Banj.
+
+In November 2008, Nigeria's music scene (and that of Africa) received international attention when MTV hosted the continent's first African music awards show in Abuja.[280] Additionally, the very first music video played on MTV Base Africa (the 100th station on the MTV network) was Tuface Idibia's pan-African hit "African Queen".
+
+The Nigerian film industry is known as Nollywood (a blend of Nigeria and Hollywood[281]) and is now the 2nd-largest producer of movies in the world after India's Bollywood. Nigerian film studios are based in Lagos, Kano and Enugu, forming a major portion of the local economy of these cities. Nigerian cinema is Africa's largest movie industry in terms of both value and the number of movies produced per year. Although Nigerian films have been produced since the 1960s, the country's film industry has been aided by the rise of affordable digital filming and editing technologies.
+
+Some films and audio documentaries include:
+
+The 2009 thriller film The Figurine is generally considered the game changer, which heightened the media attention towards New Nigerian Cinema revolution. The film was a critical and commercial success in Nigeria, and it was also screened in international film festivals.[282] The 2010 film Ijé by Chineze Anyaene, overtook The Figurine to become the highest grossing Nigerian film; a record it held for four years, until it was overtaken in 2014 by Half of a Yellow Sun(2013).[283][284] By 2016, this record was held by The Wedding Party, a film by Kemi Adetiba.
+
+By the end of 2013, the film industry reportedly hit a record breaking revenue of ₦1.72 trillion (US$11 billion). As of 2014, the industry was worth ₦853.9 billion (US$5.1 billion) making it the third most valuable film industry in the world, behind the United States and India. It contributed about 1.4% to Nigeria's economy; this was attributed to the increase in the number of quality films produced and more formal distribution methods.[285][286]
+
+T.B. Joshua's Emmanuel TV, originating from Nigeria, is one of the most viewed television stations across Africa.[287]
+
+There are many festivals in Nigeria, some of which date to the period before the arrival of the major religions in this ethnically and culturally diverse society. The main Muslim and Christian festivals are often celebrated in ways that are unique to Nigeria or unique to the people of a locality.[288] The Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation has been working with the states to upgrade the traditional festivals, which may become important sources of tourism revenue.[289]
+
+Nigerian cuisine, like West African cuisine in general, is known for its richness and variety. Many different spices, herbs and flavourings are used in conjunction with palm oil or groundnut oil to create deeply flavoured sauces and soups often made very hot with chili peppers. Nigerian feasts are colourful and lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried in oil are plentiful and varied.[290]
+
+Football is largely considered Nigeria's national sport and the country has its own Premier League of football. Nigeria's national football team, known as the "Super Eagles", has made the World Cup on Six occasions 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014, and most recently in 2018. In April 1994, the Super Eagles ranked 5th in the FIFA World Rankings, the highest ranking achieved by an African football team. They won the African Cup of Nations in 1980, 1994, and 2013, and have also hosted the U-17 & U-20 World Cup. They won the gold medal for football in the 1996 Summer Olympics (in which they beat Argentina) becoming the first African football team to win gold in Olympic football.
+
+The nation's cadet team from Japan '93 produced some international players notably Nwankwo Kanu, a two-time African Footballer of the year who won the European Champions League with Ajax Amsterdam and later played with Inter Milan, Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion and Portsmouth. Other players who graduated from the junior teams are Nduka Ugbade, Jonathan Akpoborie, Victor Ikpeba, Celestine Babayaro, Wilson Oruma and Taye Taiwo. Some other famous Nigerian footballers include John Obi Mikel, Obafemi Martins, Vincent Enyeama, Yakubu, Rashidi Yekini, Peter Odemwingie and Jay-Jay Okocha.
+
+According to the official May 2010 FIFA World Rankings, Nigeria was the second top-ranked football nation in Africa and the 21st highest in the world. Nigeria is also involved in other sports such as basketball, cricket and track and field.[291] Boxing is also an important sport in Nigeria; Dick Tiger and Samuel Peter are both former World Champions.
+
+Nigeria's national basketball team made the headlines internationally when it qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics as it beat heavily favoured world elite teams such as Greece and Lithuania.[292] Nigeria has been home to numerous internationally recognised basketball players in the world's top leagues in America, Europe and Asia. These players include Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, and later NBA draft picks Solomon Alabi, Yinka Dare, Obinna Ekezie, Festus Ezeli, Al-Farouq Aminu and Olumide Oyedeji.
+
+Nigeria made history by qualifying the first bobsled team for the Winter Olympics from Africa when their women's two-man team qualified for the bobsled competition at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.[293]
+
+In the early 1990s, Scrabble was made an official sport in Nigeria. By the end of 2017, there were around 4,000 players in more than 100 clubs in the country.[294] In 2015, Wellington Jighere became the first African player to win World Scrabble Championship.[295]
+
+Click on a coloured area to see an article about English in that country or region
+
+Coordinates: 8°N 10°E / 8°N 10°E / 8; 10

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+Nikola Tesla (/ˈtɛslə/; Serbian Cyrillic: Никола Тесла;[2] pronounced [nǐkola têsla];[a] 10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-American[4][5][6] inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist who is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.[7]
+
+Born and raised in the Austrian Empire, Tesla studied engineering and physics in the 1870s without receiving a degree, and gained practical experience in the early 1880s working in telephony and at Continental Edison in the new electric power industry. In 1884 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen. He worked for a short time at the Edison Machine Works in New York City before he struck out on his own. With the help of partners to finance and market his ideas, Tesla set up laboratories and companies in New York to develop a range of electrical and mechanical devices. His alternating current (AC) induction motor and related polyphase AC patents, licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888, earned him a considerable amount of money and became the cornerstone of the polyphase system which that company eventually marketed.
+
+Attempting to develop inventions he could patent and market, Tesla conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators/generators, electrical discharge tubes, and early X-ray imaging. He also built a wireless-controlled boat, one of the first ever exhibited. Tesla became well known as an inventor and demonstrated his achievements to celebrities and wealthy patrons at his lab, and was noted for his showmanship at public lectures. Throughout the 1890s, Tesla pursued his ideas for wireless lighting and worldwide wireless electric power distribution in his high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments in New York and Colorado Springs. In 1893, he made pronouncements on the possibility of wireless communication with his devices. Tesla tried to put these ideas to practical use in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project, an intercontinental wireless communication and power transmitter, but ran out of funding before he could complete it.[8]
+
+After Wardenclyffe, Tesla experimented with a series of inventions in the 1910s and 1920s with varying degrees of success. Having spent most of his money, Tesla lived in a series of New York hotels, leaving behind unpaid bills. He died in New York City in January 1943.[9] Tesla's work fell into relative obscurity following his death, until 1960, when the General Conference on Weights and Measures named the SI unit of magnetic flux density the tesla in his honor.[10] There has been a resurgence in popular interest in Tesla since the 1990s.[11]
+
+Nikola Tesla was born an ethnic Serb in the village of Smiljan, wihin the Military Frontier, in the Austrian Empire (present day Croatia), on 10 July [O.S. 28 June] 1856.[13][14] His father, Milutin Tesla (1819–1879),[15] was an Eastern Orthodox priest.[16][17][18][19] Tesla's mother, Đuka Mandić (1822–1892), whose father was also an Orthodox priest,[20] had a talent for making home craft tools and mechanical appliances and the ability to memorize Serbian epic poems. Đuka had never received a formal education. Tesla credited his eidetic memory and creative abilities to his mother's genetics and influence.[21][22] Tesla's progenitors were from western Serbia, near Montenegro.[23]
+
+Tesla was the fourth of five children. He had three sisters, Milka, Angelina and Marica, and an older brother named Dane, who was killed in a horse riding accident when Tesla was aged five.[24] In 1861, Tesla attended primary school in Smiljan where he studied German, arithmetic, and religion.[25] In 1862, the Tesla family moved to the nearby Gospić, where Tesla's father worked as parish priest. Nikola completed primary school, followed by middle school.[25] In 1870, Tesla moved to Karlovac[26] to attend high school at the Higher Real Gymnasium where the classes were held in German, as it was usual throughout schools within the Austro-Hungarian Military Frontier.[27]
+
+Tesla later wrote that he became interested in demonstrations of electricity by his physics professor.[28] Tesla noted that these demonstrations of this "mysterious phenomena" made him want "to know more of this wonderful force".[29] Tesla was able to perform integral calculus in his head, which prompted his teachers to believe that he was cheating.[30] He finished a four-year term in three years, graduating in 1873.[31]
+
+In 1873, Tesla returned to Smiljan. Shortly after he arrived, he contracted cholera, was bedridden for nine months and was near death multiple times. Tesla's father, in a moment of despair, (who had originally wanted him to enter the priesthood)[32] promised to send him to the best engineering school if he recovered from the illness.[25][26]
+
+In 1874, Tesla evaded conscription into the Austro-Hungarian Army in Smiljan[33] by running away southeast of Lika to Tomingaj, near Gračac. There he explored the mountains wearing hunter's garb. Tesla said that this contact with nature made him stronger, both physically and mentally.[25] He read many books while in Tomingaj and later said that Mark Twain's works had helped him to miraculously recover from his earlier illness.[26]
+
+In 1875, Tesla enrolled at Austrian Polytechnic in Graz, Austria, on a Military Frontier scholarship. During his first year, Tesla never missed a lecture, earned the highest grades possible, passed nine exams[25][26] (nearly twice as many as required[34]), started a Serb cultural club,[25] and even received a letter of commendation from the dean of the technical faculty to his father, which stated, "Your son is a star of first rank."[34] During his second year, Tesla came into conflict with Professor Poeschl over the Gramme dynamo, when Tesla suggested that commutators were not necessary.
+
+Tesla claimed that he worked from 3 a.m. to 11 p.m., no Sundays or holidays excepted.[26] He was "mortified when [his] father made light of [those] hard won honors." After his father's death in 1879,[33] Tesla found a package of letters from his professors to his father, warning that unless he were removed from the school, Tesla would die through overwork. At the end of his second year, Tesla lost his scholarship and became addicted to gambling.[25][26] During his third year, Tesla gambled away his allowance and his tuition money, later gambling back his initial losses and returning the balance to his family. Tesla said that he "conquered [his] passion then and there," but later in the US he was again known to play billiards. When examination time came, Tesla was unprepared and asked for an extension to study, but was denied. He did not receive grades for the last semester of the third year and he never graduated from the university.[33]
+
+In December 1878, Tesla left Graz and severed all relations with his family to hide the fact that he dropped out of school.[33] His friends thought that he had drowned in the nearby Mur River.[35] Tesla moved to Maribor, where he worked as a draftsman for 60 florins per month. He spent his spare time playing cards with local men on the streets.[33]
+
+In March 1879, Tesla's father went to Maribor to beg his son to return home, but he refused.[25] Nikola suffered a nervous breakdown around the same time.[35] On 24 March 1879, Tesla was returned to Gospić under police guard for not having a residence permit.
+
+On 17 April 1879, Milutin Tesla died at the age of 60 after contracting an unspecified illness.[25] Some sources say that he died of a stroke.[36] During that year, Tesla taught a large class of students in his old school in Gospić.[25]
+
+In January 1880, two of Tesla's uncles put together enough money to help him leave Gospić for Prague, where he was to study. He arrived too late to enroll at Charles-Ferdinand University; he had never studied Greek, a required subject; and he was illiterate in Czech, another required subject. Tesla did, however, attend lectures in philosophy at the university as an auditor but he did not receive grades for the courses.[25][37][38]
+
+In 1881, Tesla moved to Budapest, Hungary, to work under Tivadar Puskás at a telegraph company, the Budapest Telephone Exchange. Upon arrival, Tesla realized that the company, then under construction, was not functional, so he worked as a draftsman in the Central Telegraph Office instead. Within a few months, the Budapest Telephone Exchange became functional, and Tesla was allocated the chief electrician position.[25] During his employment, Tesla made many improvements to the Central Station equipment and claimed to have perfected a telephone repeater or amplifier, which was never patented nor publicly described.[26]
+
+In 1882, Tivadar Puskás got Tesla another job in Paris with the Continental Edison Company.[39] Tesla began working in what was then a brand new industry, installing indoor incandescent lighting citywide in the form of an electric power utility. The company had several subdivisions and Tesla worked at the Société Electrique Edison, the division in the Ivry-sur-Seine suburb of Paris in charge of installing the lighting system. There he gained a great deal of practical experience in electrical engineering. Management took notice of his advanced knowledge in engineering and physics and soon had him designing and building improved versions of generating dynamos and motors.[40] They also sent him on to troubleshoot engineering problems at other Edison utilities being built around France and in Germany.
+
+In 1884, Edison manager Charles Batchelor, who had been overseeing the Paris installation, was brought back to the United States to manage the Edison Machine Works, a manufacturing division situated in New York City, and asked that Tesla be brought to the US as well.[42] In June 1884, Tesla emigrated to the United States.[43] He began working almost immediately at the Machine Works on Manhattan's Lower East Side, an overcrowded shop with a workforce of several hundred machinists, laborers, managing staff, and 20 "field engineers" struggling with the task of building the large electric utility in that city.[44] As in Paris, Tesla was working on troubleshooting installations and improving generators.[45] Historian W. Bernard Carlson notes Tesla may have met company founder Thomas Edison only a couple of times.[44] One of those times was noted in Tesla's autobiography where, after staying up all night repairing the damaged dynamos on the ocean liner SS Oregon, he ran into Batchelor and Edison, who made a quip about their "Parisian" being out all night. After Tesla told them he had been up all night fixing the Oregon Edison commented to Batchelor that "this is a damned good man".[41] One of the projects given to Tesla was to develop an arc lamp-based street lighting system.[46][47] Arc lighting was the most popular type of street lighting but it required high voltages and was incompatible with the Edison low-voltage incandescent system, causing the company to lose contracts in cities that wanted street lighting as well. Tesla's designs were never put into production, possibly because of technical improvements in incandescent street lighting or because of an installation deal that Edison made with an arc lighting company.[48]
+
+Tesla had been working at the Machine Works for a total of six months when he quit.[44] What event precipitated his leaving is unclear. It may have been over a bonus he did not receive, either for redesigning generators or for the arc lighting system that was shelved.[46] Tesla had previous run-ins with the Edison company over unpaid bonuses he believed he had earned.[49][50] In his autobiography, Tesla stated the manager of the Edison Machine Works offered a $50,000 bonus to design "twenty-four different types of standard machines" "but it turned out to be a practical joke".[51] Later versions of this story have Thomas Edison himself offering and then reneging on the deal, quipping "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor".[52][53] The size of the bonus in either story has been noted as odd since Machine Works manager Batchelor was stingy with pay[54] and the company did not have that amount of cash (equivalent to $12 million today[when?]) on hand.[55][56] Tesla's diary contains just one comment on what happened at the end of his employment, a note he scrawled across the two pages covering 7 December 1884, to 4 January 1885, saying "Good by to the Edison Machine Works".[47][57]
+
+Soon after leaving the Edison company, Tesla was working on patenting an arc lighting system,[58] possibly the same one he had developed at Edison.[44] In March 1885, he met with patent attorney Lemuel W. Serrell, the same attorney used by Edison, to obtain help with submitting the patents.[58] Serrell introduced Tesla to two businessmen, Robert Lane and Benjamin Vail, who agreed to finance an arc lighting manufacturing and utility company in Tesla's name, the Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing.[59] Tesla worked for the rest of the year obtaining the patents that included an improved DC generator, the first patents issued to Tesla in the US, and building and installing the system in Rahway, New Jersey.[60] Tesla's new system gained notice in the technical press, which commented on its advanced features.
+
+The investors showed little interest in Tesla's ideas for new types of alternating current motors and electrical transmission equipment. After the utility was up and running in 1886, they decided that the manufacturing side of the business was too competitive and opted to simply run an electric utility.[61] They formed a new utility company, abandoning Tesla's company and leaving the inventor penniless.[61] Tesla even lost control of the patents he had generated, since he had assigned them to the company in exchange for stock.[61] He had to work at various electrical repair jobs and as a ditch digger for $2 per day. Later in life Tesla recounted that part of 1886 as a time of hardship, writing "My high education in various branches of science, mechanics and literature seemed to me like a mockery".[61][62]
+
+In late 1886, Tesla met Alfred S. Brown, a Western Union superintendent, and New York attorney Charles F. Peck. The two men were experienced in setting up companies and promoting inventions and patents for financial gain.[63] Based on Tesla's new ideas for electrical equipment, including a thermo-magnetic motor idea,[64] they agreed to back the inventor financially and handle his patents. Together they formed the Tesla Electric Company in April 1887, with an agreement that profits from generated patents would go ⅓ to Tesla, ⅓ to Peck and Brown, and ⅓ to fund development.[63] They set up a laboratory for Tesla at 89 Liberty Street in Manhattan, where he worked on improving and developing new types of electric motors, generators, and other devices.
+
+In 1887, Tesla developed an induction motor that ran on alternating current (AC), a power system format that was rapidly expanding in Europe and the United States because of its advantages in long-distance, high-voltage transmission. The motor used polyphase current, which generated a rotating magnetic field to turn the motor (a principle that Tesla claimed to have conceived in 1882).[65][66][67] This innovative electric motor, patented in May 1888, was a simple self-starting design that did not need a commutator, thus avoiding sparking and the high maintenance of constantly servicing and replacing mechanical brushes.[68][69]
+
+Along with getting the motor patented, Peck and Brown arranged to get the motor publicized, starting with independent testing to verify it was a functional improvement, followed by press releases sent to technical publications for articles to run concurrent with the issue of the patent.[70] Physicist William Arnold Anthony (who tested the motor) and Electrical World magazine editor Thomas Commerford Martin arranged for Tesla to demonstrate his AC motor on 16 May 1888 at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.[70][71] Engineers working for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company reported to George Westinghouse that Tesla had a viable AC motor and related power system—something Westinghouse needed for the alternating current system he was already marketing. Westinghouse looked into getting a patent on a similar commutator-less, rotating magnetic field-based induction motor developed in 1885 and presented in a paper in March 1888 by Italian physicist Galileo Ferraris, but decided that Tesla's patent would probably control the market.[72][73]
+
+In July 1888, Brown and Peck negotiated a licensing deal with George Westinghouse for Tesla's polyphase induction motor and transformer designs for $60,000 in cash and stock and a royalty of $2.50 per AC horsepower produced by each motor. Westinghouse also hired Tesla for one year for the large fee of $2,000 ($56,900 in today's dollars[74]) per month to be a consultant at the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's Pittsburgh labs.[75]
+
+During that year, Tesla worked in Pittsburgh, helping to create an alternating current system to power the city's streetcars. He found it a frustrating period because of conflicts with the other Westinghouse engineers over how best to implement AC power. Between them, they settled on a 60-cycle AC system that Tesla proposed (to match the working frequency of Tesla's motor), but they soon found that it would not work for streetcars, since Tesla's induction motor could run only at a constant speed. They ended up using a DC traction motor instead.[76][77]
+
+Tesla's demonstration of his induction motor and Westinghouse's subsequent licensing of the patent, both in 1888, came at the time of extreme competition between electric companies.[78][79] The three big firms, Westinghouse, Edison, and Thomson-Houston, were trying to grow in a capital-intensive business while financially undercutting each other. There was even a "war of currents" propaganda campaign going on with Edison Electric trying to claim their direct current system was better and safer than the Westinghouse alternating current system.[80][81] Competing in this market meant Westinghouse would not have the cash or engineering resources to develop Tesla's motor and the related polyphase system right away.[82]
+
+Two years after signing the Tesla contract, Westinghouse Electric was in trouble. The near collapse of Barings Bank in London triggered the financial panic of 1890, causing investors to call in their loans to Westinghouse Electric.[83] The sudden cash shortage forced the company to refinance its debts. The new lenders demanded that Westinghouse cut back on what looked like excessive spending on acquisition of other companies, research, and patents, including the per motor royalty in the Tesla contract.[84][85] At that point, the Tesla induction motor had been unsuccessful and was stuck in development.[82][83] Westinghouse was paying a $15,000-a-year guaranteed royalty[86] even though operating examples of the motor were rare and polyphase power systems needed to run it were even rarer.[68][83] In early 1891, George Westinghouse explained his financial difficulties to Tesla in stark terms, saying that, if he did not meet the demands of his lenders, he would no longer be in control of Westinghouse Electric and Tesla would have to "deal with the bankers" to try to collect future royalties.[87] The advantages of having Westinghouse continue to champion the motor probably seemed obvious to Tesla and he agreed to release the company from the royalty payment clause in the contract.[87][88] Six years later Westinghouse purchased Tesla's patent for a lump sum payment of $216,000 as part of a patent-sharing agreement signed with General Electric (a company created from the 1892 merger of Edison and Thomson-Houston).[89][90][91]
+
+The money Tesla made from licensing his AC patents made him independently wealthy and gave him the time and funds to pursue his own interests.[92] In 1889, Tesla moved out of the Liberty Street shop Peck and Brown had rented and for the next dozen years worked out of a series of workshop/laboratory spaces in Manhattan. These included a lab at 175 Grand Street (1889–1892), the fourth floor of 33–35 South Fifth Avenue (1892–1895), and sixth and seventh floors of 46 & 48 East Houston Street (1895–1902).[93][94] Tesla and his hired staff conducted some of his most significant work in these workshops.
+
+In the summer of 1889, Tesla traveled to the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris and learned of Heinrich Hertz's 1886–88 experiments that proved the existence of electromagnetic radiation, including radio waves.[95] Tesla found this new discovery "refreshing" and decided to explore it more fully. In repeating, and then expanding on, these experiments, Tesla tried powering a Ruhmkorff coil with a high speed alternator he had been developing as part of an improved arc lighting system but found that the high-frequency current overheated the iron core and melted the insulation between the primary and secondary windings in the coil. To fix this problem Tesla came up with his "oscillating transformer", with an air gap instead of insulating material between the primary and secondary windings and an iron core that could be moved to different positions in or out of the coil.[96] Later called the Tesla coil, it would be used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity.[97] He would use this resonant transformer circuit in his later wireless power work.[98][99]
+
+On 30 July 1891, aged 35, Tesla became a naturalized citizen of the United States.[100][101] In the same year, he patented his Tesla coil.[102]
+
+After 1890, Tesla experimented with transmitting power by inductive and capacitive coupling using high AC voltages generated with his Tesla coil.[103] He attempted to develop a wireless lighting system based on near-field inductive and capacitive coupling and conducted a series of public demonstrations where he lit Geissler tubes and even incandescent light bulbs from across a stage.[104] He spent most of the decade working on variations of this new form of lighting with the help of various investors but none of the ventures succeeded in making a commercial product out of his findings.[105]
+
+In 1893 at St. Louis, Missouri, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the National Electric Light Association, Tesla told onlookers that he was sure a system like his could eventually conduct "intelligible signals or perhaps even power to any distance without the use of wires" by conducting it through the Earth.[106][107]
+
+Tesla served as a vice-president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers from 1892 to 1894, the forerunner of the modern-day IEEE (along with the Institute of Radio Engineers).[108]
+
+By the beginning of 1893, Westinghouse engineer Charles F. Scott and then Benjamin G. Lamme had made progress on an efficient version of Tesla's induction motor. Lamme found a way to make the polyphase system it would need compatible with older single phase AC and DC systems by developing a rotary converter.[109] Westinghouse Electric now had a way to provide electricity to all potential customers and started branding their polyphase AC system as the "Tesla Polyphase System". They believed that Tesla's patents gave them patent priority over other polyphase AC systems.[110]
+
+Westinghouse Electric asked Tesla to participate in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago where the company had a large space in the "Electricity Building" devoted to electrical exhibits. Westinghouse Electric won the bid to light the Exposition with alternating current and it was a key event in the history of AC power, as the company demonstrated to the American public the safety, reliability, and efficiency of an alternating current system that was polyphase and could also supply the other AC and DC exhibits at the fair.[111][112][113]
+
+A special exhibit space was set up to display various forms and models of Tesla's induction motor. The rotating magnetic field that drove them was explained through a series of demonstrations including an Egg of Columbus that used the two phase coil found in an induction motor to spin a copper egg making it stand on end.[114]
+
+Tesla visited the fair for a week during its six-month run to attend the International Electrical Congress and put on a series of demonstrations at the Westinghouse exhibit.[115][116] A specially darkened room had been set up where Tesla showed his wireless lighting system, using a demonstration he had previously performed throughout America and Europe;[117] these included using high-voltage, high-frequency alternating current to light wireless gas-discharge lamps.[118]
+
+An observer noted:
+
+Within the room were suspended two hard-rubber plates covered with tin foil. These were about fifteen feet apart, and served as terminals of the wires leading from the transformers. When the current was turned on, the lamps or tubes, which had no wires connected to them, but lay on a table between the suspended plates, or which might be held in the hand in almost any part of the room, were made luminous. These were the same experiments and the same apparatus shown by Tesla in London about two years previous, "where they produced so much wonder and astonishment".[119]
+
+During his presentation at the International Electrical Congress in the Columbian Exposition Agriculture Hall, Tesla introduced his steam powered reciprocating electricity generator that he patented that year, something he thought was a better way to generate alternating current.[120] Steam was forced into the oscillator and rushed out through a series of ports, pushing a piston up and down that was attached to an armature. The magnetic armature vibrated up and down at high speed, producing an alternating magnetic field. This induced alternating electric current in the wire coils located adjacent. It did away with the complicated parts of a steam engine/generator, but never caught on as a feasible engineering solution to generate electricity.[121][122]
+
+In 1893, Edward Dean Adams, who headed up the Niagara Falls Cataract Construction Company, sought Tesla's opinion on what system would be best to transmit power generated at the falls. Over several years, there had been a series of proposals and open competitions on how best to use power generated by the falls. Among the systems proposed by several US and European companies were two-phase and three-phase AC, high-voltage DC, and compressed air. Adams asked Tesla for information about the current state of all the competing systems. Tesla advised Adams that a two-phased system would be the most reliable, and that there was a Westinghouse system to light incandescent bulbs using two-phase alternating current. The company awarded a contract to Westinghouse Electric for building a two-phase AC generating system at the Niagara Falls, based on Tesla's advice and Westinghouse's demonstration at the Columbian Exposition that they could build a complete AC system. At the same time, a further contract was awarded to General Electric to build the AC distribution system.[123]
+
+In 1895, Edward Dean Adams, impressed with what he saw when he toured Tesla's lab, agreed to help found the Nikola Tesla Company, set up to fund, develop, and market a variety of previous Tesla patents and inventions as well as new ones. Alfred Brown signed on, bringing along patents developed under Peck and Brown. The board was filled out with William Birch Rankine and Charles F. Coaney.[124] It found few investors; the mid-1890s was a tough time financially, and the wireless lighting and oscillators patents it was set up to market never panned out. The company handled Tesla's patents for decades to come.
+
+In the early morning hours of 13 March 1895, the South Fifth Avenue building that housed Tesla's lab caught fire. It started in the basement of the building and was so intense Tesla's 4th floor lab burned and collapsed into the second floor. The fire not only set back Tesla's ongoing projects, it destroyed a collection of early notes and research material, models, and demonstration pieces, including many that had been exhibited at the 1893 Worlds Colombian Exposition. Tesla told The New York Times "I am in too much grief to talk. What can I say?"[25] After the fire Tesla moved to 46 & 48 East Houston Street and rebuilt his lab on the 6th and 7th floors.
+
+Starting in 1894, Tesla began investigating what he referred to as radiant energy of "invisible" kinds after he had noticed damaged film in his laboratory in previous experiments[125] (later identified as "Roentgen rays" or "X-Rays"). His early experiments were with Crookes tubes, a cold cathode electrical discharge tube. Tesla may have inadvertently captured an X-ray image—predating, by a few weeks, Wilhelm Röntgen's December 1895 announcement of the discovery of X-rays when he tried to photograph Mark Twain illuminated by a Geissler tube, an earlier type of gas discharge tube. The only thing captured in the image was the metal locking screw on the camera lens.[126]
+
+In March 1896, after hearing of Röntgen's discovery of X-ray and X-ray imaging (radiography),[128] Tesla proceeded to do his own experiments in X-ray imaging, developing a high energy single terminal vacuum tube of his own design that had no target electrode and that worked from the output of the Tesla Coil (the modern term for the phenomenon produced by this device is bremsstrahlung or braking radiation). In his research, Tesla devised several experimental setups to produce X-rays. Tesla held that, with his circuits, the "instrument will ... enable one to generate Roentgen rays of much greater power than obtainable with ordinary apparatus".[129]
+
+Tesla noted the hazards of working with his circuit and single-node X-ray-producing devices. In his many notes on the early investigation of this phenomenon, he attributed the skin damage to various causes. He believed early on that damage to the skin was not caused by the Roentgen rays, but by the ozone generated in contact with the skin, and to a lesser extent, by nitrous acid. Tesla incorrectly believed that X-rays were longitudinal waves, such as those produced in waves in plasmas. These plasma waves can occur in force-free magnetic fields.[130][131]
+
+On 11 July 1934, the New York Herald Tribune published an article on Tesla, in which he recalled an event that occasionally took place while experimenting with his single-electrode vacuum tubes.  A minute particle would break off the cathode, pass out of the tube, and physically strike him:
+
+Tesla said he could feel a sharp stinging pain where it entered his body, and again at the place where it passed out. In comparing these particles with the bits of metal projected by his "electric gun," Tesla said, "The particles in the beam of force ... will travel much faster than such particles ... and they will travel in concentrations".[132]
+
+In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a boat that used a coherer-based radio control—which he dubbed "telautomaton"—to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden.[133] Tesla tried to sell his idea to the US military as a type of radio-controlled torpedo, but they showed little interest.[134] Remote radio control remained a novelty until World War I and afterward, when a number of countries used it in military programs.[135] Tesla took the opportunity to further demonstrate "Teleautomatics" in an address to a meeting of the Commercial Club in Chicago, while he was travelling to Colorado Springs, on 13 May 1899.[25]
+
+From the 1890s through 1906, Tesla spent a great deal of his time and fortune on a series of projects trying to develop the transmission of electrical power without wires. It was an expansion of his idea of using coils to transmit power that he had been demonstrating in wireless lighting. He saw this as not only a way to transmit large amounts of power around the world but also, as he had pointed out in his earlier lectures, a way to transmit worldwide communications.
+
+At the time Tesla was formulating his ideas, there was no feasible way to wirelessly transmit communication signals over long distances, let alone large amounts of power. Tesla had studied radio waves early on, and came to the conclusion that part of existing study on them, by Hertz, was incorrect.[136][137][138] Also, this new form of radiation was widely considered at the time to be a short-distance phenomenon that seemed to die out in less than a mile.[139] Tesla noted that, even if theories on radio waves were true, they were totally worthless for his intended purposes since this form of "invisible light" would diminish over distance just like any other radiation and would travel in straight lines right out into space, becoming "hopelessly lost".[140]
+
+By the mid-1890s, Tesla was working on the idea that he might be able to conduct electricity long distance through the Earth or the atmosphere, and began working on experiments to test this idea including setting up a large resonance transformer magnifying transmitter in his East Houston Street lab.[141][142][143] Seeming to borrow from a common idea at the time that the Earth's atmosphere was conductive,[144][145] he proposed a system composed of balloons suspending, transmitting, and receiving, electrodes in the air above 30,000 feet (9,100 m) in altitude, where he thought the lower pressure would allow him to send high voltages (millions of volts) long distances.
+
+To further study the conductive nature of low pressure air, Tesla set up an experimental station at high altitude in Colorado Springs during 1899.[146][147][148][149]  There he could safely operate much larger coils than in the cramped confines of his New York lab, and an associate had made an arrangement for the El Paso Power Company to supply alternating current free of charge.[149] To fund his experiments, he convinced John Jacob Astor IV to invest $100,000 ($3,073,200 in today's dollars[74]) to become a majority share holder in the Nikola Tesla Company. Astor thought he was primarily investing in the new wireless lighting system. Instead, Tesla used the money to fund his Colorado Springs experiments.[25][150] Upon his arrival, he told reporters that he planned to conduct wireless telegraphy experiments, transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris.[151]
+
+There, he conducted experiments with a large coil operating in the megavolts range, producing artificial lightning (and thunder) consisting of millions of volts and discharges of up to 135 feet (41 m) in length,[153] and, at one point, inadvertently burned out the generator in El Paso, causing a power outage.[154] The observations he made of the electronic noise of lightning strikes led him to (incorrectly) conclude[155][156] that he could use the entire globe of the Earth to conduct electrical energy.
+
+During his time at his laboratory, Tesla observed unusual signals from his receiver which he speculated to be communications from another planet. He mentioned them in a letter to a reporter in December 1899[157] and to the Red Cross Society in December 1900.[158][159] Reporters treated it as a sensational story and jumped to the conclusion Tesla was hearing signals from Mars.[158] He expanded on the signals he heard in a 9 February 1901 Collier's Weekly article entitled "Talking With Planets", where he said it had not been immediately apparent to him that he was hearing "intelligently controlled signals" and that the signals could have come from Mars, Venus, or other planets.[159] It has been hypothesized that he may have intercepted Guglielmo Marconi's European experiments in July 1899—Marconi may have transmitted the letter S (dot/dot/dot) in a naval demonstration, the same three impulses that Tesla hinted at hearing in Colorado[159]—or signals from another experimenter in wireless transmission.[160]
+
+Tesla had an agreement with the editor of The Century Magazine to produce an article on his findings. The magazine sent a photographer to Colorado to photograph the work being done there. The article, titled "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy", appeared in the June 1900 edition of the magazine. He explained the superiority of the wireless system he envisioned but the article was more of a lengthy philosophical treatise than an understandable scientific description of his work,[161] illustrated with what were to become iconic images of Tesla and his Colorado Springs experiments.
+
+Tesla made the rounds in New York trying to find investors for what he thought would be a viable system of wireless transmission, wining and dining them at the Waldorf-Astoria's Palm Garden (the hotel where he was living at the time), The Players Club, and Delmonico's.[162] In March 1901, he obtained $150,000 ($4,609,800 in today's dollars[74]) from J. Pierpont Morgan in return for a 51% share of any generated wireless patents, and began planning the Wardenclyffe Tower facility to be built in Shoreham, New York, 100 miles (161 km) east of the city on the North Shore of Long Island.[163]
+
+By July 1901, Tesla had expanded his plans to build a more powerful transmitter to leap ahead of Marconi's radio-based system, which Tesla thought was a copy of his own.[158] He approached Morgan to ask for more money to build the larger system, but Morgan refused to supply any further funds.[164] In December 1901, Marconi successfully transmitted the letter S from England to Newfoundland, defeating Tesla in the race to be first to complete such a transmission. A month after Marconi's success, Tesla tried to get Morgan to back an even larger plan to transmit messages and power by controlling "vibrations throughout the globe".[158] Over the next five years, Tesla wrote more than 50 letters to Morgan, pleading for and demanding additional funding to complete the construction of Wardenclyffe. Tesla continued the project for another nine months into 1902. The tower was erected to its full height of 187 feet (57 m).[160] In June 1902, Tesla moved his lab operations from Houston Street to Wardenclyffe.[163]
+
+Investors on Wall Street were putting their money into Marconi's system, and some in the press began turning against Tesla's project, claiming it was a hoax.[165] The project came to a halt in 1905, and in 1906, the financial problems and other events may have led to what Tesla biographer Marc J. Seifer suspects was a nervous breakdown on Tesla's part.[166] Tesla mortgaged the Wardenclyffe property to cover his debts at the Waldorf-Astoria, which eventually mounted to $20,000 ($510,500 in today's dollars[74]).[167] He lost the property in foreclosure in 1915, and in 1917 the Tower was demolished by the new owner to make the land a more viable real estate asset.
+
+After Wardenclyffe closed, Tesla continued to write to Morgan; after "the great man" died, Tesla wrote to Morgan's son Jack, trying to get further funding for the project. In 1906, Tesla opened offices at 165 Broadway in Manhattan, trying to raise further funds by developing and marketing his patents. He went on to have offices at the Metropolitan Life Tower from 1910 to 1914; rented for a few months at the Woolworth Building, moving out because he could not afford the rent; and then to office space at 8 West 40th Street from 1915 to 1925. After moving to 8 West 40th Street, he was effectively bankrupt. Most of his patents had run out and he was having trouble with the new inventions he was trying to develop.[168]
+
+On his 50th birthday, in 1906, Tesla demonstrated a 200 horsepower (150 kilowatts) 16,000 rpm bladeless turbine. During 1910–1911, at the Waterside Power Station in New York, several of his bladeless turbine engines were tested at 100–5,000 hp.[169] Tesla worked with several companies including from 1919–1922 in Milwaukee, for Allis-Chalmers.[170][171] He spent most of his time trying to perfect the Tesla turbine with Hans Dahlstrand, the head engineer at the company, but engineering difficulties meant it was never made into a practical device.[172] Tesla did license the idea to a precision instrument company and it found use in the form of luxury car speedometers and other instruments.[173]
+
+When World War I broke out, the British cut the transatlantic telegraph cable linking the US to Germany in order to control the flow of information between the two countries. They also tried to shut off German wireless communication to and from the US by having the US Marconi Company sue the German radio company Telefunken for patent infringement.[174] Telefunken brought in the physicists Jonathan Zenneck and Karl Ferdinand Braun for their defense, and hired Tesla as a witness for two years for $1,000 a month. The case stalled and then went moot when the US entered the war against Germany in 1917.[174][175]
+
+In 1915, Tesla attempted to sue the Marconi Company for infringement of his wireless tuning patents. Marconi's initial radio patent had been awarded in the US in 1897, but his 1900 patent submission covering improvements to radio transmission had been rejected several times, before it was finally approved in 1904, on the grounds that it infringed on other existing patents including two 1897 Tesla wireless power tuning patents.[137][176][177] Tesla's 1915 case went nowhere,[178] but in a related case, where the Marconi Company tried to sue the US government over WWI patent infringements, a Supreme Court of the United States 1943 decision restored the prior patents of Oliver Lodge, John Stone, and Tesla.[179] The court declared that their decision had no bearing on Marconi's claim as the first to achieve radio transmission, just that since Marconi's claim to certain patented improvements were questionable, the company could not claim infringement on those same patents.[137][180]
+
+On 6 November 1915, a Reuters news agency report from London had the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla; however, on 15 November, a Reuters story from Stockholm stated the prize that year was being awarded to Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays".[181][182][183] There were unsubstantiated rumors at the time that either Tesla or Edison had refused the prize.[181] The Nobel Foundation said, "Any rumor that a person has not been given a Nobel Prize because he has made known his intention to refuse the reward is ridiculous"; a recipient could decline a Nobel Prize only after he is announced a winner.[181]
+
+There have been subsequent claims by Tesla biographers that Edison and Tesla were the original recipients and that neither was given the award because of their animosity toward each other; that each sought to minimize the other's achievements and right to win the award; that both refused ever to accept the award if the other received it first; that both rejected any possibility of sharing it; and even that a wealthy Edison refused it to keep Tesla from getting the $20,000 prize money.[22][181]
+
+In the years after these rumors, neither Tesla nor Edison won the prize (although Edison received one of 38 possible bids in 1915 and Tesla received one of 38 possible bids in 1937).[184]
+
+Tesla won numerous medals and awards over this time. They include:
+
+Tesla attempted to market several devices based on the production of ozone. These included his 1900 Tesla Ozone Company selling an 1896 patented device based on his Tesla Coil, used to bubble ozone through different types of oils to make a therapeutic gel.[190] He also tried to develop a variation of this a few years later as a room sanitizer for hospitals.[191]
+
+Tesla theorized that the application of electricity to the brain enhanced intelligence. In 1912, he crafted "a plan to make dull students bright by saturating them unconsciously with electricity," wiring the walls of a schoolroom and, "saturating [the schoolroom] with infinitesimal electric waves vibrating at high frequency. The whole room will thus, Mr. Tesla claims, be converted into a health-giving and stimulating electromagnetic field or 'bath.'"[192] The plan was, at least provisionally, approved by then superintendent of New York City schools, William H. Maxwell.[192]
+
+Before World War I, Tesla sought overseas investors. After the war started, Tesla lost the funding he was receiving from his patents in European countries.
+
+In the August 1917 edition of the magazine Electrical Experimenter, Tesla postulated that electricity could be used to locate submarines via using the reflection of an "electric ray" of "tremendous frequency," with the signal being viewed on a fluorescent screen (a system that has been noted to have a superficial resemblance to modern radar).[193] Tesla was incorrect in his assumption that high frequency radio waves would penetrate water.[194] Émile Girardeau, who helped develop France's first radar system in the 1930s, noted in 1953 that Tesla's general speculation that a very strong high-frequency signal would be needed was correct. Girardeau said, "(Tesla) was prophesying or dreaming, since he had at his disposal no means of carrying them out, but one must add that if he was dreaming, at least he was dreaming correctly".[195]
+
+In 1928, Tesla received U.S. Patent 1,655,114, for a biplane capable of taking off vertically (VTOL aircraft) and then of being "gradually tilted through manipulation of the elevator devices" in flight until it was flying like a conventional plane.[196] Tesla thought the plane would sell for less than $1,000,[197] although the aircraft has been described as impractical, although it has early resemblances to the V-22 Osprey used by the US military.[198] This was his last patent and at this time Tesla closed his last office at 350 Madison Ave., which he had moved into two years earlier.
+
+Tesla lived at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City from 1900 and ran up a large bill.[199] He moved to the St. Regis Hotel in 1922 and followed a pattern from then on of moving to a different hotel every few years and leaving unpaid bills behind.[200][201]
+
+Tesla walked to the park every day to feed the pigeons. He began feeding them at the window of his hotel room and nursed injured birds back to health.[201][202][203] He said that he had been visited by a certain injured white pigeon daily. He spent over $2,000 to care for the bird, including a device he built to support her comfortably while her broken wing and leg healed.[33] Tesla stated:
+
+I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them for years. But there was one, a beautiful bird, pure white with light grey tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life.[204]
+
+Tesla's unpaid bills, as well as complaints about the mess made by pigeons, led to his eviction from the St. Regis in 1923. He was also forced to leave the Hotel Pennsylvania in 1930 and the Hotel Governor Clinton in 1934.[201] At one point he also took rooms at the Hotel Marguery.[205]
+
+Tesla moved to the Hotel New Yorker in 1934. At this time Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company began paying him $125 per month in addition to paying his rent. Accounts of how this came about vary. Several sources claim that Westinghouse was concerned, or possibly warned, about potential bad publicity arising from the impoverished conditions in which their former star inventor was living.[206][207][208][209] The payment has been described as being couched as a "consulting fee" to get around Tesla's aversion to accepting charity. Tesla biographer Marc Seifer described the Westinghouse payments as a type of "unspecified settlement".[208] In any case, Westinghouse provided the funds for Tesla for the rest of his life.
+
+In 1931, a young science-fiction writer whom Tesla befriended, Kenneth Swezey, organized a celebration for the inventor's 75th birthday.[210] Tesla received congratulatory letters from more than 70 pioneers in science and engineering, including Albert Einstein,[211] and he was also featured on the cover of Time magazine.[212] The cover caption "All the world's his power house" noted his contribution to electrical power generation.
+The party went so well that Tesla made it an annual event, an occasion where he would put out a large spread of food and drink—featuring dishes of his own creation. He invited the press in order to see his inventions and hear stories about his past exploits, views on current events, and sometimes baffling claims.[213][214]
+
+At the 1932 party, Tesla claimed he had invented a motor that would run on cosmic rays.[214]
+In 1933 at age 77, Tesla told reporters at the event that, after 35 years of work, he was on the verge of producing proof of a new form of energy. He claimed it was a theory of energy that was "violently opposed" to Einsteinian physics, and could be tapped with an apparatus that would be cheap to run and last 500 years. He also told reporters he was working on a way to transmit individualized private radio wavelengths, working on breakthroughs in metallurgy, and developing a way to photograph the retina to record thought.[215]
+
+At the 1934 occasion, Tesla told reporters he had designed a superweapon he claimed would end all war.[216][217] He called it "teleforce", but was usually referred to as his death ray.[218] Tesla described it as a defensive weapon that would be put up along the border of a country and be used against attacking ground-based infantry or aircraft. Tesla never revealed detailed plans of how the weapon worked during his lifetime but, in 1984, they surfaced at the Nikola Tesla Museum archive in Belgrade.[219] The treatise, The New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media, described an open-ended vacuum tube with a gas jet seal that allows particles to exit, a method of charging slugs of tungsten or mercury to millions of volts, and directing them in streams (through electrostatic repulsion).[214][220] Tesla tried to interest the US War Department,[221] the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia in the device.[222]
+
+In 1935 at his 79th birthday party, Tesla covered many topics. He claimed to have discovered the cosmic ray in 1896 and invented a way to produce direct current by induction, and made many claims about his mechanical oscillator.[223] Describing the device (which he expected would earn him $100 million within two years) he told reporters that a version of his oscillator had caused an earthquake in his 46 East Houston Street lab and neighboring streets in Lower Manhattan in 1898.[223] He went on to tell reporters his oscillator could destroy the Empire State Building with 5 lbs of air pressure.[224] He also explained a new technique he developed using his oscillators he called "Telegeodynamics", using it to transmit vibrations into the ground that he claimed would work over any distance to be used for communication or locating underground mineral deposits.[132]
+
+In his 1937 Grand Ballroom of Hotel New Yorker event, Tesla received the Order of the White Lion from the Czechoslovak ambassador and a medal from the Yugoslav ambassador.[214] On questions concerning the death ray, Tesla stated, "But it is not an experiment ... I have built, demonstrated and used it. Only a little time will pass before I can give it to the world."
+
+In the fall of 1937 at the age of 81, after midnight one night, Tesla left the Hotel New Yorker to make his regular commute to the cathedral and library to feed the pigeons. While crossing a street a couple of blocks from the hotel, Tesla was unable to dodge a moving taxicab and was thrown to the ground. His back was severely wrenched and three of his ribs were broken in the accident. The full extent of his injuries was never known; Tesla refused to consult a doctor, an almost lifelong custom, and never fully recovered.[34][225]
+
+On 7 January 1943, at the age of 86, Tesla died alone in Room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel. His body was later found by maid Alice Monaghan after she had entered Tesla's room, ignoring the "do not disturb" sign that Tesla had placed on his door two days earlier. Assistant medical examiner H.W. Wembley examined the body and ruled that the cause of death had been coronary thrombosis.[25]
+
+Two days later the Federal Bureau of Investigation ordered the Alien Property Custodian to seize Tesla's belongings.[25] John G. Trump, a professor at M.I.T. and a well-known electrical engineer serving as a technical aide to the National Defense Research Committee, was called in to analyze the Tesla items, which were being held in custody.[25] After a three-day investigation, Trump's report concluded that there was nothing which would constitute a hazard in unfriendly hands, stating:
+
+[Tesla's] thoughts and efforts during at least the past 15 years were primarily of a speculative, philosophical, and somewhat promotional character often concerned with the production and wireless transmission of power; but did not include new, sound, workable principles or methods for realizing such results.[226]
+
+In a box purported to contain a part of Tesla's "death ray", Trump found a 45-year-old multidecade resistance box.[227]
+
+On 10 January 1943, New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia read a eulogy written by Slovene-American author Louis Adamic live over the WNYC radio while violin pieces "Ave Maria" and "Tamo daleko" were played in the background.[25] On 12 January, two thousand people attended a state funeral for Tesla at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan. After the funeral, Tesla's body was taken to the Ferncliff Cemetery in Ardsley, New York, where it was later cremated. The following day, a second service was conducted by prominent priests in the Trinity Chapel (today's Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sava) in New York City.[25]
+
+In 1952, following pressure from Tesla's nephew, Sava Kosanović, Tesla's entire estate was shipped to Belgrade in 80 trunks marked N.T.[25] In 1957, Kosanović's secretary Charlotte Muzar transported Tesla's ashes from the United States to Belgrade.[25] The ashes are displayed in a gold-plated sphere on a marble pedestal in the Nikola Tesla Museum.[228]
+
+Tesla obtained around 300 patents worldwide for his inventions.[229] Some of Tesla's patents are not accounted for, and various sources have discovered some that have lain hidden in patent archives. There are a minimum of 278 known patents[229] issued to Tesla in 26 countries. Many of Tesla's patents were in the United States, Britain, and Canada, but many other patents were approved in countries around the globe.[230] Many inventions developed by Tesla were not put into patent protection.
+
+Tesla was 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) tall and weighed 142 pounds (64 kg), with almost no weight variance from 1888 to about 1926. His appearance was described by newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane as "almost the tallest, almost the thinnest and certainly the most serious man who goes to Delmonico's regularly".[231][232] He was an elegant, stylish figure in New York City, meticulous in his grooming, clothing, and regimented in his daily activities, an appearance he maintained so as to further his business relationships.[233] He was also described as having light eyes, "very big hands", and "remarkably big" thumbs.[231]
+
+Tesla read many works, memorizing complete books, and supposedly possessed a photographic memory.[234] He was a polyglot, speaking eight languages: Serbo-Croatian, Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin.[235] Tesla related in his autobiography that he experienced detailed moments of inspiration. During his early life, Tesla was repeatedly stricken with illness. He suffered a peculiar affliction in which blinding flashes of light appeared before his eyes, often accompanied by visions.[234] Often, the visions were linked to a word or idea he might have come across; at other times they provided the solution to a particular problem he had encountered. Just by hearing the name of an item, he could envision it in realistic detail.[234] Tesla visualized an invention in his mind with extreme precision, including all dimensions, before moving to the construction stage, a technique sometimes known as picture thinking. He typically did not make drawings by hand but worked from memory. Beginning in his childhood, Tesla had frequent flashbacks to events that had happened previously in his life.[234]
+
+Tesla never married, explaining that his chastity was very helpful to his scientific abilities.[234] He once said in earlier years that he felt he could never be worthy enough for a woman, considering women superior in every way. His opinion had started to sway in later years when he felt that women were trying to outdo men and make themselves more dominant. This "new woman" was met with much indignation from Tesla, who felt that women were losing their femininity by trying to be in power. In an interview with the Galveston Daily News on 10 August 1924 he stated, "In place of the soft voiced, gentle woman of my reverent worship, has come the woman who thinks that her chief success in life lies in making herself as much as possible like man—in dress, voice and actions, in sports and achievements of every kind ... The tendency of women to push aside man, supplanting the old spirit of cooperation with him in all the affairs of life, is very disappointing to me".[236] Although he told a reporter in later years that he sometimes felt that by not marrying, he had made too great a sacrifice to his work,[33] Tesla chose to never pursue or engage in any known relationships, instead finding all the stimulation he needed in his work.
+
+Tesla was asocial and prone to seclude himself with his work.[133][237][238][239] However, when he did engage in a social life, many people spoke very positively and admiringly of Tesla. Robert Underwood Johnson described him as attaining a "distinguished sweetness, sincerity, modesty, refinement, generosity, and force".[33] His secretary, Dorothy Skerrit, wrote: "his genial smile and nobility of bearing always denoted the gentlemanly characteristics that were so ingrained in his soul".[34] Tesla's friend, Julian Hawthorne, wrote, "seldom did one meet a scientist or engineer who was also a poet, a philosopher, an appreciator of fine music, a linguist, and a connoisseur of food and drink".[240]
+
+Tesla was a good friend of Francis Marion Crawford, Robert Underwood Johnson,[241] Stanford White,[242] Fritz Lowenstein, George Scherff, and Kenneth Swezey.[243][244][245] In middle age, Tesla became a close friend of Mark Twain; they spent a lot of time together in his lab and elsewhere.[241] Twain notably described Tesla's induction motor invention as "the most valuable patent since the telephone".[246] At a party thrown by actress Sarah Bernhardt in 1896, Tesla met Indian Hindu monk Vivekananda and the two talked about how the inventor's ideas on energy seemed to match up with Vedantic cosmology.[247] In the late 1920s, Tesla befriended George Sylvester Viereck, a poet, writer, mystic, and later, a Nazi propagandist. Tesla occasionally attended dinner parties held by Viereck and his wife.[248][249]
+
+Tesla could be harsh at times and openly expressed disgust for overweight people, such as when he fired a secretary because of her weight.[250] He was quick to criticize clothing; on several occasions, Tesla directed a subordinate to go home and change her dress.[234] When Thomas Edison died, in 1931, Tesla contributed the only negative opinion to The New York Times, buried in an extensive coverage of Edison's life:
+
+He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene ... His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense.[251]
+
+Tesla claimed never to sleep more than two hours per night.[252] However, he did admit to "dozing" from time to time "to recharge his batteries".[253] During his second year of study at Graz, Tesla developed a passionate proficiency for billiards, chess, and card-playing, sometimes spending more than 48 hours in a stretch at a gaming table.[254] On one occasion at his laboratory, Tesla worked for a period of 84 hours without rest.[255] Kenneth Swezey, a journalist whom Tesla had befriended, confirmed that Tesla rarely slept. Swezey recalled one morning when Tesla called him at 3 a.m.: "I was sleeping in my room like one dead ... Suddenly, the telephone ring awakened me ... [Tesla] spoke animatedly, with pauses, [as he] ... work[ed] out a problem, comparing one theory to another, commenting; and when he felt he had arrived at the solution, he suddenly closed the telephone."[253]
+
+Tesla worked every day from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. or later, with dinner at exactly 8:10 p.m., at Delmonico's restaurant and later the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Tesla then telephoned his dinner order to the headwaiter, who also could be the only one to serve him. "The meal was required to be ready at eight o'clock ... He dined alone, except on the rare occasions when he would give a dinner to a group to meet his social obligations. Tesla then resumed his work, often until 3:00 a.m."[256]
+
+For exercise, Tesla walked between 8 and 10 miles (13 and 16 km) per day. He curled his toes one hundred times for each foot every night, saying that it stimulated his brain cells.[253]
+
+In an interview with newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane, Tesla said that he did not believe in telepathy, stating, "Suppose I made up my mind to murder you," he said, "In a second you would know it. Now, isn't that wonderful? By what process does the mind get at all this?" In the same interview, Tesla said that he believed that all fundamental laws could be reduced to one.[231]
+
+Tesla became a vegetarian in his later years, living on only milk, bread, honey, and vegetable juices.[217][257]
+
+Tesla disagreed with the theory of atoms being composed of smaller subatomic particles, stating there was no such thing as an electron creating an electric charge. He believed that if electrons existed at all, they were some fourth state of matter or "sub-atom" that could exist only in an experimental vacuum and that they had nothing to do with electricity.[258][259] Tesla believed that atoms are immutable—they could not change state or be split in any way. He was a believer in the 19th-century concept of an all-pervasive ether that transmitted electrical energy.[260]
+
+Tesla was generally antagonistic towards theories about the conversion of matter into energy.[261] He was also critical of Einstein's theory of relativity, saying:
+
+I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties. It might as well be said that God has properties. He has not, but only attributes and these are of our own making. Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view.[262]
+
+Tesla claimed to have developed his own physical principle regarding matter and energy that he started working on in 1892,[34] and in 1937, at age 81, claimed in a letter to have completed a "dynamic theory of gravity" that "[would] put an end to idle speculations and false conceptions, as that of curved space". He stated that the theory was "worked out in all details" and that he hoped to soon give it to the world.[263] Further elucidation of his theory was never found in his writings.[264]
+
+Tesla is widely considered by his biographers to have been a humanist in philosophical outlook on top of his gifts as a technological scientist.[265][266][267]
+This did not preclude Tesla, like many of his era, becoming a proponent of an imposed selective breeding version of eugenics.
+
+Tesla expressed the belief that human "pity" had come to interfere with the natural "ruthless workings of nature". Though his argumentation did not depend on a concept of a "master race" or the inherent superiority of one person over another, he advocated for eugenics. In a 1937 interview he stated:
+
+... man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct ... The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal.[268]
+
+In 1926, Tesla commented on the ills of the social subservience of women and the struggle of women toward gender equality, and indicated that humanity's future would be run by "Queen Bees". He believed that women would become the dominant sex in the future.[269]
+
+Tesla made predictions about the relevant issues of a post-World War I environment in a printed article, "Science and Discovery are the great Forces which will lead to the Consummation of the War" (20 December 1914).[270] Tesla believed that the League of Nations was not a remedy for the times and issues.[26]
+
+Tesla was raised an Orthodox Christian. Later in life he did not consider himself to be a "believer in the orthodox sense," said he opposed religious fanaticism, and said "Buddhism and Christianity are the greatest religions both in number of disciples and in importance".[271] He also said "To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end" and "what we call 'soul' or 'spirit,' is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body. When this functioning ceases, the 'soul' or the 'spirit' ceases likewise".[271]
+
+Tesla wrote a number of books and articles for magazines and journals.[272] Among his books are My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla, compiled and edited by Ben Johnston; The Fantastic Inventions of Nikola Tesla, compiled and edited by David Hatcher Childress; and The Tesla Papers.
+
+Many of Tesla's writings are freely available online,[273] including the article "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy," published in The Century Magazine in 1900,[274] and the article "Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency," published in his book Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla.[275][276]
+
+Tesla's legacy has endured in books, films, radio, TV, music, live theater, comics, and video games. The impact of the technologies invented or envisioned by Tesla is a recurring theme in several types of science fiction.
+
+Footnotes
+
+Citations
+
+Books
+
+Publications
+
+Journals
+
+Video

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+Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix (French: Astérix or Astérix le Gaulois [asteʁiks lə ɡolwa]; lit. "Asterix the Gaul") is a French bande dessinée series about Gaulish warriors, who have adventures and fight the Roman Empire during the era of Julius Caesar. The series first appeared in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote on 29 October 1959. It was written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo until Goscinny's death in 1977. Uderzo then took over the writing until 2009, when he sold the rights to publishing company Hachette; he died in 2020. In 2013, a new team consisting of Jean-Yves Ferri (script) and Didier Conrad (artwork) took over. As of 2019[update], 38 volumes have been released, with the most recent released in October 2019.
+
+Each Asterix comic starts with the following introduction:
+
+The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium...[1][2]
+
+The series follows the adventures of a village of Gauls as they resist Roman occupation in 50 BCE. They do so by means of a magic potion, brewed by their druid Getafix (Panoramix in the French version), which temporarily gives the recipient superhuman strength. The protagonists, the title character Asterix and his friend Obelix, have various adventures. The "-ix" ending of both names (as well as all the other pseudo-Gaulish "-ix" names in the series) alludes to the "-rix" suffix (meaning "king") present in the names of many real Gaulish chieftains such as Vercingetorix, Orgetorix, and Dumnorix.
+
+In many of the stories, they travel to foreign countries, though other tales are set in and around their village. For much of the history of the series (Volumes 4 through 29), settings in Gaul and abroad alternated, with even-numbered volumes set abroad and odd-numbered volumes set in Gaul, mostly in the village.
+
+The Asterix series is one of the most popular Franco-Belgian comics in the world, with the series being translated into 111 languages and dialects as of 2009[update].[3]
+
+The success of the series has led to the adaptation of its books into 13 films: nine animated, and four live action (one of which, Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, was a major box office success in France). There have also been a number of games based on the characters, and a theme park near Paris, Parc Astérix. The very first French satellite, Astérix, launched in 1965, was also named after the comics character. As of 2017, 370 million copies of Asterix books have been sold worldwide,[4] with co-creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo being France's best-selling authors abroad.[5][6]
+
+Prior to creating the Asterix series, Goscinny and Uderzo had previously had success with their series Oumpah-pah, which was published in Tintin magazine.[8]
+Astérix was originally serialised in Pilote magazine, debuting in the first issue on 29 October 1959.[9] In 1961 the first book was put together, titled Asterix the Gaul. From then on, books were released generally on a yearly basis. Their success was exponential; the first book sold 6,000 copies in its year of publication; a year later, the second sold 20,000. In 1963, the third sold 40,000; the fourth, released in 1964, sold 150,000. A year later, the fifth sold 300,000; 1966's Asterix and the Big Fight sold 400,000 upon initial publication. The ninth Asterix volume, when first released in 1967, sold 1.2 million copies in two days.
+
+Uderzo's first preliminary sketches portrayed Asterix as a huge and strong traditional Gaulish warrior. But Goscinny had a different picture in his mind, visualizing Asterix as a shrewd, compact warrior who would possess intelligence and wit more than raw strength. However, Uderzo felt that the downsized hero needed a strong but dim companion, to which Goscinny agreed. Hence, Obelix was born.[10] Despite the growing popularity of Asterix with the readers, the financial backing for the publication Pilote ceased. Pilote was taken over by Georges Dargaud.[10]
+
+When Goscinny died in 1977, Uderzo continued the series by popular demand of the readers, who implored him to continue. He continued to issue new volumes of the series, but on a less-frequent basis. Many critics and fans of the series prefer the earlier collaborations with Goscinny.[11] Uderzo created his own publishing company, Les Editions Albert-René, which published every album drawn and written by Uderzo alone since then.[10] However, Dargaud, the initial publisher of the series, kept the publishing rights on the 24 first albums made by both Uderzo and Goscinny. In 1990, the Uderzo and Goscinny families decided to sue Dargaud to take over the rights. In 1998, after a long trial, Dargaud lost the rights to publish and sell the albums. Uderzo decided to sell these rights to Hachette instead of Albert-René, but the publishing rights on new albums were still owned by Albert Uderzo (40%), Sylvie Uderzo (20%) and Anne Goscinny (40%).[citation needed]
+
+In December 2008, Uderzo sold his stake to Hachette, which took over the company.[12] In a letter published in the French newspaper Le Monde in 2009, Uderzo's daughter, Sylvie, attacked her father's decision to sell the family publishing firm and the rights to produce new Astérix adventures after his death. She said:
+
+... the co-creator of Astérix, France's comic strip hero, has betrayed the Gaulish warrior to the modern-day Romans – the men of industry and finance.[13][14]
+
+However, René Goscinny's daughter, Anne, also gave her agreement to the continuation of the series and sold her rights at the same time. She is reported to have said that "Asterix has already had two lives: one during my father's lifetime and one after it. Why not a third?".[15] A few months later, Uderzo appointed three illustrators, who had been his assistants for many years, to continue the series.[11] In 2011, Uderzo announced that a new Asterix album was due out in 2013, with Jean-Yves Ferri writing the story and Frédéric Mébarki drawing it.[16] A year later, in 2012, the publisher Albert-René announced that Frédéric Mébarki had withdrawn from drawing the new album, due to the pressure he felt in following in the steps of Uderzo. Comic artist Didier Conrad was officially announced to take over drawing duties from Mébarki, with the due date of the new album in 2013 unchanged.[17][18]
+
+In January 2015, after the murders of seven cartoonists at the satirical Paris weekly Charlie Hebdo, Astérix creator Albert Uderzo came out of retirement to draw two Astérix pictures honouring the memories of the victims.[19]
+
+Numbers 1–24, 32 and 34 are by Goscinny and Uderzo. Numbers 25–31 and 33 are by Uderzo alone. Numbers 35–38 are by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad. Years stated are for their initial album release.
+
+Asterix Conquers Rome is a comics adaptation of the animated film The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. It was released in 1976, and was the 23rd volume to be published, but it has been rarely reprinted and is not considered to be canonical to the series. The only English translations ever to be published were in the Asterix Annual 1980 and never an English standalone volume. A picture-book version of the same story was published in English translation as The Twelve Tasks of Asterix by Hodder & Stoughton in 1978.
+
+In 1996, a tribute album in honour of Albert Uderzo was released titled "Uderzo Croqué par ses Amis", a volume containing 21 short stories with Uderzo in Ancient Gaul. This volume was published by Soleil Productions and has not been translated into English
+
+In 2007, Les Editions Albert René released a tribute volume titled Astérix et ses Amis, a 60-page volume of one-to-four-page short stories. It was a tribute to Albert Uderzo on his 80th birthday by 34 European cartoonists. The volume was translated into nine languages. As of 2016[update], it has not been translated into English.[23]
+
+In 2016, the French publisher Hachette, along with Anne Goscinny and Albert Uderzo decided to make the special issue album The XII Tasks of Asterix for the 40th anniversary of the film The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. There was no English edition.
+
+The main setting for the series is an unnamed coastal village (rumoured to be inspired by Erquy[by whom?]) in Armorica (present-day Brittany), a province of Gaul (modern France), in the year 50 BC. Julius Caesar has conquered nearly all of Gaul for the Roman Empire. The little Armorican village, however, has held out because the villagers can gain temporary superhuman strength by drinking a magic potion brewed by the local village druid, Getafix. His chief is Vitalstatistix.
+
+The main protagonist and hero of the village is Asterix, who, because of his shrewdness, is usually entrusted with the most important affairs of the village. He is aided in his adventures by his rather corpulent and slower thinking friend, Obelix, who, because he fell into the druid's cauldron of the potion as a baby, has permanent superhuman strength (because of this, Getafix steadily refuses to allow Obelix to drink the potion, as doing so would have a dangerous and unpredictable result). Obelix is usually accompanied by Dogmatix, his little dog. (Except for Asterix and Obelix, the names of the characters change with the language. For example, Obelix's dog's name is "Dogmatix" in English, but "Idéfix" in the original French edition.)
+
+Asterix and Obelix (and sometimes other members of the village) go on various adventures both within the village and in far away lands. Places visited in the series include parts of Gaul (Lutetia, Corsica etc.), neighbouring nations (Belgium, Spain, Britain, Germany etc.), and far away lands (North America, Middle East, India etc.).
+
+The series employs science-fiction and fantasy elements in the more recent books; for instance, the use of extraterrestrials in Asterix and the Falling Sky and the city of Atlantis in Asterix and Obelix All at Sea.
+
+The humour encountered in the Asterix comics often centers around puns, caricatures, and tongue-in-cheek stereotypes of contemporary European nations and French regions. Much of the humour in the initial Asterix books was French-specific, which delayed the translation of the books into other languages for fear of losing the jokes and the spirit of the story. Some translations have actually added local humour: In the Italian translation, the Roman legionaries are made to speak in 20th-century Roman dialect, and Obelix's famous Ils sont fous ces romains ("These Romans are crazy") is translated properly as Sono pazzi questi romani, humorously alluding to the Roman abbreviation SPQR. In another example: Hiccups are written onomatopoeically in French as hips, but in English as "hic", allowing Roman legionaries in more than one of the English translations to decline their hiccups absurdly in Latin (hic, haec, hoc). The newer albums share a more universal humour, both written and visual.[24]
+
+All the fictional characters in Asterix have names which are puns on their roles or personalities, and which follow certain patterns specific to nationality. Certain rules are followed (most of the time) such as Gauls (and their neighbours) having an "-ix" suffix for the men and ending in "-a" for the women; for example, Chief Vitalstatistix (so called due to his portly stature) and his wife Impedimenta (often at odds with the chief). The male Roman names end in "-us", echoing Latin nominative male singular form, as in Gluteus Maximus, a muscle-bound athlete whose name is literally the butt of the joke. Gothic names (present-day Germany) end in "-ic", after Gothic chiefs such as Alaric and Theoderic; for example Rhetoric the interpreter. Greek names end in "-os" or "-es"; for example, Thermos the restaurateur. British names end in "-ax" and are often puns on the taxation associated with the later United Kingdom; examples include Valuaddedtax the druid, and Selectivemploymentax the mercenary. Other nationalities are treated to pidgin translations from their language, like Huevos y Bacon, a Spanish chieftain (whose name, meaning eggs and bacon, is often guidebook Spanish for tourists), or literary and other popular media references, like Dubbelosix (a sly reference to James Bond's codename "007").
+
+Most of these jokes, and hence the names of the characters, are specific to the translation; for example, the druid named Getafix in English translation - "get a fix", referring to the character's role in dispensing the magic potion - is Panoramix in the original French and Miraculix in German.[25] Even so, occasionally the wordplay has been preserved: Obelix's dog, known in the original French as Idéfix (from idée fixe, a "fixed idea" or obsession), is called Dogmatix in English, which not only renders the original meaning strikingly closely ("dogmatic") but in fact adds another layer of wordplay with the syllable "Dog-" at the beginning of the name.
+
+The name Asterix, French Astérix, comes from astérisque, meaning "asterisk", which is the typographical symbol * indicating a footnote, from the Greek word αστήρ (aster), meaning a "star". His name is usually left unchanged in translations, aside from accents and the use of local alphabets. For example, in Esperanto, Polish, Slovene, Latvian, and Turkish it is Asteriks (in Turkish he was first named Bücür meaning "shorty", but the name was then standardised). Two exceptions include Icelandic, in which he is known as Ástríkur ("Rich of love"), and Sinhala, where he is known as සූර පප්පා (Soora Pappa), which can be interpreted as "Hero".
+
+For explanations of some of the other names, see List of Asterix characters.
+
+Many of the Asterix adventures take place in other countries away from their homeland in Gaul. In every album that takes place abroad, the characters meet (usually modern-day) stereotypes for each country, as seen by the French.
+
+When the Gauls see foreigners speaking their foreign languages, these have different representation in the cartoon speech bubbles:
+
+The various volumes have been translated into more than 100 languages and dialects. Besides the original French language, most albums are available in Estonian, English, Czech, Dutch, German, Galician, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Turkish, Slovene, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Latvian, Welsh,[26] as well as Latin.[27]
+
+Selected albums have also been translated into languages such as Esperanto, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Scots, Indonesian, Persian, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Bengali, Afrikaans, Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew, Frisian, Romansch, Vietnamese, Sinhala, Ancient Greek, and Luxembourgish.[26]
+
+In Europe, several volumes were translated into a variety of regional languages and dialects, such as Alsatian, Breton, Chtimi (Picard), and Corsican in France; Bavarian, Swabian, and Low German in Germany; and Savo, Karelia, Rauma, and Helsinki slang dialects in Finland. Also, in Portugal, a special edition of the first volume, Asterix the Gaul, was translated into local language Mirandese.[28] In Greece, a number of volumes have appeared in the Cretan Greek, Cypriot Greek, and Pontic Greek dialects.[29] In the Italian version, while the Gauls speak standard Italian, the legionaries speak in the Romanesque dialect. In the former Yugoslavia, the "Forum" publishing house translated Corsican text in Asterix in Corsica into the Montenegrin dialect of Serbo-Croatian (today called Montenegrin).
+
+In the Netherlands, several volumes were translated into West Frisian, a Germanic language spoken in the province of Friesland; into Limburgish, a regional language spoken not only in Dutch Limburg but also in Belgian Limburg and North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany; and into Tweants, a dialect in the region of Twente in the eastern province of Overijssel. Hungarian-language books have been published in Yugoslavia for the Hungarian minority living in Serbia. Although not translated into a fully autonomous dialect, the books differ slightly from the language of the books issued in Hungary. In Sri Lanka, the cartoon series was adapted into Sinhala as Sura Pappa.[28]
+
+Most volumes have been translated into Latin and Ancient Greek, with accompanying teachers' guides, as a way of teaching these ancient languages.
+
+Before Asterix became famous, translations of some strips were published in British comics including Valiant, Ranger, and Look & Learn, under names Little Fred and Big Ed[30] and Beric the Bold, set in Roman-occupied Britain. These were included in an exhibition on Goscinny's life and career, and Asterix, in London's Jewish Museum in 2018.[31][32]
+
+The first 33 Asterix books were translated into English by Derek Hockridge and Anthea Bell, who were widely praised for maintaining the spirit and humour of the original French versions. Derek Hockridge died in 2013, so Anthea Bell translated books 34 to 36 by herself, before retiring in 2016 for health reasons. She died in 2018.[33] Adriana Hunter is the present translator.
+
+US publisher Papercutz in December 2019 announced it would begin publishing "all-new more American translations" of the Asterix books, starting on 19 May 2020.[34] The launch was postponed to 15 July 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.[35] The new translator is Joe Johnson (Dr. Edward Joseph Johnson), a Professor of French and Spanish at Clayton State University.[36]
+
+The series has been adapted into various media. There are 14 films, 15 board games, 40 video games, and 1 theme park.
+
+Many gamebooks, board games and video games are based upon the Asterix series. In particular, many video games were released by various computer game publishers.
+
+Parc Astérix, a theme park 22 miles north of Paris, based upon the series, was opened in 1989. It is one of the most visited sites in France, with around 1.6 million visitors per year.

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+The Nile (Arabic: النيل‎, romanized: an-Nīl, Arabic pronunciation: [an'niːl], Bohairic Coptic: ⲫⲓⲁⲣⲟ Pronounced [pʰjaˈro][4], Nobiin: Áman Dawū[5]) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa, and is the longest river in Africa and the disputed longest river in the world,[6][7] as the Brazilian government says that the Amazon River is longer than the Nile.[8][9] The Nile is about 6,650 km (4,130 mi)[n 1] long and its drainage basin covers eleven countries: Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Republic of the Sudan, and Egypt.[11] In particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan.[12]
+
+The Nile has two major tributaries – the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The White Nile is considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself. The Blue Nile, however, is the source of most of the water, containing 80% of the water and silt. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, with the most distant source still undetermined but located in either Rwanda or Burundi. It flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia[13] and flows into Sudan from the southeast. The two rivers meet just north of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.[14]
+
+The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta and flows into the Mediterranean Sea. Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, and nearly all the cultural and historical sites of Ancient Egypt are found along river banks.
+
+The standard English names "White Nile" and "Blue Nile", to refer to the river's source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum.[15]
+
+In the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥ'pī (Hapy) or Iteru, meaning "river". In Coptic, the word ⲫⲓⲁⲣⲟ, pronounced piaro (Sahidic) or phiaro (Bohairic), means "the river" (lit. p(h).iar-o "the.canal-great"), and comes from the same ancient name.[16]
+
+In Nobiin the river is called Áman Dawū, meaning "the great water".[5]
+
+In Egyptian Arabic, the Nile is called en-Nīl while in Standard Arabic it is called an-Nīl. In Biblical Hebrew: הַיְאוֹר, Ha-Ye'or or הַשִׁיחוֹר, Ha-Shiḥor.
+
+The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek Νεῖλος.[17][18] Beyond that, however, the etymology is disputed.[18][19] Hesiod at his Theogony refers that Nilus (Νεῖλος) was one of the Potamoi (river gods), son of Oceanus and Tethys.[20] Another derivation of Nile might be related to the term Nil (Sanskrit: नील, romanized: nila; Egyptian Arabic: نيلة‎),[16] which refers to Indigofera tinctoria, one of the original sources of indigo dye;[21] or Nymphaea caerulea, known as "The Sacred Blue Lily of the Nile", which was found scattered over Tutankhamen's corpse when it was located in 1922.[22]
+
+Another possible etymology derives it from a Semitic Nahal, meaning "river".[23]
+
+With a total length of about 6,650 km (4,130 mi)[n 1] between the region of Lake Victoria and the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile is the longest river on Earth. The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers (1,256,591 sq mi), about 10% of the area of Africa.[25] Compared to other major rivers, though, the Nile carries little water (5% of the Congo's river, for example).[26] The Nile basin is complex, and because of this, the discharge at any given point along the mainstem depends on many factors including weather, diversions, evaporation and evapotranspiration, and groundwater flow.
+
+Above Khartoum, the Nile is also known as the White Nile, a term also used in a limited sense to describe the section between Lake No and Khartoum. At Khartoum the river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia. Both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift.
+
+The source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size. The Kagera River, which flows into Lake Victoria near the Tanzanian town of Bukoba, is the longest feeder, although sources do not agree on which is the longest tributary of the Kagera and hence the most distant source of the Nile itself.[27] It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, Burundi,[28] or the Nyabarongo, which flows from Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda.[29] The two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border.
+
+In 2010, an exploration party[30] went to a place described as the source of the Rukarara tributary,[31] and by hacking a path up steep jungle-choked mountain slopes in the Nyungwe forest found (in the dry season) an appreciable incoming surface flow for many kilometres upstream, and found a new source, giving the Nile a length of 6,758 km (4,199 mi).
+
+Gish Abay is reportedly the place where the "holy water" of the first drops of the Blue Nile develop.[32]
+
+The Nile leaves Lake Nalubaale (Victoria) at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda, as the Victoria Nile. It flows north for some 130 kilometers (81 mi), to Lake Kyoga. The last part of the approximately 200 kilometers (120 mi) river section starts from the western shores of the lake and flows at first to the west until just south of Masindi Port, where the river turns north, then makes a great half circle to the east and north until Karuma Falls. For the remaining part it flows merely westerly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta. The lake itself is on the border of DR Congo, but the Nile is not a border river at this point. After leaving Lake Albert, the river continues north through Uganda and is known as the Albert Nile.
+
+The Nile river flows into South Sudan just south of Nimule, where it is known as the Bahr al Jabal ("Mountain River"[33]). Just south of the town it has the confluence with the Achwa River. The Bahr al Ghazal, itself 716 kilometers (445 mi) long, joins the Bahr al Jabal at a small lagoon called Lake No, after which the Nile becomes known as the Bahr al Abyad, or the White Nile, from the whitish clay suspended in its waters. When the Nile floods it leaves a rich silty deposit which fertilizes the soil. The Nile no longer floods in Egypt since the completion of the Aswan Dam in 1970. An anabranch river, the Bahr el Zeraf, flows out of the Nile's Bahr al Jabal section and rejoins the White Nile.
+
+The flow rate of the Bahr al Jabal at Mongalla, South Sudan is almost constant throughout the year and averages 1,048 m3/s (37,000 cu ft/s). After Mongalla, the Bahr Al Jabal enters the enormous swamps of the Sudd region of South Sudan. More than half of the Nile's water is lost in this swamp to evaporation and transpiration. The average flow rate of the White Nile at the tails of the swamps is about 510 m3/s (18,000 cu ft/s). From here it soon meets with the Sobat River at Malakal. On an annual basis, the White Nile upstream of Malakal contributes about fifteen percent of the total outflow of the Nile.[34]
+
+The average flow of the White Nile at Lake Kawaki Malakal, just below the Sobat River, is 924 m3/s (32,600 cu ft/s); the peak flow is approximately 1,218 m3/s (43,000 cu ft/s) in October and minimum flow is about 609 m3/s (21,500 cu ft/s) in April. This fluctuation is due to the substantial variation in the flow of the Sobat, which has a minimum flow of about 99 m3/s (3,500 cu ft/s) in March and a peak flow of over 680 m3/s (24,000 cu ft/s) in October.[35] During the dry season (January to June) the White Nile contributes between 70 percent and 90 percent of the total discharge from the Nile.
+
+Below Renk the White Nile enters Sudan, it flows north to Khartoum and meets the Blue Nile.
+
+The course of the Nile in Sudan is distinctive. It flows over six groups of cataracts, from the sixth at Sabaloka just north of Khartoum northward to Abu Hamed. Due to the tectonic uplift of the Nubian Swell, the river is then diverted to flow for over 300 km south-west following the structure of the Central African Shear Zone embracing the Bayuda Desert. At Al Dabbah it resumes its northward course towards the first Cataract at Aswan forming the 'S'-shaped Great Bend of the Nile[36] already mentioned by Eratosthenes.[37]
+
+In the north of Sudan the river enters Lake Nasser (known in Sudan as Lake Nubia), the larger part of which is in Egypt.
+
+Below the Aswan High Dam, at the northern limit of Lake Nasser, the Nile resumes its historic course.
+
+North of Cairo, the Nile splits into two branches (or distributaries) that feed the Mediterranean: the Rosetta Branch to the west and the Damietta to the east, forming the Nile Delta.
+
+The annual sediment transport by the Nile in Egypt has been quantified.[38]
+
+Below the confluence with the Blue Nile the only major tributary is the Atbara River, roughly halfway to the sea, which originates in Ethiopia north of Lake Tana, and is around 800 kilometers (500 mi) long. The Atbara flows only while there is rain in Ethiopia and dries very rapidly. During the dry period of January to June, it typically dries up north of Khartoum.
+
+The Blue Nile (Amharic: ዓባይ, ʿĀbay[40][41]) springs from Lake Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands. The Blue Nile flows about 1,400 kilometres to Khartoum, where the Blue Nile and White Nile join to form the Nile.[42] Ninety percent of the water and ninety-six percent of the transported sediment carried by the Nile[43] originates in Ethiopia, with fifty-nine percent of the water from the Blue Nile (the rest being from the Tekezé, Atbarah, Sobat, and small tributaries). The erosion and transportation of silt only occurs during the Ethiopian rainy season in the summer, however, when rainfall is especially high on the Ethiopian Plateau; the rest of the year, the great rivers draining Ethiopia into the Nile (Sobat, Blue Nile, Tekezé, and Atbarah) have a weaker flow. In harsh and arid seasons and droughts the Blue Nile dries out completely.[44]
+
+The flow of the Blue Nile varies considerably over its yearly cycle and is the main contribution to the large natural variation of the Nile flow. During the dry season the natural discharge of the Blue Nile can be as low as 113 m3/s (4,000 cu ft/s), although upstream dams regulate the flow of the river. During the wet season the peak flow of the Blue Nile often exceeds 5,663 m3/s (200,000 cu ft/s) in late August (a difference of a factor of 50).
+
+Before the placement of dams on the river the yearly discharge varied by a factor of 15 at Aswan. Peak flows of over 8,212 m3/s (290,000 cu ft/s) occurred during late August and early September, and minimum flows of about 552 m3/s (19,500 cu ft/s) occurred during late April and early May.
+
+The Bahr al Ghazal and the Sobat River are the two most important tributaries of the White Nile in terms of discharge.
+
+The Bahr al Ghazal's drainage basin is the largest of any of the Nile's sub-basins, measuring 520,000 square kilometers (200,000 sq mi) in size, but it contributes a relatively small amount of water, about 2 m3/s (71 cu ft/s) annually, due to tremendous volumes of water being lost in the Sudd wetlands.
+
+The Sobat River, which joins the Nile a short distance below Lake No, drains about half as much land, 225,000 km2 (86,900 sq mi), but contributes 412 cubic meters per second (14,500 cu ft/s) annually to the Nile.[45] When in flood the Sobat carries a large amount of sediment, adding greatly to the White Nile's color.[46]
+
+The Yellow Nile is a former tributary that connected the Ouaddaï Highlands of eastern Chad to the Nile River Valley c. 8000 to c. 1000 BCE.[47] Its remains are known as the Wadi Howar. The wadi passes through Gharb Darfur near the northern border with Chad and meets up with the Nile near the southern point of the Great Bend.
+
+The Nile (iteru in Ancient Egyptian) has been the lifeline of civilization in Egypt since the Stone Age, with most of the population and all of the cities of Egypt resting along those parts of the Nile valley lying north of Aswan. However, the Nile used to run much more westerly through what is now Wadi Hamim and Wadi al Maqar in Libya and flow into the Gulf of Sidra.[48] As sea level rose at the end of the most recent ice age, the stream which is now the northern Nile pirated the ancestral Nile near Asyut,[49] this change in climate also led to the creation of the current Sahara desert, around 3400 BC.[50]
+
+The present Nile is at least the fifth river that has flowed north from the Ethiopian Highlands. Satellite imagery was used to identify dry watercourses in the desert to the west of the Nile. A canyon, now filled by surface drift, represents an ancestral Nile called the Eonile that flowed during the later Miocene (23–5.3 million years before present). The Eonile transported clastic sediments to the Mediterranean; several natural gas fields have been discovered within these sediments.
+
+During the late-Miocene Messinian salinity crisis, when the Mediterranean Sea was a closed basin and evaporated to the point of being empty or nearly so, the Nile cut its course down to the new base level until it was several hundred metres below world ocean level at Aswan and 2,400 m (7,900 ft) below Cairo.[51][52] This created a very long and deep canyon which was filled with sediment when the Mediterranean was recreated.[53] At some point the sediments raised the riverbed sufficiently for the river to overflow westward into a depression to create Lake Moeris.
+
+Lake Tanganyika drained northwards into the Nile until the Virunga Volcanoes blocked its course in Rwanda. The Nile was much longer at that time, with its furthest headwaters in northern Zambia.
+
+There are two theories about the age of the integrated Nile. One is that the integrated drainage of the Nile is of young age and that the Nile basin was formerly broken into series of separate basins, only the most northerly of which fed a river following the present course of the Nile in Egypt and Sudan. Rushdi Said postulated that Egypt itself supplied most of the waters of the Nile during the early part of its history.[54]
+
+The other theory is that the drainage from Ethiopia via rivers equivalent to the Blue Nile, the Atbara and the Takazze flowed to the Mediterranean via the Egyptian Nile since well back into Tertiary times.[55]
+
+Salama suggested that during the Paleogene and Neogene Periods (66 million to 2.588 million years ago) a series of separate closed continental basins each occupied one of the major parts of the Sudanese Rift System: Mellut rift, White Nile rift, Blue Nile rift, Atbara rift and Sag El Naam rift.[56]
+The Mellut Rift Basin is nearly 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) deep at its central part. This rift is possibly still active, with reported tectonic activity in its northern and southern boundaries. The Sudd swamps which form the central part of the basin may still be subsiding. The White Nile Rift System, although shallower than the Bahr el Arab rift, is about 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) deep. Geophysical exploration of the Blue Nile Rift System estimated the depth of the sediments to be 5–9 kilometers (3.1–5.6 mi). These basins were not interconnected until their subsidence ceased, and the rate of sediment deposition was enough to fill and connect them. The Egyptian Nile connected to the Sudanese Nile, which captures the Ethiopian and Equatorial headwaters during the current stages of tectonic activity in the Eastern, Central and Sudanese Rift Systems.[57] The connection of the different Niles occurred during cyclic wet periods. The River Atbara overflowed its closed basin during the wet periods that occurred about 100,000 to 120,000 years ago. The Blue Nile connected to the main Nile during the 70,000–80,000 years B.P. wet period. The White Nile system in Bahr El Arab and White Nile Rifts remained a closed lake until the connection of the Victoria Nile to the main system some 12,500 years ago during the African humid period.
+
+The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that "Egypt was the gift of the Nile". An unending source of sustenance, it played a crucial role in the development of Egyptian civilization. Because the river overflowed its banks annually and deposited new layers of silt, the surrounding land was very fertile. The Ancient Egyptians cultivated and traded wheat, flax, papyrus and other crops around the Nile. Wheat was a crucial crop in the famine-plagued Middle East. This trading system secured Egypt's diplomatic relationships with other countries, and contributed to economic stability. Far-reaching trade has been carried on along the Nile since ancient times. A tune, Hymn to the Nile, was created and sung by the ancient Egyptian peoples about the flooding of the Nile River and all of the miracles it brought to Ancient Egyptian civilization.[58]
+
+Water buffalo were introduced from Asia and the Assyrians introduced camels in the 7th century BC. These animals were killed for meat, and were domesticated and used for ploughing—or in the camels' case, carriage. Water was vital to both people and livestock. The Nile was also a convenient and efficient means of transportation for people and goods.
+
+The Nile was also an important part of ancient Egyptian spiritual life. Hapi was the god of the annual floods, and both he and the pharaoh were thought to control the flooding. The Nile was considered to be a causeway from life to death and the afterlife. The east was thought of as a place of birth and growth, and the west was considered the place of death, as the god Ra, the Sun, underwent birth, death, and resurrection each day as he crossed the sky. Thus, all tombs were west of the Nile, because the Egyptians believed that in order to enter the afterlife, they had to be buried on the side that symbolized death.
+
+As the Nile was such an important factor in Egyptian life, the ancient calendar was even based on the three cycles of the Nile. These seasons, each consisting of four months of thirty days each, were called Akhet, Peret, and Shemu. Akhet, which means inundation, was the time of the year when the Nile flooded, leaving several layers of fertile soil behind, aiding in agricultural growth.[59] Peret was the growing season, and Shemu, the last season, was the harvest season when there were no rains.[59]
+
+Owing to their failure to penetrate the sudd wetlands of South Sudan, the upper reaches of the White Nile remained largely unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Various expeditions failed to determine the river's source. Agatharcides records that in the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, a military expedition had penetrated far enough along the course of the Blue Nile to determine that the summer floods were caused by heavy seasonal rainstorms in the Ethiopian Highlands, but no European of antiquity is known to have reached Lake Tana.
+
+The Tabula Rogeriana depicted the source as three lakes in 1154.
+
+Europeans began to learn about the origins of the Nile in the fourteenth century when the Pope sent monks as emissaries to Mongolia who passed India, the Middle East and Africa, and described being told of the source of the Nile in Abyssinia (Ethiopia)[61][62] Later in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, travelers to Ethiopia visited Lake Tana and the source of the Blue Nile in the mountains south of the lake. Although James Bruce claimed to be the first European to have visited the headwaters,[63] modern writers give the credit to the Jesuit Pedro Páez. Páez's account of the source of the Nile[64] is a long and vivid account of Ethiopia. It was published in full only in the early twentieth century, although it was featured in works of Páez's contemporaries, including Baltazar Téllez,[65] Athanasius Kircher[66] and by Johann Michael Vansleb.[67]
+
+Europeans had been resident in Ethiopia since the late fifteenth century, and one of them may have visited the headwaters even earlier without leaving a written trace. The Portuguese João Bermudes published the first description of the Tis Issat Falls in his 1565 memoirs, compared them to the Nile Falls alluded to in Cicero's De Republica.[68] Jerónimo Lobo describes the source of the Blue Nile, visiting shortly after Pedro Páez. Telles also used his account.
+
+The White Nile was even less understood. The ancients mistakenly believed that the Niger River represented the upper reaches of the White Nile. For example, Pliny the Elder wrote that the Nile had its origins "in a mountain of lower Mauretania", flowed above ground for "many days" distance, then went underground, reappeared as a large lake in the territories of the Masaesyli, then sank again below the desert to flow underground "for a distance of 20 days' journey till it reaches the nearest Ethiopians."[69] A merchant named Diogenes reported that the Nile's water attracted game such as buffalo.
+
+Lake Victoria was first sighted by Europeans in 1858 when British explorer John Hanning Speke reached its southern shore while traveling with Richard Francis Burton to explore central Africa and locate the great lakes. Believing he had found the source of the Nile on seeing this "vast expanse of open water" for the first time, Speke named the lake after the then Queen of the United Kingdom. Burton, recovering from illness and resting further south on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, was outraged that Speke claimed to have proved his discovery to be the true source of the Nile when Burton regarded this as still unsettled. A very public quarrel ensued, which sparked a great deal of intense debate within the scientific community and interest by other explorers keen to either confirm or refute Speke's discovery. British explorer and missionary David Livingstone pushed too far west and entered the Congo River system instead. It was ultimately Welsh-American explorer Henry Morton Stanley who confirmed Speke's discovery, circumnavigating Lake Victoria and reporting the great outflow at Ripon Falls on the lake's northern shore.
+
+European involvement in Egypt goes back to the time of Napoleon.  Laird Shipyard of Liverpool sent an iron steamer to the Nile in the 1830s. With the completion of the Suez Canal and the British takeover of Egypt in the 1882, more British river steamers followed.
+
+The Nile is the area's natural navigation channel, giving access to Khartoum and Sudan by steamer. The Siege of Khartoum was broken with purpose-built sternwheelers shipped from England and steamed up the river to retake the city. After this came regular steam navigation of the river. With British Forces in Egypt in the First World War and the inter-war years, river steamers provided both security and sightseeing to the Pyramids and Thebes. Steam navigation remained integral to the two countries as late as 1962. Sudan steamer traffic was a lifeline as few railways or roads were built in that country. Most paddle steamers have been retired to shorefront service, but modern diesel tourist boats remain on the river.
+
+The Nile has long been used to transport goods along its length. Winter winds blow south, up river, so ships could sail up river, and down river using the flow of the river.
+While most Egyptians still live in the Nile valley, the 1970 completion of the Aswan High Dam ended the summer floods and their renewal of the fertile soil, fundamentally changing farming practices. The Nile supports much of the population living along its banks, enabling Egyptians to live in otherwise inhospitable regions of the Sahara. The river's flow is disturbed at several points by the Cataracts of the Nile, which are sections of faster-flowing water with many small islands, shallow water, and rocks, which form an obstacle to navigation by boats. The Sudd wetlands in Sudan also forms a formidable navigation obstacle and impede water flow, to the extent that Sudan had once attempted to canalize (the Jonglei Canal) to bypass the swamps.[71][72]
+
+Nile cities include Khartoum, Aswan, Luxor (Thebes), and the Giza – Cairo conurbation. The first cataract, the closest to the mouth of the river, is at Aswan, north of the Aswan Dam. This part of the river is a regular tourist route, with cruise ships and traditional wooden sailing boats known as feluccas. Many cruise ships ply the route between Luxor and Aswan, stopping at Edfu and Kom Ombo along the way. Security concerns have limited cruising on the northernmost portion for many years.
+
+A computer simulation study to plan the economic development of the Nile was directed by H.A.W. Morrice and W.N. Allan, for the Ministry of Hydro-power of the Republic of the Sudan, during 1955–1957[73][74][75] Morrice was their Hydrological Adviser, and Allan his predecessor. M.P. Barnett directed the software development and computer operations. The calculations were enabled by accurate monthly inflow data collected for 50 years. The underlying principle was the use of over-year storage, to conserve water from rainy years for use in dry years. Irrigation, navigation and other needs were considered. Each computer run postulated a set of reservoirs and operating equations for the release of water as a function of the month and the levels upstream. The behavior that would have resulted given the inflow data was modeled. Over 600 models were run. Recommendations were made to the Sudanese authorities. The calculations were run on an IBM 650 computer. Simulation studies to design water resources are discussed further in the article on hydrology transport models, that have been used since the 1980s to analyze water quality.
+
+Despite the development of many reservoirs, drought during the 1980s led to widespread starvation in Ethiopia and Sudan, but Egypt was nourished by water impounded in Lake Nasser. Drought has proven to be a major cause of fatality in the Nile river basin. According to a report by the Strategic Foresight Group around 170 million people have been affected by droughts in the last century with half a million lives lost.[76] From the 70 incidents of drought which took place between 1900 and 2012, 55 incidents took place in Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania.[76]
+
+The Nile's water has affected the politics of East Africa and the Horn of Africa for many decades.  The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the $4.5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam — Africa's largest, with a reservoir about the size of London – has become a national preoccupation in both countries, stoking patriotism, deep-seated fears and even murmurs of war.[77] Countries including Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya have complained about Egyptian domination of its water resources. The Nile Basin Initiative promotes a peaceful cooperation among those states.[78][79]
+
+Several attempts have been made to establish agreements between the countries sharing the Nile waters. On 14 May 2010 at Entebbe, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda signed a new agreement on sharing the Nile water even though this agreement raised strong opposition from Egypt and Sudan. Ideally, such international agreements should promote equitable and efficient usage of the Nile basin's water resources. Without a better understanding about the availability of the future water resources of the Nile, it is possible that conflicts could arise between these countries relying on the Nile for their water supply, economic and social developments.[12]
+
+In 1951, the American John Goddard together with two French explorers became the first to successfully navigate the entire Nile river from its source in Burundi at the potential headsprings of the Kagera River in Burundi to its mouth on the Mediterranean Sea, a journey of approximately 6,800 km (4,200 mi). Their 9-month journey is described in the book Kayaks down the Nile.[80]
+
+The White Nile Expedition, led by South African national Hendrik Coetzee, navigated the White Nile's entire length of approximately 5,800 kilometres (3,600 mi). The expedition began at the White Nile's beginning at Lake Victoria in Uganda, on 17 January 2004 and arrived safely at the Mediterranean in Rosetta, four and a half months later.[81]
+
+The Blue Nile Expedition, led by geologist Pasquale Scaturro and his partner, kayaker and documentary filmmaker Gordon Brown became the first known people to descend the entire Blue Nile, from Lake Tana in Ethiopia to the beaches of Alexandria on the Mediterranean. Their approximately 5,230-kilometre (3,250 mi) journey took 114 days, from 25 December 2003 to 28 April 2004. Though their expedition included others, Brown and Scaturro were the only ones to complete the entire journey.[82] Although they descended whitewater manually the team used outboard motors for much of their journey.
+
+On 29 January 2005 Canadian Les Jickling and New Zealander Mark Tanner completed the first human powered transit of Ethiopia's Blue Nile. Their journey of over 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi) took five months. They recount that they paddled through two war zones, regions notorious for bandits, and were arrested at gunpoint.[83]
+
+[clarification needed]
+
+The following bridges cross the Blue Nile and connect Khartoum to Khartoum North:
+
+The following bridges cross the White Nile and connect Khartoum to Omdurman:
+
+the following bridges cross from Omdurman: to Khartoum North:
+
+The following bridges cross to Tuti from Khartoum states three cities
+
+Other bridges
+
+Riverboat on the Nile, Egypt 1900
+
+Marsh along the Nile
+
+A river boat crossing the Nile in Uganda
+
+Murchison Falls in Uganda, between Lake Victoria and Lake Kyoga
+
+The Nile in Luxor
+
+The Nile flows through Cairo, here contrasting ancient customs of daily life with the modern city of today.
+
+The following is an annotated bibliography of key written documents for the Western exploration of the Nile.
+
+17th century
+
+18th century
+
+1800–1850
+
+1850–1900

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+
+
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+The Nile (Arabic: النيل‎, romanized: an-Nīl, Arabic pronunciation: [an'niːl], Bohairic Coptic: ⲫⲓⲁⲣⲟ Pronounced [pʰjaˈro][4], Nobiin: Áman Dawū[5]) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa, and is the longest river in Africa and the disputed longest river in the world,[6][7] as the Brazilian government says that the Amazon River is longer than the Nile.[8][9] The Nile is about 6,650 km (4,130 mi)[n 1] long and its drainage basin covers eleven countries: Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Republic of the Sudan, and Egypt.[11] In particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan.[12]
+
+The Nile has two major tributaries – the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The White Nile is considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself. The Blue Nile, however, is the source of most of the water, containing 80% of the water and silt. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, with the most distant source still undetermined but located in either Rwanda or Burundi. It flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia[13] and flows into Sudan from the southeast. The two rivers meet just north of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.[14]
+
+The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta and flows into the Mediterranean Sea. Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, and nearly all the cultural and historical sites of Ancient Egypt are found along river banks.
+
+The standard English names "White Nile" and "Blue Nile", to refer to the river's source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum.[15]
+
+In the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥ'pī (Hapy) or Iteru, meaning "river". In Coptic, the word ⲫⲓⲁⲣⲟ, pronounced piaro (Sahidic) or phiaro (Bohairic), means "the river" (lit. p(h).iar-o "the.canal-great"), and comes from the same ancient name.[16]
+
+In Nobiin the river is called Áman Dawū, meaning "the great water".[5]
+
+In Egyptian Arabic, the Nile is called en-Nīl while in Standard Arabic it is called an-Nīl. In Biblical Hebrew: הַיְאוֹר, Ha-Ye'or or הַשִׁיחוֹר, Ha-Shiḥor.
+
+The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek Νεῖλος.[17][18] Beyond that, however, the etymology is disputed.[18][19] Hesiod at his Theogony refers that Nilus (Νεῖλος) was one of the Potamoi (river gods), son of Oceanus and Tethys.[20] Another derivation of Nile might be related to the term Nil (Sanskrit: नील, romanized: nila; Egyptian Arabic: نيلة‎),[16] which refers to Indigofera tinctoria, one of the original sources of indigo dye;[21] or Nymphaea caerulea, known as "The Sacred Blue Lily of the Nile", which was found scattered over Tutankhamen's corpse when it was located in 1922.[22]
+
+Another possible etymology derives it from a Semitic Nahal, meaning "river".[23]
+
+With a total length of about 6,650 km (4,130 mi)[n 1] between the region of Lake Victoria and the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile is the longest river on Earth. The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers (1,256,591 sq mi), about 10% of the area of Africa.[25] Compared to other major rivers, though, the Nile carries little water (5% of the Congo's river, for example).[26] The Nile basin is complex, and because of this, the discharge at any given point along the mainstem depends on many factors including weather, diversions, evaporation and evapotranspiration, and groundwater flow.
+
+Above Khartoum, the Nile is also known as the White Nile, a term also used in a limited sense to describe the section between Lake No and Khartoum. At Khartoum the river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia. Both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift.
+
+The source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size. The Kagera River, which flows into Lake Victoria near the Tanzanian town of Bukoba, is the longest feeder, although sources do not agree on which is the longest tributary of the Kagera and hence the most distant source of the Nile itself.[27] It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, Burundi,[28] or the Nyabarongo, which flows from Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda.[29] The two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border.
+
+In 2010, an exploration party[30] went to a place described as the source of the Rukarara tributary,[31] and by hacking a path up steep jungle-choked mountain slopes in the Nyungwe forest found (in the dry season) an appreciable incoming surface flow for many kilometres upstream, and found a new source, giving the Nile a length of 6,758 km (4,199 mi).
+
+Gish Abay is reportedly the place where the "holy water" of the first drops of the Blue Nile develop.[32]
+
+The Nile leaves Lake Nalubaale (Victoria) at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda, as the Victoria Nile. It flows north for some 130 kilometers (81 mi), to Lake Kyoga. The last part of the approximately 200 kilometers (120 mi) river section starts from the western shores of the lake and flows at first to the west until just south of Masindi Port, where the river turns north, then makes a great half circle to the east and north until Karuma Falls. For the remaining part it flows merely westerly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta. The lake itself is on the border of DR Congo, but the Nile is not a border river at this point. After leaving Lake Albert, the river continues north through Uganda and is known as the Albert Nile.
+
+The Nile river flows into South Sudan just south of Nimule, where it is known as the Bahr al Jabal ("Mountain River"[33]). Just south of the town it has the confluence with the Achwa River. The Bahr al Ghazal, itself 716 kilometers (445 mi) long, joins the Bahr al Jabal at a small lagoon called Lake No, after which the Nile becomes known as the Bahr al Abyad, or the White Nile, from the whitish clay suspended in its waters. When the Nile floods it leaves a rich silty deposit which fertilizes the soil. The Nile no longer floods in Egypt since the completion of the Aswan Dam in 1970. An anabranch river, the Bahr el Zeraf, flows out of the Nile's Bahr al Jabal section and rejoins the White Nile.
+
+The flow rate of the Bahr al Jabal at Mongalla, South Sudan is almost constant throughout the year and averages 1,048 m3/s (37,000 cu ft/s). After Mongalla, the Bahr Al Jabal enters the enormous swamps of the Sudd region of South Sudan. More than half of the Nile's water is lost in this swamp to evaporation and transpiration. The average flow rate of the White Nile at the tails of the swamps is about 510 m3/s (18,000 cu ft/s). From here it soon meets with the Sobat River at Malakal. On an annual basis, the White Nile upstream of Malakal contributes about fifteen percent of the total outflow of the Nile.[34]
+
+The average flow of the White Nile at Lake Kawaki Malakal, just below the Sobat River, is 924 m3/s (32,600 cu ft/s); the peak flow is approximately 1,218 m3/s (43,000 cu ft/s) in October and minimum flow is about 609 m3/s (21,500 cu ft/s) in April. This fluctuation is due to the substantial variation in the flow of the Sobat, which has a minimum flow of about 99 m3/s (3,500 cu ft/s) in March and a peak flow of over 680 m3/s (24,000 cu ft/s) in October.[35] During the dry season (January to June) the White Nile contributes between 70 percent and 90 percent of the total discharge from the Nile.
+
+Below Renk the White Nile enters Sudan, it flows north to Khartoum and meets the Blue Nile.
+
+The course of the Nile in Sudan is distinctive. It flows over six groups of cataracts, from the sixth at Sabaloka just north of Khartoum northward to Abu Hamed. Due to the tectonic uplift of the Nubian Swell, the river is then diverted to flow for over 300 km south-west following the structure of the Central African Shear Zone embracing the Bayuda Desert. At Al Dabbah it resumes its northward course towards the first Cataract at Aswan forming the 'S'-shaped Great Bend of the Nile[36] already mentioned by Eratosthenes.[37]
+
+In the north of Sudan the river enters Lake Nasser (known in Sudan as Lake Nubia), the larger part of which is in Egypt.
+
+Below the Aswan High Dam, at the northern limit of Lake Nasser, the Nile resumes its historic course.
+
+North of Cairo, the Nile splits into two branches (or distributaries) that feed the Mediterranean: the Rosetta Branch to the west and the Damietta to the east, forming the Nile Delta.
+
+The annual sediment transport by the Nile in Egypt has been quantified.[38]
+
+Below the confluence with the Blue Nile the only major tributary is the Atbara River, roughly halfway to the sea, which originates in Ethiopia north of Lake Tana, and is around 800 kilometers (500 mi) long. The Atbara flows only while there is rain in Ethiopia and dries very rapidly. During the dry period of January to June, it typically dries up north of Khartoum.
+
+The Blue Nile (Amharic: ዓባይ, ʿĀbay[40][41]) springs from Lake Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands. The Blue Nile flows about 1,400 kilometres to Khartoum, where the Blue Nile and White Nile join to form the Nile.[42] Ninety percent of the water and ninety-six percent of the transported sediment carried by the Nile[43] originates in Ethiopia, with fifty-nine percent of the water from the Blue Nile (the rest being from the Tekezé, Atbarah, Sobat, and small tributaries). The erosion and transportation of silt only occurs during the Ethiopian rainy season in the summer, however, when rainfall is especially high on the Ethiopian Plateau; the rest of the year, the great rivers draining Ethiopia into the Nile (Sobat, Blue Nile, Tekezé, and Atbarah) have a weaker flow. In harsh and arid seasons and droughts the Blue Nile dries out completely.[44]
+
+The flow of the Blue Nile varies considerably over its yearly cycle and is the main contribution to the large natural variation of the Nile flow. During the dry season the natural discharge of the Blue Nile can be as low as 113 m3/s (4,000 cu ft/s), although upstream dams regulate the flow of the river. During the wet season the peak flow of the Blue Nile often exceeds 5,663 m3/s (200,000 cu ft/s) in late August (a difference of a factor of 50).
+
+Before the placement of dams on the river the yearly discharge varied by a factor of 15 at Aswan. Peak flows of over 8,212 m3/s (290,000 cu ft/s) occurred during late August and early September, and minimum flows of about 552 m3/s (19,500 cu ft/s) occurred during late April and early May.
+
+The Bahr al Ghazal and the Sobat River are the two most important tributaries of the White Nile in terms of discharge.
+
+The Bahr al Ghazal's drainage basin is the largest of any of the Nile's sub-basins, measuring 520,000 square kilometers (200,000 sq mi) in size, but it contributes a relatively small amount of water, about 2 m3/s (71 cu ft/s) annually, due to tremendous volumes of water being lost in the Sudd wetlands.
+
+The Sobat River, which joins the Nile a short distance below Lake No, drains about half as much land, 225,000 km2 (86,900 sq mi), but contributes 412 cubic meters per second (14,500 cu ft/s) annually to the Nile.[45] When in flood the Sobat carries a large amount of sediment, adding greatly to the White Nile's color.[46]
+
+The Yellow Nile is a former tributary that connected the Ouaddaï Highlands of eastern Chad to the Nile River Valley c. 8000 to c. 1000 BCE.[47] Its remains are known as the Wadi Howar. The wadi passes through Gharb Darfur near the northern border with Chad and meets up with the Nile near the southern point of the Great Bend.
+
+The Nile (iteru in Ancient Egyptian) has been the lifeline of civilization in Egypt since the Stone Age, with most of the population and all of the cities of Egypt resting along those parts of the Nile valley lying north of Aswan. However, the Nile used to run much more westerly through what is now Wadi Hamim and Wadi al Maqar in Libya and flow into the Gulf of Sidra.[48] As sea level rose at the end of the most recent ice age, the stream which is now the northern Nile pirated the ancestral Nile near Asyut,[49] this change in climate also led to the creation of the current Sahara desert, around 3400 BC.[50]
+
+The present Nile is at least the fifth river that has flowed north from the Ethiopian Highlands. Satellite imagery was used to identify dry watercourses in the desert to the west of the Nile. A canyon, now filled by surface drift, represents an ancestral Nile called the Eonile that flowed during the later Miocene (23–5.3 million years before present). The Eonile transported clastic sediments to the Mediterranean; several natural gas fields have been discovered within these sediments.
+
+During the late-Miocene Messinian salinity crisis, when the Mediterranean Sea was a closed basin and evaporated to the point of being empty or nearly so, the Nile cut its course down to the new base level until it was several hundred metres below world ocean level at Aswan and 2,400 m (7,900 ft) below Cairo.[51][52] This created a very long and deep canyon which was filled with sediment when the Mediterranean was recreated.[53] At some point the sediments raised the riverbed sufficiently for the river to overflow westward into a depression to create Lake Moeris.
+
+Lake Tanganyika drained northwards into the Nile until the Virunga Volcanoes blocked its course in Rwanda. The Nile was much longer at that time, with its furthest headwaters in northern Zambia.
+
+There are two theories about the age of the integrated Nile. One is that the integrated drainage of the Nile is of young age and that the Nile basin was formerly broken into series of separate basins, only the most northerly of which fed a river following the present course of the Nile in Egypt and Sudan. Rushdi Said postulated that Egypt itself supplied most of the waters of the Nile during the early part of its history.[54]
+
+The other theory is that the drainage from Ethiopia via rivers equivalent to the Blue Nile, the Atbara and the Takazze flowed to the Mediterranean via the Egyptian Nile since well back into Tertiary times.[55]
+
+Salama suggested that during the Paleogene and Neogene Periods (66 million to 2.588 million years ago) a series of separate closed continental basins each occupied one of the major parts of the Sudanese Rift System: Mellut rift, White Nile rift, Blue Nile rift, Atbara rift and Sag El Naam rift.[56]
+The Mellut Rift Basin is nearly 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) deep at its central part. This rift is possibly still active, with reported tectonic activity in its northern and southern boundaries. The Sudd swamps which form the central part of the basin may still be subsiding. The White Nile Rift System, although shallower than the Bahr el Arab rift, is about 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) deep. Geophysical exploration of the Blue Nile Rift System estimated the depth of the sediments to be 5–9 kilometers (3.1–5.6 mi). These basins were not interconnected until their subsidence ceased, and the rate of sediment deposition was enough to fill and connect them. The Egyptian Nile connected to the Sudanese Nile, which captures the Ethiopian and Equatorial headwaters during the current stages of tectonic activity in the Eastern, Central and Sudanese Rift Systems.[57] The connection of the different Niles occurred during cyclic wet periods. The River Atbara overflowed its closed basin during the wet periods that occurred about 100,000 to 120,000 years ago. The Blue Nile connected to the main Nile during the 70,000–80,000 years B.P. wet period. The White Nile system in Bahr El Arab and White Nile Rifts remained a closed lake until the connection of the Victoria Nile to the main system some 12,500 years ago during the African humid period.
+
+The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that "Egypt was the gift of the Nile". An unending source of sustenance, it played a crucial role in the development of Egyptian civilization. Because the river overflowed its banks annually and deposited new layers of silt, the surrounding land was very fertile. The Ancient Egyptians cultivated and traded wheat, flax, papyrus and other crops around the Nile. Wheat was a crucial crop in the famine-plagued Middle East. This trading system secured Egypt's diplomatic relationships with other countries, and contributed to economic stability. Far-reaching trade has been carried on along the Nile since ancient times. A tune, Hymn to the Nile, was created and sung by the ancient Egyptian peoples about the flooding of the Nile River and all of the miracles it brought to Ancient Egyptian civilization.[58]
+
+Water buffalo were introduced from Asia and the Assyrians introduced camels in the 7th century BC. These animals were killed for meat, and were domesticated and used for ploughing—or in the camels' case, carriage. Water was vital to both people and livestock. The Nile was also a convenient and efficient means of transportation for people and goods.
+
+The Nile was also an important part of ancient Egyptian spiritual life. Hapi was the god of the annual floods, and both he and the pharaoh were thought to control the flooding. The Nile was considered to be a causeway from life to death and the afterlife. The east was thought of as a place of birth and growth, and the west was considered the place of death, as the god Ra, the Sun, underwent birth, death, and resurrection each day as he crossed the sky. Thus, all tombs were west of the Nile, because the Egyptians believed that in order to enter the afterlife, they had to be buried on the side that symbolized death.
+
+As the Nile was such an important factor in Egyptian life, the ancient calendar was even based on the three cycles of the Nile. These seasons, each consisting of four months of thirty days each, were called Akhet, Peret, and Shemu. Akhet, which means inundation, was the time of the year when the Nile flooded, leaving several layers of fertile soil behind, aiding in agricultural growth.[59] Peret was the growing season, and Shemu, the last season, was the harvest season when there were no rains.[59]
+
+Owing to their failure to penetrate the sudd wetlands of South Sudan, the upper reaches of the White Nile remained largely unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Various expeditions failed to determine the river's source. Agatharcides records that in the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, a military expedition had penetrated far enough along the course of the Blue Nile to determine that the summer floods were caused by heavy seasonal rainstorms in the Ethiopian Highlands, but no European of antiquity is known to have reached Lake Tana.
+
+The Tabula Rogeriana depicted the source as three lakes in 1154.
+
+Europeans began to learn about the origins of the Nile in the fourteenth century when the Pope sent monks as emissaries to Mongolia who passed India, the Middle East and Africa, and described being told of the source of the Nile in Abyssinia (Ethiopia)[61][62] Later in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, travelers to Ethiopia visited Lake Tana and the source of the Blue Nile in the mountains south of the lake. Although James Bruce claimed to be the first European to have visited the headwaters,[63] modern writers give the credit to the Jesuit Pedro Páez. Páez's account of the source of the Nile[64] is a long and vivid account of Ethiopia. It was published in full only in the early twentieth century, although it was featured in works of Páez's contemporaries, including Baltazar Téllez,[65] Athanasius Kircher[66] and by Johann Michael Vansleb.[67]
+
+Europeans had been resident in Ethiopia since the late fifteenth century, and one of them may have visited the headwaters even earlier without leaving a written trace. The Portuguese João Bermudes published the first description of the Tis Issat Falls in his 1565 memoirs, compared them to the Nile Falls alluded to in Cicero's De Republica.[68] Jerónimo Lobo describes the source of the Blue Nile, visiting shortly after Pedro Páez. Telles also used his account.
+
+The White Nile was even less understood. The ancients mistakenly believed that the Niger River represented the upper reaches of the White Nile. For example, Pliny the Elder wrote that the Nile had its origins "in a mountain of lower Mauretania", flowed above ground for "many days" distance, then went underground, reappeared as a large lake in the territories of the Masaesyli, then sank again below the desert to flow underground "for a distance of 20 days' journey till it reaches the nearest Ethiopians."[69] A merchant named Diogenes reported that the Nile's water attracted game such as buffalo.
+
+Lake Victoria was first sighted by Europeans in 1858 when British explorer John Hanning Speke reached its southern shore while traveling with Richard Francis Burton to explore central Africa and locate the great lakes. Believing he had found the source of the Nile on seeing this "vast expanse of open water" for the first time, Speke named the lake after the then Queen of the United Kingdom. Burton, recovering from illness and resting further south on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, was outraged that Speke claimed to have proved his discovery to be the true source of the Nile when Burton regarded this as still unsettled. A very public quarrel ensued, which sparked a great deal of intense debate within the scientific community and interest by other explorers keen to either confirm or refute Speke's discovery. British explorer and missionary David Livingstone pushed too far west and entered the Congo River system instead. It was ultimately Welsh-American explorer Henry Morton Stanley who confirmed Speke's discovery, circumnavigating Lake Victoria and reporting the great outflow at Ripon Falls on the lake's northern shore.
+
+European involvement in Egypt goes back to the time of Napoleon.  Laird Shipyard of Liverpool sent an iron steamer to the Nile in the 1830s. With the completion of the Suez Canal and the British takeover of Egypt in the 1882, more British river steamers followed.
+
+The Nile is the area's natural navigation channel, giving access to Khartoum and Sudan by steamer. The Siege of Khartoum was broken with purpose-built sternwheelers shipped from England and steamed up the river to retake the city. After this came regular steam navigation of the river. With British Forces in Egypt in the First World War and the inter-war years, river steamers provided both security and sightseeing to the Pyramids and Thebes. Steam navigation remained integral to the two countries as late as 1962. Sudan steamer traffic was a lifeline as few railways or roads were built in that country. Most paddle steamers have been retired to shorefront service, but modern diesel tourist boats remain on the river.
+
+The Nile has long been used to transport goods along its length. Winter winds blow south, up river, so ships could sail up river, and down river using the flow of the river.
+While most Egyptians still live in the Nile valley, the 1970 completion of the Aswan High Dam ended the summer floods and their renewal of the fertile soil, fundamentally changing farming practices. The Nile supports much of the population living along its banks, enabling Egyptians to live in otherwise inhospitable regions of the Sahara. The river's flow is disturbed at several points by the Cataracts of the Nile, which are sections of faster-flowing water with many small islands, shallow water, and rocks, which form an obstacle to navigation by boats. The Sudd wetlands in Sudan also forms a formidable navigation obstacle and impede water flow, to the extent that Sudan had once attempted to canalize (the Jonglei Canal) to bypass the swamps.[71][72]
+
+Nile cities include Khartoum, Aswan, Luxor (Thebes), and the Giza – Cairo conurbation. The first cataract, the closest to the mouth of the river, is at Aswan, north of the Aswan Dam. This part of the river is a regular tourist route, with cruise ships and traditional wooden sailing boats known as feluccas. Many cruise ships ply the route between Luxor and Aswan, stopping at Edfu and Kom Ombo along the way. Security concerns have limited cruising on the northernmost portion for many years.
+
+A computer simulation study to plan the economic development of the Nile was directed by H.A.W. Morrice and W.N. Allan, for the Ministry of Hydro-power of the Republic of the Sudan, during 1955–1957[73][74][75] Morrice was their Hydrological Adviser, and Allan his predecessor. M.P. Barnett directed the software development and computer operations. The calculations were enabled by accurate monthly inflow data collected for 50 years. The underlying principle was the use of over-year storage, to conserve water from rainy years for use in dry years. Irrigation, navigation and other needs were considered. Each computer run postulated a set of reservoirs and operating equations for the release of water as a function of the month and the levels upstream. The behavior that would have resulted given the inflow data was modeled. Over 600 models were run. Recommendations were made to the Sudanese authorities. The calculations were run on an IBM 650 computer. Simulation studies to design water resources are discussed further in the article on hydrology transport models, that have been used since the 1980s to analyze water quality.
+
+Despite the development of many reservoirs, drought during the 1980s led to widespread starvation in Ethiopia and Sudan, but Egypt was nourished by water impounded in Lake Nasser. Drought has proven to be a major cause of fatality in the Nile river basin. According to a report by the Strategic Foresight Group around 170 million people have been affected by droughts in the last century with half a million lives lost.[76] From the 70 incidents of drought which took place between 1900 and 2012, 55 incidents took place in Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania.[76]
+
+The Nile's water has affected the politics of East Africa and the Horn of Africa for many decades.  The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the $4.5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam — Africa's largest, with a reservoir about the size of London – has become a national preoccupation in both countries, stoking patriotism, deep-seated fears and even murmurs of war.[77] Countries including Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya have complained about Egyptian domination of its water resources. The Nile Basin Initiative promotes a peaceful cooperation among those states.[78][79]
+
+Several attempts have been made to establish agreements between the countries sharing the Nile waters. On 14 May 2010 at Entebbe, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda signed a new agreement on sharing the Nile water even though this agreement raised strong opposition from Egypt and Sudan. Ideally, such international agreements should promote equitable and efficient usage of the Nile basin's water resources. Without a better understanding about the availability of the future water resources of the Nile, it is possible that conflicts could arise between these countries relying on the Nile for their water supply, economic and social developments.[12]
+
+In 1951, the American John Goddard together with two French explorers became the first to successfully navigate the entire Nile river from its source in Burundi at the potential headsprings of the Kagera River in Burundi to its mouth on the Mediterranean Sea, a journey of approximately 6,800 km (4,200 mi). Their 9-month journey is described in the book Kayaks down the Nile.[80]
+
+The White Nile Expedition, led by South African national Hendrik Coetzee, navigated the White Nile's entire length of approximately 5,800 kilometres (3,600 mi). The expedition began at the White Nile's beginning at Lake Victoria in Uganda, on 17 January 2004 and arrived safely at the Mediterranean in Rosetta, four and a half months later.[81]
+
+The Blue Nile Expedition, led by geologist Pasquale Scaturro and his partner, kayaker and documentary filmmaker Gordon Brown became the first known people to descend the entire Blue Nile, from Lake Tana in Ethiopia to the beaches of Alexandria on the Mediterranean. Their approximately 5,230-kilometre (3,250 mi) journey took 114 days, from 25 December 2003 to 28 April 2004. Though their expedition included others, Brown and Scaturro were the only ones to complete the entire journey.[82] Although they descended whitewater manually the team used outboard motors for much of their journey.
+
+On 29 January 2005 Canadian Les Jickling and New Zealander Mark Tanner completed the first human powered transit of Ethiopia's Blue Nile. Their journey of over 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi) took five months. They recount that they paddled through two war zones, regions notorious for bandits, and were arrested at gunpoint.[83]
+
+[clarification needed]
+
+The following bridges cross the Blue Nile and connect Khartoum to Khartoum North:
+
+The following bridges cross the White Nile and connect Khartoum to Omdurman:
+
+the following bridges cross from Omdurman: to Khartoum North:
+
+The following bridges cross to Tuti from Khartoum states three cities
+
+Other bridges
+
+Riverboat on the Nile, Egypt 1900
+
+Marsh along the Nile
+
+A river boat crossing the Nile in Uganda
+
+Murchison Falls in Uganda, between Lake Victoria and Lake Kyoga
+
+The Nile in Luxor
+
+The Nile flows through Cairo, here contrasting ancient customs of daily life with the modern city of today.
+
+The following is an annotated bibliography of key written documents for the Western exploration of the Nile.
+
+17th century
+
+18th century
+
+1800–1850
+
+1850–1900

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+In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of minute liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space.[1] Water or various other chemicals may compose the droplets and crystals. On Earth, clouds are formed as a result of saturation of the air when it is cooled to its dew point, or when it gains sufficient moisture (usually in the form of water vapor) from an adjacent source to raise the dew point to the ambient temperature.
+
+They are seen in the Earth's homosphere, which includes the troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere. Nephology is the science of clouds, which is undertaken in the cloud physics branch of meteorology.  There are two methods of naming clouds in their respective layers of the homosphere, Latin and common.
+
+Genus types in the troposphere, the atmospheric layer closest to Earth's surface, have Latin names due to the universal adoption of Luke Howard's nomenclature that was formally proposed in 1802.  It became the basis of a modern international system that divides clouds into five physical forms which can be divided or classified further into altitude levels to derive the ten basic genera. The main representative cloud types for each of these forms are stratus, cirrus, stratocumulus, cumulus, and cumulonimbus.  Low-level stratiform and stratocumuliform genera do not have any altitude-related prefixes.  However mid-level variants of the same physical forms are given the prefix alto- while high-level types carry the prefix cirro-. The other main forms never have prefixes indicating altitude level. Cirriform clouds are always high-level while cumuliform and cumulonimbiform clouds are classified formally as low-level. The latter are also more informally characterized as multi-level or vertical as indicated by the cumulo- prefix.  Most of the ten genera derived by this method of classification can be subdivided into species and further subdivided into varieties. Very low stratiform clouds that extend down to the Earth's surface are given the common names fog and mist, but have no Latin names.
+
+In the stratosphere and mesosphere, clouds have common names for their main types. They may have the appearance of  stratiform veils or sheets, cirriform wisps, or stratocumuliform bands or ripples. They are seen infrequently, mostly in the polar regions of Earth. Clouds have been observed in the atmospheres of other planets and moons in the Solar System and beyond. However, due to their different temperature characteristics, they are often composed of other substances such as methane, ammonia, and sulfuric acid, as well as water.
+
+Tropospheric clouds can have a direct effect on climate change on Earth.  They may reflect incoming rays from the sun which can contribute to a cooling effect where and when these clouds occur, or trap longer wave radiation that reflects back up from the Earth's surface which can cause a warming effect.  The altitude, form, and thickness of the clouds are the main factors that affect the local heating or cooling of Earth and the atmosphere.  Clouds that form above the troposphere are too scarce and too thin to have any influence on climate change.
+
+The tabular overview that follows is very broad in scope. It draws from several methods of cloud classification, both formal and informal, used in different levels of the Earth's homosphere by a number of cited authorities. Despite some differences in methodologies and terminologies, the classification schemes seen in this article can be harmonized by using an informal cross-classification of physical forms and altitude levels to derive the 10 tropospheric genera, the fog and mist that forms at surface level, and several additional major types above the troposphere. The cumulus genus includes four species that indicate vertical size and structure which can affect both forms and levels. This table should not be seen as a strict or singular classification, but as an illustration of how various major cloud types are related to each other and defined through a full range of altitude levels from Earth's surface to the "edge of space".
+
+The origin of the term "cloud" can be found in the Old English words clud or clod, meaning a hill or a mass of rock. Around the beginning of the 13th century, the word came to be used as a metaphor for rain clouds, because of the similarity in appearance between a mass of rock and cumulus heap cloud. Over time, the metaphoric usage of the word supplanted the Old English weolcan, which had been the literal term for clouds in general.[2][3]
+
+Ancient cloud studies were not made in isolation, but were observed in combination with other weather elements and even other natural sciences. Around 340 BC, Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote Meteorologica, a work which represented the sum of knowledge of the time about natural science, including weather and climate. For the first time, precipitation and the clouds from which precipitation fell were called meteors, which originate from the Greek word meteoros, meaning 'high in the sky'. From that word came the modern term meteorology, the study of clouds and weather. Meteorologica was based on intuition and simple observation, but not on what is now considered the scientific method. Nevertheless, it was the first known work that attempted to treat a broad range of meteorological topics in a systematic way, especially the hydrological cycle.[4]
+
+After centuries of speculative theories about the formation and behavior of clouds, the first truly scientific studies were undertaken by Luke Howard in England and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in France. Howard was a methodical observer with a strong grounding in the Latin language, and used his background to classify the various tropospheric cloud types during 1802. He believed that the changing cloud forms in the sky could unlock the key to weather forecasting. Lamarck had worked independently on cloud classification the same year and had come up with a different naming scheme that failed to make an impression even in his home country of France because it used unusual French names for cloud types. His system of nomenclature included 12 categories of clouds, with such names as (translated from French) hazy clouds, dappled clouds, and broom-like clouds. By contrast, Howard used universally accepted Latin, which caught on quickly after it was published in 1803.[5] As a sign of the popularity of the naming scheme, German dramatist and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe composed four poems about clouds, dedicating them to Howard. An elaboration of Howard's system was eventually formally adopted by the International Meteorological Conference in 1891.[5] This system covered only the tropospheric cloud types, but the discovery of clouds above the troposphere during the late 19th century eventually led to the creation of separate classification schemes using common names for these very high clouds, which were still broadly similar to some cloud forms identiified in the troposphhere.[6]
+
+Terrestrial clouds can be found throughout most of the homosphere, which includes the troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere. Within these layers of the atmosphere, air can become saturated as a result of being cooled to its dew point or by having moisture added from an adjacent source.[7] In the latter case, saturation occurs when the dew point is raised to the ambient air temperature.
+
+Adiabatic cooling occurs when one or more of three possible lifting agents – convective, cyclonic/frontal, or orographic – cause a parcel of air containing invisible water vapor to rise and cool to its dew point, the temperature at which the air becomes saturated. The main mechanism behind this process is adiabatic cooling.[8] As the air is cooled to its dew point and becomes saturated, water vapor normally condenses to form cloud drops. This condensation normally occurs on cloud condensation nuclei such as salt or dust particles that are small enough to be held aloft by normal circulation of the air.[9][10]
+
+One agent is the convective upward motion of air caused by daytime solar heating at surface level.[9] Airmass instability allows for the formation of cumuliform clouds that can produce showers if the air is sufficiently moist.[11] On moderately rare occasions, convective lift can be powerful enough to penetrate the tropopause and push the cloud top into the stratosphere.[12]
+
+Frontal and cyclonic lift occur when stable air is forced aloft at weather fronts and around centers of low pressure by a process called convergence.[13] Warm fronts associated with extratropical cyclones tend to generate mostly cirriform and stratiform clouds over a wide area unless the approaching warm airmass is unstable, in which case cumulus congestus or cumulonimbus clouds are usually embedded in the main precipitating cloud layer.[14] Cold fronts are usually faster moving and generate a narrower line of clouds, which are mostly stratocumuliform, cumuliform, or cumulonimbiform depending on the stability of the warm airmass just ahead of the front.[15]
+
+A third source of lift is wind circulation forcing air over a physical barrier such as a mountain (orographic lift).[9] If the air is generally stable, nothing more than lenticular cap clouds form. However, if the air becomes sufficiently moist and unstable, orographic showers or thunderstorms may appear.[16]
+
+Along with adiabatic cooling that requires a lifting agent, three major nonadiabatic mechanisms exist for lowering the temperature of the air to its dew point. Conductive, radiational, and evaporative cooling require no lifting mechanism and can cause condensation at surface level resulting in the formation of fog.[17][18][19]
+
+Several main sources of water vapor can be added to the air as a way of achieving saturation without any cooling process: water or moist ground,[20][21][22] precipitation or virga,[23] and transpiration from plants[24]
+
+Tropospheric classification is based on a hierarchy of categories with physical forms and altitude levels at the top.[25][26] These are cross-classified into a total of ten genus types, most of which can be divided into species and further subdivided into varieties which are at the bottom of the hierarchy.[27]
+
+Clouds in the troposphere assume five physical forms based on structure and process of formation. These forms are commonly used for the purpose of satellite analysis.[25] They are given below in approximate ascending order of instability or convective activity.[28]
+
+Nonconvective stratiform clouds appear in stable airmass conditions and, in general, have flat, sheet-like structures that can form at any altitude in the troposphere.[29] The stratiform group is divided by altitude range into the genera cirrostratus (high-level), altostratus (mid-level), stratus (low-level), and nimbostratus (multi-level).[26] Fog is commonly considered a surface-based cloud layer.[16] The fog may form at surface level in clear air or it may be the result of a very low stratus cloud subsiding to ground or sea level. Conversely, low stratiform clouds result when advection fog is lifted above surface level during breezy conditions.
+
+Cirriform clouds in the troposphere are of the genus cirrus and have the appearance of detached or semimerged filaments. They form at high tropospheric altitudes in air that is mostly stable with little or no convective activity, although denser patches may occasionally show buildups caused by limited high-level convection where the air is partly unstable.[30] Clouds resembling cirrus can be found above the troposphere but are classified separately using common names.
+
+Clouds of this structure have both cumuliform and stratiform characteristics in the form of rolls, ripples, or elements.[31] They generally form as a result of limited convection in an otherwise mostly stable airmass topped by an inversion layer.[32] If the inversion layer is absent or higher in the troposphere, increased airmass instability may cause the cloud layers to develop tops in the form of turrets consisting of embedded cumuliform buildups.[33] The stratocumuliform group is divided into cirrocumulus (high-level), altocumulus (mid-level), and stratocumulus (low-level).[31]
+
+Cumuliform clouds generally appear in isolated heaps or tufts.[34][35] They are the product of localized but generally free-convective lift where no inversion layers are in the troposphere to limit vertical growth. In general, small cumuliform clouds tend to indicate comparatively weak instability. Larger cumuliform types are a sign of greater atmospheric instability and convective activity.[36] Depending on their vertical size, clouds of the cumulus genus type may be low-level or multi-level with moderate to towering vertical extent.[26]
+
+The largest free-convective clouds comprise the genus cumulonimbus, which have towering vertical extent. They occur in highly unstable air[9] and often have fuzzy outlines at the upper parts of the clouds that sometimes include anvil tops.[31] These clouds are the product of very strong convection that can penetrate the lower stratosphere.
+
+Tropospheric clouds form in any of three levels (formerly called étages) based on altitude range above the Earth's surface. The grouping of clouds into levels is commonly done for the purposes of cloud atlases, surface weather observations,[26] and weather maps.[37] The base-height range for each level varies depending on the latitudinal geographical zone.[26] Each altitude level comprises two or three genus-types differentiated mainly by physical form.[38][31]
+
+The standard levels and genus-types are summarised below in approximate descending order of the altitude at which each is normally based.[39] Multi-level clouds with significant vertical extent are separately listed and summarized in approximate ascending order of instability or convective activity.[28]
+
+High clouds form at altitudes of 3,000 to 7,600 m (10,000 to 25,000 ft) in the polar regions, 5,000 to 12,200 m (16,500 to 40,000 ft) in the temperate regions, and 6,100 to 18,300 m (20,000 to 60,000 ft) in the tropics.[26] All cirriform clouds are classified as high, thus constitute a single genus cirrus (Ci). Stratocumuliform and stratiform clouds in the high altitude range carry the prefix cirro-, yielding the respective genus names cirrocumulus (Cc) and cirrostratus (Cs). When limited-resolution satellite images of high clouds are analysed without supporting data from direct human observations, distinguishing between individual forms or genus types becomes impossible, and they are then collectively identified as high-type (or informally as cirrus-type, though not all high clouds are of the cirrus form or genus).[40]
+
+Nonvertical clouds in the middle level are prefixed by alto-, yielding the genus names altocumulus (Ac) for stratocumuliform types and altostratus (As) for stratiform types. These clouds can form as low as 2,000 m (6,500 ft) above surface at any latitude, but may be based as high as 4,000 m (13,000 ft) near the poles, 7,000 m (23,000 ft) at midlatitudes, and 7,600 m (25,000 ft) in the tropics.[26] As with high clouds, the main genus types are easily identified by the human eye, but distinguishing between them using satellite photography is not possible. Without the support of human observations, these clouds are usually collectively identified as middle-type on satellite images.[40]
+
+Low clouds are found from near the surface up to 2,000 m (6,500 ft).[26] Genus types in this level either have no prefix or carry one that refers to a characteristic other than altitude. Clouds that form in the low level of the troposphere are generally of larger structure than those that form in the middle and high levels, so they can usually be identified by their forms and genus types using satellite photography alone.[40]
+
+
+
+These clouds have low- to mid-level bases that form anywhere from near the surface to about 2,400 m (8,000 ft) and tops that can extend into the mid-altitude range and sometimes higher in the case of nimbostratus.
+
+This is a diffuse, dark grey, multi-level stratiform layer with great horizontal extent and usually moderate to deep vertical development. It lacks towering structure and looks feebly illuminated from the inside.[58] Nimbostratus normally forms from mid-level altostratus, and develops at least moderate vertical extent[59][60] when the base subsides into the low level during precipitation that can reach moderate to heavy intensity. It  achieves even greater vertical development when it simultaneously grows upward into the high level due to large-scale frontal or cyclonic lift.[61] The nimbo- prefix refers to its ability to produce continuous rain or snow over a wide area, especially ahead of a warm front.[62] This thick cloud layer may be accompanied by embedded towering cumuliform or cumulonimbiform types.[60][63] Meteorologists affiliated with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) officially classify nimbostratus as mid-level for synoptic purposes while informally characterizing it as multi-level.[26] Independent meteorologists and educators appear split between those who largely follow the WMO model[59][60] and those who classify nimbostratus as low-level, despite its considerable vertical extent and its usual initial formation in the middle altitude range.[64][65]
+
+These very large cumuliform and cumulonimbiform types have similar low- to mid-level cloud bases as the multi-level and moderate vertical types, and tops that nearly always extend into the high levels.  They are required to be identified by their standard names or abbreviations in all aviation observations (METARS) and forecasts (TAFS) to warn pilots of possible severe weather and turbulence.[66]
+
+Genus types are commonly divided into subtypes called species that indicate specific structural details which can vary according to the stability and windshear characteristics of the atmosphere at any given time and location. Despite this hierarchy, a particular species may be a subtype of more than one genus, especially if the genera are of the same physical form and are differentiated from each other mainly by altitude or level. There are a few species, each of which can be associated with genera of more than one physical form.[72] The species types are grouped below according to the physical forms and genera with which each is normally associated. The forms, genera, and species are listed in approximate ascending order of instability or convective activity.[28]
+
+Of the stratiform group, high-level cirrostratus comprises two species. Cirrostratus nebulosus has a rather diffuse appearance lacking in structural detail.[73] Cirrostratus fibratus is a species made of semi-merged filaments that are transitional to or from cirrus.[74] Mid-level altostratus and multi-level nimbostratus always have a flat or diffuse appearance and are therefore not subdivided into species. Low stratus is of the species nebulosus[73] except when broken up into ragged sheets of stratus fractus (see below).[59][72][75]
+
+Cirriform clouds have three non-convective species that can form in mostly stable airmass conditions. Cirrus fibratus comprise filaments that may be straight, wavy, or occasionally twisted by non-convective wind shear.[74] The species uncinus is similar but has upturned hooks at the ends. Cirrus spissatus appear as opaque patches that can show light grey shading.[72]
+
+Stratocumuliform genus-types (cirrocumulus, altocumulus, and stratocumulus) that appear in mostly stable air have two species each. The stratiformis species normally occur in extensive sheets or in smaller patches where there is only minimal convective activity.[76] Clouds of the lenticularis species tend to have lens-like shapes tapered at the ends. They are most commonly seen as orographic mountain-wave clouds, but can occur anywhere in the troposphere where there is strong wind shear combined with sufficient airmass stability to maintain a generally flat cloud structure. These two species can be found in the high, middle, or low levels of the troposphere depending on the stratocumuliform genus or genera present at any given time.[59][72][75]
+
+The species fractus shows variable instability because it can be a subdivision of genus-types of different physical forms that have different stability characteristics. This subtype can be in the form of ragged but mostly stable stratiform sheets (stratus fractus) or small ragged cumuliform heaps with somewhat greater instability (cumulus fractus).[72][75][77] When clouds of this species are associated with precipitating cloud systems of considerable vertical and sometimes horizontal extent, they are also classified as accessory clouds under the name pannus (see section on supplementary features).[78]
+
+These species are subdivisions of genus types that can occur in partly unstable air. The species castellanus appears when a mostly stable stratocumuliform or cirriform layer becomes disturbed by localized areas of airmass instability, usually in the morning or afternoon. This results in the formation of cumuliform buildups of limited convection arising from a common stratiform base.[79] Castellanus resembles the turrets of a castle when viewed from the side, and can be found with stratocumuliform genera at any tropospheric altitude level and with limited-convective patches of high-level cirrus.[80] Tufted clouds of the more detached floccus species are subdivisions of genus-types which may be cirriform or stratocumuliform in overall structure. They are sometimes seen with cirrus, cirrocumulus, altocumulus, and stratocumulus.[81]
+
+A newly recognized species of stratocumulus or altocumulus has been given the name volutus, a roll cloud that can occur ahead of a cumulonimbus formation.[82] There are some volutus clouds that form as a consequence of interactions with specific geographical features rather than with a parent cloud. Perhaps the strangest geographically specific cloud of this type is the Morning Glory, a rolling cylindrical cloud that appears unpredictably over the Gulf of Carpentaria in Northern Australia. Associated with a powerful "ripple" in the atmosphere, the cloud may be "surfed" in glider aircraft.[83]
+
+More general airmass instability in the troposphere tends to produce clouds of the more freely convective cumulus genus type, whose species are mainly indicators of degrees of atmospheric instability and resultant vertical development of the clouds. A cumulus cloud initially forms in the low level of the troposphere as a cloudlet of the species humilis that shows only slight vertical development. If the air becomes more unstable, the cloud tends to grow vertically into the species mediocris, then congestus, the tallest cumulus species[72] which is the same type that the International Civil Aviation Organization refers to as 'towering cumulus'.[66]
+
+With highly unstable atmospheric conditions, large cumulus may continue to grow into cumulonimbus calvus (essentially a very tall congestus cloud that produces thunder), then ultimately into the species capillatus when supercooled water droplets at the top of the cloud turn into ice crystals giving it a cirriform appearance.[72][75]
+
+Genus and species types are further subdivided into varieties whose names can appear after the species name to provide a fuller description of a cloud. Some cloud varieties are not restricted to a specific altitude level or form, and can therefore be common to more than one genus or species.[84]
+
+All cloud varieties fall into one of two main groups. One group identifies the opacities of particular low and mid-level cloud structures and comprises the varieties translucidus (thin translucent), perlucidus (thick opaque with translucent or very small clear breaks), and opacus (thick opaque). These varieties are always identifiable for cloud genera and species with variable opacity. All three are associated with the stratiformis species of altocumulus and stratocumulus. However, only two varieties are seen with altostratus and stratus nebulosus whose uniform structures prevent the formation of a perlucidus variety. Opacity-based varieties are not applied to high clouds because they are always translucent, or in the case of cirrus spissatus, always opaque.[84][85]
+
+A second group describes the occasional arrangements of cloud structures into particular patterns that are discernible by a surface-based observer (cloud fields usually being visible only from a significant altitude above the formations). These varieties are not always present with the genera and species with which they are otherwise associated, but only appear when atmospheric conditions favor their formation. Intortus and vertebratus varieties occur on occasion with cirrus fibratus. They are respectively filaments twisted into irregular shapes, and those that are arranged in fishbone patterns, usually by uneven wind currents that favor the formation of these varieties. The variety radiatus is associated with cloud rows of a particular type that appear to converge at the horizon. It is sometimes seen with the fibratus and uncinus species of cirrus, the stratiformis species of altocumulus and stratocumulus, the mediocris and sometimes humilis species of cumulus,[87][88] and with the genus altostratus.[89]
+
+Another variety, duplicatus (closely spaced layers of the same type, one above the other), is sometimes found with cirrus of both the fibratus and uncinus species, and with altocumulus and stratocumulus of the species stratiformis and lenticularis. The variety undulatus (having a wavy undulating base) can occur with any clouds of the species stratiformis or lenticularis, and with altostratus. It is only rarely observed with stratus nebulosus. The variety lacunosus is caused by localized downdrafts that create circular holes in the form of a honeycomb or net. It is occasionally seen with cirrocumulus and altocumulus of the species stratiformis, castellanus, and floccus, and with stratocumulus of the species stratiformis and castellanus.[84][85]
+
+It is possible for some species to show combined varieties at one time, especially if one variety is opacity-based and the other is pattern-based. An example of this would be a layer of altocumulus stratiformis arranged in seemingly converging rows separated by small breaks. The full technical name of a cloud in this configuration would be altocumulus stratiformis radiatus perlucidus, which would identify respectively its genus, species, and two combined varieties.[75][84][85]
+
+Supplementary features and accessory clouds are not further subdivisions of cloud types below the species and variety level. Rather, they are either hydrometeors or special cloud types with their own Latin names that form in association with certain cloud genera, species, and varieties.[75][85] Supplementary features, whether in the form of clouds or precipitation, are directly attached to the main genus-cloud. Accessory clouds, by contrast, are generally detached from the main cloud.[90]
+
+One group of supplementary features are not actual cloud formations, but precipitation that falls when water droplets or ice crystals that make up visible clouds have grown too heavy to remain aloft. Virga is a feature seen with clouds producing precipitation that evaporates before reaching the ground, these being of the genera cirrocumulus, altocumulus, altostratus, nimbostratus, stratocumulus, cumulus, and cumulonimbus.[90]
+
+When the precipitation reaches the ground without completely evaporating, it is designated as the feature praecipitatio.[91] This normally occurs with altostratus opacus, which can produce widespread but usually light precipitation, and with thicker clouds that show significant vertical development. Of the latter, upward-growing cumulus mediocris produces only isolated light showers, while downward growing nimbostratus is capable of heavier, more extensive precipitation. Towering vertical clouds have the greatest ability to produce intense precipitation events, but these tend to be localized unless organized along fast-moving cold fronts. Showers of moderate to heavy intensity can fall from cumulus congestus clouds. Cumulonimbus, the largest of all cloud genera, has the capacity to produce very heavy showers. Low stratus clouds usually produce only light precipitation, but this always occurs as the feature praecipitatio due to the fact this cloud genus lies too close to the ground to allow for the formation of virga.[75][85][90]
+
+Incus is the most type-specific supplementary feature, seen only with cumulonimbus of the species capillatus. A cumulonimbus incus cloud top is one that has spread out into a clear anvil shape as a result of rising air currents hitting the stability layer at the tropopause where the air no longer continues to get colder with increasing altitude.[92]
+
+The mamma feature forms on the bases of clouds as downward-facing bubble-like protuberances caused by localized downdrafts within the cloud. It is also sometimes called mammatus, an earlier version of the term used before a standardization of Latin nomenclature brought about by the World Meteorological Organization during the 20th century. The best-known is cumulonimbus with mammatus, but the mamma feature is also seen occasionally with cirrus, cirrocumulus, altocumulus, altostratus, and stratocumulus.[90]
+
+A tuba feature is a cloud column that may hang from the bottom of a cumulus or cumulonimbus. A newly formed or poorly organized column might be comparatively benign, but can quickly intensify into a funnel cloud or tornado.[90][93][94]
+
+An arcus feature is a roll cloud with ragged edges attached to the lower front part of cumulus congestus or cumulonimbus that forms along the leading edge of a squall line or thunderstorm outflow.[95] A large arcus formation can have the appearance of a dark menacing arch.[90]
+
+Several new supplementary features have been formally recognized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The feature fluctus can form under conditions of strong atmospheric wind shear when a stratocumulus, altocumulus, or cirrus cloud breaks into regularly spaced crests. This variant is sometimes known informally as a Kelvin–Helmholtz (wave) cloud. This phenomenon has also been observed in cloud formations over other planets and even in the sun's atmosphere.[96] Another highly disturbed but more chaotic wave-like cloud feature associated with stratocumulus or altocumulus cloud has been given the Latin name asperitas. The supplementary feature cavum is a circular fall-streak hole that occasionally forms in a thin layer of supercooled altocumulus or cirrocumulus. Fall streaks consisting of virga or wisps of cirrus are usually seen beneath the hole as ice crystals fall out to a lower altitude. This type of hole is usually larger than typical lacunosus holes. A murus feature is a cumulonimbus wall cloud with a lowering, rotating cloud base than can lead to the development of tornadoes. A cauda feature is a tail cloud that extends horizontally away from the murus cloud and is the result of air feeding into the storm.[82]
+
+Supplementary cloud formations detached from the main cloud are known as accessory clouds.[75][85][90] The heavier precipitating clouds, nimbostratus, towering cumulus (cumulus congestus), and cumulonimbus typically see the formation in precipitation of the pannus feature, low ragged clouds of the genera and species cumulus fractus or stratus fractus.[78]
+
+A group of accessory clouds comprise formations that are associated mainly with upward-growing cumuliform and cumulonimbiform clouds of free convection. Pileus is a cap cloud that can form over a cumulonimbus or large cumulus cloud,[97] whereas a velum feature is a thin horizontal sheet that sometimes forms like an apron around the middle or in front of the parent cloud.[90] An accessory cloud recently officially recognized the World meteorological Organization is the flumen, also known more informally as the beaver's tail. It is formed by the warm, humid inflow of a super-cell thunderstorm, and can be mistaken for a tornado. Although the flumen can indicate a tornado risk, it is similar in appearance to pannus or scud clouds and does not rotate.[82]
+
+Clouds initially form in clear air or become clouds when fog rises above surface level. The genus of a newly formed cloud is determined mainly by air mass characteristics such as stability and moisture content. If these characteristics change over time, the genus tends to change accordingly. When this happens, the original genus is called a mother cloud. If the mother cloud retains much of its original form after the appearance of the new genus, it is termed a genitus cloud. One example of this is stratocumulus cumulogenitus, a stratocumulus cloud formed by the partial spreading of a cumulus type when there is a loss of convective lift. If the mother cloud undergoes a complete change in genus, it is considered to be a mutatus cloud.[98]
+
+The genitus and mutatus categories have been expanded to include certain types that do not originate from pre-existing clouds. The term flammagenitus (Latin for 'fire-made') applies to cumulus congestus or cumulonimbus that are formed by large scale fires or volcanic eruptions. Smaller low-level "pyrocumulus" or "fumulus" clouds formed by contained industrial activity are now classified as cumulus homogenitus (Latin for 'man-made'). Contrails formed from the exhaust of aircraft flying in the upper level of the troposphere can persist and spread into formations resembling cirrus which are designated cirrus homogenitus.  If a cirrus homogenitus cloud changes fully to any of the high-level genera, they are termed cirrus, cirrostratus, or cirrocumulus homomutatus. Stratus cataractagenitus (Latin for 'cataract-made') are generated by the spray from waterfalls. Silvagenitus (Latin for 'forest-made') is a stratus cloud that forms as water vapor is added to the air above a forest canopy.[98]
+
+Stratocumulus clouds can be organized into "fields" that take on certain specially classified shapes and characteristics. In general, these fields are more discernible from high altitudes than from ground level. They can often be found in the following forms:
+
+These patterns are formed from a phenomenon known as a Kármán vortex which is named after the engineer and fluid dynamicist Theodore von Kármán,.[101] Wind driven clouds can form into parallel rows that follow the wind direction. When the wind and clouds encounter high elevation land features such as a vertically prominent islands, they can form eddies around the high land masses that give the clouds a twisted appearance.[102]
+
+Although the local distribution of clouds can be significantly influenced by topography, the global prevalence of cloud cover in the troposphere tends to vary more by latitude. It is most prevalent in and along low pressure zones of surface tropospheric convergence which encircle the Earth close to the equator and near the 50th parallels of latitude in the northern and southern hemispheres.[105] The adiabatic cooling processes that lead to the creation of clouds by way of lifting agents are all associated with convergence; a process that involves the horizontal inflow and accumulation of air at a given location, as well as the rate at which this happens.[106] Near the equator, increased cloudiness is due to the presence of the low-pressure Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) where very warm and unstable air promotes mostly cumuliform and cumulonimbiform clouds.[107] Clouds of virtually any type can form along the mid-latitude convergence zones depending on the stability and moisture content of the air. These extratropical convergence zones are occupied by the polar fronts where air masses of polar origin meet and clash with those of tropical or subtropical origin.[108] This leads to the formation of weather-making extratropical cyclones composed of cloud systems that may be stable or unstable to varying degrees according to the stability characteristics of the various airmasses that are in conflict.[109]
+
+Divergence is the opposite of convergence. In the Earth's troposphere, it involves the horizontal outflow of air from the upper part of a rising column of air, or from the lower part of a subsiding column often associated with an area or ridge of high pressure.[106] Cloudiness tends to be least prevalent near the poles and in the subtropics close to the 30th parallels, north and south. The latter are sometimes referred to as the horse latitudes. The presence of a large-scale high-pressure subtropical ridge on each side of the equator reduces cloudiness at these low latitudes.[110] Similar patterns also occur at higher latitudes in both hemispheres.[111]
+
+The luminance or brightness of a cloud is determined by how light is reflected, scattered, and transmitted by the cloud's particles. Its brightness may also be affected by the presence of haze or photometeors such as halos and rainbows.[112] In the troposphere, dense, deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible spectrum. Tiny particles of water are densely packed and sunlight cannot penetrate far into the cloud before it is reflected out, giving a cloud its characteristic white color, especially when viewed from the top.[113] Cloud droplets tend to scatter light efficiently, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases with depth into the gases. As a result, the cloud base can vary from a very light to very-dark-grey depending on the cloud's thickness and how much light is being reflected or transmitted back to the observer. High thin tropospheric clouds reflect less light because of the comparatively low concentration of constituent ice crystals or supercooled water droplets which results in a slightly off-white appearance. However, a thick dense ice-crystal cloud appears brilliant white with pronounced grey shading because of its greater reflectivity.[112]
+
+As a tropospheric cloud matures, the dense water droplets may combine to produce larger droplets. If the droplets become too large and heavy to be kept aloft by the air circulation, they will fall from the cloud as rain. By this process of accumulation, the space between droplets becomes increasingly larger, permitting light to penetrate farther into the cloud. If the cloud is sufficiently large and the droplets within are spaced far enough apart, a percentage of the light that enters the cloud is not reflected back out but is absorbed giving the cloud a darker look. A simple example of this is one's being able to see farther in heavy rain than in heavy fog. This process of reflection/absorption is what causes the range of cloud color from white to black.[114]
+
+Striking cloud colorations can be seen at any altitude, with the color of a cloud usually being the same as the incident light.[115] During daytime when the sun is relatively high in the sky, tropospheric clouds generally appear bright white on top with varying shades of grey underneath. Thin clouds may look white or appear to have acquired the color of their environment or background. Red, orange, and pink clouds occur almost entirely at sunrise/sunset and are the result of the scattering of sunlight by the atmosphere. When the sun is just below the horizon, low-level clouds are gray, middle clouds appear rose-colored, and high clouds are white or off-white. Clouds at night are black or dark grey in a moonless sky, or whitish when illuminated by the moon. They may also reflect the colors of large fires, city lights, or auroras that might be present.[115]
+
+A cumulonimbus cloud that appears to have a greenish or bluish tint is a sign that it contains extremely high amounts of water; hail or rain which scatter light in a way that gives the cloud a blue color. A green colorization occurs mostly late in the day when the sun is comparatively low in the sky and the incident sunlight has a reddish tinge that appears green when illuminating a very tall bluish cloud. Supercell type storms are more likely to be characterized by this but any storm can appear this way. Coloration such as this does not directly indicate that it is a severe thunderstorm, it only confirms its potential. Since a green/blue tint signifies copious amounts of water, a strong updraft to support it, high winds from the storm raining out, and wet hail; all elements that improve the chance for it to become severe, can all be inferred from this. In addition, the stronger the updraft is, the more likely the storm is to undergo tornadogenesis and to produce large hail and high winds.[116]
+
+Yellowish clouds may be seen in the troposphere in the late spring through early fall months during forest fire season. The yellow color is due to the presence of pollutants in the smoke. Yellowish clouds are caused by the presence of nitrogen dioxide and are sometimes seen in urban areas with high air pollution levels.[117]
+
+Stratocumulus stratiformis and small castellanus made orange by the sun rising
+
+An occurrence of cloud iridescence with altocumulus volutus and cirrocumulus stratiformis
+
+Sunset reflecting shades of pink onto grey stratocumulus stratiformis translucidus (becoming perlucidus in the background)
+
+Stratocumulus stratiformis perlucidus before sunset. Bangalore, India.
+
+Late-summer rainstorm in Denmark. Nearly black color of base indicates main cloud in foreground probably cumulonimbus.
+
+Particles in the atmosphere and the sun's angle enhance colors of stratocumulus cumulogenitus at evening twilight
+
+Tropospheric clouds exert numerous influences on Earth's troposphere and climate. First and foremost, they are the source of precipitation, thereby greatly influencing the distribution and amount of precipitation. Because of their differential buoyancy relative to surrounding cloud-free air, clouds can be associated with vertical motions of the air that may be convective, frontal, or cyclonic. The motion is upward if the clouds are less dense because condensation of water vapor releases heat, warming the air and thereby decreasing its density. This can lead to downward motion because lifting of the air results in cooling that increases its density. All of these effects are subtly dependent on the vertical temperature and moisture structure of the atmosphere and result in major redistribution of heat that affect the Earth's climate.[118]
+
+The complexity and diversity of clouds in the troposphere is a major reason for difficulty in quantifying the effects of clouds on climate and climate change. On the one hand, white cloud tops promote cooling of Earth's surface by reflecting shortwave radiation (visible and near infrared) from the sun, diminishing the amount of solar radiation that is absorbed at the surface, enhancing the Earth's albedo. Most of the sunlight that reaches the ground is absorbed, warming the surface, which emits radiation upward at longer, infrared, wavelengths. At these wavelengths, however, water in the clouds acts as an efficient absorber. The water reacts by radiating, also in the infrared, both upward and downward, and the downward longwave radiation results in increased warming at the surface. This is analogous to the greenhouse effect of greenhouse gases and water vapor.[118]
+
+High-level genus-types particularly show this duality with both short-wave albedo cooling and long-wave greenhouse warming effects. On the whole, ice-crystal clouds in the upper troposphere (cirrus) tend to favor net warming.[119][120] However, the cooling effect is dominant with mid-level and low clouds, especially when they form in extensive sheets.[119] Measurements by NASA indicate that on the whole, the effects of low and mid-level clouds that tend to promote cooling outweigh the warming effects of high layers and the variable outcomes associated with vertically developed clouds.[119]
+
+As difficult as it is to evaluate the influences of current clouds on current climate, it is even more problematic to predict changes in cloud patterns and properties in a future, warmer climate, and the resultant cloud influences on future climate. In a warmer climate more water would enter the atmosphere by evaporation at the surface; as clouds are formed from water vapor, cloudiness would be expected to increase. But in a warmer climate, higher temperatures would tend to evaporate clouds.[121] Both of these statements are considered accurate, and both phenomena, known as cloud feedbacks, are found in climate model calculations. Broadly speaking, if clouds, especially low clouds, increase in a warmer climate, the resultant cooling effect leads to a negative feedback in climate response to increased greenhouse gases. But if low clouds decrease, or if high clouds increase, the feedback is positive. Differing amounts of these feedbacks are the principal reason for differences in climate sensitivities of current global climate models. As a consequence, much research has focused on the response of low and vertical clouds to a changing climate. Leading global models produce quite different results, however, with some showing increasing low clouds and others showing decreases.[122][123] For these reasons the role of tropospheric clouds in regulating weather and climate remains a leading source of uncertainty in global warming projections.[124][125]
+
+Polar stratospheric clouds (PSC's) form in the lowest part of the stratosphere during the winter, at the altitude and during the season that produces the coldest temperatures and therefore the best chances of triggering condensation caused by adiabatic cooling.   Moisture is scarce in the stratosphere, so nacreous and non-nacreous cloud at this altitude range is restricted to polar regions in the winter where the air is coldest.[6]
+
+PSC's show some variation in structure according to their chemical makeup and atmospheric conditions, but are limited to a single very high range of altitude of about 15,000–25,000 m (49,200–82,000 ft), so they are not classified into altitude levels, genus types, species, or varieties. There is no Latin nomenclature in the manner of tropospheric clouds, but rather descriptive names using common English.[6]
+
+Supercooled nitric acid and water PSC's, sometimes known as type 1, typically have a stratiform appearance resembling cirrostratus or haze, but because they are not frozen into crystals, do not show the pastel colours of the nacreous types.  This type of PSC has been identified as a cause of ozone depletion in the stratosphere.[126] The frozen nacreous types are typically very thin with mother-of-pearl colorations and an undulating cirriform or lenticular (stratocumuliform) appearance.  These are sometimes known as type 2.[127][128]
+
+Polar mesospheric clouds form at an extreme-level altitude range of about 80 to 85 km (50 to 53 mi). They are given the Latin name noctilucent because of their illumination well after sunset and before sunrise. They typically have a bluish or silvery white coloration that can resemble brightly illuminated cirrus. Noctilucent clouds may occasionally take on more of a red or orange hue.[6] They are not common or widespread enough to have a significant effect on climate.[129] However, an increasing frequency of occurrence of noctilucent clouds since the 19th century may be the result of climate change.[130]
+
+Noctilucent clouds are the highest in the atmosphere and form near the top of the mesosphere at about ten times the altitude of tropospheric high clouds.[131] From ground level, they can occasionally be seen illuminated by the sun during deep twilight. Ongoing research indicates that convective lift in the mesosphere is strong enough during the polar summer to cause adiabatic cooling of small amount of water vapour to the point of saturation. This tends to produce the coldest temperatures in the entire atmosphere just below the mesopause. These conditions result in the best environment for the formation of polar mesospheric clouds.[129] There is also evidence that smoke particles from burnt-up meteors provide much of the condensation nuclei required for the formation of noctilucent cloud.[132]
+
+Noctilucent clouds have four major types based on physical structure and appearance. Type I veils are very tenuous and lack well-defined structure, somewhat like cirrostratus or poorly defined cirrus.[133] Type II bands are long streaks that often occur in groups arranged roughly parallel to each other. They are usually more widely spaced than the bands or elements seen with cirrocumulus clouds.[134] Type III billows are arrangements of closely spaced, roughly parallel short streaks that mostly resemble cirrus.[135] Type IV whirls are partial or, more rarely, complete rings of cloud with dark centres.[136]
+
+Distribution in the mesosphere is similar to the stratosphere except at much higher altitudes. Because of the need for maximum cooling of the water vapor to produce noctilucent clouds, their distribution tends to be restricted to polar regions of Earth. A major seasonal difference is that convective lift from below the mesosphere pushes very scarce water vapor to higher colder altitudes required for cloud formation during the respective summer seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres. Sightings are rare more than 45 degrees south of the north pole or north of the south pole.[6]
+
+Cloud cover has been seen on most other planets in the Solar System. Venus's thick clouds are composed of sulfur dioxide (due to volcanic activity) and appear to be almost entirely stratiform.[137] They are arranged in three main layers at altitudes of 45 to 65 km that obscure the planet's surface and can produce virga. No embedded cumuliform types have been identified, but broken stratocumuliform wave formations are sometimes seen in the top layer that reveal more continuous layer clouds underneath.[138] On Mars, noctilucent, cirrus, cirrocumulus and stratocumulus composed of water-ice have been detected mostly near the poles.[139][140] Water-ice fogs have also been detected on Mars.[141]
+
+Both Jupiter and Saturn have an outer cirriform cloud deck composed of ammonia,[142][143] an intermediate stratiform haze-cloud layer made of ammonium hydrosulfide, and an inner deck of cumulus water clouds.[144][145] Embedded cumulonimbus are known to exist near the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.[146][147] The same category-types can be found covering Uranus, and Neptune, but are all composed of methane.[148][149][150][151][152][153] Saturn's moon Titan has cirrus clouds believed to be composed largely of methane.[154][155] The Cassini–Huygens Saturn mission uncovered evidence of polar stratospheric clouds[156] and a methane cycle on Titan, including lakes near the poles and fluvial channels on the surface of the moon.[157]
+
+Some planets outside the Solar System are known to have atmospheric clouds. In October 2013, the detection of high altitude optically thick clouds in the atmosphere of exoplanet Kepler-7b was announced,[158][159] and, in December 2013, in the atmospheres of GJ 436 b and GJ 1214 b.[160][161][162][163]
+
+Clouds play an important role in various cultures and religious traditions. The ancient Akkadians believed that the clouds were the breasts of the sky goddess Antu[165] and that rain was milk from her breasts.[165] In Exodus 13:21–22, Yahweh is described as guiding the Israelites through the desert in the form of a "pillar of cloud" by day and a "pillar of fire" by night.[164]
+
+In the ancient Greek comedy The Clouds, written by Aristophanes and first performed at the City Dionysia in 423 BC, the philosopher Socrates declares that the Clouds are the only true deities[166] and tells the main character Strepsiades not to worship any deities other than the Clouds, but to pay homage to them alone.[166] In the play, the Clouds change shape to reveal the true nature of whoever is looking at them,[167][166][168] turning into centaurs at the sight of a long-haired politician, wolves at the sight of the embezzler Simon, deer at the sight of the coward Cleonymus, and mortal women at the sight of the effeminate informer Cleisthenes.[167][168][166] They are hailed the source of inspiration to comic poets and philosophers;[166] they are masters of rhetoric, regarding eloquence and sophistry alike as their "friends".[166]
+
+In China, clouds are symbols of luck and happiness.[169] Overlapping clouds are thought to imply eternal happiness[169] and clouds of different colors are said to indicate "multiplied blessings".[169]

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+The Nintendo DS[a] or simply DS, is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and released by Nintendo. The device released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen",[4] introduced distinctive new features to handheld gaming: two LCD screens working in tandem (the bottom one being a touchscreen), a built-in microphone and support for wireless connectivity.[5] Both screens are encompassed within a clamshell design similar to the Game Boy Advance SP. The Nintendo DS also features the ability for multiple DS consoles to directly interact with each other over Wi-Fi within a short range without the need to connect to an existing wireless network. Alternatively, they could interact online using the now-defunct Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service. Its main competitor was Sony's PlayStation Portable during the seventh generation of video game consoles.
+
+Prior to its release, the Nintendo DS was marketed as an experimental "third pillar" in Nintendo's console lineup, meant to complement the Game Boy Advance and GameCube. However, backward compatibility with Game Boy Advance titles and strong sales ultimately established it as the successor to the Game Boy series.[6] On March 2, 2006, Nintendo launched the Nintendo DS Lite, a slimmer and lighter redesign of the original Nintendo DS with brighter screens. On November 1, 2008, Nintendo released the Nintendo DSi, another redesign with several hardware improvements and new features, although it lost backwards compatibility for Game Boy Advance titles and a few original DS games that used the GBA  slot. All Nintendo DS models combined have sold 154.02 million units,[7] making it the best selling handheld game console to date, and the second best selling video game console of all time behind Sony's PlayStation 2.[2][8] The Nintendo DS line was succeeded by the Nintendo 3DS family in 2011, which maintains backward compatibility with nearly all Nintendo DS software except for some software that requires the GBA slot for use.
+
+Development on the Nintendo DS began around mid-2002, following an original idea from former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi about a dual-screened console.[9] On November 13, 2003, Nintendo announced that it would be releasing a new game product in 2004. The company did not provide many details, but stated it would not succeed the Game Boy Advance or GameCube.[10] On January 20, 2004, the console was announced under the codename "Nintendo DS".[11] Nintendo released only a few details at that time, saying that the console would have two separate, 3-inch TFT LCD display panels, separate processors, and up to 1 gigabit (128 Megabytes) of semiconductor memory.[11][12] Current Nintendo president at the time, Satoru Iwata, said, "We have developed Nintendo DS based upon a completely different concept from existing game devices in order to provide players with a unique entertainment experience for the 21st century."[11] He also expressed optimism that the DS would help put Nintendo back at the forefront of innovation and move away from the conservative image that has been described about the company in years past.[13] In March 2004, a document containing most of the console's technical specifications was leaked, also revealing its internal development name, "Nitro".[14] In May 2004, the console was shown in prototype form at E3 2004, still under the name "Nintendo DS".[15] On July 28, 2004, Nintendo revealed a new design that was described as "sleeker and more elegant" than the one shown at E3 and announced Nintendo DS as the device's official name.[16] Following lukewarm GameCube sales, Hiroshi Yamauchi stressed the importance of its success to the company's future, making a statement which can be translated from Japanese as, "If the DS succeeds, we will rise to heaven, but if it fails we will sink to hell."[17][18]
+
+President Iwata referred to Nintendo DS as "Nintendo's first hardware launch in support of the basic strategy 'Gaming Population Expansion'" because the touch-based device "allows users to play intuitively".[19] On September 20, 2004, Nintendo announced that the Nintendo DS would be released in North America on November 21, 2004 for US$149.99.[20] It was set to release on December 2, 2004 in Japan (¥15000);[21] on February 24, 2005 in Australia ($199.95);[22] and on March 11, 2005 in Europe (£99.99/€149.99).[23] The console was released in North America with a midnight launch event at Universal CityWalk EB Games in Los Angeles, California. The console was launched quietly in Japan compared to the North America launch; one source cites the cold weather as the reason.[24] Regarding the European launch, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said this:
+
+"Europe is an extremely important market for Nintendo, and we are pleased we can offer such a short period of time between the US and European launch. We believe that the Nintendo DS will change the way people play video games and our mission remains to expand the game play experience. Nintendo DS caters for the needs of all gamers whether for more dedicated gamers who want the real challenge they expect, or the more casual gamers who want quick, pick up and play fun".[25]
+
+The Nintendo DS was launched in North America for US$149.99 on November 21, 2004; in Japan for JP¥15,000 on December 2 in the color "Titanium". Well over three million preorders were taken in North America and Japan; preorders at online stores were launched on November 3, and ended the same day as merchants had already sold their allotment. Initially Nintendo planned to deliver one million units combined at the North American and Japanese launches; when it saw the preorder numbers, it brought another factory online to ramp up production. Nintendo originally slated 300,000 units for the U.S. debut; 550,000 were shipped, and just over 500,000 of those sold through in the first week. Later in 2005, the manufacturer suggested retail price for the Nintendo DS was dropped to US$129.99.
+
+Both launches proved to be successful, but Nintendo chose to release the DS in North America prior to Japan, a first for a hardware launch from the Kyoto-based company. This choice was made to get the DS out for the largest shopping day of the year in the U.S. (the day after Thanksgiving, also known as "Black Friday").[26] Perhaps partly due to the release date, the DS met unexpectedly high demand in the United States, selling 1 million units by December 21, 2004. By the end of December, the total number shipped worldwide was 2.8 million, about 800,000 more than Nintendo's original forecast.[27] At least 1.2 million of them were sold in the U.S. Some industry reporters referred to it as "the Tickle Me Elmo of 2004".[28] In June 2005, Nintendo informed the press that a total of 6.65 million units had been sold worldwide.[29]
+
+As is normal for electronics, some were reported as having problems with stuck pixels in either of the two screens. Return policies for LCD displays vary between manufacturers and regions, however in North America, Nintendo has chosen to replace a system with fixed pixels only if the owner claims that it interferes with their gaming experience. There were  two exchange programs in place for North America. In the first, the owner of the defective DS in question would provide a valid credit card number and, afterwards, Nintendo would ship a new DS system to the owner with shipping supplies to return the defective system. In the second, the owner of the defective DS in question would have shipped their system to Nintendo for inspection. After inspection, Nintendo technicians would have either shipped a replacement system or fixed the defective system. The first option allowed the owner to have a new DS in 3–5 business days.
+
+Multiple games were released alongside the DS during its North American launch on November 21, 2004. At launch there was one pack-in demo, in addition to the built-in PictoChat program: Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt (published by Nintendo and is a demo for Metroid Prime Hunters, a game released in March 2006). At the time of the "Electric Blue" DS launch in June 2005, Nintendo bundled the system with Super Mario 64 DS.
+
+In Japan, the games were released at the same time as the system's first release (December 2, 2004). In the launch period, The Prince of Tennis 2005 -Crystal Drive- (Konami) and Puyo Puyo Fever (Puyo Pop Fever) (Sega) were released.
+
+The DS was released in Europe on March 11, 2005 for €149. A small supply of units were available prior to this in a package with a promotional "VIP" T-shirt, Metroid Prime Hunters - First Hunt, a WarioWare: Touched! demo, and a pre-release version of Super Mario 64 DS, through the Nintendo Stars Catalogue; the bundle was priced at £129.99 for the UK and €189.99 for the rest of Europe, plus 1,000 of Nintendo's "star" loyalty points (to cover postage). As of 23 January 2006[update], 1 million DS units had been sold in Europe, setting a sales record for a handheld console.
+
+The European release of the DS, like the U.S., was originally packaged with a Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt demo. The European packaging for the console is noticeably more "aggressive" than that of the U.S./Japanese release.[clarification needed][citation needed] The European game cases are additionally about 1/4 inch thicker than their North American counterparts and transparent rather than solid black. Inside the case there is room for one Game Boy Advance game pak and a DS card with the instructions on the left side of the case.
+
+The DS launched in Australia and New Zealand on February 24, 2005. It retailed in Australia for AU$199 and in New Zealand for NZ$249. Like the North American launch, it includes the Metroid Prime Hunters - First Hunt demo. The first week of sales for the system broke Australian launch sales records for a console, with 19,191 units sold by the 27th.
+
+"iQue DS", the official name of the Chinese Nintendo DS, was released in China on July 23, 2005. The price of the iQue DS was 980 RMB (roughly US$130) as of April 2006. This version of the DS includes updated firmware to block out use of the PassMe device, along with the new Red DS. Chinese launch games were Zhi Gan Yi Bi (Polarium) (Nintendo/iQue) and Momo Waliou Zhizao (WarioWare: Touched!) (Nintendo/iQue). The iQue was also the name of the device that China received instead of the Nintendo 64.
+
+The system's promotional slogans revolve around the word "Touch" in almost all countries, with the North American slogan being "Touching is good."[30]
+
+The Nintendo DS was seen by many analysts to be in the same market as Sony's PlayStation Portable, although representatives from both companies have said that each system targets a different audience.[citation needed] Time magazine awarded the DS a Gadget of the Week award.[31]
+
+At the time of its release in the United States, the Nintendo DS retailed for US$149.99. The price dropped to US$129.99 on August 21, 2005, one day before the releases of Nintendogs and Advance Wars: Dual Strike.
+
+Nine official colors of the Nintendo DS were available through standard retailers. Titanium-colored units were available worldwide, Electric Blue was exclusive to North and Latin America. There was also a red version which was bundled with the game Mario Kart DS. Graphite Black, Pure White, Turquoise Blue, and Candy Pink were available in Japan. Mystic Pink and Cosmic Blue were available in Australia and New Zealand. Japan's Candy Pink and Australia's Cosmic Blue were also available in Europe and North America through a Nintendogs bundle, although the colors are just referred to as pink and blue; however, these colors were available only for the original style Nintendo DS; a different and more-limited set of colors were used for the Nintendo DS Lite.
+
+As of March 31, 2016, all Nintendo DS models combined have sold 154.02 million units, making it the best selling handheld game console to date, and the second best selling video game console of all time.[2][32]
+
+The success of the DS paved the way for its successor, the Nintendo 3DS, a handheld gaming console with a similar dual-screen setup which can display images on the top screen in stereoscopic 3D.[33]
+
+On January 29, 2014, Nintendo announced that Nintendo DS games would be added to the Wii U Virtual Console, with the first game, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!, being released in Japan on June 3, 2014.[34][35]
+
+The Nintendo DS[36] design resembles that of the multi-screen games from the Game & Watch line, such as Donkey Kong and Zelda, which was also made by Nintendo.
+
+The lower display of the Nintendo DS is overlaid with a resistive touchscreen designed to accept input from the included stylus, the user's fingers, or a curved plastic tab attached to the optional wrist strap. The touchscreen lets users interact with in-game elements more directly than by pressing buttons; for example, in the included chatting software, PictoChat, the stylus is used to write messages or draw.
+
+The handheld features four lettered buttons (X, Y, A, B), a directional pad, and Start, Select, and Power buttons. On the top of the device are two shoulder buttons, a game card slot, a stylus holder and a power cable input. The bottom features the Game Boy Advance game card slot. The overall button layout resembles that of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System controller. When using backward compatibility mode on the DS, buttons X and Y and the touchscreen are not used as the Game Boy Advance line of systems do not feature these controls.
+
+It also has stereo speakers providing virtual surround sound (depending on the software) located on either side of the upper display screen. This was a first for a Nintendo handheld, as the Game Boy line of systems had only supported stereo sound through the use of headphones or external speakers. A built-in microphone is located below the left side of the bottom screen. It has been used for a variety of purposes, including speech recognition, chatting online between and during gameplay sessions, and minigames that require the player to blow or shout into it.
+
+The Nintendo DS Lite[b] is the first redesign of the Nintendo DS. While retaining the original model's basic characteristics, it features a sleeker appearance, larger stylus, longer lasting battery and brighter screens.[37] Nintendo considered a larger model of the Nintendo DS Lite for release, but decided against it as sales of the original redesign were still strong. It was the final DS to have backwards compatibility with Game Boy Advance games.[38] As of March 31, 2014, shipments of the DS Lite had reached 93.86 million units worldwide, according to Nintendo.[2]
+
+The Nintendo DSi[c] is the second redesign of the Nintendo DS. It is based on the unreleased larger Nintendo DS Lite model. While similar to the previous DS redesign, new features include two inner and outer 0.3 megapixel digital cameras, a larger 3.25 inch display, internal and external content storage, compatibility with WPA wireless encryption, and connectivity to the Nintendo DSi Shop.
+
+The Nintendo DSi XL (DSi LL in Japan) is a larger design of the Nintendo DSi, and the first model of the Nintendo DS family of consoles to be a size variation of a previous one.[39] It features larger screens with wider view angles, improved battery life, and a greater overall size than the original DSi.[40][41] While the original DSi was specifically designed for individual use, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata suggested that DSi XL buyers give the console a "steady place on a table in the living room", so that it might be shared by multiple household members.[39]
+
+62 mm × 46 mm (2.4 in × 1.8 in), 77 mm (3.0 in) diagonal, 0.24 mm dot pitch, 18-bit depth (262,144 colors), 21 mm gap between screens (≈92 lines)
+
+The system's 3D hardware[36][44] consists of rendering engine and geometry engine which perform transform and lighting, Transparency Auto Sorting, Transparency Effects, Texture Matrix Effects, 2D Billboards, Texture Streaming, texture-coordinate transformation, perspective-correct texture mapping, per-pixel Alpha Test, per-primitive alpha blending, texture blending, Gouraud Shading, cel shading, z-buffering, W-Buffering, 1bit Stencil Buffer, per-vertex directional lighting and simulated point lighting, Depth Test, Stencil Test, Render to Texture, Lightmapping, Environment Mapping, Shadow Volumes, Shadow Mapping, Distance Fog, Edge Marking, Fade-In/Fade-Out, Edge-AA. Sprite special effects: scrolling, scaling, rotation, stretching, shear. However, it uses point (nearest neighbor) texture filtering, leading to some titles having a blocky appearance. Unlike most 3D hardware, it has a set limit on the number of triangles it can render as part of a single scene; the maximum amount is about 6144 vertices, or 2048 triangles per frame. The 3D hardware is designed to render to a single screen at a time, so rendering 3D to both screens is difficult and decreases performance significantly. The DS is generally more limited by its polygon budget than its pixel fill rate. There are also 512 kilobytes of texture memory, and the maximum texture size is 1024 × 1024 pixels.
+
+The system has 656 kilobytes of video memory[45] and two 2D engines (one per screen). These are similar to (but more powerful than) the Game Boy Advance's single 2D engine.
+
+The Nintendo DS has compatibility with Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 (legacy mode)). Wi-Fi is used for accessing the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, compete with other users playing the same Wi-Fi compatible game, PictoChat[46] or with a special cartridge and RAM extension, browse the internet.
+
+Nintendo claims the battery lasts a maximum of 10 hours under ideal conditions on a full four-hour charge. Battery life is affected by multiple factors including speaker volume, use of one or both screens, use of wireless connectivity, and use of backlight, which can be turned on or off in selected games such as Super Mario 64 DS. The battery is user-replaceable using only a Phillips-head screwdriver. After about 500 charges the battery life starts dropping.[47]
+
+Users can close the Nintendo DS system to trigger its 'sleep' mode, which pauses the game being played and saves battery life by turning off the screens, speakers, and wireless communications; however, closing the system while playing a Game Boy Advance game will not put the Nintendo DS into sleep mode, and the game will continue to run normally. Certain DS games (such as Animal Crossing: Wild World) also will not pause but the backlight, screens, and speakers will turn off. Additionally, when saving the game in certain games,[48] the DS will not go into sleep mode.[49] Some games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass even use the closing motion needed to enter sleep mode as an unorthodox way of solving puzzles. Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck has a game mode in which you need to close the DS to play, helping Daffy Duck hunt a monster with the shoulder buttons.
+
+Although the secondary port on the Nintendo DS does accept and support Game Boy Advance cartridges (but not Game Boy or Game Boy Color cartridges), Nintendo emphasized that the main intention for its inclusion was to allow a wide variety of accessories to be released for the system.
+
+Due to the lack of a second port on the Nintendo DSi, it is not compatible with any accessory that uses it.
+
+The Rumble Pak was the first official expansion slot accessory. In the form of a Game Boy Advance cartridge, the Rumble Pak vibrates to reflect the action in compatible games, such as when the player bumps into an obstacle or loses a life. It was released in North America and Japan in 2005 bundled with Metroid Prime Pinball.[50] In Europe, it was first available with the game Actionloop, and later Metroid Prime Pinball. The Rumble Pak was also released separately in those regions.
+
+The Nintendo DS Headset is the official headset for the Nintendo DS. It plugs into the headset port (which is a combination of a standard 3.5 mm (1/8 in) headphone connector and a proprietary microphone connector) on the bottom of the system. It features one earphone and a microphone, and is compatible with all games that use the internal microphone. It was released alongside Pokémon Diamond and Pearl in Japan, North America, and Australia.
+
+On February 15, 2006, Nintendo announced a version of the cross-platform web browser Opera for the DS system.[51] The browser can use one screen as an overview, a zoomed portion of which appears on the other screen, or both screens together to present a single tall view of the page.[52] The browser went on sale in Japan and Europe in 2006,[53][54] and in North America on June 4, 2007.[55] Browser operation requires that an included memory expansion pak is inserted into the GBA slot. The DSi has an internet browser available for download from the Nintendo DSi shop for free.[56]
+
+This USB-flash-disk-sized accessory plugs into a PC's USB port and creates a miniature hotspot/wireless access point, allowing a Wii and up to five Nintendo DS units to access the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service through the host computer's Internet connection. When tried under Linux and Mac, it acts as a regular wireless adapter, connecting to wireless networks, an LED blinks when there is data being transferred. There is also a hacked driver for Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10 to make it function the same way. The Wi-Fi USB Connector was discontinued from retail stores.
+
+The Nintendo MP3 Player (a modified version of the device known as the Play-Yan in Japan) was released on December 8, 2006 by Nintendo of Europe at a retail price of £29.99/€30. The add-on uses removable SD cards to store MP3 audio files, and can be used in any device that features support for Game Boy Advance cartridges; however, due to this, it is limited in terms of its user-interface and functionality, as it does not support using both screens of the DS simultaneously, nor does it make use of its touch-screen capability. It is not compatible with the DSi, due to the lack of the GBA slot, but the DSi includes a music player via SD card. Although it stated on the box that it is only compatible with the Game Boy Micro, Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite, it is also compatible with the Game Boy Advance SP and Game Boy Advance.
+
+The Guitar grip controller comes packaged with the game Guitar Hero: On Tour and is plugged into the GBA game slot. It features four colored buttons like the ones found on regular Guitar Hero guitar controllers for the stationary consoles, though it lacks the fifth orange button found on the guitar controllers. The DS Guitar Hero controller comes with a small "pick-stylus" (which is shaped like a guitar pick, as the name suggests) that can be put away into a small slot on the controller. It also features a hand strap. The game works with both the DS Lite and the original Nintendo DS as it comes with an adapter for the original DS.[57] The Guitar Grip also works with its sequels, Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades, Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits, and Band Hero.
+
+Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection was a free online game service run by Nintendo. Players with a compatible Nintendo DS game could connect to the service via a Wi-Fi network using a Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector or a wireless router. The service was launched in North America on November 14, 2005 with the release of Mario Kart DS.[58] Various online games and a web browser were released afterwards, with Nintendo later believing that the online platform's success directly propelled the commercial success of the entire Nintendo DS platform. The Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection served as part of the basis of what would become the Wii.[59] Most functions (for games on both the DS and Wii consoles) were discontinued worldwide on May 20, 2014.[60]
+
+With Download Play, it is possible for users to play multiplayer games with other Nintendo DS systems, and later Nintendo 3DS systems, using only one game card. Players must have their systems within wireless range (up to approximately 65 feet) of each other for the guest system to download the necessary data from the host system. Only certain games supported this feature and usually played with much more limited features than the full game allowed.
+
+Download Play is also utilized to migrate Pokémon from fourth generation games into the fifth generation Pokémon Black and White, an example of a task requiring two different game cards, two handheld units, but only one player.
+
+Some Nintendo DS retailers featured DS Download Stations that allowed users to download demos of current and upcoming DS games; however, due to memory limitations, the downloads were erased once the system was powered off. The Download Station was made up of 1 to 8 standard retail DS units, with a standard DS card containing the demo data. On May 7, 2008, Nintendo released the Nintendo Channel for download on the Wii. The Nintendo Channel used WiiConnect24 to download Nintendo DS demos through it. From there, a user can select the demo he/she wishes to play and, similar to the Nintendo DS Download Stations at retail outlets, download it (until the user turns off the console) to their DS.
+
+Multi-Card Play, like Download Play, allows users to play multiplayer games with other Nintendo DS systems. In this case, each system requires a game card. This mode is accessed from an in-game menu, rather than the normal DS menu.
+
+PictoChat allows users to communicate with other Nintendo DS users within local wireless range. Users can enter text (via an on screen keyboard), handwrite messages or draw pictures (via the stylus and touchscreen). There are four chatrooms (A, B, C, D) in which people can go to chat. Up to sixteen people can connect in any one room.
+
+On Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite systems, users can only write messages in black. However, in the DSi and DSi XL, there is a function that allows the user to write in any colour from the rainbow that cycles through the spectrum, meaning the user cannot choose a color.
+
+PictoChat was not available for the subsequent Nintendo 3DS series of systems.
+
+Nintendo's own firmware boots the system. A health and safety warning is displayed first, then the main menu is loaded. The main menu presents the player with four main options to select: play a DS game, use PictoChat, initiate DS Download Play, or play a Game Boy Advance game. The main menu also has secondary options such as turning on or off the back light, the system settings, and an alarm.
+
+The firmware also features a clock, several options for customization (such as boot priority for when games are inserted and GBA screen preferences), and the ability to input user information and preferences (such as name, birthday, favorite color, etc.) that can be used in games.
+
+It supports the following languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, and Italian.
+
+The Nintendo DS is backward compatible with Game Boy Advance (GBA) cartridges. The smaller Nintendo DS game cards fit into a slot on the top of the system, while Game Boy Advance games fit into a slot on the bottom. The Nintendo DS, like the Game Boy Micro, is not backward compatible with games for the Game Boy Color and the original Game Boy because the Sharp Z80 compatible processor is not included and the console has physical incompatibility with Game Boy and Game Boy Color games.[61][62] The original Game Boy sound processor, however, is still included to maintain compatibility for GBA games that use the older sound hardware.[citation needed]
+
+The handheld does not have a port for the Game Boy Advance Link Cable, so multiplayer and GameCube–Game Boy Advance link-up modes are not available in Game Boy Advance titles. Only single-player mode is supported on the Nintendo DS, as is the case with Game Boy Advance games played via the Virtual Console on the 3DS and Wii U.
+
+The Nintendo DS only uses one screen when playing Game Boy Advance games. The user can configure the system to use either the top or bottom screen by default. The games are displayed within a black border on the screen, due to the slightly different screen resolution between the two systems (256 × 192 px for the Nintendo DS, and 240 × 160 px for the Game Boy Advance).
+
+Nintendo DS games inserted into the top slot are able to detect the presence of specific Game Boy Advance games in the bottom slot. In many such games, either stated in-game during gameplay or explained in its instruction manual, extra content can be unlocked or added by starting the Nintendo DS game with the appropriate Game Boy Advance game inserted. Among those games were the popular Pokémon Diamond and Pearl or Pokémon Platinum, which allowed the player to find more/exclusive Pokémon in the wild if a suitable Game Boy Advance cartridge was inserted.[63] Some of the content can stay permanently, even after the GBA game has been removed.
+
+Additionally, the GBA slot can be used to house expansion paks, such as the Rumble Pak, Nintendo DS Memory Expansion Pak, and Guitar Grips for the Guitar Hero: On Tour series. The Nintendo DSi and the DSi XL have an SD card slot instead of a second cartridge slot and cannot play Game Boy Advance games or Guitar Hero: On Tour.
+
+The Nintendo DS is region free in the sense that any console will run a Nintendo DS game purchased anywhere in the world; however, the Chinese iQue DS games cannot be played on other versions of the original DS, whose larger firmware chip contains the required Chinese character glyph images; this restriction is removed on Nintendo DSi and 3DS systems. Although the Nintendo DS of other regions cannot play the Chinese games, the iQue DS can play games of other regions. Also, as with Game Boy games, some games that require both players to have a Nintendo DS game card for multiplayer play will not necessarily work together if the games are from different regions (e.g. a Japanese Nintendo DS game may not work with a North American copy, even though some titles, such as Mario Kart DS and Pokémon Diamond and Pearl versions are mutually compatible). With the addition of the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, certain games can be played over the Internet with users of a different region game.
+
+Some Wi-Fi enabled games (e.g. Mario Kart DS) allow the selection of opponents by region. The options are "Regional" ("Continent" in Europe) and "Worldwide", as well as two non-location specific settings. This allows the player to limit competitors to only those opponents based in the same geographical area. This is based on the region code of the game in use.[citation needed]
+
+The Nintendo DSi, however, has a region lock for DSiWare downloadable games, as well as DSi-specific cartridges. It still runs normal DS games of any region, however.
+
+Nintendo DS games use a proprietary solid state mask ROM in their game cards.[64] The mask ROM chips are manufactured by Macronix and have an access time of 150 ns.[65] Cards range from 8–512 MiB (64 Mib to 4 Gib) in size (although data on the maximum capacity has not been released).[66][67] Larger cards have a 25% slower data transfer rate than more common smaller cards.[68] The cards usually have a small amount of flash memory or an EEPROM to save user data such as game progress or high scores. However, there are few games that have no save memory, such as Electroplankton. The game cards are 35 mm × 33 mm × 3.8 mm (1.38 in × 1.30 in × 0.15 in) (about half the width and depth of Game Boy Advance cartridges) and weigh around 3.5 g (​1⁄8 oz).
+
+Since the release of the Nintendo DS, a great deal of hacking has occurred involving the DS's fully rewritable firmware, Wi-Fi connection, game cards that allow SD storage, and software use. There are now many emulators for the DS, as well as the NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, Neo-Geo Pocket, Neo-Geo MVS (arcade), and older handheld consoles like the Game Boy Color.
+
+There are a number of cards which either have built-in flash memory, or a slot which can accept an SD, or MicroSD (like the DSTT, R4 and ez-flash V/Vi) cards. These cards typically enable DS console gamers to use their console to play MP3s and videos, and other non-gaming functions traditionally reserved for separate devices.[69]
+
+In South Korea, many video game consumers exploit illegal copies of video games, including for the Nintendo DS. In 2007, 500,000 copies of DS games were sold, while the sales of the DS hardware units was 800,000.[70]
+
+Another modification device called Action Replay, manufactured by the company Datel, is a device which allows the user to input cheat codes that allows it to hack games, granting the player infinite health, power-ups, access to any part of the game, infinite in game currency, the ability to walk through walls, and various other abilities depending on the game and code used.

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+The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced, released, and marketed by Nintendo. It is a remodelled export version of the company's Family Computer[a] (FC) platform in Japan, commonly known as the Famicom,[b] which was launched on July 15, 1983. The NES was launched in a test market of New York City on October 18, 1985, followed by Los Angeles as a second test market in February 1986, followed by Chicago and San Francisco, then other top 12 American markets, followed by a full launch across North America and some countries in Europe in September 1986, followed by Australia and other countries in Europe in 1987. Brazil saw only unlicensed clones until the official local release in 1993. The console's South Korean release was packaged as the Hyundai Comboy[c] and distributed by Hyundai Electronics (now SK Hynix).
+
+As one of the best-selling gaming consoles of its time, the NES helped revitalize the US video game industry following the video game crash of 1983.[12] With the NES, Nintendo introduced a now-standard business model of licensing third-party developers, authorizing them to produce and distribute games for Nintendo's platform.[13] It had been preceded by Nintendo's first home video game console, the Color TV-Game, and was succeeded by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).
+
+Following a series of arcade game successes in the early 1980s, Nintendo made plans to create a cartridge-based console called the Family Computer, or Famicom. Masayuki Uemura (ja) designed the system.[14][15] Original plans called for an advanced 16-bit system which would function as a full-fledged computer with a keyboard and floppy disk drive, but Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi rejected this and instead decided to go for a cheaper, more conventional cartridge-based game console as he believed that features such as keyboards and disks were intimidating to non-technophiles. A test model was constructed in October 1982 to verify the functionality of the hardware, after which work began on programming tools. Because 65xx CPUs had not been manufactured or sold in Japan up to that time, no cross-development software was available and it had to be produced from scratch. Early Famicom games were written on a system that ran on an NEC PC-8001 computer and LEDs on a grid were used with a digitizer to design graphics as no software design tools for this purpose existed at that time.[16]
+
+The code name for the project was "GameCom", but Masayuki Uemura's wife proposed the name "Famicom", arguing that "In Japan, 'pasokon' is used to mean a personal computer, but it is neither a home or personal computer. Perhaps we could say it is a family computer." Meanwhile, Hiroshi Yamauchi decided that the console should use a red and white theme after seeing a billboard for DX Antenna (a Japanese antenna manufacturer) which used those colors.[16]
+
+The creation of the Famicom was hugely influenced by the ColecoVision, Coleco's competition against the Atari 2600 in the United States. Takao Sawano, chief manager of the project, brought a ColecoVision home to his family, who were impressed by the system's capability to produce smooth graphics at the time,[17] which contrasts with the flicker and slowdown commonly seen on Atari 2600 games. Uemura, head of Famicom development, stated that the ColecoVision set the bar for the Famicom.[18]
+
+Original plans called for the Famicom's cartridges to be the size of a cassette tape, but ultimately they ended up being twice as big. Careful design attention was paid to the cartridge connectors because loose and faulty connections often plagued arcade machines. As it necessitated 60 connection lines for the memory and expansion, Nintendo decided to produce its own connectors.[16]
+
+The controllers are hard-wired to the console with no connectors for cost reasons. The game pad controllers were more-or-less copied directly from the Game & Watch machines, although the Famicom design team originally wanted to use arcade-style joysticks, even dismantling some from American game consoles to see how they worked. There were concerns regarding the durability of the joystick design and that children might step on joysticks on the floor. Katsuyah Nakawaka attached a Game & Watch D-pad to the Famicom prototype and found that it was easy to use and caused no discomfort. Ultimately though, they installed a 15-pin expansion port on the front of the console so that an optional arcade-style joystick could be used.[16]
+
+Gunpei Yokoi suggested an eject lever to the cartridge slot which is not really necessary, but he believed that children could be entertained by pressing it. Uemura adopted his idea. Uemura added a microphone to the second controller with the idea that it could be used to make players' voices sound through the TV speaker.[19][16]
+
+The console was released on July 15, 1983 as the Family Computer (or Famicom) for ¥14,800 (equivalent to ¥18,400 in 2019) alongside three ports of Nintendo's successful arcade games Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye. The Famicom was slow to gather momentum; a bad chip set caused the initial release of the system to crash. Following a product recall and a reissue with a new motherboard, the Famicom's popularity soared, becoming the best-selling game console in Japan by the end of 1984.[20]:279, 285
+
+Nintendo also had its sights set on the North American market, entering into negotiations with Atari to release the Famicom under Atari's name as the Nintendo Advanced Video Gaming System. The deal was set to be finalized and signed at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in June 1983. However, Atari discovered at that show that its competitor Coleco was illegally demonstrating its Coleco Adam computer with Nintendo's Donkey Kong game. This violation of Atari's exclusive license with Nintendo to publish the game for its own computer systems delayed the implementation of Nintendo's game console marketing contract with Atari. Atari's CEO Ray Kassar was fired the next month, so the deal went nowhere, and Nintendo decided to market its system on its own.[20]:283–285[g]
+
+Subsequent plans for the Nintendo Advanced Video System likewise never materialized: a North American repackaged Famicom console featuring a keyboard, cassette data recorder, wireless joystick controller, and a special BASIC cartridge.[20]:287 By the beginning of 1985, more than 2.5 million Famicom units had been sold in Japan, and Nintendo soon announced plans to release it in North America as the Advanced Video Entertainment System (AVS) that same year. The American video game press was skeptical that the console could have any success in the region, as the industry was still recovering from the video game crash of 1983. The March 1985 issue of Electronic Games magazine stated that "the videogame market in America has virtually disappeared" and that "this could be a miscalculation on Nintendo's part".[21]
+
+At June 1985's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Nintendo unveiled the American version of its Famicom, with a new case redesigned by Lance Barr and featuring a "zero insertion force" cartridge slot.[22] The change from a top-loader in the Famicom to a front-loader was to make the new console more like a video cassette recorder, which had grown in popularity by 1985, and differentiate the unit from past video game consoles.[23] Additionally, Uemura explained that Nintendo developers had feared that the console's electronics might face electrostatic hazards in dry American states such as Arizona and Texas, and a front-loading design would be safer if children handled the console carelessly.[24]
+
+This would eventually be officially deployed as the Nintendo Entertainment System, or the colloquial "NES". Nintendo seeded these first systems to limited American test markets starting in New York City on October 18, 1985, and followed up with a full North American release in February 1986.[25] The nationwide release came in September 1986. Nintendo released 17 launch games: 10-Yard Fight, Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Golf, Gyromite, Hogan’s Alley, Ice Climber, Kung Fu, Pinball, Soccer, Stack-Up, Super Mario Bros., Tennis, Wild Gunman and Wrecking Crew.[26][h] 
+For expedient production, some varieties of these launch games contain Famicom chips with an adapter inside the cartridge so they play on North American consoles, which is why the title screens of Gyromite and Stack-Up have the Famicom titles "Robot Gyro" and "Robot Block", respectively.[27]
+
+The system's launch represented not only a new product, but also a reframing of the severely damaged home video game market. The 1983 video game crash had occurred in large part due to a lack of consumer and retailer confidence in video games, which had been partially due to confusion and misrepresentation in video game marketing. Prior to the NES, the packaging of many video games presented bombastic artwork which exaggerated the graphics of the actual game. In terms of product identity, a single game such as Pac-Man would appear in many versions on many different game consoles and computers, with large variations in graphics, sound, and general quality between the versions. In stark contrast, Nintendo's marketing strategy aimed to regain consumer and retailer confidence by delivering a singular platform whose technology was not in need of exaggeration and whose qualities were clearly defined.
+
+To differentiate Nintendo's new home platform from the perception of a troubled and shallow video game market still reeling from the 1983 crash, the company freshened its product nomenclature and established a strict product approval and licensing policy. The overall platform is referred to as "Entertainment System" instead of a "video game system", is centered upon a machine called a "Control Deck" instead of a "console", and features software cartridges called "Game Paks" instead of "video games". This allowed Nintendo to gain more traction in selling the system in toy stores.[28][29] To deter production of games which had not been licensed by Nintendo, and to prevent copying, the 10NES lockout chip system act as a lock-and-key coupling of each Game Pak and Control Deck. The packaging of the launch lineup of NES games bear pictures of close representations of actual onscreen graphics. To reduce consumer confusion, symbols on the games' packaging clearly indicate the genre of the game. A seal of quality is on all licensed game and accessory packaging. The initial seal states, "This seal is your assurance that Nintendo has approved and guaranteed the quality of this product". This text was later changed to "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality".[30]
+
+Unlike with the Famicom, Nintendo of America marketed the console primarily to children, instituting a strict policy of censoring profanity, sexual, religious, or political content. The most famous example is Lucasfilm's attempts to port the comedy-horror game Maniac Mansion to the NES, which Nintendo insisted be considerably watered down. Nintendo of America continued its censorship policy until 1994 with the advent of the Entertainment Software Rating Board system, coinciding with criticism stemming from the cuts made to the Super NES port of Mortal Kombat compared to the Sega Genesis'.[citation needed]
+
+The optional Robotic Operating Buddy, or R.O.B., was part of a marketing plan to portray the NES's technology as being novel and sophisticated when compared to previous game consoles, and to portray its position as being within reach of the better established toy market. Though at first, the American public exhibited limited excitement for the console itself, peripherals such as the light gun and R.O.B. attracted extensive attention.[31]
+
+In Europe and Oceania the system was released in two separate marketing regions. The first consisted of mainland Europe (excluding Italy) where distribution was handled by a number of different companies, with Nintendo responsible for manufacturing. Most of this region saw a 1987 release. The release in Scandinavia was in 1986, where it was released by Bergsala. In the Netherlands, it was distributed by Bandai BV.[32] In 1987 Mattel handled distribution for the second region, consisting of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. Mattel also handled distribution for Nintendo in Canada, however it was unrelated to the aforementioned European / Australian releases.[33]
+
+In Brazil, the console was released late in 1993 by Playtronic, even after the SNES. But the Brazilian market had been dominated by unlicensed NES clones — both locally made, and smuggled from China and Taiwan.[34] One of the most successful local clones is the Phantom System, manufactured by Gradiente, which would end up licensing Nintendo products in the country for the following decade.[35] The sales of officially licensed products were low, due to the cloning, the quite late official launch, and the high prices of Nintendo's licensed products.[36]
+
+For its complete North American release, the Nintendo Entertainment System was progressively released over the ensuing years in several different bundles, beginning with the Deluxe Set, the Basic Set, the Action Set and the Power Set. The Deluxe Set, retailing at US$179.99 (equivalent to $462 in 2019),[4] included R.O.B., a light gun called the NES Zapper, two controllers, and two Game Paks: Gyromite, and Duck Hunt. The Basic Set, first released in 1987, retailed at US$89.99 with no game, and US$99.99 bundled with the Super Mario Bros. cartridge. The Action Set, retailing in November 1988 for US$149.99, came with the Control Deck, two game controllers, an NES Zapper, and a dual Game Pak containing both Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt.[6][20]:305 In 1989, the Power Set included the console, two game controllers, an NES Zapper, a Power Pad, and a triple Game Pak containing Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, and World Class Track Meet. In 1990, a Sports Set bundle was released, including the console, an NES Satellite infrared wireless multitap adapter, four game controllers, and a dual Game Pak containing Super Spike V'Ball and Nintendo World Cup.[37] Two more bundle packages were later released using the original model NES console. The Challenge Set of 1992 included the console, two controllers, and a Super Mario Bros. 3 Game Pak for a retail price of US$89.99. The Basic Set was repackaged for a retail US$89.99. It included only the console and two controllers, and no longer was bundled with a cartridge.[37] Instead, it contained a book called the Official Nintendo Player's Guide, which contained detailed information for every NES game made up to that point.
+
+Finally, the console was redesigned for both the North American and Japanese markets as part of the final Nintendo-released bundle package. The package included the new style NES-101 console, and one redesigned "dogbone" game controller. Released in October 1993 in North America, this final bundle retailed for US$49.99 and remained in production until the discontinuation of the NES in 1995.[6]
+
+On August 14, 1995, Nintendo discontinued the Nintendo Entertainment System in both North America and Europe.[38] In North America, replacements for the original front-loading NES were available for $25 in exchange for a broken system until at least December 1996, under Nintendo's Power Swap program. The Game Boy and Super Nintendo were also covered in this program, for $25 and $35 respectively.[39]
+
+The Famicom was officially discontinued in September 2003. Nintendo offered repair service for the Famicom in Japan until 2007, when it was discontinued due to a shortage of available parts.[38]
+
+Although the Japanese Famicom, North American and European NES versions included essentially the same hardware, there were certain key differences among the systems.
+
+The original Japanese Famicom was predominantly white plastic, with dark red trim. It featured a top-loading cartridge slot, grooves on both sides of the deck in which the hardwired game controllers could be placed when not in use, and a 15-pin expansion port located on the unit's front panel for accessories.[40]
+
+The original NES, meanwhile, featured a front-loading cartridge covered by a small, hinged door that can be opened to insert or remove a cartridge and closed at other times. It features a more subdued gray, black, and red color scheme. An expansion port was found on the bottom of the unit and the cartridge connector pinout was changed.
+
+In the UK, Italy and Australia which all share the PAL-A region, the "Mattel Version" of the NES released, with the UK also receiving the "NES Version" of the NES and Italy later receiving the "Versione Italiana" NES.[41] When the NES was first released in those countries, it was distributed by Mattel and Nintendo decided to use a lockout chip specific to those countries, different from the chip used in other European countries.
+
+In October 1993, Nintendo redesigned the NES to follow many of the same design cues as the newly introduced Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Japanese Super Famicom. Like the SNES, the NES-101 model loads cartridges through a covered slot on top of the unit replacing the complicated mechanism of the earlier design. The console was only released in America and Australia.
+
+In December 1993, the Famicom received a similar redesign. It also loads cartridges through a covered slot on the top of the unit and uses non-hardwired controllers. Because HVC-101 uses composite video output instead of being RF only like the HVC-001, Nintendo marketed the newer model as the AV Famicom.[d] Since the new controllers don't have microphones on them like the second controller on the original console, certain games such as the Disk System version of The Legend of Zelda and Raid on Bungeling Bay have certain tricks that cannot be replicated when played on an HVC-101 Famicom without a modified controller. In October 1987, Nintendo released a 3D stereoscopic headset called the Famicom 3D System (HVC-031) in Japan only.
+
+Nintendo's design styling for US release was made deliberately different from that of other game consoles. Nintendo wanted to distinguish its product from those of competitors and to avoid the generally poor reputation that game consoles had acquired following the North American video game crash of 1983. One result of this philosophy is to disguise the cartridge slot design as a front-loading zero insertion force (ZIF) cartridge socket, designed to resemble the front-loading mechanism of a VCR. The newly designed connector works quite well when both the connector and the cartridges are clean and the pins on the connector are new. Unfortunately, the ZIF connector is not truly zero insertion force. When a user inserts the cartridge into the NES, the force of pressing the cartridge down and into place bends the contact pins slightly, as well as pressing the cartridge's ROM board back into the cartridge itself. Frequent insertion and removal of cartridges cause the pins to wear out from repeated usage over the years[dubious  – discuss] and the ZIF design prove more prone to interference by dirt and dust than an industry-standard card edge connector.[42] These design issues are exacerbated by Nintendo's choice of materials; the console slot nickel connector springs wear due to design and the game cartridge's brass plated nickel connectors are also prone to tarnishing and oxidation. Nintendo sought to fix these issues by redesigning the next generation Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) as a top loader similar to the Famicom to ensure better results reading the game cartridges.[43] Many players try to alleviate issues in the game caused by this corrosion by blowing into the cartridges, then reinserting them, which actually speeds up the tarnishing due to moisture. One way to slow down the tarnishing process and extend the life of the cartridges is to use isopropyl alcohol and swabs, as well as non-conductive metal polish such as Brasso or Sheila Shine.[44][45]
+
+The Famicom contains no lockout hardware and, as a result, unlicensed cartridges (both legitimate and bootleg) were extremely common throughout Japan and the Far East.[46] The original NES (but not the top-loading NES-101) contain the 10NES lockout chip, which significantly increased the challenges faced by unlicensed developers. Hobbyists in later years discovered that disassembling the NES and cutting the fourth pin of the lockout chip would change the chip's mode of operation from "lock" to "key", removing all effects and greatly improving the console's ability to play legal games, as well as bootlegs and converted imports. NES consoles sold in different regions have different lockout chips, so games marketed in one region do not work on consoles from another region. Known regions are these: USA/Canada (3193 lockout chip); most of Europe, Korea, and countries where Nintendo of Europe were responsible for distribution (3195); Asia and Hong Kong (3196); and UK, Italy, and Australia (3197). Because two types of lockout chip were released in Europe, European NES game boxes often have an "A" or "B" letter on the front, indicating whether the game is compatible with UK/Italian/Australian consoles (A), or the rest of Europe (B). Games in the rest of Europe typically have text on the box stating "This game is not compatible with the Mattel or NES versions of the Nintendo Entertainment System". Similarly, most UK/Italy/Australia games state "This game is only compatible with the Mattel or NES versions of the Nintendo Entertainment System".
+
+Problems with the 10NES lockout chip frequently result in the console's most infamous problem: the blinking red power light, in which the system appears to turn itself on and off repeatedly because the 10NES would reset the console once per second. The lockout chip required constant communication with the chip in the game to work.[33]:247 Dirty, aging, and bent connectors often disrupt the communication, resulting in the blink effect.[42] Alternatively, the console would turn on but only show a solid white, gray, or green screen. Users may attempt to solve this problem by blowing air onto the cartridge connectors, inserting the cartridge just far enough to get the ZIF to lower, licking the edge connector, slapping the side of the system after inserting a cartridge, shifting the cartridge from side to side after insertion, pushing the ZIF up and down repeatedly, holding the ZIF down lower than it should have been, and cleaning the connectors with alcohol. Many of the most frequent attempts to fix this problem instead risk damaging the cartridge or system.[47] In 1989, Nintendo released an official NES Cleaning Kit to help users clean malfunctioning cartridges and consoles.
+
+With the release of the top-loading NES-101 (NES 2) toward the end of the NES's lifespan, Nintendo resolved the problems by switching to a standard card edge connector and eliminating the lockout chip. All of the Famicom systems use standard card edge connectors, as do Nintendo's two subsequent game consoles, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Nintendo 64.
+
+In response to these hardware flaws, "Nintendo Authorized Repair Centers" sprang up across the U.S. According to Nintendo, the authorization program was designed to ensure that the machines were properly repaired. Nintendo would ship the necessary replacement parts only to shops that had enrolled in the authorization program. In practice, the authorization process consisted of nothing more than paying a fee to Nintendo for the privilege.
+
+Nintendo released a stereoscopic headset peripheral called Famicom 3D System. This was never released outside Japan, since it was a commercial failure, making some gamers experience headaches and nausea.[48]
+
+Nintendo released a modem peripheral called Famicom Modem. This was not intended for traditional games but for gambling on real horse races, stock trading, and banking.
+
+For its CPU, the NES uses the Ricoh 2A03, an 8-bit microprocessor containing a second source MOS Technology 6502 core, running at 1.79 MHz for the NTSC NES and 1.66 MHz for the PAL version.
+
+The NES contains 2 kB of onboard work RAM.[49] A game cartridge may contain expanded RAM to increase this amount. The sizes of NES games vary from 8 kB (Galaxian) to 1 MB (Metal Slader Glory), but 128 to 384 kB is the most common.
+
+The NES[50] uses a custom-made Picture Processing Unit (PPU) developed by Ricoh. All variations of the PPU feature 2 kB of video RAM, 256 bytes of on-die "object attribute memory" (OAM) to store the positions, colors, and tile indices of up to 64 sprites on the screen, and 28 bytes of on-die palette RAM to allow selection of background and sprite colors. The console's 2 kB of onboard RAM may be used for tile maps and attributes on the NES board and 8 kB of tile pattern ROM or RAM may be included on a cartridge. The system has an available color palette of 48 colors and 6 grays. Up to 25 simultaneous colors may be used without writing new values mid-frame: a background color, four sets of three tile colors, and four sets of three sprite colors. The NES palette is based on NTSC rather than RGB values. A total of 64 sprites may be displayed onscreen at a given time without reloading sprites mid-screen. The standard display resolution of the NES is 256 horizontal pixels by 240 vertical pixels.
+
+Video output connections vary between console models. The original HVC-001 model of the Family Computer features only radio frequency (RF) modulator output. The North American and European consoles have support for composite video through RCA connectors in addition to the RF modulator. The HVC-101 model of the Famicom omits the RF modulator entirely and has composite video output via a proprietary 12-pin "multi-out" connector first introduced on the Super Famicom and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Conversely, the North American re-released NES-101 model most closely resembles the original HVC-001 model Famicom, in that it features RF modulator output only.[51] Finally, the PlayChoice-10 utilizes an inverted RGB video output.
+
+The stock NES supports a total of five sound channels, two of which are pulse channels with 4 pulse width settings, one is a triangle wave generator, another is a noise generator (often used for percussion), and the fifth one plays low-quality digital samples.
+
+The NES supports expansion chips contained in certain cartridges to add sound channels and help with data processing. Developers can add these chips to their games, such as the Konami VRC6, Konami VRC7, Sunsoft 5B, Namco 163, and two more by Nintendo itself: the Nintendo FDS wave generator (a modified Ricoh RP2C33 chip  with single-cycle wave table-lookup sound support), and the Nintendo Memory Management Controller 5 (MMC5).[52] Due to wiring differences between the Famicom and NES, a stock NES console is incapable of passing through audio generated by expansion chips utilizing additional sound channels, but can be modified to regain this capability.[53][54]
+
+The game controller used for both the NES and the Famicom features an oblong brick-like design with a simple four button layout: two round buttons labeled "A" and "B", a "START" button, and a "SELECT" button.[55] Additionally, the controllers utilize the cross-shaped joypad, designed by Nintendo employee Gunpei Yokoi for Nintendo Game & Watch systems, to replace the bulkier joysticks on earlier gaming consoles' controllers.[20]:279
+
+The original model Famicom features two game controllers, both of which are hardwired to the back of the console. The second controller lacks the START and SELECT buttons, but features a small microphone. Relatively few games use this feature. The earliest produced Famicom units have square A and B buttons.[51] This was changed to the circular designs because of the square buttons being caught in the controller casing when pressed down and glitches within the hardware causing the system to freeze occasionally while playing a game.
+
+Instead of the Famicom's hardwired controllers, the NES features two custom 7-pin ports on the front of the console to support swappable and potentially third-party controllers. The controllers bundled with the NES are identical and include the START and SELECT buttons, allowing some NES versions of games, such as The Legend of Zelda, to use the START button on the second controller to save the game at any time. The NES controllers lack the microphone, which is used on the Famicom version of Zelda to kill certain enemies, or for singing with karaoke games.[40]
+
+A number of special controllers are for use with specific games, though are not commonly utilized. Such devices include the Zapper light gun, the R.O.B.,[20]:297 and the Power Pad.[33]:226[56] The original Famicom features a deepened DA-15 expansion port on the front of the unit, which is used to connect most auxiliary devices.[40] On the NES, these special controllers are generally connected to one of the two control ports on the front of the console.
+
+Nintendo made two advanced controllers for the NES called NES Advantage and the NES Max. Both controllers have a Turbo feature, where one press of the button represents multiple automatic rapid presses. This feature allows players to shoot much faster in shooter games. The NES Advantage has two knobs that adjust the firing rate of the turbo button from quick to Turbo, as well as a "Slow" button that slows down compatible games by rapidly pausing the game. The NES Max has a non-adjustable Turbo feature and no "Slow" feature, and has a wing-like handheld shape and a sleek directional pad. Turbo functionality exists on the NES Satellite, the NES Four Score, and the U-Force. Other accessories include the Power Pad and the Power Glove, which is featured in the movie The Wizard.
+
+Near the end of the NES's lifespan, upon the release of the AV Famicom and the top-loading NES 2, the design of the game controllers was modified slightly. Though the original button layout was retained, the controller's shape resembles that of the SNES's controller. In addition, the AV Famicom dropped the hardwired controllers in favor of detachable controller ports. The controllers included with the Famicom AV have 90 cm (3 feet) long cables, compared to the 180 cm (6 feet) of NES controllers.[57]
+
+The original NES controller has become one of the most recognizable symbols of the console. Nintendo has mimicked the look of the controller in several other products, from promotional merchandise to limited edition versions of the Game Boy Advance.[58]
+
+Few of the numerous peripheral devices and software packages for the Famicom were released outside Japan.
+
+Family BASIC is an implementation of BASIC for the Famicom, packaged with a keyboard. Similar in concept to the Atari 2600 BASIC cartridge, it allows the user to write programs, especially games, which can be saved on an included cassette recorder.[59] Nintendo of America rejected releasing Famicom BASIC in the US because it did not think it fit their primary marketing demographic of children.[33]:162
+
+The Famicom Modem connected a Famicom to a now defunct proprietary network in Japan which provided content such as financial services.[60] A dialup modem was never released for NES.
+
+In 1986, Nintendo released the Famicom Disk System (FDS) in Japan, a type of floppy drive that uses a single-sided, proprietary 5 cm (2") disk and plugs into the cartridge port. It contains RAM for the game to load into and an extra single-cycle wave table-lookup sound chip. The disks are used both for storing the game and saving progress, with a total capacity of 128k (64k per side). The disks were originally obtained from kiosks in malls and other public places where buyers could select a game and have it written to the disk. This process cost less than cartridges and users could take the disk back to a vending booth and have it rewritten with a new game, or the high score faxed to Nintendo for national leaderboard contests.
+
+A variety of games for the FDS were released by Nintendo (including some which had already been released on cartridge, such as Super Mario Bros.), and third party companies such as Konami, Taito, or unlicensed publishers. Its limitations became quickly apparent as larger ROM chips were introduced, allowing cartridges with greater than 128k of space. More advanced memory management chips (MMC) soon appeared and the FDS quickly became obsolete. Nintendo also charged developers high prices to produce FDS games, and many refused to develop for it, instead continuing to make cartridge games.[citation needed] After only two years, the FDS was discontinued, although vending booths remained in place until 1993 and Nintendo continued to service drives, and to rewrite and offer replacement disks until 2003. Approximately four million drives were sold.[citation needed]
+
+Nintendo did not release the Disk System outside Japan due to numerous problems encountered with the medium in Japan, and due to the increasing data storage capacity and reducing cost of the highly reliable cartridge medium.[61] As a result, many Disk System games such as Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda, and Bubble Bobble were converted to cartridge format for their export releases, resulting in simplified sound and the disk save function replaced by either password or battery save systems.
+
+A thriving market of unlicensed NES hardware clones emerged during the climax of the console's popularity. Initially, such clones were popular in markets where Nintendo issued a legitimate version of the console long time after unlicensed hardware. In particular, the Dendy (Russian: Де́нди), an unlicensed hardware clone produced in Taiwan and sold in the former Soviet Union, emerged as the most popular video game console of its time in that setting and it enjoyed a degree of fame roughly equivalent to that experienced by the NES/Famicom in North America and Japan. A range of Famicom clones was marketed in Argentina during the late 1980s and early 1990s under the name of "Family Game", resembling the original hardware design. The Micro Genius (Simplified Chinese: 小天才) was marketed in Southeast Asia as an alternative to the Famicom; and in Central Europe, especially Poland, the Pegasus was available.[62] Since 1989, there were many Brazilian clones of NES,[36] and the very popular Phantom System (with hardware superior to the original console) caught the attention of Nintendo itself.[35]
+
+The unlicensed clone market has flourished following Nintendo's discontinuation of the NES. Some of the more exotic of these resulting systems surpass the functionality of the original hardware, such as a portable system with a color LCD (PocketFami). Others have been produced for certain specialized markets, such as a rather primitive personal computer with a keyboard and basic word processing software.[63] These unauthorized clones have been helped by the invention of the so-called NES-on-a-chip.[64]
+
+As was the case with unlicensed games, Nintendo has typically gone to the courts to prohibit the manufacture and sale of unlicensed cloned hardware. Many of the clone vendors have included built-in copies of licensed Nintendo software, which constitutes copyright infringement in most countries.
+
+Although most hardware clones were not produced under license by Nintendo, certain companies were granted licenses to produce NES-compatible devices. The Sharp Corporation produced at least two such clones: the Twin Famicom and the SHARP 19SC111 television. The Twin Famicom is compatible with both Famicom cartridges and Famicom Disk System disks.[65]:29 Like the Famicom, it is red and black and has hardwired controllers, but has a different case design. The SHARP 19SC111 television includes a built-in Famicom.[66] A similar licensing deal was reached with Hyundai Electronics, who licensed the system under the name Comboy in the South Korean market. This deal with Hyundai was made necessary because of the South Korean government's wide ban on all Japanese "cultural products", which remained in effect until 1998 and ensured that the only way Japanese products could legally enter the South Korean market was through licensing to a third-party (non-Japanese) distributor (see also Japan–Korea disputes).[67] In India, the system was sold under the name Samurai and assembled locally under license from kits due to policies that banned imports of electronics.[68]
+
+The NES Test Station diagnostics machine was introduced in 1988. It is a NES-based unit designed for testing NES hardware, components, and games. It was only provided for use in World of Nintendo boutiques as part of the Nintendo World Class Service program. Visitors were to bring items to test with the station, and could be assisted by a store technician or employee.
+
+The NES Test Station's front features a Game Pak slot and connectors for testing various components (AC adapter, RF switch, Audio/Video cable, NES Control Deck, accessories and games), with a centrally-located selector knob to choose which component to test. The unit itself weighs approximately 11.7 pounds without a TV. It connects to a television via a combined A/V and RF Switch cable. By actuating the green button, a user can toggle between an A/V Cable or RF Switch connection. The television it is connected to (typically 11" to 14") is meant to be placed atop it.[69]
+
+In 1991, Nintendo provided an add-on called the "Super NES Counter Tester" that tests Super Nintendo components and games. The SNES Counter Tester is a standard SNES on a metal fixture with the connection from the back of the SNES re-routed to the front of the unit. These connections may be made directly to the test station or to the TV, depending on what is to be tested.
+
+The Nintendo Entertainment System has a number of groundbreaking games. Super Mario Bros. pioneered side-scrollers whilst The Legend of Zelda established the genre of action adventure games, and helped popularize battery-backed save functionality.  A third influential game is Metroid, a game that established the Metroidvania genre.
+
+The NES uses a 72-pin design, as compared with 60 pins on the Famicom. To reduce costs and inventory, some early games released in North America are simply Famicom cartridges attached to an adapter to fit inside the NES hardware.[27] Early NES cartridges are held together with five small slotted screws. Games released after 1987 were redesigned slightly to incorporate two plastic clips molded into the plastic itself, removing the need for the top two screws.[70]
+
+The back of the cartridge bears a label with handling instructions. Production and software revision codes were imprinted as stamps on the back label to correspond with the software version and producer. All licensed NTSC and PAL cartridges are a standard shade of gray plastic, with the exception of The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, which were manufactured in gold-plastic carts. Unlicensed carts were produced in black, robin egg blue, and gold, and are all slightly different shapes than standard NES cartridges. Nintendo also produced yellow-plastic carts for internal use at Nintendo Service Centers, although these "test carts" were never made available for purchase. All licensed US cartridges were made by Nintendo, Konami, and Acclaim. For promotion of DuckTales: Remastered, Capcom sent 150 limited-edition gold NES cartridges with the original game, featuring the Remastered art as the sticker, to different gaming news agencies. The instruction label on the back includes the opening lyric from the show's theme song, "Life is like a hurricane".[71]
+
+Famicom cartridges are shaped slightly differently. Unlike NES games, official Famicom cartridges were produced in many colors of plastic. Adapters, similar in design to the popular accessory Game Genie, are available that allow Famicom games to be played on an NES. In Japan, several companies manufactured the cartridges for the Famicom.[33]:61 This allowed these companies to develop their own customized chips designed for specific purposes, such as superior sound and graphics.
+
+Nintendo's near monopoly on the home video game market left it with a dominant influence over the industry. Unlike Atari, which never actively pursued third-party developers (and even went to court in an attempt to force Activision to cease production of Atari 2600 games), Nintendo had anticipated and encouraged the involvement of third-party software developers, though strictly on Nintendo's terms.[72] Some of the Nintendo platform-control measures were adopted in a less stringent way by later console manufacturers such as Sega, Sony, and Microsoft.
+
+To this end, a 10NES authentication chip is in every console and in every officially licensed cartridge. If the console's chip can not detect a counterpart chip inside the cartridge, the game does not load.[33]:247 Nintendo portrayed these measures as intended to protect the public against poor-quality games,[73] and placed a golden seal of approval on all licensed games released for the system.
+
+Nintendo found success with Japanese arcade manufacturers such as Konami, Capcom, Taito and Namco, which signed on as third-party developers. However, they found resistance with US game developers including Atari, Activision, Electronic Arts and Epyx refusing Nintendo's one-sided terms. Acclaim Entertainment, a fledgling game publisher founded by former Activision employees, would be the first major third-party licensee based out of the United States to sign on with Nintendo in late 1987. Atari (through Tengen) and Activision would sign on soon after.
+
+Nintendo was not as restrictive as Sega, which did not permit third-party publishing until Mediagenic in late summer 1988.[74] Nintendo's intention was to reserve a large part of NES game revenue for itself. Nintendo required that it be the sole manufacturer of all cartridges, and that the publisher had to pay in full before the cartridges for that game be produced. Cartridges could not be returned to Nintendo, so publishers assumed all the risk. As a result, some publishers lost more money due to distress sales of remaining inventory at the end of the NES era than they ever earned in profits from sales of the games. Because Nintendo controlled the production of all cartridges, it was able to enforce strict rules on its third-party developers, which were required to sign a contract by Nintendo that would obligate these parties to develop exclusively for the system, order at least 10,000 cartridges, and only make five games per year.[33]:214–215 The global 1988 shortage of DRAM and ROM chips reportedly caused Nintendo to only permit an average of 25% of publishers' requests for cartridges, with some receiving much higher amounts and others almost none.[73] GameSpy noted that Nintendo's "iron-clad terms" made the company many enemies during the 1980s. Some developers tried to circumvent the five game limit by creating additional company brands like Konami's Ultra Games label and others tried circumventing the 10NES chip.[72]
+
+Nintendo was accused of antitrust behavior because of the strict licensing requirements.[75] The United States Department of Justice and several states began probing Nintendo's business practices, leading to the involvement of Congress and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC conducted an extensive investigation which included interviewing hundreds of retailers. During the FTC probe, Nintendo changed the terms of its publisher licensing agreements to eliminate the two-year rule and other restrictive terms. Nintendo and the FTC settled the case in April 1991, with Nintendo required to send vouchers giving a $5 discount off to a new game, to every person that had purchased a NES game between June 1988 and December 1990. GameSpy remarked that Nintendo's punishment was particularly weak giving the case's findings, although it has been speculated that the FTC did not want to damage the video game industry in the United States.[72]
+
+With the NES near the end of its life, many third-party publishers such as Electronic Arts supported upstart competing consoles with less strict licensing terms such as the Sega Genesis and then the PlayStation, which eroded and then took over Nintendo's dominance in the home console market, respectively. Consoles from Nintendo's rivals in the post-SNES era had always enjoyed much stronger third-party support than Nintendo, which relied more heavily on first-party games.
+
+Companies that refused to pay the licensing fee or were rejected by Nintendo found ways to circumvent the console's authentication system. Most of these companies created circuits that use a voltage spike to temporarily disable the 10NES chip.[33]:286 A few unlicensed games released in Europe and Australia are in the form of a dongle to connect to a licensed game, in order to use the licensed game's 10NES chip for authentication. To combat unlicensed games, Nintendo of America threatened retailers who sold them with losing their supply of licensed games, and multiple revisions were made to the NES PCBs to prevent unlicensed games from working.
+
+Atari Games took a different approach with its line of NES products, Tengen. The company attempted to reverse engineer the lockout chip to develop its own "Rabbit" chip. Tengen also obtained a description of the lockout chip from the United States Patent and Trademark Office by falsely claiming that it was required to defend against present infringement claims. Nintendo successfully sued Tengen for copyright infringement. Tengen's antitrust claims against Nintendo were never decided.[75]
+
+Color Dreams made Christian video games under the subsidiary name Wisdom Tree. Historian Steven Kent wrote, "Wisdom Tree presented Nintendo with a prickly situation. The general public did not seem to pay close attention to the court battle with Atari Games, and industry analysts were impressed with Nintendo's legal acumen; but going after a tiny company that published innocuous religious games was another story."[20]:400
+
+As the Nintendo Entertainment System grew in popularity and entered millions of American homes, some small video rental shops began buying their own copies of NES games, and renting them out to customers for around the same price as a video cassette rental for a few days. Nintendo received no profit from the practice beyond the initial cost of their game, and unlike movie rentals, a newly released game could hit store shelves and be available for rent on the same day. Nintendo took steps to stop game rentals, but didn't take any formal legal action until Blockbuster Video began to make game rentals a large-scale service. Nintendo claimed that allowing customers to rent games would significantly hurt sales and drive up the cost of games.[76] Nintendo lost the lawsuit,[77] but did win on a claim of copyright infringement.[78] Blockbuster was banned from including original, copyrighted instruction booklets with its rented games. In compliance with the ruling, Blockbuster produced original short instructions—usually in the form of a small booklet, card, or label stuck on the back of the rental box—that explained the game's basic premise and controls. Video rental shops continued the practice of renting video games.
+
+By 1988, industry observers stated that the NES's popularity had grown so quickly that the market for Nintendo cartridges was larger than that for all home computer software.[79][20]:347 Compute! reported in 1989 that Nintendo had sold seven million NES systems in 1988 alone, almost as many as the number of Commodore 64s sold in its first five years.[80] "Computer game makers [are] scared stiff", the magazine said, stating that Nintendo's popularity caused most competitors to have poor sales during the previous Christmas and resulted in serious financial problems for some.[81]
+
+In June 1989, Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing Peter Main, said that the Famicom was present in 37% of Japan's households.[82] By 1990, 30% of American households owned the NES, compared to 23% for all personal computers.[83] By 1990, the NES had outsold all previously released consoles worldwide.[84][better source needed] The slogan for this brand was "It can't be beaten".[33]:345 The Nintendo Entertainment System was not available in the Soviet Union.
+
+In the early 1990s, gamers predicted that competition from technologically superior systems such as the 16-bit Sega Genesis would mean the immediate end of the NES's dominance. Instead, during the first year of Nintendo's successor console the Super Famicom (named Super Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan), the Famicom remained the second highest-selling video game console in Japan, outselling the newer and more powerful NEC PC Engine and Sega Mega Drive by a wide margin.[85] The launch of the Genesis was overshadowed by the launch of Super Mario Bros. 3 for NES.[citation needed] The console remained popular in Japan and North America until late 1993, when the demand for new NES software abruptly plummeted.[85] The final licensed Famicom game released in Japan is Takahashi Meijin no Bōken Jima IV (Adventure Island IV), in North America is Wario's Woods, and in Europe is The Lion King in 1995.[86] In the wake of ever decreasing sales and the lack of new games, Nintendo of America officially discontinued the NES by 1995.[6][87] Nintendo produced new Famicom units in Japan until September 25, 2003,[88] and continued to repair Famicom consoles until October 31, 2007, attributing the discontinuation of support to insufficient supplies of parts.[89][90]
+
+The NES was released two years after the North American video game crash of 1983, when many retailers and adult consumers regarded electronic games as a passing fad,[20]:280 so many believed at first that the NES would soon fade.[81] Before the NES and Famicom, Nintendo was known as a moderately successful Japanese toy and playing card manufacturer, but the consoles' popularity helped the company grow into an internationally recognized name almost synonymous with video games as Atari had been,[91] and set the stage for Japanese dominance of the video game industry.[92] With the NES, Nintendo also changed the relationship between console manufacturers and third-party software developers by restricting developers from publishing and distributing software without licensed approval. This led to higher-quality  games, which helped change the attitude of a public that had grown weary from poorly produced games for earlier systems.[20]:306–307
+
+The NES hardware design is also very influential. Nintendo chose the name "Nintendo Entertainment System" for the US market and redesigned the system so it would not give the appearance of a child's toy. The front-loading cartridge input allow it to be used more easily in a TV stand with other entertainment devices, such as a videocassette recorder.[93][94][95]
+
+The system's hardware limitations led to design principles that still influence the development of modern video games. Many prominent game franchises originated on the NES, including Nintendo's own Super Mario Bros.,[65]|:57 The Legend of Zelda[20]:353 and Metroid,[20]:357 Capcom's Mega Man[96] franchise, Konami's Castlevania[20]:358 franchise, Square's Final Fantasy,[65]|:95 and Enix's Dragon Quest[65]|:222 franchises.
+
+NES imagery, especially its controller, has become a popular motif for a variety of products,[97][98][99][100] including Nintendo's own Game Boy Advance.[58] Clothing, accessories, and food items adorned with NES-themed imagery are still produced and sold in stores.
+
+The NES can be emulated on many other systems. The first emulator was the Japanese-only Pasofami. It was soon followed by iNES, which is available in English and is cross-platform, in 1996. It was described as being the first NES emulation software that could be used by a non-expert.[101] NESticle, a popular MS-DOS-based emulator, was released on April 3, 1997. Nintendo offers officially licensed emulation of many specific NES games via its own Virtual Console for the Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U, and the Nintendo Switch Online service.
+
+On July 14, 2016, Nintendo announced the November 2016 launch of a miniature replica of the NES, named the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition in the United States and Nintendo Classic Mini: Nintendo Entertainment System in Europe and Australia.[102] The emulation-based console includes 30 permanently inbuilt games from the vintage NES library, including the Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda series. The system features HDMI display output and a new replica controller, which can also connect to the Wii Remote for use with Virtual Console games.[103][104] It was discontinued in North America on April 13, 2017, and worldwide on April 15, 2017. However, Nintendo announced in September 2017 that the NES Classic Mini would return to production on June 29, 2018, only to be discontinued again permanently by December of that year.[105][106]
+
+^ a: For distribution purposes, most of Europe and Australasia were divided into two regions by Nintendo. The first of these regions consisted of mainland Europe (excluding Italy) and Scandanavia, which saw the NES in 1987 and 1986 respectively. The console was released in the second region, consisting of the United Kingdom (and Ireland), Italy, and Australia (and New Zealand), in 1987.
+^ b: In Japan, Nintendo sold an optional expansion peripheral for the Famicom, called the Famicom Disk System, which enables the console to run software from proprietary floppy disks.
+^ c: The original Famicom features two hardwired game controllers and a single port for additional input devices. See game controllers section.
+^ e: The NES is the overall best-selling system worldwide of its time. In Japan and the United States, it controlled 85-90% of the market.[33]:349 In Europe, it was at most in 10-12% of households.[33]:413–414 Nintendo sold 61.9 million NES units worldwide: 19.35 million in Japan, 34 million in the Americas, and 8.5 million in other regions.[8]
+^ f: The commonly bundled game Super Mario Bros. popularized the platform game genre and introduced elements that would be copied in many subsequent games[107]
+^ g: Atari broke off negotiations with Nintendo in response to Coleco's unveiling of an unlicensed port of Donkey Kong for its Coleco Adam computer system. Although the game had been produced without Nintendo's permission or support, Atari took its release as a sign that Nintendo was dealing with one of its major competitors in the market.[20]:283–285
+^ h: Donkey Kong Jr. Math and Mach Rider are often erroneously listed as launch games. Neither was available until later in 1986.[26]

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+The Wii (/wiː/ WEE; known unofficially as the Nintendo Wii) is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh generation console, the Wii competed with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo stated that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others.[15] As of the first quarter of 2016[update], the Wii led its generation over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in worldwide sales,[16] with more than 101 million units sold; in December 2009, the console broke the sales record for a single month in the United States.[17]
+
+The Wii introduced the Wii Remote controller, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and which detects movement in three dimensions. The console runs games supplied on Wii optical discs. It also supported the now discontinued WiiConnect24 service, which enabled Wii to receive messages and updates over the Internet while in standby mode.[18] The system supported a service, called "Virtual Console", that downloaded emulated games from past Nintendo consoles, support for online video streaming such as BBC iPlayer, and other services provided by Nintendo over the Internet. From June 28, 2013, Internet services were gradually discontinued; since January 31, 2019, only re-download of games, system software update, and transfer of data between Wii and Wii U continued to be available, to be withdrawn at an unspecified future date. Wii Points could no longer be purchased after March 2018, and could not be used and were permanently lost from January 31, 2019.[19]
+
+The Wii succeeded the GameCube; early models are fully backward-compatible with all GameCube games and most accessories. Nintendo first spoke of the console at the E3 2004 press conference and later unveiled it at E3 2005. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata revealed a prototype of the controller at the September 2005 Tokyo Game Show.[20] At E3 2006, the console won the first of several awards.[21] By December 8, 2006, it had completed its launch in the four key markets.
+
+Later models are not compatible with GameCube software or accessories. Nintendo released a revised unit in 2011 in Europe, Australia, and North America. The Wii Mini, Nintendo's first major console redesign since the New-Style Super NES, was released first in Canada on December 7, 2012. The Wii Mini can only play Wii optical discs, as it has neither GameCube compatibility nor any networking capabilities; this model was not released in Japan, Australia, or New Zealand. The Wii's successor, the Wii U, was released on November 18, 2012. On October 20, 2013, Nintendo confirmed it had discontinued production of the Wii in Japan and Europe.[6][7][5]
+
+
+
+The console was conceived in 2001, as the GameCube was first released. According to an interview with Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the concept involved focusing on a new form of player interaction. "The consensus was that power isn't everything for a console. Too many powerful consoles can't coexist. It's like having only ferocious dinosaurs. They might fight and hasten their own extinction."[22]
+
+In 2003, game engineers and designers were brought together to develop the concept further. By 2005, the controller interface had taken form, but a public showing at that year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was canceled. Miyamoto stated that the company "had some troubleshooting to do. So we decided not to reveal the controller and instead we displayed just the console."[22] Nintendo president Satoru Iwata later unveiled and demonstrated the Wii Remote at the September Tokyo Game Show.[20]
+
+The Nintendo DS is said to have influenced the Wii's design. Designer Ken'ichiro Ashida noted, "We had the DS on our minds as we worked on the Wii. We thought about copying the DS's touch-panel interface and even came up with a prototype." The idea was eventually rejected because of the notion that the two gaming systems would be identical. Miyamoto also stated, "if the DS had flopped, we might have taken the Wii back to the drawing board."[22] In June 2011, Nintendo unveiled the prototype of its successor to the Wii, to be known as the Wii U.[23]
+
+The console was known by the code name "Revolution" from May 11, 2004 when its codename was announced at Nintendo's 2004 pre-Electronics Entertainment Expo press conference in Los Angeles, California until April 27, 2006, immediately before E3. Before the Wii's codename was announced, the media referred to the console as "GCNext" or Gamecube Next and "N5" or Nintendo's fifth major home console.[24][25][26]
+
+Nintendo's spelling of "Wii" (with two lower-case "i" characters) is intended to resemble two people standing side-by-side (representing players gathering together) and to represent the Wii Remote and Nunchuk.[27] One reason the company has given for this name choice since the announcement is:
+
+Wii sounds like 'we', which emphasizes that the console is for everyone. Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion.[27]
+
+Some video game developers and members of the press stated that they preferred "Revolution" over "Wii".[28] Forbes expressed a fear "that the name would convey a continued sense of 'kidiness' to the console."[29] The BBC reported the day after the name was announced that "a long list of puerile jokes, based on the name," had appeared on the Internet.[30]
+
+Nintendo of America's Vice President of Corporate Affairs Perrin Kaplan defended the choice of "Wii" over "Revolution" and responded to critics of the name, stating "Live with it, sleep with it, eat with it, move along with it and hopefully they'll arrive at the same place."[31] Nintendo of America's president Reggie Fils-Aime acknowledged the initial reaction and further explained the change:
+
+Revolution as a name is not ideal; it's long, and in some cultures, it's hard to pronounce. So we wanted something that was short, to the point, easy to pronounce, and distinctive. That's how 'Wii,' as a console name, was created.
+
+The Nintendo Style Guide refers to the console as "simply Wii, not Nintendo Wii",[32] making it the first home console Nintendo has marketed outside Japan without the company name in its trademark.[33] The Wii's successor, the Wii U, was also marketed without Nintendo in its name, although its successor, the Nintendo Switch, brought back the Nintendo name in marketing.
+
+On September 14, 2006, Nintendo announced release information for Japan, North and South America, Oceania, Asia and Europe including dates, prices, and projected unit-distribution figures. It was announced that the majority of the 2006 shipments would be allotted to the Americas, and 33 titles would be available at its launch.[34] The Wii was launched in the United States on November 19, 2006 for US$249.99,[35] in Japan on December 2 for ¥25,000,[36] followed by Australasia on December 7 for A$399.95,[37] and was later launched in the United Kingdom on December 8 for GB£179.00, and the rest of Europe.[38] The United Kingdom experienced a widespread shortage of Wii units in many High-Street and online stores, and was unable to fulfill all pre-orders at its release.[39]
+
+The Wii was launched in South Korea on April 26, 2008,[40] Taiwan on July 12, 2008,[41] and Hong Kong on December 12, 2009.[42]
+
+Nintendo has hoped to target a wider demographic with its console than that of others in the seventh generation.[15] At a press conference for the then-upcoming Nintendo DS game Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies in December 2006, Satoru Iwata insisted
+
+We're not thinking about fighting Sony, but about how many people we can get to play games. The thing we're thinking about most is not portable systems, consoles, and so forth, but that we want to get new people playing games.[43]
+
+This is reflected in Nintendo's series of television advertisements in North America (directed by Academy Award winner Stephen Gaghan) and its Internet ads. The advertising slogans were "Wii would like to play" and "Experience a new way to play"; the ads began November 15, 2006, and had a total budget of over US$200 million for the year.[44] The productions were Nintendo's first broad-based advertising strategy and included a two-minute video clip showing an assortment of people enjoying the Wii system: urban apartment-dwellers, ranchers, grandparents, and parents with their children. The music in the ads was from the song "Kodo (Inside the Sun Remix)" by the Yoshida Brothers.[45] A report by the British newspaper The People also stated that Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom has used the console.[46]
+
+The Wii was Nintendo's smallest home console at the time (the current smallest is hybrid home-portable console Nintendo Switch, when in portable mode); it measures 44 mm (1.73 in) wide, 157 mm (6.18 in) tall and 215.4 mm (8.48 in) deep in its vertical orientation, slightly larger than three DVD cases stacked together. The included stand measures 55.4 mm (2.18 in) wide, 44 mm (1.73 in) tall and 225.6 mm (8.88 in) deep. The system weighs 1.2 kg (2.7 lb),[47] making it the lightest of the three major seventh-generation consoles. The Wii may stand horizontally or vertically. The prefix for the numbering scheme of the system and its parts and accessories is "RVL-" for its code name, "Revolution".[48]
+
+The front of the console features an illuminated slot-loading optical media drive which accepts only 12 cm Wii Optical Discs and 8 cm Nintendo GameCube Game Discs.[49] (Units sold in South Korea and later revisions do not support GameCube discs.)[50][51][52] The blue light in the disc slot illuminates briefly when the console is turned on, and pulses when new data is received through WiiConnect24.[53] After the update (including System Menu 3.0), the disc-slot light activates whenever a Wii disc is inserted or ejected.[54] When there is no WiiConnect24 information, the light stays off. The disc-slot light remains off during game play or when using other features. Two USB ports are located on the back of the console.[55] An SD-card slot is located behind the SD-card slot cover on the front of the console, where an SD-card can be inserted.[56]
+
+The Wii launch package includes the console; a stand to allow the console to be placed vertically; a round, clear stabilizer for the main stand; a Wii Remote; a Nunchuk attachment; a Sensor Bar; a removable stand for the bar; an external power adapter; two AA batteries; a composite AV cable with RCA connectors;[57] a SCART adapter in European countries (component video and other types of cables are available separately); operation documentation and (in Europe and the Americas) a copy of the game Wii Sports.[58]
+
+The disc reader of the Wii does not play DVD-Video, DVD-Audio or Compact Discs. A 2006 announcement stated that a new version of the Wii (capable of DVD-Video playback) would be released in 2007;[59] however, Nintendo delayed its release to focus on meeting demand for the original console.[60] Nintendo's initial announcement stated that it "requires more than a firmware upgrade" to implement, and the capability could not be made available as an upgrade option for the existing Wii;[59] the delay later became a cancellation when production of the Wii was discontinued in 2013. However, despite the assertion, third parties have used Wii homebrew to add DVD playback to unmodified Wii units.[61] The Wii also can be hacked to enable an owner to use the console for activities unintended by the manufacturer.[62][63] Several brands of modchips are available for the Wii.[64]
+
+Although Nintendo showed the console and the Wii Remote in white, black, silver, lime-green and red before it was released,[65] it was only available in white for its first two-and-a-half years of sales. Black consoles were available in Japan in August 2009,[66][67] in Europe in November 2009[68] and in North America on May 9, 2010.[69] A red Wii system bundle was available in Japan on November 11, 2010, commemorating the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros.[70] The European version of the limited-edition red Wii bundle was released on October 29, 2010, which includes the original Donkey Kong game preloaded onto the console, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Sports.[71][72] The bundle also features the Wii Remote Plus, with integrated Wii Motion Plus technology.[72] The red Wii bundle was released in North America on November 7, 2010 with New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Wii Sports and the Wii Remote Plus.[73][74]
+
+On July 11, 2007, Nintendo unveiled the Wii Balance Board at E3 2007 with Wii Fit.[75] It is a wireless balance board accessory for the Wii, with multiple pressure sensors used to measure the user's center of balance.[76] Namco Bandai produced a mat controller (a simpler, less-sophisticated competitor to the balance board).[77]
+
+The Wii Remote is the primary controller for the console. It uses a combination of built-in accelerometers and infrared detection to sense its position in 3D space when pointed at the LEDs in the Sensor Bar.[78][79] This design allows users to control the game with physical gestures as well as button-presses. The controller connects to the console using Bluetooth[80] with an approximate 30 ft (9.1 m) range,[81] and features rumble and an internal speaker.[82] An attachable wrist strap can be used to prevent the player from unintentionally dropping (or throwing) the Wii Remote. Nintendo has since offered a stronger strap and the Wii Remote Jacket to provide extra grip and protection.[83]
+
+Accessories can be connected to a Wii Remote through a proprietary port at the base of the controller,[84] such as the bundled Nunchuk — a handheld unit with an accelerometer, analog stick, and two trigger buttons.[85]An expansion accessory known as Wii MotionPlus augments the Wii Remote's existing sensors with gyroscopes to allow for finer motion detection; the MotionPlus functionality was later incorporated into a revision of the controller known as Wii Remote Plus.[86][87][88] At E3 2009, Nintendo also presented a "Vitality Sensor" accessory that could be used to measure a player's pulse. In a 2013 Q&A, Satoru Iwata revealed that the Vitality Sensor had been shelved, as internal testing found that the device did not work with all users, and its use cases were too narrow.[89]
+
+The Classic Controller is another extension for the Wii Remote and is more similar to classic gamepads. Players can use it with older games from the Virtual Console in addition to games designed for the Wii.
+
+The Wii console contains 512 megabytes of internal non-removable flash memory,[90] and features an SD card slot for external storage. An SD card can be used for uploading photos and backing up saved game data and downloaded Virtual Console and WiiWare games. To use the SD slot for transferring game saves, an update must be installed. Installation may be initiated from the Wii options menu through an Internet connection, or by inserting a game disc containing the update. Virtual Console data cannot be restored to any system except the unit of origin.[91] An SD card can also be used to create customized in-game music from stored MP3 files (as first shown in Excite Truck)[92] and music for the slide-show feature of the Photo Channel. Version 1.1 of the Photo Channel removed MP3 playback in favor of AAC support.[93]
+
+At the Nintendo Fall Press Conference in October 2008, Satoru Iwata announced that Wii owners would have the option to download WiiWare and Virtual Console content directly onto an SD card. The option would offer an alternative to "address the console's insufficient memory storage". The announcement stated that it would be available in Japan in spring 2009;[94] Nintendo made the update available on March 25.[95] In addition to the previously announced feature, update also allows users to play games directly from an SD card. In reality, the channel data is copied to the Wii and remains until the channel is exited. Wii version 2.0 allowed channels to be stored onto an SD Card, however they had to manually be copied.[96] The update also added support for SDHC cards with up to 32 GB of storage.[97]
+
+Nintendo has released few technical details regarding the Wii system, but some key facts have leaked through the press. Although none of these reports has been officially confirmed, they generally indicate that the console is an extension (or advancement) of the Nintendo GameCube architecture. Specifically, the analyses report that the Wii is roughly 1.5 to 2 times as powerful as its predecessor.[98][99] Based on specifications, the Wii has been called the least powerful of the major home consoles of its generation.[100]
+
+Processors:
+
+^†  None of the clock rates have been confirmed by Nintendo, IBM or ATI.
+
+Memory:
+
+Ports and peripheral capabilities:
+
+Built-in content ratings systems:
+
+
+
+Storage:
+
+Video:
+
+Audio:
+
+Power consumption:
+
+
+
+The first Wii system software update (via WiiConnect24) caused a small number of launch units to become completely unusable. This forced users to either send their units to Nintendo for repairs (if they wished to retain their saved data) or exchange them for free replacements.[115]
+
+With the release of dual-layer Wii Optical Discs, Nintendo of America stated that some Wii systems may have difficulty reading the high-density software (due to a contaminated laser lens). Nintendo offers retail lens-cleaning kits and free console repairs for owners who experience this issue.[116][117]
+
+The Wii Remote can lose track of the Wii system it has been set to, requiring that it be reset and resynchronized. Nintendo's support website provides instructions for this process and troubleshooting related issues.[118]
+
+The RVL-101 model of the Wii, also known as the Wii Family Edition, is a cost-reduced variant released late into the platform's lifespan that removes all GameCube functionality, lacking the controller ports and memory card slots found on the original model. Additionally, it does not include a stand, as it is intended to be positioned horizontally. The console was announced on August 17, 2011 and was released in the United States on October 23, 2011 and Europe on November 4, 2011.[50][119][120] It was made available in Europe, bundled with a Wii Remote Plus, Wii Party and Wii Sports.[50][121][122][123] The console launched in white, but later a black unit bundled with New Super Mario Bros. Wii and the official soundtrack CD of Super Mario Galaxy was released on October 23, 2011[124] and a blue Wii unit was released to coincide with Black Friday and the release of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games on November 18, 2011.[125] In late 2012, Nintendo released a version of the North American black edition, including Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort games on a single disc instead of the New Super Mario Bros. Wii game and the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack.[126]
+
+Empty spaces when removing the top cover, for where the ports and slots should be
+
+Remains in the motherboard
+
+The RVL-201[127] model of the Wii, known as the Wii Mini (stylized as Wii mini), is a smaller, redesigned Wii with a top-loading disc drive. It was announced on November 27, 2012 and released on December 7, 2012 in Canada with a MSRP of C$99.99.[128] The system was later released in Europe on March 22, 2013,[4] and in the United States on November 17, 2013.[3] It was not released in Japan, Australia or New Zealand. This console lacks YPBPR (component video/D-Terminal), S-Video, RGB SCART output, GameCube compatibility, online connectivity, the SD card slot and Wi-Fi support, and has only one USB port unlike the previous models' two.[52][129] The initial release did not include a game, but Mario Kart Wii was included at no extra charge beginning on September 18, 2013 in Canada,[130] and from launch in the United States.[131] Nintendo used this console and the Nintendo Selects game series to promote low-cost gaming. The Wii Mini is styled in matte black with a red border, and includes a red Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk. A composite video/audio cable, wired sensor bar and power adapter are also included.[132]
+
+The console has a number of internal features made available from its hardware and firmware components. The hardware allows for extendability (via expansion ports), while the firmware (and some software) can receive periodic updates via the WiiConnect24 service.
+
+The Wii Menu interface consists of "channels" representing applications installed to the console, a design that emulates television channels. Separate channels are graphically displayed in a grid and are navigated using the pointer capability of the Wii Remote. There are six default channels: the Disc Channel, Mii Channel, Photo Channel, Wii Shop Channel, Forecast Channel, and News Channel, the latter two being initially unavailable at launch but included later in updates. The Wii + Internet Video Channel was pre-installed on all Wii consoles starting in October 2008.[133] Additional channels were available for download from the Wii Shop Channel, such as the Everybody Votes Channel, Internet Channel, Check Mii Out Channel, Nintendo Channel, and various WiiWare and Virtual Console titles. Additionally, Japanese consoles had access to the Food Delivery Channel, a channel that facilitated the ordering of food directly from the console.[134][135]
+
+Except for the Disc Channel, the arrangement of the channels can be changed by pointing at the channel to be moved with the Wii Remote and holding down the 'A' and 'B' buttons to do so, releasing the buttons once the channel is in the intended slot.[136]
+
+The Wii system supports wireless connectivity with the Nintendo DS without any additional accessories. This connectivity allows the player to use the Nintendo DS microphone and touchscreen as inputs for Wii games. The first game utilizing Nintendo DS-Wii connectivity is Pokémon Battle Revolution. Players with either the Pokémon Diamond or Pearl Nintendo DS games are able to play battles using the Nintendo DS as a controller.[137] Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time, released on both Nintendo DS and Wii, features connectivity in which both games can advance simultaneously. Nintendo later released the Nintendo Channel, which allows Wii owners to download game demos or additional data to their Nintendo DS in a process similar to that of a DS Download Station.[138] The console is also able to expand Nintendo DS games.[137]
+
+The Wii console connects to the Internet through its built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi or through a USB-to-Ethernet adapter; either method allows players to access the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service.[98] The service has several features for the console, including Virtual Console, WiiConnect24, the Internet Channel, the Forecast Channel, the Everybody Votes Channel, the News Channel and the Check Mii Out Channel. The Wii can also communicate (and connect) with other Wii systems through a self-generated wireless LAN, enabling local wireless multi-playing on different television sets. Battalion Wars 2 first demonstrated this feature for non-split screen multi-playing between two (or more) televisions.[139]
+
+On April 9, 2008, the BBC announced that its online BBC iPlayer would be available on the Wii via the Internet Channel browser; however, some users experienced difficulty with the service. On November 18, 2009, BBC iPlayer on the Wii was launched as the BBC iPlayer Channel,[140][141] a free downloadable channel from the Wii Shop Channel;[142] however, the service was discontinued in early 2017.[143]
+
+Netflix was released as a downloadable channel for the Wii on October 18, 2010 in Canada and the United States.[144] A survey conducted by Nielson revealed that 25% of Netflix subscribers used the Netflix Channel on the Wii as of July 2011.[145] Hulu announced in October 2011 that they would be releasing their streaming service, Hulu Plus, on the Wii and the Nintendo 3DS.[146] Hulu Plus was released on February 16, 2012 as a downloadable channel for the Wii.[147] YouTube was released as a downloadable channel for the Wii on December 15, 2012 in the United States.[148] The YouTube Channel for the Wii was discontinued on June 28, 2017 as part of YouTube's plan to phase out availability on older devices.[149] Prime Video, Amazon's streaming service, was released on January 14, 2013 as a downloadable channel for the Wii.[150][151] Crunchyroll, an anime streaming service, was released on October 15, 2015 as a downloadable channel for the Wii.[152]
+
+In 2018, Netflix announced that Nintendo would shut down support for video streaming services on the Wii on January 30, 2019, including Netflix.[153]
+
+The console features parental controls, which can be used to prohibit younger users from playing games with content unsuitable for their age level. When one attempts to play a Wii or Virtual Console game, it reads the content rating encoded in the game data; if this rating is greater than the system's set age level, the game will not load without a password. Parental controls may also restrict Internet access, which blocks the Internet Channel and system-update features. Since the console is restricted to GameCube functionality when playing GameCube Game Discs, GameCube software is unaffected by Wii parental-control settings.[154]
+
+European units primarily use the PEGI rating system,[155] while North American units use the ESRB rating system.[156] The Wii supports the rating systems of many countries, including CERO in Japan, the USK in Germany, the PEGI and BBFC in the United Kingdom, the ACB in Australia and the OFLC in New Zealand. Homebrew developers have reverse-engineered the function which Nintendo uses to recover lost parental-control passwords, creating a simple script to obtain parental-control reset codes.[157]
+
+Retail copies of games are supplied on proprietary, DVD-type Wii optical discs, which are packaged in keep cases with instructions. In Europe, the boxes have a triangle at the bottom corner of the paper sleeve-insert side. The triangle is color-coded to identify the region for which the title is intended and which manual languages are included. The console supports regional lockout: software available in a region can be only played on that region's hardware.[158]
+
+New games in Nintendo's flagship franchises (including The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, Pokémon, and Metroid) have been released, in addition to many original titles and third-party-developed games. Nintendo has received third-party support from companies such as Ubisoft, Sega, Square Enix, Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts and Capcom, with more games being developed for Wii than for the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.[159] Nintendo also launched the New Play Control! line, a selection of enhanced GameCube games for the Wii featuring updated controls.[160]
+
+The Virtual Console service allows Wii owners to play games originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo 64, Sega's Genesis/Mega Drive and Sega Mark III/Sega Master System,[161] NEC's TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine, SNK's Neo Geo console, Commodore 64 and arcade games. Virtual Console games were distributed over broadband Internet via the former Wii Shop Channel, and are saved to the Wii internal flash memory or to a removable SD card. Once downloaded, Virtual Console games can be accessed from the Wii Menu (as individual channels) or from an SD card via the SD Card Menu.[162][163] There is also the Wii Homebrew Channel, which can be installed by exploiting the Wii, allowing the user to run unauthorized applications built from user-generated code.[163]
+
+The game development suite Unity can be used to create official Wii games;[164] however, the developer must be authorized by Nintendo to develop games for the console. Games must also be accepted by Nintendo to be sold.
+
+921.69 million Wii games had been sold worldwide as of March 31, 2020[update],[165] and 104 titles had surpassed the million-unit mark by March 2011. The most successful game (Wii Sports, which comes bundled with the console in most regions) sold 82.90 million copies worldwide by March 31, 2020,[166] surpassing Super Mario Bros. as the best-selling video game of all time in 2009.[167] However, as of May 2019, Minecraft is the best selling video game of all time, having sold 176 million copies.[168] The best-selling unbundled game, Mario Kart Wii, had sold 37.32 million units worldwide by March 31, 2020.[166]
+
+Vblank Entertainment's Shakedown: Hawaii is the final game to be released for the system, more than 13 years after the Wii's launch.[169]
+
+Twenty-one games were announced for launch day in North and South America, with another twelve announced for release later in 2006.[170] Wii Sports was included with the console bundle in all regions except Japan and South Korea. In contrast to the price of $60 quoted for many seventh-generation games in the US,[171] Wii titles cost (at most) $50 at major US retail stores.
+
+Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was promoted as a launch title, but its release was eventually postponed until August 27, 2007, in North America.[180] Satoru Iwata also initially wished for Super Smash Bros. Brawl to be released at launch.
+
+Wii consoles with the original design are backward-compatible with all Nintendo GameCube software, Nintendo GameCube Memory Cards and controllers. Software compatibility is achieved by the slot-loading drive's ability to accept Nintendo GameCube Game Discs. However, redesigned model RVL-101 and the Wii Mini are not backward-compatible.[50][52]
+
+A Wii console running a GameCube disc is restricted to GameCube functionality, and a GameCube controller is required to play GameCube titles. A Nintendo GameCube Memory Card is also necessary to save game progress and content, since the Wii internal flash memory will not save GameCube games.[181] Also, backward compatibility is limited in some areas. For example, online and LAN-enabled features for Nintendo GameCube titles are unavailable on the Wii, since the console lacks serial ports for the Nintendo GameCube Broadband Adapter and Modem Adapter.[182] The Game Boy Player will also not fully work with the Wii, as the console lacks the port needed to connect the Wii to the player and due to design differences between the 2 consoles.
+
+The Wii has received generally positive reviews. The system was well received after its exhibition at E3 2006. At the event, Nintendo's console won the Game Critics Awards for Best of Show and Best Hardware.[21] In the December 2006 issue of Popular Science, the console was named a Grand Award Winner in home entertainment.[183] Spike TV's Video Games Award cited the Wii's breakthrough technology.[184] GameSpot chose the console as having the best hardware in its "Best and Worst 2006" awards.[185] The system was also chosen as one of PC World magazine's 20 Most Innovative Products of the Year.[186] The console received a Golden Joystick for Innovation of the Year 2007 at the Golden Joystick Awards.[187] In the category of Engineering & Technology for Creation and Implementation of Video Games and Platforms, Nintendo was awarded an Emmy Award for Game Controller Innovation by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.[188] In 2009, IGN named the Wii the 10th greatest console of all time (out of 25).[189]
+
+The Wii's success caught third-party developers by surprise, leading to apologies for the quality of their early games. In an interview with German news magazine Der Spiegel, Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot and Alain Corre admitted that they made a mistake in rushing out their launch titles, promising to take future projects more seriously.[190] Take-Two Interactive, which released few games for the GameCube, changed its stance towards Nintendo by placing a higher priority on the Wii.[191]
+
+At the same time, criticism of the Wii Remote and Wii hardware specifications had surfaced. Former GameSpot editor and Giantbomb.com founder Jeff Gerstmann stated that the controller's speaker produces low-quality sound,[192] while Factor 5 President Julian Eggebrecht criticized the hardware audio as substandard for a console of its generation.[193] UK-based developer Free Radical Design stated that the Wii hardware lacks the power necessary to run the software it scheduled for release on other seventh-generation consoles.[194] Online connectivity of the Wii was also criticized; Matt Casamassina of IGN compared it to the "entirely unintuitive" service provided for the Nintendo DS.[195]
+
+Game designer and The Sims creator Will Wright shared his thoughts on the Wii in the context of the seventh console generation: "The only next gen system I've seen is the Wii – the PS3 and the Xbox 360 feel like better versions of the last, but pretty much the same game with incremental improvement. But the Wii feels like a major jump – not that the graphics are more powerful, but that it hits a completely different demographic."[196]
+
+The Wii is seen as more physically demanding than other game consoles.[197]
+Some Wii players have experienced a form of tennis elbow, known as "Wiiitis".[198] A study published in the British Medical Journal stated that Wii players use more energy than they do playing sedentary computer games. While this energy increase may be beneficial to weight management, it was not an adequate replacement for regular exercise.[199] A case study published in the American Physical Therapy Association's journal, Physical Therapy, focused on use of the Wii for rehabilitation in a teenager with cerebral palsy. It is believed to be the first published research demonstrating physical-therapy benefits from use of the gaming system. Researchers say the system complements traditional techniques through use of simultaneous gaming rehabilitation efforts.[200] In May 2010, the American Heart Association (AHA) endorsed the Wii to encourage sedentary people to take the first step toward fitness. The AHA heart icon covers the console and two of its more-active games, Wii Fit Plus and Wii Sports Resort.[201][202]
+
+By 2008, two years after the Wii's release,[203] Nintendo acknowledged several limitations and challenges with the system (such as the perception that the system catered primarily to a "casual" audience[204] and was unpopular among "core" gamers).[205] Game designer Shigeru Miyamoto admitted that the lack of support for high definition video output on the Wii and its limited network infrastructure also contributed to the system being regarded separately from its competitors' systems, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.[206] Miyamoto originally defended Nintendo's decision to not include HD graphics in the Wii, stating that the number of HDTV's in people's homes at the time was "really not that high, yet. Of course I think five years down the road it would be pretty much a given that Nintendo would create an HD system, but right now the predominant television set in the world is a non-HD set."[207] Miyamoto said in an interview with Japanese magazine 4Gamer in 2013 that he regretted not giving the Wii HD graphics.[208][209]
+
+An executive for Frontline Studios stated that major publishers were wary of releasing exclusive titles for the Wii, due to the perception that third-party companies were not strongly supported by consumers.[210] In his blog, 1UP.com editor Jeremy Parish stated that Nintendo was the biggest disappointment for him in 2007. Commenting on the lack of quality third-party support, he stated that "the Wii landscape is bleak. Worse than it was on N64. Worse than on GameCube...the resulting third-party content is overwhelmingly bargain-bin trash."[211] The Globe and Mail and Forbes noted that the Wii had few successful third-party titles compared to its rivals (due, in part, to its weaker hardware). Third-party developers often skipped the Wii instead of making games for all three consoles simultaneously ("blockbusters like the Call of Duty franchise either never arrive on Nintendo hardware or show up in neutered form"). Forbes observed that of the most successful games of 2011 (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, Portal 2, L.A. Noire, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3), although all were released for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, only Modern Warfare 3 received a Wii version which was also the least positively received port of the game. The lack of third-party games may be exacerbated in the future, as Nintendo faces the "dilemma of having fallen out of sync with its rivals in the console cycle"; Microsoft and Sony would design their consoles to be more powerful than the Wii U. Strong third-party titles are seen as a key sign of a gaming console's health.[212][213][214]
+
+The Globe and Mail, in suggesting why Nintendo posted a record loss of $926 million for the initial six months of its 2011–2012 fiscal year, blamed the Wii's design for being "short-sighted". The Wii initially enjoyed phenomenal success because it was inexpensive (due to its being less sophisticated than its competitors) and introduced a "gaming gimmick". However, this approach meant that the Wii's hardware soon became outdated and could not keep up long-term (in contrast to more-advanced rivals such as Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, which were expected to continue doing well in 2012–2013) "as both user desires and surrounding technologies evolved" later in the generation. Furthermore, price cuts and the introduction of motion-sensor controllers for the Xbox 360 and PS3 nullified advantages once held by the Wii. The Globe suggested that there were other reasons for Nintendo's poor financial performance, including a strong yen and a tepid reception to the Nintendo 3DS handheld as mobile gaming became popular on smartphones and tablets, such as the iPad.[212]
+
+As of September 30, 2019[update], the Wii has sold 101.63 million consoles worldwide.[215]
+
+Since its launch, monthly sales numbers of the console were generally higher than its competitors around the globe. On November 28, 2006, Nintendo reported that it had sold over 600,000 consoles in the first eight days of launch in the Americas, making it Nintendo's largest console launch until the release of the Nintendo Switch in 2017.[216][217] Japan initially received 400,000 Wii consoles,[218] and sold an estimated 372,000 units in two days, with Wii Sports and Wii Play being the best-selling games.[219] Nintendo announced on December 13, 2006 that the Wii had sold 325,000 units across Europe in its first two days of availability and had sold 33,000 units in Australia in its first six days of availability, making it the fastest selling console across the entire European continent and the largest launch of a video game system in Australia.[220][221] By the end of 2006, the Wii had sold 3.19 million units worldwide.[222]
+
+According to the NPD Group, the Wii sold more units in the United States than the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 combined in the first half of 2007.[223] This lead was even larger in the Japanese market, where it led in total sales (having outsold both consoles by factors of 2:1[224] to 6:1[225] nearly every week from its launch to November 2007).[226] In Australia the Wii broke the record set by the Xbox 360 and became the fastest-selling game console in Australian history, selling 32,901 units within the first four days of the console's release.[227] It also broke the 360's Australian record for the quickest amount of time to sell 100,000 units, reaching the milestone within six months and two weeks.[228] The Wii became the fastest selling console in the United Kingdom at the time, selling 1 million units in just 38 weeks after launch.[229]
+
+On September 12, 2007, the Financial Times reported that the Wii had surpassed the Xbox 360 (released a year earlier) and had become market leader in home-console sales for the seventh generation, based on sales figures from Enterbrain, NPD Group and GfK. This was the first time a Nintendo console led its generation in sales since the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.[230]
+
+On July 11, 2007, Nintendo warned that the Wii would remain in short supply throughout that calendar year.[231] In December, Reggie Fils-Aimé revealed that Nintendo was producing approximately 1.8 million Wii consoles each month.[232] Some UK stores still had a shortage of consoles in March 2007,[233] demand still outpaced supply in the United States in June 2007,[234] and the console was "selling out almost as quickly as it hits retail shelves" in Canada in April 2008.[235][236] In October 2008 Nintendo announced that between October and December the Wii would have its North American supplies increased considerably from 2007 levels,[237] while producing 2.4 million Wii units a month worldwide (compared to 1.6 million per month in 2007).[238]
+
+In the United States the Wii had sold 10.9 million units by July 1, 2008, making it the leader in seventh generation home console sales according to the NPD Group (and surpassing the Xbox 360).[239][240][241]
+
+In Japan the Wii surpassed the number of GameCube units sold by January 2008;[242] it sold 7,526,821 units by December 2008, according to Enterbrain.[243][244] According to the NPD Group the Wii surpassed the Xbox 360 to become the best-selling "next-generation" home video-game console in Canada (with 813,000 units sold by April 1, 2008), and was the best-selling home console for 13 of the previous 17 months.[235][236] According to the NPD Group the Wii had sold a total of 1,060,000 units in Canada by August 2008, making it the first seventh generation home console to surpass the million-unit mark in that country. In the United Kingdom the Wii lead in seventh generation home-console sales with 4.9 million units sold as of January 3, 2009[update], according to GfK Chart-Track.[245][246] On March 25, 2009 at the Game Developers Conference, Satoru Iwata said that worldwide shipments of Wii had reached 50 million.[247] According to GfK Australia, the Wii had sold over 500,000 units in Australia within 84 weeks of its release, beating the PlayStation 2 and the DS as the fastest system to accumulate 500,000 sales in that country.[248]
+
+While Microsoft and Sony have experienced losses producing their consoles in the hopes of making a long-term profit on software sales, Nintendo reportedly has optimized production costs to obtain a significant profit margin with each Wii unit sold.[249] On September 17, 2007, the Financial Times reported that the direct profit per Wii sold may vary, from $13 in Japan to $49 in the United States and $79 in Europe.[250] On December 2, 2008, Forbes reported that Nintendo made a $6 operating profit per Wii unit sold.[251]
+
+On September 23, 2009, Nintendo announced its first price reductions for the console.[252] Nintendo sold more than three million Wii consoles in the U.S. in December 2009 (setting a regional record for the month and ending nine months of declining sales), due to the price cut and software releases such as New Super Mario Bros. Wii.[253][254] On January 31, 2010 the Wii became the best-selling home video-game console produced by Nintendo, with sales of over 67 million units (surpassing those of the original Nintendo Entertainment System).[255]
+
+In 2010, sales of the Wii began to decline, falling by 21 percent from the previous year.[256] The Wii continued to decline in 2011, with Nintendo's quarterly revenue dropping by 41 percent.[257] Despite a slowdown in sales, Nintendo reported that on Black Friday in 2011, over 500,000 Wii consoles were sold, making it the most successful Black Friday in the Wii's history.[258] Wii sales declined even further in 2012, having decreased by half from 2011.[259] The Wii Mini sold 35,700 units in its first two months of availability in Canada after being released on December 7, 2012.[260][261]
+
+The Wii surpassed 100 million units sold on June 30, 2013, selling 210,000 units between March and June 2013.[262]
+
+There were lawsuits concerning the Wii console, Wii Remote, and other accessories.
+
+Lonestar Inventions, L.P., a Texas-based company, sued Nintendo in June 2006, claiming that the company copied one of Lonestar's patented capacitor designs and used it in the Wii console.[263][264] The two companies agreed to dismiss all claims by July 20, 2009, alongside a settlement made between Lonestar and AMD, which provided Nintendo's microprocessor technology; whether the Lonestar-Nintendo dismissal included any out-of-court settlement terms was not clear.[265][263]
+
+Anascape Ltd, a Texas-based firm, filed a lawsuit in the Summer of 2006 against Nintendo for patent infringement regarding the vibrational feedback used by Nintendo's controllers.[266] A July 2008 verdict banned Nintendo from selling the Classic Controller in the United States, in addition to the GameCube and Wavebird controllers. Following an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit,[267] on April 22, 2010 the Federal Circuit Court ruled in Nintendo's favor.[268]
+
+Interlink Electronics Inc. filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Nintendo in December 2006 over the pointing functionality of the Wii Remote, claiming "loss of reasonable royalties, reduced sales and/or lost profits as a result of the infringing activities" of Nintendo.[269][270] The lawsuit was dismissed by Interlink in March 2007.[270][271]
+
+In August 2008, Hillcrest Laboratories Inc. filed a complaint against Nintendo with the U.S International Trade Commission, alleging that the Wii Remote infringed on three of its patents. A fourth Hillcrest patent (for graphical interfaces displayed on television screens) was also allegedly violated. Hillcrest sought a ban on Wii consoles imported to the U.S.[272] On August 24, 2009, Nintendo and Hillcrest reached a settlement, although the terms were not publicly disclosed.[273]
+
+In November 2008,[274] Motiva LLC filed a lawsuit against Nintendo in the U.S. International Trade Commission claiming that the Wii violated two of its patents for tracking body movement and position.[275] The USITC ruled in favour of Nintendo in January 2013, claiming that "Motiva's litigation was targeted at financial gains, not at encouraging adoption of Motiva’s patented technology,” and that “There is simply no reasonable likelihood that, after successful litigation against Nintendo, Motiva’s patented technology would have been licensed by partners who would have incorporated it.” The USITC also determined that Nintendo did not violate any of Motiva's patents.[276]
+
+In September 2011, ThinkOptics Inc. filed a lawsuit against Nintendo in United States District Court of the Eastern District of Texas over their controller, the Wavit Remote, claiming that the Wii violated its patent for a "handheld vision based absolute pointing system", a "Handheld Device for Handheld Vision Based Absolute Pointing System", and a "Handheld Vision Based Absolute Pointing System", which make up the basis for the Wavit Remote. They also said that the Wii U infringes on their patents as well and claims that Nintendo was aware of the fact that the Wii allegedly violates ThinkOptics' patents. The lawsuit sought an injunction against violating products, royalties, attorney's fees, and damages for lost profits.[277][278] The lawsuit was dismissed by ThinkOptics in August 2014.[279]
+
+Starting in December 2012, iLife Technologies Inc. sued several large companies over patent infringement over a set of patents they held related to "systems and methods for evaluating movement of a body relative to an environment", principally aimed at the medical field; Nintendo was sued by iLife in December 2013 for the Wii Remote's infringement on their patents, with the lawsuit seeking $144 million in damages, based on a $4 fine for the 36 million Wii and Wii U units it had sold to date.[280] A jury trial was heard in August 2017, and the jury ruled in favor of iLife Technologies and Nintendo was forced to pay US$10.1 million in damages.[281] While Nintendo appealed this decision, the United States Court of Appeals upheld the jury's decision in December 2017.[282] A federal judge overturned the decision in January 2020, ruling that iLife's patent was too broad.[283]
+
+The wrist strap of the Wii Remote has also been an issue.
+
+In mid-December 2006, the law firm Green Welling LLP filed a class action lawsuit against Nintendo for its "defective wrist straps". A few days later, Nintendo issued a product recall for the wrist straps and issued a new version of the strap with an improved securing mechanism for the wrist, leading to the lawsuit being dropped sometime thereafter.[284][285]
+
+A second class-action lawsuit was filed by a mother in Colorado in December 2008, claiming the updated wrist straps were still ineffective.[286] This suit was dismissed by September 2010, finding for Nintendo that the wrist straps were not knowingly faulty under Colorado consumer protection laws.[287]
+
+In 2000, the term "Weemote" was trademarked by Miami based TV remote manufacturer Fobis Technologies and was later used as the name of their remote designed for young children.[288][289] While spelled differently, "Weemote" is pronounced the same as "Wiimote", the unofficial term for the Wii Remote.[288][290] Sales of the Weemote, which totalled less than one million as of 2008 had fallen due to confusion with the Wiimote.[291] Fobis Technologies claims "Wiimote" to be trademark infringement, but Nintendo does not officially use this term, although many retailers do.[290] Fobis sent up to 100 cease and desist letters to retailers, and offered to sell Nintendo the trademark;[288][290] Nintendo declined, responding that it "does not use and does not plan to use the Weemote trademark".[292]
+
+The trademark application for the Wii was filed in 2006, but it was not registered by the US government until July 2010.[293]
+
+The trademark application for the Wii Remote was initially rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office after the trademark was filed in March 2008. The USPTO said that the word "remote" is commonly used, and therefore should not be trademarked. The USPTO said they would accept Nintendo's trademark filing if the company disclaimed exclusive rights to the word "remote" in the term and if the word “remote” would always follow the word “Wii” in marketing and manuals; the “Wii Remote” trademark was accepted in July 2012.[294][295]
+
+Nintendo announced the successor to the Wii, Wii U, at E3 2011.[296] The Wii U features a controller with an embedded touch screen and output 1080p high-definition graphics; it is fully backward-compatible with Wii games and peripherals for the Wii. The Wii remote, Nunchuk controller and balance board are compatible with Wii U games which include support for them.[297] The Wii U was released on November 18, 2012 in North America, November 30, 2012 in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, December 8, 2012 in Japan[298] and November 26, 2013 in Brazil.[299] The Wii U was discontinued worldwide on January 31, 2017.[300]

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+The Nintendo DS[a] or simply DS, is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and released by Nintendo. The device released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen",[4] introduced distinctive new features to handheld gaming: two LCD screens working in tandem (the bottom one being a touchscreen), a built-in microphone and support for wireless connectivity.[5] Both screens are encompassed within a clamshell design similar to the Game Boy Advance SP. The Nintendo DS also features the ability for multiple DS consoles to directly interact with each other over Wi-Fi within a short range without the need to connect to an existing wireless network. Alternatively, they could interact online using the now-defunct Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service. Its main competitor was Sony's PlayStation Portable during the seventh generation of video game consoles.
+
+Prior to its release, the Nintendo DS was marketed as an experimental "third pillar" in Nintendo's console lineup, meant to complement the Game Boy Advance and GameCube. However, backward compatibility with Game Boy Advance titles and strong sales ultimately established it as the successor to the Game Boy series.[6] On March 2, 2006, Nintendo launched the Nintendo DS Lite, a slimmer and lighter redesign of the original Nintendo DS with brighter screens. On November 1, 2008, Nintendo released the Nintendo DSi, another redesign with several hardware improvements and new features, although it lost backwards compatibility for Game Boy Advance titles and a few original DS games that used the GBA  slot. All Nintendo DS models combined have sold 154.02 million units,[7] making it the best selling handheld game console to date, and the second best selling video game console of all time behind Sony's PlayStation 2.[2][8] The Nintendo DS line was succeeded by the Nintendo 3DS family in 2011, which maintains backward compatibility with nearly all Nintendo DS software except for some software that requires the GBA slot for use.
+
+Development on the Nintendo DS began around mid-2002, following an original idea from former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi about a dual-screened console.[9] On November 13, 2003, Nintendo announced that it would be releasing a new game product in 2004. The company did not provide many details, but stated it would not succeed the Game Boy Advance or GameCube.[10] On January 20, 2004, the console was announced under the codename "Nintendo DS".[11] Nintendo released only a few details at that time, saying that the console would have two separate, 3-inch TFT LCD display panels, separate processors, and up to 1 gigabit (128 Megabytes) of semiconductor memory.[11][12] Current Nintendo president at the time, Satoru Iwata, said, "We have developed Nintendo DS based upon a completely different concept from existing game devices in order to provide players with a unique entertainment experience for the 21st century."[11] He also expressed optimism that the DS would help put Nintendo back at the forefront of innovation and move away from the conservative image that has been described about the company in years past.[13] In March 2004, a document containing most of the console's technical specifications was leaked, also revealing its internal development name, "Nitro".[14] In May 2004, the console was shown in prototype form at E3 2004, still under the name "Nintendo DS".[15] On July 28, 2004, Nintendo revealed a new design that was described as "sleeker and more elegant" than the one shown at E3 and announced Nintendo DS as the device's official name.[16] Following lukewarm GameCube sales, Hiroshi Yamauchi stressed the importance of its success to the company's future, making a statement which can be translated from Japanese as, "If the DS succeeds, we will rise to heaven, but if it fails we will sink to hell."[17][18]
+
+President Iwata referred to Nintendo DS as "Nintendo's first hardware launch in support of the basic strategy 'Gaming Population Expansion'" because the touch-based device "allows users to play intuitively".[19] On September 20, 2004, Nintendo announced that the Nintendo DS would be released in North America on November 21, 2004 for US$149.99.[20] It was set to release on December 2, 2004 in Japan (¥15000);[21] on February 24, 2005 in Australia ($199.95);[22] and on March 11, 2005 in Europe (£99.99/€149.99).[23] The console was released in North America with a midnight launch event at Universal CityWalk EB Games in Los Angeles, California. The console was launched quietly in Japan compared to the North America launch; one source cites the cold weather as the reason.[24] Regarding the European launch, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said this:
+
+"Europe is an extremely important market for Nintendo, and we are pleased we can offer such a short period of time between the US and European launch. We believe that the Nintendo DS will change the way people play video games and our mission remains to expand the game play experience. Nintendo DS caters for the needs of all gamers whether for more dedicated gamers who want the real challenge they expect, or the more casual gamers who want quick, pick up and play fun".[25]
+
+The Nintendo DS was launched in North America for US$149.99 on November 21, 2004; in Japan for JP¥15,000 on December 2 in the color "Titanium". Well over three million preorders were taken in North America and Japan; preorders at online stores were launched on November 3, and ended the same day as merchants had already sold their allotment. Initially Nintendo planned to deliver one million units combined at the North American and Japanese launches; when it saw the preorder numbers, it brought another factory online to ramp up production. Nintendo originally slated 300,000 units for the U.S. debut; 550,000 were shipped, and just over 500,000 of those sold through in the first week. Later in 2005, the manufacturer suggested retail price for the Nintendo DS was dropped to US$129.99.
+
+Both launches proved to be successful, but Nintendo chose to release the DS in North America prior to Japan, a first for a hardware launch from the Kyoto-based company. This choice was made to get the DS out for the largest shopping day of the year in the U.S. (the day after Thanksgiving, also known as "Black Friday").[26] Perhaps partly due to the release date, the DS met unexpectedly high demand in the United States, selling 1 million units by December 21, 2004. By the end of December, the total number shipped worldwide was 2.8 million, about 800,000 more than Nintendo's original forecast.[27] At least 1.2 million of them were sold in the U.S. Some industry reporters referred to it as "the Tickle Me Elmo of 2004".[28] In June 2005, Nintendo informed the press that a total of 6.65 million units had been sold worldwide.[29]
+
+As is normal for electronics, some were reported as having problems with stuck pixels in either of the two screens. Return policies for LCD displays vary between manufacturers and regions, however in North America, Nintendo has chosen to replace a system with fixed pixels only if the owner claims that it interferes with their gaming experience. There were  two exchange programs in place for North America. In the first, the owner of the defective DS in question would provide a valid credit card number and, afterwards, Nintendo would ship a new DS system to the owner with shipping supplies to return the defective system. In the second, the owner of the defective DS in question would have shipped their system to Nintendo for inspection. After inspection, Nintendo technicians would have either shipped a replacement system or fixed the defective system. The first option allowed the owner to have a new DS in 3–5 business days.
+
+Multiple games were released alongside the DS during its North American launch on November 21, 2004. At launch there was one pack-in demo, in addition to the built-in PictoChat program: Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt (published by Nintendo and is a demo for Metroid Prime Hunters, a game released in March 2006). At the time of the "Electric Blue" DS launch in June 2005, Nintendo bundled the system with Super Mario 64 DS.
+
+In Japan, the games were released at the same time as the system's first release (December 2, 2004). In the launch period, The Prince of Tennis 2005 -Crystal Drive- (Konami) and Puyo Puyo Fever (Puyo Pop Fever) (Sega) were released.
+
+The DS was released in Europe on March 11, 2005 for €149. A small supply of units were available prior to this in a package with a promotional "VIP" T-shirt, Metroid Prime Hunters - First Hunt, a WarioWare: Touched! demo, and a pre-release version of Super Mario 64 DS, through the Nintendo Stars Catalogue; the bundle was priced at £129.99 for the UK and €189.99 for the rest of Europe, plus 1,000 of Nintendo's "star" loyalty points (to cover postage). As of 23 January 2006[update], 1 million DS units had been sold in Europe, setting a sales record for a handheld console.
+
+The European release of the DS, like the U.S., was originally packaged with a Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt demo. The European packaging for the console is noticeably more "aggressive" than that of the U.S./Japanese release.[clarification needed][citation needed] The European game cases are additionally about 1/4 inch thicker than their North American counterparts and transparent rather than solid black. Inside the case there is room for one Game Boy Advance game pak and a DS card with the instructions on the left side of the case.
+
+The DS launched in Australia and New Zealand on February 24, 2005. It retailed in Australia for AU$199 and in New Zealand for NZ$249. Like the North American launch, it includes the Metroid Prime Hunters - First Hunt demo. The first week of sales for the system broke Australian launch sales records for a console, with 19,191 units sold by the 27th.
+
+"iQue DS", the official name of the Chinese Nintendo DS, was released in China on July 23, 2005. The price of the iQue DS was 980 RMB (roughly US$130) as of April 2006. This version of the DS includes updated firmware to block out use of the PassMe device, along with the new Red DS. Chinese launch games were Zhi Gan Yi Bi (Polarium) (Nintendo/iQue) and Momo Waliou Zhizao (WarioWare: Touched!) (Nintendo/iQue). The iQue was also the name of the device that China received instead of the Nintendo 64.
+
+The system's promotional slogans revolve around the word "Touch" in almost all countries, with the North American slogan being "Touching is good."[30]
+
+The Nintendo DS was seen by many analysts to be in the same market as Sony's PlayStation Portable, although representatives from both companies have said that each system targets a different audience.[citation needed] Time magazine awarded the DS a Gadget of the Week award.[31]
+
+At the time of its release in the United States, the Nintendo DS retailed for US$149.99. The price dropped to US$129.99 on August 21, 2005, one day before the releases of Nintendogs and Advance Wars: Dual Strike.
+
+Nine official colors of the Nintendo DS were available through standard retailers. Titanium-colored units were available worldwide, Electric Blue was exclusive to North and Latin America. There was also a red version which was bundled with the game Mario Kart DS. Graphite Black, Pure White, Turquoise Blue, and Candy Pink were available in Japan. Mystic Pink and Cosmic Blue were available in Australia and New Zealand. Japan's Candy Pink and Australia's Cosmic Blue were also available in Europe and North America through a Nintendogs bundle, although the colors are just referred to as pink and blue; however, these colors were available only for the original style Nintendo DS; a different and more-limited set of colors were used for the Nintendo DS Lite.
+
+As of March 31, 2016, all Nintendo DS models combined have sold 154.02 million units, making it the best selling handheld game console to date, and the second best selling video game console of all time.[2][32]
+
+The success of the DS paved the way for its successor, the Nintendo 3DS, a handheld gaming console with a similar dual-screen setup which can display images on the top screen in stereoscopic 3D.[33]
+
+On January 29, 2014, Nintendo announced that Nintendo DS games would be added to the Wii U Virtual Console, with the first game, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!, being released in Japan on June 3, 2014.[34][35]
+
+The Nintendo DS[36] design resembles that of the multi-screen games from the Game & Watch line, such as Donkey Kong and Zelda, which was also made by Nintendo.
+
+The lower display of the Nintendo DS is overlaid with a resistive touchscreen designed to accept input from the included stylus, the user's fingers, or a curved plastic tab attached to the optional wrist strap. The touchscreen lets users interact with in-game elements more directly than by pressing buttons; for example, in the included chatting software, PictoChat, the stylus is used to write messages or draw.
+
+The handheld features four lettered buttons (X, Y, A, B), a directional pad, and Start, Select, and Power buttons. On the top of the device are two shoulder buttons, a game card slot, a stylus holder and a power cable input. The bottom features the Game Boy Advance game card slot. The overall button layout resembles that of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System controller. When using backward compatibility mode on the DS, buttons X and Y and the touchscreen are not used as the Game Boy Advance line of systems do not feature these controls.
+
+It also has stereo speakers providing virtual surround sound (depending on the software) located on either side of the upper display screen. This was a first for a Nintendo handheld, as the Game Boy line of systems had only supported stereo sound through the use of headphones or external speakers. A built-in microphone is located below the left side of the bottom screen. It has been used for a variety of purposes, including speech recognition, chatting online between and during gameplay sessions, and minigames that require the player to blow or shout into it.
+
+The Nintendo DS Lite[b] is the first redesign of the Nintendo DS. While retaining the original model's basic characteristics, it features a sleeker appearance, larger stylus, longer lasting battery and brighter screens.[37] Nintendo considered a larger model of the Nintendo DS Lite for release, but decided against it as sales of the original redesign were still strong. It was the final DS to have backwards compatibility with Game Boy Advance games.[38] As of March 31, 2014, shipments of the DS Lite had reached 93.86 million units worldwide, according to Nintendo.[2]
+
+The Nintendo DSi[c] is the second redesign of the Nintendo DS. It is based on the unreleased larger Nintendo DS Lite model. While similar to the previous DS redesign, new features include two inner and outer 0.3 megapixel digital cameras, a larger 3.25 inch display, internal and external content storage, compatibility with WPA wireless encryption, and connectivity to the Nintendo DSi Shop.
+
+The Nintendo DSi XL (DSi LL in Japan) is a larger design of the Nintendo DSi, and the first model of the Nintendo DS family of consoles to be a size variation of a previous one.[39] It features larger screens with wider view angles, improved battery life, and a greater overall size than the original DSi.[40][41] While the original DSi was specifically designed for individual use, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata suggested that DSi XL buyers give the console a "steady place on a table in the living room", so that it might be shared by multiple household members.[39]
+
+62 mm × 46 mm (2.4 in × 1.8 in), 77 mm (3.0 in) diagonal, 0.24 mm dot pitch, 18-bit depth (262,144 colors), 21 mm gap between screens (≈92 lines)
+
+The system's 3D hardware[36][44] consists of rendering engine and geometry engine which perform transform and lighting, Transparency Auto Sorting, Transparency Effects, Texture Matrix Effects, 2D Billboards, Texture Streaming, texture-coordinate transformation, perspective-correct texture mapping, per-pixel Alpha Test, per-primitive alpha blending, texture blending, Gouraud Shading, cel shading, z-buffering, W-Buffering, 1bit Stencil Buffer, per-vertex directional lighting and simulated point lighting, Depth Test, Stencil Test, Render to Texture, Lightmapping, Environment Mapping, Shadow Volumes, Shadow Mapping, Distance Fog, Edge Marking, Fade-In/Fade-Out, Edge-AA. Sprite special effects: scrolling, scaling, rotation, stretching, shear. However, it uses point (nearest neighbor) texture filtering, leading to some titles having a blocky appearance. Unlike most 3D hardware, it has a set limit on the number of triangles it can render as part of a single scene; the maximum amount is about 6144 vertices, or 2048 triangles per frame. The 3D hardware is designed to render to a single screen at a time, so rendering 3D to both screens is difficult and decreases performance significantly. The DS is generally more limited by its polygon budget than its pixel fill rate. There are also 512 kilobytes of texture memory, and the maximum texture size is 1024 × 1024 pixels.
+
+The system has 656 kilobytes of video memory[45] and two 2D engines (one per screen). These are similar to (but more powerful than) the Game Boy Advance's single 2D engine.
+
+The Nintendo DS has compatibility with Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 (legacy mode)). Wi-Fi is used for accessing the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, compete with other users playing the same Wi-Fi compatible game, PictoChat[46] or with a special cartridge and RAM extension, browse the internet.
+
+Nintendo claims the battery lasts a maximum of 10 hours under ideal conditions on a full four-hour charge. Battery life is affected by multiple factors including speaker volume, use of one or both screens, use of wireless connectivity, and use of backlight, which can be turned on or off in selected games such as Super Mario 64 DS. The battery is user-replaceable using only a Phillips-head screwdriver. After about 500 charges the battery life starts dropping.[47]
+
+Users can close the Nintendo DS system to trigger its 'sleep' mode, which pauses the game being played and saves battery life by turning off the screens, speakers, and wireless communications; however, closing the system while playing a Game Boy Advance game will not put the Nintendo DS into sleep mode, and the game will continue to run normally. Certain DS games (such as Animal Crossing: Wild World) also will not pause but the backlight, screens, and speakers will turn off. Additionally, when saving the game in certain games,[48] the DS will not go into sleep mode.[49] Some games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass even use the closing motion needed to enter sleep mode as an unorthodox way of solving puzzles. Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck has a game mode in which you need to close the DS to play, helping Daffy Duck hunt a monster with the shoulder buttons.
+
+Although the secondary port on the Nintendo DS does accept and support Game Boy Advance cartridges (but not Game Boy or Game Boy Color cartridges), Nintendo emphasized that the main intention for its inclusion was to allow a wide variety of accessories to be released for the system.
+
+Due to the lack of a second port on the Nintendo DSi, it is not compatible with any accessory that uses it.
+
+The Rumble Pak was the first official expansion slot accessory. In the form of a Game Boy Advance cartridge, the Rumble Pak vibrates to reflect the action in compatible games, such as when the player bumps into an obstacle or loses a life. It was released in North America and Japan in 2005 bundled with Metroid Prime Pinball.[50] In Europe, it was first available with the game Actionloop, and later Metroid Prime Pinball. The Rumble Pak was also released separately in those regions.
+
+The Nintendo DS Headset is the official headset for the Nintendo DS. It plugs into the headset port (which is a combination of a standard 3.5 mm (1/8 in) headphone connector and a proprietary microphone connector) on the bottom of the system. It features one earphone and a microphone, and is compatible with all games that use the internal microphone. It was released alongside Pokémon Diamond and Pearl in Japan, North America, and Australia.
+
+On February 15, 2006, Nintendo announced a version of the cross-platform web browser Opera for the DS system.[51] The browser can use one screen as an overview, a zoomed portion of which appears on the other screen, or both screens together to present a single tall view of the page.[52] The browser went on sale in Japan and Europe in 2006,[53][54] and in North America on June 4, 2007.[55] Browser operation requires that an included memory expansion pak is inserted into the GBA slot. The DSi has an internet browser available for download from the Nintendo DSi shop for free.[56]
+
+This USB-flash-disk-sized accessory plugs into a PC's USB port and creates a miniature hotspot/wireless access point, allowing a Wii and up to five Nintendo DS units to access the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service through the host computer's Internet connection. When tried under Linux and Mac, it acts as a regular wireless adapter, connecting to wireless networks, an LED blinks when there is data being transferred. There is also a hacked driver for Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10 to make it function the same way. The Wi-Fi USB Connector was discontinued from retail stores.
+
+The Nintendo MP3 Player (a modified version of the device known as the Play-Yan in Japan) was released on December 8, 2006 by Nintendo of Europe at a retail price of £29.99/€30. The add-on uses removable SD cards to store MP3 audio files, and can be used in any device that features support for Game Boy Advance cartridges; however, due to this, it is limited in terms of its user-interface and functionality, as it does not support using both screens of the DS simultaneously, nor does it make use of its touch-screen capability. It is not compatible with the DSi, due to the lack of the GBA slot, but the DSi includes a music player via SD card. Although it stated on the box that it is only compatible with the Game Boy Micro, Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite, it is also compatible with the Game Boy Advance SP and Game Boy Advance.
+
+The Guitar grip controller comes packaged with the game Guitar Hero: On Tour and is plugged into the GBA game slot. It features four colored buttons like the ones found on regular Guitar Hero guitar controllers for the stationary consoles, though it lacks the fifth orange button found on the guitar controllers. The DS Guitar Hero controller comes with a small "pick-stylus" (which is shaped like a guitar pick, as the name suggests) that can be put away into a small slot on the controller. It also features a hand strap. The game works with both the DS Lite and the original Nintendo DS as it comes with an adapter for the original DS.[57] The Guitar Grip also works with its sequels, Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades, Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits, and Band Hero.
+
+Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection was a free online game service run by Nintendo. Players with a compatible Nintendo DS game could connect to the service via a Wi-Fi network using a Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector or a wireless router. The service was launched in North America on November 14, 2005 with the release of Mario Kart DS.[58] Various online games and a web browser were released afterwards, with Nintendo later believing that the online platform's success directly propelled the commercial success of the entire Nintendo DS platform. The Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection served as part of the basis of what would become the Wii.[59] Most functions (for games on both the DS and Wii consoles) were discontinued worldwide on May 20, 2014.[60]
+
+With Download Play, it is possible for users to play multiplayer games with other Nintendo DS systems, and later Nintendo 3DS systems, using only one game card. Players must have their systems within wireless range (up to approximately 65 feet) of each other for the guest system to download the necessary data from the host system. Only certain games supported this feature and usually played with much more limited features than the full game allowed.
+
+Download Play is also utilized to migrate Pokémon from fourth generation games into the fifth generation Pokémon Black and White, an example of a task requiring two different game cards, two handheld units, but only one player.
+
+Some Nintendo DS retailers featured DS Download Stations that allowed users to download demos of current and upcoming DS games; however, due to memory limitations, the downloads were erased once the system was powered off. The Download Station was made up of 1 to 8 standard retail DS units, with a standard DS card containing the demo data. On May 7, 2008, Nintendo released the Nintendo Channel for download on the Wii. The Nintendo Channel used WiiConnect24 to download Nintendo DS demos through it. From there, a user can select the demo he/she wishes to play and, similar to the Nintendo DS Download Stations at retail outlets, download it (until the user turns off the console) to their DS.
+
+Multi-Card Play, like Download Play, allows users to play multiplayer games with other Nintendo DS systems. In this case, each system requires a game card. This mode is accessed from an in-game menu, rather than the normal DS menu.
+
+PictoChat allows users to communicate with other Nintendo DS users within local wireless range. Users can enter text (via an on screen keyboard), handwrite messages or draw pictures (via the stylus and touchscreen). There are four chatrooms (A, B, C, D) in which people can go to chat. Up to sixteen people can connect in any one room.
+
+On Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite systems, users can only write messages in black. However, in the DSi and DSi XL, there is a function that allows the user to write in any colour from the rainbow that cycles through the spectrum, meaning the user cannot choose a color.
+
+PictoChat was not available for the subsequent Nintendo 3DS series of systems.
+
+Nintendo's own firmware boots the system. A health and safety warning is displayed first, then the main menu is loaded. The main menu presents the player with four main options to select: play a DS game, use PictoChat, initiate DS Download Play, or play a Game Boy Advance game. The main menu also has secondary options such as turning on or off the back light, the system settings, and an alarm.
+
+The firmware also features a clock, several options for customization (such as boot priority for when games are inserted and GBA screen preferences), and the ability to input user information and preferences (such as name, birthday, favorite color, etc.) that can be used in games.
+
+It supports the following languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, and Italian.
+
+The Nintendo DS is backward compatible with Game Boy Advance (GBA) cartridges. The smaller Nintendo DS game cards fit into a slot on the top of the system, while Game Boy Advance games fit into a slot on the bottom. The Nintendo DS, like the Game Boy Micro, is not backward compatible with games for the Game Boy Color and the original Game Boy because the Sharp Z80 compatible processor is not included and the console has physical incompatibility with Game Boy and Game Boy Color games.[61][62] The original Game Boy sound processor, however, is still included to maintain compatibility for GBA games that use the older sound hardware.[citation needed]
+
+The handheld does not have a port for the Game Boy Advance Link Cable, so multiplayer and GameCube–Game Boy Advance link-up modes are not available in Game Boy Advance titles. Only single-player mode is supported on the Nintendo DS, as is the case with Game Boy Advance games played via the Virtual Console on the 3DS and Wii U.
+
+The Nintendo DS only uses one screen when playing Game Boy Advance games. The user can configure the system to use either the top or bottom screen by default. The games are displayed within a black border on the screen, due to the slightly different screen resolution between the two systems (256 × 192 px for the Nintendo DS, and 240 × 160 px for the Game Boy Advance).
+
+Nintendo DS games inserted into the top slot are able to detect the presence of specific Game Boy Advance games in the bottom slot. In many such games, either stated in-game during gameplay or explained in its instruction manual, extra content can be unlocked or added by starting the Nintendo DS game with the appropriate Game Boy Advance game inserted. Among those games were the popular Pokémon Diamond and Pearl or Pokémon Platinum, which allowed the player to find more/exclusive Pokémon in the wild if a suitable Game Boy Advance cartridge was inserted.[63] Some of the content can stay permanently, even after the GBA game has been removed.
+
+Additionally, the GBA slot can be used to house expansion paks, such as the Rumble Pak, Nintendo DS Memory Expansion Pak, and Guitar Grips for the Guitar Hero: On Tour series. The Nintendo DSi and the DSi XL have an SD card slot instead of a second cartridge slot and cannot play Game Boy Advance games or Guitar Hero: On Tour.
+
+The Nintendo DS is region free in the sense that any console will run a Nintendo DS game purchased anywhere in the world; however, the Chinese iQue DS games cannot be played on other versions of the original DS, whose larger firmware chip contains the required Chinese character glyph images; this restriction is removed on Nintendo DSi and 3DS systems. Although the Nintendo DS of other regions cannot play the Chinese games, the iQue DS can play games of other regions. Also, as with Game Boy games, some games that require both players to have a Nintendo DS game card for multiplayer play will not necessarily work together if the games are from different regions (e.g. a Japanese Nintendo DS game may not work with a North American copy, even though some titles, such as Mario Kart DS and Pokémon Diamond and Pearl versions are mutually compatible). With the addition of the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, certain games can be played over the Internet with users of a different region game.
+
+Some Wi-Fi enabled games (e.g. Mario Kart DS) allow the selection of opponents by region. The options are "Regional" ("Continent" in Europe) and "Worldwide", as well as two non-location specific settings. This allows the player to limit competitors to only those opponents based in the same geographical area. This is based on the region code of the game in use.[citation needed]
+
+The Nintendo DSi, however, has a region lock for DSiWare downloadable games, as well as DSi-specific cartridges. It still runs normal DS games of any region, however.
+
+Nintendo DS games use a proprietary solid state mask ROM in their game cards.[64] The mask ROM chips are manufactured by Macronix and have an access time of 150 ns.[65] Cards range from 8–512 MiB (64 Mib to 4 Gib) in size (although data on the maximum capacity has not been released).[66][67] Larger cards have a 25% slower data transfer rate than more common smaller cards.[68] The cards usually have a small amount of flash memory or an EEPROM to save user data such as game progress or high scores. However, there are few games that have no save memory, such as Electroplankton. The game cards are 35 mm × 33 mm × 3.8 mm (1.38 in × 1.30 in × 0.15 in) (about half the width and depth of Game Boy Advance cartridges) and weigh around 3.5 g (​1⁄8 oz).
+
+Since the release of the Nintendo DS, a great deal of hacking has occurred involving the DS's fully rewritable firmware, Wi-Fi connection, game cards that allow SD storage, and software use. There are now many emulators for the DS, as well as the NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, Neo-Geo Pocket, Neo-Geo MVS (arcade), and older handheld consoles like the Game Boy Color.
+
+There are a number of cards which either have built-in flash memory, or a slot which can accept an SD, or MicroSD (like the DSTT, R4 and ez-flash V/Vi) cards. These cards typically enable DS console gamers to use their console to play MP3s and videos, and other non-gaming functions traditionally reserved for separate devices.[69]
+
+In South Korea, many video game consumers exploit illegal copies of video games, including for the Nintendo DS. In 2007, 500,000 copies of DS games were sold, while the sales of the DS hardware units was 800,000.[70]
+
+Another modification device called Action Replay, manufactured by the company Datel, is a device which allows the user to input cheat codes that allows it to hack games, granting the player infinite health, power-ups, access to any part of the game, infinite in game currency, the ability to walk through walls, and various other abilities depending on the game and code used.

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+
+
+The metre (Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling) (from the French unit mètre, from the Greek noun μέτρον, "measure") is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). The SI unit symbol is m.
+The metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 of a second.
+The metre was originally defined in 1793 as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle, so the Earth's circumference is approximately 40000 km. In 1799, the metre was redefined in terms of a prototype metre bar (the actual bar used was changed in 1889). In 1960, the metre was redefined in terms of a certain number of wavelengths of a certain emission line of krypton-86. The current definition was adopted in 1983 and slightly updated in 2019.
+
+Metre is the standard spelling of the metric unit for length in nearly all English-speaking nations except the United States[2][3][4][5] and the Philippines,[6] which use meter. Other Germanic languages, such as German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages[7]  likewise spell the word meter.
+
+Measuring devices (such as ammeter, speedometer) are spelled "-meter" in all variants of English.[8] The suffix "-meter" has the same Greek origin as the unit of length.[9][10]
+
+The etymological roots of metre can be traced to the Greek verb μετρέω (metreo) (to measure, count or compare) and noun μέτρον (metron) (a measure), which were used for physical measurement, for poetic metre and by extension for moderation or avoiding extremism (as in "be measured in your response"). This range of uses is also found in Latin (metior, mensura), French (mètre, mesure), English and other languages.  The motto ΜΕΤΡΩ ΧΡΩ (metro chro) in the seal of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), which was a saying of the Greek statesman and philosopher Pittacus of Mytilene and may be translated as "Use measure!", thus calls for both measurement and moderation. The use of the word metre (for the French unit mètre) in English began at least as early as 1797.[11]
+
+In 1671 Jean Picard measured the length of a "seconds pendulum" (a pendulum with a period of two seconds) at the Paris observatory. He found the value of 440.5 lines of the Toise of Châtelet which had been recently renewed. He proposed a universal toise (French: Toise universelle) which was twice the length of the seconds pendulum.[12][13] However, it was soon discovered that the length of a seconds pendulum varies from place to place: French astronomer Jean Richer had measured the 0.3% difference in length between Cayenne (in French Guiana) and Paris.[14][15][16]
+
+Jean Richer and Giovanni Domenico Cassini measured the parallax of Mars between Paris and Cayenne in French Guiana when Mars was at its closest to Earth in 1672. They arrived at a figure for the solar parallax of 9.5 arcseconds, equivalent to an Earth–Sun distance of about 22000 Earth radii. They were also the first astronomers to have access to an accurate and reliable value for the radius of Earth, which had been measured by their colleague Jean Picard in 1669 as 3269 thousand toises. Picard's geodetic observations had been confined to the determination of the magnitude of the Earth considered as a sphere, but the discovery made by Jean Richer turned the attention of mathematicians to its deviation from a spherical form. In addition to its significance for cartography, the determination of the Figure of the Earth became a problem of the highest importance in astronomy, inasmuch as the diameter of the Earth was the unit to which all celestial distances had to be referred.[17] [18][19][20]
+
+As a result of the French Revolution, the French Academy of Sciences charged a commission with determining a single scale for all measures. On 7 October 1790 that commission advised the adoption of a decimal system, and on 19 March 1791 advised the adoption of the term mètre ("measure"), a basic unit of length, which they defined as equal to one ten-millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator along the meridian through Paris.[21][22][23][24][25] In 1793, the French National Convention adopted the proposal.[11]
+
+The French Academy of Sciences commissioned an expedition led by Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre and Pierre Méchain, lasting from 1792 to 1799, which attempted to accurately measure the distance between a belfry in Dunkerque and Montjuïc castle in Barcelona at the longitude of Paris Panthéon.[26] The expedition was fictionalised in Denis Guedj, Le Mètre du Monde.[27] Ken Alder wrote factually about the expedition in The Measure of All Things: the seven year odyssey and hidden error that transformed the world.[28] This portion of  the Paris meridian, was to serve as the basis for the length of the half meridian connecting the North Pole with the Equator. From 1801 to 1812 France adopted this definition of the metre as its official unit of length based on results from this expedition combined with those of the Geodesic Mission to Peru.[29][30] The latter was related by Larrie D. Ferreiro in Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition that Reshaped Our World.[31]
+
+A more accurate determination of the Figure of the Earth would soon result from the measurement of the Struve Geodetic Arc (1816–1855) and would have given another value for the definition of this standard of length. This did not invalidate the metre but highlighted that progresses in science would allow better measurement of Earth's size and shape.[20] After the July Revolution of 1830 the metre became the definitive French standard from 1840. At that time it had already been adopted by Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler for the U.S Survey of the Coast.[29][32][33]
+
+"The unit of length to which all distances measured in the Coast Survey are referred is the French metre, an authentic copy of which is preserved in the archives of the Coast Survey Office. It is the property of the American Philosophical Society, to whom it was presented by Mr. Hassler, who had received it from Tralles, a member of the French Committee charged with  the construction of the standard metre by comparison with the toise, which had served as unit of length in the measurement of the meridional arcs in France and Peru. It possesses all the authenticity of any original metre extant, bearing not only the stamp of the Committee but also the original mark by which it was distiguished from the other bars during the operation of standarding. It is always designated as the Committee metre" (French : Mètre des Archives).[34]
+
+In 1830 President Andrew Jackson mandated Ferdinand Rudolf Hassler  to work out new standards for all U.S. states. According to the decision of the Congress of the United States, the British Parlementary Standard from 1758 was introduced as the unit of length.[35] Another geodesist with metrology skills was to play a pivotal role in the process of internationalization of weights and measures, Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero who would become the first president of both the International Geodetic Association and the International Committee for Weights and Measures.[36]
+
+In 1867 at the second general conference of the International Association of Geodesy held in Berlin, the question of an international standard unit of length was discussed in order to combine the measurements made in different countries to determine the size and shape of the Earth.[37][38][39] The conference recommended the adoption of the metre in replacement of the toise and the creation of an international metre commission, according to the proposal of Johann Jacob Baeyer, Adolphe Hirsch and Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero who had devised two geodetic standards calibrated on the metre for the map of Spain.[33][37][39][40] Measurement traceability between the toise and the metre was ensured by comparison of the Spanish standard with the standard devised by Borda and Lavoisier for the survey of the meridian arc connecting Dunkirk with Barcelona.[36][40][41]
+
+A member of the Preparatory Committee since 1870 and Spanish representative at the Paris Conference in 1875, Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero intervened with the French Academy of Sciences to rally France to the project to create an International Bureau of Weights and Measures equipped with the scientific means necessary to redefine the units of the metric system according to the progress of sciences.[42]
+
+In the 1870s and in light of modern precision, a series of international conferences was held to devise new metric standards. The Metre Convention (Convention du Mètre) of 1875 mandated the establishment of a permanent International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM: Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) to be located in Sèvres, France. This new organisation was to construct and preserve a prototype metre bar, distribute national metric prototypes, and maintain comparisons between them and non-metric measurement standards. The organisation distributed such bars in 1889 at the first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM: Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures), establishing the International Prototype Metre as the distance between two lines on a standard bar composed of an alloy of 90% platinum and 10% iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.[43]
+
+The comparison of the new prototypes of the metre with each other and with the Committee metre (French: Mètre des Archives) involved the development of special measuring equipment and the definition of a reproducible temperature scale. The BIPM's thermometry work led to the discovery of special alloys of iron-nickel, in particular invar, for which its director, the Swiss physicist Charles-Edouard Guillaume, was granted the Nobel Prize for physics in 1920.[44]
+
+As Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero stated, the progress of metrology combined with those of gravimetry through improvement of Kater's pendulum led to a new era of geodesy. If precision metrology had needed the help of geodesy, the latter could not continue to prosper without the help of metrology. Indeed, how to express all the measurements of terrestrial arcs as a function of a single unit, and all the determinations of the force of gravity with the pendulum, if metrology had not created a common unit, adopted and respected by all civilized nations, and if in addition one had not compared, with great precision, to the same unit all the standards for measuring geodesic bases, and all the pendulum rods that had hitherto been used or would be used in the future? Only when this series of metrological comparisons would be finished with a probable error of a thousandth of a millimetre would geodesy be able to link the works of the different nations with one another, and then proclaim the result of the last measurement of the Globe. As the figure of the Earth could be inferred from variations of the seconds pendulum length with latitude, the United States Coast Survey instructed Charles Sanders Peirce in the spring of 1875 to proceed to Europe for the purpose of making pendulum experiments to chief initial stations for operations of this sort, in order to bring the determinations of the forces of gravity in America into communication with those of other parts of the world; and also for the purpose of making a careful study of the methods of pursuing these researches in the different countries of Europe. In 1886 the association of geodesy changed name for the International Geodetic Association, which Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero presided up to his death in 1891. During this period the International Geodetic Association (German: Internationale Erdmessung) gained worldwide importance with the joining of United States, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Japan.[36][45][46][47][48][49]
+
+Efforts to supplement the various national surveying systems, which begun in the 19th century with the foundation of the Mitteleuropäische Gradmessung, resulted in a series of global ellipsoids of the Earth (e.g., Helmert 1906, Hayford 1910/1924) which would later lead to develop the World Geodetic System. Nowadays the practical realisation of the metre is possible everywhere thanks to the atomic clocks embedded in GPS satellites.[50][51]
+
+In 1873, James Clerk Maxwell suggested that light emitted by an element be used as the standard both for the meter and for the second. These two quantities could then be used to define the unit of mass.[52]
+
+In 1893, the standard metre was first measured with an interferometer by Albert A. Michelson, the inventor of the device and an advocate of using some particular wavelength of light as a standard of length. By 1925, interferometry was in regular use at the BIPM. However, the International Prototype Metre remained the standard until 1960, when the eleventh CGPM defined the metre in the new International System of Units (SI) as equal to 1650763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum.[53]
+
+To further reduce uncertainty, the 17th CGPM in 1983 replaced the definition of the metre with its current definition, thus fixing the length of the metre in terms of the second and the speed of light:[54]
+
+This definition fixed the speed of light in vacuum at exactly 299792458 metres per second (≈300000 km/s).[54] An intended by-product of the 17th CGPM's definition was that it enabled scientists to compare lasers accurately using frequency, resulting in wavelengths with one-fifth the uncertainty involved in the direct comparison of wavelengths, because interferometer errors were eliminated. To further facilitate reproducibility from lab to lab, the 17th CGPM also made the iodine-stabilised helium–neon laser "a recommended radiation" for realising the metre.[55] For the purpose of delineating the metre, the BIPM currently considers the HeNe laser wavelength, λHeNe, to be 632.99121258 nm with an estimated relative standard uncertainty (U) of 2.1×10−11.[55][56][57] This uncertainty is currently one limiting factor in laboratory realisations of the metre, and it is several orders of magnitude poorer than that of the second, based upon the caesium fountain atomic clock (U = 5×10−16).[58] Consequently, a  realisation of the metre is usually delineated (not defined) today in labs as 1579800.762042(33) wavelengths of helium-neon laser light in a vacuum, the error stated being only that of frequency determination.[55] This bracket notation expressing the error is explained in the article on measurement uncertainty.
+
+Practical realisation of the metre is subject to uncertainties in characterising the medium, to various uncertainties of interferometry, and to uncertainties in measuring the frequency of the source.[59] A commonly used medium is air, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has set up an online calculator to convert wavelengths in vacuum to wavelengths in air.[60] As described by NIST, in air, the uncertainties in characterising the medium are dominated by errors in measuring temperature and pressure. Errors in the theoretical formulas used are secondary.[61] By implementing a refractive index correction such as this, an approximate realisation of the metre can be implemented in air, for example, using the formulation of the metre as 1579800.762042(33) wavelengths of helium–neon laser light in vacuum, and converting the wavelengths in a vacuum to wavelengths in air. Air is only one possible medium to use in a realisation of the metre, and any partial vacuum can be used, or some inert atmosphere like helium gas, provided the appropriate corrections for refractive index are implemented.[62]
+
+The metre is defined as the path length travelled by light in a given time and practical laboratory length measurements in metres are determined by counting the number of wavelengths of laser light of one of the standard types that fit into the length,[65] and converting the selected unit of wavelength to metres. Three major factors limit the accuracy attainable with laser interferometers for a length measurement:[59][66]
+
+Of these, the last is peculiar to the interferometer itself. The conversion of a length in wavelengths to a length in metres is based upon the relation
+
+which converts the unit of wavelength λ to metres using c, the speed of light in vacuum in m/s. Here n is the refractive index of the medium in which the measurement is made, and f is the measured frequency of the source. Although conversion from wavelengths to metres introduces an additional error in the overall length due to measurement error in determining the refractive index and the frequency, the measurement of frequency is one of the most accurate measurements available.[66]
+
+SI prefixes are often employed to denote decimal multiples and submultiples of the metre, as shown in the table below. As indicated in the table, some are commonly used, while others are not. Long distances are usually expressed in km, astronomical units (149.6 Gm), light-years (10 Pm), or parsecs (31 Pm), rather than in Mm, Gm, Tm, Pm, Em, Zm or Ym; "30 cm", "30 m", and "300 m" are more common than "3 dm", "3 dam", and "3 hm", respectively.
+
+The terms micron and (occasionally) millimicron are often used instead of micrometre (μm) and nanometre (nm), but this practice is officially discouraged.[76]
+
+
+
+Within this table, "inch" and "yard" mean "international inch" and "international yard"[77] respectively, though approximate conversions in the left column hold for both international and survey units.
+
+One metre is exactly equivalent to 5 000/127 inches and to 1 250/1 143 yards.
+
+A simple mnemonic aid exists to assist with conversion, as three "3"s:
+
+The ancient Egyptian cubit was about 0.5 m (surviving rods are 523–529 mm).[78] Scottish and English definitions of the ell (two cubits) were 941 mm (0.941 m) and 1143 mm (1.143 m) respectively.[79][80] The ancient Parisian toise (fathom) was slightly shorter than 2 m and was standardised at exactly 2 m in the mesures usuelles system, such that 1 m was exactly ​1⁄2 toise.[81] The Russian verst was 1.0668 km.[82] The Swedish mil was 10.688 km, but was changed to 10 km when Sweden converted to metric units.[83]

en/4138.html.txt

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+Nobility is a social class  normally ranked immediately below royalty and found in some societies that have a formal aristocracy.  Nobility possesses more acknowledged privileges and higher social status than most other classes in society.  The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be largely honorary (e.g., precedence), and vary by country and era. As referred to in the Medieval chivalric motto noblesse oblige ("nobility obliges"), nobles can also carry a lifelong duty to uphold various social responsibilities, such as honourable behaviour, customary service,[clarification needed] or leadership positions. Membership in the nobility, including rights and responsibilities, is typically hereditary.
+
+Membership in the nobility has historically been granted by a monarch or government, unlike other social classes where membership is determined solely by wealth, lifestyle, or affiliation.[clarification needed] Nonetheless, acquisition of sufficient power, wealth, military prowess, or royal favour has occasionally enabled commoners to ascend into the nobility.[1]
+
+There are often a variety of ranks within the noble class. Legal recognition of nobility has been more common in monarchies, but nobility also existed in such regimes as the Dutch Republic (1581–1795), the Republic of Genoa (1005–1815), the Republic of Venice (697–1797), and the Old Swiss Confederacy (1300–1798), and remains part of the legal social structure of some non-hereditary regimes, e.g., San Marino, and the Vatican City in Europe.
+
+Hereditary titles and styles added to names (such as "Prince" or "Lord" or "Lady"), as well as honorifics often distinguish nobles from non-nobles in conversation and written speech. In many nations most of the nobility have been un-titled, and some hereditary titles do not indicate nobility (e.g., vidame).  Some countries have had non-hereditary nobility, such as the Empire of Brazil or life peers in the United Kingdom.
+
+The term derives from Latin nobilitas, the abstract noun of the adjective nobilis ("noble but also secondarily well-known, famous, notable").[2] In ancient Roman society, nobiles originated as an informal designation for the political governing class who had allied interests, including both patricians and plebeian families (gentes) with an ancestor who had risen to the consulship through his own merit (see novus homo, "new man").
+
+In modern usage, "nobility" is applied to the highest social class in pre-modern societies, excepting the ruling dynasty.[3] In the feudal system (in Europe and elsewhere), the nobility were generally those who held a fief, often land or office, under vassalage, i.e., in exchange for allegiance and various, mainly military, services to a suzerain, who might be a higher-ranking nobleman or a monarch. It rapidly came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying fiscal and other privileges.
+
+While noble status formerly conferred significant privileges in most jurisdictions, by the 21st century it had become a largely honorary dignity in most societies,[4] although a few, residual privileges may still be preserved legally (e.g., Netherlands, Spain, UK) and some Asian, Pacific and African cultures continue to  attach considerable significance to formal hereditary rank or titles. (Compare the entrenched position and leadership expectations of the nobility of the Kingdom of Tonga.)
+
+Nobility is a historical, social and often legal notion, differing from high socio-economic status in that the latter is mainly based on income, possessions or lifestyle. Being wealthy or influential cannot ipso facto make one noble, nor are all nobles wealthy or influential (aristocratic families have lost their fortunes in various ways, and the concept of the 'poor nobleman' is almost as old as nobility itself).
+
+Various republics, including former Iron Curtain countries, Greece, Mexico, and Austria have expressly abolished the conferral and use of titles of nobility for their citizens. This is distinct from countries which have not abolished the right to inherit titles, but which do not grant legal recognition or protection to them, such as Germany and Italy, although Germany recognizes their use as part of the legal surname. Still other countries and authorities allow their use, but forbid attachment of any privilege thereto, e.g., Finland, Norway and the European Union,[citation needed] while French law also protects lawful titles against usurpation.
+
+Although many societies have a privileged upper class with substantial wealth and power, the status is not necessarily hereditary and does not entail a distinct legal status, nor differentiated forms of address.
+
+Not all of the benefits of nobility derived from noble status per se. Usually privileges were granted or recognised by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate. Most nobles' wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small, that might include fields, pasture, orchards, timberland, hunting grounds, streams, etc. It also included infrastructure such as castle, well and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although often at a price. Nobles were expected to live "nobly", that is, from the proceeds of these possessions. Work involving manual labour or subordination to those of lower rank (with specific exceptions, such as in military or ecclesiastic service) was either forbidden (as derogation from noble status) or frowned upon socially. On the other hand, membership in the nobility was usually a prerequisite for holding offices of trust in the realm and for career promotion, especially in the military, at court and often the higher functions in the government, judiciary and church.
+
+Prior to the French Revolution, European nobles typically commanded tribute in the form of entitlement to cash rents or usage taxes, labour or a portion of the annual crop yield from commoners or nobles of lower rank who lived or worked on the noble's manor or within his seigneurial domain. In some countries, the local lord could impose restrictions on such a commoner's movements, religion or legal undertakings. Nobles exclusively enjoyed the privilege of hunting. In France, nobles were exempt from paying the taille, the major direct tax. Peasants were not only bound to the nobility by dues and services, but the exercise of their rights was often also subject to the jurisdiction of courts and police from whose authority the actions of nobles were entirely or partially exempt. In some parts of Europe the right of private war long remained the privilege of every noble.[5]
+
+During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable gentleman, and was an accepted manner of resolving disputes.[6]
+
+Since the end of World War I the hereditary nobility entitled to special rights has largely been abolished in the Western World as intrinsically discriminatory, and discredited as inferior in efficiency to individual meritocracy in the allocation of societal resources.[7] Nobility came to be associated with social rather than legal privilege, expressed in a general expectation of deference from those of lower rank. By the 21st century even that deference had become increasingly minimised.
+
+In France, a seigneurie (lordship) might include one or more manors surrounded by land and villages subject to a noble's prerogatives and disposition. Seigneuries could be bought, sold or mortgaged. If erected by the crown into, e.g., a barony or countship, it became legally entailed for a specific family, which could use it as their title. Yet most French nobles were untitled ("seigneur of Montagne" simply meant ownership of that lordship but not, if one was not otherwise noble, the right to use a title of nobility, as commoners often purchased lordships). Only a member of the nobility who owned a countship was allowed, ipso facto, to style himself as its comte, although this restriction came to be increasingly ignored as the ancien régime drew to its close.
+
+In other parts of Europe, sovereign rulers arrogated to themselves the exclusive prerogative to act as fons honorum within their realms. For example, in the United Kingdom royal letters patent are necessary to obtain a title of the peerage, which also carries nobility and formerly a seat in the House of Lords, but never came without automatic entail of land nor rights to the local peasants' output.
+
+Nobility might be either inherited or conferred by a fons honorum. It is usually an acknowledged preeminence that is hereditary, i.e. the status descends exclusively to some or all of the legitimate, and usually male-line, descendants of a nobleman. In this respect, the nobility as a class has always been much more extensive than the primogeniture-based titled nobility, which included peerages in France and in the United Kingdom, grandezas in Portugal and Spain, and some noble titles in Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Prussia and Scandinavia. In Russia, Scandinavia and non-Prussian Germany, titles usually descended to all male-line descendants of the original titleholder, including females. In Spain, noble titles are now equally heritable by females and males. Noble estates, on the other hand, gradually came to descend by primogeniture in much of western Europe aside from Germany. In Eastern Europe, by contrast, with the exception of a few Hungarian estates, they usually descended to all sons or even all children.[8]
+
+In France, some wealthy bourgeois, most particularly the members of the various parlements, were ennobled by the king, constituting the noblesse de robe. The old nobility of landed or knightly origin, the noblesse d'épée, increasingly resented the influence and pretensions of this parvenu nobility. In the last years of the ancien régime the old nobility pushed for restrictions of certain offices and orders of chivalry to noblemen who could demonstrate that their lineage had extended "quarterings", i.e. several generations of noble ancestry, to be eligible for offices and favours at court along with nobles of medieval descent, although historians such as William Doyle have disputed this so-called "Aristocratic Reaction".[9] Various court and military positions were reserved by tradition for nobles who could "prove" an ancestry of at least seize quartiers (16 quarterings), indicating exclusively noble descent (as displayed, ideally, in the family's coat of arms) extending back five generations (all 16 great-great grandparents).
+
+This illustrates the traditional link in many countries between heraldry and nobility; in those countries where heraldry is used, nobles have almost always been armigerous, and have used heraldry to demonstrate their ancestry and family history. However, heraldry has never been restricted to the noble classes in most countries, and being armigerous does not necessarily demonstrate nobility. Scotland, however, is an exception.[10] In a number of recent cases in Scotland the Lord Lyon King of Arms has controversially (vis-à-vis Scotland's Salic law) granted the arms and allocated the chiefships of medieval noble families to female-line descendants of lords, even when they were not of noble lineage in the male line, while persons of legitimate male-line descent may still survive (e.g. the modern Chiefs of Clan MacLeod).
+
+In some nations, hereditary titles, as distinct from noble rank, were not always recognised in law, e.g., Poland's Szlachta. European ranks of nobility lower than baron or its equivalent, are commonly referred to as the petty nobility, although baronets of the British Isles are deemed titled gentry. Most nations traditionally had an untitled lower nobility in addition to titled nobles. An example is the landed gentry of the British Isles.[11][12] Unlike England's gentry, the Junkers of Germany, the noblesse de robe of France, the hidalgos of Spain and the nobili of Italy were explicitly acknowledged by the monarchs of those countries as members of the nobility, although untitled. In Scandinavia, the Benelux nations and Spain there are still untitled as well as titled families recognised in law as noble.
+
+In Hungary members of the nobility always theoretically enjoyed the same rights. In practice, however, a noble family's financial assets largely defined its significance. Medieval Hungary's concept of nobility originated in the notion that nobles were "free men", eligible to own land.[13] This basic standard explains why the noble population was relatively large, although the economic status of its members varied widely. Untitled nobles were not infrequently wealthier than titled families, while considerable differences in wealth were also to be found within the titled nobility. The custom of granting titles was introduced to Hungary in the 16th century by the House of Habsburg. Historically, once nobility was granted, if a nobleman served the monarch well he might obtain the title of baron, and might later be elevated to the rank of count. As in other countries of post-medieval central Europe, hereditary titles were not attached to a particular land or estate but to the noble family itself, so that all patrilineal descendants shared a title of baron or count (cf. peerage). Neither nobility nor titles could be transmitted through women.[14]
+
+Some con artists sell fake titles of nobility, often with impressive-looking documentation. This may be illegal, depending on local law. They are more often illegal in countries that actually have nobilities, such as European monarchies. In the United States, such commerce may constitute actionable fraud rather than criminal usurpation of an exclusive right to use of any given title by an established class.[citation needed]
+
+"Aristocrat" and aristocracy, in modern usage, refer colloquially and broadly to persons who inherit elevated social status, whether due to membership in the (formerly) official nobility or the monied upper class.
+
+Blue blood is an English idiom recorded since 1834 for noble birth or descent; it is also known as a translation of the Spanish phrase sangre azul, which described the Spanish royal family and other high nobility who claimed to be of Visigothic descent,[15] in contrast to the Moors. The idiom originates from ancient and medieval societies of Europe and distinguishes an upper class (whose superficial veins appeared blue through their untanned skin) from a working class of the time. The latter consisted mainly of agricultural peasants who spent most of their time working outdoors and thus had tanned skin, through which superficial veins appear less prominently.
+
+Robert Lacey explains the genesis of the blue blood concept:
+
+It was the Spaniards who gave the world the notion that an aristocrat's blood is not red but blue. The Spanish nobility started taking shape around the ninth century in classic military fashion, occupying land as warriors on horseback. They were to continue the process for more than five hundred years, clawing back sections of the peninsula from its Moorish occupiers, and a nobleman demonstrated his pedigree by holding up his sword arm to display the filigree of blue-blooded veins beneath his pale skin—proof that his birth had not been contaminated by the dark-skinned enemy.[16]
+
+European nobility originated in the feudal/seignorial system that arose in Europe during the Middle Ages.[17] Originally, knights or nobles were mounted  warriors who swore allegiance to their sovereign and promised to fight for him in exchange for an allocation of land (usually together with serfs living thereon). During the period known as the Military Revolution, nobles gradually lost their role in raising and commanding private armies, as many nations created cohesive national armies.
+
+This was coupled with a loss of the socio-economic power of the nobility, owing to the economic changes of the Renaissance and the growing economic importance of the merchant classes, which increased still further during the Industrial Revolution. In countries where the nobility was the dominant class, the bourgeoisie gradually grew in power; a rich city merchant came to be more influential than a nobleman, and the latter sometimes sought inter-marriage with families of the former to maintain their noble lifestyles.
+
+However, in many countries at this time, the nobility retained substantial political importance and social influence: for instance, the United Kingdom's government was dominated by the (unusually small) nobility until the middle of the 19th century. Thereafter the powers of the nobility were progressively reduced by legislation. However, until 1999, all hereditary peers were entitled to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Since then, only 92 of them have this entitlement, of whom 90 are elected by the hereditary peers as a whole to represent the peerage.
+
+The countries with the highest proportion of nobles were Castile (probably 10%),[citation needed] Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (15% of an 18th-century population of 800,000),[citation needed] Spain (722,000 in 1768 which was 7–8% of the entire population)[citation needed] and other countries with lower percentages, such as Russia in 1760 with 500,000–600,000 nobles (2–3% of the entire population), and pre-revolutionary France where there were no more than 300,000 prior to 1789,[citation needed] which was 1% of the population (although some scholars believe this figure is an overestimate). In 1718 Sweden had between 10,000 and 15,000 nobles, which was 0.5% of the population.[citation needed] In Germany it was 0.01%.[citation needed]
+
+In the Kingdom of Hungary nobles made up 5% of the population.[18] All the nobles in 18th-century Europe numbered perhaps 3–4 million out of a total of 170–190 million inhabitants.[19][20]  By contrast, in 1707, when England and Scotland united into Great Britain, there were only 168 English peers, and 154 Scottish ones, though their immediate families were recognised as noble.[21]
+
+Apart from the hierarchy of noble titles, in England rising through baron, viscount, earl, and marquess to duke, many countries had categories at the top or bottom of the nobility. The gentry, relatively small landowners with perhaps one or two villages, were mostly noble in most countries, for example the Polish landed gentry, but not in others, such as the English equivalent.  At the top, Poland had a far smaller class of "magnates", who were hugely rich and politically powerful.  In other countries the small groups of Spanish Grandee or Peer of France had great prestige but little additional power.
+
+In the Indian Subcontinent during the British Raj, many members of the nobility were elevated to royalty as they became the monarchs of their princely states and vice versa as many princely state rulers were reduced from royals to noble Zamindars. Hence, many nobles in the subcontinent had royal titles of Raja, Rai, Rana, Rao, etc. In Nepal, Kaji (Nepali: काजी) was a title and position used by nobility of Gorkha Kingdom (1559–1768) and Kingdom of Nepal  (1768–1846). Historian Mahesh Chandra Regmi suggests that Kaji is derived from Sanskrit word Karyi which meant functionary.[22]
+
+Other noble and aristocratic titles were Thakur, Sardar, Dewan, Pradhan, Kaji etc.
+
+In East Asia the system was often modelled on imperial China, the leading culture. Emperors conferred titles of nobility. Imperial descendants formed the highest class of ancient Chinese nobility, their status based upon the rank of the empress or concubine from which they descend maternally (as emperors were polygamous). Numerous titles such as Taizi (crown prince), and equivalents of "prince" were accorded, and due to complexities in dynastic rules, rules were introduced for Imperial descendants. The titles of the junior princes were gradually lowered in rank by each generation while the senior heir continued to inherit their father's titles.
+
+It was a custom in China for the new dynasty to ennoble and enfeoff a member of the dynasty which they overthrew with a title of nobility and a fief of land so that they could offer sacrifices to their ancestors, in addition to members of other preceding dynasties.
+
+China had a feudal system in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which gradually gave way to a more bureaucratic one beginning in the Qin dynasty (221 BC). This continued through the Song dynasty, and by its peak power shifted from nobility to bureaucrats.
+
+This development was gradual and generally only completed in full by the Song dynasty. In the Han dynasty, for example, even though noble titles were no longer given to those other than the Emperor's relatives, the fact that the process of selecting officials was mostly based on a vouching system by current officials as officials usually vouched for their own sons or those of other officials meant that a de facto aristocracy continued to exist. This process was further deepened during the Three Kingdoms period with the introduction of the Nine-rank system.
+
+By the Sui dynasty, however, the institution of the Imperial examination system marked the transformation of a power shift towards a full bureaucracy, though the process would not be truly completed until the Song dynasty.
+
+Titles of nobility became symbolic along with a stipend while governance of the country shifted to scholar officials.
+
+In the Qing dynasty titles of nobility were still granted by the emperor, but served merely as honorifics based on a loose system of favours to the Qing emperor.
+
+Under a centralized system, the empire's governance was the responsibility of the Confucian-educated scholar-officials and the local gentry, while the literati were accorded gentry status. For male citizens, advancement in status was possible via garnering the top three positions in imperial examinations.
+
+The Qing appointed the Ming imperial descendants to the title of Marquis of Extended Grace.
+
+The oldest held continuous noble title in Chinese history was that held by the descendants of Confucius, as Duke Yansheng, which was renamed as the Sacrificial Official to Confucius in 1935 by the Republic of China. The title is held by Kung Tsui-chang. There is also a "Sacrificial Official to Mencius" for a descendant of Mencius, a "Sacrificial Official to Zengzi" for a descendant of Zengzi, and a "Sacrificial Official to Yan Hui" for a descendant of Yan Hui.
+
+The bestowal of titles was abolished upon the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, as part of a larger effort to remove feudal influences and practises from Chinese society.
+
+In some Islamic countries, there are no definite noble titles (titles of hereditary rulers being distinct from those of hereditary intermediaries between monarchs and commoners). Persons who can trace legitimate descent from Muhammad or the clans of Quraysh, as can members of several present or formerly reigning dynasties, are widely regarded as belonging to the ancient, hereditary Islamic nobility. In some Islamic countries they inherit (through mother or father) hereditary titles, although without any other associated privilege, e.g., variations of the title Sayyid and Sharif. Regarded as more religious than the general population, many people turn to them for clarification or guidance in religious matters.
+
+In Iran, historical titles of the nobility including Mirza, Khan, ed-Dowleh and Shahzada ("Son of a Shah), are now no longer recognised. An aristocratic family is now recognised by their family name, often derived from the post held by their ancestors, considering the fact that family names in Iran only appeared in the beginning of the 20th century.
+Sultans have been an integral part of Islamic history .
+
+During the Ottoman Empire in the Imperial Court and the provinces there were many Ottoman titles and appellations forming a somewhat unusual and complex system in comparison with the other Islamic countries. The bestowal of noble and aristocratic titles was widespread across the empire even after its fall by independent monarchs. One of the most elaborate examples is that of the Egyptian aristocracy's largest clan, the Abaza family.
+
+Medieval Japan developed a feudal system similar to the European system, where land was held in exchange for military service. The daimyō class, or hereditary landowning nobles, held great socio-political power. As in Europe, they commanded private armies made up of samurai, an elite warrior class; for long periods, these held the real power without a real central government, and often plunged the country into a state of civil war. The daimyō class can be compared to European peers, and the samurai to European knights, but important differences exist.
+
+Feudal title and rank were abolished during the Meiji Restoration in 1868, and was replaced by the kazoku, a five-rank peerage system after the British example, which granted seats in the upper house of the Imperial Diet; this ended in 1947 following Japan's defeat in World War II.
+
+Like other Southeast Asian countries, many regions in the Philippines have indigenous nobility, partially influenced by Hindu, Chinese, and Islamic custom. Since ancient times, Datu was the common title of a chief or monarch of the many pre-colonial principalities and sovereign dominions throughout the isles; in some areas the term Apo was also used.[23] With the titles Sultan and Rajah, Datu (and its Malay cognate, Datok) are currently used in some parts of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. These titles are the rough equivalents of European titles, albeit dependent on the actual wealth and prestige of the bearer.
+
+Upon the islands' Christianisation, the datus retained governance of their territories despite annexation to the Spanish Empire. In a law signed 11 June 1594,[24] King Philip II of Spain ordered that the indigenous rulers continue to receive the same honours and privileges accorded them prior their conversion to Catholicism. The baptised nobility subsequently coalesced into the exclusive, landed ruling class of the lowlands known as the Principalía.[25]
+
+On 22 March 1697, King Charles II of Spain confirmed the privileges granted by his predecessors (in Title VII, Book VI of the Laws of the Indies)[26] to indigenous nobilities of the Crown colonies, including the Principales of the Philippines, and extended to them and to their descendants the preeminence and honors customarily attributed to the Hidalgos of Castile.[27]
+
+The Laws of the Indies and other pertinent Royal Decrees were enforced in the Philippines and benefited many indigenous nobles. It can be seen very clearly and irrefutably that, during the colonial period, indigenous chiefs were equated with the Spanish Hidalgos, and the most resounding proof of the application of this comparison is the General Military Archive in Segovia, where the qualifications of "Nobility" (found in the Service Records) are attributed to those Filipinos who were admitted to the Spanish Military Academies and whose ancestors were caciques, encomenderos, notable Tagalogs, chieftains,  governors or those  who held positions in the municipal administration or government in all different regions of the large islands of the Archipelago, or of the many small islands of which it is composed.[28] In the context of the ancient tradition and norms of Castilian nobility, all descendants of a noble are considered noble, regardless of fortune.[29]
+
+At the Real Academia de la Historia, there is a substantial number of records providing reference to the Philippine Islands, and while most parts correspond to the history of these islands, the Academia did not exclude among its documents the presence of many genealogical records. The archives of the Academia and its royal stamp recognized the appointments of hundreds of natives of the Philippines who, by virtue of their social position, occupied posts in the administration of the territories and were classified as "nobles".[30] The presence of these notables demonstrates the cultural concern of Spain in those Islands to prepare the natives and the collaboration of these in the government of the Archipelago. This aspect of Spanish rule in the Philippines appears much more strongly implemented than in the Americas. Hence in the Philippines, the local nobility, by reason of charge accorded to their social class, acquired greater importance than in the Indies of the New World.[31]
+
+With the recognition of the Spanish monarchs came the privilege of being addressed as Don or Doña,[32] a mark of esteem and distinction in Europe reserved for a person of noble or royal status during the colonial period. Other honors and high regard were also accorded to the Christianized Datus by the Spanish Empire. For example, the Gobernadorcillos (elected leader of the Cabezas de Barangay or the Christianized Datus) and Filipino officials of justice received the greatest consideration from the Spanish Crown officials. The colonial officials were under obligation to show them the honor corresponding to their respective duties. They were allowed to sit in the houses of the Spanish Provincial Governors, and in any other places. They were not left to remain standing. It was not permitted for Spanish Parish Priests to treat these Filipino nobles with less consideration.[33]
+
+The Gobernadorcillos exercised the command of the towns. They were Port Captains in coastal towns. They also had the rights and powers to elect assistants and several lieutenants and alguaciles, proportionate in number to the inhabitants of the town.[34]
+
+The recognition of the rights and privileges accorded to the Filipino Principalía as Hijosdalgos of Castile seems to facilitate entrance of Filipino nobles into institutions of  under the Spanish Crown, either civil or religious, which required proofs of nobility.[35](p235) However, to see such recognition as an approximation or comparative estimation of rank or status might not be correct since in reality, although the principales were vassals of the Crown, their rights as sovereign in their former dominions were guaranteed by the Laws of the Indies, more particularly the Royal Decree of Philip II of 11 June 1594, which Charles II confirmed for the purpose stated above in order to satisfy the requirements of the existing laws in the Peninsula.
+
+It must be recalled that ever since the beginning of the colonialization, the conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi did not strip the ancient sovereign rulers of the Archipelago (who vowed allegiance to the Spanish Crown) of their legitimate rights. Many of them accepted the Catholic religion and were his allies from the very beginning. He only demanded from these local rulers vassalage to the Spanish Crown,[36] replacing the similar overlordship, which previously existed in a few cases, e.g., Sultanate of Brunei's overlordship of the Kingdom of Maynila. Other independent polities which were not vassals to other States, e.g., Confederation of Madja-as and the Rajahnate of Cebu, were more of Protectorates/Suzerainties having had alliances with the Spanish Crown before the Kingdom took total control of most parts of the Archipelago. An interesting question remains after the cessession of the Spanish rule in the Philippines, that is, what is the equivalent of the rank of the Filipino Principalía, freed from vassalage yet not able to exercise their sovereignty within the democratic society in the Archipelago?
+
+One logical conclusion would be the reassumption of their ancestral Royal and noble title as Datus while retaining the Hidalguía of Castile (their former protector State), as a subsidiary title, appears most suitable to the hispanized Filipino nobles. Besides, as stated in the above-mentioned Royal Decree of Charles II, the ancient nobility of the Filipino Principales "is still retained and acknowledged".
+
+Just like the deposed royal families elsewhere in the world, which still lay claim to their hereditary rights as pretenders to the former thrones of their ancestors, the descendants of the Principalía have the same de iure claims to the historical domains of their forebears.
+
+Africa has a plethora of ancient lineages in its various constituent nations. Some, such as the numerous sharifian families of North Africa, the Keita dynasty of Mali, the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia, the De Souza family of Benin and the Sherbro Tucker clan of Sierra Leone, claim descent from notables from outside of the continent. Most, such as those composed of the descendants of Shaka and Moshoeshoe of Southern Africa, belong to peoples that have been resident in the continent for millennia. Generally their royal or noble status is recognized by and derived from the authority of traditional custom. A number of them also enjoy either a constitutional or a statutory recognition of their high social positions.
+
+Ethiopia has a nobility that is almost as old as the country itself. Throughout the history of the Ethiopian Empire most of the titles of nobility have been tribal or military in nature. However the Ethiopian nobility resembled its European counterparts in some respects;  until 1855, when Tewodros II ended the Zemene Mesafint its aristocracy was organised similarly to the feudal system in Europe during the Middle Ages. For more than seven centuries, Ethiopia (or Abyssinia, as it was then known) was made up of many small kingdoms, principalities, emirates and imamates, which owed their allegiance to the nəgusä nägäst (literally "King of Kings"). Despite its being a Christian monarchy, various Muslim states paid tribute to the emperors of Ethiopia for centuries: including the Adal Sultanate, the Emirate of Harar, and the Awsa sultanate.
+
+Ethiopian nobility were divided into two different categories: Mesafint ("prince"), the hereditary nobility that formed the upper echelon of the ruling class; and the Mekwanin ("governor") who were appointed nobles, often of humble birth, who formed the bulk of the nobility (cf. the Ministerialis of the Holy Roman Empire). In  Ethiopia there were titles of nobility among the Mesafint borne by those at the apex of medieval Ethiopian society. The highest royal title (after that of emperor) was Negus ("king") which was held by hereditary governors of the provinces of Begemder, Shewa, Gojjam, and Wollo. The next highest seven titles were Ras, Dejazmach, Fit'awrari, Grazmach, Qenyazmach, Azmach and Balambaras. The title of Le'ul Ras was accorded to the heads of various noble families and cadet branches of the Solomonic dynasty, such as the princes of Gojjam, Tigray, and Selalle. The heirs of the Le'ul Rases were titled Le'ul Dejazmach, indicative of the higher status they enjoyed relative to Dejazmaches who were not of the blood imperial. There were various hereditary titles in Ethiopia: including that of Jantirar, reserved for males of the family of Empress Menen Asfaw who ruled over the mountain fortress of Ambassel in Wollo; Wagshum, a title created for the descendants of the deposed Zagwe dynasty; and Shum Agame, held by the descendants of Dejazmach Sabagadis, who ruled over the Agame district of Tigray. The  vast majority of titles borne by nobles were not, however, hereditary.
+
+Despite being largely dominated by Christian elements, some Muslims obtained entrée into the Ethiopian nobility as part of their quest for aggrandizement during the 1800s. To do so they were generally obliged to abandon their faith and some are believed to have feigned conversion to Christianity for the sake of acceptance by the old Christian aristocratic families. One such family, the Wara Seh (more commonly called the "Yejju dynasty") converted to Christianity and eventually wielded power for over a century, ruling with the sanction of the Solomonic emperors. The last such Muslim noble to join the ranks of Ethiopian society was Mikael of Wollo who converted, was made Negus of Wollo, and later King of Zion, and even married into the Imperial family. He lived to see his son, Iyasu V, inherit the throne in 1913—only to be deposed in 1916 because of his conversion to Islam.
+
+The nobility in Madagascar are known as the Andriana. In much of Madagascar, before French colonization of the island, the Malagasy people were organised into a rigid social caste system, within which the Andriana exercised both spiritual and political leadership. The word "Andriana" has been used to denote nobility in various ethnicities in Madagascar: including  the Merina, the Betsileo, the Betsimisaraka, the Tsimihety, the Bezanozano, the Antambahoaka and the Antemoro.
+
+The word Andriana has often formed part of the names of Malagasy kings, princes and nobles. Linguistic evidence suggests that the origin of the title Andriana is traceable back to an ancient Javanese title of nobility. Before the colonization by France in the 1890s, the Andriana held various privileges, including land ownership, preferment for senior government posts, free labor from members of lower classes, the right to have their tombs constructed within town limits, etc. The Andriana rarely married outside their caste: a high-ranking woman who married a lower-ranking man took on her husband's lower rank, but a high-ranking man marrying a woman of lower rank did not forfeit his status, although his children could not inherit his rank or property (cf. morganatic marriage).
+
+In 2011, the Council of Kings and Princes of Madagascar endorsed the revival of a Christian Andriana monarchy that would blend modernity and tradition.
+
+Contemporary Nigeria has a class of traditional notables which is led by its reigning monarchs, the Nigerian traditional rulers. Though their functions are largely ceremonial, the titles of the country's noblemen and women are often centuries old and are usually vested in the membership of historically prominent families in the various subnational kingdoms of the country.
+
+Membership of initiatory societies that have inalienable functions within the kingdoms is also a common feature of Nigerian nobility, particularly among the southern tribes, where such figures as the Ogboni of the Yoruba, the Nze na Ozo of the Igbo and the Ekpe of the Efik are some of the most famous examples. Although many of their traditional functions have become dormant due to the advent of modern governance, their members retain precedence of a traditional nature and are especially prominent during festivals.
+
+Outside of this, many of the traditional nobles of Nigeria continue to serve as privy counsellors and viceroys in the service of their traditional sovereigns in a symbolic continuation of the way that their titled ancestors and predecessors did during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. Many of them are also members of the country's political elite due to their not being covered by the prohibition from involvement in politics that governs the activities of the traditional rulers.
+
+Holding a chieftaincy title, either of the traditional variety (which involves taking part in ritual re-enactments of your title's history during annual festivals, roughly akin to a British peerage) or the honorary variety (which does not involve the said re-enactments, roughly akin to a knighthood), grants an individual the right to use the word "chief" as a pre-nominal honorific while in Nigeria.
+
+In addition to a variety of indigenous peoples (such as the Aymara and the Quechua, who have long traditions of being led by monarchs and nobles called Apu Mallkus and Mallkus), aristocratic connections exist among a number of other groups. Peerage traditions dating to the colonial period of such countries as Brazil, Cuba and Mexico have left noble families in each of them that have ancestral ties to those nations' native tribes, while such figures as the Afro-Bolivian king and the high priestess of the Ile Maroia Laji sect of Brazilian Candomblé trace their ancestries to and derive their prestige from ancient monarchs and nobles of the pre-colonial African continent.
+
+In addition to the casta upperclass that dates to the era of Colonial Bolivia and that has ancestral ties to the Spanish nobility, the South American country also has a ceremonial monarchy that is recognized as part of the Plurinational State of Bolivia and that is led by a titular ruler that is known as the Afro-Bolivian king.
+
+The members of the royal house that he belongs to are the direct descendants of an old African tribal monarchy that were brought to Bolivia as slaves. They have provided leadership to the Afro-Bolivian community ever since that event and have been officially recognized by Bolivia's government since 2007. [37]
+
+The nobility in Brazil began during the colonial era with the Portuguese nobility. When Brazil became a united kingdom with Portugal in 1815, the first Brazilian titles of nobility were granted by the King of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.
+
+With the independence of Brazil in 1822 as a constitutional monarchy, the titles of nobility initiated by the King of Portugal were continued and new titles of nobility were created by the Emperor of Brazil. However, according to the Brazilian Constitution of 1824, the Emperor conferred titles of nobility, which were personal and therefore non-hereditary, unlike the earlier Portuguese and Portuguese-Brazilian titles, being inherited exclusively to the royal titles of the Brazilian Imperial Family.[citation needed]
+
+During the existence of the Empire of Brazil, 1,211 noble titles were acknowledged.[citation needed] With the proclamation of the First Brazilian Republic, in 1889, the Brazilian nobility was extinguished. It was also prohibited, under penalty of accusation of high treason and the suspension of political rights, to accept noble titles and foreign decorations without the proper permission of the State. In particular, the nobles of greater distinction, by respect and tradition, were allowed to use their titles during the republican regime. The Imperial Family also could not return to the Brazilian soil until 1921, when the Banishment Law was repealed.[citation needed]
+
+A list of noble titles for different European countries can be found at Royal and noble ranks.

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+Nobility is a social class  normally ranked immediately below royalty and found in some societies that have a formal aristocracy.  Nobility possesses more acknowledged privileges and higher social status than most other classes in society.  The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be largely honorary (e.g., precedence), and vary by country and era. As referred to in the Medieval chivalric motto noblesse oblige ("nobility obliges"), nobles can also carry a lifelong duty to uphold various social responsibilities, such as honourable behaviour, customary service,[clarification needed] or leadership positions. Membership in the nobility, including rights and responsibilities, is typically hereditary.
+
+Membership in the nobility has historically been granted by a monarch or government, unlike other social classes where membership is determined solely by wealth, lifestyle, or affiliation.[clarification needed] Nonetheless, acquisition of sufficient power, wealth, military prowess, or royal favour has occasionally enabled commoners to ascend into the nobility.[1]
+
+There are often a variety of ranks within the noble class. Legal recognition of nobility has been more common in monarchies, but nobility also existed in such regimes as the Dutch Republic (1581–1795), the Republic of Genoa (1005–1815), the Republic of Venice (697–1797), and the Old Swiss Confederacy (1300–1798), and remains part of the legal social structure of some non-hereditary regimes, e.g., San Marino, and the Vatican City in Europe.
+
+Hereditary titles and styles added to names (such as "Prince" or "Lord" or "Lady"), as well as honorifics often distinguish nobles from non-nobles in conversation and written speech. In many nations most of the nobility have been un-titled, and some hereditary titles do not indicate nobility (e.g., vidame).  Some countries have had non-hereditary nobility, such as the Empire of Brazil or life peers in the United Kingdom.
+
+The term derives from Latin nobilitas, the abstract noun of the adjective nobilis ("noble but also secondarily well-known, famous, notable").[2] In ancient Roman society, nobiles originated as an informal designation for the political governing class who had allied interests, including both patricians and plebeian families (gentes) with an ancestor who had risen to the consulship through his own merit (see novus homo, "new man").
+
+In modern usage, "nobility" is applied to the highest social class in pre-modern societies, excepting the ruling dynasty.[3] In the feudal system (in Europe and elsewhere), the nobility were generally those who held a fief, often land or office, under vassalage, i.e., in exchange for allegiance and various, mainly military, services to a suzerain, who might be a higher-ranking nobleman or a monarch. It rapidly came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying fiscal and other privileges.
+
+While noble status formerly conferred significant privileges in most jurisdictions, by the 21st century it had become a largely honorary dignity in most societies,[4] although a few, residual privileges may still be preserved legally (e.g., Netherlands, Spain, UK) and some Asian, Pacific and African cultures continue to  attach considerable significance to formal hereditary rank or titles. (Compare the entrenched position and leadership expectations of the nobility of the Kingdom of Tonga.)
+
+Nobility is a historical, social and often legal notion, differing from high socio-economic status in that the latter is mainly based on income, possessions or lifestyle. Being wealthy or influential cannot ipso facto make one noble, nor are all nobles wealthy or influential (aristocratic families have lost their fortunes in various ways, and the concept of the 'poor nobleman' is almost as old as nobility itself).
+
+Various republics, including former Iron Curtain countries, Greece, Mexico, and Austria have expressly abolished the conferral and use of titles of nobility for their citizens. This is distinct from countries which have not abolished the right to inherit titles, but which do not grant legal recognition or protection to them, such as Germany and Italy, although Germany recognizes their use as part of the legal surname. Still other countries and authorities allow their use, but forbid attachment of any privilege thereto, e.g., Finland, Norway and the European Union,[citation needed] while French law also protects lawful titles against usurpation.
+
+Although many societies have a privileged upper class with substantial wealth and power, the status is not necessarily hereditary and does not entail a distinct legal status, nor differentiated forms of address.
+
+Not all of the benefits of nobility derived from noble status per se. Usually privileges were granted or recognised by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate. Most nobles' wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small, that might include fields, pasture, orchards, timberland, hunting grounds, streams, etc. It also included infrastructure such as castle, well and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although often at a price. Nobles were expected to live "nobly", that is, from the proceeds of these possessions. Work involving manual labour or subordination to those of lower rank (with specific exceptions, such as in military or ecclesiastic service) was either forbidden (as derogation from noble status) or frowned upon socially. On the other hand, membership in the nobility was usually a prerequisite for holding offices of trust in the realm and for career promotion, especially in the military, at court and often the higher functions in the government, judiciary and church.
+
+Prior to the French Revolution, European nobles typically commanded tribute in the form of entitlement to cash rents or usage taxes, labour or a portion of the annual crop yield from commoners or nobles of lower rank who lived or worked on the noble's manor or within his seigneurial domain. In some countries, the local lord could impose restrictions on such a commoner's movements, religion or legal undertakings. Nobles exclusively enjoyed the privilege of hunting. In France, nobles were exempt from paying the taille, the major direct tax. Peasants were not only bound to the nobility by dues and services, but the exercise of their rights was often also subject to the jurisdiction of courts and police from whose authority the actions of nobles were entirely or partially exempt. In some parts of Europe the right of private war long remained the privilege of every noble.[5]
+
+During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable gentleman, and was an accepted manner of resolving disputes.[6]
+
+Since the end of World War I the hereditary nobility entitled to special rights has largely been abolished in the Western World as intrinsically discriminatory, and discredited as inferior in efficiency to individual meritocracy in the allocation of societal resources.[7] Nobility came to be associated with social rather than legal privilege, expressed in a general expectation of deference from those of lower rank. By the 21st century even that deference had become increasingly minimised.
+
+In France, a seigneurie (lordship) might include one or more manors surrounded by land and villages subject to a noble's prerogatives and disposition. Seigneuries could be bought, sold or mortgaged. If erected by the crown into, e.g., a barony or countship, it became legally entailed for a specific family, which could use it as their title. Yet most French nobles were untitled ("seigneur of Montagne" simply meant ownership of that lordship but not, if one was not otherwise noble, the right to use a title of nobility, as commoners often purchased lordships). Only a member of the nobility who owned a countship was allowed, ipso facto, to style himself as its comte, although this restriction came to be increasingly ignored as the ancien régime drew to its close.
+
+In other parts of Europe, sovereign rulers arrogated to themselves the exclusive prerogative to act as fons honorum within their realms. For example, in the United Kingdom royal letters patent are necessary to obtain a title of the peerage, which also carries nobility and formerly a seat in the House of Lords, but never came without automatic entail of land nor rights to the local peasants' output.
+
+Nobility might be either inherited or conferred by a fons honorum. It is usually an acknowledged preeminence that is hereditary, i.e. the status descends exclusively to some or all of the legitimate, and usually male-line, descendants of a nobleman. In this respect, the nobility as a class has always been much more extensive than the primogeniture-based titled nobility, which included peerages in France and in the United Kingdom, grandezas in Portugal and Spain, and some noble titles in Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Prussia and Scandinavia. In Russia, Scandinavia and non-Prussian Germany, titles usually descended to all male-line descendants of the original titleholder, including females. In Spain, noble titles are now equally heritable by females and males. Noble estates, on the other hand, gradually came to descend by primogeniture in much of western Europe aside from Germany. In Eastern Europe, by contrast, with the exception of a few Hungarian estates, they usually descended to all sons or even all children.[8]
+
+In France, some wealthy bourgeois, most particularly the members of the various parlements, were ennobled by the king, constituting the noblesse de robe. The old nobility of landed or knightly origin, the noblesse d'épée, increasingly resented the influence and pretensions of this parvenu nobility. In the last years of the ancien régime the old nobility pushed for restrictions of certain offices and orders of chivalry to noblemen who could demonstrate that their lineage had extended "quarterings", i.e. several generations of noble ancestry, to be eligible for offices and favours at court along with nobles of medieval descent, although historians such as William Doyle have disputed this so-called "Aristocratic Reaction".[9] Various court and military positions were reserved by tradition for nobles who could "prove" an ancestry of at least seize quartiers (16 quarterings), indicating exclusively noble descent (as displayed, ideally, in the family's coat of arms) extending back five generations (all 16 great-great grandparents).
+
+This illustrates the traditional link in many countries between heraldry and nobility; in those countries where heraldry is used, nobles have almost always been armigerous, and have used heraldry to demonstrate their ancestry and family history. However, heraldry has never been restricted to the noble classes in most countries, and being armigerous does not necessarily demonstrate nobility. Scotland, however, is an exception.[10] In a number of recent cases in Scotland the Lord Lyon King of Arms has controversially (vis-à-vis Scotland's Salic law) granted the arms and allocated the chiefships of medieval noble families to female-line descendants of lords, even when they were not of noble lineage in the male line, while persons of legitimate male-line descent may still survive (e.g. the modern Chiefs of Clan MacLeod).
+
+In some nations, hereditary titles, as distinct from noble rank, were not always recognised in law, e.g., Poland's Szlachta. European ranks of nobility lower than baron or its equivalent, are commonly referred to as the petty nobility, although baronets of the British Isles are deemed titled gentry. Most nations traditionally had an untitled lower nobility in addition to titled nobles. An example is the landed gentry of the British Isles.[11][12] Unlike England's gentry, the Junkers of Germany, the noblesse de robe of France, the hidalgos of Spain and the nobili of Italy were explicitly acknowledged by the monarchs of those countries as members of the nobility, although untitled. In Scandinavia, the Benelux nations and Spain there are still untitled as well as titled families recognised in law as noble.
+
+In Hungary members of the nobility always theoretically enjoyed the same rights. In practice, however, a noble family's financial assets largely defined its significance. Medieval Hungary's concept of nobility originated in the notion that nobles were "free men", eligible to own land.[13] This basic standard explains why the noble population was relatively large, although the economic status of its members varied widely. Untitled nobles were not infrequently wealthier than titled families, while considerable differences in wealth were also to be found within the titled nobility. The custom of granting titles was introduced to Hungary in the 16th century by the House of Habsburg. Historically, once nobility was granted, if a nobleman served the monarch well he might obtain the title of baron, and might later be elevated to the rank of count. As in other countries of post-medieval central Europe, hereditary titles were not attached to a particular land or estate but to the noble family itself, so that all patrilineal descendants shared a title of baron or count (cf. peerage). Neither nobility nor titles could be transmitted through women.[14]
+
+Some con artists sell fake titles of nobility, often with impressive-looking documentation. This may be illegal, depending on local law. They are more often illegal in countries that actually have nobilities, such as European monarchies. In the United States, such commerce may constitute actionable fraud rather than criminal usurpation of an exclusive right to use of any given title by an established class.[citation needed]
+
+"Aristocrat" and aristocracy, in modern usage, refer colloquially and broadly to persons who inherit elevated social status, whether due to membership in the (formerly) official nobility or the monied upper class.
+
+Blue blood is an English idiom recorded since 1834 for noble birth or descent; it is also known as a translation of the Spanish phrase sangre azul, which described the Spanish royal family and other high nobility who claimed to be of Visigothic descent,[15] in contrast to the Moors. The idiom originates from ancient and medieval societies of Europe and distinguishes an upper class (whose superficial veins appeared blue through their untanned skin) from a working class of the time. The latter consisted mainly of agricultural peasants who spent most of their time working outdoors and thus had tanned skin, through which superficial veins appear less prominently.
+
+Robert Lacey explains the genesis of the blue blood concept:
+
+It was the Spaniards who gave the world the notion that an aristocrat's blood is not red but blue. The Spanish nobility started taking shape around the ninth century in classic military fashion, occupying land as warriors on horseback. They were to continue the process for more than five hundred years, clawing back sections of the peninsula from its Moorish occupiers, and a nobleman demonstrated his pedigree by holding up his sword arm to display the filigree of blue-blooded veins beneath his pale skin—proof that his birth had not been contaminated by the dark-skinned enemy.[16]
+
+European nobility originated in the feudal/seignorial system that arose in Europe during the Middle Ages.[17] Originally, knights or nobles were mounted  warriors who swore allegiance to their sovereign and promised to fight for him in exchange for an allocation of land (usually together with serfs living thereon). During the period known as the Military Revolution, nobles gradually lost their role in raising and commanding private armies, as many nations created cohesive national armies.
+
+This was coupled with a loss of the socio-economic power of the nobility, owing to the economic changes of the Renaissance and the growing economic importance of the merchant classes, which increased still further during the Industrial Revolution. In countries where the nobility was the dominant class, the bourgeoisie gradually grew in power; a rich city merchant came to be more influential than a nobleman, and the latter sometimes sought inter-marriage with families of the former to maintain their noble lifestyles.
+
+However, in many countries at this time, the nobility retained substantial political importance and social influence: for instance, the United Kingdom's government was dominated by the (unusually small) nobility until the middle of the 19th century. Thereafter the powers of the nobility were progressively reduced by legislation. However, until 1999, all hereditary peers were entitled to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Since then, only 92 of them have this entitlement, of whom 90 are elected by the hereditary peers as a whole to represent the peerage.
+
+The countries with the highest proportion of nobles were Castile (probably 10%),[citation needed] Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (15% of an 18th-century population of 800,000),[citation needed] Spain (722,000 in 1768 which was 7–8% of the entire population)[citation needed] and other countries with lower percentages, such as Russia in 1760 with 500,000–600,000 nobles (2–3% of the entire population), and pre-revolutionary France where there were no more than 300,000 prior to 1789,[citation needed] which was 1% of the population (although some scholars believe this figure is an overestimate). In 1718 Sweden had between 10,000 and 15,000 nobles, which was 0.5% of the population.[citation needed] In Germany it was 0.01%.[citation needed]
+
+In the Kingdom of Hungary nobles made up 5% of the population.[18] All the nobles in 18th-century Europe numbered perhaps 3–4 million out of a total of 170–190 million inhabitants.[19][20]  By contrast, in 1707, when England and Scotland united into Great Britain, there were only 168 English peers, and 154 Scottish ones, though their immediate families were recognised as noble.[21]
+
+Apart from the hierarchy of noble titles, in England rising through baron, viscount, earl, and marquess to duke, many countries had categories at the top or bottom of the nobility. The gentry, relatively small landowners with perhaps one or two villages, were mostly noble in most countries, for example the Polish landed gentry, but not in others, such as the English equivalent.  At the top, Poland had a far smaller class of "magnates", who were hugely rich and politically powerful.  In other countries the small groups of Spanish Grandee or Peer of France had great prestige but little additional power.
+
+In the Indian Subcontinent during the British Raj, many members of the nobility were elevated to royalty as they became the monarchs of their princely states and vice versa as many princely state rulers were reduced from royals to noble Zamindars. Hence, many nobles in the subcontinent had royal titles of Raja, Rai, Rana, Rao, etc. In Nepal, Kaji (Nepali: काजी) was a title and position used by nobility of Gorkha Kingdom (1559–1768) and Kingdom of Nepal  (1768–1846). Historian Mahesh Chandra Regmi suggests that Kaji is derived from Sanskrit word Karyi which meant functionary.[22]
+
+Other noble and aristocratic titles were Thakur, Sardar, Dewan, Pradhan, Kaji etc.
+
+In East Asia the system was often modelled on imperial China, the leading culture. Emperors conferred titles of nobility. Imperial descendants formed the highest class of ancient Chinese nobility, their status based upon the rank of the empress or concubine from which they descend maternally (as emperors were polygamous). Numerous titles such as Taizi (crown prince), and equivalents of "prince" were accorded, and due to complexities in dynastic rules, rules were introduced for Imperial descendants. The titles of the junior princes were gradually lowered in rank by each generation while the senior heir continued to inherit their father's titles.
+
+It was a custom in China for the new dynasty to ennoble and enfeoff a member of the dynasty which they overthrew with a title of nobility and a fief of land so that they could offer sacrifices to their ancestors, in addition to members of other preceding dynasties.
+
+China had a feudal system in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which gradually gave way to a more bureaucratic one beginning in the Qin dynasty (221 BC). This continued through the Song dynasty, and by its peak power shifted from nobility to bureaucrats.
+
+This development was gradual and generally only completed in full by the Song dynasty. In the Han dynasty, for example, even though noble titles were no longer given to those other than the Emperor's relatives, the fact that the process of selecting officials was mostly based on a vouching system by current officials as officials usually vouched for their own sons or those of other officials meant that a de facto aristocracy continued to exist. This process was further deepened during the Three Kingdoms period with the introduction of the Nine-rank system.
+
+By the Sui dynasty, however, the institution of the Imperial examination system marked the transformation of a power shift towards a full bureaucracy, though the process would not be truly completed until the Song dynasty.
+
+Titles of nobility became symbolic along with a stipend while governance of the country shifted to scholar officials.
+
+In the Qing dynasty titles of nobility were still granted by the emperor, but served merely as honorifics based on a loose system of favours to the Qing emperor.
+
+Under a centralized system, the empire's governance was the responsibility of the Confucian-educated scholar-officials and the local gentry, while the literati were accorded gentry status. For male citizens, advancement in status was possible via garnering the top three positions in imperial examinations.
+
+The Qing appointed the Ming imperial descendants to the title of Marquis of Extended Grace.
+
+The oldest held continuous noble title in Chinese history was that held by the descendants of Confucius, as Duke Yansheng, which was renamed as the Sacrificial Official to Confucius in 1935 by the Republic of China. The title is held by Kung Tsui-chang. There is also a "Sacrificial Official to Mencius" for a descendant of Mencius, a "Sacrificial Official to Zengzi" for a descendant of Zengzi, and a "Sacrificial Official to Yan Hui" for a descendant of Yan Hui.
+
+The bestowal of titles was abolished upon the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, as part of a larger effort to remove feudal influences and practises from Chinese society.
+
+In some Islamic countries, there are no definite noble titles (titles of hereditary rulers being distinct from those of hereditary intermediaries between monarchs and commoners). Persons who can trace legitimate descent from Muhammad or the clans of Quraysh, as can members of several present or formerly reigning dynasties, are widely regarded as belonging to the ancient, hereditary Islamic nobility. In some Islamic countries they inherit (through mother or father) hereditary titles, although without any other associated privilege, e.g., variations of the title Sayyid and Sharif. Regarded as more religious than the general population, many people turn to them for clarification or guidance in religious matters.
+
+In Iran, historical titles of the nobility including Mirza, Khan, ed-Dowleh and Shahzada ("Son of a Shah), are now no longer recognised. An aristocratic family is now recognised by their family name, often derived from the post held by their ancestors, considering the fact that family names in Iran only appeared in the beginning of the 20th century.
+Sultans have been an integral part of Islamic history .
+
+During the Ottoman Empire in the Imperial Court and the provinces there were many Ottoman titles and appellations forming a somewhat unusual and complex system in comparison with the other Islamic countries. The bestowal of noble and aristocratic titles was widespread across the empire even after its fall by independent monarchs. One of the most elaborate examples is that of the Egyptian aristocracy's largest clan, the Abaza family.
+
+Medieval Japan developed a feudal system similar to the European system, where land was held in exchange for military service. The daimyō class, or hereditary landowning nobles, held great socio-political power. As in Europe, they commanded private armies made up of samurai, an elite warrior class; for long periods, these held the real power without a real central government, and often plunged the country into a state of civil war. The daimyō class can be compared to European peers, and the samurai to European knights, but important differences exist.
+
+Feudal title and rank were abolished during the Meiji Restoration in 1868, and was replaced by the kazoku, a five-rank peerage system after the British example, which granted seats in the upper house of the Imperial Diet; this ended in 1947 following Japan's defeat in World War II.
+
+Like other Southeast Asian countries, many regions in the Philippines have indigenous nobility, partially influenced by Hindu, Chinese, and Islamic custom. Since ancient times, Datu was the common title of a chief or monarch of the many pre-colonial principalities and sovereign dominions throughout the isles; in some areas the term Apo was also used.[23] With the titles Sultan and Rajah, Datu (and its Malay cognate, Datok) are currently used in some parts of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. These titles are the rough equivalents of European titles, albeit dependent on the actual wealth and prestige of the bearer.
+
+Upon the islands' Christianisation, the datus retained governance of their territories despite annexation to the Spanish Empire. In a law signed 11 June 1594,[24] King Philip II of Spain ordered that the indigenous rulers continue to receive the same honours and privileges accorded them prior their conversion to Catholicism. The baptised nobility subsequently coalesced into the exclusive, landed ruling class of the lowlands known as the Principalía.[25]
+
+On 22 March 1697, King Charles II of Spain confirmed the privileges granted by his predecessors (in Title VII, Book VI of the Laws of the Indies)[26] to indigenous nobilities of the Crown colonies, including the Principales of the Philippines, and extended to them and to their descendants the preeminence and honors customarily attributed to the Hidalgos of Castile.[27]
+
+The Laws of the Indies and other pertinent Royal Decrees were enforced in the Philippines and benefited many indigenous nobles. It can be seen very clearly and irrefutably that, during the colonial period, indigenous chiefs were equated with the Spanish Hidalgos, and the most resounding proof of the application of this comparison is the General Military Archive in Segovia, where the qualifications of "Nobility" (found in the Service Records) are attributed to those Filipinos who were admitted to the Spanish Military Academies and whose ancestors were caciques, encomenderos, notable Tagalogs, chieftains,  governors or those  who held positions in the municipal administration or government in all different regions of the large islands of the Archipelago, or of the many small islands of which it is composed.[28] In the context of the ancient tradition and norms of Castilian nobility, all descendants of a noble are considered noble, regardless of fortune.[29]
+
+At the Real Academia de la Historia, there is a substantial number of records providing reference to the Philippine Islands, and while most parts correspond to the history of these islands, the Academia did not exclude among its documents the presence of many genealogical records. The archives of the Academia and its royal stamp recognized the appointments of hundreds of natives of the Philippines who, by virtue of their social position, occupied posts in the administration of the territories and were classified as "nobles".[30] The presence of these notables demonstrates the cultural concern of Spain in those Islands to prepare the natives and the collaboration of these in the government of the Archipelago. This aspect of Spanish rule in the Philippines appears much more strongly implemented than in the Americas. Hence in the Philippines, the local nobility, by reason of charge accorded to their social class, acquired greater importance than in the Indies of the New World.[31]
+
+With the recognition of the Spanish monarchs came the privilege of being addressed as Don or Doña,[32] a mark of esteem and distinction in Europe reserved for a person of noble or royal status during the colonial period. Other honors and high regard were also accorded to the Christianized Datus by the Spanish Empire. For example, the Gobernadorcillos (elected leader of the Cabezas de Barangay or the Christianized Datus) and Filipino officials of justice received the greatest consideration from the Spanish Crown officials. The colonial officials were under obligation to show them the honor corresponding to their respective duties. They were allowed to sit in the houses of the Spanish Provincial Governors, and in any other places. They were not left to remain standing. It was not permitted for Spanish Parish Priests to treat these Filipino nobles with less consideration.[33]
+
+The Gobernadorcillos exercised the command of the towns. They were Port Captains in coastal towns. They also had the rights and powers to elect assistants and several lieutenants and alguaciles, proportionate in number to the inhabitants of the town.[34]
+
+The recognition of the rights and privileges accorded to the Filipino Principalía as Hijosdalgos of Castile seems to facilitate entrance of Filipino nobles into institutions of  under the Spanish Crown, either civil or religious, which required proofs of nobility.[35](p235) However, to see such recognition as an approximation or comparative estimation of rank or status might not be correct since in reality, although the principales were vassals of the Crown, their rights as sovereign in their former dominions were guaranteed by the Laws of the Indies, more particularly the Royal Decree of Philip II of 11 June 1594, which Charles II confirmed for the purpose stated above in order to satisfy the requirements of the existing laws in the Peninsula.
+
+It must be recalled that ever since the beginning of the colonialization, the conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi did not strip the ancient sovereign rulers of the Archipelago (who vowed allegiance to the Spanish Crown) of their legitimate rights. Many of them accepted the Catholic religion and were his allies from the very beginning. He only demanded from these local rulers vassalage to the Spanish Crown,[36] replacing the similar overlordship, which previously existed in a few cases, e.g., Sultanate of Brunei's overlordship of the Kingdom of Maynila. Other independent polities which were not vassals to other States, e.g., Confederation of Madja-as and the Rajahnate of Cebu, were more of Protectorates/Suzerainties having had alliances with the Spanish Crown before the Kingdom took total control of most parts of the Archipelago. An interesting question remains after the cessession of the Spanish rule in the Philippines, that is, what is the equivalent of the rank of the Filipino Principalía, freed from vassalage yet not able to exercise their sovereignty within the democratic society in the Archipelago?
+
+One logical conclusion would be the reassumption of their ancestral Royal and noble title as Datus while retaining the Hidalguía of Castile (their former protector State), as a subsidiary title, appears most suitable to the hispanized Filipino nobles. Besides, as stated in the above-mentioned Royal Decree of Charles II, the ancient nobility of the Filipino Principales "is still retained and acknowledged".
+
+Just like the deposed royal families elsewhere in the world, which still lay claim to their hereditary rights as pretenders to the former thrones of their ancestors, the descendants of the Principalía have the same de iure claims to the historical domains of their forebears.
+
+Africa has a plethora of ancient lineages in its various constituent nations. Some, such as the numerous sharifian families of North Africa, the Keita dynasty of Mali, the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia, the De Souza family of Benin and the Sherbro Tucker clan of Sierra Leone, claim descent from notables from outside of the continent. Most, such as those composed of the descendants of Shaka and Moshoeshoe of Southern Africa, belong to peoples that have been resident in the continent for millennia. Generally their royal or noble status is recognized by and derived from the authority of traditional custom. A number of them also enjoy either a constitutional or a statutory recognition of their high social positions.
+
+Ethiopia has a nobility that is almost as old as the country itself. Throughout the history of the Ethiopian Empire most of the titles of nobility have been tribal or military in nature. However the Ethiopian nobility resembled its European counterparts in some respects;  until 1855, when Tewodros II ended the Zemene Mesafint its aristocracy was organised similarly to the feudal system in Europe during the Middle Ages. For more than seven centuries, Ethiopia (or Abyssinia, as it was then known) was made up of many small kingdoms, principalities, emirates and imamates, which owed their allegiance to the nəgusä nägäst (literally "King of Kings"). Despite its being a Christian monarchy, various Muslim states paid tribute to the emperors of Ethiopia for centuries: including the Adal Sultanate, the Emirate of Harar, and the Awsa sultanate.
+
+Ethiopian nobility were divided into two different categories: Mesafint ("prince"), the hereditary nobility that formed the upper echelon of the ruling class; and the Mekwanin ("governor") who were appointed nobles, often of humble birth, who formed the bulk of the nobility (cf. the Ministerialis of the Holy Roman Empire). In  Ethiopia there were titles of nobility among the Mesafint borne by those at the apex of medieval Ethiopian society. The highest royal title (after that of emperor) was Negus ("king") which was held by hereditary governors of the provinces of Begemder, Shewa, Gojjam, and Wollo. The next highest seven titles were Ras, Dejazmach, Fit'awrari, Grazmach, Qenyazmach, Azmach and Balambaras. The title of Le'ul Ras was accorded to the heads of various noble families and cadet branches of the Solomonic dynasty, such as the princes of Gojjam, Tigray, and Selalle. The heirs of the Le'ul Rases were titled Le'ul Dejazmach, indicative of the higher status they enjoyed relative to Dejazmaches who were not of the blood imperial. There were various hereditary titles in Ethiopia: including that of Jantirar, reserved for males of the family of Empress Menen Asfaw who ruled over the mountain fortress of Ambassel in Wollo; Wagshum, a title created for the descendants of the deposed Zagwe dynasty; and Shum Agame, held by the descendants of Dejazmach Sabagadis, who ruled over the Agame district of Tigray. The  vast majority of titles borne by nobles were not, however, hereditary.
+
+Despite being largely dominated by Christian elements, some Muslims obtained entrée into the Ethiopian nobility as part of their quest for aggrandizement during the 1800s. To do so they were generally obliged to abandon their faith and some are believed to have feigned conversion to Christianity for the sake of acceptance by the old Christian aristocratic families. One such family, the Wara Seh (more commonly called the "Yejju dynasty") converted to Christianity and eventually wielded power for over a century, ruling with the sanction of the Solomonic emperors. The last such Muslim noble to join the ranks of Ethiopian society was Mikael of Wollo who converted, was made Negus of Wollo, and later King of Zion, and even married into the Imperial family. He lived to see his son, Iyasu V, inherit the throne in 1913—only to be deposed in 1916 because of his conversion to Islam.
+
+The nobility in Madagascar are known as the Andriana. In much of Madagascar, before French colonization of the island, the Malagasy people were organised into a rigid social caste system, within which the Andriana exercised both spiritual and political leadership. The word "Andriana" has been used to denote nobility in various ethnicities in Madagascar: including  the Merina, the Betsileo, the Betsimisaraka, the Tsimihety, the Bezanozano, the Antambahoaka and the Antemoro.
+
+The word Andriana has often formed part of the names of Malagasy kings, princes and nobles. Linguistic evidence suggests that the origin of the title Andriana is traceable back to an ancient Javanese title of nobility. Before the colonization by France in the 1890s, the Andriana held various privileges, including land ownership, preferment for senior government posts, free labor from members of lower classes, the right to have their tombs constructed within town limits, etc. The Andriana rarely married outside their caste: a high-ranking woman who married a lower-ranking man took on her husband's lower rank, but a high-ranking man marrying a woman of lower rank did not forfeit his status, although his children could not inherit his rank or property (cf. morganatic marriage).
+
+In 2011, the Council of Kings and Princes of Madagascar endorsed the revival of a Christian Andriana monarchy that would blend modernity and tradition.
+
+Contemporary Nigeria has a class of traditional notables which is led by its reigning monarchs, the Nigerian traditional rulers. Though their functions are largely ceremonial, the titles of the country's noblemen and women are often centuries old and are usually vested in the membership of historically prominent families in the various subnational kingdoms of the country.
+
+Membership of initiatory societies that have inalienable functions within the kingdoms is also a common feature of Nigerian nobility, particularly among the southern tribes, where such figures as the Ogboni of the Yoruba, the Nze na Ozo of the Igbo and the Ekpe of the Efik are some of the most famous examples. Although many of their traditional functions have become dormant due to the advent of modern governance, their members retain precedence of a traditional nature and are especially prominent during festivals.
+
+Outside of this, many of the traditional nobles of Nigeria continue to serve as privy counsellors and viceroys in the service of their traditional sovereigns in a symbolic continuation of the way that their titled ancestors and predecessors did during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. Many of them are also members of the country's political elite due to their not being covered by the prohibition from involvement in politics that governs the activities of the traditional rulers.
+
+Holding a chieftaincy title, either of the traditional variety (which involves taking part in ritual re-enactments of your title's history during annual festivals, roughly akin to a British peerage) or the honorary variety (which does not involve the said re-enactments, roughly akin to a knighthood), grants an individual the right to use the word "chief" as a pre-nominal honorific while in Nigeria.
+
+In addition to a variety of indigenous peoples (such as the Aymara and the Quechua, who have long traditions of being led by monarchs and nobles called Apu Mallkus and Mallkus), aristocratic connections exist among a number of other groups. Peerage traditions dating to the colonial period of such countries as Brazil, Cuba and Mexico have left noble families in each of them that have ancestral ties to those nations' native tribes, while such figures as the Afro-Bolivian king and the high priestess of the Ile Maroia Laji sect of Brazilian Candomblé trace their ancestries to and derive their prestige from ancient monarchs and nobles of the pre-colonial African continent.
+
+In addition to the casta upperclass that dates to the era of Colonial Bolivia and that has ancestral ties to the Spanish nobility, the South American country also has a ceremonial monarchy that is recognized as part of the Plurinational State of Bolivia and that is led by a titular ruler that is known as the Afro-Bolivian king.
+
+The members of the royal house that he belongs to are the direct descendants of an old African tribal monarchy that were brought to Bolivia as slaves. They have provided leadership to the Afro-Bolivian community ever since that event and have been officially recognized by Bolivia's government since 2007. [37]
+
+The nobility in Brazil began during the colonial era with the Portuguese nobility. When Brazil became a united kingdom with Portugal in 1815, the first Brazilian titles of nobility were granted by the King of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.
+
+With the independence of Brazil in 1822 as a constitutional monarchy, the titles of nobility initiated by the King of Portugal were continued and new titles of nobility were created by the Emperor of Brazil. However, according to the Brazilian Constitution of 1824, the Emperor conferred titles of nobility, which were personal and therefore non-hereditary, unlike the earlier Portuguese and Portuguese-Brazilian titles, being inherited exclusively to the royal titles of the Brazilian Imperial Family.[citation needed]
+
+During the existence of the Empire of Brazil, 1,211 noble titles were acknowledged.[citation needed] With the proclamation of the First Brazilian Republic, in 1889, the Brazilian nobility was extinguished. It was also prohibited, under penalty of accusation of high treason and the suspension of political rights, to accept noble titles and foreign decorations without the proper permission of the State. In particular, the nobles of greater distinction, by respect and tradition, were allowed to use their titles during the republican regime. The Imperial Family also could not return to the Brazilian soil until 1921, when the Banishment Law was repealed.[citation needed]
+
+A list of noble titles for different European countries can be found at Royal and noble ranks.

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+
+Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix (French: Astérix or Astérix le Gaulois [asteʁiks lə ɡolwa]; lit. "Asterix the Gaul") is a French bande dessinée series about Gaulish warriors, who have adventures and fight the Roman Empire during the era of Julius Caesar. The series first appeared in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote on 29 October 1959. It was written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo until Goscinny's death in 1977. Uderzo then took over the writing until 2009, when he sold the rights to publishing company Hachette; he died in 2020. In 2013, a new team consisting of Jean-Yves Ferri (script) and Didier Conrad (artwork) took over. As of 2019[update], 38 volumes have been released, with the most recent released in October 2019.
+
+Each Asterix comic starts with the following introduction:
+
+The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium...[1][2]
+
+The series follows the adventures of a village of Gauls as they resist Roman occupation in 50 BCE. They do so by means of a magic potion, brewed by their druid Getafix (Panoramix in the French version), which temporarily gives the recipient superhuman strength. The protagonists, the title character Asterix and his friend Obelix, have various adventures. The "-ix" ending of both names (as well as all the other pseudo-Gaulish "-ix" names in the series) alludes to the "-rix" suffix (meaning "king") present in the names of many real Gaulish chieftains such as Vercingetorix, Orgetorix, and Dumnorix.
+
+In many of the stories, they travel to foreign countries, though other tales are set in and around their village. For much of the history of the series (Volumes 4 through 29), settings in Gaul and abroad alternated, with even-numbered volumes set abroad and odd-numbered volumes set in Gaul, mostly in the village.
+
+The Asterix series is one of the most popular Franco-Belgian comics in the world, with the series being translated into 111 languages and dialects as of 2009[update].[3]
+
+The success of the series has led to the adaptation of its books into 13 films: nine animated, and four live action (one of which, Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, was a major box office success in France). There have also been a number of games based on the characters, and a theme park near Paris, Parc Astérix. The very first French satellite, Astérix, launched in 1965, was also named after the comics character. As of 2017, 370 million copies of Asterix books have been sold worldwide,[4] with co-creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo being France's best-selling authors abroad.[5][6]
+
+Prior to creating the Asterix series, Goscinny and Uderzo had previously had success with their series Oumpah-pah, which was published in Tintin magazine.[8]
+Astérix was originally serialised in Pilote magazine, debuting in the first issue on 29 October 1959.[9] In 1961 the first book was put together, titled Asterix the Gaul. From then on, books were released generally on a yearly basis. Their success was exponential; the first book sold 6,000 copies in its year of publication; a year later, the second sold 20,000. In 1963, the third sold 40,000; the fourth, released in 1964, sold 150,000. A year later, the fifth sold 300,000; 1966's Asterix and the Big Fight sold 400,000 upon initial publication. The ninth Asterix volume, when first released in 1967, sold 1.2 million copies in two days.
+
+Uderzo's first preliminary sketches portrayed Asterix as a huge and strong traditional Gaulish warrior. But Goscinny had a different picture in his mind, visualizing Asterix as a shrewd, compact warrior who would possess intelligence and wit more than raw strength. However, Uderzo felt that the downsized hero needed a strong but dim companion, to which Goscinny agreed. Hence, Obelix was born.[10] Despite the growing popularity of Asterix with the readers, the financial backing for the publication Pilote ceased. Pilote was taken over by Georges Dargaud.[10]
+
+When Goscinny died in 1977, Uderzo continued the series by popular demand of the readers, who implored him to continue. He continued to issue new volumes of the series, but on a less-frequent basis. Many critics and fans of the series prefer the earlier collaborations with Goscinny.[11] Uderzo created his own publishing company, Les Editions Albert-René, which published every album drawn and written by Uderzo alone since then.[10] However, Dargaud, the initial publisher of the series, kept the publishing rights on the 24 first albums made by both Uderzo and Goscinny. In 1990, the Uderzo and Goscinny families decided to sue Dargaud to take over the rights. In 1998, after a long trial, Dargaud lost the rights to publish and sell the albums. Uderzo decided to sell these rights to Hachette instead of Albert-René, but the publishing rights on new albums were still owned by Albert Uderzo (40%), Sylvie Uderzo (20%) and Anne Goscinny (40%).[citation needed]
+
+In December 2008, Uderzo sold his stake to Hachette, which took over the company.[12] In a letter published in the French newspaper Le Monde in 2009, Uderzo's daughter, Sylvie, attacked her father's decision to sell the family publishing firm and the rights to produce new Astérix adventures after his death. She said:
+
+... the co-creator of Astérix, France's comic strip hero, has betrayed the Gaulish warrior to the modern-day Romans – the men of industry and finance.[13][14]
+
+However, René Goscinny's daughter, Anne, also gave her agreement to the continuation of the series and sold her rights at the same time. She is reported to have said that "Asterix has already had two lives: one during my father's lifetime and one after it. Why not a third?".[15] A few months later, Uderzo appointed three illustrators, who had been his assistants for many years, to continue the series.[11] In 2011, Uderzo announced that a new Asterix album was due out in 2013, with Jean-Yves Ferri writing the story and Frédéric Mébarki drawing it.[16] A year later, in 2012, the publisher Albert-René announced that Frédéric Mébarki had withdrawn from drawing the new album, due to the pressure he felt in following in the steps of Uderzo. Comic artist Didier Conrad was officially announced to take over drawing duties from Mébarki, with the due date of the new album in 2013 unchanged.[17][18]
+
+In January 2015, after the murders of seven cartoonists at the satirical Paris weekly Charlie Hebdo, Astérix creator Albert Uderzo came out of retirement to draw two Astérix pictures honouring the memories of the victims.[19]
+
+Numbers 1–24, 32 and 34 are by Goscinny and Uderzo. Numbers 25–31 and 33 are by Uderzo alone. Numbers 35–38 are by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad. Years stated are for their initial album release.
+
+Asterix Conquers Rome is a comics adaptation of the animated film The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. It was released in 1976, and was the 23rd volume to be published, but it has been rarely reprinted and is not considered to be canonical to the series. The only English translations ever to be published were in the Asterix Annual 1980 and never an English standalone volume. A picture-book version of the same story was published in English translation as The Twelve Tasks of Asterix by Hodder & Stoughton in 1978.
+
+In 1996, a tribute album in honour of Albert Uderzo was released titled "Uderzo Croqué par ses Amis", a volume containing 21 short stories with Uderzo in Ancient Gaul. This volume was published by Soleil Productions and has not been translated into English
+
+In 2007, Les Editions Albert René released a tribute volume titled Astérix et ses Amis, a 60-page volume of one-to-four-page short stories. It was a tribute to Albert Uderzo on his 80th birthday by 34 European cartoonists. The volume was translated into nine languages. As of 2016[update], it has not been translated into English.[23]
+
+In 2016, the French publisher Hachette, along with Anne Goscinny and Albert Uderzo decided to make the special issue album The XII Tasks of Asterix for the 40th anniversary of the film The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. There was no English edition.
+
+The main setting for the series is an unnamed coastal village (rumoured to be inspired by Erquy[by whom?]) in Armorica (present-day Brittany), a province of Gaul (modern France), in the year 50 BC. Julius Caesar has conquered nearly all of Gaul for the Roman Empire. The little Armorican village, however, has held out because the villagers can gain temporary superhuman strength by drinking a magic potion brewed by the local village druid, Getafix. His chief is Vitalstatistix.
+
+The main protagonist and hero of the village is Asterix, who, because of his shrewdness, is usually entrusted with the most important affairs of the village. He is aided in his adventures by his rather corpulent and slower thinking friend, Obelix, who, because he fell into the druid's cauldron of the potion as a baby, has permanent superhuman strength (because of this, Getafix steadily refuses to allow Obelix to drink the potion, as doing so would have a dangerous and unpredictable result). Obelix is usually accompanied by Dogmatix, his little dog. (Except for Asterix and Obelix, the names of the characters change with the language. For example, Obelix's dog's name is "Dogmatix" in English, but "Idéfix" in the original French edition.)
+
+Asterix and Obelix (and sometimes other members of the village) go on various adventures both within the village and in far away lands. Places visited in the series include parts of Gaul (Lutetia, Corsica etc.), neighbouring nations (Belgium, Spain, Britain, Germany etc.), and far away lands (North America, Middle East, India etc.).
+
+The series employs science-fiction and fantasy elements in the more recent books; for instance, the use of extraterrestrials in Asterix and the Falling Sky and the city of Atlantis in Asterix and Obelix All at Sea.
+
+The humour encountered in the Asterix comics often centers around puns, caricatures, and tongue-in-cheek stereotypes of contemporary European nations and French regions. Much of the humour in the initial Asterix books was French-specific, which delayed the translation of the books into other languages for fear of losing the jokes and the spirit of the story. Some translations have actually added local humour: In the Italian translation, the Roman legionaries are made to speak in 20th-century Roman dialect, and Obelix's famous Ils sont fous ces romains ("These Romans are crazy") is translated properly as Sono pazzi questi romani, humorously alluding to the Roman abbreviation SPQR. In another example: Hiccups are written onomatopoeically in French as hips, but in English as "hic", allowing Roman legionaries in more than one of the English translations to decline their hiccups absurdly in Latin (hic, haec, hoc). The newer albums share a more universal humour, both written and visual.[24]
+
+All the fictional characters in Asterix have names which are puns on their roles or personalities, and which follow certain patterns specific to nationality. Certain rules are followed (most of the time) such as Gauls (and their neighbours) having an "-ix" suffix for the men and ending in "-a" for the women; for example, Chief Vitalstatistix (so called due to his portly stature) and his wife Impedimenta (often at odds with the chief). The male Roman names end in "-us", echoing Latin nominative male singular form, as in Gluteus Maximus, a muscle-bound athlete whose name is literally the butt of the joke. Gothic names (present-day Germany) end in "-ic", after Gothic chiefs such as Alaric and Theoderic; for example Rhetoric the interpreter. Greek names end in "-os" or "-es"; for example, Thermos the restaurateur. British names end in "-ax" and are often puns on the taxation associated with the later United Kingdom; examples include Valuaddedtax the druid, and Selectivemploymentax the mercenary. Other nationalities are treated to pidgin translations from their language, like Huevos y Bacon, a Spanish chieftain (whose name, meaning eggs and bacon, is often guidebook Spanish for tourists), or literary and other popular media references, like Dubbelosix (a sly reference to James Bond's codename "007").
+
+Most of these jokes, and hence the names of the characters, are specific to the translation; for example, the druid named Getafix in English translation - "get a fix", referring to the character's role in dispensing the magic potion - is Panoramix in the original French and Miraculix in German.[25] Even so, occasionally the wordplay has been preserved: Obelix's dog, known in the original French as Idéfix (from idée fixe, a "fixed idea" or obsession), is called Dogmatix in English, which not only renders the original meaning strikingly closely ("dogmatic") but in fact adds another layer of wordplay with the syllable "Dog-" at the beginning of the name.
+
+The name Asterix, French Astérix, comes from astérisque, meaning "asterisk", which is the typographical symbol * indicating a footnote, from the Greek word αστήρ (aster), meaning a "star". His name is usually left unchanged in translations, aside from accents and the use of local alphabets. For example, in Esperanto, Polish, Slovene, Latvian, and Turkish it is Asteriks (in Turkish he was first named Bücür meaning "shorty", but the name was then standardised). Two exceptions include Icelandic, in which he is known as Ástríkur ("Rich of love"), and Sinhala, where he is known as සූර පප්පා (Soora Pappa), which can be interpreted as "Hero".
+
+For explanations of some of the other names, see List of Asterix characters.
+
+Many of the Asterix adventures take place in other countries away from their homeland in Gaul. In every album that takes place abroad, the characters meet (usually modern-day) stereotypes for each country, as seen by the French.
+
+When the Gauls see foreigners speaking their foreign languages, these have different representation in the cartoon speech bubbles:
+
+The various volumes have been translated into more than 100 languages and dialects. Besides the original French language, most albums are available in Estonian, English, Czech, Dutch, German, Galician, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Turkish, Slovene, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Latvian, Welsh,[26] as well as Latin.[27]
+
+Selected albums have also been translated into languages such as Esperanto, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Scots, Indonesian, Persian, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Bengali, Afrikaans, Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew, Frisian, Romansch, Vietnamese, Sinhala, Ancient Greek, and Luxembourgish.[26]
+
+In Europe, several volumes were translated into a variety of regional languages and dialects, such as Alsatian, Breton, Chtimi (Picard), and Corsican in France; Bavarian, Swabian, and Low German in Germany; and Savo, Karelia, Rauma, and Helsinki slang dialects in Finland. Also, in Portugal, a special edition of the first volume, Asterix the Gaul, was translated into local language Mirandese.[28] In Greece, a number of volumes have appeared in the Cretan Greek, Cypriot Greek, and Pontic Greek dialects.[29] In the Italian version, while the Gauls speak standard Italian, the legionaries speak in the Romanesque dialect. In the former Yugoslavia, the "Forum" publishing house translated Corsican text in Asterix in Corsica into the Montenegrin dialect of Serbo-Croatian (today called Montenegrin).
+
+In the Netherlands, several volumes were translated into West Frisian, a Germanic language spoken in the province of Friesland; into Limburgish, a regional language spoken not only in Dutch Limburg but also in Belgian Limburg and North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany; and into Tweants, a dialect in the region of Twente in the eastern province of Overijssel. Hungarian-language books have been published in Yugoslavia for the Hungarian minority living in Serbia. Although not translated into a fully autonomous dialect, the books differ slightly from the language of the books issued in Hungary. In Sri Lanka, the cartoon series was adapted into Sinhala as Sura Pappa.[28]
+
+Most volumes have been translated into Latin and Ancient Greek, with accompanying teachers' guides, as a way of teaching these ancient languages.
+
+Before Asterix became famous, translations of some strips were published in British comics including Valiant, Ranger, and Look & Learn, under names Little Fred and Big Ed[30] and Beric the Bold, set in Roman-occupied Britain. These were included in an exhibition on Goscinny's life and career, and Asterix, in London's Jewish Museum in 2018.[31][32]
+
+The first 33 Asterix books were translated into English by Derek Hockridge and Anthea Bell, who were widely praised for maintaining the spirit and humour of the original French versions. Derek Hockridge died in 2013, so Anthea Bell translated books 34 to 36 by herself, before retiring in 2016 for health reasons. She died in 2018.[33] Adriana Hunter is the present translator.
+
+US publisher Papercutz in December 2019 announced it would begin publishing "all-new more American translations" of the Asterix books, starting on 19 May 2020.[34] The launch was postponed to 15 July 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.[35] The new translator is Joe Johnson (Dr. Edward Joseph Johnson), a Professor of French and Spanish at Clayton State University.[36]
+
+The series has been adapted into various media. There are 14 films, 15 board games, 40 video games, and 1 theme park.
+
+Many gamebooks, board games and video games are based upon the Asterix series. In particular, many video games were released by various computer game publishers.
+
+Parc Astérix, a theme park 22 miles north of Paris, based upon the series, was opened in 1989. It is one of the most visited sites in France, with around 1.6 million visitors per year.

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+Christmas (or Feast of the Nativity)  is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25[a] as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world.[2][10][11] A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, it is preceded by the season of Advent or the Nativity Fast and initiates the season of Christmastide, which historically in the West lasts twelve days and culminates on Twelfth Night;[12] in some traditions, Christmastide includes an octave.[13] Christmas Day is a public holiday in many of the world's nations,[14][15][16] is celebrated religiously by a majority of Christians,[17] as well as culturally by many non-Christians,[1][18] and forms an integral part of the holiday season centered around it.
+
+The traditional Christmas narrative, the Nativity of Jesus, delineated in the New Testament says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in accordance with messianic prophecies.[19] When Joseph and Mary arrived in the city, the inn had no room and so they were offered a stable where the Christ Child was soon born, with angels proclaiming this news to shepherds who then further disseminated the information.[20]
+
+Although the month and date of Jesus' birth are unknown, the church in the early fourth century fixed the date as December 25.[21][22][23] This corresponds to the date of the winter solstice on the Roman calendar.[24] Most Christians celebrate on December 25 in the Gregorian calendar, which has been adopted almost universally in the civil calendars used in countries throughout the world. However, part of the Eastern Christian Churches celebrate Christmas on December 25 of the older Julian calendar, which currently corresponds to January 7 in the Gregorian calendar. For Christians, believing that God came into the world in the form of man to atone for the sins of humanity, rather than knowing Jesus' exact birth date, is considered to be the primary purpose in celebrating Christmas.[25][26][27]
+
+The celebratory customs associated in various countries with Christmas have a mix of pre-Christian, Christian, and secular themes and origins.[28] Popular modern customs of the holiday include gift giving; completing an Advent calendar or Advent wreath; Christmas music and caroling; viewing a Nativity play; an exchange of Christmas cards; church services; a special meal; and the display of various Christmas decorations, including Christmas trees, Christmas lights, nativity scenes, garlands, wreaths, mistletoe, and holly. In addition, several closely related and often interchangeable figures, known as Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, and Christkind, are associated with bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season and have their own body of traditions and lore.[29] Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival involve heightened economic activity, the holiday has become a significant event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses. The economic impact of Christmas has grown steadily over the past few centuries in many regions of the world.
+
+"Christmas" is a shortened form of "Christ's mass". The word is recorded as Crīstesmæsse in 1038 and Cristes-messe in 1131.[3] Crīst (genitive Crīstes) is from Greek Khrīstos (Χριστός), a translation of Hebrew Māšîaḥ (מָשִׁיחַ), "Messiah", meaning "anointed";[30][31] and mæsse is from Latin missa, the celebration of the Eucharist.
+
+The form Christenmas was also historically used, but is now considered archaic and dialectal.[32] The term derives from Middle English Cristenmasse, meaning "Christian mass".[33] Xmas is an abbreviation of Christmas found particularly in print, based on the initial letter chi (Χ) in Greek Khrīstos (Χριστός), "Christ", though numerous style guides discourage its use.[34] This abbreviation has precedent in Middle English Χρ̄es masse (where "Χρ̄" is an abbreviation for Χριστός).[33]
+
+In addition to "Christmas", the holiday has been known by various other names throughout its history. The Anglo-Saxons referred to the feast as "midwinter",[35][36] or, more rarely, as Nātiuiteð (from Latin nātīvitās below).[35][37] "Nativity", meaning "birth", is from Latin nātīvitās.[38] In Old English, Gēola (Yule) referred to the period corresponding to December and January, which was eventually equated with Christian Christmas.[39] "Noel" (or "Nowel") entered English in the late 14th century and is from the Old French noël or naël, itself ultimately from the Latin nātālis (diēs) meaning "birth (day)".[40]
+
+The gospels of Luke and Matthew describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem to the Virgin Mary. In Luke, Joseph and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, and Jesus is born there and laid in a manger.[41] Angels proclaimed him a savior for all people, and shepherds came to adore him.
+
+Matthew adds that the magi follow a star to Bethlehem to bring gifts to Jesus, born the king of the Jews. King Herod orders the massacre of all the boys less than two years old in Bethlehem, but the family flees to Egypt and later returns to Nazareth.
+
+The nativity sequences included in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke prompted early Christian writers to suggest various dates for the anniversary.[42] Although no date is indicated in the gospels, early Christians connected Jesus to the Sun through the use of such phrases as "Sun of righteousness."[42][43] The Romans marked the winter solstice on December 25.[24] The first recorded Christmas celebration was in Rome on December 25, 336.[44][45] In the 3rd century, the date of the nativity was the subject of great interest. Around AD 200, Clement of Alexandria wrote:
+
+There are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord's birth, but also the day; and they say that it took place in the 28th year of Augustus, and in the 25th day of [the Egyptian month] Pachon [May 20] ... Further, others say that He was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi [April 20 or 21].[46]
+
+Various factors contributed to the selection of December 25 as a date of celebration: it was the date of the winter solstice on the Roman calendar and it was nine months after March 25, the date of the vernal equinox and a date linked to the conception of Jesus (now Annunciation).
+
+Christmas played a role in the Arian controversy of the fourth century. After this controversy ran its course, the prominence of the holiday declined for a few centuries. The feast regained prominence after 800 when Charlemagne was crowned emperor on Christmas Day. Later during the Protestant Reformation, the Puritans banned Christmas in England, associating it with drunkenness and other misbehavior.[47] It was restored as a legal holiday in England in 1660, but remained disreputable in the minds of many people. In the early 19th century, Christmas was reconceived by Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, and other authors as a holiday emphasizing family, children, kind-heartedness, gift-giving, and Santa Claus.[48]
+
+Christmas does not appear on the lists of festivals given by the early Christian writers Irenaeus and Tertullian.[3] Origen and Arnobius both fault the pagans for celebrating birthdays, which suggests that Christmas was not celebrated in their time.[49] Arnobius wrote after AD 297. The Chronography of 354 records that a Christmas celebration took place in Rome in 336.[50]
+
+In the East, the birth of Jesus was celebrated in connection with the Epiphany on January 6.[51][52] This holiday was not primarily about the nativity, but rather the baptism of Jesus.[53] Christmas was promoted in the East as part of the revival of Orthodox Christianity that followed the death of the pro-Arian Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced in Constantinople in 379, in Antioch by John Chrysostom towards the end of the fourth century,[52] probably in 388, and in Alexandria in the following century.[54]
+
+December 25 was the date of the winter solstice on the Roman calendar.[24][56] A late fourth-century sermon by Saint Augustine explains why this was a fitting day to celebrate Christ's nativity: "Hence it is that He was born on the day which is the shortest in our earthly reckoning and from which subsequent days begin to increase in length. He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase."[57]
+
+Linking Jesus to the Sun was supported by various Biblical passages. Jesus was considered to be the "Sun of righteousness" prophesied by Malachi: "Unto you shall the sun of righteousness arise, and healing is in his wings."[43]
+
+Such solar symbolism could support more than one date of birth. An anonymous work known as De Pascha Computus (243) linked the idea that creation began at the spring equinox, on March 25, with the conception or birth (the word nascor can mean either) of Jesus on March 28, the day of the creation of the sun in the Genesis account. One translation reads: "O the splendid and divine providence of the Lord, that on that day, the very day, on which the sun was made, March 28, a Wednesday, Christ should be born.[3][58]
+
+In the 17th century, Isaac Newton, who, coincidentally, was born on December 25, argued that the date of Christmas was selected to correspond with the solstice.[59]
+
+According to Steven Hijmans of the University of Alberta, "It is cosmic symbolism ... which inspired the Church leadership in Rome to elect the southern solstice, December 25, as the birthday of Christ, and the northern solstice as that of John the Baptist, supplemented by the equinoxes as their respective dates of conception."[60]
+
+The calculation hypothesis suggests that an earlier holiday held on March 25 became associated with the Incarnation.[61] Modern scholars refer to this feast as the Quartodecimal. Christmas was then calculated as nine months later. The calculation hypothesis was proposed by French writer Louis Duchesne in 1889.[62][63] In modern times, March 25 is celebrated as Annunciation. This holiday was created in the seventh century and was assigned to a date that is nine months before Christmas, in addition to being the traditional date of the equinox. It is unrelated to the Quartodecimal, which had been forgotten by this time.[64]
+
+Early Christians celebrated the life of Jesus on a date considered equivalent to 14 Nisan (Passover) on the local calendar. Because Passover was held on the 14th of the month, this feast is referred to as the Quartodecimal. All the major events of Christ's life, especially the passion, were celebrated on this date. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul mentions Passover, presumably celebrated according to the local calendar in Corinth.[65] Tertullian (d. 220), who lived in Latin-speaking North Africa, gives the date of passion celebration as March 25.[66] The date of the passion was moved to Good Friday in 165 when Pope Soter created Easter by reassigning the Resurrection to a Sunday. According to the calculation hypothesis, the celebration of the quartodecimal continued in some areas and the feast became associated with Incarnation.
+
+The calculation hypothesis is considered academically to be "a thoroughly viable hypothesis", though not certain.[67] It was a traditional Jewish belief that great men were born and died on the same day, so lived a whole number of years, without fractions: Jesus was therefore considered to have been conceived on March 25, as he died on March 25, which was calculated to have coincided with 14 Nisan.[68] A passage in Commentary on the Prophet Daniel (204) by Hippolytus of Rome identifies December 25 as the date of the nativity. This passage is generally considered a late interpellation. But the manuscript includes another passage, one that is more likely to be authentic, that gives the passion as March 25.[69]
+
+In 221, Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 160 – c. 240) gave March 25 as the day of creation and of the conception of Jesus in his universal history. This conclusion was based on solar symbolism, with March 25 the date of the equinox. As this implies a birth in December, it is sometimes claimed to be the earliest identification of December 25 as the nativity. However, Africanus was not such an influential writer that it is likely he determined the date of Christmas.[70]
+
+The tractate De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis Domini nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae, falsely attributed to John Chrysostom, also argued that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same day of the year and calculated this as March 25.[71][72] This anonymous tract also states: "But Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December ... the eight before the calends of January [25 December] ..., But they call it the 'Birthday of the Unconquered'. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord...? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the Sun, He is the Sun of Justice."[3]
+
+The rival "History of Religions" hypothesis suggests that the Church selected December 25 date to appropriate festivities held by the Romans in honor of the Sun god Sol Invictus.[61] This cult was established by Aurelian in 274. An explicit expression of this theory appears in an annotation of uncertain date added to a manuscript of a work by 12th-century Syrian bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi. The scribe who added it wrote:
+
+"It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries, the Christians also took part. Accordingly, when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day."[73]
+
+In 1743, German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski argued Christmas was placed on December 25 to correspond with the Roman solar holiday Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and was therefore a "paganization" that debased the true church.[74] It has been argued that, on the contrary, the Emperor Aurelian, who in 274 instituted the holiday of the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, did so partly as an attempt to give a pagan significance to a date already important for Christians in Rome.[75]
+
+Hermann Usener[76] and others[3] proposed that the Christians chose this day because it was the Roman feast celebrating the birthday of Sol Invictus. Modern scholar S. E. Hijmans, however, states that "While they were aware that pagans called this day the 'birthday' of Sol Invictus, this did not concern them and it did not play any role in their choice of date for Christmas."[60] Moreover, Thomas J. Talley holds that the Roman Emperor Aurelian placed a festival of Sol Invictus on December 25 in order to compete with the growing rate of the Christian Church, which had already been celebrating Christmas on that date first.[77] In the judgement of the Church of England Liturgical Commission, the History of Religions hypothesis has been challenged[78] by a view based on an old tradition, according to which the date of Christmas was fixed at nine months after March 25, the date of the vernal equinox, on which the Annunciation was celebrated.[71]
+
+With regard to a December religious feast of the deified Sun (Sol), as distinct from a solstice feast of the birth (or rebirth) of the astronomical sun, one scholar has commented that "while the winter solstice on or around December 25 was well established in the Roman imperial calendar, there is no evidence that a religious celebration of Sol on that day antedated the celebration of Christmas".[79] "Thomas Talley has shown that, although the Emperor Aurelian's dedication of a temple to the sun god in the Campus Martius (C.E. 274) probably took place on the 'Birthday of the Invincible Sun' on December 25, the cult of the sun in pagan Rome ironically did not celebrate the winter solstice nor any of the other quarter-tense days, as one might expect."[80] The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought remarks on the uncertainty about the order of precedence between the religious celebrations of the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun and of the birthday of Jesus, stating that the hypothesis that December 25 was chosen for celebrating the birth of Jesus on the basis of the belief that his conception occurred on March 25 "potentially establishes 25 December as a Christian festival before Aurelian's decree, which, when promulgated, might have provided for the Christian feast both opportunity and challenge".[81]
+
+In the Early Middle Ages, Christmas Day was overshadowed by Epiphany, which in western Christianity focused on the visit of the magi. But the medieval calendar was dominated by Christmas-related holidays. The forty days before Christmas became the "forty days of St. Martin" (which began on November 11, the feast of St. Martin of Tours), now known as Advent.[82] In Italy, former Saturnalian traditions were attached to Advent.[82] Around the 12th century, these traditions transferred again to the Twelve Days of Christmas (December 25 – January 5); a time that appears in the liturgical calendars as Christmastide or Twelve Holy Days.[82]
+
+The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned Emperor on Christmas Day in 800. King Edmund the Martyr was anointed on Christmas in 855 and King William I of England was crowned on Christmas Day 1066.
+
+By the High Middle Ages, the holiday had become so prominent that chroniclers routinely noted where various magnates celebrated Christmas. King Richard II of England hosted a Christmas feast in 1377 at which twenty-eight oxen and three hundred sheep were eaten.[82] The Yule boar was a common feature of medieval Christmas feasts. Caroling also became popular, and was originally performed by a group of dancers who sang. The group was composed of a lead singer and a ring of dancers that provided the chorus. Various writers of the time condemned caroling as lewd, indicating that the unruly traditions of Saturnalia and Yule may have continued in this form.[82] "Misrule"—drunkenness, promiscuity, gambling—was also an important aspect of the festival. In England, gifts were exchanged on New Year's Day, and there was special Christmas ale.[82]
+
+Christmas during the Middle Ages was a public festival that incorporated ivy, holly, and other evergreens.[83] Christmas gift-giving during the Middle Ages was usually between people with legal relationships, such as tenant and landlord.[83] The annual indulgence in eating, dancing, singing, sporting, and card playing escalated in England, and by the 17th century the Christmas season featured lavish dinners, elaborate masques, and pageants. In 1607, King James I insisted that a play be acted on Christmas night and that the court indulge in games.[84] It was during the Reformation in 16th–17th-century Europe that many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or Christkindl, and the date of giving gifts changed from December 6 to Christmas Eve.[85]
+
+Associating it with drunkenness and other misbehaviour, the Puritans banned Christmas in England in the 17th century.[47] It was restored as a legal holiday in 1660, but remained disreputable. In the early 19th century, the Oxford Movement in the Anglican Church ushered in "the development of richer and more symbolic forms of worship, the building of neo-Gothic churches, and the revival and increasing centrality of the keeping of Christmas itself as a Christian festival" as well as "special charities for the poor" in addition to "special services and musical events".[86] Charles Dickens and other writers helped in this revival of the holiday by "changing consciousness of Christmas and the way in which it was celebrated" as they emphasized family, religion, gift-giving, and social reconciliation as opposed to the historic revelry common in some places.[86]
+
+Following the Protestant Reformation, many of the new denominations, including the Anglican Church and Lutheran Church, continued to celebrate Christmas.[87] In 1629, the Anglican poet John Milton penned On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, a poem that has since been read by many during Christmastide.[88][89] Donald Heinz, a professor at California State University, states that Martin Luther "inaugurated a period in which Germany would produce a unique culture of Christmas, much copied in North America."[90] Among the congregations of the Dutch Reformed Church, Christmas was celebrated as one of the principal evangelical feasts.[91]
+
+However, in 17th century England, some groups such as the Puritans, strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery" or the "rags of the Beast".[47] In contrast, the established Anglican Church "pressed for a more elaborate observance of feasts, penitential seasons, and saints' days. The calendar reform became a major point of tension between the Anglican party and the Puritan party."[92] The Catholic Church also responded, promoting the festival in a more religiously oriented form. King Charles I of England directed his noblemen and gentry to return to their landed estates in midwinter to keep up their old-style Christmas generosity.[84] Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War, England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647.[47][93]
+
+Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans.[47] The book, The Vindication of Christmas (London, 1652), argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with "plow-boys" and "maidservants", old Father Christmas and carol singing.[94]
+
+The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 ended the ban, but many Calvinist clergymen still disapproved of Christmas celebration. As such, in Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland discouraged the observance of Christmas, and though James VI commanded its celebration in 1618, attendance at church was scant.[95] The Parliament of Scotland officially abolished the observance of Christmas in 1640, claiming that the church had been "purged of all superstitious observation of days".[96] It was not until 1958 that Christmas again became a Scottish public holiday.[97]
+
+Following the Restoration of Charles II, Poor Robin's Almanack contained the lines: "Now thanks to God for Charles return, / Whose absence made old Christmas mourn. / For then we scarcely did it know, / Whether it Christmas were or no."[98] The diary of James Woodforde, from the latter half of the 18th century, details the observance of Christmas and celebrations associated with the season over a number of years.[99]
+
+In Colonial America, the Pilgrims of New England shared radical Protestant disapproval of Christmas.[100] The Plymouth Pilgrims put their loathing for the day into practice in 1620 when they spent their first Christmas Day in the New World working – thus demonstrating their complete contempt for the day.[100] Non-Puritans in New England deplored the loss of the holidays enjoyed by the laboring classes in England.[101] Christmas observance was outlawed in Boston in 1659.[100] The ban by the Puritans was revoked in 1681 by English governor Edmund Andros, however it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.[102]
+
+At the same time, Christian residents of Virginia and New York observed the holiday freely. Pennsylvania German Settlers, pre-eminently the Moravian settlers of Bethlehem, Nazareth and Lititz in Pennsylvania and the Wachovia Settlements in North Carolina, were enthusiastic celebrators of Christmas. The Moravians in Bethlehem had the first Christmas trees in America as well as the first Nativity Scenes.[103] Christmas fell out of favor in the United States after the American Revolution, when it was considered an English custom.[104]
+George Washington attacked Hessian (German) mercenaries on the day after Christmas during the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776, Christmas being much more popular in Germany than in America at this time.
+
+With the atheistic Cult of Reason in power during the era of Revolutionary France, Christian Christmas religious services were banned and the three kings cake was renamed the "equality cake" under anticlerical government policies.[105][106]
+
+In the UK, Christmas Day became a bank holiday in 1834. Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, was added in 1871.[107]
+
+In the early-19th century, writers imagined Tudor Christmas as a time of heartfelt celebration. In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote the novel A Christmas Carol, which helped revive the "spirit" of Christmas and seasonal merriment.[108][109] Its instant popularity played a major role in portraying Christmas as a holiday emphasizing family, goodwill, and compassion.[48]
+
+Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity, linking "worship and feasting, within a context of social reconciliation."[110] Superimposing his humanitarian vision of the holiday, in what has been termed "Carol Philosophy",[111] Dickens influenced many aspects of Christmas that are celebrated today in Western culture, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit.[112] A prominent phrase from the tale, "Merry Christmas", was popularized following the appearance of the story.[113] This coincided with the appearance of the Oxford Movement and the growth of Anglo-Catholicism, which led a revival in traditional rituals and religious observances.[114]
+
+The term Scrooge became a synonym for miser, with "Bah! Humbug!" dismissive of the festive spirit.[115] In 1843, the first commercial Christmas card was produced by Sir Henry Cole.[116] The revival of the Christmas Carol began with William Sandys's "Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern" (1833), with the first appearance in print of "The First Noel", "I Saw Three Ships", "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", popularized in Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
+
+In Britain, the Christmas tree was introduced in the early 19th century following the personal union with the Kingdom of Hanover by Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of King George III. In 1832, the future Queen Victoria wrote about her delight at having a Christmas tree, hung with lights, ornaments, and presents placed round it.[117] After her marriage to her German cousin Prince Albert, by 1841 the custom became more widespread throughout Britain.[118]
+
+An image of the British royal family with their Christmas tree at Windsor Castle created a sensation when it was published in the Illustrated London News in 1848. A modified version of this image was published in the United States in 1850.[119][120] By the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become common in America.[119]
+
+In America, interest in Christmas had been revived in the 1820s by several short stories by Washington Irving which appear in his The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. and "Old Christmas". Irving's stories depicted harmonious warm-hearted English Christmas festivities he experienced while staying in Aston Hall, Birmingham, England, that had largely been abandoned,[121] and he used the tract Vindication of Christmas (1652) of Old English Christmas traditions, that he had transcribed into his journal as a format for his stories.[84]
+
+In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (popularly known by its first line: Twas the Night Before Christmas).[122]
+The poem helped popularize the tradition of exchanging gifts, and seasonal Christmas shopping began to assume economic importance.[123]
+This also started the cultural conflict between the holiday's spiritual significance and its associated commercialism that some see as corrupting the holiday. In her 1850 book The First Christmas in New England, Harriet Beecher Stowe includes a character who complains that the true meaning of Christmas was lost in a shopping spree.[124]
+
+While the celebration of Christmas was not yet customary in some regions in the U.S., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow detected "a transition state about Christmas here in New England" in 1856. "The old puritan feeling prevents it from being a cheerful, hearty holiday; though every year makes it more so."[125]
+In Reading, Pennsylvania, a newspaper remarked in 1861, "Even our presbyterian friends who have hitherto steadfastly ignored Christmas—threw open their church doors and assembled in force to celebrate the anniversary of the Savior's birth."[125]
+
+The First Congregational Church of Rockford, Illinois, "although of genuine Puritan stock", was 'preparing for a grand Christmas jubilee', a news correspondent reported in 1864.[125] By 1860, fourteen states including several from New England had adopted Christmas as a legal holiday.[126] In 1875, Louis Prang introduced the Christmas card to Americans. He has been called the "father of the American Christmas card".[127] On June 28, 1870, Christmas was formally declared a United States federal holiday.[128]
+
+Up to the 1950s in the UK, many Christmas customs were restricted to the upper classes and better-off families. The mass of the population had not adopted many of the Christmas rituals that later became general. The Christmas tree was rare. Christmas dinner might be beef or goose – certainly not turkey. In their stockings children might get an apple, orange, and sweets. Full celebration of a family Christmas with all the trimmings only became widespread with increased prosperity from the 1950s.[129] National papers were published on Christmas Day until 1912. Post was still delivered on Christmas Day until 1961. League football matches continued in Scotland until the 1970s while in England they ceased at the end of the 1950s.[130][131]
+
+Under the state atheism of the Soviet Union, after its foundation in 1917, Christmas celebrations—along with other Christian holidays—were prohibited in public.[132] During the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, the League of Militant Atheists encouraged school pupils to campaign against Christmas traditions, such as the Christmas tree, as well as other Christian holidays, including Easter; the League established an antireligious holiday to be the 31st of each month as a replacement.[133] At the height of this persecution, in 1929, on Christmas Day, children in Moscow were encouraged to spit on crucifixes as a protest against the holiday.[134] It was not until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 that the persecution ended and Orthodox Christmas became a state holiday again for the first time in Russia after seven decades.[135]
+
+European History Professor Joseph Perry wrote that likewise, in Nazi Germany, "because Nazi ideologues saw organized religion as an enemy of the totalitarian state, propagandists sought to deemphasize—or eliminate altogether—the Christian aspects of the holiday" and that "Propagandists tirelessly promoted numerous Nazified Christmas songs, which replaced Christian themes with the regime's racial ideologies."[136]
+
+As Christmas celebrations began to be held around the world even outside traditional Christian cultures in the 20th century, some Muslim-majority countries subsequently banned the practice of Christmas, claiming it undermines Islam.[137]
+
+Christmas Day is celebrated as a major festival and public holiday in countries around the world, including many whose populations are mostly non-Christian. In some non-Christian areas, periods of former colonial rule introduced the celebration (e.g. Hong Kong); in others, Christian minorities or foreign cultural influences have led populations to observe the holiday. Countries such as Japan, where Christmas is popular despite there being only a small number of Christians, have adopted many of the secular aspects of Christmas, such as gift-giving, decorations, and Christmas trees.
+
+Among countries with a strong Christian tradition, a variety of Christmas celebrations have developed that incorporate regional and local cultures.
+
+Christmas Day (inclusive of its vigil, Christmas Eve), is a Festival in the Lutheran Churches, a holy day of obligation in the Roman Catholic Church, and a Principal Feast of the Anglican Communion. Other Christian denominations do not rank their feast days but nevertheless place importance on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day, as with other Christian feasts like Easter, Ascension Day, and Pentecost.[139] As such, for Christians, attending a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day church service plays an important part in the recognition of the Christmas season. Christmas, along with Easter, is the period of highest annual church attendance. A 2010 survey by LifeWay Christian Resources found that six in ten Americans attend church services during this time.[140] In the United Kingdom, the Church of England reported an estimated attendance of 2.5 million people at Christmas services in 2015.[141]
+
+Nativity scenes are known from 10th-century Rome. They were popularised by Saint Francis of Assisi from 1223, quickly spreading across Europe.[142] Different types of decorations developed across the Christian world, dependent on local tradition and available resources, and can vary from simple representations of the crib to far more elaborate sets – renowned manger scene traditions include the colourful Kraków szopka in Poland,[143] which imitate Kraków's historical buildings as settings, the elaborate Italian presepi (Neapolitan, Genoese and Bolognese),[144][145][146][147] or the Provençal crèches in southern France, using hand-painted terracotta figurines called santons.[148] In certain parts of the world, notably Sicily, living nativity scenes following the tradition of Saint Francis are a popular alternative to static crèches.[149][150][151] The first commercially produced decorations appeared in Germany in the 1860s, inspired by paper chains made by children.[152] In countries where a representation of the Nativity scene is very popular, people are encouraged to compete and create the most original or realistic ones. Within some families, the pieces used to make the representation are considered a valuable family heirloom.
+
+The traditional colors of Christmas decorations are red, green, and gold. Red symbolizes the blood of Jesus, which was shed in his crucifixion, while green symbolizes eternal life, and in particular the evergreen tree, which does not lose its leaves in the winter, and gold is the first color associated with Christmas, as one of the three gifts of the Magi, symbolizing royalty.[153]
+
+The Christmas tree was first used by German Lutherans in the 16th century, with records indicating that a Christmas tree was placed in the Cathedral of Strassburg in 1539, under the leadership of the Protestant Reformer, Martin Bucer.[154][155] In the United States, these "German Lutherans brought the decorated Christmas tree with them; the Moravians put lighted candles on those trees."[156][157] When decorating the Christmas tree, many individuals place a star at the top of the tree symbolizing the Star of Bethlehem, a fact recorded by The School Journal in 1897.[158][159] Professor David Albert Jones of Oxford University writes that in the 19th century, it became popular for people to also use an angel to top the Christmas tree in order to symbolize the angels mentioned in the accounts of the Nativity of Jesus.[160] The Christmas tree is considered by some as Christianisation of pagan tradition and ritual surrounding the Winter Solstice, which included the use of evergreen boughs, and an adaptation of pagan tree worship;[161] according to eighth-century biographer Æddi Stephanus, Saint Boniface (634–709), who was a missionary in Germany, took an ax to an oak tree dedicated to Thor and pointed out a fir tree, which he stated was a more fitting object of reverence because it pointed to heaven and it had a triangular shape, which he said was symbolic of the Trinity.[162] The English language phrase "Christmas tree" is first recorded in 1835[163] and represents an importation from the German language.[161][164][165]
+
+Since the 16th century, the poinsettia, a native plant from Mexico, has been associated with Christmas carrying the Christian symbolism of the Star of Bethlehem; in that country it is known in Spanish as the Flower of the Holy Night.[166][167] Other popular holiday plants include holly, mistletoe, red amaryllis, and Christmas cactus.
+
+Other traditional decorations include bells, candles, candy canes, stockings, wreaths, and angels. Both the displaying of wreaths and candles in each window are a more traditional Christmas display. The concentric assortment of leaves, usually from an evergreen, make up Christmas wreaths and are designed to prepare Christians for the Advent season. Candles in each window are meant to demonstrate the fact that Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the ultimate light of the world.[168]
+
+Christmas lights and banners may be hung along streets, music played from speakers, and Christmas trees placed in prominent places.[169] It is common in many parts of the world for town squares and consumer shopping areas to sponsor and display decorations. Rolls of brightly colored paper with secular or religious Christmas motifs are manufactured for the purpose of wrapping gifts. In some countries, Christmas decorations are traditionally taken down on Twelfth Night.
+
+For the Christian celebration of Christmas, the viewing of the Nativity play is one of the oldest Christmastime traditions, with the first reenactment of the Nativity of Jesus taking place in A.D. 1223.[170] In that year, Francis of Assisi assembled a Nativity scene outside of his church in Italy and children sung Christmas carols celebrating the birth of Jesus.[170] Each year, this grew larger and people travelled from afar to see Francis' depiction of the Nativity of Jesus that came to feature drama and music.[170] Nativity plays eventually spread throughout all of Europe, where they remain popular. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day church services often came to feature Nativity plays, as did schools and theatres.[170] In France, Germany, Mexico and Spain, Nativity plays are often reenacted outdoors in the streets.[170]
+
+The earliest extant specifically Christmas hymns appear in fourth-century Rome. Latin hymns such as "Veni redemptor gentium", written by Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, were austere statements of the theological doctrine of the Incarnation in opposition to Arianism. "Corde natus ex Parentis" ("Of the Father's love begotten") by the Spanish poet Prudentius (d. 413) is still sung in some churches today.[171] In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Christmas "Sequence" or "Prose" was introduced in North European monasteries, developing under Bernard of Clairvaux into a sequence of rhymed stanzas. In the 12th century the Parisian monk Adam of St. Victor began to derive music from popular songs, introducing something closer to the traditional Christmas carol.
+
+The songs now known specifically as carols were originally communal folk songs sung during celebrations such as "harvest tide" as well as Christmas. It was only later that carols began to be sung in church. Traditionally, carols have often been based on medieval chord patterns, and it is this that gives them their uniquely characteristic musical sound. Some carols like "Personent hodie", "Good King Wenceslas", and "The Holly and the Ivy" can be traced directly back to the Middle Ages. They are among the oldest musical compositions still regularly sung. "Adeste Fideles" (O Come all ye faithful) appears in its current form in the mid-18th century, although the words may have originated in the 13th century.
+
+The singing of carols initially suffered a decline in popularity after the Protestant Reformation in northern Europe, although some Reformers, like Martin Luther, wrote carols and encouraged their use in worship. Carols largely survived in rural communities until the revival of interest in popular songs in the 19th century. The 18th-century English reformer Charles Wesley understood the importance of music to worship. In addition to setting many psalms to melodies, which were influential in the Great Awakening in the United States, he wrote texts for at least three Christmas carols. The best known was originally entitled "Hark! How All the Welkin Rings", later renamed "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing".[172]
+
+Completely secular Christmas seasonal songs emerged in the late 18th century. "Deck the Halls" dates from 1784, and the American "Jingle Bells" was copyrighted in 1857. In the 19th and 20th centuries, African American spirituals and songs about Christmas, based in their tradition of spirituals, became more widely known. An increasing number of seasonal holiday songs were commercially produced in the 20th century, including jazz and blues variations. In addition, there was a revival of interest in early music, from groups singing folk music, such as The Revels, to performers of early medieval and classical music. John Rutter has composed many carols including "All Bells in Paradise", "Angels' Carol", "Candlelight Carol", "Donkey Carol", "Jesus Child", "Shepherd's Pipe Carol" and "Star Carol".
+
+A special Christmas family meal is traditionally an important part of the holiday's celebration, and the food that is served varies greatly from country to country. Some regions have special meals for Christmas Eve, such as Sicily, where 12 kinds of fish are served. In the United Kingdom and countries influenced by its traditions, a standard Christmas meal includes turkey, goose or other large bird, gravy, potatoes, vegetables, sometimes bread and cider. Special desserts are also prepared, such as Christmas pudding, mince pies, Christmas cake, Panettone and Yule log cake.[173][174] Traditional Christmas meal in Central Europe is fried carp or other fish.
+
+Christmas cards are illustrated messages of greeting exchanged between friends and family members during the weeks preceding Christmas Day. The traditional greeting reads "wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year", much like that of the first commercial Christmas card, produced by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843.[175] The custom of sending them has become popular among a wide cross-section of people with the emergence of the modern trend towards exchanging E-cards.
+
+Christmas cards are purchased in considerable quantities and feature artwork, commercially designed and relevant to the season. The content of the design might relate directly to the Christmas narrative, with depictions of the Nativity of Jesus, or Christian symbols such as the Star of Bethlehem, or a white dove, which can represent both the Holy Spirit and Peace on Earth. Other Christmas cards are more secular and can depict Christmas traditions, mythical figures such as Santa Claus, objects directly associated with Christmas such as candles, holly, and baubles, or a variety of images associated with the season, such as Christmastide activities, snow scenes, and the wildlife of the northern winter. There are even humorous cards and genres depicting nostalgic scenes of the past such as crinolined shoppers in idealized 19th-century streetscapes.
+
+Some prefer cards with a poem, prayer, or Biblical verse; while others distance themselves from religion with an all-inclusive "Season's greetings".
+
+A number of nations have issued commemorative stamps at Christmastide. Postal customers will often use these stamps to mail Christmas cards, and they are popular with philatelists. These stamps are regular postage stamps, unlike Christmas seals, and are valid for postage year-round. They usually go on sale sometime between early October and early December and are printed in considerable quantities.
+
+The exchanging of gifts is one of the core aspects of the modern Christmas celebration, making it the most profitable time of year for retailers and businesses throughout the world. On Christmas, people exchange gifts based on the Christian tradition associated with Saint Nicholas,[176] and the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh which were given to the baby Jesus by the Magi.[177][178] The practice of gift giving in the Roman celebration of Saturnalia may have influenced Christian Christian customs, but on the other hand the Christian "core dogma of the Incarnation, however, solidly established the giving and receiving of gifts as the structural principle of that recurrent yet unique event", because it was the Biblical Magi, "together with all their fellow men, who received the gift of God through man's renewed participation in the divine life."[179]
+
+A number of figures are associated with Christmas and the seasonal giving of gifts. Among these are Father Christmas, also known as Santa Claus (derived from the Dutch for Saint Nicholas), Père Noël, and the Weihnachtsmann; Saint Nicholas or Sinterklaas; the Christkind; Kris Kringle; Joulupukki; tomte/nisse; Babbo Natale; Saint Basil; and Ded Moroz. The Scandinavian tomte (also called nisse) is sometimes depicted as a gnome instead of Santa Claus.
+
+The best known of these figures today is red-dressed Santa Claus, of diverse origins. The name Santa Claus can be traced back to the Dutch Sinterklaas, which means simply Saint Nicholas. Nicholas was a 4th-century Greek bishop of Myra, a city in the Roman province of Lycia, whose ruins are 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from modern Demre in southwest Turkey.[180][181] Among other saintly attributes, he was noted for the care of children, generosity, and the giving of gifts. His feast day, December 6, came to be celebrated in many countries with the giving of gifts.[85]
+
+Saint Nicholas traditionally appeared in bishop's attire, accompanied by helpers, inquiring about the behaviour of children during the past year before deciding whether they deserved a gift or not. By the 13th century, Saint Nicholas was well known in the Netherlands, and the practice of gift-giving in his name spread to other parts of central and southern Europe. At the Reformation in 16th–17th-century Europe, many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or Christkindl, corrupted in English to Kris Kringle, and the date of giving gifts changed from December 6 to Christmas Eve.[85]
+
+The modern popular image of Santa Claus, however, was created in the United States, and in particular in New York. The transformation was accomplished with the aid of notable contributors including Washington Irving and the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840–1902). Following the American Revolutionary War, some of the inhabitants of New York City sought out symbols of the city's non-English past. New York had originally been established as the Dutch colonial town of New Amsterdam and the Dutch Sinterklaas tradition was reinvented as Saint Nicholas.[182]
+
+Current tradition in several Latin American countries (such as Venezuela and Colombia) holds that while Santa makes the toys, he then gives them to the Baby Jesus, who is the one who actually delivers them to the children's homes, a reconciliation between traditional religious beliefs and the iconography of Santa Claus imported from the United States.
+
+In South Tyrol (Italy), Austria, Czech Republic, Southern Germany, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Slovakia, and Switzerland, the Christkind (Ježíšek in Czech, Jézuska in Hungarian and Ježiško in Slovak) brings the presents. Greek children get their presents from Saint Basil on New Year's Eve, the eve of that saint's liturgical feast.[184] The German St. Nikolaus is not identical with the Weihnachtsmann (who is the German version of Santa Claus / Father Christmas). St. Nikolaus wears a bishop's dress and still brings small gifts (usually candies, nuts, and fruits) on December 6 and is accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht. Although many parents around the world routinely teach their children about Santa Claus and other gift bringers, some have come to reject this practice, considering it deceptive.[185]
+
+Multiple gift-giver figures exist in Poland, varying between regions and individual families. St Nicholas (Święty Mikołaj) dominates Central and North-East areas, the Starman (Gwiazdor) is most common in Greater Poland, Baby Jesus (Dzieciątko) is unique to Upper Silesia, with the Little Star (Gwiazdka) and the Little Angel (Aniołek) being common in the South and the South-East. Grandfather Frost (Dziadek Mróz) is less commonly accepted in some areas of Eastern Poland.[186][187] It is worth noting that across all of Poland, St Nicholas is the gift giver on the Saint Nicholas Day on December 6.
+
+Some jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodox Church, including those of Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Jerusalem, mark feasts using the older Julian calendar. As of 2020, there is a difference of 13 days between the Julian calendar and the modern Gregorian calendar, which is used internationally for most secular purposes. As a result, December 25 on the Julian calendar currently corresponds to January 7 on the calendar used by most governments and people in everyday life. Therefore, the aforementioned Orthodox Christians mark December 25 (and thus Christmas) on the day that is internationally considered to be January 7.[5]
+
+However, other Orthodox Christians, such as those belonging to the jurisdictions of Constantinople, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Antioch, Alexandria, Albania, Cyprus, Finland, and the Orthodox Church in America, among others, began using the Revised Julian calendar in the early 20th century, which at present corresponds exactly to the Gregorian calendar.[188] Therefore, these Orthodox Christians mark December 25 (and thus Christmas) on the same day that is internationally considered to be December 25, and which is also the date of Christmas among Western Christians.
+
+A further complication is added by the fact that the Armenian Apostolic Church continues the original ancient Eastern Christian practice of celebrating the birth of Christ not as a separate holiday, but on the same day as the celebration of his baptism (Theophany), which is on January 6. This is a public holiday in Armenia, and it is held on the same day that is internationally considered to be January 6, because the Armenian Church in Armenia uses the Gregorian calendar.
+
+However, there is also a small Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which maintains the traditional Armenian custom of celebrating the birth of Christ on the same day as Theophany (January 6), but uses the Julian calendar for the determination of that date. As a result, this church celebrates "Christmas" (more properly called Theophany) on the day that is considered January 19 on the Gregorian calendar in use by the majority of the world.
+
+In summary, there are four different dates used by different Christian groups to mark the birth of Christ, given in the table below.
+
+Also, some Byzantine Rite Catholics and Byzantine Rite Lutherans.
+
+and P'ent'ay (Ethiopian-Eritrean Evangelical) Churches (primary date)
+
+Most Protestants (P'ent'ay/Evangelicals) in the diaspora have the option of choosing the Ethiopian calendar (Tahsas 29/January 7) or the Gregorian calendar (December 25) for religious holidays, with this option being used when the corresponding eastern celebration is not a public holiday in the western world (with most diaspora Protestants celebrating both days).[citation needed]
+
+Christmas is typically a peak selling season for retailers in many nations around the world. Sales increase dramatically as people purchase gifts, decorations, and supplies to celebrate. In the United States, the "Christmas shopping season" starts as early as October.[190][191] In Canada, merchants begin advertising campaigns just before Halloween (October 31), and step up their marketing following Remembrance Day on November 11. In the UK and Ireland, the Christmas shopping season starts from mid-November, around the time when high street Christmas lights are turned on.[192][193] In the United States, it has been calculated that a quarter of all personal spending takes place during the Christmas/holiday shopping season.[194] Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that expenditure in department stores nationwide rose from $20.8 billion in November 2004 to $31.9 billion in December 2004, an increase of 54 percent. In other sectors, the pre-Christmas increase in spending was even greater, there being a November–December buying surge of 100 percent in bookstores and 170 percent in jewelry stores. In the same year employment in American retail stores rose from 1.6 million to 1.8 million in the two months leading up to Christmas.[195] Industries completely dependent on Christmas include Christmas cards, of which 1.9 billion are sent in the United States each year, and live Christmas Trees, of which 20.8 million were cut in the U.S. in 2002.[196] For 2019, the average US adult was projected to spend $920 on gifts alone.[197] In the UK in 2010, up to £8 billion was expected to be spent online at Christmas, approximately a quarter of total retail festive sales.[193]
+
+In most Western nations, Christmas Day is the least active day of the year for business and commerce; almost all retail, commercial and institutional businesses are closed, and almost all industries cease activity (more than any other day of the year), whether laws require such or not. In England and Wales, the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004 prevents all large shops from trading on Christmas Day. Scotland is currently planning similar legislation. Film studios release many high-budget movies during the holiday season, including Christmas films, fantasy movies or high-tone dramas with high production values to hopes of maximizing the chance of nominations for the Academy Awards.
+
+One economist's analysis calculates that, despite increased overall spending, Christmas is a deadweight loss under orthodox microeconomic theory, because of the effect of gift-giving. This loss is calculated as the difference between what the gift giver spent on the item and what the gift receiver would have paid for the item. It is estimated that in 2001, Christmas resulted in a $4 billion deadweight loss in the U.S. alone.[198][199] Because of complicating factors, this analysis is sometimes used to discuss possible flaws in current microeconomic theory. Other deadweight losses include the effects of Christmas on the environment and the fact that material gifts are often perceived as white elephants, imposing cost for upkeep and storage and contributing to clutter.[200]
+
+Christmas has at times been the subject of controversy and attacks from various sources. Historically it was prohibited by Puritans when they briefly held power in England (1647–1660), and in Colonial America where the Puritans outlawed the celebration of Christmas in 1659.[202][203] The Parliament of Scotland, which was dominated by Presbyterians, passed a series of acts outlawing the observance of Christmas between 1637 and 1690; Christmas Day did not become a public holiday in Scotland until 1958.[204] Christmas celebrations have also been prohibited by atheist states such as the Soviet Union[205] and more recently majority Muslim states such as Somalia, Tajikistan and Brunei.[206]
+
+Some Christians and organizations such as Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice cite alleged attacks on Christmas (dubbing them a "war on Christmas").[207][208] Such groups claim that any specific mention of the term "Christmas" or its religious aspects is being increasingly censored, avoided, or discouraged by a number of advertisers, retailers, government (prominently schools), and other public and private organizations. One controversy is the occurrence of Christmas trees being renamed Holiday trees.[209] In the U.S. there has been a tendency to replace the greeting Merry Christmas with Happy Holidays, which is considered inclusive at the time of the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah,[210] Kwanzaa, and Humanlight. In the U.S. and Canada, where the use of the term "Holidays" is most prevalent, opponents have denounced its usage and avoidance of using the term "Christmas" as being politically correct.[211][212][213] In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lynch v. Donnelly that a Christmas display (which included a Nativity scene) owned and displayed by the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, did not violate the First Amendment.[214] American Muslim scholar Abdul Malik Mujahid has said that Muslims must treat Christmas with respect, even if they disagree with it.[215]
+
+The government of the People's Republic of China officially espouses state atheism,[216] and has conducted antireligious campaigns to this end.[217] In December 2018, officials raided Christian churches just prior to Christmastide and coerced them to close; Christmas trees and Santa Clauses were also forcibly removed.[218][219]
+
+(federal) = federal holidays, (abbreviation) = state/territorial holidays, (religious) = religious holidays, (cultural) = holiday related to a specific racial/ethnic group or sexual minority, (week) = week-long holidays, (month) = month-long holidays, (36) = Title 36 Observances and Ceremonies
+Bold indicates major holidays commonly celebrated in the United States, which often represent the major celebrations of the month.

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+
+
+Black is the darkest color, the result of the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, a color without hue, like white and gray.[1] It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness, while white represents light.[2] Black and white have often been used to describe opposites such as good and evil, the Dark Ages versus Age of Enlightenment, and night versus day. Since the Middle Ages, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates.[2]
+
+Black was one of the first colors used by artists in neolithic cave paintings.[3] In the 14th century, it was worn by royalty, clergy, judges and government officials in much of Europe. It became the color worn by English romantic poets, businessmen and statesmen in the 19th century, and a high fashion color in the 20th century.[2] In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches and magic.[4] According to surveys in Europe and North America, it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, force, violence, evil, and elegance.[5]
+
+Black ink is the most common color used for printing books, newspapers and documents, as it provides the highest contrast with white paper and thus the easiest color to read. Similarly, black text on a white screen is the most common format used on computer screens.[6]
+
+The word black comes from Old English blæc ("black, dark", also, "ink"), from Proto-Germanic *blakkaz ("burned"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- ("to burn, gleam, shine, flash"), from base *bhel- ("to shine"), related to Old Saxon blak ("ink"), Old High German blach ("black"), Old Norse blakkr ("dark"), Dutch blaken ("to burn"), and Swedish bläck ("ink"). More distant cognates include Latin flagrare ("to blaze, glow, burn"), and Ancient Greek phlegein ("to burn, scorch").
+
+The Ancient Greeks sometimes used the same word to name different colors, if they had the same intensity.  Kuanos' could mean both dark blue and black.[7]
+
+The Ancient Romans had two words for black:  ater was a flat, dull black, while niger was a brilliant, saturated black. Ater has vanished from the vocabulary, but niger was the source of the country name Nigeria,[8] the English word Negro, and the word for "black" in most modern Romance languages (French: noir; Spanish and Portuguese: negro; Italian: nero; Romanian: negru).
+
+Old High German also had two words for black: swartz for dull black and blach for a luminous black.  These are parallelled in Middle English by the terms swart for dull black and blaek for luminous black. Swart still survives as the word swarthy, while blaek became the modern English black.[7]
+
+In heraldry, the word used for the black color is sable,[9] named for the black fur of the sable, an animal.
+
+Black was one of the first colors used in art. The Lascaux Cave in France contains drawings of bulls and other animals drawn by paleolithic artists between 18,000 and 17,000 years ago. They began by using charcoal, and then made more vivid black pigments by burning bones or grinding a powder of manganese oxide.[7]
+
+For the ancient Egyptians, black had positive associations; being the color of fertility and the rich black soil flooded by the Nile. It was the color of Anubis, the god of the underworld, who took the form of a black jackal, and offered protection against evil to the dead.
+
+For the ancient Greeks, black was also the color of the underworld, separated from the world of the living by the river Acheron, whose water was black. Those who had committed the worst sins were sent to Tartarus, the deepest and darkest level. In the center was the palace of Hades, the king of the underworld, where he was seated upon a black ebony throne. Black was one of the most important colors used by ancient Greek artists. In the 6th century BC, they began making black-figure pottery and later red figure pottery, using a highly original technique. In black-figure pottery, the artist would paint figures with a glossy clay slip on a red clay pot. When the pot was fired, the figures painted with the slip would turn black, against a red background. Later they reversed the process, painting the spaces between the figures with slip. This created magnificent red figures against a glossy black background.[10]
+
+In the social hierarchy of ancient Rome, purple was the color reserved for the Emperor; red was the color worn by soldiers (red cloaks for the officers, red tunics for the soldiers); white the color worn by the priests, and black was worn by craftsmen and artisans. The black they wore was not deep and rich; the vegetable dyes used to make black were not solid or lasting, so the blacks often turned out faded gray or brown.[citation needed]
+
+In Latin, the word for black, ater and to darken, atere,  were associated with cruelty, brutality and evil. They were the root of the English words "atrocious" and "atrocity".[11] Black was also the Roman color of death and mourning. In the 2nd century BC Roman magistrates began to wear a dark toga, called a toga pulla, to funeral ceremonies. Later, under the Empire, the family of the deceased also wore dark colors for a long period; then, after a banquet to mark the end of mourning, exchanged the black for a white toga. In Roman poetry, death was called the hora nigra, the black hour.[7]
+
+The German and Scandinavian peoples worshipped their own goddess of the night, Nótt, who crossed the sky in a chariot drawn by a black horse. They also feared Hel, the goddess of the kingdom of the dead, whose skin was black on one side and red on the other. They also held sacred the raven. They believed that Odin, the king of the Nordic pantheon, had two black ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who served as his agents, traveling the world for him, watching and listening.[12]
+
+Neolithic paintings of bulls in the Lascaux Cave, more than 17,000 years old
+
+Statue of Anubis, guardian of the underworld, from the tomb of Tutankhamun.
+
+Greek black-figure pottery. Ajax and Achilles playing a game, about 540–530 BC. (Vatican Museums).
+
+Red-figure pottery with black background. Portrait of Thetis, about 470–480 BC. (The Louvre)
+
+In the early Middle Ages, black was commonly associated with darkness and evil. In Medieval paintings, the devil was usually depicted as having human form, but with wings and black skin or hair.[13]
+
+In fashion, black did not have the prestige of red, the color of the nobility. It was worn by Benedictine monks as a sign of humility and penitence. In the 12th century a famous theological dispute broke out between the Cistercian monks, who wore white, and the Benedictines, who wore black. A Benedictine abbot, Pierre the Venerable, accused the Cistercians of excessive pride in wearing white instead of black. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercians responded that black was the color of the devil, hell, "of death and sin," while white represented "purity, innocence and all the virtues".[14]
+
+Black symbolized both power and secrecy in the medieval world. The emblem of the Holy Roman Empire of Germany was a black eagle. The black knight in the poetry of the Middle Ages was an enigmatic figure, hiding his identity, usually wrapped in secrecy.[15]
+
+Black ink, invented in China, was traditionally used in the Middle Ages for writing, for the simple reason that black was the darkest color and therefore provided the greatest contrast with white paper or parchment, making it the easiest color to read.  It became even more important in the 15th century, with the invention of printing.    A new kind of ink, printer's ink, was created out of soot, turpentine and walnut oil. The new ink made it possible to spread ideas to a mass audience through printed books, and to popularize art through black and white engravings and prints.  Because of its contrast and clarity, black ink on white paper continued to be the standard for printing books, newspapers and documents; and for the same reason black text on a white background is the most common format used on computer screens.[6]
+
+The Italian painter Duccio di Buoninsegna showed Christ expelling the Devil, shown covered with bristly black hair (1308–11).
+
+The 15th-century painting of the Last Judgement by Fra Angelico (1395–1455) depicted hell with a vivid black devil devouring sinners.
+
+Portrait of a monk of the Benedictine Order  (1484)
+
+The black knight in a miniature painting of a medieval romance,Le Livre du cœur d'amour épris (about 1460)
+
+Gutenberg Bible (1451–1452). Black ink was used for printing books, because it provided the greatest contrast with the white paper and was the clearest and easiest color to read.
+
+In the early Middle Ages, princes, nobles and the wealthy usually wore bright colors, particularly scarlet cloaks from Italy. Black was rarely part of the wardrobe of a noble family. The one exception was the fur of the sable. This glossy black fur, from an animal of the marten family, was the finest and most expensive fur in Europe.  It was imported from Russia and Poland and used to trim the robes and gowns of royalty.
+
+In the 14th century, the status of black began to change. First, high-quality black dyes began to arrive on the market, allowing garments of a deep, rich black. Magistrates and government officials began to wear black robes, as a sign of the importance and seriousness of their positions. A third reason was the passage of sumptuary laws in some parts of Europe which prohibited the wearing of costly clothes and certain colors by anyone except members of the nobility. The famous bright scarlet cloaks from Venice and the peacock blue fabrics from Florence were restricted to the nobility. The wealthy bankers and merchants of northern Italy responded by changing to black robes and gowns, made with the most expensive fabrics.[16]
+
+The change to the more austere but elegant black was quickly picked up by the kings and nobility. It began in northern Italy, where the Duke of Milan and the Count of Savoy and the rulers of Mantua, Ferrara, Rimini and Urbino began to dress in black. It then spread to France, led by Louis I, Duke of Orleans, younger brother of King Charles VI of France. It moved to England at the end of the reign of King Richard II (1377–1399), where all the court began to wear black. In 1419–20, black became the color of the powerful Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good. It moved to Spain, where it became the color of the Spanish Habsburgs, of Charles V and of his son, Philip II of Spain (1527–1598). European rulers saw it as the color of power, dignity, humility and temperance. By the end of the 16th century, it was the color worn by almost all the monarchs of Europe and their courts.[17]
+
+Philip the Good in about 1450, by Rogier van der Weyden
+
+Portrait of a Young Woman by Petrus Christus (about 1470)
+
+Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558), by Titian
+
+Portrait of Philip II of Spain (1527–1598)
+
+While black was the color worn by the Catholic rulers of Europe, it was also the emblematic color of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and the Puritans in England and America. John Calvin, Philip Melanchthon and other Protestant theologians denounced the richly colored and decorated interiors of Roman Catholic churches. They saw the color red, worn by the Pope and his Cardinals, as the color of luxury, sin, and human folly.[18] In some northern European cities, mobs attacked churches and cathedrals, smashed the stained glass windows and defaced the statues and decoration. In Protestant doctrine, clothing was required to be sober, simple and discreet. Bright colors were banished and replaced by blacks, browns and grays; women and children were recommended to wear white.[19]
+
+In the Protestant Netherlands, Rembrandt used this sober new palette of blacks and browns to create portraits whose faces emerged from the shadows expressing the deepest human emotions. The Catholic painters of the Counter-Reformation, like Rubens, went in the opposite direction; they filled their paintings with bright and rich colors. The new Baroque churches of the Counter-Reformation were usually shining white inside and filled with statues, frescoes, marble, gold and colorful paintings, to appeal to the public. But European Catholics of all classes, like Protestants, eventually adopted a sober wardrobe that was mostly black, brown and gray.[20]
+
+Swiss theologian John Calvin denounced the bright colors worn by Roman Catholic priests, and colorful decoration of churches.
+
+Increase Mather, an American Puritan clergyman (1688).
+
+American Pilgrims in New England going to church (painting by George Henry Boughton, 1867)
+
+Rembrandt, Self-portrait (1659)
+
+Black painted suit of German armor crafted circa 1600. As with many outfits, black in the piece is used to contrast against lighter colors.[21]
+
+In the second part of the 17th century, Europe and America experienced an epidemic of fear of witchcraft.  People widely believed that the devil appeared at midnight in a ceremony called a Black Mass or black sabbath, usually in the form of a black animal, often a goat, a dog, a wolf, a bear, a deer or a rooster, accompanied by their familiar spirits, black cats, serpents and other black creatures. This was the origin of the widespread superstition about black cats and other black animals. In medieval Flanders, in a ceremony called Kattenstoet, black cats were thrown from the belfry of the Cloth Hall of Ypres to ward off witchcraft.[22]
+
+Witch trials were common in both Europe and America during this period. During the notorious Salem witch trials in New England in 1692–93, one of those on trial was accused of being able turn into a "black thing with a blue cap,"  and others of having familiars in the form of a black dog, a black cat and a black bird.[23] Nineteen women and men were hanged as witches.[24]
+
+An English manual on witch-hunting (1647), showing a witch with her familiar spirits
+
+Black cats have been accused for centuries of being the familiar spirits of witches or of bringing bad luck.
+
+In the 18th century, during the European Age of Enlightenment, black receded as a fashion color. Paris became the fashion capital, and pastels, blues, greens, yellow and white became the colors of the nobility and upper classes. But after the French Revolution, black again became the dominant color.
+
+Black was the color of the industrial revolution, largely fueled by coal, and later by oil. Thanks to coal smoke, the buildings of the large cities of Europe and America gradually turned black.  By 1846 the industrial area of the West Midlands of England was "commonly called 'the Black Country'”.[25] Charles Dickens and other writers described the dark streets and smoky skies of London, and they were vividly illustrated in the engravings of French artist Gustave Doré.
+
+A different kind of black was an important part of the romantic movement in literature. Black was the color of melancholy, the dominant theme of romanticism. The novels of the period were filled with castles, ruins, dungeons, storms, and meetings at midnight. The leading poets of the movement were usually portrayed dressed in black, usually with a white shirt and open collar, and a scarf carelessly over their shoulder, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron helped create the enduring stereotype of the romantic poet.
+
+The invention of new, inexpensive synthetic black dyes and the industrialization of the textile industry meant that good-quality black clothes were available for the first time to the general population. In the 19th century gradually black became the most popular color of business dress of the upper and middle classes in England, the Continent, and America.
+
+Black dominated literature and fashion in the 19th century, and played a large role in painting. James McNeil Whistler made the color the subject of his most famous painting, Arrangement in grey and black number one  (1871), better known as Whistler's Mother.
+
+Some 19th-century French painters had a low opinion of black: "Reject black," Paul Gauguin said, "and that mix of black and white they call gray. Nothing is black, nothing is gray."[26] But Édouard Manet used blacks for their strength and dramatic effect. Manet's portrait of painter Berthe Morisot was a study in black which perfectly captured her spirit of independence. The black gave the painting power and immediacy;  he even changed her eyes, which were green, to black to strengthen the effect.[27] Henri Matisse quoted the French impressionist Pissarro telling him, "Manet is stronger than us all – he made light with black."[28]
+
+Pierre-Auguste Renoir used luminous blacks, especially in his portraits. When someone told him that black was not a color, Renoir replied: "What makes you think that? Black is the queen of colors. I always detested Prussian blue. I tried to replace black with a mixture of red and blue, I tried using cobalt blue or ultramarine, but I always came back to ivory black."[29]
+
+Vincent van Gogh used black lines to outline many of the objects in his paintings, such as the bed in the famous painting of his bedroom. making them stand apart. His painting of black crows over a cornfield, painted shortly before he died, was particularly agitated and haunting.
+
+In the late 19th century, black also became the color of anarchism. (See the section political movements.)
+
+Percy Bysshe Shelley in the black and white costume of the romantic poet (1819).
+
+A view of London by Gustave Doré from 1872 showed how coal and the industrial revolution had blackened the buildings and air of the great cities of Europe.
+
+Arrangement in Grey and Black Number 1 (1871) by James McNeil Whistler better known as Whistler's Mother.
+
+Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, by Édouard Manet (1872).
+
+Le Bal de l'Opera (1873) by Édouard Manet, shows the dominance of black in Parisian evening dress.
+
+The Theater Box (1874) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, captured the luminosity of black fabric in the light.
+
+Wheat Field with Crows (1890), one of the last paintings of Vincent van Gogh, captures his agitated state of mind.
+
+In the 20th century, black was the color of Italian and German fascism.  (See the section political movements.)
+
+In art, black regained some of the territory that it had lost during the 19th century. The Russian painter Kasimir Malevich, a member of the Suprematist movement, created the Black Square in 1915, is widely considered the first purely abstract painting.[30] He wrote, "The painted work is no longer simply the imitation of reality, but is this very reality ... It is not a demonstration of ability, but the materialization of an idea."[31]
+
+Black was also appreciated by Henri Matisse. "When I didn't know what color to put down, I put down black," he said in 1945. "Black is a force: I used black as ballast to simplify the construction ... Since the impressionists it seems to have made continuous progress, taking a more and more important part in color orchestration, comparable to that of the double bass as a solo instrument."[32]
+
+In the 1950s, black came to be a symbol of individuality and intellectual and social rebellion, the color of those who didn't accept established norms and values. In Paris, it was worn by Left-Bank intellectuals and performers such as Juliette Gréco, and by some members of the Beat Movement in New York and San Francisco.[33] Black leather jackets were worn by motorcycle gangs such as the Hells Angels and street gangs on the fringes of society in the United States. Black as a color of rebellion was celebrated in such films as The Wild One, with Marlon Brando. By the end of the 20th century, black was the emblematic color of the punk subculture punk fashion, and the goth subculture. Goth fashion, which emerged in England in the 1980s, was inspired by Victorian era mourning dress.
+
+In men's fashion, black gradually ceded its dominance to navy blue, particularly in business suits. Black evening dress and formal dress in general were worn less and less. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was the last American President to be inaugurated wearing formal dress; President Lyndon Johnson and all his successors were inaugurated wearing business suits.
+
+Women's fashion was revolutionized and simplified in 1926 by the French designer Coco Chanel, who published a drawing of a simple black dress in Vogue magazine. She famously said, "A woman needs just three things; a black dress, a black sweater, and, on her arm, a man she loves."[33]  French designer Jean Patou also followed suit by creating a black collection in 1929.[34] Other designers contributed to the trend of the little black dress. The Italian designer Gianni Versace said, "Black is the quintessence of simplicity and elegance," and French designer Yves Saint Laurent said, "black is the liaison which connects art and fashion.[33] One of the most famous black dresses of the century was designed by Hubert de Givenchy and was worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's.
+
+The American civil rights movement in the 1950s was a struggle for the political equality of African Americans. It developed into the Black Power movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, and popularized the slogan "Black is Beautiful".
+
+In the 1990s, the Black Standard became the banner of several Islamic extremist, jihadist groups. (See the section political movements.)
+
+The Black Square (1915) by Kazimir Malevich is considered the first purely abstract painting (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow).
+
+The goth fashion model Lady Amaranth. Goth fashion was inspired by British Victorian mourning costumes.
+
+Variants of the Black Standard flag are used by many militant Islamist groups that have adopted militant interpretations of jihad. it is said to be the banner carried by Muhammad and his soldiers.
+
+In the visible spectrum, black is the absorption of all colors. Black can be defined as the visual impression experienced when no visible light reaches the eye. Pigments or dyes that absorb light rather than reflect it back to the eye "look black". A black pigment can, however, result from a combination of several pigments that collectively absorb all colors. If appropriate proportions of three primary pigments are mixed, the result reflects so little light as to be called "black". This provides two superficially opposite but actually complementary descriptions of black. Black is the absorption of all colors of light, or an exhaustive combination of multiple colors of pigment.
+
+In physics, a black body is a perfect absorber of light, but, by a thermodynamic rule, it is also the best emitter. Thus, the best radiative cooling, out of sunlight, is by using black paint, though it is important that it be black (a nearly perfect absorber) in the infrared as well. In elementary science, far ultraviolet light is called "black light" because, while itself unseen, it causes many minerals and other substances to fluoresce.
+
+On January 16, 2008, researchers from Troy, New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced the creation of the then darkest material on the planet. The material, which reflected only 0.045 percent of light, was created from carbon nanotubes stood on end. This is 1/30 of the light reflected by the current standard for blackness, and one third the light reflected by the previous record holder for darkest substance.[35] As of February 2016, the current darkest material known is claimed to be Vantablack.[36][37]
+
+Absorption of light is contrasted by transmission, reflection and diffusion, where the light is only redirected, causing objects to appear transparent, reflective or white respectively. A material is said to be black if most incoming light is absorbed equally in the material. Light (electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum) interacts with the atoms and molecules, which causes the energy of the light to be converted into other forms of energy, usually heat. This means that black surfaces can act as thermal collectors, absorbing light and generating heat (see Solar thermal collector).
+
+Vantablack is made of carbon nanotubes[38] and is the blackest substance known, absorbing up to 99.965% of radiation in the visible spectrum.[39]
+
+The earliest pigments used by Neolithic man were charcoal, red ocher and yellow ocher. The black lines of cave art were drawn with the tips of burnt torches made of a wood with resin.[40] Different charcoal pigments were made by burning different woods and animal products, each of which produced a different tone. The charcoal would be ground and then mixed with animal fat to make the pigment.
+
+The 15th-century painter Cennino Cennini described how this pigment was made during the Renaissance in his famous handbook for artists: "...there is a black which is made from the tendrils of vines. And these tendrils need to be burned. And when they have been burned, throw some water onto them and put them out and then mull them in the same way as the other black. And this is a lean and black pigment and is one of the perfect pigments that we use."[41]
+
+Cennini also noted that "There is another black which is made from burnt almond shells or peaches and this is a perfect, fine black."[41] Similar fine blacks were made by burning the pits of the peach, cherry or apricot. The powdered charcoal was then mixed with gum arabic or the yellow of an egg to make a paint.
+
+Different civilizations burned different plants to produce their charcoal pigments. The Inuit of Alaska used wood charcoal mixed with the blood of seals to paint masks and wooden objects. The Polynesians burned coconuts to produce their pigment.
+
+Good-quality black dyes were not known until the middle of the 14th century. The most common early dyes were made from bark, roots or fruits of different trees;  usually the walnut, chestnut, or certain oak trees. The blacks produced were often more gray, brown or bluish. The cloth had to be dyed several times to darken the color. One solution used by dyers was add to the dye some iron filings, rich in iron oxide, which gave a deeper black. Another was to first dye the fabric dark blue, and then to dye it black.
+
+A much richer and deeper black dye was eventually found made from the Oak apple or gall-nut.  The gall-nut is a small round tumor which grows on oak and other varieties of trees. They range in size from 2–5 cm, and are caused by chemicals injected by the larva of certain kinds of gall wasp in the family Cynipidae.[42] The dye was very expensive;  a great quantity of gall-nuts were needed for a very small amount of dye.  The gall-nuts which made the best dye came from Poland, eastern Europe, the near east and North Africa.  Beginning in about the 14th century, dye from gall-nuts was used for clothes of the kings and princes of Europe.[43]
+
+Another important source of natural black dyes from the 17th century onwards was the logwood tree, or Haematoxylum campechianum, which also produced reddish and bluish dyes. It is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is native to southern Mexico and northern Central America.[44] The modern nation of Belize grew from 17th century English logwood logging camps.
+
+Since the mid-19th century, synthetic black dyes have largely replaced natural dyes. One of the important synthetic blacks is Nigrosin, a mixture of synthetic black dyes (CI 50415, Solvent black 5) made by heating a mixture of nitrobenzene, aniline and aniline hydrochloride in the presence of a copper or iron catalyst. Its main industrial uses are as a colorant for lacquers and varnishes and in marker-pen inks.[45]
+
+The first known inks were made by the Chinese, and date back to the 23rd century B.C. They used natural plant dyes and minerals such as graphite ground with water and applied with an ink brush. Early Chinese inks similar to the modern inkstick have been found dating to about 256 BC at the end of the Warring States period. They were produced from soot, usually produced by burning pine wood, mixed with animal glue. To make ink from an inkstick, the stick is continuously ground against an inkstone with a small quantity of water to produce a dark liquid which is then applied with an ink brush. Artists and calligraphists could vary the thickness of the resulting ink by reducing or increasing the intensity and time of ink grinding. These inks produced the delicate shading and subtle or dramatic effects of Chinese brush painting.[46]
+
+India ink (or Indian ink in British English) is a black ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comic books and comic strips. The technique of making it probably came from China. India ink has been in use in India since at least the 4th century BC, where it was called masi. In India, the black color of the ink came from bone char, tar, pitch and other substances.[47][48]
+
+The Ancient Romans had a black writing ink they called atramentum librarium.[49] Its name came from the Latin word atrare, which meant to make something black. (This was the same root as the English word atrocious.) It was usually made, like India ink, from soot, although one variety, called atramentum elephantinum, was made by burning the ivory of elephants.[50]
+
+Gall-nuts were also used for making fine black writing ink. Iron gall ink (also known as iron gall nut ink or oak gall ink) was a purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and tannic acids from gall nut. It was the standard writing and drawing ink in Europe, from about the 12th century to the 19th century, and remained in use well into the 20th century.
+
+Sticks of vine charcoal and compressed charcoal. Charcoal, along with red and yellow ochre, was one of the first pigments used by Paleolithic man.
+
+A Chinese inkstick, in the form of lotus flowers and blossoms. Inksticks are used in Chinese calligraphy and brush painting.
+
+Ivory black or bone char, a natural black pigment made by burning animal bones.
+
+The logwood tree from Central America produced dyes beginning in the 17th century. The nation of Belize began as a British colony producing logwood.
+
+The oak apple or gall-nut, a tumor growing on oak trees, was the main source of black dye and black writing ink from the 14th century until the 19th century.
+
+The industrial production of lamp black, made by producing, collecting and refining soot,  in 1906.
+
+Image of the NGC 406 galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope
+
+The night sky seen from Mars, with the two moons of Mars visible, taken by the NASA Spirit Rover.
+
+Outside Earth's atmosphere, the sky is black day and night.
+
+An illustration of Olbers' paradox (see below)
+
+Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
+
+The fact that outer space is black is sometimes called Olbers' paradox. In theory, because the universe is full of stars, and is believed to be infinitely large, it would be expected that the light of an infinite number of stars would be enough to brilliantly light the whole universe all the time. However, the background color of outer space is black. This contradiction was first noted in 1823 by German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers, who posed the question of why the night sky was black.
+
+The current accepted answer is that, although the universe is infinitely large, it is not infinitely old. It is thought to be about 13.8 billion years old, so we can only see objects as far away as the distance light can travel in 13.8 billion years. Light from stars farther away has not reached Earth, and cannot contribute to making the sky bright. Furthermore, as the universe is expanding, many stars are moving away from Earth. As they move, the wavelength of their light becomes longer, through the Doppler effect, and shifts toward red, or even becomes invisible. As a result of these two phenomena, there is not enough starlight to make space anything but black.[54]
+
+The daytime sky on Earth is blue because light from the Sun strikes molecules in Earth's atmosphere scattering light in all directions. Blue light is scattered more than other colors, and reaches the eye in greater quantities, making the daytime sky appear blue. This is known as Rayleigh scattering.
+
+The nighttime sky on Earth is black because the part of Earth experiencing night is facing away from the Sun, the light of the Sun is blocked by Earth itself, and there is no other bright nighttime source of light in the vicinity. Thus, there is not enough light to undergo Rayleigh scattering and make the sky blue. On the Moon, on the other hand, because there is no atmosphere to scatter the light, the sky is black both day and night. This phenomenon also holds true for other locations without an atmosphere.
+
+American black bear (Ursus americanus) near Riding Mountain Park, Manitoba, Canada
+
+The black mamba of Africa is one of the most venomous snakes, as well as the fastest-moving snake in the world. The only black part of the snake is the inside of the mouth, which it exposes in a threat display when alarmed.
+
+The black widow spider, or latrodectus, The females frequently eat their male partners after mating. The female's venom is at least three times more potent than that of the males, making a male's self-defense bite ineffective.
+
+A black panther is actually a melanistic leopard or jaguar, the result of an excess of melanin in their skin caused by a recessive gene.
+
+The American crow is one of the most intelligent of all animals.[55]
+
+In China, the color black is associated with water, one of the five fundamental elements believed to compose all things;  and with winter, cold, and the direction north, usually symbolized by a black tortoise.  It is also associated with disorder, including the positive disorder which leads to change and new life. When the first Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang seized power from the Zhou Dynasty, he changed the Imperial color from red to black, saying that black extinguished red.  Only when the Han Dynasty appeared in 206 BC was red restored as the imperial color.[56]
+
+The Chinese and Japanese character for black (kuro in Japanese), can, depending upon the context, also mean dark or evil.
+
+In Japan, black is associated with mystery, the night, the unknown, the supernatural, the invisible and death.  Combined with white, it can symbolize intuition.[57] In 10th and 11th century Japan, it was believed that wearing black could bring misfortune.  It was worn at court by those who wanted to set themselves apart from the established powers or who had renounced material possessions.[58]
+
+In Japan black can also symbolize experience, as opposed to white, which symbolizes naiveté. The black belt in martial arts symbolizes experience, while a white belt is worn by novices.[59] Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day.
+
+In Indonesia black is associated with depth, the subterranean world, demons, disaster, and the left hand.  When black is combined with white, however, it symbolizes harmony and equilibrium.[60]
+
+The first Chinese Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, made black his imperial color, saying that black extinguished red, the old dynastic color.
+
+Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day
+
+Anarchism is a political philosophy, most popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which holds that governments and capitalism are harmful and undesirable. The symbols of anarchism was usually either a black flag or a black letter A. More recently it is usually represented with a bisected red and black flag, to emphasise the movement's socialist roots in the First International. Anarchism was most popular in Spain, France, Italy, Ukraine and Argentina. There were also small but influential movements in the United States and Russia. In the latter, the movement initially allied itself with the Bolsheviks.[61]
+
+The Black Army was a collection of anarchist military units which fought in the Russian Civil War,  sometimes on the side of the Bolshevik Red Army, and sometimes for the opposing White Army. It was officially known as the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, and it was under the command of the famous anarchist Nestor Makhno.
+
+Fascism. The Blackshirts (Italian: camicie nere, 'CCNN) were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II. The Blackshirts were officially known as the Voluntary Militia for National Security (Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, or MVSN).
+
+Inspired by the black uniforms of the Arditi, Italy's elite storm troops of World War I, the Fascist Blackshirts were organized by Benito Mussolini as the military tool of his political movement.[62] They used violence and intimidation against Mussolini's opponents. The emblem of the Italian fascists was a black flag with fasces, an axe in a bundle of sticks, an ancient Roman symbol of authority. Mussolini came to power in 1922 through his March on Rome with the blackshirts.
+
+Black was also adopted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany. Red, white and black were the colors of the flag of the German Empire from 1870 to 1918. In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained that they were "revered colors expressive of our homage to the glorious past." Hitler also wrote that "the new flag ... should prove effective as a large poster" because "in hundreds of thousands of cases a really striking emblem may be the first cause of awakening interest in a movement." The black swastika was meant to symbolize the Aryan race, which, according to the Nazis, "was always anti-Semitic and will always be anti-Semitic."[63] Several designs by a number of different authors were considered, but the one adopted in the end was Hitler's personal design.[64] Black became the color of the uniform of the SS, the Schutzstaffel or "defense corps", the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, and was worn by SS officers from 1932 until the end of World War II.
+
+The Nazis used a black triangle to symbolize anti-social elements. The symbol originates from Nazi concentration camps, where every prisoner had to wear one of the Nazi concentration camp badges on their jacket, the color of which categorized them according to "their kind." Many Black Triangle prisoners were either mentally disabled or mentally ill. The homeless were also included, as were alcoholics, the Romani people, the habitually "work-shy," prostitutes, draft dodgers and pacifists.[65] More recently the black triangle has been adopted as a symbol in lesbian culture and by disabled activists.
+
+Black shirts were also worn by the British Union of Fascists before World War II, and members of fascist movements in the Netherlands.[66]
+
+Patriotic resistance. The Lützow Free Corps, composed of volunteer German students and academics fighting against Napoleon in 1813, could not afford to make special uniforms and therefore adopted black, as the only color that could be used to dye their civilian clothing without the original color showing.  In 1815 the students began to carry a red, black and gold flag, which they believed (incorrectly) had been the colors of the Holy Roman Empire (the imperial flag had actually been gold and black). In 1848, this banner became the flag of the German confederation. In 1866, Prussia unified Germany under its rule, and imposed the red, white and black of its own flag, which remained the colors of the German flag until the end of the Second World War. In 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany returned to the original flag and colors of the students and professors of 1815, which is the flag of Germany today.[67]
+
+Islamism. The Black Standard (راية السوداء‎ rāyat al-sawdā', also known as راية العقاب‎ rāyat al-'uqāb "banner of the eagle" or simply as الراية‎ al-rāya "the banner") is the historical flag flown by Muhammad in Islamic tradition, an eschatological symbol in Shi'a Islam (heralding the advent of the Mahdi),[68] and a symbol used in Islamism and Jihadism.
+
+A flag used by the anarchist Black Army during the Russian Civil War. It says, "Power begets parasites. Long live Anarchy!"
+
+Benito Mussolini and his blackshirt followers during his March on Rome in 1922.
+
+Black uniform of Heinrich Himmler,  head of the SS,  the military wing of the Nazi Party (1938).
+
+The flag used by ISIL (also called ISIS), Boko Haram, and other groups. Similar Black Standards are used by Islamists and Jihadists across the Muslim world.
+
+The flag of Albania is a red flag with a silhouetted black double-headed eagle in the center. The red stands for bravery, strength and valor, while the double-headed eagle represents the sovereign state of Albania.
+
+The banner of the Holy Roman Emperor (1400–1806) featured a black eagle, an old Roman emblem and a symbol of power. One head represented the church, the other the state.
+
+Flag of Belgium (1831). The black came from the banner of the Duchy of Brabant, founded in the 12th century. The flag used the colors of the failed Brabant Revolution of 1789–90 against the Habsburg Monarchy.
+
+The Flag of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire (1917–20), gave its colors to many modern flags in the Middle East. Black was taken from the Black Standard of Muhammad.
+
+(The black in the modern flag of Germany (1949) dates back to the flag of the Holy Roman Empire, the 19th-century flag of the German Confederation, the flag of Prussia, and the flag of the Weimar Republic.
+
+Flag of Estonia (1918). The flag was a symbol of Estonian nationalism, when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. Black was said to symbolize the dark time of occupation, and white the bright future of independence.
+
+Flag of Egypt (1984). The colors were taken from the Flag of the Arab Revolt, which was the banner of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. The black came from the Black Standard of Muhammad.
+
+The Flag of South Africa (1994). The black comes from the flag of the African National Congress, the ruling party in South Africa.
+
+Black has been a traditional color of cavalry and armoured or mechanized troops. German armoured troops (Panzerwaffe) traditionally wore black uniforms, and even in others, a black beret is common. In Finland, black is the symbolic color for both armoured troops and combat engineers, and military units of these specialities have black flags and unit insignia.
+
+The black beret and the color black is also a symbol of special forces in many countries. Soviet and Russian OMON special police and Russian naval infantry wear a black beret. A black beret is also worn by military police in the Canadian, Czech, Croatian, Portuguese, Spanish and Serbian armies.
+
+The silver-on-black skull and crossbones symbol or Totenkopf and a black uniform were used by Hussars and Black Brunswickers, the German Panzerwaffe and the Nazi Schutzstaffel, and U.S. 400th Missile Squadron (crossed missiles), and continues in use with the Estonian Kuperjanov Battalion.
+
+In Christianity, the devil is often called the "prince of darkness." The term was used in John Milton's poem Paradise Lost, published in 1667, referring to Satan, who is viewed as the embodiment of evil. It is an English translation of the Latin phrase princeps tenebrarum, which occurs in the Acts of Pilate, written in the fourth century, in the 11th-century hymn Rhythmus de die mortis by Pietro Damiani,[70] and in a sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux[71] from the 12th century. The phrase also occurs in King Lear by William Shakespeare (c. 1606), Act III, Scene IV, l. 14:
+'The prince of darkness is a gentleman."
+
+Priests and pastors of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches commonly wear black, as do monks of the Benedictine Order, who consider it the color of humility and penitence.
+
+Modern-day monks of the Order of Saint Benedict in New Jersey
+
+In Europe and America, black is commonly associated with mourning and bereavement,[79][4] and usually worn at funerals and memorial services. In some traditional societies, for example in Greece and Italy, some widows wear black for the rest of their lives. In contrast, across much of Africa and parts of Asia like Vietnam, white is a color of mourning.
+
+In Victorian England, the colors and fabrics of mourning were specified in an unofficial dress code:  "non-reflective black paramatta and crape for the first year of deepest mourning, followed by nine months of dullish black silk, heavily trimmed with crape, and then three months when crape was discarded.  Paramatta was a fabric of combined silk and wool or cotton; crape was a harsh black silk fabric with a crimped appearance produced by heat.  Widows were allowed to change into the colors of half-mourning, such as gray and lavender, black and white, for the final six months."[80]
+
+A "black day" (or week or month) usually refers to tragic date. The Romans marked fasti days with white stones and nefasti days with black. The term is often used to remember massacres. Black months include the Black September in Jordan, when large numbers of Palestinians were killed, and Black July in Sri Lanka, the killing of members of the Tamil population by the Sinhalese government.
+
+In the financial world, the term often refers to a dramatic drop in the stock market. For example, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, which marked the start of the Great Depression, is nicknamed Black Tuesday, and was preceded by Black Thursday, a downturn on October 24 the previous week.
+
+The dowager Electress of Palatine in mourning (1717)
+
+Emperor Pedro II of Brazil and his sisters wearing mourning clothes due to their father's death (1834)
+
+Queen Victoria wore black in mourning for her husband Prince Albert (1899)
+
+In western popular culture, black has long been associated with evil and darkness. It is the traditional color of witchcraft and black magic.[4]
+
+In the Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament of the Bible, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are supposed to announce the Apocalypse before the Last Judgment. The horseman representing famine rides a black horse. The vampire of literature and films, such as Count Dracula of the Bram Stoker novel,  dressed in black, and could only move at night. The Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz became the archetype of witches for generations of children.  Whereas witches and sorcerers inspired real fear in the 17th century, in the 21st century children and adults dressed as witches for Halloween parties and parades.
+
+The biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, including famine riding a black horse (painting by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887)
+
+Drawing of a witch from the illustrated book The Goblins' Christmas by Elizabeth Anderson (1908)
+
+Count Dracula as portrayed by Bela Lugosi in the 1931 film version
+
+Clarinet-playing witch in a New Orleans Halloween parade
+
+Black is frequently used as a color of power, law and authority. In many countries judges and magistrates wear black robes. That custom began in Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. Jurists, magistrates and certain other court officials in France began to wear long black robes during the reign of Philip IV of France (1285–1314), and in England from the time of Edward I (1271–1307). The custom spread to the cities of Italy at about the same time, between 1300 and 1320. The robes of judges resembled those worn by the clergy, and represented the law and authority of the King, while those of the clergy represented the law of God and authority of the church.[81]
+
+Until the 20th century most police uniforms were black, until they were largely replaced by a less menacing blue in France, the U.S. and other countries. In the United States, police cars are frequently Black and white. The riot control units of the Basque Autonomous Police in Spain are known as beltzak ("blacks") after their uniform.
+
+Black today is the most common color for limousines and the official cars of government officials.
+
+Black formal attire is still worn at many solemn occasions or ceremonies, from graduations to formal balls.  Graduation gowns are copied from the gowns worn by university professors in the Middle Ages, which in turn were copied from the robes worn by judges and priests, who often taught at the early universities. The mortarboard hat worn by graduates is adapted from a square cap called a biretta worn by Medieval professors and clerics
+
+The United States Supreme Court (2009)
+
+Judges at the International Court of Justice in the Hague
+
+A police car of the Los Angeles Police Department
+
+American academic dress for a bachelor's degree
+
+In the 19th and 20th centuries, many machines and devices, large and small, were painted black, to stress their functionality. These included telephones, sewing machines, steamships, railroad locomotives, and automobiles. The Ford Model T, the first mass-produced car, was available only in black from 1914 to 1926. Of means of transportation, only airplanes were rarely ever painted black.[82]
+
+Olivetti telephone from the 1940s
+
+A 1920 Ford Model T
+
+The first model BlackBerry (2000)
+
+Black house paint is becoming more popular with Sherwin-Williams reporting that the color, Tricorn Black, was the 6th most popular exterior house paint color in Canada and the 12th most popular paint in the United States in 2018.[83]
+
+Black is also commonly used as a racial description in the United Kingdom, since ethnicity was first measured in the 2001 census.  The 2011 British census asked residents to describe themselves, and categories offered included Black, African, Caribbean, or Black British.  Other possible categories were African British, African Scottish, Caribbean British and Caribbean Scottish. Of the total UK population in 2001, 1.0 percent identified themselves as Black Caribbean, 0.8 percent as Black African, and 0.2 percent as Black (others).[85]
+
+In Canada, census respondents can identify themselves as Black. In the 2006 census, 2.5 percent of the population identified themselves as black.[86]
+
+In Australia, the term black is not used in the census.  In the 2006 census, 2.3 percent of Australians identified themselves as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders.
+
+In Brazil, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) asks people to identify themselves as branco (white), pardo (brown), preto (black), or amarelo (yellow). In 2008 6.8 percent of the population identified themselves as "preto".[87]
+
+Heroes in American westerns, like the Lone Ranger, traditionally wore a white hat, while the villains wore black hats.
+
+Black is commonly associated with secrecy.
+
+Black is the color most commonly associated with elegance in Europe and the United States, followed by silver, gold, and white.[89]
+
+Black first became a fashionable color for men in Europe in the 17th century, in the courts of Italy and Spain. (See history above.) In the 19th century, it was the fashion for men both in business and for evening wear, in the form of a black coat whose tails came down the knees. In the evening it was the custom of the men to leave the women after dinner to go to a special smoking room to enjoy cigars or cigarettes. This meant that their tailcoats eventually smelled of tobacco. According to the legend, in 1865 Edward VII, then the Prince of Wales, had his tailor make a special short smoking jacket.  The smoking jacket then evolved into the dinner jacket. Again according to legend, the first Americans to wear the jacket were members of the Tuxedo Club in New York State. Thereafter the jacket became known as a tuxedo in the U.S. The term "smoking" is still used today in Russia and other countries.[90]
+The tuxedo was always black until the 1930s, when the Duke of Windsor began to wear a tuxedo that was a very dark midnight blue. He did so because a black tuxedo looked greenish in artificial light, while a dark blue tuxedo looked blacker than black itself.[89]
+
+For women's fashion, the defining moment was the invention of the simple black dress by Coco Chanel in 1926. (See history.) Thereafter, a long black gown was used for formal occasions, while the simple black dress could be used for everything else. The designer Karl Lagerfeld, explaining why black was so popular, said:  "Black is the color that goes with everything. If you're wearing black, you're on sure ground."[89] Skirts have gone up and down and fashions have changed, but the black dress has not lost its position as the essential element of a woman's wardrobe. The fashion designer Christian Dior said, "elegance is a combination of distinction, naturalness, care and simplicity,"[89] and black exemplified elegance.
+
+The expression  "X is the new black" is a reference to the latest trend or fad that is considered a wardrobe basic for the duration of the trend, on the basis that black is always fashionable. The phrase has taken on a life of its own and has become a cliché.
+
+Many performers of both popular and European classical music, including French singers Edith Piaf and Juliette Gréco, and violinist Joshua Bell have traditionally worn black on stage during performances. A black costume was usually chosen as part of their image or stage persona, or because it did not distract from the music, or sometimes for a political reason. Country-western singer Johnny Cash always wore black on stage. In 1971, Cash wrote the song "Man in Black" to explain why he dressed in that color: "We're doing mighty fine I do suppose / In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes / But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back / Up front there ought to be a man in black."
+
+The Duke of Windsor was the first to wear midnight blue rather than black evening dress, which looked blacker than black in artificial light.
+
+A "simple black dress" from 1964.
+
+French singer Edith Piaf always wore black on stage.
+
+Country-western singer Johnny Cash called himself "the man in black." Image of his performance in Bremen, Northern Germany, in September 1972.
+
+American violinist Joshua Bell wears black on stage.
+
+Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen at the Fashion Rio Inverno 2006.
+
+Model Fabiana Semprebom at New York Fashion Week, 2006

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+
+
+Black is the darkest color, the result of the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, a color without hue, like white and gray.[1] It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness, while white represents light.[2] Black and white have often been used to describe opposites such as good and evil, the Dark Ages versus Age of Enlightenment, and night versus day. Since the Middle Ages, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates.[2]
+
+Black was one of the first colors used by artists in neolithic cave paintings.[3] In the 14th century, it was worn by royalty, clergy, judges and government officials in much of Europe. It became the color worn by English romantic poets, businessmen and statesmen in the 19th century, and a high fashion color in the 20th century.[2] In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches and magic.[4] According to surveys in Europe and North America, it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, force, violence, evil, and elegance.[5]
+
+Black ink is the most common color used for printing books, newspapers and documents, as it provides the highest contrast with white paper and thus the easiest color to read. Similarly, black text on a white screen is the most common format used on computer screens.[6]
+
+The word black comes from Old English blæc ("black, dark", also, "ink"), from Proto-Germanic *blakkaz ("burned"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- ("to burn, gleam, shine, flash"), from base *bhel- ("to shine"), related to Old Saxon blak ("ink"), Old High German blach ("black"), Old Norse blakkr ("dark"), Dutch blaken ("to burn"), and Swedish bläck ("ink"). More distant cognates include Latin flagrare ("to blaze, glow, burn"), and Ancient Greek phlegein ("to burn, scorch").
+
+The Ancient Greeks sometimes used the same word to name different colors, if they had the same intensity.  Kuanos' could mean both dark blue and black.[7]
+
+The Ancient Romans had two words for black:  ater was a flat, dull black, while niger was a brilliant, saturated black. Ater has vanished from the vocabulary, but niger was the source of the country name Nigeria,[8] the English word Negro, and the word for "black" in most modern Romance languages (French: noir; Spanish and Portuguese: negro; Italian: nero; Romanian: negru).
+
+Old High German also had two words for black: swartz for dull black and blach for a luminous black.  These are parallelled in Middle English by the terms swart for dull black and blaek for luminous black. Swart still survives as the word swarthy, while blaek became the modern English black.[7]
+
+In heraldry, the word used for the black color is sable,[9] named for the black fur of the sable, an animal.
+
+Black was one of the first colors used in art. The Lascaux Cave in France contains drawings of bulls and other animals drawn by paleolithic artists between 18,000 and 17,000 years ago. They began by using charcoal, and then made more vivid black pigments by burning bones or grinding a powder of manganese oxide.[7]
+
+For the ancient Egyptians, black had positive associations; being the color of fertility and the rich black soil flooded by the Nile. It was the color of Anubis, the god of the underworld, who took the form of a black jackal, and offered protection against evil to the dead.
+
+For the ancient Greeks, black was also the color of the underworld, separated from the world of the living by the river Acheron, whose water was black. Those who had committed the worst sins were sent to Tartarus, the deepest and darkest level. In the center was the palace of Hades, the king of the underworld, where he was seated upon a black ebony throne. Black was one of the most important colors used by ancient Greek artists. In the 6th century BC, they began making black-figure pottery and later red figure pottery, using a highly original technique. In black-figure pottery, the artist would paint figures with a glossy clay slip on a red clay pot. When the pot was fired, the figures painted with the slip would turn black, against a red background. Later they reversed the process, painting the spaces between the figures with slip. This created magnificent red figures against a glossy black background.[10]
+
+In the social hierarchy of ancient Rome, purple was the color reserved for the Emperor; red was the color worn by soldiers (red cloaks for the officers, red tunics for the soldiers); white the color worn by the priests, and black was worn by craftsmen and artisans. The black they wore was not deep and rich; the vegetable dyes used to make black were not solid or lasting, so the blacks often turned out faded gray or brown.[citation needed]
+
+In Latin, the word for black, ater and to darken, atere,  were associated with cruelty, brutality and evil. They were the root of the English words "atrocious" and "atrocity".[11] Black was also the Roman color of death and mourning. In the 2nd century BC Roman magistrates began to wear a dark toga, called a toga pulla, to funeral ceremonies. Later, under the Empire, the family of the deceased also wore dark colors for a long period; then, after a banquet to mark the end of mourning, exchanged the black for a white toga. In Roman poetry, death was called the hora nigra, the black hour.[7]
+
+The German and Scandinavian peoples worshipped their own goddess of the night, Nótt, who crossed the sky in a chariot drawn by a black horse. They also feared Hel, the goddess of the kingdom of the dead, whose skin was black on one side and red on the other. They also held sacred the raven. They believed that Odin, the king of the Nordic pantheon, had two black ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who served as his agents, traveling the world for him, watching and listening.[12]
+
+Neolithic paintings of bulls in the Lascaux Cave, more than 17,000 years old
+
+Statue of Anubis, guardian of the underworld, from the tomb of Tutankhamun.
+
+Greek black-figure pottery. Ajax and Achilles playing a game, about 540–530 BC. (Vatican Museums).
+
+Red-figure pottery with black background. Portrait of Thetis, about 470–480 BC. (The Louvre)
+
+In the early Middle Ages, black was commonly associated with darkness and evil. In Medieval paintings, the devil was usually depicted as having human form, but with wings and black skin or hair.[13]
+
+In fashion, black did not have the prestige of red, the color of the nobility. It was worn by Benedictine monks as a sign of humility and penitence. In the 12th century a famous theological dispute broke out between the Cistercian monks, who wore white, and the Benedictines, who wore black. A Benedictine abbot, Pierre the Venerable, accused the Cistercians of excessive pride in wearing white instead of black. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercians responded that black was the color of the devil, hell, "of death and sin," while white represented "purity, innocence and all the virtues".[14]
+
+Black symbolized both power and secrecy in the medieval world. The emblem of the Holy Roman Empire of Germany was a black eagle. The black knight in the poetry of the Middle Ages was an enigmatic figure, hiding his identity, usually wrapped in secrecy.[15]
+
+Black ink, invented in China, was traditionally used in the Middle Ages for writing, for the simple reason that black was the darkest color and therefore provided the greatest contrast with white paper or parchment, making it the easiest color to read.  It became even more important in the 15th century, with the invention of printing.    A new kind of ink, printer's ink, was created out of soot, turpentine and walnut oil. The new ink made it possible to spread ideas to a mass audience through printed books, and to popularize art through black and white engravings and prints.  Because of its contrast and clarity, black ink on white paper continued to be the standard for printing books, newspapers and documents; and for the same reason black text on a white background is the most common format used on computer screens.[6]
+
+The Italian painter Duccio di Buoninsegna showed Christ expelling the Devil, shown covered with bristly black hair (1308–11).
+
+The 15th-century painting of the Last Judgement by Fra Angelico (1395–1455) depicted hell with a vivid black devil devouring sinners.
+
+Portrait of a monk of the Benedictine Order  (1484)
+
+The black knight in a miniature painting of a medieval romance,Le Livre du cœur d'amour épris (about 1460)
+
+Gutenberg Bible (1451–1452). Black ink was used for printing books, because it provided the greatest contrast with the white paper and was the clearest and easiest color to read.
+
+In the early Middle Ages, princes, nobles and the wealthy usually wore bright colors, particularly scarlet cloaks from Italy. Black was rarely part of the wardrobe of a noble family. The one exception was the fur of the sable. This glossy black fur, from an animal of the marten family, was the finest and most expensive fur in Europe.  It was imported from Russia and Poland and used to trim the robes and gowns of royalty.
+
+In the 14th century, the status of black began to change. First, high-quality black dyes began to arrive on the market, allowing garments of a deep, rich black. Magistrates and government officials began to wear black robes, as a sign of the importance and seriousness of their positions. A third reason was the passage of sumptuary laws in some parts of Europe which prohibited the wearing of costly clothes and certain colors by anyone except members of the nobility. The famous bright scarlet cloaks from Venice and the peacock blue fabrics from Florence were restricted to the nobility. The wealthy bankers and merchants of northern Italy responded by changing to black robes and gowns, made with the most expensive fabrics.[16]
+
+The change to the more austere but elegant black was quickly picked up by the kings and nobility. It began in northern Italy, where the Duke of Milan and the Count of Savoy and the rulers of Mantua, Ferrara, Rimini and Urbino began to dress in black. It then spread to France, led by Louis I, Duke of Orleans, younger brother of King Charles VI of France. It moved to England at the end of the reign of King Richard II (1377–1399), where all the court began to wear black. In 1419–20, black became the color of the powerful Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good. It moved to Spain, where it became the color of the Spanish Habsburgs, of Charles V and of his son, Philip II of Spain (1527–1598). European rulers saw it as the color of power, dignity, humility and temperance. By the end of the 16th century, it was the color worn by almost all the monarchs of Europe and their courts.[17]
+
+Philip the Good in about 1450, by Rogier van der Weyden
+
+Portrait of a Young Woman by Petrus Christus (about 1470)
+
+Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558), by Titian
+
+Portrait of Philip II of Spain (1527–1598)
+
+While black was the color worn by the Catholic rulers of Europe, it was also the emblematic color of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and the Puritans in England and America. John Calvin, Philip Melanchthon and other Protestant theologians denounced the richly colored and decorated interiors of Roman Catholic churches. They saw the color red, worn by the Pope and his Cardinals, as the color of luxury, sin, and human folly.[18] In some northern European cities, mobs attacked churches and cathedrals, smashed the stained glass windows and defaced the statues and decoration. In Protestant doctrine, clothing was required to be sober, simple and discreet. Bright colors were banished and replaced by blacks, browns and grays; women and children were recommended to wear white.[19]
+
+In the Protestant Netherlands, Rembrandt used this sober new palette of blacks and browns to create portraits whose faces emerged from the shadows expressing the deepest human emotions. The Catholic painters of the Counter-Reformation, like Rubens, went in the opposite direction; they filled their paintings with bright and rich colors. The new Baroque churches of the Counter-Reformation were usually shining white inside and filled with statues, frescoes, marble, gold and colorful paintings, to appeal to the public. But European Catholics of all classes, like Protestants, eventually adopted a sober wardrobe that was mostly black, brown and gray.[20]
+
+Swiss theologian John Calvin denounced the bright colors worn by Roman Catholic priests, and colorful decoration of churches.
+
+Increase Mather, an American Puritan clergyman (1688).
+
+American Pilgrims in New England going to church (painting by George Henry Boughton, 1867)
+
+Rembrandt, Self-portrait (1659)
+
+Black painted suit of German armor crafted circa 1600. As with many outfits, black in the piece is used to contrast against lighter colors.[21]
+
+In the second part of the 17th century, Europe and America experienced an epidemic of fear of witchcraft.  People widely believed that the devil appeared at midnight in a ceremony called a Black Mass or black sabbath, usually in the form of a black animal, often a goat, a dog, a wolf, a bear, a deer or a rooster, accompanied by their familiar spirits, black cats, serpents and other black creatures. This was the origin of the widespread superstition about black cats and other black animals. In medieval Flanders, in a ceremony called Kattenstoet, black cats were thrown from the belfry of the Cloth Hall of Ypres to ward off witchcraft.[22]
+
+Witch trials were common in both Europe and America during this period. During the notorious Salem witch trials in New England in 1692–93, one of those on trial was accused of being able turn into a "black thing with a blue cap,"  and others of having familiars in the form of a black dog, a black cat and a black bird.[23] Nineteen women and men were hanged as witches.[24]
+
+An English manual on witch-hunting (1647), showing a witch with her familiar spirits
+
+Black cats have been accused for centuries of being the familiar spirits of witches or of bringing bad luck.
+
+In the 18th century, during the European Age of Enlightenment, black receded as a fashion color. Paris became the fashion capital, and pastels, blues, greens, yellow and white became the colors of the nobility and upper classes. But after the French Revolution, black again became the dominant color.
+
+Black was the color of the industrial revolution, largely fueled by coal, and later by oil. Thanks to coal smoke, the buildings of the large cities of Europe and America gradually turned black.  By 1846 the industrial area of the West Midlands of England was "commonly called 'the Black Country'”.[25] Charles Dickens and other writers described the dark streets and smoky skies of London, and they were vividly illustrated in the engravings of French artist Gustave Doré.
+
+A different kind of black was an important part of the romantic movement in literature. Black was the color of melancholy, the dominant theme of romanticism. The novels of the period were filled with castles, ruins, dungeons, storms, and meetings at midnight. The leading poets of the movement were usually portrayed dressed in black, usually with a white shirt and open collar, and a scarf carelessly over their shoulder, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron helped create the enduring stereotype of the romantic poet.
+
+The invention of new, inexpensive synthetic black dyes and the industrialization of the textile industry meant that good-quality black clothes were available for the first time to the general population. In the 19th century gradually black became the most popular color of business dress of the upper and middle classes in England, the Continent, and America.
+
+Black dominated literature and fashion in the 19th century, and played a large role in painting. James McNeil Whistler made the color the subject of his most famous painting, Arrangement in grey and black number one  (1871), better known as Whistler's Mother.
+
+Some 19th-century French painters had a low opinion of black: "Reject black," Paul Gauguin said, "and that mix of black and white they call gray. Nothing is black, nothing is gray."[26] But Édouard Manet used blacks for their strength and dramatic effect. Manet's portrait of painter Berthe Morisot was a study in black which perfectly captured her spirit of independence. The black gave the painting power and immediacy;  he even changed her eyes, which were green, to black to strengthen the effect.[27] Henri Matisse quoted the French impressionist Pissarro telling him, "Manet is stronger than us all – he made light with black."[28]
+
+Pierre-Auguste Renoir used luminous blacks, especially in his portraits. When someone told him that black was not a color, Renoir replied: "What makes you think that? Black is the queen of colors. I always detested Prussian blue. I tried to replace black with a mixture of red and blue, I tried using cobalt blue or ultramarine, but I always came back to ivory black."[29]
+
+Vincent van Gogh used black lines to outline many of the objects in his paintings, such as the bed in the famous painting of his bedroom. making them stand apart. His painting of black crows over a cornfield, painted shortly before he died, was particularly agitated and haunting.
+
+In the late 19th century, black also became the color of anarchism. (See the section political movements.)
+
+Percy Bysshe Shelley in the black and white costume of the romantic poet (1819).
+
+A view of London by Gustave Doré from 1872 showed how coal and the industrial revolution had blackened the buildings and air of the great cities of Europe.
+
+Arrangement in Grey and Black Number 1 (1871) by James McNeil Whistler better known as Whistler's Mother.
+
+Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, by Édouard Manet (1872).
+
+Le Bal de l'Opera (1873) by Édouard Manet, shows the dominance of black in Parisian evening dress.
+
+The Theater Box (1874) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, captured the luminosity of black fabric in the light.
+
+Wheat Field with Crows (1890), one of the last paintings of Vincent van Gogh, captures his agitated state of mind.
+
+In the 20th century, black was the color of Italian and German fascism.  (See the section political movements.)
+
+In art, black regained some of the territory that it had lost during the 19th century. The Russian painter Kasimir Malevich, a member of the Suprematist movement, created the Black Square in 1915, is widely considered the first purely abstract painting.[30] He wrote, "The painted work is no longer simply the imitation of reality, but is this very reality ... It is not a demonstration of ability, but the materialization of an idea."[31]
+
+Black was also appreciated by Henri Matisse. "When I didn't know what color to put down, I put down black," he said in 1945. "Black is a force: I used black as ballast to simplify the construction ... Since the impressionists it seems to have made continuous progress, taking a more and more important part in color orchestration, comparable to that of the double bass as a solo instrument."[32]
+
+In the 1950s, black came to be a symbol of individuality and intellectual and social rebellion, the color of those who didn't accept established norms and values. In Paris, it was worn by Left-Bank intellectuals and performers such as Juliette Gréco, and by some members of the Beat Movement in New York and San Francisco.[33] Black leather jackets were worn by motorcycle gangs such as the Hells Angels and street gangs on the fringes of society in the United States. Black as a color of rebellion was celebrated in such films as The Wild One, with Marlon Brando. By the end of the 20th century, black was the emblematic color of the punk subculture punk fashion, and the goth subculture. Goth fashion, which emerged in England in the 1980s, was inspired by Victorian era mourning dress.
+
+In men's fashion, black gradually ceded its dominance to navy blue, particularly in business suits. Black evening dress and formal dress in general were worn less and less. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was the last American President to be inaugurated wearing formal dress; President Lyndon Johnson and all his successors were inaugurated wearing business suits.
+
+Women's fashion was revolutionized and simplified in 1926 by the French designer Coco Chanel, who published a drawing of a simple black dress in Vogue magazine. She famously said, "A woman needs just three things; a black dress, a black sweater, and, on her arm, a man she loves."[33]  French designer Jean Patou also followed suit by creating a black collection in 1929.[34] Other designers contributed to the trend of the little black dress. The Italian designer Gianni Versace said, "Black is the quintessence of simplicity and elegance," and French designer Yves Saint Laurent said, "black is the liaison which connects art and fashion.[33] One of the most famous black dresses of the century was designed by Hubert de Givenchy and was worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's.
+
+The American civil rights movement in the 1950s was a struggle for the political equality of African Americans. It developed into the Black Power movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, and popularized the slogan "Black is Beautiful".
+
+In the 1990s, the Black Standard became the banner of several Islamic extremist, jihadist groups. (See the section political movements.)
+
+The Black Square (1915) by Kazimir Malevich is considered the first purely abstract painting (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow).
+
+The goth fashion model Lady Amaranth. Goth fashion was inspired by British Victorian mourning costumes.
+
+Variants of the Black Standard flag are used by many militant Islamist groups that have adopted militant interpretations of jihad. it is said to be the banner carried by Muhammad and his soldiers.
+
+In the visible spectrum, black is the absorption of all colors. Black can be defined as the visual impression experienced when no visible light reaches the eye. Pigments or dyes that absorb light rather than reflect it back to the eye "look black". A black pigment can, however, result from a combination of several pigments that collectively absorb all colors. If appropriate proportions of three primary pigments are mixed, the result reflects so little light as to be called "black". This provides two superficially opposite but actually complementary descriptions of black. Black is the absorption of all colors of light, or an exhaustive combination of multiple colors of pigment.
+
+In physics, a black body is a perfect absorber of light, but, by a thermodynamic rule, it is also the best emitter. Thus, the best radiative cooling, out of sunlight, is by using black paint, though it is important that it be black (a nearly perfect absorber) in the infrared as well. In elementary science, far ultraviolet light is called "black light" because, while itself unseen, it causes many minerals and other substances to fluoresce.
+
+On January 16, 2008, researchers from Troy, New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced the creation of the then darkest material on the planet. The material, which reflected only 0.045 percent of light, was created from carbon nanotubes stood on end. This is 1/30 of the light reflected by the current standard for blackness, and one third the light reflected by the previous record holder for darkest substance.[35] As of February 2016, the current darkest material known is claimed to be Vantablack.[36][37]
+
+Absorption of light is contrasted by transmission, reflection and diffusion, where the light is only redirected, causing objects to appear transparent, reflective or white respectively. A material is said to be black if most incoming light is absorbed equally in the material. Light (electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum) interacts with the atoms and molecules, which causes the energy of the light to be converted into other forms of energy, usually heat. This means that black surfaces can act as thermal collectors, absorbing light and generating heat (see Solar thermal collector).
+
+Vantablack is made of carbon nanotubes[38] and is the blackest substance known, absorbing up to 99.965% of radiation in the visible spectrum.[39]
+
+The earliest pigments used by Neolithic man were charcoal, red ocher and yellow ocher. The black lines of cave art were drawn with the tips of burnt torches made of a wood with resin.[40] Different charcoal pigments were made by burning different woods and animal products, each of which produced a different tone. The charcoal would be ground and then mixed with animal fat to make the pigment.
+
+The 15th-century painter Cennino Cennini described how this pigment was made during the Renaissance in his famous handbook for artists: "...there is a black which is made from the tendrils of vines. And these tendrils need to be burned. And when they have been burned, throw some water onto them and put them out and then mull them in the same way as the other black. And this is a lean and black pigment and is one of the perfect pigments that we use."[41]
+
+Cennini also noted that "There is another black which is made from burnt almond shells or peaches and this is a perfect, fine black."[41] Similar fine blacks were made by burning the pits of the peach, cherry or apricot. The powdered charcoal was then mixed with gum arabic or the yellow of an egg to make a paint.
+
+Different civilizations burned different plants to produce their charcoal pigments. The Inuit of Alaska used wood charcoal mixed with the blood of seals to paint masks and wooden objects. The Polynesians burned coconuts to produce their pigment.
+
+Good-quality black dyes were not known until the middle of the 14th century. The most common early dyes were made from bark, roots or fruits of different trees;  usually the walnut, chestnut, or certain oak trees. The blacks produced were often more gray, brown or bluish. The cloth had to be dyed several times to darken the color. One solution used by dyers was add to the dye some iron filings, rich in iron oxide, which gave a deeper black. Another was to first dye the fabric dark blue, and then to dye it black.
+
+A much richer and deeper black dye was eventually found made from the Oak apple or gall-nut.  The gall-nut is a small round tumor which grows on oak and other varieties of trees. They range in size from 2–5 cm, and are caused by chemicals injected by the larva of certain kinds of gall wasp in the family Cynipidae.[42] The dye was very expensive;  a great quantity of gall-nuts were needed for a very small amount of dye.  The gall-nuts which made the best dye came from Poland, eastern Europe, the near east and North Africa.  Beginning in about the 14th century, dye from gall-nuts was used for clothes of the kings and princes of Europe.[43]
+
+Another important source of natural black dyes from the 17th century onwards was the logwood tree, or Haematoxylum campechianum, which also produced reddish and bluish dyes. It is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is native to southern Mexico and northern Central America.[44] The modern nation of Belize grew from 17th century English logwood logging camps.
+
+Since the mid-19th century, synthetic black dyes have largely replaced natural dyes. One of the important synthetic blacks is Nigrosin, a mixture of synthetic black dyes (CI 50415, Solvent black 5) made by heating a mixture of nitrobenzene, aniline and aniline hydrochloride in the presence of a copper or iron catalyst. Its main industrial uses are as a colorant for lacquers and varnishes and in marker-pen inks.[45]
+
+The first known inks were made by the Chinese, and date back to the 23rd century B.C. They used natural plant dyes and minerals such as graphite ground with water and applied with an ink brush. Early Chinese inks similar to the modern inkstick have been found dating to about 256 BC at the end of the Warring States period. They were produced from soot, usually produced by burning pine wood, mixed with animal glue. To make ink from an inkstick, the stick is continuously ground against an inkstone with a small quantity of water to produce a dark liquid which is then applied with an ink brush. Artists and calligraphists could vary the thickness of the resulting ink by reducing or increasing the intensity and time of ink grinding. These inks produced the delicate shading and subtle or dramatic effects of Chinese brush painting.[46]
+
+India ink (or Indian ink in British English) is a black ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comic books and comic strips. The technique of making it probably came from China. India ink has been in use in India since at least the 4th century BC, where it was called masi. In India, the black color of the ink came from bone char, tar, pitch and other substances.[47][48]
+
+The Ancient Romans had a black writing ink they called atramentum librarium.[49] Its name came from the Latin word atrare, which meant to make something black. (This was the same root as the English word atrocious.) It was usually made, like India ink, from soot, although one variety, called atramentum elephantinum, was made by burning the ivory of elephants.[50]
+
+Gall-nuts were also used for making fine black writing ink. Iron gall ink (also known as iron gall nut ink or oak gall ink) was a purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and tannic acids from gall nut. It was the standard writing and drawing ink in Europe, from about the 12th century to the 19th century, and remained in use well into the 20th century.
+
+Sticks of vine charcoal and compressed charcoal. Charcoal, along with red and yellow ochre, was one of the first pigments used by Paleolithic man.
+
+A Chinese inkstick, in the form of lotus flowers and blossoms. Inksticks are used in Chinese calligraphy and brush painting.
+
+Ivory black or bone char, a natural black pigment made by burning animal bones.
+
+The logwood tree from Central America produced dyes beginning in the 17th century. The nation of Belize began as a British colony producing logwood.
+
+The oak apple or gall-nut, a tumor growing on oak trees, was the main source of black dye and black writing ink from the 14th century until the 19th century.
+
+The industrial production of lamp black, made by producing, collecting and refining soot,  in 1906.
+
+Image of the NGC 406 galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope
+
+The night sky seen from Mars, with the two moons of Mars visible, taken by the NASA Spirit Rover.
+
+Outside Earth's atmosphere, the sky is black day and night.
+
+An illustration of Olbers' paradox (see below)
+
+Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
+
+The fact that outer space is black is sometimes called Olbers' paradox. In theory, because the universe is full of stars, and is believed to be infinitely large, it would be expected that the light of an infinite number of stars would be enough to brilliantly light the whole universe all the time. However, the background color of outer space is black. This contradiction was first noted in 1823 by German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers, who posed the question of why the night sky was black.
+
+The current accepted answer is that, although the universe is infinitely large, it is not infinitely old. It is thought to be about 13.8 billion years old, so we can only see objects as far away as the distance light can travel in 13.8 billion years. Light from stars farther away has not reached Earth, and cannot contribute to making the sky bright. Furthermore, as the universe is expanding, many stars are moving away from Earth. As they move, the wavelength of their light becomes longer, through the Doppler effect, and shifts toward red, or even becomes invisible. As a result of these two phenomena, there is not enough starlight to make space anything but black.[54]
+
+The daytime sky on Earth is blue because light from the Sun strikes molecules in Earth's atmosphere scattering light in all directions. Blue light is scattered more than other colors, and reaches the eye in greater quantities, making the daytime sky appear blue. This is known as Rayleigh scattering.
+
+The nighttime sky on Earth is black because the part of Earth experiencing night is facing away from the Sun, the light of the Sun is blocked by Earth itself, and there is no other bright nighttime source of light in the vicinity. Thus, there is not enough light to undergo Rayleigh scattering and make the sky blue. On the Moon, on the other hand, because there is no atmosphere to scatter the light, the sky is black both day and night. This phenomenon also holds true for other locations without an atmosphere.
+
+American black bear (Ursus americanus) near Riding Mountain Park, Manitoba, Canada
+
+The black mamba of Africa is one of the most venomous snakes, as well as the fastest-moving snake in the world. The only black part of the snake is the inside of the mouth, which it exposes in a threat display when alarmed.
+
+The black widow spider, or latrodectus, The females frequently eat their male partners after mating. The female's venom is at least three times more potent than that of the males, making a male's self-defense bite ineffective.
+
+A black panther is actually a melanistic leopard or jaguar, the result of an excess of melanin in their skin caused by a recessive gene.
+
+The American crow is one of the most intelligent of all animals.[55]
+
+In China, the color black is associated with water, one of the five fundamental elements believed to compose all things;  and with winter, cold, and the direction north, usually symbolized by a black tortoise.  It is also associated with disorder, including the positive disorder which leads to change and new life. When the first Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang seized power from the Zhou Dynasty, he changed the Imperial color from red to black, saying that black extinguished red.  Only when the Han Dynasty appeared in 206 BC was red restored as the imperial color.[56]
+
+The Chinese and Japanese character for black (kuro in Japanese), can, depending upon the context, also mean dark or evil.
+
+In Japan, black is associated with mystery, the night, the unknown, the supernatural, the invisible and death.  Combined with white, it can symbolize intuition.[57] In 10th and 11th century Japan, it was believed that wearing black could bring misfortune.  It was worn at court by those who wanted to set themselves apart from the established powers or who had renounced material possessions.[58]
+
+In Japan black can also symbolize experience, as opposed to white, which symbolizes naiveté. The black belt in martial arts symbolizes experience, while a white belt is worn by novices.[59] Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day.
+
+In Indonesia black is associated with depth, the subterranean world, demons, disaster, and the left hand.  When black is combined with white, however, it symbolizes harmony and equilibrium.[60]
+
+The first Chinese Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, made black his imperial color, saying that black extinguished red, the old dynastic color.
+
+Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day
+
+Anarchism is a political philosophy, most popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which holds that governments and capitalism are harmful and undesirable. The symbols of anarchism was usually either a black flag or a black letter A. More recently it is usually represented with a bisected red and black flag, to emphasise the movement's socialist roots in the First International. Anarchism was most popular in Spain, France, Italy, Ukraine and Argentina. There were also small but influential movements in the United States and Russia. In the latter, the movement initially allied itself with the Bolsheviks.[61]
+
+The Black Army was a collection of anarchist military units which fought in the Russian Civil War,  sometimes on the side of the Bolshevik Red Army, and sometimes for the opposing White Army. It was officially known as the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, and it was under the command of the famous anarchist Nestor Makhno.
+
+Fascism. The Blackshirts (Italian: camicie nere, 'CCNN) were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II. The Blackshirts were officially known as the Voluntary Militia for National Security (Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, or MVSN).
+
+Inspired by the black uniforms of the Arditi, Italy's elite storm troops of World War I, the Fascist Blackshirts were organized by Benito Mussolini as the military tool of his political movement.[62] They used violence and intimidation against Mussolini's opponents. The emblem of the Italian fascists was a black flag with fasces, an axe in a bundle of sticks, an ancient Roman symbol of authority. Mussolini came to power in 1922 through his March on Rome with the blackshirts.
+
+Black was also adopted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany. Red, white and black were the colors of the flag of the German Empire from 1870 to 1918. In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained that they were "revered colors expressive of our homage to the glorious past." Hitler also wrote that "the new flag ... should prove effective as a large poster" because "in hundreds of thousands of cases a really striking emblem may be the first cause of awakening interest in a movement." The black swastika was meant to symbolize the Aryan race, which, according to the Nazis, "was always anti-Semitic and will always be anti-Semitic."[63] Several designs by a number of different authors were considered, but the one adopted in the end was Hitler's personal design.[64] Black became the color of the uniform of the SS, the Schutzstaffel or "defense corps", the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, and was worn by SS officers from 1932 until the end of World War II.
+
+The Nazis used a black triangle to symbolize anti-social elements. The symbol originates from Nazi concentration camps, where every prisoner had to wear one of the Nazi concentration camp badges on their jacket, the color of which categorized them according to "their kind." Many Black Triangle prisoners were either mentally disabled or mentally ill. The homeless were also included, as were alcoholics, the Romani people, the habitually "work-shy," prostitutes, draft dodgers and pacifists.[65] More recently the black triangle has been adopted as a symbol in lesbian culture and by disabled activists.
+
+Black shirts were also worn by the British Union of Fascists before World War II, and members of fascist movements in the Netherlands.[66]
+
+Patriotic resistance. The Lützow Free Corps, composed of volunteer German students and academics fighting against Napoleon in 1813, could not afford to make special uniforms and therefore adopted black, as the only color that could be used to dye their civilian clothing without the original color showing.  In 1815 the students began to carry a red, black and gold flag, which they believed (incorrectly) had been the colors of the Holy Roman Empire (the imperial flag had actually been gold and black). In 1848, this banner became the flag of the German confederation. In 1866, Prussia unified Germany under its rule, and imposed the red, white and black of its own flag, which remained the colors of the German flag until the end of the Second World War. In 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany returned to the original flag and colors of the students and professors of 1815, which is the flag of Germany today.[67]
+
+Islamism. The Black Standard (راية السوداء‎ rāyat al-sawdā', also known as راية العقاب‎ rāyat al-'uqāb "banner of the eagle" or simply as الراية‎ al-rāya "the banner") is the historical flag flown by Muhammad in Islamic tradition, an eschatological symbol in Shi'a Islam (heralding the advent of the Mahdi),[68] and a symbol used in Islamism and Jihadism.
+
+A flag used by the anarchist Black Army during the Russian Civil War. It says, "Power begets parasites. Long live Anarchy!"
+
+Benito Mussolini and his blackshirt followers during his March on Rome in 1922.
+
+Black uniform of Heinrich Himmler,  head of the SS,  the military wing of the Nazi Party (1938).
+
+The flag used by ISIL (also called ISIS), Boko Haram, and other groups. Similar Black Standards are used by Islamists and Jihadists across the Muslim world.
+
+The flag of Albania is a red flag with a silhouetted black double-headed eagle in the center. The red stands for bravery, strength and valor, while the double-headed eagle represents the sovereign state of Albania.
+
+The banner of the Holy Roman Emperor (1400–1806) featured a black eagle, an old Roman emblem and a symbol of power. One head represented the church, the other the state.
+
+Flag of Belgium (1831). The black came from the banner of the Duchy of Brabant, founded in the 12th century. The flag used the colors of the failed Brabant Revolution of 1789–90 against the Habsburg Monarchy.
+
+The Flag of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire (1917–20), gave its colors to many modern flags in the Middle East. Black was taken from the Black Standard of Muhammad.
+
+(The black in the modern flag of Germany (1949) dates back to the flag of the Holy Roman Empire, the 19th-century flag of the German Confederation, the flag of Prussia, and the flag of the Weimar Republic.
+
+Flag of Estonia (1918). The flag was a symbol of Estonian nationalism, when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. Black was said to symbolize the dark time of occupation, and white the bright future of independence.
+
+Flag of Egypt (1984). The colors were taken from the Flag of the Arab Revolt, which was the banner of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. The black came from the Black Standard of Muhammad.
+
+The Flag of South Africa (1994). The black comes from the flag of the African National Congress, the ruling party in South Africa.
+
+Black has been a traditional color of cavalry and armoured or mechanized troops. German armoured troops (Panzerwaffe) traditionally wore black uniforms, and even in others, a black beret is common. In Finland, black is the symbolic color for both armoured troops and combat engineers, and military units of these specialities have black flags and unit insignia.
+
+The black beret and the color black is also a symbol of special forces in many countries. Soviet and Russian OMON special police and Russian naval infantry wear a black beret. A black beret is also worn by military police in the Canadian, Czech, Croatian, Portuguese, Spanish and Serbian armies.
+
+The silver-on-black skull and crossbones symbol or Totenkopf and a black uniform were used by Hussars and Black Brunswickers, the German Panzerwaffe and the Nazi Schutzstaffel, and U.S. 400th Missile Squadron (crossed missiles), and continues in use with the Estonian Kuperjanov Battalion.
+
+In Christianity, the devil is often called the "prince of darkness." The term was used in John Milton's poem Paradise Lost, published in 1667, referring to Satan, who is viewed as the embodiment of evil. It is an English translation of the Latin phrase princeps tenebrarum, which occurs in the Acts of Pilate, written in the fourth century, in the 11th-century hymn Rhythmus de die mortis by Pietro Damiani,[70] and in a sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux[71] from the 12th century. The phrase also occurs in King Lear by William Shakespeare (c. 1606), Act III, Scene IV, l. 14:
+'The prince of darkness is a gentleman."
+
+Priests and pastors of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches commonly wear black, as do monks of the Benedictine Order, who consider it the color of humility and penitence.
+
+Modern-day monks of the Order of Saint Benedict in New Jersey
+
+In Europe and America, black is commonly associated with mourning and bereavement,[79][4] and usually worn at funerals and memorial services. In some traditional societies, for example in Greece and Italy, some widows wear black for the rest of their lives. In contrast, across much of Africa and parts of Asia like Vietnam, white is a color of mourning.
+
+In Victorian England, the colors and fabrics of mourning were specified in an unofficial dress code:  "non-reflective black paramatta and crape for the first year of deepest mourning, followed by nine months of dullish black silk, heavily trimmed with crape, and then three months when crape was discarded.  Paramatta was a fabric of combined silk and wool or cotton; crape was a harsh black silk fabric with a crimped appearance produced by heat.  Widows were allowed to change into the colors of half-mourning, such as gray and lavender, black and white, for the final six months."[80]
+
+A "black day" (or week or month) usually refers to tragic date. The Romans marked fasti days with white stones and nefasti days with black. The term is often used to remember massacres. Black months include the Black September in Jordan, when large numbers of Palestinians were killed, and Black July in Sri Lanka, the killing of members of the Tamil population by the Sinhalese government.
+
+In the financial world, the term often refers to a dramatic drop in the stock market. For example, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, which marked the start of the Great Depression, is nicknamed Black Tuesday, and was preceded by Black Thursday, a downturn on October 24 the previous week.
+
+The dowager Electress of Palatine in mourning (1717)
+
+Emperor Pedro II of Brazil and his sisters wearing mourning clothes due to their father's death (1834)
+
+Queen Victoria wore black in mourning for her husband Prince Albert (1899)
+
+In western popular culture, black has long been associated with evil and darkness. It is the traditional color of witchcraft and black magic.[4]
+
+In the Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament of the Bible, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are supposed to announce the Apocalypse before the Last Judgment. The horseman representing famine rides a black horse. The vampire of literature and films, such as Count Dracula of the Bram Stoker novel,  dressed in black, and could only move at night. The Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz became the archetype of witches for generations of children.  Whereas witches and sorcerers inspired real fear in the 17th century, in the 21st century children and adults dressed as witches for Halloween parties and parades.
+
+The biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, including famine riding a black horse (painting by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887)
+
+Drawing of a witch from the illustrated book The Goblins' Christmas by Elizabeth Anderson (1908)
+
+Count Dracula as portrayed by Bela Lugosi in the 1931 film version
+
+Clarinet-playing witch in a New Orleans Halloween parade
+
+Black is frequently used as a color of power, law and authority. In many countries judges and magistrates wear black robes. That custom began in Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. Jurists, magistrates and certain other court officials in France began to wear long black robes during the reign of Philip IV of France (1285–1314), and in England from the time of Edward I (1271–1307). The custom spread to the cities of Italy at about the same time, between 1300 and 1320. The robes of judges resembled those worn by the clergy, and represented the law and authority of the King, while those of the clergy represented the law of God and authority of the church.[81]
+
+Until the 20th century most police uniforms were black, until they were largely replaced by a less menacing blue in France, the U.S. and other countries. In the United States, police cars are frequently Black and white. The riot control units of the Basque Autonomous Police in Spain are known as beltzak ("blacks") after their uniform.
+
+Black today is the most common color for limousines and the official cars of government officials.
+
+Black formal attire is still worn at many solemn occasions or ceremonies, from graduations to formal balls.  Graduation gowns are copied from the gowns worn by university professors in the Middle Ages, which in turn were copied from the robes worn by judges and priests, who often taught at the early universities. The mortarboard hat worn by graduates is adapted from a square cap called a biretta worn by Medieval professors and clerics
+
+The United States Supreme Court (2009)
+
+Judges at the International Court of Justice in the Hague
+
+A police car of the Los Angeles Police Department
+
+American academic dress for a bachelor's degree
+
+In the 19th and 20th centuries, many machines and devices, large and small, were painted black, to stress their functionality. These included telephones, sewing machines, steamships, railroad locomotives, and automobiles. The Ford Model T, the first mass-produced car, was available only in black from 1914 to 1926. Of means of transportation, only airplanes were rarely ever painted black.[82]
+
+Olivetti telephone from the 1940s
+
+A 1920 Ford Model T
+
+The first model BlackBerry (2000)
+
+Black house paint is becoming more popular with Sherwin-Williams reporting that the color, Tricorn Black, was the 6th most popular exterior house paint color in Canada and the 12th most popular paint in the United States in 2018.[83]
+
+Black is also commonly used as a racial description in the United Kingdom, since ethnicity was first measured in the 2001 census.  The 2011 British census asked residents to describe themselves, and categories offered included Black, African, Caribbean, or Black British.  Other possible categories were African British, African Scottish, Caribbean British and Caribbean Scottish. Of the total UK population in 2001, 1.0 percent identified themselves as Black Caribbean, 0.8 percent as Black African, and 0.2 percent as Black (others).[85]
+
+In Canada, census respondents can identify themselves as Black. In the 2006 census, 2.5 percent of the population identified themselves as black.[86]
+
+In Australia, the term black is not used in the census.  In the 2006 census, 2.3 percent of Australians identified themselves as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders.
+
+In Brazil, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) asks people to identify themselves as branco (white), pardo (brown), preto (black), or amarelo (yellow). In 2008 6.8 percent of the population identified themselves as "preto".[87]
+
+Heroes in American westerns, like the Lone Ranger, traditionally wore a white hat, while the villains wore black hats.
+
+Black is commonly associated with secrecy.
+
+Black is the color most commonly associated with elegance in Europe and the United States, followed by silver, gold, and white.[89]
+
+Black first became a fashionable color for men in Europe in the 17th century, in the courts of Italy and Spain. (See history above.) In the 19th century, it was the fashion for men both in business and for evening wear, in the form of a black coat whose tails came down the knees. In the evening it was the custom of the men to leave the women after dinner to go to a special smoking room to enjoy cigars or cigarettes. This meant that their tailcoats eventually smelled of tobacco. According to the legend, in 1865 Edward VII, then the Prince of Wales, had his tailor make a special short smoking jacket.  The smoking jacket then evolved into the dinner jacket. Again according to legend, the first Americans to wear the jacket were members of the Tuxedo Club in New York State. Thereafter the jacket became known as a tuxedo in the U.S. The term "smoking" is still used today in Russia and other countries.[90]
+The tuxedo was always black until the 1930s, when the Duke of Windsor began to wear a tuxedo that was a very dark midnight blue. He did so because a black tuxedo looked greenish in artificial light, while a dark blue tuxedo looked blacker than black itself.[89]
+
+For women's fashion, the defining moment was the invention of the simple black dress by Coco Chanel in 1926. (See history.) Thereafter, a long black gown was used for formal occasions, while the simple black dress could be used for everything else. The designer Karl Lagerfeld, explaining why black was so popular, said:  "Black is the color that goes with everything. If you're wearing black, you're on sure ground."[89] Skirts have gone up and down and fashions have changed, but the black dress has not lost its position as the essential element of a woman's wardrobe. The fashion designer Christian Dior said, "elegance is a combination of distinction, naturalness, care and simplicity,"[89] and black exemplified elegance.
+
+The expression  "X is the new black" is a reference to the latest trend or fad that is considered a wardrobe basic for the duration of the trend, on the basis that black is always fashionable. The phrase has taken on a life of its own and has become a cliché.
+
+Many performers of both popular and European classical music, including French singers Edith Piaf and Juliette Gréco, and violinist Joshua Bell have traditionally worn black on stage during performances. A black costume was usually chosen as part of their image or stage persona, or because it did not distract from the music, or sometimes for a political reason. Country-western singer Johnny Cash always wore black on stage. In 1971, Cash wrote the song "Man in Black" to explain why he dressed in that color: "We're doing mighty fine I do suppose / In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes / But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back / Up front there ought to be a man in black."
+
+The Duke of Windsor was the first to wear midnight blue rather than black evening dress, which looked blacker than black in artificial light.
+
+A "simple black dress" from 1964.
+
+French singer Edith Piaf always wore black on stage.
+
+Country-western singer Johnny Cash called himself "the man in black." Image of his performance in Bremen, Northern Germany, in September 1972.
+
+American violinist Joshua Bell wears black on stage.
+
+Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen at the Fashion Rio Inverno 2006.
+
+Model Fabiana Semprebom at New York Fashion Week, 2006

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+
+
+Black is the darkest color, the result of the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, a color without hue, like white and gray.[1] It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness, while white represents light.[2] Black and white have often been used to describe opposites such as good and evil, the Dark Ages versus Age of Enlightenment, and night versus day. Since the Middle Ages, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates.[2]
+
+Black was one of the first colors used by artists in neolithic cave paintings.[3] In the 14th century, it was worn by royalty, clergy, judges and government officials in much of Europe. It became the color worn by English romantic poets, businessmen and statesmen in the 19th century, and a high fashion color in the 20th century.[2] In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches and magic.[4] According to surveys in Europe and North America, it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, force, violence, evil, and elegance.[5]
+
+Black ink is the most common color used for printing books, newspapers and documents, as it provides the highest contrast with white paper and thus the easiest color to read. Similarly, black text on a white screen is the most common format used on computer screens.[6]
+
+The word black comes from Old English blæc ("black, dark", also, "ink"), from Proto-Germanic *blakkaz ("burned"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- ("to burn, gleam, shine, flash"), from base *bhel- ("to shine"), related to Old Saxon blak ("ink"), Old High German blach ("black"), Old Norse blakkr ("dark"), Dutch blaken ("to burn"), and Swedish bläck ("ink"). More distant cognates include Latin flagrare ("to blaze, glow, burn"), and Ancient Greek phlegein ("to burn, scorch").
+
+The Ancient Greeks sometimes used the same word to name different colors, if they had the same intensity.  Kuanos' could mean both dark blue and black.[7]
+
+The Ancient Romans had two words for black:  ater was a flat, dull black, while niger was a brilliant, saturated black. Ater has vanished from the vocabulary, but niger was the source of the country name Nigeria,[8] the English word Negro, and the word for "black" in most modern Romance languages (French: noir; Spanish and Portuguese: negro; Italian: nero; Romanian: negru).
+
+Old High German also had two words for black: swartz for dull black and blach for a luminous black.  These are parallelled in Middle English by the terms swart for dull black and blaek for luminous black. Swart still survives as the word swarthy, while blaek became the modern English black.[7]
+
+In heraldry, the word used for the black color is sable,[9] named for the black fur of the sable, an animal.
+
+Black was one of the first colors used in art. The Lascaux Cave in France contains drawings of bulls and other animals drawn by paleolithic artists between 18,000 and 17,000 years ago. They began by using charcoal, and then made more vivid black pigments by burning bones or grinding a powder of manganese oxide.[7]
+
+For the ancient Egyptians, black had positive associations; being the color of fertility and the rich black soil flooded by the Nile. It was the color of Anubis, the god of the underworld, who took the form of a black jackal, and offered protection against evil to the dead.
+
+For the ancient Greeks, black was also the color of the underworld, separated from the world of the living by the river Acheron, whose water was black. Those who had committed the worst sins were sent to Tartarus, the deepest and darkest level. In the center was the palace of Hades, the king of the underworld, where he was seated upon a black ebony throne. Black was one of the most important colors used by ancient Greek artists. In the 6th century BC, they began making black-figure pottery and later red figure pottery, using a highly original technique. In black-figure pottery, the artist would paint figures with a glossy clay slip on a red clay pot. When the pot was fired, the figures painted with the slip would turn black, against a red background. Later they reversed the process, painting the spaces between the figures with slip. This created magnificent red figures against a glossy black background.[10]
+
+In the social hierarchy of ancient Rome, purple was the color reserved for the Emperor; red was the color worn by soldiers (red cloaks for the officers, red tunics for the soldiers); white the color worn by the priests, and black was worn by craftsmen and artisans. The black they wore was not deep and rich; the vegetable dyes used to make black were not solid or lasting, so the blacks often turned out faded gray or brown.[citation needed]
+
+In Latin, the word for black, ater and to darken, atere,  were associated with cruelty, brutality and evil. They were the root of the English words "atrocious" and "atrocity".[11] Black was also the Roman color of death and mourning. In the 2nd century BC Roman magistrates began to wear a dark toga, called a toga pulla, to funeral ceremonies. Later, under the Empire, the family of the deceased also wore dark colors for a long period; then, after a banquet to mark the end of mourning, exchanged the black for a white toga. In Roman poetry, death was called the hora nigra, the black hour.[7]
+
+The German and Scandinavian peoples worshipped their own goddess of the night, Nótt, who crossed the sky in a chariot drawn by a black horse. They also feared Hel, the goddess of the kingdom of the dead, whose skin was black on one side and red on the other. They also held sacred the raven. They believed that Odin, the king of the Nordic pantheon, had two black ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who served as his agents, traveling the world for him, watching and listening.[12]
+
+Neolithic paintings of bulls in the Lascaux Cave, more than 17,000 years old
+
+Statue of Anubis, guardian of the underworld, from the tomb of Tutankhamun.
+
+Greek black-figure pottery. Ajax and Achilles playing a game, about 540–530 BC. (Vatican Museums).
+
+Red-figure pottery with black background. Portrait of Thetis, about 470–480 BC. (The Louvre)
+
+In the early Middle Ages, black was commonly associated with darkness and evil. In Medieval paintings, the devil was usually depicted as having human form, but with wings and black skin or hair.[13]
+
+In fashion, black did not have the prestige of red, the color of the nobility. It was worn by Benedictine monks as a sign of humility and penitence. In the 12th century a famous theological dispute broke out between the Cistercian monks, who wore white, and the Benedictines, who wore black. A Benedictine abbot, Pierre the Venerable, accused the Cistercians of excessive pride in wearing white instead of black. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercians responded that black was the color of the devil, hell, "of death and sin," while white represented "purity, innocence and all the virtues".[14]
+
+Black symbolized both power and secrecy in the medieval world. The emblem of the Holy Roman Empire of Germany was a black eagle. The black knight in the poetry of the Middle Ages was an enigmatic figure, hiding his identity, usually wrapped in secrecy.[15]
+
+Black ink, invented in China, was traditionally used in the Middle Ages for writing, for the simple reason that black was the darkest color and therefore provided the greatest contrast with white paper or parchment, making it the easiest color to read.  It became even more important in the 15th century, with the invention of printing.    A new kind of ink, printer's ink, was created out of soot, turpentine and walnut oil. The new ink made it possible to spread ideas to a mass audience through printed books, and to popularize art through black and white engravings and prints.  Because of its contrast and clarity, black ink on white paper continued to be the standard for printing books, newspapers and documents; and for the same reason black text on a white background is the most common format used on computer screens.[6]
+
+The Italian painter Duccio di Buoninsegna showed Christ expelling the Devil, shown covered with bristly black hair (1308–11).
+
+The 15th-century painting of the Last Judgement by Fra Angelico (1395–1455) depicted hell with a vivid black devil devouring sinners.
+
+Portrait of a monk of the Benedictine Order  (1484)
+
+The black knight in a miniature painting of a medieval romance,Le Livre du cœur d'amour épris (about 1460)
+
+Gutenberg Bible (1451–1452). Black ink was used for printing books, because it provided the greatest contrast with the white paper and was the clearest and easiest color to read.
+
+In the early Middle Ages, princes, nobles and the wealthy usually wore bright colors, particularly scarlet cloaks from Italy. Black was rarely part of the wardrobe of a noble family. The one exception was the fur of the sable. This glossy black fur, from an animal of the marten family, was the finest and most expensive fur in Europe.  It was imported from Russia and Poland and used to trim the robes and gowns of royalty.
+
+In the 14th century, the status of black began to change. First, high-quality black dyes began to arrive on the market, allowing garments of a deep, rich black. Magistrates and government officials began to wear black robes, as a sign of the importance and seriousness of their positions. A third reason was the passage of sumptuary laws in some parts of Europe which prohibited the wearing of costly clothes and certain colors by anyone except members of the nobility. The famous bright scarlet cloaks from Venice and the peacock blue fabrics from Florence were restricted to the nobility. The wealthy bankers and merchants of northern Italy responded by changing to black robes and gowns, made with the most expensive fabrics.[16]
+
+The change to the more austere but elegant black was quickly picked up by the kings and nobility. It began in northern Italy, where the Duke of Milan and the Count of Savoy and the rulers of Mantua, Ferrara, Rimini and Urbino began to dress in black. It then spread to France, led by Louis I, Duke of Orleans, younger brother of King Charles VI of France. It moved to England at the end of the reign of King Richard II (1377–1399), where all the court began to wear black. In 1419–20, black became the color of the powerful Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good. It moved to Spain, where it became the color of the Spanish Habsburgs, of Charles V and of his son, Philip II of Spain (1527–1598). European rulers saw it as the color of power, dignity, humility and temperance. By the end of the 16th century, it was the color worn by almost all the monarchs of Europe and their courts.[17]
+
+Philip the Good in about 1450, by Rogier van der Weyden
+
+Portrait of a Young Woman by Petrus Christus (about 1470)
+
+Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558), by Titian
+
+Portrait of Philip II of Spain (1527–1598)
+
+While black was the color worn by the Catholic rulers of Europe, it was also the emblematic color of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and the Puritans in England and America. John Calvin, Philip Melanchthon and other Protestant theologians denounced the richly colored and decorated interiors of Roman Catholic churches. They saw the color red, worn by the Pope and his Cardinals, as the color of luxury, sin, and human folly.[18] In some northern European cities, mobs attacked churches and cathedrals, smashed the stained glass windows and defaced the statues and decoration. In Protestant doctrine, clothing was required to be sober, simple and discreet. Bright colors were banished and replaced by blacks, browns and grays; women and children were recommended to wear white.[19]
+
+In the Protestant Netherlands, Rembrandt used this sober new palette of blacks and browns to create portraits whose faces emerged from the shadows expressing the deepest human emotions. The Catholic painters of the Counter-Reformation, like Rubens, went in the opposite direction; they filled their paintings with bright and rich colors. The new Baroque churches of the Counter-Reformation were usually shining white inside and filled with statues, frescoes, marble, gold and colorful paintings, to appeal to the public. But European Catholics of all classes, like Protestants, eventually adopted a sober wardrobe that was mostly black, brown and gray.[20]
+
+Swiss theologian John Calvin denounced the bright colors worn by Roman Catholic priests, and colorful decoration of churches.
+
+Increase Mather, an American Puritan clergyman (1688).
+
+American Pilgrims in New England going to church (painting by George Henry Boughton, 1867)
+
+Rembrandt, Self-portrait (1659)
+
+Black painted suit of German armor crafted circa 1600. As with many outfits, black in the piece is used to contrast against lighter colors.[21]
+
+In the second part of the 17th century, Europe and America experienced an epidemic of fear of witchcraft.  People widely believed that the devil appeared at midnight in a ceremony called a Black Mass or black sabbath, usually in the form of a black animal, often a goat, a dog, a wolf, a bear, a deer or a rooster, accompanied by their familiar spirits, black cats, serpents and other black creatures. This was the origin of the widespread superstition about black cats and other black animals. In medieval Flanders, in a ceremony called Kattenstoet, black cats were thrown from the belfry of the Cloth Hall of Ypres to ward off witchcraft.[22]
+
+Witch trials were common in both Europe and America during this period. During the notorious Salem witch trials in New England in 1692–93, one of those on trial was accused of being able turn into a "black thing with a blue cap,"  and others of having familiars in the form of a black dog, a black cat and a black bird.[23] Nineteen women and men were hanged as witches.[24]
+
+An English manual on witch-hunting (1647), showing a witch with her familiar spirits
+
+Black cats have been accused for centuries of being the familiar spirits of witches or of bringing bad luck.
+
+In the 18th century, during the European Age of Enlightenment, black receded as a fashion color. Paris became the fashion capital, and pastels, blues, greens, yellow and white became the colors of the nobility and upper classes. But after the French Revolution, black again became the dominant color.
+
+Black was the color of the industrial revolution, largely fueled by coal, and later by oil. Thanks to coal smoke, the buildings of the large cities of Europe and America gradually turned black.  By 1846 the industrial area of the West Midlands of England was "commonly called 'the Black Country'”.[25] Charles Dickens and other writers described the dark streets and smoky skies of London, and they were vividly illustrated in the engravings of French artist Gustave Doré.
+
+A different kind of black was an important part of the romantic movement in literature. Black was the color of melancholy, the dominant theme of romanticism. The novels of the period were filled with castles, ruins, dungeons, storms, and meetings at midnight. The leading poets of the movement were usually portrayed dressed in black, usually with a white shirt and open collar, and a scarf carelessly over their shoulder, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron helped create the enduring stereotype of the romantic poet.
+
+The invention of new, inexpensive synthetic black dyes and the industrialization of the textile industry meant that good-quality black clothes were available for the first time to the general population. In the 19th century gradually black became the most popular color of business dress of the upper and middle classes in England, the Continent, and America.
+
+Black dominated literature and fashion in the 19th century, and played a large role in painting. James McNeil Whistler made the color the subject of his most famous painting, Arrangement in grey and black number one  (1871), better known as Whistler's Mother.
+
+Some 19th-century French painters had a low opinion of black: "Reject black," Paul Gauguin said, "and that mix of black and white they call gray. Nothing is black, nothing is gray."[26] But Édouard Manet used blacks for their strength and dramatic effect. Manet's portrait of painter Berthe Morisot was a study in black which perfectly captured her spirit of independence. The black gave the painting power and immediacy;  he even changed her eyes, which were green, to black to strengthen the effect.[27] Henri Matisse quoted the French impressionist Pissarro telling him, "Manet is stronger than us all – he made light with black."[28]
+
+Pierre-Auguste Renoir used luminous blacks, especially in his portraits. When someone told him that black was not a color, Renoir replied: "What makes you think that? Black is the queen of colors. I always detested Prussian blue. I tried to replace black with a mixture of red and blue, I tried using cobalt blue or ultramarine, but I always came back to ivory black."[29]
+
+Vincent van Gogh used black lines to outline many of the objects in his paintings, such as the bed in the famous painting of his bedroom. making them stand apart. His painting of black crows over a cornfield, painted shortly before he died, was particularly agitated and haunting.
+
+In the late 19th century, black also became the color of anarchism. (See the section political movements.)
+
+Percy Bysshe Shelley in the black and white costume of the romantic poet (1819).
+
+A view of London by Gustave Doré from 1872 showed how coal and the industrial revolution had blackened the buildings and air of the great cities of Europe.
+
+Arrangement in Grey and Black Number 1 (1871) by James McNeil Whistler better known as Whistler's Mother.
+
+Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, by Édouard Manet (1872).
+
+Le Bal de l'Opera (1873) by Édouard Manet, shows the dominance of black in Parisian evening dress.
+
+The Theater Box (1874) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, captured the luminosity of black fabric in the light.
+
+Wheat Field with Crows (1890), one of the last paintings of Vincent van Gogh, captures his agitated state of mind.
+
+In the 20th century, black was the color of Italian and German fascism.  (See the section political movements.)
+
+In art, black regained some of the territory that it had lost during the 19th century. The Russian painter Kasimir Malevich, a member of the Suprematist movement, created the Black Square in 1915, is widely considered the first purely abstract painting.[30] He wrote, "The painted work is no longer simply the imitation of reality, but is this very reality ... It is not a demonstration of ability, but the materialization of an idea."[31]
+
+Black was also appreciated by Henri Matisse. "When I didn't know what color to put down, I put down black," he said in 1945. "Black is a force: I used black as ballast to simplify the construction ... Since the impressionists it seems to have made continuous progress, taking a more and more important part in color orchestration, comparable to that of the double bass as a solo instrument."[32]
+
+In the 1950s, black came to be a symbol of individuality and intellectual and social rebellion, the color of those who didn't accept established norms and values. In Paris, it was worn by Left-Bank intellectuals and performers such as Juliette Gréco, and by some members of the Beat Movement in New York and San Francisco.[33] Black leather jackets were worn by motorcycle gangs such as the Hells Angels and street gangs on the fringes of society in the United States. Black as a color of rebellion was celebrated in such films as The Wild One, with Marlon Brando. By the end of the 20th century, black was the emblematic color of the punk subculture punk fashion, and the goth subculture. Goth fashion, which emerged in England in the 1980s, was inspired by Victorian era mourning dress.
+
+In men's fashion, black gradually ceded its dominance to navy blue, particularly in business suits. Black evening dress and formal dress in general were worn less and less. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was the last American President to be inaugurated wearing formal dress; President Lyndon Johnson and all his successors were inaugurated wearing business suits.
+
+Women's fashion was revolutionized and simplified in 1926 by the French designer Coco Chanel, who published a drawing of a simple black dress in Vogue magazine. She famously said, "A woman needs just three things; a black dress, a black sweater, and, on her arm, a man she loves."[33]  French designer Jean Patou also followed suit by creating a black collection in 1929.[34] Other designers contributed to the trend of the little black dress. The Italian designer Gianni Versace said, "Black is the quintessence of simplicity and elegance," and French designer Yves Saint Laurent said, "black is the liaison which connects art and fashion.[33] One of the most famous black dresses of the century was designed by Hubert de Givenchy and was worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's.
+
+The American civil rights movement in the 1950s was a struggle for the political equality of African Americans. It developed into the Black Power movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, and popularized the slogan "Black is Beautiful".
+
+In the 1990s, the Black Standard became the banner of several Islamic extremist, jihadist groups. (See the section political movements.)
+
+The Black Square (1915) by Kazimir Malevich is considered the first purely abstract painting (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow).
+
+The goth fashion model Lady Amaranth. Goth fashion was inspired by British Victorian mourning costumes.
+
+Variants of the Black Standard flag are used by many militant Islamist groups that have adopted militant interpretations of jihad. it is said to be the banner carried by Muhammad and his soldiers.
+
+In the visible spectrum, black is the absorption of all colors. Black can be defined as the visual impression experienced when no visible light reaches the eye. Pigments or dyes that absorb light rather than reflect it back to the eye "look black". A black pigment can, however, result from a combination of several pigments that collectively absorb all colors. If appropriate proportions of three primary pigments are mixed, the result reflects so little light as to be called "black". This provides two superficially opposite but actually complementary descriptions of black. Black is the absorption of all colors of light, or an exhaustive combination of multiple colors of pigment.
+
+In physics, a black body is a perfect absorber of light, but, by a thermodynamic rule, it is also the best emitter. Thus, the best radiative cooling, out of sunlight, is by using black paint, though it is important that it be black (a nearly perfect absorber) in the infrared as well. In elementary science, far ultraviolet light is called "black light" because, while itself unseen, it causes many minerals and other substances to fluoresce.
+
+On January 16, 2008, researchers from Troy, New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced the creation of the then darkest material on the planet. The material, which reflected only 0.045 percent of light, was created from carbon nanotubes stood on end. This is 1/30 of the light reflected by the current standard for blackness, and one third the light reflected by the previous record holder for darkest substance.[35] As of February 2016, the current darkest material known is claimed to be Vantablack.[36][37]
+
+Absorption of light is contrasted by transmission, reflection and diffusion, where the light is only redirected, causing objects to appear transparent, reflective or white respectively. A material is said to be black if most incoming light is absorbed equally in the material. Light (electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum) interacts with the atoms and molecules, which causes the energy of the light to be converted into other forms of energy, usually heat. This means that black surfaces can act as thermal collectors, absorbing light and generating heat (see Solar thermal collector).
+
+Vantablack is made of carbon nanotubes[38] and is the blackest substance known, absorbing up to 99.965% of radiation in the visible spectrum.[39]
+
+The earliest pigments used by Neolithic man were charcoal, red ocher and yellow ocher. The black lines of cave art were drawn with the tips of burnt torches made of a wood with resin.[40] Different charcoal pigments were made by burning different woods and animal products, each of which produced a different tone. The charcoal would be ground and then mixed with animal fat to make the pigment.
+
+The 15th-century painter Cennino Cennini described how this pigment was made during the Renaissance in his famous handbook for artists: "...there is a black which is made from the tendrils of vines. And these tendrils need to be burned. And when they have been burned, throw some water onto them and put them out and then mull them in the same way as the other black. And this is a lean and black pigment and is one of the perfect pigments that we use."[41]
+
+Cennini also noted that "There is another black which is made from burnt almond shells or peaches and this is a perfect, fine black."[41] Similar fine blacks were made by burning the pits of the peach, cherry or apricot. The powdered charcoal was then mixed with gum arabic or the yellow of an egg to make a paint.
+
+Different civilizations burned different plants to produce their charcoal pigments. The Inuit of Alaska used wood charcoal mixed with the blood of seals to paint masks and wooden objects. The Polynesians burned coconuts to produce their pigment.
+
+Good-quality black dyes were not known until the middle of the 14th century. The most common early dyes were made from bark, roots or fruits of different trees;  usually the walnut, chestnut, or certain oak trees. The blacks produced were often more gray, brown or bluish. The cloth had to be dyed several times to darken the color. One solution used by dyers was add to the dye some iron filings, rich in iron oxide, which gave a deeper black. Another was to first dye the fabric dark blue, and then to dye it black.
+
+A much richer and deeper black dye was eventually found made from the Oak apple or gall-nut.  The gall-nut is a small round tumor which grows on oak and other varieties of trees. They range in size from 2–5 cm, and are caused by chemicals injected by the larva of certain kinds of gall wasp in the family Cynipidae.[42] The dye was very expensive;  a great quantity of gall-nuts were needed for a very small amount of dye.  The gall-nuts which made the best dye came from Poland, eastern Europe, the near east and North Africa.  Beginning in about the 14th century, dye from gall-nuts was used for clothes of the kings and princes of Europe.[43]
+
+Another important source of natural black dyes from the 17th century onwards was the logwood tree, or Haematoxylum campechianum, which also produced reddish and bluish dyes. It is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is native to southern Mexico and northern Central America.[44] The modern nation of Belize grew from 17th century English logwood logging camps.
+
+Since the mid-19th century, synthetic black dyes have largely replaced natural dyes. One of the important synthetic blacks is Nigrosin, a mixture of synthetic black dyes (CI 50415, Solvent black 5) made by heating a mixture of nitrobenzene, aniline and aniline hydrochloride in the presence of a copper or iron catalyst. Its main industrial uses are as a colorant for lacquers and varnishes and in marker-pen inks.[45]
+
+The first known inks were made by the Chinese, and date back to the 23rd century B.C. They used natural plant dyes and minerals such as graphite ground with water and applied with an ink brush. Early Chinese inks similar to the modern inkstick have been found dating to about 256 BC at the end of the Warring States period. They were produced from soot, usually produced by burning pine wood, mixed with animal glue. To make ink from an inkstick, the stick is continuously ground against an inkstone with a small quantity of water to produce a dark liquid which is then applied with an ink brush. Artists and calligraphists could vary the thickness of the resulting ink by reducing or increasing the intensity and time of ink grinding. These inks produced the delicate shading and subtle or dramatic effects of Chinese brush painting.[46]
+
+India ink (or Indian ink in British English) is a black ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comic books and comic strips. The technique of making it probably came from China. India ink has been in use in India since at least the 4th century BC, where it was called masi. In India, the black color of the ink came from bone char, tar, pitch and other substances.[47][48]
+
+The Ancient Romans had a black writing ink they called atramentum librarium.[49] Its name came from the Latin word atrare, which meant to make something black. (This was the same root as the English word atrocious.) It was usually made, like India ink, from soot, although one variety, called atramentum elephantinum, was made by burning the ivory of elephants.[50]
+
+Gall-nuts were also used for making fine black writing ink. Iron gall ink (also known as iron gall nut ink or oak gall ink) was a purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and tannic acids from gall nut. It was the standard writing and drawing ink in Europe, from about the 12th century to the 19th century, and remained in use well into the 20th century.
+
+Sticks of vine charcoal and compressed charcoal. Charcoal, along with red and yellow ochre, was one of the first pigments used by Paleolithic man.
+
+A Chinese inkstick, in the form of lotus flowers and blossoms. Inksticks are used in Chinese calligraphy and brush painting.
+
+Ivory black or bone char, a natural black pigment made by burning animal bones.
+
+The logwood tree from Central America produced dyes beginning in the 17th century. The nation of Belize began as a British colony producing logwood.
+
+The oak apple or gall-nut, a tumor growing on oak trees, was the main source of black dye and black writing ink from the 14th century until the 19th century.
+
+The industrial production of lamp black, made by producing, collecting and refining soot,  in 1906.
+
+Image of the NGC 406 galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope
+
+The night sky seen from Mars, with the two moons of Mars visible, taken by the NASA Spirit Rover.
+
+Outside Earth's atmosphere, the sky is black day and night.
+
+An illustration of Olbers' paradox (see below)
+
+Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
+
+The fact that outer space is black is sometimes called Olbers' paradox. In theory, because the universe is full of stars, and is believed to be infinitely large, it would be expected that the light of an infinite number of stars would be enough to brilliantly light the whole universe all the time. However, the background color of outer space is black. This contradiction was first noted in 1823 by German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers, who posed the question of why the night sky was black.
+
+The current accepted answer is that, although the universe is infinitely large, it is not infinitely old. It is thought to be about 13.8 billion years old, so we can only see objects as far away as the distance light can travel in 13.8 billion years. Light from stars farther away has not reached Earth, and cannot contribute to making the sky bright. Furthermore, as the universe is expanding, many stars are moving away from Earth. As they move, the wavelength of their light becomes longer, through the Doppler effect, and shifts toward red, or even becomes invisible. As a result of these two phenomena, there is not enough starlight to make space anything but black.[54]
+
+The daytime sky on Earth is blue because light from the Sun strikes molecules in Earth's atmosphere scattering light in all directions. Blue light is scattered more than other colors, and reaches the eye in greater quantities, making the daytime sky appear blue. This is known as Rayleigh scattering.
+
+The nighttime sky on Earth is black because the part of Earth experiencing night is facing away from the Sun, the light of the Sun is blocked by Earth itself, and there is no other bright nighttime source of light in the vicinity. Thus, there is not enough light to undergo Rayleigh scattering and make the sky blue. On the Moon, on the other hand, because there is no atmosphere to scatter the light, the sky is black both day and night. This phenomenon also holds true for other locations without an atmosphere.
+
+American black bear (Ursus americanus) near Riding Mountain Park, Manitoba, Canada
+
+The black mamba of Africa is one of the most venomous snakes, as well as the fastest-moving snake in the world. The only black part of the snake is the inside of the mouth, which it exposes in a threat display when alarmed.
+
+The black widow spider, or latrodectus, The females frequently eat their male partners after mating. The female's venom is at least three times more potent than that of the males, making a male's self-defense bite ineffective.
+
+A black panther is actually a melanistic leopard or jaguar, the result of an excess of melanin in their skin caused by a recessive gene.
+
+The American crow is one of the most intelligent of all animals.[55]
+
+In China, the color black is associated with water, one of the five fundamental elements believed to compose all things;  and with winter, cold, and the direction north, usually symbolized by a black tortoise.  It is also associated with disorder, including the positive disorder which leads to change and new life. When the first Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang seized power from the Zhou Dynasty, he changed the Imperial color from red to black, saying that black extinguished red.  Only when the Han Dynasty appeared in 206 BC was red restored as the imperial color.[56]
+
+The Chinese and Japanese character for black (kuro in Japanese), can, depending upon the context, also mean dark or evil.
+
+In Japan, black is associated with mystery, the night, the unknown, the supernatural, the invisible and death.  Combined with white, it can symbolize intuition.[57] In 10th and 11th century Japan, it was believed that wearing black could bring misfortune.  It was worn at court by those who wanted to set themselves apart from the established powers or who had renounced material possessions.[58]
+
+In Japan black can also symbolize experience, as opposed to white, which symbolizes naiveté. The black belt in martial arts symbolizes experience, while a white belt is worn by novices.[59] Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day.
+
+In Indonesia black is associated with depth, the subterranean world, demons, disaster, and the left hand.  When black is combined with white, however, it symbolizes harmony and equilibrium.[60]
+
+The first Chinese Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, made black his imperial color, saying that black extinguished red, the old dynastic color.
+
+Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day
+
+Anarchism is a political philosophy, most popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which holds that governments and capitalism are harmful and undesirable. The symbols of anarchism was usually either a black flag or a black letter A. More recently it is usually represented with a bisected red and black flag, to emphasise the movement's socialist roots in the First International. Anarchism was most popular in Spain, France, Italy, Ukraine and Argentina. There were also small but influential movements in the United States and Russia. In the latter, the movement initially allied itself with the Bolsheviks.[61]
+
+The Black Army was a collection of anarchist military units which fought in the Russian Civil War,  sometimes on the side of the Bolshevik Red Army, and sometimes for the opposing White Army. It was officially known as the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, and it was under the command of the famous anarchist Nestor Makhno.
+
+Fascism. The Blackshirts (Italian: camicie nere, 'CCNN) were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II. The Blackshirts were officially known as the Voluntary Militia for National Security (Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, or MVSN).
+
+Inspired by the black uniforms of the Arditi, Italy's elite storm troops of World War I, the Fascist Blackshirts were organized by Benito Mussolini as the military tool of his political movement.[62] They used violence and intimidation against Mussolini's opponents. The emblem of the Italian fascists was a black flag with fasces, an axe in a bundle of sticks, an ancient Roman symbol of authority. Mussolini came to power in 1922 through his March on Rome with the blackshirts.
+
+Black was also adopted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany. Red, white and black were the colors of the flag of the German Empire from 1870 to 1918. In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained that they were "revered colors expressive of our homage to the glorious past." Hitler also wrote that "the new flag ... should prove effective as a large poster" because "in hundreds of thousands of cases a really striking emblem may be the first cause of awakening interest in a movement." The black swastika was meant to symbolize the Aryan race, which, according to the Nazis, "was always anti-Semitic and will always be anti-Semitic."[63] Several designs by a number of different authors were considered, but the one adopted in the end was Hitler's personal design.[64] Black became the color of the uniform of the SS, the Schutzstaffel or "defense corps", the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, and was worn by SS officers from 1932 until the end of World War II.
+
+The Nazis used a black triangle to symbolize anti-social elements. The symbol originates from Nazi concentration camps, where every prisoner had to wear one of the Nazi concentration camp badges on their jacket, the color of which categorized them according to "their kind." Many Black Triangle prisoners were either mentally disabled or mentally ill. The homeless were also included, as were alcoholics, the Romani people, the habitually "work-shy," prostitutes, draft dodgers and pacifists.[65] More recently the black triangle has been adopted as a symbol in lesbian culture and by disabled activists.
+
+Black shirts were also worn by the British Union of Fascists before World War II, and members of fascist movements in the Netherlands.[66]
+
+Patriotic resistance. The Lützow Free Corps, composed of volunteer German students and academics fighting against Napoleon in 1813, could not afford to make special uniforms and therefore adopted black, as the only color that could be used to dye their civilian clothing without the original color showing.  In 1815 the students began to carry a red, black and gold flag, which they believed (incorrectly) had been the colors of the Holy Roman Empire (the imperial flag had actually been gold and black). In 1848, this banner became the flag of the German confederation. In 1866, Prussia unified Germany under its rule, and imposed the red, white and black of its own flag, which remained the colors of the German flag until the end of the Second World War. In 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany returned to the original flag and colors of the students and professors of 1815, which is the flag of Germany today.[67]
+
+Islamism. The Black Standard (راية السوداء‎ rāyat al-sawdā', also known as راية العقاب‎ rāyat al-'uqāb "banner of the eagle" or simply as الراية‎ al-rāya "the banner") is the historical flag flown by Muhammad in Islamic tradition, an eschatological symbol in Shi'a Islam (heralding the advent of the Mahdi),[68] and a symbol used in Islamism and Jihadism.
+
+A flag used by the anarchist Black Army during the Russian Civil War. It says, "Power begets parasites. Long live Anarchy!"
+
+Benito Mussolini and his blackshirt followers during his March on Rome in 1922.
+
+Black uniform of Heinrich Himmler,  head of the SS,  the military wing of the Nazi Party (1938).
+
+The flag used by ISIL (also called ISIS), Boko Haram, and other groups. Similar Black Standards are used by Islamists and Jihadists across the Muslim world.
+
+The flag of Albania is a red flag with a silhouetted black double-headed eagle in the center. The red stands for bravery, strength and valor, while the double-headed eagle represents the sovereign state of Albania.
+
+The banner of the Holy Roman Emperor (1400–1806) featured a black eagle, an old Roman emblem and a symbol of power. One head represented the church, the other the state.
+
+Flag of Belgium (1831). The black came from the banner of the Duchy of Brabant, founded in the 12th century. The flag used the colors of the failed Brabant Revolution of 1789–90 against the Habsburg Monarchy.
+
+The Flag of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire (1917–20), gave its colors to many modern flags in the Middle East. Black was taken from the Black Standard of Muhammad.
+
+(The black in the modern flag of Germany (1949) dates back to the flag of the Holy Roman Empire, the 19th-century flag of the German Confederation, the flag of Prussia, and the flag of the Weimar Republic.
+
+Flag of Estonia (1918). The flag was a symbol of Estonian nationalism, when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. Black was said to symbolize the dark time of occupation, and white the bright future of independence.
+
+Flag of Egypt (1984). The colors were taken from the Flag of the Arab Revolt, which was the banner of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. The black came from the Black Standard of Muhammad.
+
+The Flag of South Africa (1994). The black comes from the flag of the African National Congress, the ruling party in South Africa.
+
+Black has been a traditional color of cavalry and armoured or mechanized troops. German armoured troops (Panzerwaffe) traditionally wore black uniforms, and even in others, a black beret is common. In Finland, black is the symbolic color for both armoured troops and combat engineers, and military units of these specialities have black flags and unit insignia.
+
+The black beret and the color black is also a symbol of special forces in many countries. Soviet and Russian OMON special police and Russian naval infantry wear a black beret. A black beret is also worn by military police in the Canadian, Czech, Croatian, Portuguese, Spanish and Serbian armies.
+
+The silver-on-black skull and crossbones symbol or Totenkopf and a black uniform were used by Hussars and Black Brunswickers, the German Panzerwaffe and the Nazi Schutzstaffel, and U.S. 400th Missile Squadron (crossed missiles), and continues in use with the Estonian Kuperjanov Battalion.
+
+In Christianity, the devil is often called the "prince of darkness." The term was used in John Milton's poem Paradise Lost, published in 1667, referring to Satan, who is viewed as the embodiment of evil. It is an English translation of the Latin phrase princeps tenebrarum, which occurs in the Acts of Pilate, written in the fourth century, in the 11th-century hymn Rhythmus de die mortis by Pietro Damiani,[70] and in a sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux[71] from the 12th century. The phrase also occurs in King Lear by William Shakespeare (c. 1606), Act III, Scene IV, l. 14:
+'The prince of darkness is a gentleman."
+
+Priests and pastors of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches commonly wear black, as do monks of the Benedictine Order, who consider it the color of humility and penitence.
+
+Modern-day monks of the Order of Saint Benedict in New Jersey
+
+In Europe and America, black is commonly associated with mourning and bereavement,[79][4] and usually worn at funerals and memorial services. In some traditional societies, for example in Greece and Italy, some widows wear black for the rest of their lives. In contrast, across much of Africa and parts of Asia like Vietnam, white is a color of mourning.
+
+In Victorian England, the colors and fabrics of mourning were specified in an unofficial dress code:  "non-reflective black paramatta and crape for the first year of deepest mourning, followed by nine months of dullish black silk, heavily trimmed with crape, and then three months when crape was discarded.  Paramatta was a fabric of combined silk and wool or cotton; crape was a harsh black silk fabric with a crimped appearance produced by heat.  Widows were allowed to change into the colors of half-mourning, such as gray and lavender, black and white, for the final six months."[80]
+
+A "black day" (or week or month) usually refers to tragic date. The Romans marked fasti days with white stones and nefasti days with black. The term is often used to remember massacres. Black months include the Black September in Jordan, when large numbers of Palestinians were killed, and Black July in Sri Lanka, the killing of members of the Tamil population by the Sinhalese government.
+
+In the financial world, the term often refers to a dramatic drop in the stock market. For example, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, which marked the start of the Great Depression, is nicknamed Black Tuesday, and was preceded by Black Thursday, a downturn on October 24 the previous week.
+
+The dowager Electress of Palatine in mourning (1717)
+
+Emperor Pedro II of Brazil and his sisters wearing mourning clothes due to their father's death (1834)
+
+Queen Victoria wore black in mourning for her husband Prince Albert (1899)
+
+In western popular culture, black has long been associated with evil and darkness. It is the traditional color of witchcraft and black magic.[4]
+
+In the Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament of the Bible, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are supposed to announce the Apocalypse before the Last Judgment. The horseman representing famine rides a black horse. The vampire of literature and films, such as Count Dracula of the Bram Stoker novel,  dressed in black, and could only move at night. The Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz became the archetype of witches for generations of children.  Whereas witches and sorcerers inspired real fear in the 17th century, in the 21st century children and adults dressed as witches for Halloween parties and parades.
+
+The biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, including famine riding a black horse (painting by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887)
+
+Drawing of a witch from the illustrated book The Goblins' Christmas by Elizabeth Anderson (1908)
+
+Count Dracula as portrayed by Bela Lugosi in the 1931 film version
+
+Clarinet-playing witch in a New Orleans Halloween parade
+
+Black is frequently used as a color of power, law and authority. In many countries judges and magistrates wear black robes. That custom began in Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. Jurists, magistrates and certain other court officials in France began to wear long black robes during the reign of Philip IV of France (1285–1314), and in England from the time of Edward I (1271–1307). The custom spread to the cities of Italy at about the same time, between 1300 and 1320. The robes of judges resembled those worn by the clergy, and represented the law and authority of the King, while those of the clergy represented the law of God and authority of the church.[81]
+
+Until the 20th century most police uniforms were black, until they were largely replaced by a less menacing blue in France, the U.S. and other countries. In the United States, police cars are frequently Black and white. The riot control units of the Basque Autonomous Police in Spain are known as beltzak ("blacks") after their uniform.
+
+Black today is the most common color for limousines and the official cars of government officials.
+
+Black formal attire is still worn at many solemn occasions or ceremonies, from graduations to formal balls.  Graduation gowns are copied from the gowns worn by university professors in the Middle Ages, which in turn were copied from the robes worn by judges and priests, who often taught at the early universities. The mortarboard hat worn by graduates is adapted from a square cap called a biretta worn by Medieval professors and clerics
+
+The United States Supreme Court (2009)
+
+Judges at the International Court of Justice in the Hague
+
+A police car of the Los Angeles Police Department
+
+American academic dress for a bachelor's degree
+
+In the 19th and 20th centuries, many machines and devices, large and small, were painted black, to stress their functionality. These included telephones, sewing machines, steamships, railroad locomotives, and automobiles. The Ford Model T, the first mass-produced car, was available only in black from 1914 to 1926. Of means of transportation, only airplanes were rarely ever painted black.[82]
+
+Olivetti telephone from the 1940s
+
+A 1920 Ford Model T
+
+The first model BlackBerry (2000)
+
+Black house paint is becoming more popular with Sherwin-Williams reporting that the color, Tricorn Black, was the 6th most popular exterior house paint color in Canada and the 12th most popular paint in the United States in 2018.[83]
+
+Black is also commonly used as a racial description in the United Kingdom, since ethnicity was first measured in the 2001 census.  The 2011 British census asked residents to describe themselves, and categories offered included Black, African, Caribbean, or Black British.  Other possible categories were African British, African Scottish, Caribbean British and Caribbean Scottish. Of the total UK population in 2001, 1.0 percent identified themselves as Black Caribbean, 0.8 percent as Black African, and 0.2 percent as Black (others).[85]
+
+In Canada, census respondents can identify themselves as Black. In the 2006 census, 2.5 percent of the population identified themselves as black.[86]
+
+In Australia, the term black is not used in the census.  In the 2006 census, 2.3 percent of Australians identified themselves as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders.
+
+In Brazil, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) asks people to identify themselves as branco (white), pardo (brown), preto (black), or amarelo (yellow). In 2008 6.8 percent of the population identified themselves as "preto".[87]
+
+Heroes in American westerns, like the Lone Ranger, traditionally wore a white hat, while the villains wore black hats.
+
+Black is commonly associated with secrecy.
+
+Black is the color most commonly associated with elegance in Europe and the United States, followed by silver, gold, and white.[89]
+
+Black first became a fashionable color for men in Europe in the 17th century, in the courts of Italy and Spain. (See history above.) In the 19th century, it was the fashion for men both in business and for evening wear, in the form of a black coat whose tails came down the knees. In the evening it was the custom of the men to leave the women after dinner to go to a special smoking room to enjoy cigars or cigarettes. This meant that their tailcoats eventually smelled of tobacco. According to the legend, in 1865 Edward VII, then the Prince of Wales, had his tailor make a special short smoking jacket.  The smoking jacket then evolved into the dinner jacket. Again according to legend, the first Americans to wear the jacket were members of the Tuxedo Club in New York State. Thereafter the jacket became known as a tuxedo in the U.S. The term "smoking" is still used today in Russia and other countries.[90]
+The tuxedo was always black until the 1930s, when the Duke of Windsor began to wear a tuxedo that was a very dark midnight blue. He did so because a black tuxedo looked greenish in artificial light, while a dark blue tuxedo looked blacker than black itself.[89]
+
+For women's fashion, the defining moment was the invention of the simple black dress by Coco Chanel in 1926. (See history.) Thereafter, a long black gown was used for formal occasions, while the simple black dress could be used for everything else. The designer Karl Lagerfeld, explaining why black was so popular, said:  "Black is the color that goes with everything. If you're wearing black, you're on sure ground."[89] Skirts have gone up and down and fashions have changed, but the black dress has not lost its position as the essential element of a woman's wardrobe. The fashion designer Christian Dior said, "elegance is a combination of distinction, naturalness, care and simplicity,"[89] and black exemplified elegance.
+
+The expression  "X is the new black" is a reference to the latest trend or fad that is considered a wardrobe basic for the duration of the trend, on the basis that black is always fashionable. The phrase has taken on a life of its own and has become a cliché.
+
+Many performers of both popular and European classical music, including French singers Edith Piaf and Juliette Gréco, and violinist Joshua Bell have traditionally worn black on stage during performances. A black costume was usually chosen as part of their image or stage persona, or because it did not distract from the music, or sometimes for a political reason. Country-western singer Johnny Cash always wore black on stage. In 1971, Cash wrote the song "Man in Black" to explain why he dressed in that color: "We're doing mighty fine I do suppose / In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes / But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back / Up front there ought to be a man in black."
+
+The Duke of Windsor was the first to wear midnight blue rather than black evening dress, which looked blacker than black in artificial light.
+
+A "simple black dress" from 1964.
+
+French singer Edith Piaf always wore black on stage.
+
+Country-western singer Johnny Cash called himself "the man in black." Image of his performance in Bremen, Northern Germany, in September 1972.
+
+American violinist Joshua Bell wears black on stage.
+
+Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen at the Fashion Rio Inverno 2006.
+
+Model Fabiana Semprebom at New York Fashion Week, 2006

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+
+
+Black is the darkest color, the result of the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, a color without hue, like white and gray.[1] It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness, while white represents light.[2] Black and white have often been used to describe opposites such as good and evil, the Dark Ages versus Age of Enlightenment, and night versus day. Since the Middle Ages, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates.[2]
+
+Black was one of the first colors used by artists in neolithic cave paintings.[3] In the 14th century, it was worn by royalty, clergy, judges and government officials in much of Europe. It became the color worn by English romantic poets, businessmen and statesmen in the 19th century, and a high fashion color in the 20th century.[2] In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches and magic.[4] According to surveys in Europe and North America, it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, force, violence, evil, and elegance.[5]
+
+Black ink is the most common color used for printing books, newspapers and documents, as it provides the highest contrast with white paper and thus the easiest color to read. Similarly, black text on a white screen is the most common format used on computer screens.[6]
+
+The word black comes from Old English blæc ("black, dark", also, "ink"), from Proto-Germanic *blakkaz ("burned"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- ("to burn, gleam, shine, flash"), from base *bhel- ("to shine"), related to Old Saxon blak ("ink"), Old High German blach ("black"), Old Norse blakkr ("dark"), Dutch blaken ("to burn"), and Swedish bläck ("ink"). More distant cognates include Latin flagrare ("to blaze, glow, burn"), and Ancient Greek phlegein ("to burn, scorch").
+
+The Ancient Greeks sometimes used the same word to name different colors, if they had the same intensity.  Kuanos' could mean both dark blue and black.[7]
+
+The Ancient Romans had two words for black:  ater was a flat, dull black, while niger was a brilliant, saturated black. Ater has vanished from the vocabulary, but niger was the source of the country name Nigeria,[8] the English word Negro, and the word for "black" in most modern Romance languages (French: noir; Spanish and Portuguese: negro; Italian: nero; Romanian: negru).
+
+Old High German also had two words for black: swartz for dull black and blach for a luminous black.  These are parallelled in Middle English by the terms swart for dull black and blaek for luminous black. Swart still survives as the word swarthy, while blaek became the modern English black.[7]
+
+In heraldry, the word used for the black color is sable,[9] named for the black fur of the sable, an animal.
+
+Black was one of the first colors used in art. The Lascaux Cave in France contains drawings of bulls and other animals drawn by paleolithic artists between 18,000 and 17,000 years ago. They began by using charcoal, and then made more vivid black pigments by burning bones or grinding a powder of manganese oxide.[7]
+
+For the ancient Egyptians, black had positive associations; being the color of fertility and the rich black soil flooded by the Nile. It was the color of Anubis, the god of the underworld, who took the form of a black jackal, and offered protection against evil to the dead.
+
+For the ancient Greeks, black was also the color of the underworld, separated from the world of the living by the river Acheron, whose water was black. Those who had committed the worst sins were sent to Tartarus, the deepest and darkest level. In the center was the palace of Hades, the king of the underworld, where he was seated upon a black ebony throne. Black was one of the most important colors used by ancient Greek artists. In the 6th century BC, they began making black-figure pottery and later red figure pottery, using a highly original technique. In black-figure pottery, the artist would paint figures with a glossy clay slip on a red clay pot. When the pot was fired, the figures painted with the slip would turn black, against a red background. Later they reversed the process, painting the spaces between the figures with slip. This created magnificent red figures against a glossy black background.[10]
+
+In the social hierarchy of ancient Rome, purple was the color reserved for the Emperor; red was the color worn by soldiers (red cloaks for the officers, red tunics for the soldiers); white the color worn by the priests, and black was worn by craftsmen and artisans. The black they wore was not deep and rich; the vegetable dyes used to make black were not solid or lasting, so the blacks often turned out faded gray or brown.[citation needed]
+
+In Latin, the word for black, ater and to darken, atere,  were associated with cruelty, brutality and evil. They were the root of the English words "atrocious" and "atrocity".[11] Black was also the Roman color of death and mourning. In the 2nd century BC Roman magistrates began to wear a dark toga, called a toga pulla, to funeral ceremonies. Later, under the Empire, the family of the deceased also wore dark colors for a long period; then, after a banquet to mark the end of mourning, exchanged the black for a white toga. In Roman poetry, death was called the hora nigra, the black hour.[7]
+
+The German and Scandinavian peoples worshipped their own goddess of the night, Nótt, who crossed the sky in a chariot drawn by a black horse. They also feared Hel, the goddess of the kingdom of the dead, whose skin was black on one side and red on the other. They also held sacred the raven. They believed that Odin, the king of the Nordic pantheon, had two black ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who served as his agents, traveling the world for him, watching and listening.[12]
+
+Neolithic paintings of bulls in the Lascaux Cave, more than 17,000 years old
+
+Statue of Anubis, guardian of the underworld, from the tomb of Tutankhamun.
+
+Greek black-figure pottery. Ajax and Achilles playing a game, about 540–530 BC. (Vatican Museums).
+
+Red-figure pottery with black background. Portrait of Thetis, about 470–480 BC. (The Louvre)
+
+In the early Middle Ages, black was commonly associated with darkness and evil. In Medieval paintings, the devil was usually depicted as having human form, but with wings and black skin or hair.[13]
+
+In fashion, black did not have the prestige of red, the color of the nobility. It was worn by Benedictine monks as a sign of humility and penitence. In the 12th century a famous theological dispute broke out between the Cistercian monks, who wore white, and the Benedictines, who wore black. A Benedictine abbot, Pierre the Venerable, accused the Cistercians of excessive pride in wearing white instead of black. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercians responded that black was the color of the devil, hell, "of death and sin," while white represented "purity, innocence and all the virtues".[14]
+
+Black symbolized both power and secrecy in the medieval world. The emblem of the Holy Roman Empire of Germany was a black eagle. The black knight in the poetry of the Middle Ages was an enigmatic figure, hiding his identity, usually wrapped in secrecy.[15]
+
+Black ink, invented in China, was traditionally used in the Middle Ages for writing, for the simple reason that black was the darkest color and therefore provided the greatest contrast with white paper or parchment, making it the easiest color to read.  It became even more important in the 15th century, with the invention of printing.    A new kind of ink, printer's ink, was created out of soot, turpentine and walnut oil. The new ink made it possible to spread ideas to a mass audience through printed books, and to popularize art through black and white engravings and prints.  Because of its contrast and clarity, black ink on white paper continued to be the standard for printing books, newspapers and documents; and for the same reason black text on a white background is the most common format used on computer screens.[6]
+
+The Italian painter Duccio di Buoninsegna showed Christ expelling the Devil, shown covered with bristly black hair (1308–11).
+
+The 15th-century painting of the Last Judgement by Fra Angelico (1395–1455) depicted hell with a vivid black devil devouring sinners.
+
+Portrait of a monk of the Benedictine Order  (1484)
+
+The black knight in a miniature painting of a medieval romance,Le Livre du cœur d'amour épris (about 1460)
+
+Gutenberg Bible (1451–1452). Black ink was used for printing books, because it provided the greatest contrast with the white paper and was the clearest and easiest color to read.
+
+In the early Middle Ages, princes, nobles and the wealthy usually wore bright colors, particularly scarlet cloaks from Italy. Black was rarely part of the wardrobe of a noble family. The one exception was the fur of the sable. This glossy black fur, from an animal of the marten family, was the finest and most expensive fur in Europe.  It was imported from Russia and Poland and used to trim the robes and gowns of royalty.
+
+In the 14th century, the status of black began to change. First, high-quality black dyes began to arrive on the market, allowing garments of a deep, rich black. Magistrates and government officials began to wear black robes, as a sign of the importance and seriousness of their positions. A third reason was the passage of sumptuary laws in some parts of Europe which prohibited the wearing of costly clothes and certain colors by anyone except members of the nobility. The famous bright scarlet cloaks from Venice and the peacock blue fabrics from Florence were restricted to the nobility. The wealthy bankers and merchants of northern Italy responded by changing to black robes and gowns, made with the most expensive fabrics.[16]
+
+The change to the more austere but elegant black was quickly picked up by the kings and nobility. It began in northern Italy, where the Duke of Milan and the Count of Savoy and the rulers of Mantua, Ferrara, Rimini and Urbino began to dress in black. It then spread to France, led by Louis I, Duke of Orleans, younger brother of King Charles VI of France. It moved to England at the end of the reign of King Richard II (1377–1399), where all the court began to wear black. In 1419–20, black became the color of the powerful Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good. It moved to Spain, where it became the color of the Spanish Habsburgs, of Charles V and of his son, Philip II of Spain (1527–1598). European rulers saw it as the color of power, dignity, humility and temperance. By the end of the 16th century, it was the color worn by almost all the monarchs of Europe and their courts.[17]
+
+Philip the Good in about 1450, by Rogier van der Weyden
+
+Portrait of a Young Woman by Petrus Christus (about 1470)
+
+Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558), by Titian
+
+Portrait of Philip II of Spain (1527–1598)
+
+While black was the color worn by the Catholic rulers of Europe, it was also the emblematic color of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and the Puritans in England and America. John Calvin, Philip Melanchthon and other Protestant theologians denounced the richly colored and decorated interiors of Roman Catholic churches. They saw the color red, worn by the Pope and his Cardinals, as the color of luxury, sin, and human folly.[18] In some northern European cities, mobs attacked churches and cathedrals, smashed the stained glass windows and defaced the statues and decoration. In Protestant doctrine, clothing was required to be sober, simple and discreet. Bright colors were banished and replaced by blacks, browns and grays; women and children were recommended to wear white.[19]
+
+In the Protestant Netherlands, Rembrandt used this sober new palette of blacks and browns to create portraits whose faces emerged from the shadows expressing the deepest human emotions. The Catholic painters of the Counter-Reformation, like Rubens, went in the opposite direction; they filled their paintings with bright and rich colors. The new Baroque churches of the Counter-Reformation were usually shining white inside and filled with statues, frescoes, marble, gold and colorful paintings, to appeal to the public. But European Catholics of all classes, like Protestants, eventually adopted a sober wardrobe that was mostly black, brown and gray.[20]
+
+Swiss theologian John Calvin denounced the bright colors worn by Roman Catholic priests, and colorful decoration of churches.
+
+Increase Mather, an American Puritan clergyman (1688).
+
+American Pilgrims in New England going to church (painting by George Henry Boughton, 1867)
+
+Rembrandt, Self-portrait (1659)
+
+Black painted suit of German armor crafted circa 1600. As with many outfits, black in the piece is used to contrast against lighter colors.[21]
+
+In the second part of the 17th century, Europe and America experienced an epidemic of fear of witchcraft.  People widely believed that the devil appeared at midnight in a ceremony called a Black Mass or black sabbath, usually in the form of a black animal, often a goat, a dog, a wolf, a bear, a deer or a rooster, accompanied by their familiar spirits, black cats, serpents and other black creatures. This was the origin of the widespread superstition about black cats and other black animals. In medieval Flanders, in a ceremony called Kattenstoet, black cats were thrown from the belfry of the Cloth Hall of Ypres to ward off witchcraft.[22]
+
+Witch trials were common in both Europe and America during this period. During the notorious Salem witch trials in New England in 1692–93, one of those on trial was accused of being able turn into a "black thing with a blue cap,"  and others of having familiars in the form of a black dog, a black cat and a black bird.[23] Nineteen women and men were hanged as witches.[24]
+
+An English manual on witch-hunting (1647), showing a witch with her familiar spirits
+
+Black cats have been accused for centuries of being the familiar spirits of witches or of bringing bad luck.
+
+In the 18th century, during the European Age of Enlightenment, black receded as a fashion color. Paris became the fashion capital, and pastels, blues, greens, yellow and white became the colors of the nobility and upper classes. But after the French Revolution, black again became the dominant color.
+
+Black was the color of the industrial revolution, largely fueled by coal, and later by oil. Thanks to coal smoke, the buildings of the large cities of Europe and America gradually turned black.  By 1846 the industrial area of the West Midlands of England was "commonly called 'the Black Country'”.[25] Charles Dickens and other writers described the dark streets and smoky skies of London, and they were vividly illustrated in the engravings of French artist Gustave Doré.
+
+A different kind of black was an important part of the romantic movement in literature. Black was the color of melancholy, the dominant theme of romanticism. The novels of the period were filled with castles, ruins, dungeons, storms, and meetings at midnight. The leading poets of the movement were usually portrayed dressed in black, usually with a white shirt and open collar, and a scarf carelessly over their shoulder, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron helped create the enduring stereotype of the romantic poet.
+
+The invention of new, inexpensive synthetic black dyes and the industrialization of the textile industry meant that good-quality black clothes were available for the first time to the general population. In the 19th century gradually black became the most popular color of business dress of the upper and middle classes in England, the Continent, and America.
+
+Black dominated literature and fashion in the 19th century, and played a large role in painting. James McNeil Whistler made the color the subject of his most famous painting, Arrangement in grey and black number one  (1871), better known as Whistler's Mother.
+
+Some 19th-century French painters had a low opinion of black: "Reject black," Paul Gauguin said, "and that mix of black and white they call gray. Nothing is black, nothing is gray."[26] But Édouard Manet used blacks for their strength and dramatic effect. Manet's portrait of painter Berthe Morisot was a study in black which perfectly captured her spirit of independence. The black gave the painting power and immediacy;  he even changed her eyes, which were green, to black to strengthen the effect.[27] Henri Matisse quoted the French impressionist Pissarro telling him, "Manet is stronger than us all – he made light with black."[28]
+
+Pierre-Auguste Renoir used luminous blacks, especially in his portraits. When someone told him that black was not a color, Renoir replied: "What makes you think that? Black is the queen of colors. I always detested Prussian blue. I tried to replace black with a mixture of red and blue, I tried using cobalt blue or ultramarine, but I always came back to ivory black."[29]
+
+Vincent van Gogh used black lines to outline many of the objects in his paintings, such as the bed in the famous painting of his bedroom. making them stand apart. His painting of black crows over a cornfield, painted shortly before he died, was particularly agitated and haunting.
+
+In the late 19th century, black also became the color of anarchism. (See the section political movements.)
+
+Percy Bysshe Shelley in the black and white costume of the romantic poet (1819).
+
+A view of London by Gustave Doré from 1872 showed how coal and the industrial revolution had blackened the buildings and air of the great cities of Europe.
+
+Arrangement in Grey and Black Number 1 (1871) by James McNeil Whistler better known as Whistler's Mother.
+
+Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, by Édouard Manet (1872).
+
+Le Bal de l'Opera (1873) by Édouard Manet, shows the dominance of black in Parisian evening dress.
+
+The Theater Box (1874) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, captured the luminosity of black fabric in the light.
+
+Wheat Field with Crows (1890), one of the last paintings of Vincent van Gogh, captures his agitated state of mind.
+
+In the 20th century, black was the color of Italian and German fascism.  (See the section political movements.)
+
+In art, black regained some of the territory that it had lost during the 19th century. The Russian painter Kasimir Malevich, a member of the Suprematist movement, created the Black Square in 1915, is widely considered the first purely abstract painting.[30] He wrote, "The painted work is no longer simply the imitation of reality, but is this very reality ... It is not a demonstration of ability, but the materialization of an idea."[31]
+
+Black was also appreciated by Henri Matisse. "When I didn't know what color to put down, I put down black," he said in 1945. "Black is a force: I used black as ballast to simplify the construction ... Since the impressionists it seems to have made continuous progress, taking a more and more important part in color orchestration, comparable to that of the double bass as a solo instrument."[32]
+
+In the 1950s, black came to be a symbol of individuality and intellectual and social rebellion, the color of those who didn't accept established norms and values. In Paris, it was worn by Left-Bank intellectuals and performers such as Juliette Gréco, and by some members of the Beat Movement in New York and San Francisco.[33] Black leather jackets were worn by motorcycle gangs such as the Hells Angels and street gangs on the fringes of society in the United States. Black as a color of rebellion was celebrated in such films as The Wild One, with Marlon Brando. By the end of the 20th century, black was the emblematic color of the punk subculture punk fashion, and the goth subculture. Goth fashion, which emerged in England in the 1980s, was inspired by Victorian era mourning dress.
+
+In men's fashion, black gradually ceded its dominance to navy blue, particularly in business suits. Black evening dress and formal dress in general were worn less and less. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was the last American President to be inaugurated wearing formal dress; President Lyndon Johnson and all his successors were inaugurated wearing business suits.
+
+Women's fashion was revolutionized and simplified in 1926 by the French designer Coco Chanel, who published a drawing of a simple black dress in Vogue magazine. She famously said, "A woman needs just three things; a black dress, a black sweater, and, on her arm, a man she loves."[33]  French designer Jean Patou also followed suit by creating a black collection in 1929.[34] Other designers contributed to the trend of the little black dress. The Italian designer Gianni Versace said, "Black is the quintessence of simplicity and elegance," and French designer Yves Saint Laurent said, "black is the liaison which connects art and fashion.[33] One of the most famous black dresses of the century was designed by Hubert de Givenchy and was worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's.
+
+The American civil rights movement in the 1950s was a struggle for the political equality of African Americans. It developed into the Black Power movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, and popularized the slogan "Black is Beautiful".
+
+In the 1990s, the Black Standard became the banner of several Islamic extremist, jihadist groups. (See the section political movements.)
+
+The Black Square (1915) by Kazimir Malevich is considered the first purely abstract painting (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow).
+
+The goth fashion model Lady Amaranth. Goth fashion was inspired by British Victorian mourning costumes.
+
+Variants of the Black Standard flag are used by many militant Islamist groups that have adopted militant interpretations of jihad. it is said to be the banner carried by Muhammad and his soldiers.
+
+In the visible spectrum, black is the absorption of all colors. Black can be defined as the visual impression experienced when no visible light reaches the eye. Pigments or dyes that absorb light rather than reflect it back to the eye "look black". A black pigment can, however, result from a combination of several pigments that collectively absorb all colors. If appropriate proportions of three primary pigments are mixed, the result reflects so little light as to be called "black". This provides two superficially opposite but actually complementary descriptions of black. Black is the absorption of all colors of light, or an exhaustive combination of multiple colors of pigment.
+
+In physics, a black body is a perfect absorber of light, but, by a thermodynamic rule, it is also the best emitter. Thus, the best radiative cooling, out of sunlight, is by using black paint, though it is important that it be black (a nearly perfect absorber) in the infrared as well. In elementary science, far ultraviolet light is called "black light" because, while itself unseen, it causes many minerals and other substances to fluoresce.
+
+On January 16, 2008, researchers from Troy, New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced the creation of the then darkest material on the planet. The material, which reflected only 0.045 percent of light, was created from carbon nanotubes stood on end. This is 1/30 of the light reflected by the current standard for blackness, and one third the light reflected by the previous record holder for darkest substance.[35] As of February 2016, the current darkest material known is claimed to be Vantablack.[36][37]
+
+Absorption of light is contrasted by transmission, reflection and diffusion, where the light is only redirected, causing objects to appear transparent, reflective or white respectively. A material is said to be black if most incoming light is absorbed equally in the material. Light (electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum) interacts with the atoms and molecules, which causes the energy of the light to be converted into other forms of energy, usually heat. This means that black surfaces can act as thermal collectors, absorbing light and generating heat (see Solar thermal collector).
+
+Vantablack is made of carbon nanotubes[38] and is the blackest substance known, absorbing up to 99.965% of radiation in the visible spectrum.[39]
+
+The earliest pigments used by Neolithic man were charcoal, red ocher and yellow ocher. The black lines of cave art were drawn with the tips of burnt torches made of a wood with resin.[40] Different charcoal pigments were made by burning different woods and animal products, each of which produced a different tone. The charcoal would be ground and then mixed with animal fat to make the pigment.
+
+The 15th-century painter Cennino Cennini described how this pigment was made during the Renaissance in his famous handbook for artists: "...there is a black which is made from the tendrils of vines. And these tendrils need to be burned. And when they have been burned, throw some water onto them and put them out and then mull them in the same way as the other black. And this is a lean and black pigment and is one of the perfect pigments that we use."[41]
+
+Cennini also noted that "There is another black which is made from burnt almond shells or peaches and this is a perfect, fine black."[41] Similar fine blacks were made by burning the pits of the peach, cherry or apricot. The powdered charcoal was then mixed with gum arabic or the yellow of an egg to make a paint.
+
+Different civilizations burned different plants to produce their charcoal pigments. The Inuit of Alaska used wood charcoal mixed with the blood of seals to paint masks and wooden objects. The Polynesians burned coconuts to produce their pigment.
+
+Good-quality black dyes were not known until the middle of the 14th century. The most common early dyes were made from bark, roots or fruits of different trees;  usually the walnut, chestnut, or certain oak trees. The blacks produced were often more gray, brown or bluish. The cloth had to be dyed several times to darken the color. One solution used by dyers was add to the dye some iron filings, rich in iron oxide, which gave a deeper black. Another was to first dye the fabric dark blue, and then to dye it black.
+
+A much richer and deeper black dye was eventually found made from the Oak apple or gall-nut.  The gall-nut is a small round tumor which grows on oak and other varieties of trees. They range in size from 2–5 cm, and are caused by chemicals injected by the larva of certain kinds of gall wasp in the family Cynipidae.[42] The dye was very expensive;  a great quantity of gall-nuts were needed for a very small amount of dye.  The gall-nuts which made the best dye came from Poland, eastern Europe, the near east and North Africa.  Beginning in about the 14th century, dye from gall-nuts was used for clothes of the kings and princes of Europe.[43]
+
+Another important source of natural black dyes from the 17th century onwards was the logwood tree, or Haematoxylum campechianum, which also produced reddish and bluish dyes. It is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is native to southern Mexico and northern Central America.[44] The modern nation of Belize grew from 17th century English logwood logging camps.
+
+Since the mid-19th century, synthetic black dyes have largely replaced natural dyes. One of the important synthetic blacks is Nigrosin, a mixture of synthetic black dyes (CI 50415, Solvent black 5) made by heating a mixture of nitrobenzene, aniline and aniline hydrochloride in the presence of a copper or iron catalyst. Its main industrial uses are as a colorant for lacquers and varnishes and in marker-pen inks.[45]
+
+The first known inks were made by the Chinese, and date back to the 23rd century B.C. They used natural plant dyes and minerals such as graphite ground with water and applied with an ink brush. Early Chinese inks similar to the modern inkstick have been found dating to about 256 BC at the end of the Warring States period. They were produced from soot, usually produced by burning pine wood, mixed with animal glue. To make ink from an inkstick, the stick is continuously ground against an inkstone with a small quantity of water to produce a dark liquid which is then applied with an ink brush. Artists and calligraphists could vary the thickness of the resulting ink by reducing or increasing the intensity and time of ink grinding. These inks produced the delicate shading and subtle or dramatic effects of Chinese brush painting.[46]
+
+India ink (or Indian ink in British English) is a black ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comic books and comic strips. The technique of making it probably came from China. India ink has been in use in India since at least the 4th century BC, where it was called masi. In India, the black color of the ink came from bone char, tar, pitch and other substances.[47][48]
+
+The Ancient Romans had a black writing ink they called atramentum librarium.[49] Its name came from the Latin word atrare, which meant to make something black. (This was the same root as the English word atrocious.) It was usually made, like India ink, from soot, although one variety, called atramentum elephantinum, was made by burning the ivory of elephants.[50]
+
+Gall-nuts were also used for making fine black writing ink. Iron gall ink (also known as iron gall nut ink or oak gall ink) was a purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and tannic acids from gall nut. It was the standard writing and drawing ink in Europe, from about the 12th century to the 19th century, and remained in use well into the 20th century.
+
+Sticks of vine charcoal and compressed charcoal. Charcoal, along with red and yellow ochre, was one of the first pigments used by Paleolithic man.
+
+A Chinese inkstick, in the form of lotus flowers and blossoms. Inksticks are used in Chinese calligraphy and brush painting.
+
+Ivory black or bone char, a natural black pigment made by burning animal bones.
+
+The logwood tree from Central America produced dyes beginning in the 17th century. The nation of Belize began as a British colony producing logwood.
+
+The oak apple or gall-nut, a tumor growing on oak trees, was the main source of black dye and black writing ink from the 14th century until the 19th century.
+
+The industrial production of lamp black, made by producing, collecting and refining soot,  in 1906.
+
+Image of the NGC 406 galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope
+
+The night sky seen from Mars, with the two moons of Mars visible, taken by the NASA Spirit Rover.
+
+Outside Earth's atmosphere, the sky is black day and night.
+
+An illustration of Olbers' paradox (see below)
+
+Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
+
+The fact that outer space is black is sometimes called Olbers' paradox. In theory, because the universe is full of stars, and is believed to be infinitely large, it would be expected that the light of an infinite number of stars would be enough to brilliantly light the whole universe all the time. However, the background color of outer space is black. This contradiction was first noted in 1823 by German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers, who posed the question of why the night sky was black.
+
+The current accepted answer is that, although the universe is infinitely large, it is not infinitely old. It is thought to be about 13.8 billion years old, so we can only see objects as far away as the distance light can travel in 13.8 billion years. Light from stars farther away has not reached Earth, and cannot contribute to making the sky bright. Furthermore, as the universe is expanding, many stars are moving away from Earth. As they move, the wavelength of their light becomes longer, through the Doppler effect, and shifts toward red, or even becomes invisible. As a result of these two phenomena, there is not enough starlight to make space anything but black.[54]
+
+The daytime sky on Earth is blue because light from the Sun strikes molecules in Earth's atmosphere scattering light in all directions. Blue light is scattered more than other colors, and reaches the eye in greater quantities, making the daytime sky appear blue. This is known as Rayleigh scattering.
+
+The nighttime sky on Earth is black because the part of Earth experiencing night is facing away from the Sun, the light of the Sun is blocked by Earth itself, and there is no other bright nighttime source of light in the vicinity. Thus, there is not enough light to undergo Rayleigh scattering and make the sky blue. On the Moon, on the other hand, because there is no atmosphere to scatter the light, the sky is black both day and night. This phenomenon also holds true for other locations without an atmosphere.
+
+American black bear (Ursus americanus) near Riding Mountain Park, Manitoba, Canada
+
+The black mamba of Africa is one of the most venomous snakes, as well as the fastest-moving snake in the world. The only black part of the snake is the inside of the mouth, which it exposes in a threat display when alarmed.
+
+The black widow spider, or latrodectus, The females frequently eat their male partners after mating. The female's venom is at least three times more potent than that of the males, making a male's self-defense bite ineffective.
+
+A black panther is actually a melanistic leopard or jaguar, the result of an excess of melanin in their skin caused by a recessive gene.
+
+The American crow is one of the most intelligent of all animals.[55]
+
+In China, the color black is associated with water, one of the five fundamental elements believed to compose all things;  and with winter, cold, and the direction north, usually symbolized by a black tortoise.  It is also associated with disorder, including the positive disorder which leads to change and new life. When the first Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang seized power from the Zhou Dynasty, he changed the Imperial color from red to black, saying that black extinguished red.  Only when the Han Dynasty appeared in 206 BC was red restored as the imperial color.[56]
+
+The Chinese and Japanese character for black (kuro in Japanese), can, depending upon the context, also mean dark or evil.
+
+In Japan, black is associated with mystery, the night, the unknown, the supernatural, the invisible and death.  Combined with white, it can symbolize intuition.[57] In 10th and 11th century Japan, it was believed that wearing black could bring misfortune.  It was worn at court by those who wanted to set themselves apart from the established powers or who had renounced material possessions.[58]
+
+In Japan black can also symbolize experience, as opposed to white, which symbolizes naiveté. The black belt in martial arts symbolizes experience, while a white belt is worn by novices.[59] Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day.
+
+In Indonesia black is associated with depth, the subterranean world, demons, disaster, and the left hand.  When black is combined with white, however, it symbolizes harmony and equilibrium.[60]
+
+The first Chinese Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, made black his imperial color, saying that black extinguished red, the old dynastic color.
+
+Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day
+
+Anarchism is a political philosophy, most popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which holds that governments and capitalism are harmful and undesirable. The symbols of anarchism was usually either a black flag or a black letter A. More recently it is usually represented with a bisected red and black flag, to emphasise the movement's socialist roots in the First International. Anarchism was most popular in Spain, France, Italy, Ukraine and Argentina. There were also small but influential movements in the United States and Russia. In the latter, the movement initially allied itself with the Bolsheviks.[61]
+
+The Black Army was a collection of anarchist military units which fought in the Russian Civil War,  sometimes on the side of the Bolshevik Red Army, and sometimes for the opposing White Army. It was officially known as the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, and it was under the command of the famous anarchist Nestor Makhno.
+
+Fascism. The Blackshirts (Italian: camicie nere, 'CCNN) were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II. The Blackshirts were officially known as the Voluntary Militia for National Security (Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, or MVSN).
+
+Inspired by the black uniforms of the Arditi, Italy's elite storm troops of World War I, the Fascist Blackshirts were organized by Benito Mussolini as the military tool of his political movement.[62] They used violence and intimidation against Mussolini's opponents. The emblem of the Italian fascists was a black flag with fasces, an axe in a bundle of sticks, an ancient Roman symbol of authority. Mussolini came to power in 1922 through his March on Rome with the blackshirts.
+
+Black was also adopted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany. Red, white and black were the colors of the flag of the German Empire from 1870 to 1918. In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained that they were "revered colors expressive of our homage to the glorious past." Hitler also wrote that "the new flag ... should prove effective as a large poster" because "in hundreds of thousands of cases a really striking emblem may be the first cause of awakening interest in a movement." The black swastika was meant to symbolize the Aryan race, which, according to the Nazis, "was always anti-Semitic and will always be anti-Semitic."[63] Several designs by a number of different authors were considered, but the one adopted in the end was Hitler's personal design.[64] Black became the color of the uniform of the SS, the Schutzstaffel or "defense corps", the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, and was worn by SS officers from 1932 until the end of World War II.
+
+The Nazis used a black triangle to symbolize anti-social elements. The symbol originates from Nazi concentration camps, where every prisoner had to wear one of the Nazi concentration camp badges on their jacket, the color of which categorized them according to "their kind." Many Black Triangle prisoners were either mentally disabled or mentally ill. The homeless were also included, as were alcoholics, the Romani people, the habitually "work-shy," prostitutes, draft dodgers and pacifists.[65] More recently the black triangle has been adopted as a symbol in lesbian culture and by disabled activists.
+
+Black shirts were also worn by the British Union of Fascists before World War II, and members of fascist movements in the Netherlands.[66]
+
+Patriotic resistance. The Lützow Free Corps, composed of volunteer German students and academics fighting against Napoleon in 1813, could not afford to make special uniforms and therefore adopted black, as the only color that could be used to dye their civilian clothing without the original color showing.  In 1815 the students began to carry a red, black and gold flag, which they believed (incorrectly) had been the colors of the Holy Roman Empire (the imperial flag had actually been gold and black). In 1848, this banner became the flag of the German confederation. In 1866, Prussia unified Germany under its rule, and imposed the red, white and black of its own flag, which remained the colors of the German flag until the end of the Second World War. In 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany returned to the original flag and colors of the students and professors of 1815, which is the flag of Germany today.[67]
+
+Islamism. The Black Standard (راية السوداء‎ rāyat al-sawdā', also known as راية العقاب‎ rāyat al-'uqāb "banner of the eagle" or simply as الراية‎ al-rāya "the banner") is the historical flag flown by Muhammad in Islamic tradition, an eschatological symbol in Shi'a Islam (heralding the advent of the Mahdi),[68] and a symbol used in Islamism and Jihadism.
+
+A flag used by the anarchist Black Army during the Russian Civil War. It says, "Power begets parasites. Long live Anarchy!"
+
+Benito Mussolini and his blackshirt followers during his March on Rome in 1922.
+
+Black uniform of Heinrich Himmler,  head of the SS,  the military wing of the Nazi Party (1938).
+
+The flag used by ISIL (also called ISIS), Boko Haram, and other groups. Similar Black Standards are used by Islamists and Jihadists across the Muslim world.
+
+The flag of Albania is a red flag with a silhouetted black double-headed eagle in the center. The red stands for bravery, strength and valor, while the double-headed eagle represents the sovereign state of Albania.
+
+The banner of the Holy Roman Emperor (1400–1806) featured a black eagle, an old Roman emblem and a symbol of power. One head represented the church, the other the state.
+
+Flag of Belgium (1831). The black came from the banner of the Duchy of Brabant, founded in the 12th century. The flag used the colors of the failed Brabant Revolution of 1789–90 against the Habsburg Monarchy.
+
+The Flag of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire (1917–20), gave its colors to many modern flags in the Middle East. Black was taken from the Black Standard of Muhammad.
+
+(The black in the modern flag of Germany (1949) dates back to the flag of the Holy Roman Empire, the 19th-century flag of the German Confederation, the flag of Prussia, and the flag of the Weimar Republic.
+
+Flag of Estonia (1918). The flag was a symbol of Estonian nationalism, when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. Black was said to symbolize the dark time of occupation, and white the bright future of independence.
+
+Flag of Egypt (1984). The colors were taken from the Flag of the Arab Revolt, which was the banner of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. The black came from the Black Standard of Muhammad.
+
+The Flag of South Africa (1994). The black comes from the flag of the African National Congress, the ruling party in South Africa.
+
+Black has been a traditional color of cavalry and armoured or mechanized troops. German armoured troops (Panzerwaffe) traditionally wore black uniforms, and even in others, a black beret is common. In Finland, black is the symbolic color for both armoured troops and combat engineers, and military units of these specialities have black flags and unit insignia.
+
+The black beret and the color black is also a symbol of special forces in many countries. Soviet and Russian OMON special police and Russian naval infantry wear a black beret. A black beret is also worn by military police in the Canadian, Czech, Croatian, Portuguese, Spanish and Serbian armies.
+
+The silver-on-black skull and crossbones symbol or Totenkopf and a black uniform were used by Hussars and Black Brunswickers, the German Panzerwaffe and the Nazi Schutzstaffel, and U.S. 400th Missile Squadron (crossed missiles), and continues in use with the Estonian Kuperjanov Battalion.
+
+In Christianity, the devil is often called the "prince of darkness." The term was used in John Milton's poem Paradise Lost, published in 1667, referring to Satan, who is viewed as the embodiment of evil. It is an English translation of the Latin phrase princeps tenebrarum, which occurs in the Acts of Pilate, written in the fourth century, in the 11th-century hymn Rhythmus de die mortis by Pietro Damiani,[70] and in a sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux[71] from the 12th century. The phrase also occurs in King Lear by William Shakespeare (c. 1606), Act III, Scene IV, l. 14:
+'The prince of darkness is a gentleman."
+
+Priests and pastors of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches commonly wear black, as do monks of the Benedictine Order, who consider it the color of humility and penitence.
+
+Modern-day monks of the Order of Saint Benedict in New Jersey
+
+In Europe and America, black is commonly associated with mourning and bereavement,[79][4] and usually worn at funerals and memorial services. In some traditional societies, for example in Greece and Italy, some widows wear black for the rest of their lives. In contrast, across much of Africa and parts of Asia like Vietnam, white is a color of mourning.
+
+In Victorian England, the colors and fabrics of mourning were specified in an unofficial dress code:  "non-reflective black paramatta and crape for the first year of deepest mourning, followed by nine months of dullish black silk, heavily trimmed with crape, and then three months when crape was discarded.  Paramatta was a fabric of combined silk and wool or cotton; crape was a harsh black silk fabric with a crimped appearance produced by heat.  Widows were allowed to change into the colors of half-mourning, such as gray and lavender, black and white, for the final six months."[80]
+
+A "black day" (or week or month) usually refers to tragic date. The Romans marked fasti days with white stones and nefasti days with black. The term is often used to remember massacres. Black months include the Black September in Jordan, when large numbers of Palestinians were killed, and Black July in Sri Lanka, the killing of members of the Tamil population by the Sinhalese government.
+
+In the financial world, the term often refers to a dramatic drop in the stock market. For example, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, which marked the start of the Great Depression, is nicknamed Black Tuesday, and was preceded by Black Thursday, a downturn on October 24 the previous week.
+
+The dowager Electress of Palatine in mourning (1717)
+
+Emperor Pedro II of Brazil and his sisters wearing mourning clothes due to their father's death (1834)
+
+Queen Victoria wore black in mourning for her husband Prince Albert (1899)
+
+In western popular culture, black has long been associated with evil and darkness. It is the traditional color of witchcraft and black magic.[4]
+
+In the Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament of the Bible, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are supposed to announce the Apocalypse before the Last Judgment. The horseman representing famine rides a black horse. The vampire of literature and films, such as Count Dracula of the Bram Stoker novel,  dressed in black, and could only move at night. The Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz became the archetype of witches for generations of children.  Whereas witches and sorcerers inspired real fear in the 17th century, in the 21st century children and adults dressed as witches for Halloween parties and parades.
+
+The biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, including famine riding a black horse (painting by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887)
+
+Drawing of a witch from the illustrated book The Goblins' Christmas by Elizabeth Anderson (1908)
+
+Count Dracula as portrayed by Bela Lugosi in the 1931 film version
+
+Clarinet-playing witch in a New Orleans Halloween parade
+
+Black is frequently used as a color of power, law and authority. In many countries judges and magistrates wear black robes. That custom began in Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. Jurists, magistrates and certain other court officials in France began to wear long black robes during the reign of Philip IV of France (1285–1314), and in England from the time of Edward I (1271–1307). The custom spread to the cities of Italy at about the same time, between 1300 and 1320. The robes of judges resembled those worn by the clergy, and represented the law and authority of the King, while those of the clergy represented the law of God and authority of the church.[81]
+
+Until the 20th century most police uniforms were black, until they were largely replaced by a less menacing blue in France, the U.S. and other countries. In the United States, police cars are frequently Black and white. The riot control units of the Basque Autonomous Police in Spain are known as beltzak ("blacks") after their uniform.
+
+Black today is the most common color for limousines and the official cars of government officials.
+
+Black formal attire is still worn at many solemn occasions or ceremonies, from graduations to formal balls.  Graduation gowns are copied from the gowns worn by university professors in the Middle Ages, which in turn were copied from the robes worn by judges and priests, who often taught at the early universities. The mortarboard hat worn by graduates is adapted from a square cap called a biretta worn by Medieval professors and clerics
+
+The United States Supreme Court (2009)
+
+Judges at the International Court of Justice in the Hague
+
+A police car of the Los Angeles Police Department
+
+American academic dress for a bachelor's degree
+
+In the 19th and 20th centuries, many machines and devices, large and small, were painted black, to stress their functionality. These included telephones, sewing machines, steamships, railroad locomotives, and automobiles. The Ford Model T, the first mass-produced car, was available only in black from 1914 to 1926. Of means of transportation, only airplanes were rarely ever painted black.[82]
+
+Olivetti telephone from the 1940s
+
+A 1920 Ford Model T
+
+The first model BlackBerry (2000)
+
+Black house paint is becoming more popular with Sherwin-Williams reporting that the color, Tricorn Black, was the 6th most popular exterior house paint color in Canada and the 12th most popular paint in the United States in 2018.[83]
+
+Black is also commonly used as a racial description in the United Kingdom, since ethnicity was first measured in the 2001 census.  The 2011 British census asked residents to describe themselves, and categories offered included Black, African, Caribbean, or Black British.  Other possible categories were African British, African Scottish, Caribbean British and Caribbean Scottish. Of the total UK population in 2001, 1.0 percent identified themselves as Black Caribbean, 0.8 percent as Black African, and 0.2 percent as Black (others).[85]
+
+In Canada, census respondents can identify themselves as Black. In the 2006 census, 2.5 percent of the population identified themselves as black.[86]
+
+In Australia, the term black is not used in the census.  In the 2006 census, 2.3 percent of Australians identified themselves as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders.
+
+In Brazil, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) asks people to identify themselves as branco (white), pardo (brown), preto (black), or amarelo (yellow). In 2008 6.8 percent of the population identified themselves as "preto".[87]
+
+Heroes in American westerns, like the Lone Ranger, traditionally wore a white hat, while the villains wore black hats.
+
+Black is commonly associated with secrecy.
+
+Black is the color most commonly associated with elegance in Europe and the United States, followed by silver, gold, and white.[89]
+
+Black first became a fashionable color for men in Europe in the 17th century, in the courts of Italy and Spain. (See history above.) In the 19th century, it was the fashion for men both in business and for evening wear, in the form of a black coat whose tails came down the knees. In the evening it was the custom of the men to leave the women after dinner to go to a special smoking room to enjoy cigars or cigarettes. This meant that their tailcoats eventually smelled of tobacco. According to the legend, in 1865 Edward VII, then the Prince of Wales, had his tailor make a special short smoking jacket.  The smoking jacket then evolved into the dinner jacket. Again according to legend, the first Americans to wear the jacket were members of the Tuxedo Club in New York State. Thereafter the jacket became known as a tuxedo in the U.S. The term "smoking" is still used today in Russia and other countries.[90]
+The tuxedo was always black until the 1930s, when the Duke of Windsor began to wear a tuxedo that was a very dark midnight blue. He did so because a black tuxedo looked greenish in artificial light, while a dark blue tuxedo looked blacker than black itself.[89]
+
+For women's fashion, the defining moment was the invention of the simple black dress by Coco Chanel in 1926. (See history.) Thereafter, a long black gown was used for formal occasions, while the simple black dress could be used for everything else. The designer Karl Lagerfeld, explaining why black was so popular, said:  "Black is the color that goes with everything. If you're wearing black, you're on sure ground."[89] Skirts have gone up and down and fashions have changed, but the black dress has not lost its position as the essential element of a woman's wardrobe. The fashion designer Christian Dior said, "elegance is a combination of distinction, naturalness, care and simplicity,"[89] and black exemplified elegance.
+
+The expression  "X is the new black" is a reference to the latest trend or fad that is considered a wardrobe basic for the duration of the trend, on the basis that black is always fashionable. The phrase has taken on a life of its own and has become a cliché.
+
+Many performers of both popular and European classical music, including French singers Edith Piaf and Juliette Gréco, and violinist Joshua Bell have traditionally worn black on stage during performances. A black costume was usually chosen as part of their image or stage persona, or because it did not distract from the music, or sometimes for a political reason. Country-western singer Johnny Cash always wore black on stage. In 1971, Cash wrote the song "Man in Black" to explain why he dressed in that color: "We're doing mighty fine I do suppose / In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes / But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back / Up front there ought to be a man in black."
+
+The Duke of Windsor was the first to wear midnight blue rather than black evening dress, which looked blacker than black in artificial light.
+
+A "simple black dress" from 1964.
+
+French singer Edith Piaf always wore black on stage.
+
+Country-western singer Johnny Cash called himself "the man in black." Image of his performance in Bremen, Northern Germany, in September 1972.
+
+American violinist Joshua Bell wears black on stage.
+
+Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen at the Fashion Rio Inverno 2006.
+
+Model Fabiana Semprebom at New York Fashion Week, 2006

en/4145.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+A nut is a fruit composed of an inedible hard shell and a seed, which is generally edible. In general usage, a wide variety of dried seeds are called nuts, but in a botanical context "nut" implies that the shell does not open to release the seed (indehiscent). The translation of "nut" in certain languages frequently requires paraphrases, as the word is ambiguous.
+
+Most seeds come from fruits that naturally free themselves from the shell, unlike nuts such as hazelnuts, chestnuts, and acorns, which have hard shell walls and originate from a compound ovary. The general and original usage of the term is less restrictive, and many nuts (in the culinary sense), such as almonds, pecans, pistachios, walnuts, and Brazil nuts,[1] are not nuts in a botanical sense. Common usage of the term often refers to any hard-walled, edible kernel as a nut.[2] Nuts are an energy-dense and nutrient-rich food source.[3]
+
+A nut in botany is a simple dry fruit in which the ovary wall becomes increasingly hard as it matures, and where the seed remains unattached or free within the ovary wall. Most nuts come from the pistils with inferior ovaries (see flower) and all are indehiscent (not opening at maturity). True nuts are produced, for example, by some plant families of the order Fagales.
+
+A small nut may be called a "nutlet" (or nucule, a term otherwise referring to the oogonium of stoneworts). In botany, the term "nutlet" specifically refers to a pyrena or pyrene, which is a seed covered by a stony layer, such as the kernel of a drupe.  Walnuts and hickories (Juglandaceae) have fruits that are difficult to classify. They are considered to be nuts under some definitions but are also referred to as drupaceous nuts. "Tryma" is a specialized term for hickory fruits.
+
+In common use, a "tree nut" is, as the name implies, any nut coming from a tree. This most often comes up regarding food allergies, a person may be allergic specifically to peanuts (which are not tree nuts but legumes), whereas others may be allergic to the wider range of nuts that grow in trees.
+
+Notes
+
+Further reading

en/4146.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+A nomad (Middle French: nomade "people without fixed habitation")[1][dubious  – discuss] is a member of a community without fixed habitation which regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), and tinkers or trader nomads.[2][3] In the twentieth century, population of nomadic pastoral tribes slowly decreased, reaching to an estimated 30–40 million nomads in the world as of 1995[update].[4][5]
+
+Nomadic hunting and gathering—following seasonally available wild plants and game—is by far the oldest human subsistence method.[6] Pastoralists raise herds, driving or accompanying in patterns that normally avoid depleting pastures beyond their ability to recover.[7]
+
+Nomadism is also a lifestyle adapted to infertile regions such as steppe, tundra, or ice and sand, where mobility is the most efficient strategy for exploiting scarce resources. For example, many groups living in the tundra are reindeer herders and are semi-nomadic, following forage for their animals.
+
+Sometimes also described as "nomadic" are the various itinerant populations who move among densely populated areas to offer specialized services (crafts or trades) to their residents—external consultants, for example. These groups are known[by whom?] as "peripatetic nomads".[8][9]
+
+A nomad is a person with no settled home, moving from place to place as a way of obtaining food, finding pasture for livestock, or otherwise making a living. The word "nomad" comes ultimately from the classical Greek word νομάς (nomás, "roaming, wandering, especially to find pasture"), from Ancient Greek νομός (nomós, "pasture"). Most nomadic groups follow a fixed annual or seasonal pattern of movements and settlements. Nomadic peoples traditionally travel by animal or canoe or on foot. Today, some nomads travel by motor vehicle. Most[quantify] nomads live in tents or other portable shelters.
+
+Nomads keep moving for different reasons. Nomadic foragers move in search of game, edible plants, and water. Aboriginal Australians, Negritos of Southeast Asia, and San of Africa, for example, traditionally move from camp to camp to hunt and gather wild plants. Some tribes of the Americas followed this way of life. Pastoral nomads make their living raising livestock such as camels, cattle, goats, horses, sheep or yaks; the Gaddi tribe of Himachal Pradesh in India is one such tribe. These nomads travel to find more camels, goats and sheep[citation needed] through the deserts of Arabia and northern Africa. The Fulani and their cattle travel through the grasslands of Niger in western Africa. Some nomadic peoples, especially herders, may also move to raid settled communities or to avoid enemies. Nomadic craftworkers and merchants travel to find and serve customers. They include the Lohar blacksmiths of India, the Romani traders, Scottish travellers, Irish travellers.
+
+Most nomads travel in groups of families, bands or tribes. These groups are based on kinship and marriage ties or on formal agreements of cooperation. A council of adult males makes most of the decisions, though some tribes have chiefs.
+
+In the case of Mongolian nomads, a family moves twice a year. These two movements generally occur during the summer and winter. The winter destination is usually located near mountains in a valley and most families already have fixed winter locations. Their winter locations have shelter for animals and are not used by other families while they are out. In the summer they move to a more open area that the animals can graze. Most nomads usually move in the same region and don't travel very far to a totally different region. Since they usually circle around a large area, communities form and families generally know where the other ones are. Often, families do not have the resources to move from one province to another unless they are moving out of the area permanently. A family can move on its own or with others; if it moves alone, they are usually no more than a couple of kilometers from each other. Nowadays there are no tribes and decisions are made among family members, although elders consult with each other on usual matters. The geographical closeness of families is usually for mutual support. Pastoral nomad societies usually do not have large population. One such society, the Mongols, gave rise to the largest land empire in history. The Mongols originally consisted of loosely organized nomadic tribes in Mongolia, Manchuria, and Siberia. In the late 12th century, Genghis Khan united them and other nomadic tribes to found the Mongol Empire, which eventually stretched the length of Asia.
+
+The nomadic way of life has become increasingly rare. Many countries have converted pastures into cropland and forced nomadic peoples into permanent settlements.[citation needed]
+
+Although (or because) "[t]he sedentary man envies the nomadic existence, the heck for green pastures [...]"[10]
+sedentarist prejudice against nomads, "shiftless" "gypsies", "rootless cosmopolitans", "primitive" hunter-gatherers, refugees and urban homeless street-people persists.
+
+Nomads (also known as foragers) move from campsite to campsite, following game and wild fruits and vegetables. Hunting and gathering describes early people's subsistence living style.
+Following the development of agriculture, most hunter-gatherers were eventually either displaced or converted to farming or pastoralist groups. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers; and some of these supplement, sometimes extensively, their foraging activity with farming or keeping animals.
+
+Pastoral nomads are nomads moving between pastures. Nomadic pastoralism is thought to have developed in three stages that accompanied population growth and an increase in the complexity of social organization.  Karim Sadr has proposed the following stages:[12]
+
+The pastoralists are sedentary to a certain area, as they move between the permanent spring, summer, autumn and winter (or dry and wet season) pastures for their livestock. The nomads moved depending on the availability of resources.[13]
+
+Nomadic pastoralism seems to have developed as a part of the secondary products revolution proposed by Andrew Sherratt, in which early pre-pottery Neolithic cultures that had used animals as live meat ("on the hoof") also began using animals for their secondary products, for example, milk and its associated dairy products, wool and other animal hair, hides and consequently leather, manure for fuel and fertilizer, and traction.[citation needed]
+
+The first nomadic pastoral society developed in the period from 8,500–6,500 BCE in the area of the southern Levant.[14]  There, during a period of increasing aridity, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) cultures in the Sinai were replaced by a nomadic, pastoral pottery-using culture, which seems to have been a cultural fusion between a newly arrived Mesolithic people from Egypt (the Harifian culture), adopting their nomadic hunting lifestyle to the raising of stock.[15]
+
+This lifestyle quickly developed into what Jaris Yurins has called the circum-Arabian nomadic pastoral techno-complex and is possibly associated with the appearance of Semitic languages in the region of the Ancient Near East. The rapid spread of such nomadic pastoralism was typical of such later developments as of the Yamnaya culture of the horse and cattle nomads of the Eurasian steppe, or of the Mongol spread of the later Middle Ages.[15]
+
+Trekboer in southern Africa adopted nomadism from the 17th century.[16]
+
+One of the results of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the subsequent political independence and economic collapse of its Central Asian republics has been the resurgence of pastoral nomadism.[17] Taking the Kyrgyz people as a representative example, nomadism was the centre of their economy before Russian colonization at the turn of the 20th century, when they were settled into agricultural villages. The population became increasingly urbanized after World War II, but some people still take their herds of horses and cows to high pastures (jailoo) every summer, continuing a pattern of transhumance.[citation needed]
+
+Since the 1990s, as the cash economy shrank, unemployed relatives were reabsorbed into family farms, and the importance of this form of nomadism has increased.[citation needed] The symbols of nomadism, specifically the crown of the grey felt tent known as the yurt, appears on the national flag, emphasizing the central importance of nomadism in the genesis of the modern nation of Kyrgyzstan.[18]
+
+From 1920 to 2008, population of nomadic pastoral tribes slowly decreased from over a quarter of Iran's population.[4][19] Tribal pastures were nationalized during the 1960s. The National Commission of UNESCO registered the population of Iran at 21 million in 1963, of whom two million (9.5%) were nomads.[20] Although the nomadic population of Iran has dramatically decreased in the 20th century, Iran still has one of the largest nomadic populations in the world, an estimated 1.5 million in a country of about 70 million.[21]
+
+In Kazakhstan where the major agricultural activity was nomadic herding,[22] forced collectivization under Joseph Stalin's rule met with massive resistance and major losses and confiscation of livestock.[23] Livestock in Kazakhstan fell from 7 million cattle to 1.6 million and from 22 million sheep to 1.7 million. The resulting famine of 1931–1934 caused some 1.5 million deaths: this represents more than 4.0% of the total Kazakh population at that time.[24]
+
+In the 1950s as well as the 1960s, large numbers of Bedouin throughout the Middle East started to leave the traditional, nomadic life to settle in the cities of the Middle East, especially as home ranges have shrunk and population levels have grown. Government policies in Egypt and Israel, oil production in Libya and the Persian Gulf, as well as a desire for improved standards of living, effectively led most Bedouin to become settled citizens of various nations, rather than stateless nomadic herders. A century ago nomadic Bedouin still made up some 10% of the total Arab population. Today they account for some 1% of the total.[25]
+
+At independence in 1960, Mauritania was essentially a nomadic society. The great Sahel droughts of the early 1970s caused massive problems in a country where
+85% of its inhabitants were nomadic herders. Today only 15% remain nomads.[26]
+
+As many as 2 million nomadic Kuchis wandered over Afghanistan in the years before the Soviet invasion, and most experts agreed that by 2000 the number had fallen dramatically, perhaps by half. The severe drought had destroyed 80% of the livestock in some areas.[27]
+
+Niger experienced a serious food crisis in 2005 following erratic rainfall and desert locust invasions. Nomads such as the Tuareg and Fulani, who make up about 20% of Niger's 12.9 million population, had been so badly hit by the Niger food crisis that their already fragile way of life is at risk.[28] Nomads in Mali were also affected.[29]
+
+Pala nomads living in Western Tibet have a diet that is unusual in that they consume very few vegetables and no fruit. The main staple of their diet is tsampa and they drink Tibetan style butter tea. Pala will eat heartier foods in the winter months to help keep warm. Some of the customary restrictions they explain as cultural saying only that drokha do not eat certain foods, even some that may be naturally abundant. Though they live near sources of fish and fowl these do not play a significant role in their diet, and they do not eat carnivorous animals, rabbits or the wild asses that are abundant in the environs, classifying the latter as horse due to their cloven hooves. Some families do not eat until after the morning milking, while others may have a light meal with butter tea and tsampa. In the afternoon, after the morning milking, the families gather and share a communal meal of tea, tsampa and sometimes yogurt. During winter months the meal is more substantial and includes meat. Herders will eat before leaving the camp and most do not eat again until they return to camp for the evening meal. The typical evening meal may include thin stew with tsampa, animal fat and dried radish. Winter stew would include a lot of meat with either tsampa or boiled flour dumplings.[30]
+
+Nomadic diets in Kazakhstan have not changed much over centuries. The Kazakh nomad cuisine is simple and includes meat, salads, marinated vegetables and fried and baked breads. Tea is served in bowls, possibly with sugar or milk. Milk and other dairy products, like cheese and yogurt, are especially important. Kumiss is a drink of fermented milk. Wrestling is a popular sport, but the nomadic people do not have much time for leisure. Horse riding is a valued skill in their culture.[31]
+
+Peripatetic minorities are mobile populations moving among settled populations offering a craft or trade.[32]
+
+Each existing community is primarily endogamous, and subsists traditionally on a variety of commercial or service activities. Formerly, all or a majority of their members were itinerant, and this largely holds true today. Migration generally takes place within the political boundaries of a single state these days.
+
+Each of the peripatetic communities is multilingual, it speaks one or more of the languages spoken by the local sedentary populations, and, additionally, within each group, a separate dialect or language is spoken. They are speaking languages of Indic origin and many are structured somewhat like an argot or secret language, with vocabularies drawn from various languages. There are indications that in northern Iran at least one community speaks Romani language, and some groups in Turkey also speak Romani.
+
+In Afghanistan, the Nausar worked as tinkers and animal dealers. Ghorbat men mainly made sieves, drums, and bird cages, and the women peddled these as well as other items of household and personal use; they also worked as moneylenders to rural women. Peddling and the sale of various goods was also practiced by men and women of various groups, such as the Jalali, the Pikraj, the Shadibaz, the Noristani, and the Vangawala. The latter and the Pikraj also worked as animal dealers. Some men among the Shadibaz and the Vangawala entertained as monkey or bear handlers and snake charmers; men and women among the Baluch were musicians and dancers. The Baluch men were warriors that were feared by neighboring tribes and often were used as mercenaries. Jogi men and women had diverse subsistence activities, such as dealing in horses, harvesting, fortune-telling, bloodletting, and begging.[citation needed]
+
+In Iran the Asheq of Azerbaijan, the Challi of Baluchistan, the Luti of Kurdistan, Kermānshāh, Īlām, and Lorestān, the Mehtar in the Mamasani district, the Sazandeh of Band-i Amir and Marv-dasht, and the Toshmal among the Bakhtyari pastoral groups worked as professional musicians. The men among the Kowli worked as tinkers, smiths, musicians, and monkey and bear handlers; they also made baskets, sieves, and brooms and dealt in donkeys. Their women made a living from peddling, begging, and fortune-telling.
+
+The Ghorbat among the Basseri were smiths and tinkers, traded in pack animals, and made sieves, reed mats, and small wooden implements. In the Fārs region, the Qarbalband, the Kuli, and Luli were reported to work as smiths and to make baskets and sieves; they also dealt in pack animals, and their women peddled various goods among pastoral nomads. In the same region, the Changi and Luti were musicians and balladeers, and their children learned these professions from the age of 7 or 8 years.[citation needed]
+
+The nomadic groups in Turkey make and sell cradles, deal in animals, and play music. The men of the sedentary groups work in towns as scavengers and hangmen; elsewhere they are fishermen, smiths, basket makers, and singers; their women dance at feasts and tell fortunes. Abdal men played music and made sieves, brooms, and wooden spoons for a living. The Tahtacı traditionally worked as lumberers; with increased sedentarization, however, they have taken to agriculture and horticulture.[citation needed]
+
+Little is known for certain about the past of these communities; the history of each is almost entirely contained in their oral traditions. Although some groups—such as the Vangawala—are of Indian origin, some—like the Noristani—are most probably of local origin; still others probably migrated from adjoining areas. The Ghorbat and the Shadibaz claim to have originally come from Iran and Multan, respectively, and Tahtacı traditional accounts mention either Baghdad or Khorāsān as their original home. The Baluch say they[clarification needed] were attached as a service community to the Jamshedi, after they fled Baluchistan because of feuds.[33][34]
+
+Yörüks are the nomadic people who live in Turkey. Still some groups such as Sarıkeçililer continues nomadic lifestyle between coastal towns Mediterranean and Taurus Mountains even though most of them were settled by both late Ottoman and Turkish republic.
+
+Mongol nomads in the Altai Mountains.
+
+Snake charmer from Telungu community of Sri Lanka.
+
+A Scythian horseman from the general area of the Ili river, Pazyryk, c. 300 BCE.
+
+Yeniche people in the 15th century
+
+A young Bedouin lighting a camp fire in Wadi Rum, Jordan.
+
+Kyrgyz nomads in the steppes of the Russian Empire, Uzbekistan, by pioneer color photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, c. 1910.
+
+Tuareg in Mali, 1974.
+
+Kyrgyz nomads, 1869–1870.
+
+Nomads in the Desert (Giulio Rosati).
+
+Gros Ventre (Atsina) American Indians moving camps with travois for transporting skin lodges and belongings.
+
+House barge of the Sama-Bajau peoples, Indonesia. 1914–1921
+
+Photograph of Bedouins (wandering Arabs) of Tunisia, 1899
+
+Indian nomads painting by well-known artiste Raja Ravi Varma
+
+Indian nomad Banjara
+
+Figurative use of the term:

en/4147.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+A nomad (Middle French: nomade "people without fixed habitation")[1][dubious  – discuss] is a member of a community without fixed habitation which regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), and tinkers or trader nomads.[2][3] In the twentieth century, population of nomadic pastoral tribes slowly decreased, reaching to an estimated 30–40 million nomads in the world as of 1995[update].[4][5]
+
+Nomadic hunting and gathering—following seasonally available wild plants and game—is by far the oldest human subsistence method.[6] Pastoralists raise herds, driving or accompanying in patterns that normally avoid depleting pastures beyond their ability to recover.[7]
+
+Nomadism is also a lifestyle adapted to infertile regions such as steppe, tundra, or ice and sand, where mobility is the most efficient strategy for exploiting scarce resources. For example, many groups living in the tundra are reindeer herders and are semi-nomadic, following forage for their animals.
+
+Sometimes also described as "nomadic" are the various itinerant populations who move among densely populated areas to offer specialized services (crafts or trades) to their residents—external consultants, for example. These groups are known[by whom?] as "peripatetic nomads".[8][9]
+
+A nomad is a person with no settled home, moving from place to place as a way of obtaining food, finding pasture for livestock, or otherwise making a living. The word "nomad" comes ultimately from the classical Greek word νομάς (nomás, "roaming, wandering, especially to find pasture"), from Ancient Greek νομός (nomós, "pasture"). Most nomadic groups follow a fixed annual or seasonal pattern of movements and settlements. Nomadic peoples traditionally travel by animal or canoe or on foot. Today, some nomads travel by motor vehicle. Most[quantify] nomads live in tents or other portable shelters.
+
+Nomads keep moving for different reasons. Nomadic foragers move in search of game, edible plants, and water. Aboriginal Australians, Negritos of Southeast Asia, and San of Africa, for example, traditionally move from camp to camp to hunt and gather wild plants. Some tribes of the Americas followed this way of life. Pastoral nomads make their living raising livestock such as camels, cattle, goats, horses, sheep or yaks; the Gaddi tribe of Himachal Pradesh in India is one such tribe. These nomads travel to find more camels, goats and sheep[citation needed] through the deserts of Arabia and northern Africa. The Fulani and their cattle travel through the grasslands of Niger in western Africa. Some nomadic peoples, especially herders, may also move to raid settled communities or to avoid enemies. Nomadic craftworkers and merchants travel to find and serve customers. They include the Lohar blacksmiths of India, the Romani traders, Scottish travellers, Irish travellers.
+
+Most nomads travel in groups of families, bands or tribes. These groups are based on kinship and marriage ties or on formal agreements of cooperation. A council of adult males makes most of the decisions, though some tribes have chiefs.
+
+In the case of Mongolian nomads, a family moves twice a year. These two movements generally occur during the summer and winter. The winter destination is usually located near mountains in a valley and most families already have fixed winter locations. Their winter locations have shelter for animals and are not used by other families while they are out. In the summer they move to a more open area that the animals can graze. Most nomads usually move in the same region and don't travel very far to a totally different region. Since they usually circle around a large area, communities form and families generally know where the other ones are. Often, families do not have the resources to move from one province to another unless they are moving out of the area permanently. A family can move on its own or with others; if it moves alone, they are usually no more than a couple of kilometers from each other. Nowadays there are no tribes and decisions are made among family members, although elders consult with each other on usual matters. The geographical closeness of families is usually for mutual support. Pastoral nomad societies usually do not have large population. One such society, the Mongols, gave rise to the largest land empire in history. The Mongols originally consisted of loosely organized nomadic tribes in Mongolia, Manchuria, and Siberia. In the late 12th century, Genghis Khan united them and other nomadic tribes to found the Mongol Empire, which eventually stretched the length of Asia.
+
+The nomadic way of life has become increasingly rare. Many countries have converted pastures into cropland and forced nomadic peoples into permanent settlements.[citation needed]
+
+Although (or because) "[t]he sedentary man envies the nomadic existence, the heck for green pastures [...]"[10]
+sedentarist prejudice against nomads, "shiftless" "gypsies", "rootless cosmopolitans", "primitive" hunter-gatherers, refugees and urban homeless street-people persists.
+
+Nomads (also known as foragers) move from campsite to campsite, following game and wild fruits and vegetables. Hunting and gathering describes early people's subsistence living style.
+Following the development of agriculture, most hunter-gatherers were eventually either displaced or converted to farming or pastoralist groups. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers; and some of these supplement, sometimes extensively, their foraging activity with farming or keeping animals.
+
+Pastoral nomads are nomads moving between pastures. Nomadic pastoralism is thought to have developed in three stages that accompanied population growth and an increase in the complexity of social organization.  Karim Sadr has proposed the following stages:[12]
+
+The pastoralists are sedentary to a certain area, as they move between the permanent spring, summer, autumn and winter (or dry and wet season) pastures for their livestock. The nomads moved depending on the availability of resources.[13]
+
+Nomadic pastoralism seems to have developed as a part of the secondary products revolution proposed by Andrew Sherratt, in which early pre-pottery Neolithic cultures that had used animals as live meat ("on the hoof") also began using animals for their secondary products, for example, milk and its associated dairy products, wool and other animal hair, hides and consequently leather, manure for fuel and fertilizer, and traction.[citation needed]
+
+The first nomadic pastoral society developed in the period from 8,500–6,500 BCE in the area of the southern Levant.[14]  There, during a period of increasing aridity, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) cultures in the Sinai were replaced by a nomadic, pastoral pottery-using culture, which seems to have been a cultural fusion between a newly arrived Mesolithic people from Egypt (the Harifian culture), adopting their nomadic hunting lifestyle to the raising of stock.[15]
+
+This lifestyle quickly developed into what Jaris Yurins has called the circum-Arabian nomadic pastoral techno-complex and is possibly associated with the appearance of Semitic languages in the region of the Ancient Near East. The rapid spread of such nomadic pastoralism was typical of such later developments as of the Yamnaya culture of the horse and cattle nomads of the Eurasian steppe, or of the Mongol spread of the later Middle Ages.[15]
+
+Trekboer in southern Africa adopted nomadism from the 17th century.[16]
+
+One of the results of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the subsequent political independence and economic collapse of its Central Asian republics has been the resurgence of pastoral nomadism.[17] Taking the Kyrgyz people as a representative example, nomadism was the centre of their economy before Russian colonization at the turn of the 20th century, when they were settled into agricultural villages. The population became increasingly urbanized after World War II, but some people still take their herds of horses and cows to high pastures (jailoo) every summer, continuing a pattern of transhumance.[citation needed]
+
+Since the 1990s, as the cash economy shrank, unemployed relatives were reabsorbed into family farms, and the importance of this form of nomadism has increased.[citation needed] The symbols of nomadism, specifically the crown of the grey felt tent known as the yurt, appears on the national flag, emphasizing the central importance of nomadism in the genesis of the modern nation of Kyrgyzstan.[18]
+
+From 1920 to 2008, population of nomadic pastoral tribes slowly decreased from over a quarter of Iran's population.[4][19] Tribal pastures were nationalized during the 1960s. The National Commission of UNESCO registered the population of Iran at 21 million in 1963, of whom two million (9.5%) were nomads.[20] Although the nomadic population of Iran has dramatically decreased in the 20th century, Iran still has one of the largest nomadic populations in the world, an estimated 1.5 million in a country of about 70 million.[21]
+
+In Kazakhstan where the major agricultural activity was nomadic herding,[22] forced collectivization under Joseph Stalin's rule met with massive resistance and major losses and confiscation of livestock.[23] Livestock in Kazakhstan fell from 7 million cattle to 1.6 million and from 22 million sheep to 1.7 million. The resulting famine of 1931–1934 caused some 1.5 million deaths: this represents more than 4.0% of the total Kazakh population at that time.[24]
+
+In the 1950s as well as the 1960s, large numbers of Bedouin throughout the Middle East started to leave the traditional, nomadic life to settle in the cities of the Middle East, especially as home ranges have shrunk and population levels have grown. Government policies in Egypt and Israel, oil production in Libya and the Persian Gulf, as well as a desire for improved standards of living, effectively led most Bedouin to become settled citizens of various nations, rather than stateless nomadic herders. A century ago nomadic Bedouin still made up some 10% of the total Arab population. Today they account for some 1% of the total.[25]
+
+At independence in 1960, Mauritania was essentially a nomadic society. The great Sahel droughts of the early 1970s caused massive problems in a country where
+85% of its inhabitants were nomadic herders. Today only 15% remain nomads.[26]
+
+As many as 2 million nomadic Kuchis wandered over Afghanistan in the years before the Soviet invasion, and most experts agreed that by 2000 the number had fallen dramatically, perhaps by half. The severe drought had destroyed 80% of the livestock in some areas.[27]
+
+Niger experienced a serious food crisis in 2005 following erratic rainfall and desert locust invasions. Nomads such as the Tuareg and Fulani, who make up about 20% of Niger's 12.9 million population, had been so badly hit by the Niger food crisis that their already fragile way of life is at risk.[28] Nomads in Mali were also affected.[29]
+
+Pala nomads living in Western Tibet have a diet that is unusual in that they consume very few vegetables and no fruit. The main staple of their diet is tsampa and they drink Tibetan style butter tea. Pala will eat heartier foods in the winter months to help keep warm. Some of the customary restrictions they explain as cultural saying only that drokha do not eat certain foods, even some that may be naturally abundant. Though they live near sources of fish and fowl these do not play a significant role in their diet, and they do not eat carnivorous animals, rabbits or the wild asses that are abundant in the environs, classifying the latter as horse due to their cloven hooves. Some families do not eat until after the morning milking, while others may have a light meal with butter tea and tsampa. In the afternoon, after the morning milking, the families gather and share a communal meal of tea, tsampa and sometimes yogurt. During winter months the meal is more substantial and includes meat. Herders will eat before leaving the camp and most do not eat again until they return to camp for the evening meal. The typical evening meal may include thin stew with tsampa, animal fat and dried radish. Winter stew would include a lot of meat with either tsampa or boiled flour dumplings.[30]
+
+Nomadic diets in Kazakhstan have not changed much over centuries. The Kazakh nomad cuisine is simple and includes meat, salads, marinated vegetables and fried and baked breads. Tea is served in bowls, possibly with sugar or milk. Milk and other dairy products, like cheese and yogurt, are especially important. Kumiss is a drink of fermented milk. Wrestling is a popular sport, but the nomadic people do not have much time for leisure. Horse riding is a valued skill in their culture.[31]
+
+Peripatetic minorities are mobile populations moving among settled populations offering a craft or trade.[32]
+
+Each existing community is primarily endogamous, and subsists traditionally on a variety of commercial or service activities. Formerly, all or a majority of their members were itinerant, and this largely holds true today. Migration generally takes place within the political boundaries of a single state these days.
+
+Each of the peripatetic communities is multilingual, it speaks one or more of the languages spoken by the local sedentary populations, and, additionally, within each group, a separate dialect or language is spoken. They are speaking languages of Indic origin and many are structured somewhat like an argot or secret language, with vocabularies drawn from various languages. There are indications that in northern Iran at least one community speaks Romani language, and some groups in Turkey also speak Romani.
+
+In Afghanistan, the Nausar worked as tinkers and animal dealers. Ghorbat men mainly made sieves, drums, and bird cages, and the women peddled these as well as other items of household and personal use; they also worked as moneylenders to rural women. Peddling and the sale of various goods was also practiced by men and women of various groups, such as the Jalali, the Pikraj, the Shadibaz, the Noristani, and the Vangawala. The latter and the Pikraj also worked as animal dealers. Some men among the Shadibaz and the Vangawala entertained as monkey or bear handlers and snake charmers; men and women among the Baluch were musicians and dancers. The Baluch men were warriors that were feared by neighboring tribes and often were used as mercenaries. Jogi men and women had diverse subsistence activities, such as dealing in horses, harvesting, fortune-telling, bloodletting, and begging.[citation needed]
+
+In Iran the Asheq of Azerbaijan, the Challi of Baluchistan, the Luti of Kurdistan, Kermānshāh, Īlām, and Lorestān, the Mehtar in the Mamasani district, the Sazandeh of Band-i Amir and Marv-dasht, and the Toshmal among the Bakhtyari pastoral groups worked as professional musicians. The men among the Kowli worked as tinkers, smiths, musicians, and monkey and bear handlers; they also made baskets, sieves, and brooms and dealt in donkeys. Their women made a living from peddling, begging, and fortune-telling.
+
+The Ghorbat among the Basseri were smiths and tinkers, traded in pack animals, and made sieves, reed mats, and small wooden implements. In the Fārs region, the Qarbalband, the Kuli, and Luli were reported to work as smiths and to make baskets and sieves; they also dealt in pack animals, and their women peddled various goods among pastoral nomads. In the same region, the Changi and Luti were musicians and balladeers, and their children learned these professions from the age of 7 or 8 years.[citation needed]
+
+The nomadic groups in Turkey make and sell cradles, deal in animals, and play music. The men of the sedentary groups work in towns as scavengers and hangmen; elsewhere they are fishermen, smiths, basket makers, and singers; their women dance at feasts and tell fortunes. Abdal men played music and made sieves, brooms, and wooden spoons for a living. The Tahtacı traditionally worked as lumberers; with increased sedentarization, however, they have taken to agriculture and horticulture.[citation needed]
+
+Little is known for certain about the past of these communities; the history of each is almost entirely contained in their oral traditions. Although some groups—such as the Vangawala—are of Indian origin, some—like the Noristani—are most probably of local origin; still others probably migrated from adjoining areas. The Ghorbat and the Shadibaz claim to have originally come from Iran and Multan, respectively, and Tahtacı traditional accounts mention either Baghdad or Khorāsān as their original home. The Baluch say they[clarification needed] were attached as a service community to the Jamshedi, after they fled Baluchistan because of feuds.[33][34]
+
+Yörüks are the nomadic people who live in Turkey. Still some groups such as Sarıkeçililer continues nomadic lifestyle between coastal towns Mediterranean and Taurus Mountains even though most of them were settled by both late Ottoman and Turkish republic.
+
+Mongol nomads in the Altai Mountains.
+
+Snake charmer from Telungu community of Sri Lanka.
+
+A Scythian horseman from the general area of the Ili river, Pazyryk, c. 300 BCE.
+
+Yeniche people in the 15th century
+
+A young Bedouin lighting a camp fire in Wadi Rum, Jordan.
+
+Kyrgyz nomads in the steppes of the Russian Empire, Uzbekistan, by pioneer color photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, c. 1910.
+
+Tuareg in Mali, 1974.
+
+Kyrgyz nomads, 1869–1870.
+
+Nomads in the Desert (Giulio Rosati).
+
+Gros Ventre (Atsina) American Indians moving camps with travois for transporting skin lodges and belongings.
+
+House barge of the Sama-Bajau peoples, Indonesia. 1914–1921
+
+Photograph of Bedouins (wandering Arabs) of Tunisia, 1899
+
+Indian nomads painting by well-known artiste Raja Ravi Varma
+
+Indian nomad Banjara
+
+Figurative use of the term:

en/4148.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+A nomad (Middle French: nomade "people without fixed habitation")[1][dubious  – discuss] is a member of a community without fixed habitation which regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), and tinkers or trader nomads.[2][3] In the twentieth century, population of nomadic pastoral tribes slowly decreased, reaching to an estimated 30–40 million nomads in the world as of 1995[update].[4][5]
+
+Nomadic hunting and gathering—following seasonally available wild plants and game—is by far the oldest human subsistence method.[6] Pastoralists raise herds, driving or accompanying in patterns that normally avoid depleting pastures beyond their ability to recover.[7]
+
+Nomadism is also a lifestyle adapted to infertile regions such as steppe, tundra, or ice and sand, where mobility is the most efficient strategy for exploiting scarce resources. For example, many groups living in the tundra are reindeer herders and are semi-nomadic, following forage for their animals.
+
+Sometimes also described as "nomadic" are the various itinerant populations who move among densely populated areas to offer specialized services (crafts or trades) to their residents—external consultants, for example. These groups are known[by whom?] as "peripatetic nomads".[8][9]
+
+A nomad is a person with no settled home, moving from place to place as a way of obtaining food, finding pasture for livestock, or otherwise making a living. The word "nomad" comes ultimately from the classical Greek word νομάς (nomás, "roaming, wandering, especially to find pasture"), from Ancient Greek νομός (nomós, "pasture"). Most nomadic groups follow a fixed annual or seasonal pattern of movements and settlements. Nomadic peoples traditionally travel by animal or canoe or on foot. Today, some nomads travel by motor vehicle. Most[quantify] nomads live in tents or other portable shelters.
+
+Nomads keep moving for different reasons. Nomadic foragers move in search of game, edible plants, and water. Aboriginal Australians, Negritos of Southeast Asia, and San of Africa, for example, traditionally move from camp to camp to hunt and gather wild plants. Some tribes of the Americas followed this way of life. Pastoral nomads make their living raising livestock such as camels, cattle, goats, horses, sheep or yaks; the Gaddi tribe of Himachal Pradesh in India is one such tribe. These nomads travel to find more camels, goats and sheep[citation needed] through the deserts of Arabia and northern Africa. The Fulani and their cattle travel through the grasslands of Niger in western Africa. Some nomadic peoples, especially herders, may also move to raid settled communities or to avoid enemies. Nomadic craftworkers and merchants travel to find and serve customers. They include the Lohar blacksmiths of India, the Romani traders, Scottish travellers, Irish travellers.
+
+Most nomads travel in groups of families, bands or tribes. These groups are based on kinship and marriage ties or on formal agreements of cooperation. A council of adult males makes most of the decisions, though some tribes have chiefs.
+
+In the case of Mongolian nomads, a family moves twice a year. These two movements generally occur during the summer and winter. The winter destination is usually located near mountains in a valley and most families already have fixed winter locations. Their winter locations have shelter for animals and are not used by other families while they are out. In the summer they move to a more open area that the animals can graze. Most nomads usually move in the same region and don't travel very far to a totally different region. Since they usually circle around a large area, communities form and families generally know where the other ones are. Often, families do not have the resources to move from one province to another unless they are moving out of the area permanently. A family can move on its own or with others; if it moves alone, they are usually no more than a couple of kilometers from each other. Nowadays there are no tribes and decisions are made among family members, although elders consult with each other on usual matters. The geographical closeness of families is usually for mutual support. Pastoral nomad societies usually do not have large population. One such society, the Mongols, gave rise to the largest land empire in history. The Mongols originally consisted of loosely organized nomadic tribes in Mongolia, Manchuria, and Siberia. In the late 12th century, Genghis Khan united them and other nomadic tribes to found the Mongol Empire, which eventually stretched the length of Asia.
+
+The nomadic way of life has become increasingly rare. Many countries have converted pastures into cropland and forced nomadic peoples into permanent settlements.[citation needed]
+
+Although (or because) "[t]he sedentary man envies the nomadic existence, the heck for green pastures [...]"[10]
+sedentarist prejudice against nomads, "shiftless" "gypsies", "rootless cosmopolitans", "primitive" hunter-gatherers, refugees and urban homeless street-people persists.
+
+Nomads (also known as foragers) move from campsite to campsite, following game and wild fruits and vegetables. Hunting and gathering describes early people's subsistence living style.
+Following the development of agriculture, most hunter-gatherers were eventually either displaced or converted to farming or pastoralist groups. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers; and some of these supplement, sometimes extensively, their foraging activity with farming or keeping animals.
+
+Pastoral nomads are nomads moving between pastures. Nomadic pastoralism is thought to have developed in three stages that accompanied population growth and an increase in the complexity of social organization.  Karim Sadr has proposed the following stages:[12]
+
+The pastoralists are sedentary to a certain area, as they move between the permanent spring, summer, autumn and winter (or dry and wet season) pastures for their livestock. The nomads moved depending on the availability of resources.[13]
+
+Nomadic pastoralism seems to have developed as a part of the secondary products revolution proposed by Andrew Sherratt, in which early pre-pottery Neolithic cultures that had used animals as live meat ("on the hoof") also began using animals for their secondary products, for example, milk and its associated dairy products, wool and other animal hair, hides and consequently leather, manure for fuel and fertilizer, and traction.[citation needed]
+
+The first nomadic pastoral society developed in the period from 8,500–6,500 BCE in the area of the southern Levant.[14]  There, during a period of increasing aridity, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) cultures in the Sinai were replaced by a nomadic, pastoral pottery-using culture, which seems to have been a cultural fusion between a newly arrived Mesolithic people from Egypt (the Harifian culture), adopting their nomadic hunting lifestyle to the raising of stock.[15]
+
+This lifestyle quickly developed into what Jaris Yurins has called the circum-Arabian nomadic pastoral techno-complex and is possibly associated with the appearance of Semitic languages in the region of the Ancient Near East. The rapid spread of such nomadic pastoralism was typical of such later developments as of the Yamnaya culture of the horse and cattle nomads of the Eurasian steppe, or of the Mongol spread of the later Middle Ages.[15]
+
+Trekboer in southern Africa adopted nomadism from the 17th century.[16]
+
+One of the results of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the subsequent political independence and economic collapse of its Central Asian republics has been the resurgence of pastoral nomadism.[17] Taking the Kyrgyz people as a representative example, nomadism was the centre of their economy before Russian colonization at the turn of the 20th century, when they were settled into agricultural villages. The population became increasingly urbanized after World War II, but some people still take their herds of horses and cows to high pastures (jailoo) every summer, continuing a pattern of transhumance.[citation needed]
+
+Since the 1990s, as the cash economy shrank, unemployed relatives were reabsorbed into family farms, and the importance of this form of nomadism has increased.[citation needed] The symbols of nomadism, specifically the crown of the grey felt tent known as the yurt, appears on the national flag, emphasizing the central importance of nomadism in the genesis of the modern nation of Kyrgyzstan.[18]
+
+From 1920 to 2008, population of nomadic pastoral tribes slowly decreased from over a quarter of Iran's population.[4][19] Tribal pastures were nationalized during the 1960s. The National Commission of UNESCO registered the population of Iran at 21 million in 1963, of whom two million (9.5%) were nomads.[20] Although the nomadic population of Iran has dramatically decreased in the 20th century, Iran still has one of the largest nomadic populations in the world, an estimated 1.5 million in a country of about 70 million.[21]
+
+In Kazakhstan where the major agricultural activity was nomadic herding,[22] forced collectivization under Joseph Stalin's rule met with massive resistance and major losses and confiscation of livestock.[23] Livestock in Kazakhstan fell from 7 million cattle to 1.6 million and from 22 million sheep to 1.7 million. The resulting famine of 1931–1934 caused some 1.5 million deaths: this represents more than 4.0% of the total Kazakh population at that time.[24]
+
+In the 1950s as well as the 1960s, large numbers of Bedouin throughout the Middle East started to leave the traditional, nomadic life to settle in the cities of the Middle East, especially as home ranges have shrunk and population levels have grown. Government policies in Egypt and Israel, oil production in Libya and the Persian Gulf, as well as a desire for improved standards of living, effectively led most Bedouin to become settled citizens of various nations, rather than stateless nomadic herders. A century ago nomadic Bedouin still made up some 10% of the total Arab population. Today they account for some 1% of the total.[25]
+
+At independence in 1960, Mauritania was essentially a nomadic society. The great Sahel droughts of the early 1970s caused massive problems in a country where
+85% of its inhabitants were nomadic herders. Today only 15% remain nomads.[26]
+
+As many as 2 million nomadic Kuchis wandered over Afghanistan in the years before the Soviet invasion, and most experts agreed that by 2000 the number had fallen dramatically, perhaps by half. The severe drought had destroyed 80% of the livestock in some areas.[27]
+
+Niger experienced a serious food crisis in 2005 following erratic rainfall and desert locust invasions. Nomads such as the Tuareg and Fulani, who make up about 20% of Niger's 12.9 million population, had been so badly hit by the Niger food crisis that their already fragile way of life is at risk.[28] Nomads in Mali were also affected.[29]
+
+Pala nomads living in Western Tibet have a diet that is unusual in that they consume very few vegetables and no fruit. The main staple of their diet is tsampa and they drink Tibetan style butter tea. Pala will eat heartier foods in the winter months to help keep warm. Some of the customary restrictions they explain as cultural saying only that drokha do not eat certain foods, even some that may be naturally abundant. Though they live near sources of fish and fowl these do not play a significant role in their diet, and they do not eat carnivorous animals, rabbits or the wild asses that are abundant in the environs, classifying the latter as horse due to their cloven hooves. Some families do not eat until after the morning milking, while others may have a light meal with butter tea and tsampa. In the afternoon, after the morning milking, the families gather and share a communal meal of tea, tsampa and sometimes yogurt. During winter months the meal is more substantial and includes meat. Herders will eat before leaving the camp and most do not eat again until they return to camp for the evening meal. The typical evening meal may include thin stew with tsampa, animal fat and dried radish. Winter stew would include a lot of meat with either tsampa or boiled flour dumplings.[30]
+
+Nomadic diets in Kazakhstan have not changed much over centuries. The Kazakh nomad cuisine is simple and includes meat, salads, marinated vegetables and fried and baked breads. Tea is served in bowls, possibly with sugar or milk. Milk and other dairy products, like cheese and yogurt, are especially important. Kumiss is a drink of fermented milk. Wrestling is a popular sport, but the nomadic people do not have much time for leisure. Horse riding is a valued skill in their culture.[31]
+
+Peripatetic minorities are mobile populations moving among settled populations offering a craft or trade.[32]
+
+Each existing community is primarily endogamous, and subsists traditionally on a variety of commercial or service activities. Formerly, all or a majority of their members were itinerant, and this largely holds true today. Migration generally takes place within the political boundaries of a single state these days.
+
+Each of the peripatetic communities is multilingual, it speaks one or more of the languages spoken by the local sedentary populations, and, additionally, within each group, a separate dialect or language is spoken. They are speaking languages of Indic origin and many are structured somewhat like an argot or secret language, with vocabularies drawn from various languages. There are indications that in northern Iran at least one community speaks Romani language, and some groups in Turkey also speak Romani.
+
+In Afghanistan, the Nausar worked as tinkers and animal dealers. Ghorbat men mainly made sieves, drums, and bird cages, and the women peddled these as well as other items of household and personal use; they also worked as moneylenders to rural women. Peddling and the sale of various goods was also practiced by men and women of various groups, such as the Jalali, the Pikraj, the Shadibaz, the Noristani, and the Vangawala. The latter and the Pikraj also worked as animal dealers. Some men among the Shadibaz and the Vangawala entertained as monkey or bear handlers and snake charmers; men and women among the Baluch were musicians and dancers. The Baluch men were warriors that were feared by neighboring tribes and often were used as mercenaries. Jogi men and women had diverse subsistence activities, such as dealing in horses, harvesting, fortune-telling, bloodletting, and begging.[citation needed]
+
+In Iran the Asheq of Azerbaijan, the Challi of Baluchistan, the Luti of Kurdistan, Kermānshāh, Īlām, and Lorestān, the Mehtar in the Mamasani district, the Sazandeh of Band-i Amir and Marv-dasht, and the Toshmal among the Bakhtyari pastoral groups worked as professional musicians. The men among the Kowli worked as tinkers, smiths, musicians, and monkey and bear handlers; they also made baskets, sieves, and brooms and dealt in donkeys. Their women made a living from peddling, begging, and fortune-telling.
+
+The Ghorbat among the Basseri were smiths and tinkers, traded in pack animals, and made sieves, reed mats, and small wooden implements. In the Fārs region, the Qarbalband, the Kuli, and Luli were reported to work as smiths and to make baskets and sieves; they also dealt in pack animals, and their women peddled various goods among pastoral nomads. In the same region, the Changi and Luti were musicians and balladeers, and their children learned these professions from the age of 7 or 8 years.[citation needed]
+
+The nomadic groups in Turkey make and sell cradles, deal in animals, and play music. The men of the sedentary groups work in towns as scavengers and hangmen; elsewhere they are fishermen, smiths, basket makers, and singers; their women dance at feasts and tell fortunes. Abdal men played music and made sieves, brooms, and wooden spoons for a living. The Tahtacı traditionally worked as lumberers; with increased sedentarization, however, they have taken to agriculture and horticulture.[citation needed]
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+Little is known for certain about the past of these communities; the history of each is almost entirely contained in their oral traditions. Although some groups—such as the Vangawala—are of Indian origin, some—like the Noristani—are most probably of local origin; still others probably migrated from adjoining areas. The Ghorbat and the Shadibaz claim to have originally come from Iran and Multan, respectively, and Tahtacı traditional accounts mention either Baghdad or Khorāsān as their original home. The Baluch say they[clarification needed] were attached as a service community to the Jamshedi, after they fled Baluchistan because of feuds.[33][34]
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+Yörüks are the nomadic people who live in Turkey. Still some groups such as Sarıkeçililer continues nomadic lifestyle between coastal towns Mediterranean and Taurus Mountains even though most of them were settled by both late Ottoman and Turkish republic.
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+Mongol nomads in the Altai Mountains.
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+Snake charmer from Telungu community of Sri Lanka.
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+A Scythian horseman from the general area of the Ili river, Pazyryk, c. 300 BCE.
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+Yeniche people in the 15th century
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+A young Bedouin lighting a camp fire in Wadi Rum, Jordan.
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+Kyrgyz nomads in the steppes of the Russian Empire, Uzbekistan, by pioneer color photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, c. 1910.
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+Tuareg in Mali, 1974.
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+Kyrgyz nomads, 1869–1870.
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+Nomads in the Desert (Giulio Rosati).
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+Gros Ventre (Atsina) American Indians moving camps with travois for transporting skin lodges and belongings.
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+House barge of the Sama-Bajau peoples, Indonesia. 1914–1921
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+Photograph of Bedouins (wandering Arabs) of Tunisia, 1899
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+Indian nomads painting by well-known artiste Raja Ravi Varma
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+Indian nomad Banjara
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+Figurative use of the term: