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+In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, buccal cavity, or in Latin cavum oris,[1] is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on the outside by the lips and inside by the pharynx and containing in higher vertebrates the tongue and teeth.[2]  This cavity is also known as the buccal cavity, from the Latin bucca ("cheek").[3]
+
+Some animal phyla, including vertebrates, have a complete digestive system, with a mouth at one end and an anus at the other. Which end forms first in ontogeny is a criterion used to classify animals into protostomes and deuterostomes.
+
+In the first multicellular animals, there was probably no mouth or gut and food particles were engulfed by the cells on the exterior surface by a process known as endocytosis. The particles became enclosed in vacuoles into which enzymes were secreted and digestion took place intracellularly. The digestive products were absorbed into the cytoplasm and diffused into other cells. This form of digestion is used nowadays by simple organisms such as Amoeba and Paramecium and also by sponges which, despite their large size, have no mouth or gut and capture their food by endocytosis.[4]
+
+The vast majority of other multicellular organisms have a mouth and a gut, the lining of which is continuous with the epithelial cells on the surface of the body. A few animals which live parasitically originally had guts but have secondarily lost these structures. The original gut of multicellular organisms probably consisted of a simple sac with a single opening, the mouth. Many modern invertebrates have such a system, food being ingested through the mouth, partially broken down by enzymes secreted in the gut, and the resulting particles engulfed by the other cells in the gut lining. Indigestible waste is ejected through the mouth.[4]
+
+In animals at least as complex as an earthworm, the embryo forms a dent on one side, the blastopore, which deepens to become the archenteron, the first phase in the formation of the gut. In deuterostomes, the blastopore becomes the anus while the gut eventually tunnels through to make another opening, which forms the mouth. In the protostomes, it used to be thought that the blastopore formed the mouth (proto– meaning "first") while the anus formed later as an opening made by the other end of the gut. More recent research, however, shows that in protostomes the edges of the slit-like blastopore close up in the middle, leaving openings at both ends that become the mouth and anus.[5]
+
+Apart from sponges and placozoans, almost all animals have an internal gut cavity which is lined with gastrodermal cells. In less advanced invertebrates such as the sea anemone, the mouth also acts as an anus. Circular muscles around the mouth are able to relax or contract in order to open or close it. A fringe of tentacles thrusts food into the cavity and it can gape widely enough to accommodate large prey items. Food passes first into a pharynx and digestion occurs extracellularly in the gastrovascular cavity.[6] Annelids have simple tube-like gets and the possession of an anus allows them to separate the digestion of their foodstuffs from the absorption of the nutrients.[7]
+Many molluscs have a radula which is used to scrape microscopic particles off surfaces.[8] In invertebrates with hard exoskeletons, various mouthparts may be involved in feeding behaviour. Insects have a range of mouthparts suited to their mode of feeding. These include mandibles, maxillae and labium and can be modified into suitable appendages for chewing, cutting, piercing, sponging and sucking.[9] Decapods have six pairs of mouth appendages, one pair of mandibles, two pairs of maxillae and three of maxillipeds.[10] Sea urchins have a set of five sharp calcareous plates which are used as jaws and are known as Aristotle's lantern.[11]
+
+In vertebrates, the first part of the digestive system is the buccal cavity, commonly known as the mouth. The buccal cavity of a fish is separated from the opercular cavity by the gills. Water flows in through the mouth, passes over the gills and exits via the operculum or gill slits. Nearly all fish have jaws and may seize food with them but most feed by opening their jaws, expanding their pharynx and sucking in food items. The food may be held or chewed by teeth located in the jaws, on the roof of the mouth, on the pharynx or on the gill arches.[12]
+
+Nearly all amphibians are carnivorous as adults. Many catch their prey by flicking out an elongated tongue with a sticky tip and drawing it back into the mouth where they hold the prey with their jaws. They then swallow their food whole without much chewing.[13] They typically have many small hinged pedicellate teeth, the bases of which are attached to the jaws while the crowns break off at intervals and are replaced. Most amphibians have one or two rows of teeth in both jaws but some frogs lack teeth in the lower jaw. In many amphibians there are also vomerine teeth attached to the bone in the roof of the mouth.[14]
+
+The mouths of reptiles are largely similar to those of mammals. The crocodilians are the only reptiles to have teeth anchored in sockets in their jaws.[15] They are able to replace each of their approximately 80 teeth up to 50 times during their lives.[16] Most reptiles are either carnivorous or insectivorous but turtles are herbivorous. Lacking teeth that are suitable for efficiently chewing of their food, turtles often have gastroliths in their stomach to further grind the plant material.[17] Snakes have a very flexible lower jaw, the two halves of which are not rigidly attached, and numerous other joints in their skull. These modifications allow them to open their mouths wide enough to swallow their prey whole, even if it is wider than they are.[18]
+
+Birds do not have teeth, relying instead on other means of gripping and macerating their food. Their beaks have a range of sizes and shapes according to their diet and are composed of elongated mandibles. The upper mandible may have a nasofrontal hinge allowing the beak to open wider than would otherwise be possible. The exterior surface of beaks is composed of a thin, horny sheath of keratin.[19] Nectar feeders such as hummingbirds have specially adapted brushy tongues for sucking up nectar from flowers.[20]
+
+In mammals the buccal cavity is typically roofed by the hard and soft palates, floored by the tongue and surrounded by the cheeks, salivary glands, upper and lower teeth. The upper teeth are embedded in the upper jaw and the lower teeth in the lower jaw, which articulates with the temporal bones of the skull. The lips are soft and fleshy folds which shape the entrance into the mouth. The buccal cavity empties through the pharynx into the oesophagus.[21]
+
+Crocodilians living in the tropics can gape with their mouths to provide cooling by evaporation from the mouth lining.[22] Some mammals rely on panting for thermoregulation as it increases evaporation of water across the moist surfaces of the lungs, the tongue and mouth. Birds also avoid overheating by gular fluttering, flapping the wings near the gular (throat) skin, similar to panting in mammals.[23]
+
+Various animals use their mouths in threat displays. They may gape widely, exhibit their teeth prominently or flash the startling colours of the mouth lining. This display allows each potential combatant an opportunity to assess the weapons of their opponent and lessens the likelihood of actual combat being necessary.[24]
+
+A number of species of bird use a gaping, open beak in their fear and threat displays. Some augment the display by hissing or breathing heavily, while others clap their beaks.[25]
+
+Mouths are also used as part of the mechanism for producing sounds for communication. To produce sounds, air is forced from the lungs over vocal cords in the larynx. In humans, the pharynx, the soft palate, the hard palate, the alveolar ridge, the tongue, the teeth and the lips are termed articulators and play their part in the production of speech. Varying the position of the tongue in relation to the other articulators or moving the lips restricts the airflow from the lungs in different ways producing a range of different sounds.[26] In frogs, the sounds can be amplified using sacs in the throat region. The vocal sacs can be inflated and deflated and act as resonators to transfer the sound to the outside world.[27] A bird's song is produced by the flow of air over a vocal organ at the base of the trachea, the syrinx. For each burst of song the bird opens its beak and closes it again afterwards. The beak may move slightly and may contribute to the resonance but the song originates elsewhere.[28]

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+In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, buccal cavity, or in Latin cavum oris,[1] is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on the outside by the lips and inside by the pharynx and containing in higher vertebrates the tongue and teeth.[2]  This cavity is also known as the buccal cavity, from the Latin bucca ("cheek").[3]
+
+Some animal phyla, including vertebrates, have a complete digestive system, with a mouth at one end and an anus at the other. Which end forms first in ontogeny is a criterion used to classify animals into protostomes and deuterostomes.
+
+In the first multicellular animals, there was probably no mouth or gut and food particles were engulfed by the cells on the exterior surface by a process known as endocytosis. The particles became enclosed in vacuoles into which enzymes were secreted and digestion took place intracellularly. The digestive products were absorbed into the cytoplasm and diffused into other cells. This form of digestion is used nowadays by simple organisms such as Amoeba and Paramecium and also by sponges which, despite their large size, have no mouth or gut and capture their food by endocytosis.[4]
+
+The vast majority of other multicellular organisms have a mouth and a gut, the lining of which is continuous with the epithelial cells on the surface of the body. A few animals which live parasitically originally had guts but have secondarily lost these structures. The original gut of multicellular organisms probably consisted of a simple sac with a single opening, the mouth. Many modern invertebrates have such a system, food being ingested through the mouth, partially broken down by enzymes secreted in the gut, and the resulting particles engulfed by the other cells in the gut lining. Indigestible waste is ejected through the mouth.[4]
+
+In animals at least as complex as an earthworm, the embryo forms a dent on one side, the blastopore, which deepens to become the archenteron, the first phase in the formation of the gut. In deuterostomes, the blastopore becomes the anus while the gut eventually tunnels through to make another opening, which forms the mouth. In the protostomes, it used to be thought that the blastopore formed the mouth (proto– meaning "first") while the anus formed later as an opening made by the other end of the gut. More recent research, however, shows that in protostomes the edges of the slit-like blastopore close up in the middle, leaving openings at both ends that become the mouth and anus.[5]
+
+Apart from sponges and placozoans, almost all animals have an internal gut cavity which is lined with gastrodermal cells. In less advanced invertebrates such as the sea anemone, the mouth also acts as an anus. Circular muscles around the mouth are able to relax or contract in order to open or close it. A fringe of tentacles thrusts food into the cavity and it can gape widely enough to accommodate large prey items. Food passes first into a pharynx and digestion occurs extracellularly in the gastrovascular cavity.[6] Annelids have simple tube-like gets and the possession of an anus allows them to separate the digestion of their foodstuffs from the absorption of the nutrients.[7]
+Many molluscs have a radula which is used to scrape microscopic particles off surfaces.[8] In invertebrates with hard exoskeletons, various mouthparts may be involved in feeding behaviour. Insects have a range of mouthparts suited to their mode of feeding. These include mandibles, maxillae and labium and can be modified into suitable appendages for chewing, cutting, piercing, sponging and sucking.[9] Decapods have six pairs of mouth appendages, one pair of mandibles, two pairs of maxillae and three of maxillipeds.[10] Sea urchins have a set of five sharp calcareous plates which are used as jaws and are known as Aristotle's lantern.[11]
+
+In vertebrates, the first part of the digestive system is the buccal cavity, commonly known as the mouth. The buccal cavity of a fish is separated from the opercular cavity by the gills. Water flows in through the mouth, passes over the gills and exits via the operculum or gill slits. Nearly all fish have jaws and may seize food with them but most feed by opening their jaws, expanding their pharynx and sucking in food items. The food may be held or chewed by teeth located in the jaws, on the roof of the mouth, on the pharynx or on the gill arches.[12]
+
+Nearly all amphibians are carnivorous as adults. Many catch their prey by flicking out an elongated tongue with a sticky tip and drawing it back into the mouth where they hold the prey with their jaws. They then swallow their food whole without much chewing.[13] They typically have many small hinged pedicellate teeth, the bases of which are attached to the jaws while the crowns break off at intervals and are replaced. Most amphibians have one or two rows of teeth in both jaws but some frogs lack teeth in the lower jaw. In many amphibians there are also vomerine teeth attached to the bone in the roof of the mouth.[14]
+
+The mouths of reptiles are largely similar to those of mammals. The crocodilians are the only reptiles to have teeth anchored in sockets in their jaws.[15] They are able to replace each of their approximately 80 teeth up to 50 times during their lives.[16] Most reptiles are either carnivorous or insectivorous but turtles are herbivorous. Lacking teeth that are suitable for efficiently chewing of their food, turtles often have gastroliths in their stomach to further grind the plant material.[17] Snakes have a very flexible lower jaw, the two halves of which are not rigidly attached, and numerous other joints in their skull. These modifications allow them to open their mouths wide enough to swallow their prey whole, even if it is wider than they are.[18]
+
+Birds do not have teeth, relying instead on other means of gripping and macerating their food. Their beaks have a range of sizes and shapes according to their diet and are composed of elongated mandibles. The upper mandible may have a nasofrontal hinge allowing the beak to open wider than would otherwise be possible. The exterior surface of beaks is composed of a thin, horny sheath of keratin.[19] Nectar feeders such as hummingbirds have specially adapted brushy tongues for sucking up nectar from flowers.[20]
+
+In mammals the buccal cavity is typically roofed by the hard and soft palates, floored by the tongue and surrounded by the cheeks, salivary glands, upper and lower teeth. The upper teeth are embedded in the upper jaw and the lower teeth in the lower jaw, which articulates with the temporal bones of the skull. The lips are soft and fleshy folds which shape the entrance into the mouth. The buccal cavity empties through the pharynx into the oesophagus.[21]
+
+Crocodilians living in the tropics can gape with their mouths to provide cooling by evaporation from the mouth lining.[22] Some mammals rely on panting for thermoregulation as it increases evaporation of water across the moist surfaces of the lungs, the tongue and mouth. Birds also avoid overheating by gular fluttering, flapping the wings near the gular (throat) skin, similar to panting in mammals.[23]
+
+Various animals use their mouths in threat displays. They may gape widely, exhibit their teeth prominently or flash the startling colours of the mouth lining. This display allows each potential combatant an opportunity to assess the weapons of their opponent and lessens the likelihood of actual combat being necessary.[24]
+
+A number of species of bird use a gaping, open beak in their fear and threat displays. Some augment the display by hissing or breathing heavily, while others clap their beaks.[25]
+
+Mouths are also used as part of the mechanism for producing sounds for communication. To produce sounds, air is forced from the lungs over vocal cords in the larynx. In humans, the pharynx, the soft palate, the hard palate, the alveolar ridge, the tongue, the teeth and the lips are termed articulators and play their part in the production of speech. Varying the position of the tongue in relation to the other articulators or moving the lips restricts the airflow from the lungs in different ways producing a range of different sounds.[26] In frogs, the sounds can be amplified using sacs in the throat region. The vocal sacs can be inflated and deflated and act as resonators to transfer the sound to the outside world.[27] A bird's song is produced by the flow of air over a vocal organ at the base of the trachea, the syrinx. For each burst of song the bird opens its beak and closes it again afterwards. The beak may move slightly and may contribute to the resonance but the song originates elsewhere.[28]

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+
+
+Paleolithic
+
+Epipalaeolithic
+Mesolithic
+
+Neolithic
+
+The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years,[1] and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE ,[citation needed] with the advent of metalworking.[2] Though some simple metalworking of malleable metals, particularly the use of gold and copper for purposes of ornamentation, was known in the Stone Age, it is the melting and smelting of copper that marks the end of the Stone Age.[3] In western Asia this occurred by about 3000 BCE, when bronze became widespread.  The term Bronze Age is used to describe the period that followed the Stone Age, as well as to describe cultures that had developed techniques and technologies for working copper into tools, supplanting stone in many uses.
+
+Stone Age artifacts that have been discovered include tools used by modern humans, by their predecessor species in the genus Homo, and possibly by the earlier partly contemporaneous genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus. Bone tools have been discovered that were used during this period as well but these are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. The Stone Age is further subdivided by the types of stone tools in use.
+
+The Stone Age is the first period in the three-age system frequently used in archaeology to divide the timeline of human technological prehistory into functional periods:
+
+The Stone Age is contemporaneous with the evolution of the genus Homo, with the possible exception of the early Stone Age, when species prior to Homo may have manufactured tools.[4] According to the age and location of the current evidence, the cradle of the genus is the East African Rift System, especially toward the north in Ethiopia, where it is bordered by grasslands. The closest relative among the other living primates, the genus Pan, represents a branch that continued on in the deep forest, where the primates evolved. The rift served as a conduit for movement into southern Africa and also north down the Nile into North Africa and through the continuation of the rift in the Levant to the vast grasslands of Asia.
+
+Starting from about 4 million years ago (mya) a single biome established itself from South Africa through the rift, North Africa, and across Asia to modern China.  This has been called "transcontinental 'savannahstan'" recently.[5] Starting in the grasslands of the rift, Homo erectus, the predecessor of modern humans, found an ecological niche as a tool-maker and developed a dependence on it, becoming a "tool equipped savanna dweller".[6]
+
+The oldest indirect evidence found of stone tool use is fossilised animal bones with tool marks; these are 3.4 million years old and were found in the Lower Awash Valley in Ethiopia.[1] Archaeological discoveries in Kenya in 2015, identifying what may be the oldest evidence of hominin use of tools known to date, have indicated that Kenyanthropus platyops (a 3.2 to 3.5-million-year-old Pliocene hominin fossil discovered in Lake Turkana, Kenya in 1999) may have been the earliest tool-users known.[7]
+
+The oldest stone tools were excavated from the site of Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana, northwestern Kenya, and date to 3.3 million years old.[8] Prior to the discovery of these "Lomekwian" tools, the oldest known stone tools had been found at several sites at Gona, Ethiopia, on sediments of the paleo-Awash River, which serve to date them. All the tools come from the Busidama Formation, which lies above a disconformity, or missing layer, which would have been from 2.9 to 2.7 mya. The oldest sites discovered to contain tools are dated to 2.6–2.55 mya.[9] One of the most striking circumstances about these sites is that they are from the Late Pliocene, where prior to their discovery tools were thought to have evolved only in the Pleistocene. Excavators at the locality point out that:[10]
+
+... the earliest stone tool makers were skilled flintknappers .... The possible reasons behind this seeming abrupt transition from the absence of stone tools to the presence thereof include ... gaps in the geological record.
+
+The species who made the Pliocene tools remains unknown. Fragments of Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus aethiopicus,[11] and Homo, possibly Homo habilis, have been found in sites near the age of the Gona tools.[12]
+
+In July 2018, scientists reported the discovery in China of the known oldest stone tools outside Africa, estimated at 2.12 million years old.[13]
+
+Innovation of the technique of smelting ore is regarded as ending the Stone Age and beginning the Bronze Age. The first highly significant metal manufactured was bronze, an alloy of copper and tin or arsenic, each of which was smelted separately. The transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age was a period during which modern people could smelt copper, but did not yet manufacture bronze, a time known as the Copper Age (or more technically the Chalcolithic or Eneolithic, both meaning 'copper–stone'). The Chalcolithic by convention is the initial period of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age.
+
+The transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 and 2500 BCE for much of humanity living in North Africa and Eurasia. The first evidence of human metallurgy dates to between the 6th and 5th millennia BCE in the archaeological sites of Majdanpek, Yarmovac, and Pločnik in modern-day Serbia (including a copper axe from 5500 BCE belonging to the Vinca culture); though not conventionally considered part of the Chalcolithic, this provides the earliest known example of copper metallurgy.[14] Note the Rudna Glava mine in Serbia. Ötzi the Iceman, a mummy from about 3300 BCE, carried with him a copper axe and a flint knife.
+
+In some regions, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, the Stone Age was followed directly by the Iron Age.[15] The Middle East and Southeast Asian regions progressed past Stone Age technology around 6000 BCE.[citation needed] Europe, and the rest of Asia became post-Stone Age societies by about 4000 BCE.[citation needed] The proto-Inca cultures of South America continued at a Stone Age level until around 2000 BCE, when gold, copper, and silver made their entrance. The peoples of the Americas notably did not develop a widespread behavior of smelting bronze or iron after the Stone Age period, although the technology existed.[16] Stone-tool manufacture continued even after the Stone Age ended in a given area. In Europe and North America, millstones were in use until well into the 20th century, and still are in many parts of the world.
+
+The terms "Stone Age", "Bronze Age", and "Iron Age" are not intended to suggest that advancements and time periods in prehistory are only measured by the type of tool material, rather than, for example, social organization, food sources exploited, adaptation to climate, adoption of agriculture, cooking, settlement, and religion. Like pottery, the typology of the stone tools combined with the relative sequence of the types in various regions provide a chronological framework for the evolution of humanity and society. They serve as diagnostics of date, rather than characterizing the people or the society.
+
+Lithic analysis is a major and specialised form of archaeological investigation. It involves measurement of stone tools to determine their typology, function and technologies involved. It includes scientific study of the lithic reduction of the raw materials and methods used to make the prehistoric artifacts that are discovered. Much of this study takes place in the laboratory in the presence of various specialists. In experimental archaeology, researchers attempt to create replica tools, to understand how they were made. Flintknappers are craftsmen who use sharp tools to reduce flintstone to flint tool.
+
+In addition to lithic analysis, field prehistorians utilize a wide range of techniques derived from multiple fields. The work of archaeologists in determining the paleocontext and relative sequence of the layers is supplemented by the efforts of geologic specialists in identifying layers of rock developed or deposited over geologic time; of paleontological specialists in identifying bones and animals; of palynologists in discovering and identifying pollen, spores and plant species; of physicists and chemists in laboratories determining ages of materials by carbon-14, potassium-argon and other methods. Study of the Stone Age has never been limited to stone tools and archaeology, even though they are important forms of evidence. The chief focus of study has always been on the society and the living people who belonged to it.
+
+Useful as it has been, the concept of the Stone Age has its limitations. The date range of this period is ambiguous, disputed, and variable, depending upon the region in question. While it is possible to speak of a general 'stone age' period for the whole of humanity, some groups never developed metal-smelting technology, and so remained in the so-called 'stone age' until they encountered technologically developed cultures. The term was innovated to describe the archaeological cultures of Europe. It may not always be the best in relation to regions such as some parts of the Indies and Oceania, where farmers or hunter-gatherers used stone for tools until European colonisation began.
+
+Archaeologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries CE, who adapted the three-age system to their ideas, hoped to combine cultural anthropology and archaeology in such a way that a specific contemporaneous tribe can be used to illustrate the way of life and beliefs of the people exercising a particular Stone-Age technology. As a description of people living today, the term stone age is controversial. The Association of Social Anthropologists discourages this use, asserting:[17]
+
+To describe any living group as 'primitive' or 'Stone Age' inevitably implies that they are living representatives of some earlier stage of human development that the majority of humankind has left behind.
+
+In the 1920s, South African archaeologists organizing the stone tool collections of that country observed that they did not fit the newly detailed Three-Age System. In the words of J. Desmond Clark,[18]
+
+It was early realized that the threefold division of culture into Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages adopted in the nineteenth century for Europe had no validity in Africa outside the Nile valley.
+
+Consequently, they proposed a new system for Africa, the Three-stage System. Clark regarded the Three-age System as valid for North Africa; in sub-Saharan Africa, the Three-stage System was best.[19] In practice, the failure of African archaeologists either to keep this distinction in mind, or to explain which one they mean, contributes to the considerable equivocation already present in the literature. There are in effect two Stone Ages, one part of the Three-age and the other constituting the Three-stage. They refer to one and the same artifacts and the same technologies, but vary by locality and time.
+
+The three-stage system was proposed in 1929 by Astley John Hilary Goodwin, a professional archaeologist, and Clarence van Riet Lowe, a civil engineer and amateur archaeologist, in an article titled "Stone Age Cultures of South Africa" in the journal Annals of the South African Museum. By then, the dates of the Early Stone Age, or Paleolithic, and Late Stone Age, or Neolithic (neo = new), were fairly solid and were regarded by Goodwin as absolute. He therefore proposed a relative chronology of periods with floating dates, to be called the Earlier and Later Stone Age. The Middle Stone Age would not change its name, but it would not mean Mesolithic.[20]
+
+The duo thus reinvented the Stone Age. In Sub-Saharan Africa, however, iron-working technologies were either invented independently or came across the Sahara from the north (see iron metallurgy in Africa). The Neolithic was characterized primarily by herding societies rather than large agricultural societies, and although there was copper metallurgy in Africa as well as bronze smelting, archaeologists do not currently recognize a separate Copper Age or Bronze Age. Moreover, the technologies included in those 'stages', as Goodwin called them, were not exactly the same. Since then, the original relative terms have become identified with the technologies of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic, so that they are no longer relative. Moreover, there has been a tendency to drop the comparative degree in favor of the positive: resulting in two sets of Early, Middle and Late Stone Ages of quite different content and chronologies.
+
+By voluntary agreement,[citation needed] archaeologists respect the decisions of the Pan-African Congress on Prehistory, which meets every four years to resolve archaeological business brought before it. Delegates are actually international; the organization takes its name from the topic.[21] Louis Leakey hosted the first one in Nairobi in 1947. It adopted Goodwin and Lowe's 3-stage system at that time, the stages to be called Early, Middle and Later.
+
+The problem of the transitions in archaeology is a branch of the general philosophic continuity problem, which examines how discrete objects of any sort that are contiguous in any way can be presumed to have a relationship of any sort. In archaeology, the relationship is one of causality. If Period B can be presumed to descend from Period A, there must be a boundary between A and B, the A–B boundary. The problem is in the nature of this boundary. If there is no distinct boundary, then the population of A suddenly stopped using the customs characteristic of A and suddenly started using those of B, an unlikely scenario in the process of evolution. More realistically, a distinct border period, the A/B transition, existed, in which the customs of A were gradually dropped and those of B acquired. If transitions do not exist, then there is no proof of any continuity between A and B.
+
+The Stone Age of Europe is characteristically in deficit of known transitions. The 19th and early 20th-century innovators of the modern three-age system recognized the problem of the initial transition, the "gap" between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. Louis Leakey provided something of an answer by proving that man evolved in Africa. The Stone Age must have begun there to be carried repeatedly to Europe by migrant populations. The different phases of the Stone Age thus could appear there without transitions. The burden on African archaeologists became all the greater, because now they must find the missing transitions in Africa. The problem is difficult and ongoing.
+
+After its adoption by the First Pan African Congress in 1947, the Three-Stage Chronology was amended by the Third Congress in 1955 to include a First Intermediate Period between Early and Middle, to encompass the Fauresmith and Sangoan technologies, and the Second Intermediate Period between Middle and Later, to encompass the Magosian technology and others. The chronologic basis for definition was entirely relative. With the arrival of scientific means of finding an absolute chronology, the two intermediates turned out to be will-of-the-wisps. They were in fact Middle and Lower Paleolithic. Fauresmith is now considered to be a facies of Acheulean, while Sangoan is a facies of Lupemban.[22] Magosian is "an artificial mix of two different periods".[23]
+
+Once seriously questioned, the intermediates did not wait for the next Pan African Congress two years hence, but were officially rejected in 1965 (again on an advisory basis) by Burg Wartenstein Conference #29, Systematic Investigation of the African Later Tertiary and Quaternary,[24] a conference in anthropology held by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, at Burg Wartenstein Castle, which it then owned in Austria, attended by the same scholars that attended the Pan African Congress, including Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, who was delivering a pilot presentation of her typological analysis of Early Stone Age tools, to be included in her 1971 contribution to Olduvai Gorge, "Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960–1963."[25]
+
+However, although the intermediate periods were gone, the search for the transitions continued.
+
+In 1859 Jens Jacob Worsaae first proposed a division of the Stone Age into older and younger parts based on his work with Danish kitchen middens that began in 1851.[26] In the subsequent decades this simple distinction developed into the archaeological periods of today. The major subdivisions of the Three-age Stone Age cross two epoch boundaries on the geologic time scale:
+
+The succession of these phases varies enormously from one region (and culture) to another.
+
+The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (from Greek: παλαιός, palaios, "old"; and λίθος, lithos, "stone" lit. "old stone", coined by archaeologist John Lubbock and published in 1865) is the earliest division of the Stone Age. It covers the greatest portion of humanity's time (roughly 99% of "human technological history",[27] where "human" and "humanity" are interpreted to mean the genus Homo), extending from 2.5 or 2.6 million years ago, with the first documented use of stone tools by hominans such as Homo habilis, to the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BCE.[27] The Paleolithic era ended with the Mesolithic, or in areas with an early neolithisation, the Epipaleolithic.
+
+At sites dating from the Lower Paleolithic Period (about 2,500,000 to 200,000 years ago), simple pebble tools have been found in association with the remains of what may have been the earliest human ancestors. A somewhat more sophisticated Lower Paleolithic tradition, known as the Chopper chopping-tool industry, is widely distributed in the Eastern Hemisphere. This tradition is thought to have been the work of the hominin species named Homo erectus. Although no such fossil tools have yet been found, it is believed that H. erectus probably made tools of wood and bone as well as stone.
+About 700,000 years ago, a new Lower Paleolithic tool, the hand ax, appeared. The earliest European hand axes are assigned to the Abbevillian industry, which developed in northern France in the valley of the Somme River; a later, more refined hand-axe tradition is seen in the Acheulian industry, evidence of which has been found in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Some of the earliest known hand axes were found at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) in association with remains of H. erectus. Alongside the hand-axe tradition there developed a distinct and very different stone-tool industry, based on flakes of stone: special tools were made from worked (carefully shaped) flakes of flint. In Europe, the Clactonian industry is one example of a flake tradition. The early flake industries probably contributed to the development of the Middle Paleolithic flake tools of the Mousterian industry, which is associated with the remains of Neanderthal man.[28]
+
+The earliest documented stone tools have been found in eastern Africa, manufacturers unknown, at the 3.3 million year old site of Lomekwi 3 in Kenya.[8] Better known are the later tools belonging to an industry known as Oldowan, after the type site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.
+
+The tools were formed by knocking pieces off a river pebble, or stones like it, with a hammerstone to obtain large and small pieces with one or more sharp edges. The original stone is called a core; the resultant pieces, flakes. Typically, but not necessarily, small pieces are detached from a larger piece, in which case the larger piece may be called the core and the smaller pieces the flakes. The prevalent usage, however, is to call all the results flakes, which can be confusing. A split in half is called bipolar flaking.
+
+Consequently, the method is often called "core-and-flake". More recently, the tradition has been called "small flake" since the flakes were small compared to subsequent Acheulean tools.[29]
+
+The essence of the Oldowan is the making and often immediate use of small flakes.
+
+Another naming scheme is "Pebble Core Technology (PBC)":[30]
+
+Pebble cores are ... artifacts that have been shaped by varying amounts of hard-hammer percussion.
+
+Various refinements in the shape have been called choppers, discoids, polyhedrons, subspheroid, etc. To date no reasons for the variants have been ascertained:[31]
+
+From a functional standpoint, pebble cores seem designed for no specific purpose.
+
+However, they would not have been manufactured for no purpose:[31]
+
+Pebble cores can be useful in many cutting, scraping or chopping tasks, but ... they are not particularly more efficient in such tasks than a sharp-edged rock.
+
+The whole point of their utility is that each is a "sharp-edged rock" in locations where nature has not provided any. There is additional evidence that Oldowan, or Mode 1, tools were utilized in "percussion technology"; that is, they were designed to be gripped at the blunt end and strike something with the edge, from which use they were given the name of choppers. Modern science has been able to detect mammalian blood cells on Mode 1 tools at Sterkfontein, Member 5 East, in South Africa. As the blood must have come from a fresh kill, the tool users are likely to have done the killing and used the tools for butchering. Plant residues bonded to the silicon of some tools confirm the use to chop plants.[32]
+
+Although the exact species authoring the tools remains unknown, Mode 1 tools in Africa were manufactured and used predominantly by Homo habilis. They cannot be said to have developed these tools or to have contributed the tradition to technology. They continued a tradition of yet unknown origin. As chimpanzees sometimes naturally use percussion to extract or prepare food in the wild, and may use either unmodified stones or stones that they have split, creating an Oldowan tool, the tradition may well be far older than its current record.[citation needed]
+
+Towards the end of Oldowan in Africa a new species appeared over the range of Homo habilis: Homo erectus. The earliest "unambiguous" evidence is a whole cranium, KNM-ER 3733 (a find identifier) from Koobi Fora in Kenya, dated to 1.78 mya.[33] An early skull fragment, KNM-ER 2598, dated to 1.9 mya, is considered a good candidate also.[34] Transitions in paleoanthropology are always hard to find, if not impossible, but based on the "long-legged" limb morphology shared by H. habilis and H. rudolfensis in East Africa, an evolution from one of those two has been suggested.[35]
+
+The most immediate cause of the new adjustments appears to have been an increasing aridity in the region and consequent contraction of parkland savanna, interspersed with trees and groves, in favor of open grassland, dated 1.8–1.7 mya. During that transitional period the percentage of grazers among the fossil species increased from 15–25% to 45%, dispersing the food supply and requiring a facility among the hunters to travel longer distances comfortably, which H. erectus obviously had.[36] The ultimate proof is the "dispersal" of H. erectus "across much of Africa and Asia, substantially before the development of the Mode 2 technology and use of fire ...."[35] H. erectus carried Mode 1 tools over Eurasia.
+
+According to the current evidence (which may change at any time) Mode 1 tools are documented from about 2.6 mya to about 1.5 mya in Africa,[37] and to 0.5 mya outside of it.[38] The genus Homo is known from H. habilis and H. rudolfensis from 2.3 to 2.0 mya, with the latest habilis being an upper jaw from Koobi Fora, Kenya, from 1.4 mya. H. erectus is dated 1.8–0.6 mya.[39]
+
+According to this chronology Mode 1 was inherited by Homo from unknown Hominans, probably Australopithecus and Paranthropus, who must have continued on with Mode 1 and then with Mode 2 until their extinction no later than 1.1 mya. Meanwhile, living contemporaneously in the same regions H. habilis inherited the tools around 2.3 mya. At about 1.9 mya H. erectus came on stage and lived contemporaneously with the others. Mode 1 was now being shared by a number of Hominans over the same ranges, presumably subsisting in different niches, but the archaeology is not precise enough to say which.
+
+Tools of the Oldowan tradition first came to archaeological attention in Europe, where, being intrusive and not well defined, compared to the Acheulean, they were puzzling to archaeologists. The mystery would be elucidated by African archaeology at Olduvai, but meanwhile, in the early 20th century, the term "Pre-Acheulean" came into use in climatology. C.E.P, Brooks, a British climatologist working in the United States, used the term to describe a "chalky boulder clay" underlying a layer of gravel at Hoxne, central England, where Acheulean tools had been found.[40] Whether any tools would be found in it and what type was not known. Hugo Obermaier, a contemporary German archaeologist working in Spain, quipped:
+
+Unfortunately, the stage of human industry which corresponds to these deposits cannot be positively identified. All we can say is that it is pre-Acheulean.
+
+This uncertainty was clarified by the subsequent excavations at Olduvai; nevertheless, the term is still in use for pre-Acheulean contexts, mainly across Eurasia, that are yet unspecified or uncertain but with the understanding that they are or will turn out to be pebble-tool.[41]
+
+There are ample associations of Mode 2 with H. erectus in Eurasia. H. erectus – Mode 1 associations are scantier but they do exist, especially in the Far East. One strong piece of evidence prevents the conclusion that only H. erectus reached Eurasia: at Yiron, Israel, Mode 1 tools have been found dating to 2.4 mya,[42] about 0.5 my earlier than the known H. erectus finds. If the date is correct, either another Hominan preceded H. erectus out of Africa or the earliest H. erectus has yet to be found.
+
+After the initial appearance at Gona in Ethiopia at 2.7 mya, pebble tools date from 2.0 mya at Sterkfontein, Member 5, South Africa, and from 1.8 mya at El Kherba, Algeria, North Africa. The manufacturers had already left pebble tools at Yiron, Israel, at 2.4 mya, Riwat, Pakistan, at 2.0 mya, and Renzidong, South China, at over 2 mya.[43] The identification of a fossil skull at Mojokerta, Pernung Peninsula on Java, dated to 1.8 mya, as H. erectus, suggests that the African finds are not the earliest to be found in Africa, or that, in fact, erectus did not originate in Africa after all but on the plains of Asia.[35] The outcome of the issue waits for more substantial evidence. Erectus was found also at Dmanisi, Georgia, from 1.75 mya in association with pebble tools.
+
+Pebble tools are found the latest first in southern Europe and then in northern. They begin in the open areas of Italy and Spain, the earliest dated to 1.6 mya at Pirro Nord, Italy. The mountains of Italy are rising at a rapid rate in the framework of geologic time; at 1.6 mya they were lower and covered with grassland (as much of the highlands still are). Europe was otherwise mountainous and covered over with dense forest, a formidable terrain for warm-weather savanna dwellers. Similarly there is no evidence that the Mediterranean was passable at Gibraltar or anywhere else to H. erectus or earlier hominans. They might have reached Italy and Spain along the coasts.
+
+In northern Europe pebble tools are found earliest at Happisburgh, United Kingdom, from 0.8 mya. The last traces are from Kent's Cavern, dated 0.5 mya. By that time H. erectus is regarded as having been extinct; however, a more modern version apparently had evolved, Homo heidelbergensis, who must have inherited the tools.[44] He also explains the last of the Acheulean in Germany at 0.4 mya.
+
+In the late 19th and early 20th centuries archaeologists worked on the assumptions that a succession of Hominans and cultures prevailed, that one replaced another. Today the presence of multiple hominans living contemporaneously near each other for long periods is accepted as proved true; moreover, by the time the previously assumed "earliest" culture arrived in northern Europe, the rest of Africa and Eurasia had progressed to the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, so that across the earth all three were for a time contemporaneous. In any given region there was a progression from Oldowan to Acheulean, Lower to Upper, no doubt.
+
+The end of Oldowan in Africa was brought on by the appearance of Acheulean, or Mode 2, stone tools. The earliest known instances are in the 1.7–1.6 mya layer at Kokiselei, West Turkana, Kenya.[34] At Sterkfontein, South Africa, they are in Member 5 West, 1.7–1.4 mya.[32] The 1.7 is a fairly certain, fairly standard date. Mode 2 is often found in association with H. erectus. It makes sense that the most advanced tools should have been innovated by the most advanced Hominan; consequently, they are typically given credit for the innovation.
+
+A Mode 2 tool is a biface consisting of two concave surfaces intersecting to form a cutting edge all the way around, except in the case of tools intended to feature a point. More work and planning go into the manufacture of a Mode 2 tool. The manufacturer hits a slab off a larger rock to use as a blank. Then large flakes are struck off the blank and worked into bifaces by hard-hammer percussion on an anvil stone. Finally the edge is retouched: small flakes are hit off with a bone or wood soft hammer to sharpen or resharpen it. The core can be either the blank or another flake. Blanks are ported for manufacturing supply in places where nature has provided no suitable stone.
+
+Although most Mode 2 tools are easily distinguished from Mode 1, there is a close similarity of some Oldowan and some Acheulean, which can lead to confusion. Some Oldowan tools are more carefully prepared to form a more regular edge. One distinguishing criterion is the size of the flakes. In contrast to the Oldowan "small flake" tradition, Acheulean is "large flake:" "The primary technological distinction remaining between Oldowan and the Acheulean is the preference for large flakes (>10 cm) as blanks for making large cutting tools (handaxes and cleavers) in the Acheulean."[45] "Large Cutting Tool (LCT)" has become part of the standard terminology as well.[31]
+
+In North Africa, the presence of Mode 2 remains a mystery, as the oldest finds are from Thomas Quarry in Morocco at 0.9 mya.[43] Archaeological attention, however, shifts to the Jordan Rift Valley, an extension of the East African Rift Valley (the east bank of the Jordan is slowly sliding northward as East Africa is thrust away from Africa). Evidence of use of the Nile Valley is in deficit, but Hominans could easily have reached the palaeo-Jordan river from Ethiopia along the shores of the Red Sea, one side or the other. A crossing would not have been necessary, but it is more likely there than over a theoretical but unproven land bridge through either Gibraltar or Sicily.
+
+Meanwhile, Acheulean went on in Africa past the 1.0 mya mark and also past the extinction of H. erectus there. The last Acheulean in East Africa is at Olorgesailie, Kenya, dated to about 0.9 mya. Its owner was still H. erectus,[43] but in South Africa, Acheulean at Elandsfontein, 1.0–0.6 mya, is associated with Saldanha man, classified as H. heidelbergensis, a more advanced, but not yet modern, descendant most likely of H. erectus. The Thoman Quarry Hominans in Morocco similarly are most likely Homo rhodesiensis,[46] in the same evolutionary status as H. heidelbergensis.
+
+Mode 2 is first known out of Africa at 'Ubeidiya, Israel, a site now on the Jordan River, then frequented over the long term (hundreds of thousands of years) by Homo on the shore of a variable-level palaeo-lake, long since vanished. The geology was created by successive "transgression and regression" of the lake[47] resulting in four cycles of layers. The tools are located in the first two, Cycles Li (Limnic Inferior) and Fi (Fluviatile Inferior), but mostly in Fi. The cycles represent different ecologies and therefore different cross-sections of fauna, which makes it possible to date them. They appear to be the same faunal assemblages as the Ferenta Faunal Unit in Italy, known from excavations at Selvella and Pieterfitta, dated to 1.6–1.2 mya.[48]
+
+At 'Ubeidiya the marks on the bones of the animal species found there indicate that the manufacturers of the tools butchered the kills of large predators, an activity that has been termed "scavenging".[49] There are no living floors, nor did they process bones to obtain the marrow. These activities cannot be understood therefore as the only or even the typical economic activity of Hominans. Their interests were selective: they were primarily harvesting the meat of Cervids,[50] which is estimated to have been available without spoiling for up to four days after the kill.
+
+The majority of the animals at the site were of "Palaearctic biogeographic origin".[51] However, these overlapped in range on 30–60% of "African biogeographic origin".[52] The biome was Mediterranean, not savanna. The animals were not passing through; there was simply an overlap of normal ranges. Of the Hominans, H. erectus left several cranial fragments. Teeth of undetermined species may have been H. ergaster.[53] The tools are classified as "Lower Acheulean" and "Developed Oldowan". The latter is a disputed classification created by Mary Leakey to describe an Acheulean-like tradition in Bed II at Olduvai. It is dated 1.53–1.27 mya. The date of the tools therefore probably does not exceed 1.5 mya; 1.4 is often given as a date. This chronology, which is definitely later than in Kenya, supports the "out of Africa" hypothesis for Acheulean, if not for the Hominans.
+
+From Southwest Asia, as the Levant is now called, the Acheulean extended itself more slowly eastward, arriving at Isampur, India, about 1.2 mya. It does not appear in China and Korea until after 1mya and not at all in Indonesia. There is a discernible boundary marking the furthest extent of the Acheulean eastward before 1 mya, called the Movius Line, after its proposer, Hallam L. Movius. On the east side of the line the small flake tradition continues, but the tools are additionally worked Mode 1, with flaking down the sides. In Athirampakkam at Chennai in Tamil Nadu the Acheulean age started at 1.51 mya and it is also prior than North India and Europe.[54]
+
+The cause of the Movius Line remains speculative, whether it represents a real change in technology or a limitation of archeology, but after 1 mya evidence not available to Movius indicates the prevalence of Acheulean. For example, the Acheulean site at Bose, China, is dated 0.803±3K mya.[55] The authors of this chronologically later East Asian Acheulean remain unknown, as does whether it evolved in the region or was brought in.
+
+There is no named boundary line between Mode 1 and Mode 2 on the west; nevertheless, Mode 2 is equally late in Europe as it is in the Far East. The earliest comes from a rock shelter at Estrecho de Quípar in Spain, dated to greater than 0.9 mya. Teeth from an undetermined Hominan were found there also.[56] The last Mode 2 in Southern Europe is from a deposit at Fontana Ranuccio near Anagni in Italy dated to 0.45 mya, which is generally linked to Homo cepranensis, a "late variant of H. erectus", a fragment of whose skull was found at Ceprano nearby, dated 0.46 mya.[57]
+
+This period is best known as the era during which the Neanderthals lived in Europe and the Near East (c. 300,000–28,000 years ago). Their technology is mainly the Mousterian, but Neanderthal physical characteristics have been found also in ambiguous association with the more recent Châtelperronian archeological culture in Western Europe and several local industries like the Szeletian in Eastern Europe/Eurasia. There is no evidence for Neanderthals in Africa, Australia or the Americas.
+
+Neanderthals nursed their elderly and practised ritual burial indicating an organised society. The earliest evidence (Mungo Man) of settlement in Australia dates to around 40,000 years ago when modern humans likely crossed from Asia by island-hopping. Evidence for symbolic behavior such as body ornamentation and burial is ambiguous for the Middle Paleolithic and still subject to debate. The Bhimbetka rock shelters exhibit the earliest traces of human life in India, some of which are approximately 30,000 years old.
+
+From 50,000 to 10,000 years ago in Europe, the Upper Paleolithic ends with the end of the Pleistocene and onset of the Holocene era (the end of the last ice age). Modern humans spread out further across the Earth during the period known as the Upper Paleolithic.
+
+The Upper Paleolithic is marked by a relatively rapid succession of often complex stone artifact technologies and a large increase in the creation of art and personal ornaments. During period between 35 and 10 kya evolved: from 38 to 30 kya Châtelperronian, 40–28 Aurignacian, 28–22 Gravettian, 22–17 Solutrean, and 18–10 Magdalenian. All of these industries except the Châtelperronian are associated with anatomically modern humans. Authorship of the Châtelperronian is still the subject of much debate.
+
+Most scholars date the arrival of humans in Australia at 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, with a possible range of up to 125,000 years ago. The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in Australia (and outside of Africa) are those of Mungo Man; they have been dated at 42,000 years old.[58][59]
+
+The Americas were colonised via the Bering land bridge which was exposed during this period by lower sea levels. These people are called the Paleo-Indians, and the earliest accepted dates are those of the Clovis culture sites, some 13,500 years ago. Globally, societies were hunter-gatherers but evidence of regional identities begins to appear in the wide variety of stone tool types being developed to suit very different environments.
+
+The period starting from the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, to around 6,000 years ago was characterized by rising sea levels and a need to adapt to a changing environment and find new food sources. The development of Mode 5 (microlith) tools began in response to these changes. They were derived from the previous Paleolithic tools, hence the term Epipaleolithic, or were intermediate between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, hence the term Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), used for parts of Eurasia, but not outside it. The choice of a word depends on exact circumstances and the inclination of the archaeologists excavating the site. Microliths were used in the manufacture of more efficient composite tools, resulting in an intensification of hunting and fishing and with increasing social activity the development of more complex settlements, such as Lepenski Vir. Domestication of the dog as a hunting companion probably dates to this period.
+
+The earliest known battle occurred during the Mesolithic period at a site in Egypt known as Cemetery 117.
+
+The Neolithic, or New Stone Age, was approximately characterized by the adoption of agriculture. The shift from food gathering to food producing, in itself one of the most revolutionary changes in human history, was accompanied by the so-called Neolithic Revolution: the development of pottery, polished stone tools, and construction of more complex, larger settlements such as Göbekli Tepe and Çatal Hüyük. Some of these features began in certain localities even earlier, in the transitional Mesolithic. The first Neolithic cultures started around 7000 BCE in the fertile crescent and spread concentrically to other areas of the world; however, the Near East was probably not the only nucleus of agriculture, the cultivation of maize in Meso-America and of rice in the Far East being others.
+
+Due to the increased need to harvest and process plants, ground stone and polished stone artifacts became much more widespread, including tools for grinding, cutting, and chopping. Skara Brae located in Orkney off Scotland is one of Europe's best examples of a Neolithic village. The community contains stone beds, shelves and even an indoor toilet linked to a stream. The first large-scale constructions were built, including settlement towers and walls, e.g., Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) and ceremonial sites, e.g.: Stonehenge. The Ġgantija temples of Gozo in the Maltese archipelago are the oldest surviving free standing structures in the world, erected c. 3600–2500 BCE. The earliest evidence for established trade exists in the Neolithic with newly settled people importing exotic goods over distances of many hundreds of miles.
+
+These facts show that there were sufficient resources and co-operation to enable large groups to work on these projects. To what extent this was a basis for the development of elites and social hierarchies is a matter of ongoing debate.[60] Although some late Neolithic societies formed complex stratified chiefdoms similar to Polynesian societies such as the Ancient Hawaiians, based on the societies of modern tribesmen at an equivalent technological level, most Neolithic societies were relatively simple and egalitarian.[61] A comparison of art in the two ages leads some theorists to conclude that Neolithic cultures were noticeably more hierarchical than the Paleolithic cultures that preceded them.[62]
+
+The Early Stone Age in Africa is not to be identified with "Old Stone Age", a translation of Paleolithic, or with Paleolithic, or with the "Earlier Stone Age" that originally meant what became the Paleolithic and Mesolithic. In the initial decades of its definition by the Pan-African Congress of Prehistory, it was parallel in Africa to the Upper and Middle Paleolithic. However, since then Radiocarbon dating has shown that the Middle Stone Age is in fact contemporaneous with the Middle Paleolithic.[63] The Early Stone Age therefore is contemporaneous with the Lower Paleolithic and happens to include the same main technologies, Oldowan and Acheulean, which produced Mode 1 and Mode 2 stone tools respectively. A distinct regional term is warranted, however, by the location and chronology of the sites and the exact typology.
+
+The Middle Stone Age was a period of African prehistory between Early Stone Age and Late Stone Age. It began around 300,000 years ago and ended around 50,000 years ago.[64] It is considered as an equivalent of European Middle Paleolithic.[65] It is associated with anatomically modern or almost modern Homo sapiens. Early physical evidence comes from Omo [66] and Herto,[67] both in Ethiopia and dated respectively at c. 195 ka and at c. 160 ka.
+
+The Later Stone Age (LSA, sometimes also called the Late Stone Age) refers to a period in African prehistory. Its beginnings are roughly contemporaneous with the European Upper Paleolithic. It lasts until historical times and this includes cultures corresponding to Mesolithic and Neolithic in other regions.
+
+Stone tools were made from a variety of stones. For example, flint and chert were shaped (or chipped) for use as cutting tools and weapons, while basalt and sandstone were used for ground stone tools, such as quern-stones. Wood, bone, shell, antler (deer) and other materials were widely used, as well. During the most recent part of the period, sediments (such as clay) were used to make pottery. Agriculture was developed and certain animals were domesticated as well.
+
+Some species of non-primates are able to use stone tools, such as the sea otter, which breaks abalone shells with them. Primates can both use and manufacture stone tools. This combination of abilities is more marked in apes and men, but only men, or more generally Hominans, depend on tool use for survival.[68] The key anatomical and behavioral features required for tool manufacture, which are possessed only by Hominans, are the larger thumb and the ability to hold by means of an assortment of grips.[69]
+
+Food sources of the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers were wild plants and animals harvested from the environment. They liked animal organ meats, including the livers, kidneys and brains. Large seeded legumes were part of the human diet long before the agricultural revolution, as is evident from archaeobotanical finds from the Mousterian layers of Kebara Cave, in Israel.[70] Moreover, recent evidence indicates that humans processed and consumed wild cereal grains as far back as 23,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic.[71]
+
+Near the end of the Wisconsin glaciation, 15,000 to 9,000 years ago, mass extinction of Megafauna such as the woolly mammoth occurred in Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. This was the first Holocene extinction event. It possibly forced modification in the dietary habits of the humans of that age and with the emergence of agricultural practices, plant-based foods also became a regular part of the diet. A number of factors have been suggested for the extinction: certainly over-hunting, but also deforestation and climate change.[72] The net effect was to fragment the vast ranges required by the large animals and extinguish them piecemeal in each fragment.
+
+Around 2 million years ago, Homo habilis is believed to have constructed the first man-made structure in East Africa, consisting of simple arrangements of stones to hold branches of trees in position. A similar stone circular arrangement believed to be around 380,000 years old was discovered at Terra Amata, near Nice, France. (Concerns about the dating have been raised, see Terra Amata). Several human habitats dating back to the Stone Age have been discovered around the globe, including:
+
+Prehistoric art is visible in the artifacts. Prehistoric music is inferred from found instruments, while parietal art can be found on rocks of any kind. The latter are petroglyphs and rock paintings. The art may or may not have had a religious function.[73]
+
+Petroglyphs appeared in the Neolithic. A Petroglyph is an intaglio abstract or symbolic image engraved on natural stone by various methods, usually by prehistoric peoples. They were a dominant form of pre-writing symbols. Petroglyphs have been discovered in different parts of the world, including Australia (Sydney rock engravings), Asia (Bhimbetka, India), North America (Death Valley National Park), South America (Cumbe Mayo, Peru), and Europe (Finnmark, Norway).
+
+In paleolithic times, mostly animals were painted, in theory ones that were used as food or represented strength, such as the rhinoceros or large cats (as in the Chauvet Cave). Signs such as dots were sometimes drawn. Rare human representations include handprints and half-human/half-animal figures. The Cave of Chauvet in the Ardèche département, France, contains the most important cave paintings of the paleolithic era,[74] dating from about 36,000 BCE.[75][76] The Altamira cave paintings in Spain were done 14,000 to 12,000 BCE and show, among others, bisons. The hall of bulls in Lascaux, Dordogne, France, dates from about 15,000 to 10,000 BCE.
+
+The meaning of many of these paintings remains unknown. They may have been used for seasonal rituals. The animals are accompanied by signs that suggest a possible magic use. Arrow-like symbols in Lascaux are sometimes interpreted as calendar or almanac use, but the evidence remains interpretative.[77]
+
+Some scenes of the Mesolithic, however, can be typed and therefore, judging from their various modifications, are fairly clear. One of these is the battle scene between organized bands of archers. For example, "the marching Warriors", a rock painting at Cingle de la Mola, Castellón in Spain, dated to about 7,000–4,000 BCE, depicts about 50 bowmen in two groups marching or running in step toward each other, each man carrying a bow in one hand and a fistful of arrows in the other. A file of five men leads one band, one of whom is a figure with a "high crowned hat".
+
+In other scenes elsewhere, the men wear head-dresses and knee ornaments but otherwise fight nude. Some scenes depict the dead and wounded, bristling with arrows.[78] One is reminded of Ötzi the Iceman, a Copper Age mummy revealed by an Alpine melting glacier, who collapsed from loss of blood due to an arrow wound in the back.
+
+Modern studies and the in-depth analysis of finds dating from the Stone Age indicate certain rituals and beliefs of the people in those prehistoric times. It is now believed that activities of the Stone Age humans went beyond the immediate requirements of procuring food, body coverings, and shelters. Specific rites relating to death and burial were practiced, though certainly differing in style and execution between cultures.[citation needed]
+
+The image of the caveman is commonly associated with the Stone Age. For example, a 2003 documentary series showing the evolution of humans through the Stone Age was called Walking with Cavemen, but only the last programme showed humans living in caves. While the idea that human beings and dinosaurs coexisted is sometimes portrayed in popular culture in cartoons, films and computer games, such as The Flintstones, One Million Years B.C. and Chuck Rock, the notion of hominids and non-avian dinosaurs co-existing is not supported by any scientific evidence.
+
+Other depictions of the Stone Age include the best-selling Earth's Children series of books by Jean M. Auel, which are set in the Paleolithic and are loosely based on archaeological and anthropological findings.
+
+The 1981 film Quest for Fire by Jean-Jacques Annaud tells the story of a group of early homo sapiens searching for their lost fire. A 21st-century series, Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver tells of two New Stone Age children fighting to fulfil a prophecy and save their clan.

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+A candle is an ignitable wick embedded in wax, or another flammable solid substance such as tallow, that provides light, and in some cases, a fragrance.  A candle can also provide heat or a method of keeping time.
+
+A person who makes candles is traditionally known as a chandler.[1] Various devices have been invented to hold candles, from simple tabletop candlesticks, also known as candle holders, to elaborate candelabra and  chandeliers.[2]
+
+For a candle to burn, a heat source (commonly a naked flame from a match or lighter) is used to light the candle's wick, which melts and vaporizes a small amount of fuel (the wax). Once vaporized, the fuel combines with oxygen in the atmosphere to ignite and form a constant flame. This flame provides sufficient heat to keep the candle burning via a self-sustaining chain of events: the heat of the flame melts the top of the mass of solid fuel; the liquefied fuel then moves upward through the wick via capillary action; the liquefied fuel finally vaporizes to burn within the candle's flame.
+
+As the fuel (wax) is melted and burned, the candle becomes shorter. Portions of the wick that are not emitting vaporized fuel are consumed in the flame. The incineration of the wick limits the length of the exposed portion of the wick, thus maintaining a constant burning temperature and rate of fuel consumption. Some wicks require regular trimming with scissors (or a specialized wick trimmer), usually to about one-quarter inch (~0.7 cm), to promote slower, steady burning, and also to prevent smoking. Special candle-scissors called "snuffers" were produced for this purpose in the 20th century and were often combined with an extinguisher. In modern candles, the wick is constructed so that it curves over as it burns.  This ensures that the end of the wick gets oxygen and is then consumed by fire—a self-trimming wick.[3]
+
+The word candle comes from Middle English candel, from Old English and from Anglo-Norman candele, both from Latin candēla, from candēre, to shine.[4]
+
+Prior to the candle, people used oil lamps in which a lit wick rested in a container of liquid oil. Liquid oil lamps had a tendency to spill, and the wick had to be advanced by hand.[citation needed] Romans began making true dipped candles from tallow, beginning around 500 BC.[5] European candles of antiquity were made from various forms of natural fat, tallow, and wax. In Ancient Rome, candles were made of tallow due to the prohibitive cost of beeswax.[6] It is possible that they also existed in Ancient Greece, but imprecise terminology makes it difficult to determine.[6] The earliest surviving candles originated in Han China around 200 BC. These early Chinese candles were made from whale fat.
+
+During the Middle Ages, tallow candles were most commonly used. By the 13th century, candle making had become a guild craft in England and France. The candle makers (chandlers) went from house to house making candles from the kitchen fats saved for that purpose, or made and sold their own candles from small candle shops.[7] Beeswax, compared to animal-based tallow, burned cleanly, without smoky flame. Beeswax candles were expensive, and relatively few people could afford to burn them in their homes in medieval Europe. However, they were widely used for church ceremonies.[8]
+
+In the 18th and 19th centuries, spermaceti, a waxy substance produced by the sperm whale, was used to produce a superior candle that burned longer, brighter and gave off no offensive smell.[9] Later in the 18th century, colza oil and rapeseed oil came into use as much cheaper substitutes.
+
+The manufacture of candles became an industrialized mass market in the mid 19th century. In 1834, Joseph Morgan,[10] a pewterer from Manchester, England, patented a machine that revolutionised candle making. It allowed for continuous production of molded candles by using a cylinder with a moveable piston to eject candles as they solidified. This more efficient mechanized production produced about 1,500 candles per hour. This allowed candles to be an affordable commodity for the masses.[11] Candlemakers also began to fashion wicks out of tightly braided (rather than simply twisted) strands of cotton. This technique makes wicks curl over as they burn, maintaining the height of the wick and therefore the flame. Because much of the excess wick is incinerated, these are referred to as "self-trimming" or "self-consuming" wicks.[12]
+
+In the mid-1850s, James Young succeeded in distilling paraffin wax from coal and oil shales at Bathgate in West Lothian and developed a commercially viable method of production.[13] Paraffin could be used to make inexpensive candles of high quality. It was a bluish-white wax, which burned cleanly and left no unpleasant odor, unlike tallow candles. By the end of the 19th century, candles were made from paraffin wax and stearic acid.
+
+By the late 19th century, Price's Candles, based in London, was the largest candle manufacturer in the world.[14] Founded by William Wilson in 1830,[15] the company pioneered the implementation of the technique of steam distillation, and was thus able to manufacture candles from a wide range of raw materials, including skin fat, bone fat, fish oil and industrial greases.
+
+Despite advances in candle making, the candle industry declined rapidly upon the introduction of superior methods of lighting, including kerosene and lamps and the 1879 invention of the incandescent light bulb. From this point on, candles came to be marketed as more of a decorative item.
+
+Before the invention of electric lighting, candles and oil lamps were commonly used for illumination. In areas without electricity, they are still used routinely.  Until the 20th century, candles were more common in northern Europe. In southern Europe and the Mediterranean, oil lamps predominated.
+
+In the developed world today, candles are used mainly for their aesthetic value and scent, particularly to set a soft, warm, or romantic ambiance, for emergency lighting during electrical power failures, and for religious or ritual purposes.
+
+With the fairly consistent and measurable burning of a candle, a common use of candles was to tell the time. The candle designed for this purpose might have time measurements, usually in hours, marked along the wax. The Song dynasty in China (960–1279) used candle clocks.[16]
+
+By the 18th century, candle clocks were being made with weights set into the sides of the candle. As the candle melted, the weights fell off and made a noise as they fell into a bowl.
+
+In the days leading to Christmas, some people burn a candle a set amount to represent each day, as marked on the candle. The type of candle used in this way is called the Advent candle,[17] although this term is also used to refer to a candle that decorates an Advent wreath.
+
+For most of recorded history candles were made from tallow (rendered from beef or mutton-fat) or beeswax. From the mid 1800s they were also made from spermaceti, a waxy substance derived from the Sperm whale, which in turn spurred demand for the substance. Candles were also made from stearin (initially manufactured from animal fats but now produced almost exclusively from palm waxes).[18][19] Today, most candles are made from paraffin wax, a byproduct of petroleum refining.[20]
+
+Candles can also be made from microcrystalline wax, beeswax (a byproduct of honey collection), gel (a mixture of polymer and mineral oil),[21] or some plant waxes (generally palm, carnauba, bayberry, or soybean wax).
+
+The size of the flame and corresponding rate of burning is controlled largely by the candle wick.
+
+Production methods utilize extrusion moulding.[20] More traditional production methods entail melting the solid fuel by the controlled application of heat. The liquid is then poured into a mould, or a wick is repeatedly immersed in the liquid to create a dipped tapered candle. Often fragrance oils, essential oils or aniline-based dye is added.
+
+A candle wick works by capillary action, drawing ("wicking") the melted wax or fuel up to the flame. When the liquid fuel reaches the flame, it vaporizes and combusts. The candle wick influences how the candle burns.  Important characteristics of the wick include diameter, stiffness, fire-resistance, and tethering.
+
+A candle wick is a piece of string or cord that holds the flame of a candle.  Commercial wicks are made from braided cotton.  The wick's capillarity determines the rate at which the melted hydrocarbon is conveyed to the flame.  If the capillarity is too great, the molten wax streams down the side of the candle.  Wicks are often infused with a variety of chemicals to modify their burning characteristics.  For example, it is usually desirable that the wick not glow after the flame is extinguished.  Typical agents are ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate.[20]
+
+Based on measurements of a taper-type, paraffin wax candle, a modern candle typically burns at a steady rate of about 0.1 g/min, releasing heat at roughly 80 W.[22] The light produced is about 13 lumens, for a luminous efficacy of about 0.16 lumens per watt (luminous efficacy of a source) – almost a hundred times lower than an incandescent light bulb.
+
+The luminous intensity of a typical candle is approximately one candela. The SI unit, candela, was in fact based on an older unit called the candlepower, which represented the luminous intensity emitted by a candle made to particular specifications (a "standard candle"). The modern unit is defined in a more precise and repeatable way, but was chosen such that a candle's luminous intensity is still about one candela.
+
+The hottest part of a candle flame is just above the very dull blue part to one side of the flame, at the base. At this point, the flame is about 1,400 °C (2,550 °F). However note that this part of the flame is very small and releases little heat energy.  The blue color is due to chemiluminescence, while the visible yellow color is due to radiative emission from hot soot particles.  The soot is formed through a series of complex chemical reactions, leading from the fuel molecule through molecular growth, until multi-carbon ring compounds are formed.  The thermal structure of a flame is complex, hundreds of degrees over very short distances leading to extremely steep temperature gradients. On average, the flame temperature is about 1,000 °C (1,830 °F).[23] The color temperature is approximately 1000 K.
+
+A candle flame is formed because wax vaporizes on burning. A candle flame is widely recognized as having between three and five regions or "zones":
+
+The main determinant of the height of a candle flame is the diameter of the wick. This is evidenced in tealights where the wick is very thin and the flame is very small. Candles whose main purpose is illumination use a much thicker wick.[26]
+
+One of Michael Faraday's significant works was The Chemical History of a Candle, where he gives an in-depth analysis of the evolutionary development, workings and science of candles.[27]
+
+According to the U.S. National Fire Protection Association, candles are a leading source of residential fires in the United States with almost 10% of civilian injuries and 6% of fatalities from fire attributed to candles.[28]
+A candle flame that is longer than its laminar smoke point will emit soot.[29] Proper wick trimming will reduce soot emissions from most candles.
+
+The liquid wax is hot and can cause skin burns, but the amount and temperature are generally rather limited and the burns are seldom serious. The best way to avoid getting burned from splashed wax is to use a candle snuffer instead of blowing on the flame. A candle snuffer is usually a small metal cup on the end of a long handle. Placing the snuffer over the flame cuts off the oxygen supply. Snuffers were common in the home when candles were the main source of lighting before electric lights were available.  Ornate snuffers, often combined with a taper for lighting, are still found in those churches which regularly use large candles.
+
+Glass candle-holders are sometimes cracked by thermal shock from the candle flame, particularly when the candle burns down to the end. When burning candles in glass holders or jars, users should avoid lighting candles with chipped or cracked containers, and stop use once 1/2 inch or less of wax remains.
+
+A former worry regarding the safety of candles was that a lead core was used in the wicks to keep them upright in container candles. Without a stiff core, the wicks of a container candle could sag and drown in the deep wax pool. Concerns rose that the lead in these wicks would vaporize during the burning process, releasing lead vapors — a known health and developmental hazard. Lead core wicks have not been common since the 1970s. Today, most metal-cored wicks use zinc or a zinc alloy, which has become the industry standard. Wicks made from specially treated paper and cotton are also available.
+
+International markets have developed a range of standards and regulations to ensure compliance, while maintaining and improving safety, including:
+
+Decorative candleholders, especially those shaped as a pedestal, are called candlesticks; if multiple candle tapers are held, the term candelabrum is also used. The root form of chandelier is from the word for candle, but now usually refers to an electric fixture. The word chandelier is sometimes now used to describe a hanging fixture designed to hold multiple tapers.
+
+Many candle holders use a friction-tight socket to keep the candle upright. In this case, a candle that is slightly too wide will not fit in the holder, and a candle that is slightly too narrow will wobble. Candles that are too big can be trimmed to fit with a knife; candles that are too small can be fitted with aluminium foil. Traditionally, the candle and candle holders were made in the same place, so they were appropriately sized, but international trade has combined the modern candle with existing holders, which makes the ill-fitting candle more common. This friction tight socket is only needed for the federals and the tapers. For tea light candles, there is a variety of candle holders, including small glass holders and elaborate multi-candle stands. The same is true for votives. Wall sconces are available for tea light and votive candles. For pillar-type candles, the assortment of candle holders is broad. A fireproof plate, such as a glass plate or small mirror, can be a candle holder for a pillar-style candle. A pedestal of any kind, with the appropriate-sized fireproof top, is another option. A large glass bowl with a large flat bottom and tall mostly vertical curved sides is called a hurricane. The pillar-style candle is placed at the bottom center of the hurricane. A hurricane on a pedestal is sometimes sold as a unit.
+
+A bobèche is a drip-catching ring, which may also be affixed to a candle holder, or used independently of one. Bobèches can range from ornate metal or glass to simple plastic, cardboard, or wax paper. Use of paper or plastic bobèches is common at events where candles are distributed to a crowd or audience, such as Christmas carolers or people at other concerts/festivals.
+
+These are glass or metal tubes with an internal stricture partway along, which sit around the top of a lit candle. As the candle burns, the wax melts and the follower holds the melted wax in, whilst the stricture rests on the topmost solid portion of wax. Candle followers are often deliberately heavy or weighted to ensure they move down as the candle burns lower, maintaining a seal and preventing wax escape. The purpose of a candle follower is threefold:
+
+Candle followers are often found in churches on altar candles.
+
+Candle snuffers are instruments used to extinguish burning candles by smothering the flame with a small metal cup that is suspended from a long handle, and thus depriving it of oxygen. An older meaning refers to a scissor-like tool used to trim the wick of a candle. With skill, this could be done without extinguishing the flame. The instrument now known as a candle snuffer was formerly called an "extinguisher" or "douter".

en/724.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,563 @@
+A sphere (from Greek σφαῖρα—sphaira, "globe, ball"[1]) is a geometrical object in three-dimensional space that is the surface of a ball (viz., analogous to the circular objects in two dimensions, where a "circle" circumscribes its "disk").
+
+Like a circle in a two-dimensional space, a sphere is defined mathematically as the set of points that are all at the same distance r from a given point, but in a three-dimensional space.[2] This distance r is the radius of the ball, which is made up from all points with a distance less than (or, for a closed ball, less than or equal to) r from the given point, which is the center of the mathematical ball. These are also referred to as the radius and center of the sphere, respectively. The longest straight line segment through the ball, connecting two points of the sphere, passes through the center and its length is thus twice the radius; it is a diameter of both the sphere and its ball.
+
+While outside mathematics the terms "sphere" and "ball" are sometimes used interchangeably, in mathematics the above distinction is made between a sphere, which is a two-dimensional closed surface embedded in a three-dimensional Euclidean space, and a ball, which is a three-dimensional shape that includes the sphere and everything inside the sphere (a closed ball), or, more often, just the points inside, but not on the sphere (an open ball). The distinction between ball and sphere has not always been maintained and especially older mathematical references talk about a sphere as a solid. This is analogous to the situation in the plane, where the terms "circle" and "disk" can also be confounded.
+
+In analytic geometry, a sphere with center (x0, y0, z0) and radius r is the locus of all points (x, y, z) such that
+
+Let a, b, c, d, e be real numbers with a ≠ 0 and put
+
+Then the equation
+
+has no real points as solutions if 
+
+
+
+ρ
+<
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle \rho <0}
+
+ and is called the equation of an imaginary sphere. If 
+
+
+
+ρ
+=
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle \rho =0}
+
+, the only solution of 
+
+
+
+f
+(
+x
+,
+y
+,
+z
+)
+=
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle f(x,y,z)=0}
+
+ is the point 
+
+
+
+
+P
+
+0
+
+
+=
+(
+
+x
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+z
+
+0
+
+
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle P_{0}=(x_{0},y_{0},z_{0})}
+
+ and the equation is said to be the equation of a point sphere. Finally, in the case 
+
+
+
+ρ
+>
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle \rho >0}
+
+, 
+
+
+
+f
+(
+x
+,
+y
+,
+z
+)
+=
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle f(x,y,z)=0}
+
+ is an equation of a sphere whose center is 
+
+
+
+
+P
+
+0
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle P_{0}}
+
+ and whose radius is 
+
+
+
+
+
+ρ
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\sqrt {\rho }}}
+
+.[2]
+
+If a in the above equation is zero then f(x, y, z) = 0 is the equation of a plane. Thus, a plane may be thought of as a sphere of infinite radius whose center is a point at infinity.[3]
+
+The points on the sphere with radius 
+
+
+
+r
+>
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle r>0}
+
+ and center 
+
+
+
+(
+
+x
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+z
+
+0
+
+
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle (x_{0},y_{0},z_{0})}
+
+ can be parameterized via
+
+The parameter 
+
+
+
+θ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \theta }
+
+ can be associated with the angle counted positive from the direction of the positive z-axis through the center to the radius-vector, and the parameter 
+
+
+
+φ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \varphi }
+
+ can be associated with the angle counted positive from the direction of the positive x-axis through the center to the projection of the radius-vector on the xy-plane.
+
+A sphere of any radius centered at zero is an integral surface of the following differential form:
+
+This equation reflects that position and velocity vectors of a point, (x, y, z) and (dx, dy, dz), traveling on the sphere are always orthogonal to each other.
+
+A sphere can also be constructed as the surface formed by rotating a circle about any of its diameters. Since a circle is a special type of ellipse, a sphere is a special type of ellipsoid of revolution. Replacing the circle with an ellipse rotated about its major axis, the shape becomes a prolate spheroid; rotated about the minor axis, an oblate spheroid.[5]
+
+In three dimensions, the volume inside a sphere (that is, the volume of a ball, but classically referred to as the volume of a sphere) is
+
+where r is the radius and d is the diameter of the sphere. Archimedes first derived this formula by showing that the volume inside a sphere is twice the volume between the sphere and the circumscribed cylinder of that sphere (having the height and diameter equal to the diameter of the sphere).[6] This may be proved by inscribing a cone upside down into semi-sphere, noting that the area of a cross section of the cone plus the area of a cross section of the sphere is the same as the area of the cross section of the circumscribing cylinder, and applying Cavalieri's principle.[7] This formula can also be derived using integral calculus, i.e. disk integration to sum the volumes of an infinite number of circular disks of infinitesimally small thickness stacked side by side and centered along the x-axis from x = ��r  to x = r, assuming the sphere of radius r is centered at the origin.
+
+At any given x, the incremental volume (δV) equals the product of the cross-sectional area of the disk at x and its thickness (δx):
+
+The total volume is the summation of all incremental volumes:
+
+In the limit as δx approaches zero,[8] this equation becomes:
+
+At any given x, a right-angled triangle connects x, y and r to the origin; hence, applying the Pythagorean theorem yields:
+
+Using this substitution gives
+
+which can be evaluated to give the result
+
+An alternative formula is found using spherical coordinates, with volume element
+
+so
+
+For most practical purposes, the volume inside a sphere inscribed in a cube can be approximated as 52.4% of the volume of the cube, since V = π/6 d3, where d is the diameter of the sphere and also the length of a side of the cube and π/6 ≈ 0.5236. For example, a sphere with diameter 1 m has 52.4% the volume of a cube with edge length 1 m, or about 0.524 m3.
+
+The surface area of a sphere of radius r is:
+
+Archimedes first derived this formula[9] from the fact that the projection to the lateral surface of a circumscribed cylinder is area-preserving.[10] Another approach to obtaining the formula comes from the fact that it equals the derivative of the formula for the volume with respect to r because the total volume inside a sphere of radius r can be thought of as the summation of the surface area of an infinite number of spherical shells of infinitesimal thickness concentrically stacked inside one another from radius 0 to radius r. At infinitesimal thickness the discrepancy between the inner and outer surface area of any given shell is infinitesimal, and the elemental volume at radius r is simply the product of the surface area at radius r and the infinitesimal thickness.
+
+At any given radius r,[note 1] the incremental volume (δV) equals the product of the surface area at radius r (A(r)) and the thickness of a shell (δr):
+
+The total volume is the summation of all shell volumes:
+
+In the limit as δr approaches zero[8] this equation becomes:
+
+Substitute V:
+
+Differentiating both sides of this equation with respect to r yields A as a function of r:
+
+This is generally abbreviated as:
+
+where r is now considered to be the fixed radius of the sphere.
+
+Alternatively, the area element on the sphere is given in spherical coordinates by dA = r2 sin θ dθ dφ. In Cartesian coordinates, the area element is[citation needed]
+
+The total area can thus be obtained by integration:
+
+The sphere has the smallest surface area of all surfaces that enclose a given volume, and it encloses the largest volume among all closed surfaces with a given surface area.[11] The sphere therefore appears in nature: for example, bubbles and small water drops are roughly spherical because the surface tension locally minimizes surface area.
+
+The surface area relative to the mass of a ball is called the specific surface area and can be expressed from the above stated equations as
+
+where ρ is the density (the ratio of mass to volume).
+
+In case of a circle the circle can described by a parametric equation 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+x
+→
+
+
+
+=
+(
+
+
+
+
+e
+→
+
+
+
+
+0
+
+
++
+
+
+
+
+e
+→
+
+
+
+
+1
+
+
+cos
+⁡
+t
++
+
+
+
+
+e
+→
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+sin
+⁡
+t
+
+)
+
+T
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \;{\vec {x}}=({\vec {e}}_{0}+{\vec {e}}_{1}\cos t+{\vec {e}}_{2}\sin t)^{T}\;}
+
+: see plane section of an ellipsoid.
+
+But more complicated surfaces may intersect a sphere in circles, too:
+
+The diagram shows the case, where the intersection of a cylinder and a sphere consists of two circles. Would the cylinder radius be equal to the sphere's radius, the intersection would be one circle, where both surfaces are tangent.
+
+In case of an spheroid with the same center and major axis as the sphere, the intersection would consist of two points (vertices), where the surfaces are tangent.
+
+If the sphere is described by a parametric representation
+
+one gets Clelia curves, if the angles are connected by the equation
+
+Special cases are: Viviani's curve (
+
+
+
+c
+=
+1
+
+
+{\displaystyle c=1}
+
+) and spherical spirals (
+
+
+
+c
+>
+2
+
+
+{\displaystyle c>2}
+
+).
+
+In navigation, a rhumb line or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle. A rhumb line is not a spherical spiral. There is no simple connection between the angles 
+
+
+
+φ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \varphi }
+
+ and 
+
+
+
+θ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \theta }
+
+.
+
+If a sphere is intersected by another surface, there may be more complicated spherical curves.
+
+Example: sphere – cylinder
+
+The intersection of the sphere with equation 
+
+
+
+
+
+x
+
+2
+
+
++
+
+y
+
+2
+
+
++
+
+z
+
+2
+
+
+=
+
+r
+
+2
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \;x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}=r^{2}\;}
+
+ and the cylinder with equation 
+
+
+
+
+(
+y
+−
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+
+)
+
+2
+
+
++
+
+z
+
+2
+
+
+=
+
+a
+
+2
+
+
+,
+
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+≠
+0
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \;(y-y_{0})^{2}+z^{2}=a^{2},\;y_{0}\neq 0\;}
+
+ is not just one or two circles. It is the solution of the non linear system of equations
+
+(see implicit curve and the diagram)
+
+A sphere is uniquely determined by four points that are not coplanar. More generally, a sphere is uniquely determined by four conditions such as passing through a point, being tangent to a plane, etc.[12] This property is analogous to the property that three non-collinear points determine a unique circle in a plane.
+
+Consequently, a sphere is uniquely determined by (that is, passes through) a circle and a point not in the plane of that circle.
+
+By examining the common solutions of the equations of two spheres, it can be seen that two spheres intersect in a circle and the plane containing that circle is called the radical plane of the intersecting spheres.[13] Although the radical plane is a real plane, the circle may be imaginary (the spheres have no real point in common) or consist of a single point (the spheres are tangent at that point).[14]
+
+The angle between two spheres at a real point of intersection is the dihedral angle determined by the tangent planes to the spheres at that point. Two spheres intersect at the same angle at all points of their circle of intersection.[15] They intersect at right angles (are orthogonal) if and only if the square of the distance between their centers is equal to the sum of the squares of their radii.[3]
+
+If f(x, y, z) = 0 and g(x, y, z) = 0 are the equations of two distinct spheres then
+
+is also the equation of a sphere for arbitrary values of the parameters s and t. The set of all spheres satisfying this equation is called a pencil of spheres determined by the original two spheres. In this definition a sphere is allowed to be a plane (infinite radius, center at infinity) and if both the original spheres are planes then all the spheres of the pencil are planes, otherwise there is only one plane (the radical plane) in the pencil.[3]
+
+A great circle on the sphere has the same center and radius as the sphere—consequently dividing it into two equal parts. The plane sections of a sphere are called spheric sections—which are either great circles for planes through the sphere's center or small circles for all others.[16]
+
+Any plane that includes the center of a sphere divides it into two equal hemispheres. Any two intersecting planes that include the center of a sphere subdivide the sphere into four lunes or biangles, the vertices of which coincide with the antipodal points lying on the line of intersection of the planes.
+
+Any pair of points on a sphere that lie on a straight line through the sphere's center (i.e. the diameter) are called antipodal points—on the sphere, the distance between them is exactly half the length of the circumference.[note 2] Any other (i.e. not antipodal) pair of distinct points on a sphere
+
+Spherical geometry[note 4] shares many analogous properties to Euclidean once equipped with this "great-circle distance".
+
+And a much more abstract generalization of geometry also uses the same distance concept in the Riemannian circle.
+
+The hemisphere is conjectured to be the optimal (least area) isometric filling of the Riemannian circle.
+
+
+
+The antipodal quotient of the sphere is the surface called the real projective plane, which can also be thought of as the northern hemisphere with antipodal points of the equator identified.
+
+Terms borrowed directly from geography of the Earth, despite its spheroidal shape having greater or lesser departures from a perfect sphere (see geoid), are widely well-understood. In geometry unrelated to astronomical bodies, geocentric terminology should be used only for illustration and noted as such, unless there is no chance of misunderstanding.
+
+If a particular point on a sphere is (arbitrarily) designated as its north pole, its antipodal point is called the south pole. The great circle equidistant to each is then the equator. Great circles through the poles are called lines of longitude (or meridians). A line not on the sphere but through its center connecting the two poles may be called the axis of rotation. Circles on the sphere that are parallel (i.e. not great circles) to the equator are lines of latitude.
+
+Spheres can be generalized to spaces of any number of dimensions. For any natural number n, an "n-sphere," often written as Sn, is the set of points in (n + 1)-dimensional Euclidean space that are at a fixed distance r from a central point of that space, where r is, as before, a positive real number. In particular:
+
+Spheres for n > 2 are sometimes called hyperspheres.
+
+The n-sphere of unit radius centered at the origin is denoted Sn and is often referred to as "the" n-sphere. Note that the ordinary sphere is a 2-sphere, because it is a 2-dimensional surface (which is embedded in 3-dimensional space).
+
+The surface area of the unit (n-1)-sphere is
+
+where Γ(z) is Euler's gamma function.
+
+Another expression for the surface area is
+
+and the volume is the surface area times r/n or
+
+General recursive formulas also exist for the volume of an n-ball.
+
+More generally, in a metric space (E,d), the sphere of center x and radius r > 0 is the set of points y such that d(x,y) = r.
+
+If the center is a distinguished point that is considered to be the origin of E, as in a normed space, it is not mentioned in the definition and notation. The same applies for the radius if it is taken to equal one, as in the case of a unit sphere.
+
+Unlike a ball, even a large sphere may be an empty set. For example, in Zn with Euclidean metric, a sphere of radius r is nonempty only if r2 can be written as sum of n squares of integers.
+
+In topology, an n-sphere is defined as a space homeomorphic to the boundary of an (n + 1)-ball; thus, it is homeomorphic to the Euclidean n-sphere, but perhaps lacking its metric.
+
+The n-sphere is denoted Sn. It is an example of a compact topological manifold without boundary. A sphere need not be smooth; if it is smooth, it need not be diffeomorphic to the Euclidean sphere (an exotic sphere).
+
+The Heine–Borel theorem implies that a Euclidean n-sphere is compact. The sphere is the inverse image of a one-point set under the continuous function ||x||. Therefore, the sphere is closed. Sn is also bounded; therefore it is compact.
+
+Remarkably, it is possible to turn an ordinary sphere inside out in a three-dimensional space with possible self-intersections but without creating any crease, in a process called sphere eversion.
+
+The basic elements of Euclidean plane geometry are points and lines. On the sphere, points are defined in the usual sense. The analogue of the "line" is the geodesic, which is a great circle; the defining characteristic of a great circle is that the plane containing all its points also passes through the center of the sphere. Measuring by arc length shows that the shortest path between two points lying on the sphere is the shorter segment of the great circle that includes the points.
+
+Many theorems from classical geometry hold true for spherical geometry as well, but not all do because the sphere fails to satisfy some of classical geometry's postulates, including the parallel postulate. In spherical trigonometry, angles are defined between great circles. Spherical trigonometry differs from ordinary trigonometry in many respects. For example, the sum of the interior angles of a spherical triangle always exceeds 180 degrees. Also, any two similar spherical triangles are congruent.
+
+In their book Geometry and the Imagination[17] David Hilbert and Stephan Cohn-Vossen describe eleven properties of the sphere and discuss whether these properties uniquely determine the sphere. Several properties hold for the plane, which can be thought of as a sphere with infinite radius. These properties are:
+
+An image of one of the most accurate human-made spheres, as it refracts the image of Einstein in the background. This sphere was a fused quartz gyroscope for the Gravity Probe B experiment, and differs in shape from a perfect sphere by no more than 40 atoms (less than 10 nm) of thickness. It was announced on 1 July 2008 that Australian scientists had created even more nearly perfect spheres, accurate to 0.3 nm, as part of an international hunt to find a new global standard kilogram.[18]
+
+Deck of playing cards illustrating engineering instruments, England, 1702. King of spades: Spheres
+

en/725.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,563 @@
+A sphere (from Greek σφαῖρα—sphaira, "globe, ball"[1]) is a geometrical object in three-dimensional space that is the surface of a ball (viz., analogous to the circular objects in two dimensions, where a "circle" circumscribes its "disk").
+
+Like a circle in a two-dimensional space, a sphere is defined mathematically as the set of points that are all at the same distance r from a given point, but in a three-dimensional space.[2] This distance r is the radius of the ball, which is made up from all points with a distance less than (or, for a closed ball, less than or equal to) r from the given point, which is the center of the mathematical ball. These are also referred to as the radius and center of the sphere, respectively. The longest straight line segment through the ball, connecting two points of the sphere, passes through the center and its length is thus twice the radius; it is a diameter of both the sphere and its ball.
+
+While outside mathematics the terms "sphere" and "ball" are sometimes used interchangeably, in mathematics the above distinction is made between a sphere, which is a two-dimensional closed surface embedded in a three-dimensional Euclidean space, and a ball, which is a three-dimensional shape that includes the sphere and everything inside the sphere (a closed ball), or, more often, just the points inside, but not on the sphere (an open ball). The distinction between ball and sphere has not always been maintained and especially older mathematical references talk about a sphere as a solid. This is analogous to the situation in the plane, where the terms "circle" and "disk" can also be confounded.
+
+In analytic geometry, a sphere with center (x0, y0, z0) and radius r is the locus of all points (x, y, z) such that
+
+Let a, b, c, d, e be real numbers with a ≠ 0 and put
+
+Then the equation
+
+has no real points as solutions if 
+
+
+
+ρ
+<
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle \rho <0}
+
+ and is called the equation of an imaginary sphere. If 
+
+
+
+ρ
+=
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle \rho =0}
+
+, the only solution of 
+
+
+
+f
+(
+x
+,
+y
+,
+z
+)
+=
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle f(x,y,z)=0}
+
+ is the point 
+
+
+
+
+P
+
+0
+
+
+=
+(
+
+x
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+z
+
+0
+
+
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle P_{0}=(x_{0},y_{0},z_{0})}
+
+ and the equation is said to be the equation of a point sphere. Finally, in the case 
+
+
+
+ρ
+>
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle \rho >0}
+
+, 
+
+
+
+f
+(
+x
+,
+y
+,
+z
+)
+=
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle f(x,y,z)=0}
+
+ is an equation of a sphere whose center is 
+
+
+
+
+P
+
+0
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle P_{0}}
+
+ and whose radius is 
+
+
+
+
+
+ρ
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\sqrt {\rho }}}
+
+.[2]
+
+If a in the above equation is zero then f(x, y, z) = 0 is the equation of a plane. Thus, a plane may be thought of as a sphere of infinite radius whose center is a point at infinity.[3]
+
+The points on the sphere with radius 
+
+
+
+r
+>
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle r>0}
+
+ and center 
+
+
+
+(
+
+x
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+z
+
+0
+
+
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle (x_{0},y_{0},z_{0})}
+
+ can be parameterized via
+
+The parameter 
+
+
+
+θ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \theta }
+
+ can be associated with the angle counted positive from the direction of the positive z-axis through the center to the radius-vector, and the parameter 
+
+
+
+φ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \varphi }
+
+ can be associated with the angle counted positive from the direction of the positive x-axis through the center to the projection of the radius-vector on the xy-plane.
+
+A sphere of any radius centered at zero is an integral surface of the following differential form:
+
+This equation reflects that position and velocity vectors of a point, (x, y, z) and (dx, dy, dz), traveling on the sphere are always orthogonal to each other.
+
+A sphere can also be constructed as the surface formed by rotating a circle about any of its diameters. Since a circle is a special type of ellipse, a sphere is a special type of ellipsoid of revolution. Replacing the circle with an ellipse rotated about its major axis, the shape becomes a prolate spheroid; rotated about the minor axis, an oblate spheroid.[5]
+
+In three dimensions, the volume inside a sphere (that is, the volume of a ball, but classically referred to as the volume of a sphere) is
+
+where r is the radius and d is the diameter of the sphere. Archimedes first derived this formula by showing that the volume inside a sphere is twice the volume between the sphere and the circumscribed cylinder of that sphere (having the height and diameter equal to the diameter of the sphere).[6] This may be proved by inscribing a cone upside down into semi-sphere, noting that the area of a cross section of the cone plus the area of a cross section of the sphere is the same as the area of the cross section of the circumscribing cylinder, and applying Cavalieri's principle.[7] This formula can also be derived using integral calculus, i.e. disk integration to sum the volumes of an infinite number of circular disks of infinitesimally small thickness stacked side by side and centered along the x-axis from x = ��r  to x = r, assuming the sphere of radius r is centered at the origin.
+
+At any given x, the incremental volume (δV) equals the product of the cross-sectional area of the disk at x and its thickness (δx):
+
+The total volume is the summation of all incremental volumes:
+
+In the limit as δx approaches zero,[8] this equation becomes:
+
+At any given x, a right-angled triangle connects x, y and r to the origin; hence, applying the Pythagorean theorem yields:
+
+Using this substitution gives
+
+which can be evaluated to give the result
+
+An alternative formula is found using spherical coordinates, with volume element
+
+so
+
+For most practical purposes, the volume inside a sphere inscribed in a cube can be approximated as 52.4% of the volume of the cube, since V = π/6 d3, where d is the diameter of the sphere and also the length of a side of the cube and π/6 ≈ 0.5236. For example, a sphere with diameter 1 m has 52.4% the volume of a cube with edge length 1 m, or about 0.524 m3.
+
+The surface area of a sphere of radius r is:
+
+Archimedes first derived this formula[9] from the fact that the projection to the lateral surface of a circumscribed cylinder is area-preserving.[10] Another approach to obtaining the formula comes from the fact that it equals the derivative of the formula for the volume with respect to r because the total volume inside a sphere of radius r can be thought of as the summation of the surface area of an infinite number of spherical shells of infinitesimal thickness concentrically stacked inside one another from radius 0 to radius r. At infinitesimal thickness the discrepancy between the inner and outer surface area of any given shell is infinitesimal, and the elemental volume at radius r is simply the product of the surface area at radius r and the infinitesimal thickness.
+
+At any given radius r,[note 1] the incremental volume (δV) equals the product of the surface area at radius r (A(r)) and the thickness of a shell (δr):
+
+The total volume is the summation of all shell volumes:
+
+In the limit as δr approaches zero[8] this equation becomes:
+
+Substitute V:
+
+Differentiating both sides of this equation with respect to r yields A as a function of r:
+
+This is generally abbreviated as:
+
+where r is now considered to be the fixed radius of the sphere.
+
+Alternatively, the area element on the sphere is given in spherical coordinates by dA = r2 sin θ dθ dφ. In Cartesian coordinates, the area element is[citation needed]
+
+The total area can thus be obtained by integration:
+
+The sphere has the smallest surface area of all surfaces that enclose a given volume, and it encloses the largest volume among all closed surfaces with a given surface area.[11] The sphere therefore appears in nature: for example, bubbles and small water drops are roughly spherical because the surface tension locally minimizes surface area.
+
+The surface area relative to the mass of a ball is called the specific surface area and can be expressed from the above stated equations as
+
+where ρ is the density (the ratio of mass to volume).
+
+In case of a circle the circle can described by a parametric equation 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+x
+→
+
+
+
+=
+(
+
+
+
+
+e
+→
+
+
+
+
+0
+
+
++
+
+
+
+
+e
+→
+
+
+
+
+1
+
+
+cos
+⁡
+t
++
+
+
+
+
+e
+→
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+sin
+⁡
+t
+
+)
+
+T
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \;{\vec {x}}=({\vec {e}}_{0}+{\vec {e}}_{1}\cos t+{\vec {e}}_{2}\sin t)^{T}\;}
+
+: see plane section of an ellipsoid.
+
+But more complicated surfaces may intersect a sphere in circles, too:
+
+The diagram shows the case, where the intersection of a cylinder and a sphere consists of two circles. Would the cylinder radius be equal to the sphere's radius, the intersection would be one circle, where both surfaces are tangent.
+
+In case of an spheroid with the same center and major axis as the sphere, the intersection would consist of two points (vertices), where the surfaces are tangent.
+
+If the sphere is described by a parametric representation
+
+one gets Clelia curves, if the angles are connected by the equation
+
+Special cases are: Viviani's curve (
+
+
+
+c
+=
+1
+
+
+{\displaystyle c=1}
+
+) and spherical spirals (
+
+
+
+c
+>
+2
+
+
+{\displaystyle c>2}
+
+).
+
+In navigation, a rhumb line or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle. A rhumb line is not a spherical spiral. There is no simple connection between the angles 
+
+
+
+φ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \varphi }
+
+ and 
+
+
+
+θ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \theta }
+
+.
+
+If a sphere is intersected by another surface, there may be more complicated spherical curves.
+
+Example: sphere – cylinder
+
+The intersection of the sphere with equation 
+
+
+
+
+
+x
+
+2
+
+
++
+
+y
+
+2
+
+
++
+
+z
+
+2
+
+
+=
+
+r
+
+2
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \;x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}=r^{2}\;}
+
+ and the cylinder with equation 
+
+
+
+
+(
+y
+−
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+
+)
+
+2
+
+
++
+
+z
+
+2
+
+
+=
+
+a
+
+2
+
+
+,
+
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+≠
+0
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \;(y-y_{0})^{2}+z^{2}=a^{2},\;y_{0}\neq 0\;}
+
+ is not just one or two circles. It is the solution of the non linear system of equations
+
+(see implicit curve and the diagram)
+
+A sphere is uniquely determined by four points that are not coplanar. More generally, a sphere is uniquely determined by four conditions such as passing through a point, being tangent to a plane, etc.[12] This property is analogous to the property that three non-collinear points determine a unique circle in a plane.
+
+Consequently, a sphere is uniquely determined by (that is, passes through) a circle and a point not in the plane of that circle.
+
+By examining the common solutions of the equations of two spheres, it can be seen that two spheres intersect in a circle and the plane containing that circle is called the radical plane of the intersecting spheres.[13] Although the radical plane is a real plane, the circle may be imaginary (the spheres have no real point in common) or consist of a single point (the spheres are tangent at that point).[14]
+
+The angle between two spheres at a real point of intersection is the dihedral angle determined by the tangent planes to the spheres at that point. Two spheres intersect at the same angle at all points of their circle of intersection.[15] They intersect at right angles (are orthogonal) if and only if the square of the distance between their centers is equal to the sum of the squares of their radii.[3]
+
+If f(x, y, z) = 0 and g(x, y, z) = 0 are the equations of two distinct spheres then
+
+is also the equation of a sphere for arbitrary values of the parameters s and t. The set of all spheres satisfying this equation is called a pencil of spheres determined by the original two spheres. In this definition a sphere is allowed to be a plane (infinite radius, center at infinity) and if both the original spheres are planes then all the spheres of the pencil are planes, otherwise there is only one plane (the radical plane) in the pencil.[3]
+
+A great circle on the sphere has the same center and radius as the sphere—consequently dividing it into two equal parts. The plane sections of a sphere are called spheric sections—which are either great circles for planes through the sphere's center or small circles for all others.[16]
+
+Any plane that includes the center of a sphere divides it into two equal hemispheres. Any two intersecting planes that include the center of a sphere subdivide the sphere into four lunes or biangles, the vertices of which coincide with the antipodal points lying on the line of intersection of the planes.
+
+Any pair of points on a sphere that lie on a straight line through the sphere's center (i.e. the diameter) are called antipodal points—on the sphere, the distance between them is exactly half the length of the circumference.[note 2] Any other (i.e. not antipodal) pair of distinct points on a sphere
+
+Spherical geometry[note 4] shares many analogous properties to Euclidean once equipped with this "great-circle distance".
+
+And a much more abstract generalization of geometry also uses the same distance concept in the Riemannian circle.
+
+The hemisphere is conjectured to be the optimal (least area) isometric filling of the Riemannian circle.
+
+
+
+The antipodal quotient of the sphere is the surface called the real projective plane, which can also be thought of as the northern hemisphere with antipodal points of the equator identified.
+
+Terms borrowed directly from geography of the Earth, despite its spheroidal shape having greater or lesser departures from a perfect sphere (see geoid), are widely well-understood. In geometry unrelated to astronomical bodies, geocentric terminology should be used only for illustration and noted as such, unless there is no chance of misunderstanding.
+
+If a particular point on a sphere is (arbitrarily) designated as its north pole, its antipodal point is called the south pole. The great circle equidistant to each is then the equator. Great circles through the poles are called lines of longitude (or meridians). A line not on the sphere but through its center connecting the two poles may be called the axis of rotation. Circles on the sphere that are parallel (i.e. not great circles) to the equator are lines of latitude.
+
+Spheres can be generalized to spaces of any number of dimensions. For any natural number n, an "n-sphere," often written as Sn, is the set of points in (n + 1)-dimensional Euclidean space that are at a fixed distance r from a central point of that space, where r is, as before, a positive real number. In particular:
+
+Spheres for n > 2 are sometimes called hyperspheres.
+
+The n-sphere of unit radius centered at the origin is denoted Sn and is often referred to as "the" n-sphere. Note that the ordinary sphere is a 2-sphere, because it is a 2-dimensional surface (which is embedded in 3-dimensional space).
+
+The surface area of the unit (n-1)-sphere is
+
+where Γ(z) is Euler's gamma function.
+
+Another expression for the surface area is
+
+and the volume is the surface area times r/n or
+
+General recursive formulas also exist for the volume of an n-ball.
+
+More generally, in a metric space (E,d), the sphere of center x and radius r > 0 is the set of points y such that d(x,y) = r.
+
+If the center is a distinguished point that is considered to be the origin of E, as in a normed space, it is not mentioned in the definition and notation. The same applies for the radius if it is taken to equal one, as in the case of a unit sphere.
+
+Unlike a ball, even a large sphere may be an empty set. For example, in Zn with Euclidean metric, a sphere of radius r is nonempty only if r2 can be written as sum of n squares of integers.
+
+In topology, an n-sphere is defined as a space homeomorphic to the boundary of an (n + 1)-ball; thus, it is homeomorphic to the Euclidean n-sphere, but perhaps lacking its metric.
+
+The n-sphere is denoted Sn. It is an example of a compact topological manifold without boundary. A sphere need not be smooth; if it is smooth, it need not be diffeomorphic to the Euclidean sphere (an exotic sphere).
+
+The Heine–Borel theorem implies that a Euclidean n-sphere is compact. The sphere is the inverse image of a one-point set under the continuous function ||x||. Therefore, the sphere is closed. Sn is also bounded; therefore it is compact.
+
+Remarkably, it is possible to turn an ordinary sphere inside out in a three-dimensional space with possible self-intersections but without creating any crease, in a process called sphere eversion.
+
+The basic elements of Euclidean plane geometry are points and lines. On the sphere, points are defined in the usual sense. The analogue of the "line" is the geodesic, which is a great circle; the defining characteristic of a great circle is that the plane containing all its points also passes through the center of the sphere. Measuring by arc length shows that the shortest path between two points lying on the sphere is the shorter segment of the great circle that includes the points.
+
+Many theorems from classical geometry hold true for spherical geometry as well, but not all do because the sphere fails to satisfy some of classical geometry's postulates, including the parallel postulate. In spherical trigonometry, angles are defined between great circles. Spherical trigonometry differs from ordinary trigonometry in many respects. For example, the sum of the interior angles of a spherical triangle always exceeds 180 degrees. Also, any two similar spherical triangles are congruent.
+
+In their book Geometry and the Imagination[17] David Hilbert and Stephan Cohn-Vossen describe eleven properties of the sphere and discuss whether these properties uniquely determine the sphere. Several properties hold for the plane, which can be thought of as a sphere with infinite radius. These properties are:
+
+An image of one of the most accurate human-made spheres, as it refracts the image of Einstein in the background. This sphere was a fused quartz gyroscope for the Gravity Probe B experiment, and differs in shape from a perfect sphere by no more than 40 atoms (less than 10 nm) of thickness. It was announced on 1 July 2008 that Australian scientists had created even more nearly perfect spheres, accurate to 0.3 nm, as part of an international hunt to find a new global standard kilogram.[18]
+
+Deck of playing cards illustrating engineering instruments, England, 1702. King of spades: Spheres
+

en/726.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,174 @@
+
+
+In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town.
+
+Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well as the means by which a mayor is elected or otherwise mandated. Depending on the system chosen, a mayor may be the chief executive officer of the municipal government, may simply chair a multi-member governing body with little or no independent power, or may play a solely ceremonial role. Options for selection of a mayor include direct election by the public, or selection by an elected governing council or board.
+
+
+
+In modern England and Wales, the position of mayor descends from the feudal lord's bailiff or reeve (see borough). The chief magistrate of London bore the title of portreeve for considerably more than a century after the Norman Conquest. This official was elected by popular choice, a privilege secured from King John. By the beginning of the 12th century, the title of portreeve gave way to that of mayor as the designation of the chief officer of London, followed around 1190 by that of Winchester. Other boroughs adopted the title later.
+
+In the 19th century, in the United Kingdom, the Municipal Corporations Act 1882, Section 15, regulated the election of mayors. The mayor was to be a fit person elected annually on 9 November by the council of the borough from among the aldermen or councillors or persons qualified to be such. His term of office was one year, but he was eligible for re-election. He might appoint a deputy to act during illness or absence, and such deputy must be either an alderman or councillor. A mayor who was absent from the borough for more than two months became disqualified and had to vacate his office. A mayor was ex officio a justice of the peace for the borough during his year of office and the following year. He received such remuneration as the council thought reasonable. These provisions have now been repealed.
+
+In medieval Wales, the Laws of Hywel Dda codified the mayor (Latin: maior; Welsh: maer) as a position at the royal courts charged with administering the serfs of the king's lands. To maintain its dependence on and loyalty to the Crown, the position was forbidden to the leaders of the clan groups.[1] A separate mayor, known as the "cow dung mayor" (maer biswail), was charged with overseeing the royal cattle.[1] There were similar offices at the Scottish and Irish courts.[citation needed]
+
+The office of mayor in most modern English and Welsh boroughs and towns did not in the 20th century entail any important administrative duties, and was generally regarded as an honour conferred for local distinction, long service on the council, or for past services. The mayor was expected to devote much of his (or her) time to civic, ceremonial, and representational functions, and to preside over meetings for the advancement of the public welfare. His or her administrative duties were to act as returning officer at parliamentary elections, and as chairman of the meetings of the council.
+
+However, since reforms introduced in 2000, fourteen English local authorities have directly elected mayors who combine the "civic" mayor role with that of leader of the council and have significantly greater powers than either. The mayor of a town council is officially known as "town mayor" (although in popular parlance, the word "town" is often dropped). Women mayors are also known as "mayor"; the wife of a mayor is sometimes known as the "mayoress". Mayors are not appointed to district councils that do not have borough status. Their place is taken by the chairman of council, who undertakes exactly the same functions and is, like a mayor, the civic head of the district concerned.
+
+In Scotland the post holders are known as convenors, provosts, or lord provosts depending on the local authority.
+
+The original Frankish mayors or majordomos were – like the Welsh meiri – lords commanding the king's lands around the Merovingian courts in Austrasia, Burgundy, and Neustria. The mayorship of Paris eventually became hereditary in the Pippinids, who later established the Carolingian dynasty.
+
+In modern France, since the Revolution, a mayor (maire) and a number of mayoral adjuncts (adjoints au maire) are selected by the municipal council from among their number. Most of the administrative work is left in their hands, with the full council meeting comparatively infrequently. The model was copied throughout Europe in Britain's mayors, Italy's sindacos, most of the German states' burgomasters, and Portugal's presidents of the municipal chambers.
+
+In Medieval Italy, the city-states who did not consider themselves independent principalities or dukedoms – particularly those of the Imperial Ghibelline faction – were led by podestàs.
+
+The Greek equivalent of a mayor is the demarch (Greek: δήμαρχος, lit. 'archon of the deme').
+
+In Denmark all municipalities are led by a political official called borgmester, "mayor". The mayor of Copenhagen is however called overborgmester "superior mayor". In that city other mayors, borgmestre (plural), are subordinate to him with different undertakings, like ministers to a prime minister. In other municipalities in Denmark there is only a single mayor.
+
+In Norway and Sweden the mayoral title borgermester/borgmästare has now been abolished. Norway abolished it in 1937 as a title of the non-political top manager of (city) municipalities and replaced it with the title rådmann ("alderman" or "magistrate"), which is still in use when referring to the top managers of the municipalities of Norway. The top elected official of the municipalities of Norway, on the other hand, has the title ordfører, which actually means "word-bearer", i.e. "chairman" or "president", an equivalent to the Swedish word ordförande.
+
+In Sweden borgmästare was a title of the senior judge of the courts of the cities, courts which were called rådhusrätt, literally "town hall court", somewhat of an equivalent to an English magistrates' court. These courts were abolished in 1971. Until 1965 these mayor judges on historical grounds also performed administrative functions in the "board of magistrates", in Swedish known collegially[clarification needed] as magistrat. Until 1965 there were also municipal mayors (kommunalborgmästare), who had these non-political administrative roles in smaller cities without a magistrates' court or magistrat. This office was an invention of the 20th century as the smaller cities in Sweden during the first half of the 20th century subsequently lost their own courts and magistrates.
+
+In the 16th century in Sweden, king Gustav Vasa considerably centralised government and appointed the mayors directly. In 1693 king Charles XI accepted a compromise after repeated petitions from the Estate of the Burgesses over decades against the royal mayor appointments. The compromise was that the burgesses in a city could normally nominate a mayor under the supervision of the local governor. The nominee was then to be presented to and appointed by the king, but the king could appoint mayors directly in exceptional cases. This was codified in the Instrument of Government of 1720 and on 8 July the same year Riksrådet ("the Council of the Realm") decided, after a petition from the said Estate, that only the city could present nominees, not the king or anyone else. Thus the supervision of the local governor and directly appointed mayors by the king ceased after 1720 (the so-called Age of Liberty). On 16 October 1723, it was decided after a petition that the city should present three nominees, of whom the king (or the Council of the Realm) appointed one.[2] This was kept as a rule from then on in all later regulations[2] and was also kept as a tradition in the 1809 Instrument of Government (§ 31) until 1965.
+
+In Finland, there are two mayors, in Tampere and Pirkkala. Usually in Finland the highest executive official is not democratically elected, but is appointed to a public office by the city council, and is called simply kaupunginjohtaja "city manager" or kunnanjohtaja "municipal manager", depending on whether the municipality defines itself as a city. The term pormestari "mayor", from Swedish borgmästare confusingly on historical grounds has referred to the highest official in the registry office and in the city courts (abolished in 1993) as in Sweden, not the city manager. In addition, pormestari is also an honorary title, which may be given for distinguished service in the post of the city manager. The city manager of Helsinki is called ylipormestari, which translates to "Chief Mayor", for historical reasons. Furthermore, the term "city manager" may be seen translated as "mayor".
+
+On Australian councils, the mayor is generally the member of the council who acts as ceremonial figurehead at official functions, as well as carrying the authority of council between meetings. Mayoral decisions made between meetings are subject to council and may be confirmed or repealed if necessary. Mayors in Australia may be elected either directly through a ballot for the position of mayor at a local-government election, or alternatively may be elected from within the council at a meeting.
+
+The civic regalia and insignia of local government have basically remained unaltered for centuries. For ceremonial occasions a mayor may wear robes, a mayoral chain and a mace. Mayors have the title of 'His/Her Worship' whilst holding the position.
+
+In councils where councillors are elected representing political parties, the mayor is normally the leader of the party receiving the most seats on council. In Queensland, the lord mayor and mayors are elected by popular vote at the general council election.
+
+Every municipality in Brazil elects a mayor (Portuguese: prefeito/prefeita), for a four-year term, acting as an executive officer with the city council (Portuguese: Câmara Municipal) functioning with legislative powers. The mayor can be re-elected and manage the city for two consecutive terms.
+
+The Brazilian system works similarly to the mayor-council government in the United states
+
+The chief executives of boroughs (arrondissements) in Quebec are termed mayors (maires/mairesses in French). A borough mayor simultaneously serves as head of the borough council and as a regular councillor on the main city council.
+
+As is the practice in most Commonwealth countries, in Canada a mayor is addressed as His/Her Worship while holding office.
+
+In some small townships in Ontario, the title reeve was historically used instead of mayor. In some other municipalities, "mayor" and "reeve" were two separate offices, with the mayor retaining leadership powers while the reeve was equivalent to what other municipalities called an "at-large councillor". While most municipalities in the province now designate their elected municipal government heads as mayors, in certain areas of the province, the elected head of the municipality continues to be referred to as reeve, and the second-in-command is referred to as the deputy reeve. For example, this continues to be the case in the municipalities of Algonquin Highlands, Dysart et al, Highlands East, and Minden Hills, all located within Haliburton County, as well as Beckwith Township, Lanark Highlands,  Drummond/North Elmsley Township,  Tay Valley Township, and Montague Township, all located within Lanark County.
+
+Many municipalities, counties, and other rural municipalities in Alberta continue to use the title reeve to denote the office of mayor or chief elected official in accordance with the Municipal Government Act.
+
+In rural municipalities (RM) in the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the elected head of the RM is still referred to as a "reeve".
+
+The scheduling of municipal elections in Canada varies by jurisdiction, as each province and territory has its own laws regarding municipal governance. See also municipal elections in Canada.
+
+The mayor of a municipality in the Dominican Republic is called indistinctly alcalde or síndico. The latter name is preferred as to avoid confusing the title with the similarly sounding alcaide (lit. prison warden). Such person is the governor of the municipality whose township elected him (or her) by direct vote for a term of four years. The mayor's office daily duties are restricted to the local governance, and as such, it is responsible for the coordination of waste collection, upkeep of public spaces (parks, undeveloped urban parcels, streets, city ornate, traffic light control, sewage and most public utilities). In practice, most of it duties are centered in light street repairing (new or big road projects, like overpasses, bridges, pedestrian crossings, etc. are handled by the Public Works Ministry (Ministerio de Obras Públicas in Spanish) office), under the direct control of the Central Government. Subcontracting garbage collection and management, overseeing the use of public spaces and arbitrating neighborhood land use disputes which is managed by the National Property office (Oficina de Bienes Nacionales in Spanish) is also controlled by the mayor's office. Water, electrical supply and public transportation coordination are handled by several Central Government's offices, and as such, are not under control of the mayor.
+
+Mayors (maires) in France are elected every six years in local elections.
+
+In Germany local government is regulated by state statutes. Nowadays only the mayors of the three city-states (Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen) are still elected by the respective city-state parliaments. In all the other states the mayors are now elected directly by the EU citizens living in that area. The post of mayor may be said to be a professional one, the mayor being the head of the local government, and requiring, in order to be eligible, a training in administration. In big cities (details are regulated by state statutes) the official title is Oberbürgermeister (lord mayor). In these cities a "simple" mayor is just a deputy responsible for a distinct task (e.g., welfare or construction works). Big cities are usually kreisfrei ("free of district"). That means that the city council also has the powers and duties of a rural district council. The leader of a rural district council is called Landrat ("land counsellor"). In that case the chief mayor has also the duties and powers of a Landrat. The term Oberbürgermeister is not used in the three city-states, where the mayors are simultaneously head of state governments, but Regierender Bürgermeister (Governing Mayor of Berlin), Erster Bürgermeister (First Mayor of the city-state of Hamburg) and Präsident des Senats und Bürgermeister (President of the Senate and Mayor of Bremen) are used.
+
+Mayors (δήμαρχοι, dēmarchoi, sing. δήμαρχος, dēmarchos) in Greece were previously elected every four years in local elections and are the head of various municipal governments in which the state is divided. Starting from 2014, mayors are elected for a five-year term. Local administration elections for the new, consolidated municipalities and peripheries will henceforth be held together with the elections for the European Parliament.
+
+Local administration in Greece recently underwent extensive reform in two phases: the first phase, implemented in 1997 and commonly called the "Kapodistrias Plan", consolidated the country's numerous municipalities and communities down to approximately 1000. The second phase, initially called "Kapodistrias II" but eventually called the "Kallikratis Plan", was implemented in 2010, further consolidated municipalities down to 370, and merged the country's 54 prefectures were disbanded in favour of the larger 13 regions. The Kallikratian municipalities were designed according to several guidelines; for example each island (except Crete) was incorporated into a single municipality, while the majority of small towns were consolidated so as to have an average municipal population of 25,000.
+
+In India, the mayor is leader of the council and has a number of roles, both legislative and functional. In most Indian states mayors are elected indirectly among the council members themselves except in eight states Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand; where mayors are elected directly by the public.
+
+In Indonesia, mayor (Indonesian: wali kota, formerly called walikotamadya and walikota) is a regional head of a city or town. A mayor has the same level as a regent (Indonesian: bupati), head of a regency (Indonesian: kabupaten). Basically, a mayor has duties and authority to lead the implementation of the policies established by the region along with the city council (Indonesian: Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah Kota, DPRD Kota; formerly called Tier 2-DPRD (DPRD tingkat II)). A mayor is elected in a pair with a vice mayor through direct elections and is a political office, except in Jakarta. There, mayoralty is a civil-service career position with limited authority and is designated by the Governor of Jakarta. Their region are called administration cities (Indonesian: kota administrasi).
+
+Before 1999, there were administrative cities (Indonesian: kota administratif, id) which were headed by administrative mayors.
+
+In Iran, the mayor is the executive manager of a city and elected by the Islamic City Council. The mayor is elected for a four-year term.
+
+In the Republic of Ireland, the head of a borough corporation was called "mayor" from the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 until boroughs were abolished by the Local Government Reform Act 2014. The Local Government Act 2001 allowed county councils to style their chairperson as "mayor" and some do so. City council chairs are "mayor" (or "lord mayor" in the cases of Dublin and of Cork). Since 2000 there have been proposals for a directly elected mayor of the Dublin Metropolitan Area.
+
+In Italy the mayor is called sindaco, or informally primo cittadino ("first citizen"). Every municipality (Italian: Comune) has its mayor who represents the local government. The mayor is elected every five years by the inhabitants of the municipality, but he cannot be re-elected after two terms.[3]
+
+Japan's Local-Autonomy Law of 1947 defines the structure of Japanese local governments, which were strengthened after World War II. It gives strong executive power to the mayor in the local politics like strong mayors in large cities in the United States of America.
+The titles that are translated as "mayor" by the governments are those of the heads of cities shichō (市長), towns chōchō (町長), villages sonchō (村長), and Tokyo's special wards kuchō (区長) (The head of the Tokyo prefecture is the Governor (知事, Chiji)).
+
+A mayor is elected every four years by direct popular votes held separately from the assembly. A mayor can be recalled by a popular initiative but the prefectural and the national governments cannot remove a mayor from office. Towards the assembly the mayor prepares budgets, proposes local acts and has vetoes on local acts just approved by the assembly which can be overridden by two-thirds assembly support. A mayor can dissolve the assembly if the assembly passes a motion of no confidence or if the mayor thinks the assembly has no confidence in fact.
+
+In Kazakhstan, the mayor is called Akim who is the head of an akimat, a municipal, district, or provincial government (mayorat), and serves as the Presidential representative. Akims of provinces and cities are appointed to the post by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the akims of other administrative and territorial units are appointed or selected to the post in an order defined by the President. He may also dismiss akims from their posts. Powers of akims ends with the introduction into the post of new-elected president of the republic. Thus, the akim continues to fulfill the duties before appointment of corresponding akim by the President of Kazakhstan.
+
+The mayor functions as the head of the local government of the cities in Malaysia. To date, there are 14 officially-recognised cities in the country.
+
+In cities which lie within the jurisdiction of any one of the 13 Malaysian states, the mayor is appointed by the state government.[4] Kuala Lumpur, the country's capital, is a notable exception, as it forms part of the Federal Territories which come under the purview of the Malaysian federal government, via the Ministry of Federal Territories. Thus, the mayor of Kuala Lumpur is selected by, and subordinate to, the Minister of Federal Territories.[5]
+
+Following the 2018 general election, which saw the country undergoing its first ever regime change, there have been calls to revive local government elections, which had been the practice in certain cities such as Kuala Lumpur, George Town, Ipoh and Melaka until their abolishment in 1965.[4][6][7] The reinstatement of local government elections would lead to the mayoral position being elected, instead of being appointed as per the current system.
+
+In Malta, the mayor (In Maltese: Sindku) is the leader of the majority party in the Local Council. The members of the Local Councils are directly elected and collectively serve as a basic form of local government.
+
+The Mayor of the municipality in Moldova is elected for four years. In Chişinău, the last mayor elections had to be repeated three times, because of the low rate of participation.
+
+In the Netherlands, the mayor (in Dutch: burgemeester) is the leader of the municipal executives ('College van Burgemeester en Wethouders'). In the Netherlands, burgermeesters are de facto appointed by the national cabinet, de jure by the monarch. They preside both the municipal executive and the legislative ('gemeenteraad'). The title is sometimes translated as burgomaster, to emphasize the appointed, rather than elected, nature of the office. The appointment procedure was brought for discussion in the early 2000s (decade), as some of the political parties represented in parliament regarded the procedure as undemocratic. Generally, mayors in the Netherlands are selected from the established political parties. Alternatives proposed were direct election of the mayor by the people or appointment by the city council (gemeenteraad). A constitutional change to allow for this failed to pass the Senate in March 2005, but succeeded in 2018.
+
+Mayors in Nepal are elected every Five years in the Local elections. They are very powerful in Municipal Government .
+
+Mayors in New Zealand are elected every three years in the local body elections.
+
+In Pakistan, a city is headed by the District Nazim (the word means "Administrator" in Urdu, but is sometimes translated as Mayor) and assisted by Naib Nazim who is also speaker of District Council. District Nazim is elected by the nazims of union councils, union councillors and by tehsil nazims, who themselves are elected directly by the votes of the local public. Council elections are held every four years.
+
+In the Philippines, mayors (Tagalog: Punong Bayan / Punong Lungsod) are the head of a municipality or a city, with the vice mayor as the second-highest position in the city. They are elected every three years during the midterm and national elections, and they can serve until three terms of office. As of – September 2012, there are 1,635 mayors in the Philippines.
+
+Mayors in Poland are directly elected by inhabitants of their respective municipality. A mayor is the sole chief of the executive branch of the municipality and he/she cannot serve in the municipal council (city council) or in the parliament. Mayors may appoint a deputy mayor if needed. In Poland mayor is called a burmistrz or, in towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants or other municipalities that traditionally use the title, prezydent ("president", for example, "President of Warsaw" instead of "Mayor of Warsaw"). The equivalent title in a rural community ("gmina") is "wójt".
+
+A mayor is elected for a five-year term concurrently with the five-year term of the municipal council, and his/her service is terminated at the end of the municipal council's term. Mayors cannot be dismissed by the municipal council, but they can be removed from the office by the citizens of their municipality in a referendum. Mayors can also be dismissed by the Prime Minister in case of persistent transgression of the law. Citizens having a criminal record cannot run for mayor, but only if sentenced for intentional criminal offence prosecuted ex officio.
+
+Mayors manage the municipal estate, issues minor regulations, and incurs liabilities within limits set by the municipal council. Mayors present a budget to the municipal council, that may be then amended by the council. After the municipal council passes the budget in a form of resolution, the mayor is responsible for its realization. Mayors are the head of the town hall and the register office (he/she may appoint deputies for these specific tasks). Mayors legally act as employers for all of the officials of the town hall. Mayors in Poland have wide administrative authority: the only official that he/she cannot appoint or dismiss is a city treasurer, who is appointed by a city council. Although mayors in Poland do not have veto power over city council resolutions, their position is relatively strong and should be classified as a mayor-council government.
+
+In Portugal and many other Portuguese-speaking countries the mayor of a municipality is called the Presidente da Câmara Municipal (President of the Municipal Chamber).
+
+In Romania the mayor of a commune, town or city is called primar. He or she is elected for a period of four years. In carrying out his responsibilities he is assisted by an elected local council (consiliu local). Bucharest has a general mayor (primar general) and six sector mayors (primar de sector), one for each sector. The responsibilities of the mayor and of the local council are defined by Law 215/2001 of the Romanian Parliament.[8]
+
+In Russia, the Мэр, from fr Maire (en transcription = Mer – not to be confused with the NATO OF-3 rank Майор – en: Major), is one of possible titles of the head of the administration of a city or municipality.  This title is equivalent to that of the head of a Russian rural district. Exceptionally, the mer of Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and Sevastopol are equivalent to governors in Russia, since these three federal cities are Russian federal subjects.
+
+Except for those just-named three large cities, the governance system of a Russian municipality (city, county, district or town) is subordinate to the representative council of the federation in which it is located. The mer, is either directly elected in municipal elections (citywide referendum) or is elected by the members of the municipality's representative council. Election by council members is now more widespread because it better integrates with the Russian federal three-level vertical governance structure:
+
+The typical term of office of a mer in Russia is four years. The mer's office administers all municipal services, public property, police and fire protection, and most public agencies, and enforces all local and state laws within a city or town.
+
+According to Medialogy,[9] the mer of Novosibirsk, Edward Lokot', is mentioned in the media more than any other Russian mayor.  The mer of Kazan, Il'sur Metshin, is the most popular in Russia, scoring 76 out of 100, according to the Russian People's Rating of Mers.[10]
+
+The status of the post in Sevastopol is not legally recognized outside of the Russian Federation, except for puppet states of the Russian Federation.
+
+In Serbia, the mayor is the head of the city or a town. He or she acts on behalf of the city, and performs an executive function. The position of the mayor of Belgrade is important as the capital city is the most important hub of economics, culture and science in Serbia. Furthermore, the post of the mayor of Belgrade is the third most important position in the government after the Prime Minister and President.
+
+Alcalde is the most common Spanish term for the mayor of a town or city. It is derived from the Arabic: al-qaḍi (قاضي‎), i.e., "the (Sharia) judge," who often had administrative, as well as judicial, functions. Although the Castilian alcalde and the Andalusian qaḍi had slightly different attributes (the qaḍi oversaw an entire province, the alcalde only a municipality; the former was appointed by the ruler of the state but the latter was elected by the municipal council), the adoption of this term reflects how much Muslim society in the Iberian Peninsula influenced the Christian one in the early phases of the Reconquista. As Spanish Christians took over an increasing part of the Peninsula, they adapted the Muslim systems and terminology for their own use.
+
+Today, it refers to the executive head of a municipal or local government, who usually does not have judicial functions. The word intendente is used in Argentina and Paraguay for the office that is analogous to a mayor.
+
+In municipios and larger cities in Mexico, the chief executive is known as both alcalde or as presidente municipal ("municipal president"), with the latter being more widely used.
+
+The Swedish title borgmästare (burgomaster) was abolished in the court reform of 1971 when also the towns of Sweden were officially abolished. Since the middle of the 20th century, the municipal commissioner – the highest-ranking politician in each municipality – is informally titled "mayor"[citation needed] in English.
+
+The function and title for mayor vary from one canton to another. Generally, the mayor presides an executive council of several members governing a municipality.
+
+The title is:
+
+In the Republic of China in Taiwan the mayor is the head of city's government and its city's council, which is in charge of legislative affairs. The mayor and city council are elected separately by the city's residents.
+
+Mayors (Turkish:Belediye Başkanı) in Turkey are elected by the municipal council. As a rule, there are municipalities in all province centers and district centers as well as towns (Turkish: belde) which are actually villages with a population in excess of 2000. However beginning by 1983, a new level of municipality is introduced in Turkish administrative system. In big cities Metropolitan municipalities (Turkish: Büyükşehir belediyesi) are established. (See Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey) In a Metropolitan municipality there may be several district municipalities (hence mayors).
+
+In Ukraine the title "Head of the city" (Misky holova, unofficially foreign adaptation Mer also is present) was introduced in 1999. Since then, the post is elected by all residents of the city. Before that date the post was elected by members of the city's council only and was known as Head of the city's council which ex oficio also serves as the head of the executive committee. For the cities that carry special status such as Kiev and Sevastopol, the Head of the city was a matter of long debate and the post is regulated by special laws.
+
+Since 2015 a post of Starosta ("Elder") is being implemented at lower level of administrative-territorial pyramid. Candidates to the post are also being elected by members of the territorial community (hromada). The post is historical and existed on the territory of Ukraine during times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
+
+The mayor is the municipal head of government, the maximum civil authority at the municipal level, in most United States municipalities (such as cities, townships, etc.). In the United States, there are several distinct types of mayors, depending on whether the system of local government is council-manager government or mayor-council government.
+
+Under the council-manager government system, the mayor is a first among equals on the city council, which acts as a legislative body while executive functions are performed by the appointed manager. The mayor may chair the city council, but lacks any special legislative powers. The mayor and city council serve part-time, with day-to-day administration in the hands of a professional city manager. The system is most common among medium-sized cities from around 25,000 to several hundred thousand, usually rural and suburban municipalities.
+
+Under the mayor-council system, the mayoralty and city council are separate offices. This system may be of two types, either a strong mayor system or a weak mayor system. Under the strong mayor system, the mayor acts as an elected executive with the city council exercising legislative powers. They may select a chief administrative officer to oversee the different departments. This is the system used in most of the United States' large cities, primarily because mayors serve full-time and have a wide range of services that they oversee. In a weak mayor or ceremonial mayor system, the mayor has appointing power for department heads but is subject to checks by the city council, sharing both executive and legislative duties with the council. This is common for smaller cities, especially in New England. Charlotte, North Carolina and Minneapolis, Minnesota are two notable large cities with a ceremonial mayor.
+
+Many American mayors are styled "His Honor" or "Her Honor" while in office.
+
+In several countries, where there is not local autonomy, mayors are often appointed by some branch of the national or regional government. In some cities, subdivisions such as boroughs may have their own mayors; this is the case, for example, with the arrondissements of Paris, Montreal, and Mexico City. In Belgium, the capital, Brussels, is administratively one of the federation's three regions, and is the only city subdivided, without the other regions' provincial level, into 19 rather small municipalities, which each have an elected—formally appointed—Burgomaster (i.e., Mayor, responsible to his / her elected council); while Antwerp, the other major metropolitan area, has one large city (where the boroughs, former municipalities merged into it, elect a lower level, albeit with very limited competence) and several smaller surrounding municipalities, each under a normal Burgomaster as in Brussels.
+
+In the People's Republic of China, the Mayor (市長) may be the administrative head of any municipality, provincial, prefecture-level, or county-level. The Mayor is usually the most recognized official in cities, although the position is the second-highest-ranking official in charge after the local Communist Party Secretary. In principle, the Mayor (who also serves as the Deputy Communist Party Secretary of the city) is responsible for managing the city administration while the Communist Party Secretary is responsible for general policy and managing the party bureaucracy, but in practice the roles blur, frequently causing conflict.
+
+Acting mayor is a temporary office created by the charter of some municipal governments.
+
+In many cities and towns, the charter or some similar fundamental document provides that in the event of the death, illness, resignation, or removal from office of the incumbent mayor, another official will lead the municipality for a temporary period, which, depending on the jurisdiction, may be for a stated period of days or months until a special election can be held, or until the original end of the term to which the vacating mayor was elected.
+
+Some cities may also provide for a deputy mayor to be temporarily designated as "acting mayor" in the event that the incumbent mayor is temporarily unavailable, such as for health reasons or out-of-town travel, but still continues to hold the position and is expected to return to the duties of the office. In this latter capacity, the acting mayor's role is to ensure that city government business can continue in the regular mayor's absence, and the acting mayor is not deemed to have actually held the office of mayor. In some jurisdictions, however, when a mayor resigns or dies in office, the mayor's successor is not considered to be an acting mayor but rather fully mayor in his or her own right.
+
+The position of acting mayor is usually of considerably more importance in a mayor-council form of municipal government, where the mayor performs functions of day-to-day leadership, than it is in a council-manager form of government, where the city manager provides day-to-day leadership and the position of mayor is either a largely or entirely ceremonial one.
+
+Concepts:
+
+Local government:

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+Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (French: [buʁɡɔɲ fʁɑ̃ʃ kɔ̃te] (listen); lit. 'Burgundy-Free County'), sometimes abbreviated BFC, is a region in the east of France created by the territorial reform of French Regions in 2014, from a merger of Burgundy and Franche-Comté. The new region came into existence on 1 January 2016, after the regional elections of December 2015, electing 100 members to the regional council of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.[1]
+
+The region covers an area of 47,784 km2 (18,450 sq mi); it had a population of 2,820,940 in 2015.[2]
+
+The text of the territorial reform law gives interim names for most of the merged regions, combining the names of their constituent regions separated by hyphens. Permanent names would be proposed by the new regional councils and confirmed by the Conseil d'État by 1 October 2016.[3] Hence the interim name of the new administrative region is composed of the names of former administrative regions of Burgundy (Bourgogne) and Franche-Comté. The region chose to retain its interim name as its permanent name, a decision made official by the Conseil d'État on 28 September 2016.[4]
+
+The merger represents a historic reunification of the Duchy of Burgundy (Duché de Bourgogne) and the Free County of Burgundy (Franche Comté de Bourgogne) that were created by the partition of the kingdom of Burgundy in the 843 Treaty of Verdun.
+
+The territory that is now Burgundy and Franche-Comté was already united under the Kingdom of Burgundy (from the 5th to the 8th century). It was divided into two parts: the Duchy of Burgundy (now Burgundy) of France, and the County of Burgundy (now Franche-Comté) of the Holy Roman Empire. The County was reintegrated as a free province within the Kingdom of France in the 17th century, separately from the Duchy which remained a vassal province of the Kingdom of France. These two former provinces were abolished during the French Revolution.
+
+The Kingdom of Burgundy during the 5th century.
+
+Duchy and County of Burgundy during the 15th century.
+
+Most of the area making up the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté used to belong to the former provinces of Burgundy and Franche-Comté, but it also includes a significant part of the former provinces of Nivernais (now Nièvre), Champagne (now the northern part of Yonne), Orléanais (now the southwestern part of Yonne), the Territoire de Belfort (the region of Alsace that remained French territory after 1871), and a small portion of Île-de-France (now the northwestern part of Yonne).
+
+From 1941 to 1944 the regional prefecture of Vichy reunited Burgundy and Franche-Comté, as did the igamie [fr] of Dijon from 1948 to 1964. During the formation of the regions of France, Burgundy and Franche-Comté once again became two separate regions, first as public establishments in 1972, then as territorial collectivities in 1982.
+
+On 14 April 2014, François Patriat and Marie-Guite Dufay (the presidents of Burgundy and Franche-Comté, respectively) announced in a press conference the desire for the reunification of the two regions, further to the declarations of Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who proposed a simplification of the administrative divisions of France.
+
+On 2 June 2014 a map presented by President François Hollande showed the two regions as one. These two regions were the only ones to have voluntarily discussed a merger, and their alliance was the only one not needing revision by the National Assembly or the Senate.
+
+Acte III de la décentralisation officially adopted the merger of the two regions on 17 December 2014. It became effective on 1 January 2016.
+
+The region borders Grand Est to the north, Île-de-France to the northwest, Centre-Val de Loire to the west, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes to the south and Switzerland (the cantons of Vaud, Neuchâtel and Jura) to the east.
+
+The distances from Besançon, the capital of the region, to other cities are:[5]
+
+Bourgogne-Franche-Comté comprises eight departments: Côte-d'Or, Doubs, Jura, Nièvre, Haute-Saône, Saône-et-Loire, Yonne, Territoire de Belfort.
+
+The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the region was 75.6 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 3.2% of French economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 24,200 euros or 80% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 96% of the EU average.[6]
+
+The old city of Besançon in the oxbow of the Doubs river.
+
+Verrerie Street, Dijon.
+
+Departmental Council building, Belfort.
+
+The Palais ducal, Nevers.
+
+The Yonne river at Auxerre.
+
+*Merger of the regions - France 3

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+A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (clay, glass, plastic, aluminium etc.) in various shapes and sizes  to store and transport liquids (water, milk, beer, wine, ink, cooking oil, medicine, soft drinks, shampoo, and chemicals, etc.) and whose mouth at the bottling line can be sealed with an internal stopper, an external bottle cap, a closure, or a conductive "inner seal" using induction sealing.[1]
+Some of the earliest bottle appeared in China, Phoenicia, Crete, and Rome.
+
+First attested in 14th century. From the English word bottle derives from an Old French word boteille, from vulgar Latin butticula, from late Latin buttis ("cask"), a latinisation of the Greek βοῦττις (bouttis) ("vessel").[2][3]
+
+The glass bottle represented an important development in the history of wine, because, when combined with a high-quality stopper such as a cork, it allowed long-term aging of wine. Glass has all the qualities required for long-term storage. It eventually gave rise to "château bottling", the practice where an estate's wine is put in a bottle at the source, rather than by a merchant. Prior to this, wine used to be sold by the barrel (and before that, the amphora) and put into bottles only at the merchant's shop, if at all. This left large and often abused opportunities for fraud and adulteration, as consumers had to trust the merchant as to the contents. It is thought that most wine consumed outside of wine-producing regions had been tampered with in some way. Also, not all merchants were careful to avoid oxidation or contamination while bottling, leading to large bottle variation. Particularly in the case of port, certain conscientious merchants' bottling of old ports fetch higher prices even today. To avoid these problems, most fine wine is bottled at the place of production (including all port, since 1974).
+
+There are many sizes and shapes of bottles used for wine. Some of the known shapes:
+
+In 1872, British soft drink makers Hiram Codd of Camberwell, London, designed and patented a bottle designed specifically for carbonated drinks. The Codd-neck bottle was designed and manufactured to enclose a marble and a rubber washer/gasket in the neck. The bottles were filled upside down, and pressure of the gas in the bottle forced the marble against the washer, sealing in the carbonation. The bottle was pinched into a special shape, as can be seen in the photo to the left, to provide a chamber into which the marble was pushed to open the bottle. This prevented the marble from blocking the neck as the drink was poured.
+
+Soon after its introduction, the bottle became extremely popular with the soft drink and brewing industries, mainly in Europe, Asia and Australasia, though some alcohol drinkers disdained the use of the bottle. One etymology of the term codswallop originates from beer sold in Codd bottles, though this is generally dismissed as a folk etymology.[4]
+
+The bottles were regularly produced for many decades, but gradually declined in usage. Since children smashed the bottles to retrieve the marbles, they are relatively scarce and have become collector items; particularly in the UK. A cobalt-coloured Codd bottle today fetches hundreds of British pounds at auction. The Codd-neck design is still used for the Japanese soft drink Ramune and in the Indian drink called Banta.[5]
+
+The plastic is strain oriented in the stretch blow molding manufacturing process. Plastic bottles are typically used to store liquids such as water, soft drinks, motor oil, cooking oil, medicine, shampoo, milk, and ink. The size ranges from very small sample bottles to very large carboys. The main advantage that plastic bottles have over glass is their superior resistance to breakage, in both production and transportation, as well as their low cost of production; however, their contribution towards plastic pollution is considerable.
+
+An aluminium bottle is a bottle made of aluminium (or aluminum, in American English). In some countries, it is also referred to as a "bottlecan". It is a bottle made entirely of aluminium that holds beer, soft drinks, wine, and other liquids.
+
+A hot water bottle is a bottle filled with hot water used to provide warmth. It can be made from various materials, most commonly rubber, but has historically been made from harder materials such as metal, glass, earthenware, or wood.
+
+A PET bottle
+
+Stone ware jar for carrying water
+
+A bioplastic shampoo bottle made of PLA-blend bio-flex
+
+A contemporary metal bottle (Sigg)
+
+Chinese ding-ware porcelain bottle (far left) with iron-tinted pigment under a transparent colorless glaze, 11th century, Song Dynasty
+
+Normflasche bottle
+
+Reusable glass milk bottles
+
+Pontiled soda or beer "blobtop" bottle, circa 1855
+
+Bocksbeutel bottle
+
+Metal Water Bottles.
+
+Two bottles for Maas wine, called "thieves", 18th century, at the Gourmet Museum and Library, Hermalle-sous-Huy, Belgium
+
+A bottle wall of an earthship bathroom
+
+Bottle, 18th–19th-century Iran, Brooklyn Museum.
+
+1940s Chianti fiasco
+
+Aluminium spray bottle
+
+Empty beer bottles of different colors
+
+Two modern hot water bottles shown with their stoppers
+
+Plastic bottle of milk. One US gallon
+
+Bottles are often recycled according to the SPI recycling code for the material.

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+
+
+Coordinates: 27°25′01″N 90°26′06″E / 27.417°N 90.435°E / 27.417; 90.435
+
+Bhutan (/buːˈtɑːn/ (listen); Dzongkha: འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, romanized: Druk Yul, [ʈuk̚˩.yː˩]), officially known as the Kingdom of Bhutan (Dzongkha: འབྲུག་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་, romanized: Druk Gyal Khap),[11] is a landlocked country in South Asia. Located in the Eastern Himalayas, it is bordered by Tibet in the north, the Chumbi Valley of Tibet and the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal in the west, and the Indian states of Assam, West Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh in the south and east. Bhutan is geopolitically in South Asia and is the region's second-least-populous nation after the Maldives. Thimphu is its capital and the largest city, while Phuntsholing is its financial center.
+
+Bhutan's independence has endured for centuries. It has never been colonized in its history. Situated on the ancient Silk Road between Tibet, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, the Bhutanese state developed a distinct national identity based on Buddhism. Headed by a spiritual leader known as the Zhabdrung Rinpoche, the territory comprised many fiefdoms and was governed as a Buddhist theocracy. Following a civil war in the 19th century, the House of Wangchuck reunited the country and established relations with the British Empire. After the end of the British Raj, Bhutan fostered a strategic partnership with India during the rise of Chinese communism; it has a disputed border with China. In the early 1990s, the government deported much of the country's Nepali-speaking Lhotsampa minority, sparking a refugee crisis in nearby Jhapa, Nepal. In 2008, Bhutan transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy and held the first election to the National Assembly of Bhutan. The National Assembly is part of the bicameral parliament of the Bhutanese democracy.[12]
+
+The country's landscape ranges from lush subtropical plains in the south to the sub-alpine Himalayan mountains in the north, where there are peaks higher than 7,000 metres (23,000 ft). Gangkhar Puensum is Bhutan's highest peak and may also be the highest unclimbed mountain in the world.[13] The wildlife of Bhutan is notable for its diversity.
+
+In South Asia, Bhutan ranks first in economic freedom, ease of doing business and peace and is the least corrupt country in the region as of 2016[update]. It continues to be a least developed country, but expects to graduate from this status by 2023. Hydroelectricity accounts for most of its exports.[14] The government is a parliamentary democracy; the head of state is the King of Bhutan, known as the "Dragon King." Bhutan maintains diplomatic relations with 52 countries and the European Union, but does not have formal ties with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. It is a member of the United Nations, SAARC, BIMSTEC and the Non-Aligned Movement. The Royal Bhutan Army maintains a close relationship with the Indian Armed Forces and Bangladesh Armed Forces.
+
+Bhutan is also notable for pioneering the concept of Gross National Happiness.[15]
+
+The precise etymology of "Bhutan" is unknown, although it is likely to derive from the Tibetan endonym "Böd" for Tibet. Traditionally, it is taken to be a transcription of the Sanskrit Bhoṭa-anta "end of Tibet", a reference to Bhutan's position as the southern extremity of the Tibetan plateau and culture.[16][17][18]
+
+Since the 17th century Bhutan's official name has been Druk yul (country of the Drukpa Lineage, the Dragon People, or the Land of the Thunder Dragon, a reference to the country's dominant Buddhist sect); "Bhutan" appears only in English-language official correspondence.[18]
+
+Names similar to Bhutan—including Bohtan, Buhtan, Bottanthis, Bottan and Bottanter—began to appear in Europe around the 1580s. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier's 1676 Six Voyages is the first to record the name Boutan. But these names seem to have referred not to modern Bhutan but to the Kingdom of Tibet. The modern distinction between the two did not begin until well into the Scottish explorer George Bogle's 1774 expedition. Realizing the differences between the two regions, cultures and states, his final report to the East India Company formally proposed calling the Druk Desi's kingdom "Boutan" and the Panchen Lama's "Tibet". The EIC's surveyor general James Rennell first anglicized the French name as Bootan and then popularized the distinction between it and greater Tibet.[19]
+
+Locally, Bhutan has been known by many names. One of the earliest Western records of Bhutan, the 1627 Relação of the Portuguese Jesuits Estêvão Cacella and João Cabral, records its name variously as Cambirasi (among the Koch Biharis[20]), Potente, and Mon (an endonym for southern Tibet).[19] The first time a separate Kingdom of Bhutan appeared on a western map, it did so under its local name "Broukpa".[19] Others include Lho Mon ("Dark Southland"), Lho Tsendenjong ("Southland of the Cypress"), Lhomen Khazhi ("Southland of the Four Approaches") and Lho Menjong ("Southland of the Herbs").[21][22]
+
+Stone tools, weapons, elephants, and remnants of large stone structures provide evidence that Bhutan was inhabited as early as 2000 BC, although there are no existing records from that time. Historians have theorized that the state of Lhomon (literally, "southern darkness"), or Monyul ("Dark Land", a reference to the Monpa, the aboriginal peoples of Bhutan) may have existed between 500 BC and AD 600. The names Lhomon Tsendenjong (Sandalwood Country), and Lhomon Khashi, or Southern Mon (country of four approaches), have been found in ancient Bhutanese and Tibetan chronicles.[23][24]
+
+Buddhism was first introduced to Bhutan in the 7th century AD. Tibetan king Songtsän Gampo[25] (reigned 627–649), a convert to Buddhism, who actually had extended the Tibetan Empire into Sikkim and Bhutan,[26] ordered the construction of two Buddhist temples, at Bumthang in central Bhutan and at Kyichu (near Paro) in the Paro Valley.[27] Buddhism was propagated in earnest[25] in 746[28] under King Sindhu Rāja (also Künjom;[29] Sendha Gyab; Chakhar Gyalpo), an exiled Indian king who had established a government in Bumthang at Chakhar Gutho Palace.[30]:35[31]:13
+
+Much of early Bhutanese history is unclear because most of the records were destroyed when fire ravaged the ancient capital, Punakha, in 1827. By the 10th century, Bhutan's political development was heavily influenced by its religious history. Various subsects of Buddhism emerged that were patronized by the various Mongol warlords.
+
+Bhutan may have been influenced by the Yuan dynasty with which it shares various cultural and religious similarities.
+
+After the decline of the Yuan dynasty in the 14th century, these subsects vied with each other for supremacy in the political and religious landscape, eventually leading to the ascendancy of the Drukpa Lineage by the 16th century.[27][32]
+
+Until the early 17th century, Bhutan existed as a patchwork of minor warring fiefdoms, when the area was unified by the Tibetan lama and military leader Ngawang Namgyal, who had fled religious persecution in Tibet. To defend the country against intermittent Tibetan forays, Namgyal built a network of impregnable dzongs or fortresses, and promulgated the Tsa Yig, a code of law that helped to bring local lords under centralized control. Many such dzong still exist and are active centers of religion and district administration. Portuguese Jesuits Estêvão Cacella and João Cabral were the first recorded Europeans to visit Bhutan in 1627,[33] on their way to Tibet. They met Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, presented him with firearms, gunpowder and a telescope, and offered him their services in the war against Tibet, but the Zhabdrung declined the offer. After a stay of nearly eight months Cacella wrote a long letter from the Chagri Monastery reporting on his travels. This is a rare extant report of the Zhabdrung.[34][35]
+
+When Ngawang Namgyal died in 1651, his passing was kept secret for 54 years. After a period of consolidation, Bhutan lapsed into internal conflict. In 1711 Bhutan went to war against the Raja of the kingdom of Koch Bihar in the south. During the chaos that followed, the Tibetans unsuccessfully attacked Bhutan in 1714.[36]
+
+In the 18th century, the Bhutanese invaded and occupied the kingdom of Koch Bihar. In 1772, the Maharaja of Koch Bihar appealed to the British East India Company which assisted by ousting the Bhutanese and later in attacking Bhutan itself in 1774. A peace treaty was signed in which Bhutan agreed to retreat to its pre-1730 borders. However, the peace was tenuous, and border skirmishes with the British were to continue for the next hundred years. The skirmishes eventually led to the Duar War (1864–65), a confrontation for control of the Bengal Duars. After Bhutan lost the war, the Treaty of Sinchula was signed between British India and Bhutan. As part of the war reparations, the Duars were ceded to the United Kingdom in exchange for a rent of Rs. 50,000. The treaty ended all hostilities between British India and Bhutan.
+
+During the 1870s, power struggles between the rival valleys of Paro and Tongsa led to civil war in Bhutan, eventually leading to the ascendancy of Ugyen Wangchuck, the penlop (governor) of Trongsa. From his power base in central Bhutan, Ugyen Wangchuck defeated his political enemies and united the country following several civil wars and rebellions during 1882–85.[37]
+
+In 1907, an epochal year for the country, Ugyen Wangchuck was unanimously chosen as the hereditary king of the country by the Lhengye Tshog of leading Buddhist monks, government officials, and heads of important families, with the firm petition made by Gongzim Ugyen Dorji. John Claude White, British Political Agent in Bhutan, took photographs of the ceremony.[38] The British government promptly recognized the new monarchy, and in 1910 Bhutan signed the Treaty of Punakha, a subsidiary alliance which gave the British control of Bhutan's foreign affairs and meant that Bhutan was treated as an Indian princely state. This had little real effect, given Bhutan's historical reticence, and also did not appear to affect Bhutan's traditional relations with Tibet. After the new Union of India gained independence from the United Kingdom on 15 August 1947, Bhutan became one of the first countries to recognize India's independence. On 8 August 1949, a treaty similar to that of 1910, in which Britain had gained power over Bhutan's foreign relations, was signed with the newly independent India.[23]
+
+In 1953, King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck established the country's legislature – a 130-member National Assembly – to promote a more democratic form of governance. In 1965, he set up a Royal Advisory Council, and in 1968 he formed a Cabinet. In 1971, Bhutan was admitted to the United Nations, having held observer status for three years. In July 1972, Jigme Singye Wangchuck ascended to the throne at the age of sixteen after the death of his father, Dorji Wangchuck.
+
+In the 1990s, Bhutan expelled most of its ethnic Lhotshampa population, one-fifth of the country's population, demanding conformity in religion, dress, and language.[39][40][41] Most of the Bhutanese refugees emigrated to eastern Nepal, where they lived in refugee camps for over a decade.[41] Since 2008, many Western countries, such as Canada, Norway, the UK, Australia, and the US, have begun accepting the refugees.[42]
+
+Bhutan's political system has recently changed from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. King Jigme Singye Wangchuck  transferred most of his administrative powers to the Council of Cabinet Ministers and allowed for impeachment of the King by a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly.[43]
+
+In 1999, the government lifted a ban on television and the Internet, making Bhutan one of the last countries to introduce television. In his speech, the King said that television was a critical step to the modernization of Bhutan as well as a major contributor to the country's gross national happiness,[44] but warned that the "misuse" of this new technology could erode traditional Bhutanese values.[45]
+
+A new constitution was presented in early 2005. In December 2005, Wangchuck announced that he would abdicate the throne in his son's favour in 2008. On 14 December 2006, he announced that he would be abdicating immediately. This was followed by the first national parliamentary elections in December 2007 and March 2008.
+
+On 6 November 2008, 28-year-old Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck was crowned king.[46]
+
+Bhutan is on the southern slopes of the eastern Himalayas, landlocked between the Tibet Autonomous Region of China to the north and the Indian states of Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam to west and south and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh to the east. It lies between latitudes 26°N and 29°N, and longitudes 88°E and 93°E. The land consists mostly of steep and high mountains crisscrossed by a network of swift rivers that form deep valleys before draining into the Indian plains. Elevation rises from 200 m (660 ft) in the southern foothills to more than 7,000 m (23,000 ft). This great geographical diversity combined with equally diverse climate conditions contributes to Bhutan's outstanding range of biodiversity and ecosystems.[2]
+
+Bhutan's northern region consists of an arc of Eastern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows reaching up to glaciated mountain peaks with an extremely cold climate at the highest elevations. Most peaks in the north are over 7,000 m (23,000 ft) above sea level; the highest point is Gangkhar Puensum, at 7,570 metres (24,840 ft), which has the distinction of being the highest unclimbed mountain in the world.[47] The lowest point, at 98 m (322 ft), is in the valley of Drangme Chhu, where the river crosses the border with India.[47] Watered by snow-fed rivers, alpine valleys in this region provide pasture for livestock, tended by a sparse population of migratory shepherds.
+
+The Black Mountains in Bhutan's central region form a watershed between two major river systems: the Mo Chhu and the Drangme Chhu. Peaks in the Black Mountains range between 1,500 and 4,925 m (4,921 and 16,158 ft) above sea level, and fast-flowing rivers have carved out deep gorges in the lower mountain areas. The forests of the central Bhutan mountains consist of Eastern Himalayan subalpine conifer forests in higher elevations and Eastern Himalayan broadleaf forests in lower elevations. Woodlands of the central region provide most of Bhutan's forest production. The Torsa, Raidak, Sankosh, and Manas are Bhutan's main rivers, flowing through this region. Most of the population lives in the central highlands.
+
+In the south, the Shiwalik Hills are covered with dense Himalayan subtropical broadleaf forests, alluvial lowland river valleys, and mountains up to around 1,500 m (4,900 ft) above sea level. The foothills descend into the subtropical Duars Plain. Most of the Duars is in India, but a 10 to 15 km (6.2 to 9.3 mi)-wide strip extends into Bhutan. The Bhutan Duars is divided into two parts, the northern and southern Duars.
+
+The northern Duars, which abut the Himalayan foothills, have rugged, sloping terrain and dry, porous soil with dense vegetation and abundant wildlife. The southern Duars has moderately fertile soil, heavy savanna grass, dense, mixed jungle, and freshwater springs. Mountain rivers, fed by melting snow or monsoon rains, empty into the Brahmaputra River in India. Data released by the Ministry of Agriculture showed that the country had a forest cover of 64% as of October 2005.
+
+Gangkar Puensum, the highest mountain in Bhutan
+
+Sub-alpine Himalayan landscape
+
+A Himalayan peak from Bumthang
+
+Jigme Dorji National Park
+
+The Haa Valley in Western Bhutan
+
+Bhutan's climate varies with elevation, from subtropical in the south to temperate in the highlands and polar-type climate with year-round snow in the north. Bhutan experiences five distinct seasons: summer, monsoon, autumn, winter and spring. Western Bhutan has the heavier monsoon rains; southern Bhutan has hot humid summers and cool winters; central and eastern Bhutan are temperate and drier than the west with warm summers and cool winters.
+
+Bhutan signed the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity on 11 June 1992, and became a party to the convention on 25 August 1995.[48] It has subsequently produced a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, with two revisions, the most recent of which was received by the convention on 4 February 2010.[49]
+
+Bhutan has a rich primate life, with rare species such as the golden langur.[50][51] A variant Assamese macaque has also been recorded, which is regarded by some authorities as a new species, Macaca munzala.[52]
+
+The Bengal tiger, clouded leopard, hispid hare and the sloth bear live in the tropical lowland and hardwood forests in the south. In the temperate zone, grey langur, tiger, goral and serow are found in mixed conifer, broadleaf and pine forests. Fruit-bearing trees and bamboo provide habitat for the Himalayan black bear, red panda, squirrel, sambar, wild pig and barking deer. The alpine habitats of the great Himalayan range in the north are home to the snow leopard, blue sheep, marmot, Tibetan wolf, antelope, Himalayan musk deer and the takin, Bhutan's national animal. The endangered wild water buffalo occurs in southern Bhutan, although in small numbers.[53]
+
+More than 770 species of bird have been recorded in Bhutan. The globally endangered white-winged duck has been added recently[when?] to Bhutan's bird list.[54]
+
+More than 5,400 species of plants are found in Bhutan,[55] including Pedicularis cacuminidenta. Fungi form a key part of Bhutanese ecosystems, with mycorrhizal species providing forest trees with mineral nutrients necessary for growth, and with wood decay and litter decomposing species playing an important role in natural recycling.
+
+The Eastern Himalayas have been identified as a global biodiversity hotspot and counted among the 234 globally outstanding ecoregions of the world in a comprehensive analysis of global biodiversity undertaken by WWF between 1995 and 1997.
+
+According to the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature, Bhutan is viewed as a model for proactive conservation initiatives. The Kingdom has received international acclaim for its commitment to the maintenance of its biodiversity.[56] This is reflected in the decision to maintain at least sixty percent of the land area under forest cover, to designate more than 40%[57][58] of its territory as national parks, reserves and other protected areas, and most recently to identify a further nine percent of land area as biodiversity corridors linking the protected areas. All of Bhutan's protected land is connected to one another through a vast network of biological corridors, allowing animals to migrate freely throughout the country.[59] Environmental conservation has been placed at the core of the nation's development strategy, the middle path. It is not treated as a sector but rather as a set of concerns that must be mainstreamed in Bhutan's overall approach to development planning and to be buttressed by the force of law. The country's constitution mentions environment standards in multiple sections.[60]
+
+Although Bhutan's natural heritage is still largely intact, the government has said that it cannot be taken for granted and that conservation of the natural environment must be considered one of the challenges that will need to be addressed in the years ahead.[61]  Nearly 56.3% of all Bhutanese are involved with agriculture, forestry or conservation.[60] The government aims to promote conservation as part of its plan to target Gross National Happiness. It currently has net zero greenhouse gas emissions because the small amount of pollution it creates is absorbed by the forests that cover most of the country.[62] While the entire country collectively produces 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, the immense forest covering 72% of the country acts as a carbon sink, absorbing more than four million tons of carbon dioxide every year.[59]
+
+Bhutan has a number of progressive environmental policies that have caused the head of the UNFCCC to call it an "inspiration and role model for the world on how economies and different countries can address climate change while at the same time improving the life of the citizen."[63] For example, electric cars have been pushed in the country and as of 2014[update] make up a tenth of all cars. Because the country gets most of its energy from hydroelectric power, it does not emit significant greenhouse gases for energy production.[62]
+
+Pressures on the natural environment are already evident and will be fuelled by a complex array of forces. They include population pressures, agricultural modernization, poaching, hydro-power development, mineral extraction, industrialization, urbanization, sewage and waste disposal, tourism, competition for available land, road construction and the provision of other physical infrastructure associated with social and economic development.[64]
+
+In practice, the overlap of these extensive protected lands with populated areas has led to mutual habitat encroachment. Protected wildlife has entered agricultural areas, trampling crops and killing livestock. In response, Bhutan has implemented an insurance scheme, begun constructing solar powered alarm fences, watch towers, and search lights, and has provided fodder and salt licks outside human settlement areas to encourage animals to stay away.[65]
+
+The huge market value of the Ophiocordyceps sinensis fungus crop collected from the wild has also resulted in unsustainable exploitation which is proving very difficult to regulate.[66]
+
+Bhutan is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary form of government, although scholar Dhurba Rizal has categorized it as a semi-democracy with only cosmetic or minor changes to the political structure prior to the absolute monarchy being abolished in the 2000s.[67] The reigning monarch is Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. The current Prime Minister of Bhutan is Lotay Tshering, leader of the Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa Party.
+
+The Druk Gyalpo (Dragon King) is the head of state.[68] The political system grants universal suffrage. It consists of the National Council, an upper house with 25 elected members; and the National Assembly with 47 elected lawmakers from political parties.
+
+Executive power is exercised by the Council of Ministers led by the prime minister. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. Judicial power is vested in the courts. The legal system originates from the semi-theocratic Tsa Yig code and was influenced by English common law during the 20th century. The chief justice is the administrative head of the judiciary.
+
+The first general elections for the National Assembly were held on 24 March 2008. The chief contestants were the Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party (DPT) led by Jigme Thinley and the People's Democratic Party (PDP) led by Sangay Ngedup. The DPT won the elections, taking 45 out of 47 seats.[69] Jigme Thinley served as Prime Minister from 2008 to 2013.
+
+The People's Democratic Party came to power in the 2013 elections. It won 32 seats and 54.88% of the vote. PDP leader Tshering Tobgay served as Prime Minister from 2013 to 2018.
+
+Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa won the largest number of seats in the 2018 National Assembly Election, bringing Lotay Tshering to premiership and Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa into the government for the first time.[70]
+
+Women in Bhutan tend to be less active in politics than men due to customs and aspects of Bhutan's culture that dictate a woman's role in the household.[71] This leads to a limitation of their voices in government. Bhutan has made steps toward gender equality by enrolling more girls in school as well as creating the National Commission for Women and Children (NCWC) in 2004.[72] This program was created to promote and protect women's and children's rights. Bhutan also elected its first female Dzongda, equivalent to a District Attorney, in 2012, and its first female minister in 2013.[72] Minister Dorji Choden is the chair for the National Bhutan Commission for Women and children and believes that this programme can be used to “promote women into more leadership roles” which can then lead women to take on more active roles in their society.[71] Overall there has also been a gradual increase in women in power with a 68% increase in women representation from 2011 to 2016.[72]
+
+In the early 20th century, Bhutan's principal foreign relations were with British India and Tibet. The government of British India managed relations with the kingdom from the Bhutan House in Kalimpong. Fearful of Chinese communist expansion, Bhutan signed a friendship treaty with the newly independent Republic of India in 1949. Its concerns were exacerbated after the Chinese incorporation of Tibet.[74] Relations with Nepal remained strained due to Bhutanese refugees. Bhutan joined the United Nations in 1971. It was the first country to recognize Bangladesh's independence in 1971. It became a founding member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in 1985. The country is a member of 150 international organizations,[74] including the Bay of Bengal Initiative, BBIN, World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Group of 77.
+
+Bhutan maintains strong economic, strategic, and military relations with India.[75][76] In 2007 Bhutan and India revised their friendship treaty, which clarified Bhutan's full control of its foreign relations, including its border with China. Bhutan has very warm relations with Japan, which provides significant development assistance. The Bhutanese royals were hosted by the Japanese imperial family during a state visit in 2011. Japan is also helping Bhutan cope with glacial floods through developing an early warning system.
+
+Bhutan enjoys strong political and diplomatic relations with Bangladesh. The Bhutanese king was the guest of honour during celebrations of the 40th anniversary of Bangladesh's independence.[77] A 2014 joint statement by the prime ministers of both countries announced cooperation in areas of hydropower, river management and climate change mitigation.[78]
+
+Bhutan has diplomatic relations with 52 countries and the European Union and has missions in India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Kuwait and Belgium. It has two UN missions, one in New York and one in Geneva. Only India, Bangladesh and Kuwait have residential embassies in Bhutan. Other countries maintain informal diplomatic contact via their embassies in New Delhi and Dhaka. Bhutan maintains formal diplomatic relations with several Asian and European nations, Canada, and Brazil. Other countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, have no formal diplomatic relations with Bhutan but maintain informal contact through their respective embassies in New Delhi and the Bhutanese honorary consulate in Washington, DC. The United Kingdom has an honorary consul resident in Thimphu.[79][80][81]
+
+By a long-standing agreement, Indian and Bhutanese citizens may travel to each other's countries without a passport or visa, but must still have their national identity cards. Bhutanese citizens may also work in India without legal restriction. Bhutan does not have formal diplomatic ties with China, but exchanges of visits at various levels between them have significantly increased in recent times. The first bilateral agreement between China and Bhutan was signed in 1998 and Bhutan has also set up honorary consulates in the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau.[82] Bhutan's border with China is largely not demarcated and thus disputed in some places. Approximately 269 square kilometres remain under discussion between China and Bhutan.[83]
+
+On 13 November 2005, Chinese soldiers crossed into the disputed territories between China and Bhutan and began building roads and bridges.[84] Bhutanese Foreign Minister Khandu Wangchuk took up the matter with Chinese authorities after the issue was raised in the Bhutanese parliament. In response, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang of the People's Republic of China said that the border remains in dispute and that the two sides are continuing to work for a peaceful and cordial resolution of the dispute, denying that the presence of soldiers in the area was an attempt to forcibly occupy it.[85] An Indian intelligence officer said that a Chinese delegation in Bhutan told the Bhutanese they were "overreacting". The Bhutanese newspaper Kuensel said that China might use the roads to further Chinese claims along the border.[84]
+
+In February 2007 the Indo-Bhutan Friendship Treaty was substantially revised. Whereas the Treaty of 1949, Article 2 stated: "The Government of India undertakes to exercise no interference in the internal administration of Bhutan. On its part the Government of Bhutan agrees to be guided by the advice of the Government of India in regard to its external relations," the revised treaty now states "In keeping with the abiding ties of close friendship and cooperation between Bhutan and India, the Government of the Kingdom of Bhutan and the Government of the Republic of India shall cooperate closely with each other on issues relating to their national interests. Neither government shall allow the use of its territory for activities harmful to the national security and interest of the other." The revised treaty also includes this preamble: "Reaffirming their respect for each other's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity", an element absent in the earlier version. The Indo-Bhutan Friendship Treaty of 2007 clarifies Bhutan's status as an independent and sovereign nation.
+
+The Royal Bhutan Army is Bhutan's military service. It includes the royal bodyguard and the Royal Bhutan Police. Membership is voluntary and the minimum age for recruitment is 18. The standing army numbers about 16,000 and is trained by the Indian Army.[86] It has an annual budget of about US$13.7 million (1.8 percent of GDP). As a landlocked country, Bhutan has no navy. It also has no air force or army aviation corps. The Army relies on the Eastern Air Command of the Indian Air Force for air assistance.
+
+Homosexual acts are illegal in Bhutan.[87] The Penal Code (Articles 213 & 214) states that same-sex sexual acts (regardless of whether they were consensual or private) are punishable by a prison sentence of between one month to less than one year.[88] Some members of the Parliament of Bhutan have publicly called for the anti-gay laws to be repealed, as a majority of Bhutanese oppose them.[89]
+
+In the 1990s, Bhutan expelled or forced to leave most of its ethnic Lhotshampa population, one-fifth of the country's population, demanding conformity in religion, dress, and language.[39][40][41] Lhotshampas were arrested and expelled from the country and their property was expropriated.[90]
+
+A harassment campaign escalating in the early 1990s ensued, and afterwards Bhutanese security forces began expelling people. According to the UNHCR, more than 107,000 Bhutanese refugees living in seven camps in eastern Nepal have been documented as of 2008[update].[41]  After many years in refugee camps, many inhabitants are now moving to other host nations such as Canada, Norway, the UK, Australia, and the US as refugees. The US admitted 60,773 refugees from fiscal years 2008 to 2012.[42]
+
+The Nepalese government does not permit citizenship for Bhutanese refugees, so most of them have become stateless.[91] Careful scrutiny has been used to prevent their relatives from getting ID cards and voting rights.[91] Bhutan considers political parties associated with these refugees to be illegal and terrorist.[91] Human rights groups initially claimed the government interfered with individual rights by requiring all citizens, including ethnic minority members, to wear the traditional dress of the ethnic majority in public places. The government strictly enforced this law in Buddhist religious buildings, government offices, schools, official functions, and public ceremonies.[91]
+
+Bhutan is divided into twenty Dzongkhag (districts), administered by a body called the Dzongkhag Tshogdu. In certain thromdes (urban municipalities), a further municipal administration is directly subordinate to the Dzongkhag administration. In the vast majority of constituencies, rural geog (village blocks) are administered by bodies called the Geog Tshogde.[92]
+
+Thromdes (municipalities) elect Thrompons to lead administration, who in turn represent the Thromde in the Dzongkhag Tshogdu. Likewise, geog elect headmen called gups, vice-headmen called mangmis, who also sit on the Dzongkhag Tshogdu, as well as other members of the Geog Tshogde. The basis of electoral constituencies in Bhutan is the chiwog, a subdivision of gewogs delineated by the Election Commission.[92]
+
+Bhutan's currency is the ngultrum, whose value is fixed to the Indian rupee. The rupee is also accepted as legal tender in the country.
+Though Bhutan's economy is one of the world's smallest,[94] it has grown rapidly in recent years, by eight percent in 2005 and 14 percent in 2006. In 2007, Bhutan had the second-fastest-growing economy in the world, with an annual economic growth rate of 22.4 percent. This was mainly due to the commissioning of the gigantic Tala Hydroelectric Power Station. As of 2012[update], Bhutan's per capita income was US$2,420.[95]
+
+Bhutan's economy is based on agriculture, forestry, tourism and the sale of hydroelectric power to India. Agriculture provides the main livelihood for 55.4 percent of the population.[96] Agrarian practices consist largely of subsistence farming and animal husbandry. Handicrafts, particularly weaving and the manufacture of religious art for home altars, are a small cottage industry. A landscape that varies from hilly to ruggedly mountainous has made the building of roads and other infrastructure difficult and expensive.
+
+This, and a lack of access to the sea, has meant that Bhutan has not been able to benefit from significant trading of its produce. Bhutan has no railways, though Indian Railways plans to link southern Bhutan to its vast network under an agreement signed in January 2005.[97] Bhutan and India signed a 'free trade' accord in 2008, which additionally allowed Bhutanese imports and exports from third markets to transit India without tariffs.[98] Bhutan had trade relations with the Tibet Autonomous Region of China until 1960, when it closed its border with China after an influx of refugees.[99]
+
+Access to biocapacity in Bhutan is much higher than world average. In 2016, Bhutan had 5.0 global hectares [100] of biocapacity per person within its territory, much more than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person.[101] In 2016 Bhutan used 4.5 global hectares of biocapacity per person - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use less biocapacity than Bhutan contains. As a result, Bhutan is running a biocapacity reserve.[100]
+
+The industrial sector is in a nascent stage, and though most production comes from cottage industry, larger industries are being encouraged and some industries such as cement, steel, and ferroalloy have been set up. Most development projects, such as road construction, rely on Indian contract labour. Agricultural produce includes rice, chilies, dairy (some yak, mostly cow) products, buckwheat, barley, root crops, apples, and citrus and maize at lower elevations. Industries include cement, wood products, processed fruits, alcoholic beverages and calcium carbide.
+
+Bhutan has seen recent growth in the technology sector, in areas such as green tech and consumer Internet/e-commerce.[102] In May 2012, Thimphu TechPark launched in the capital and incubates start-ups via the Bhutan Innovation and Technology Centre (BITC).[103]
+
+Incomes of over Nu 100,000 per annum are taxed, but very few wage and salary earners qualify. Bhutan's inflation rate was estimated at about three percent in 2003. Bhutan has a gross domestic product of around US$5.855 billion (adjusted to purchasing power parity), making it the 158th-largest economy in the world. Per capita income (PPP) is around $7,641,[47] ranked 144th. Government revenues total $407.1 million, though expenditures amount to $614 million. Twenty-five percent of the budget expenditure, however, is financed by India's Ministry of External Affairs.[note 1][104]
+
+Bhutan's exports, principally electricity, cardamom, gypsum, timber, handicrafts, cement, fruit, precious stones and spices, total €128 million (2000 est.). Imports, however, amount to €164 million, leading to a trade deficit. Main items imported include fuel and lubricants, grain, machinery, vehicles, fabrics and rice. Bhutan's main export partner is India, accounting for 58.6 percent of its export goods. Hong Kong (30.1 percent) and Bangladesh (7.3 percent) are the other two top export partners.[47] As its border with Tibet Autonomous Region is closed, trade between Bhutan and China is now almost non-existent. Bhutan's import partners include India (74.5 percent), Japan (7.4 percent) and Sweden (3.2 percent).
+
+The share of the agricultural sector in GDP declined from approximately 55% in 1985 to 33% in 2003. In 2013 the government announced the aspiration that Bhutan will become the first country in the world with 100 percent organic farming.[105][106] Bhutanese red rice is the country's most widely known agricultural export, enjoying a market in North America and Europe. Bangladesh is the largest market of Bhutanese apples and oranges.[107]
+
+Fishing in Bhutan is mainly centered on trout and carp.
+
+The industrial sector accounts for 22% of the economy. The key manufacturing sectors in Bhutan include production of ferroalloy, cement, metal poles, iron and nonalloy steel products, processed graphite, copper conductors, alcoholic and carbonated beverages, processed fruits, carpets, wood products and furniture.[108]
+
+Bhutan has deposits of numerous minerals. Commercial production includes coal, dolomite, gypsum, and limestone. The country has proven reserves of beryl, copper, graphite, lead, mica, pyrite, tin, tungsten, and zinc. However, the country remains as an environmental frontier as it prefers to conserve the environment, rather than to exploit and destroy it for money.[109]
+
+Bhutan's largest export is hydroelectricity. As of 2015[update], it generates about 2,000 MW of hydropower from Himalayan river valleys.[110] The country has a potential to generate 30,000 MW of hydropower.[110] Power is supplied to various states in India. Future projects are being planned with Bangladesh.[110] Hydropower has been the primary focus for the country's five-year plans. As of 2015[update], the Tala Hydroelectric Power Station is its largest power plant, with an installed capacity of 1,020 MW. It has received assistance from India, Austria and the Asian Development Bank in developing hydroelectric projects.
+Besides hydropower, it is also endowed with significant renewable energy resources such as solar, wind and bioenergy. Technically viable solar energy generation capacity is around 12,000 MW and wind around 760 MW. More than 70% of its land is under forest cover, which is an immense source of bioenergy in the country.[citation needed]
+
+Bhutan is likely to benefit geopolitically from the global transition to renewable energy and is ranked no. 4 out of 156 nations in the index of geopolitical gains and losses after energy transition (GeGaLo Index).[111]
+
+There are Five Commercial Banks in the country and two largest banks are the Bank of Bhutan and the Bhutan National Bank which are based in Thimphu. Other commercial banks are Bhutan Development Bank, T-Bank and Druk Punjab National Bank. The country's financial sector is also supported by other non-banking Financial Institutions. They are Royal Insurance Corporation of Bhutan (RICB), National Pension and Provident Fund (NPPF), and Bhutan Insurance Limited (BIL). The central bank of the country is the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan (RMA). The Royal Securities Exchange of Bhutan is the main stock exchange.
+B
+The SAARC Development Fund is based in Thimphu.[112]
+
+In 2014, Bhutan welcomed 133,480 foreign visitors.[113] Seeking to become a high-value destination, it imposes a daily fee of anywhere between US$180 to US$290 per day (or more) on tourists that covers touring and hotel accommodation.[114][115] The industry employs 21,000 people and accounts for 1.8% of GDP.[116] However the Buthanese goal of attracting high value tourists can be criticized for actually only attracting wealthy tourists and poses the question on whether by definition "high quality" actually means "of wealth".[117][118]
+
+The country currently has no UNESCO World Heritage Sites, but it has eight declared tentative sites for UNESCO inclusion since 2012. These sites include Ancient Ruin of Drukgyel Dzong,[119] Bumdelling Wildlife Sanctuary,[120] Dzongs: the centre of temporal and religious authorities (Punakha Dzong, Wangdue Phodrang Dzong, Paro Dzong, Trongsa Dzong and Dagana Dzong),[121] Jigme Dorji National Park (JDNP),[122] Royal Manas National Park (RMNP),[123] Sacred Sites associated with Phajo Drugom Zhigpo and his descendants,[124] Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary (SWS),[125] and Tamzhing Monastery.[126] Bhutan also has numerous tourist sites that are not included in its UNESCO tentative list. Bhutan has one element, the Mask dance of the drums from Drametse, registered in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List.[127]
+
+Bhutan is also well known for mountain adventure trekking and hiking. Jhomolhari Base Camp Trek, Snowman Trek, and Masagang trek are some of the popular treks in Bhutan.
+
+Paro Airport is the only international airport in Bhutan. Yongphulla Airport in Trashigang is a small domestic airport that underwent upgrades through 2010.[128] Yonphula Domestic Airport was scheduled for completion in January 2010 but as of January 2015[update], the airport remains closed due to ongoing runway repair.[129] National carrier Druk Air operates flights between Paro Airport and airports in Jakar (Bumthang Dzongkhag) and Gelephu (Sarpang Dzongkhag) on a weekly basis.[130]
+
+The Lateral Road is Bhutan's primary east–west corridor, connecting Phuentsholing in the southwest to Trashigang in the east. In between, the Lateral Road runs directly through Wangdue Phodrang, Trongsa and other population centres. The Lateral Road also has spurs connecting to the capital Thimphu and other major population centres such as Paro and Punakha. As with other roads in Bhutan, the Lateral Road presents serious safety concerns due to pavement conditions, sheer drops, hairpin turns, weather and landslides.[131][132][133]
+
+Since 2014, road widening has been a priority across Bhutan, in particular for the north-east–west highway from Trashigang to Dochula. The widening project is expected to be completed by the end of 2017 and will make road travel across the country substantially faster and more efficient. In addition, it is projected that the improved road conditions will encourage more tourism in the more inaccessible eastern region of Bhutan.[134][135][136] Currently, the road conditions appear to be deterring tourists from visiting Bhutan due to the increased instances of road blocks, landslides and dust disruption caused by the widening project.[137]
+
+Bhutan has no railways, though it has entered into an agreement with India to link southern Bhutan to India's vast network by constructing an 18-kilometre-long (11 mi) 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge rail link between Hashimara in West Bengal and Toribari in Bhutan. The construction of the railway via Satali, Bharna Bari and Dalsingpara by Indian railways will be funded by India.[138] Bhutan's nearest railway station is Hasimara.
+
+Bhutan had a population of 754,388 people in 2018.[3][4] Bhutan has a median age of 24.8 years.[47]  There are 1,070 males to every 1,000 females. The literacy rate in Bhutan is 59.5 percent.[139]
+
+Bhutanese people primarily consist of the Ngalops and Sharchops, called the Western Bhutanese and Eastern Bhutanese respectively. Although the Sharchops are slightly larger in demographic size, the Ngalops dominate the political sphere, as the King and the political elite belong to this group.[140] The Ngalops primarily consist of Bhutanese living in the western part of the country. Their culture is closely related to that of Tibet. Much the same could be said of the Sharchops, the largest group, who traditionally follow the Nyingmapa rather than the official Drukpa Kagyu form of Tibetan Buddhism. In modern times, with improved transportation infrastructure, there has been much intermarriage between these groups.
+
+The Lhotshampa, meaning "southerner Bhutanese", are a heterogeneous group of mostly Nepalese ancestry. It was claimed that they constituted 45% of the population in the 1988 census,[141] and include migrants from as early as the 1890s to as recent as the 1980s, who have fought a bitter war with Bhutan over rights to abode, language, and dress. In the early 1970s, intermarriage between the Lhotshampas Bhutanese and mainstream Bhutanese society was encouraged by the government, but after the late 1980s, the Bhutanese government forced about 108,000 Lhotshampas from their homes, seized their land, and expelled them to refugee camps.[90] Consequently, there has been mass emigration from Bhutan (both forced and voluntary) and ethnic cleansing in Bhutan resulting in hundreds of thousands of people left stateless in refugee camps of Nepal.[90] Currently, Lhotsampa are estimated to make up approximately 20% of Bhutan's population.[140]
+
+Religion in Bhutan
+(Pew 2010)[143]
+
+[further explanation needed]
+
+It is estimated that between two-thirds and three-quarters of the Bhutanese population follow Vajrayana Buddhism, which is also the state religion. About one-quarter to one-third are followers of Hinduism. Other religions account for less than 1% of the population.[144] The current legal framework, in principle guarantees freedom of religion; proselytism, however, is forbidden by a royal government decision[144] and by judicial interpretation of the Constitution.[145]
+
+Buddhism was introduced to Bhutan in the 7th century AD. Tibetan king Songtsän Gampo (reigned 627–649), a convert to Buddhism, ordered the construction of two Buddhist temples, at Bumthang in central Bhutan and at Kyichu Lhakhang (near Paro) in the Paro Valley.[27]
+
+The national language is Dzongkha (Bhutanese), one of 53 languages in the Tibetan language family. The script, here called Chhokey ("Dharma language"), is identical to classical Tibetan. In the schools English is the medium of instruction and Dzongkha is taught as the national language. Ethnologue lists 24 languages currently spoken in Bhutan, all of them in the Tibeto-Burman family, except Nepali, an Indo-Aryan language.[40]
+
+Until the 1980s, the government sponsored the teaching of Nepali in schools in southern Bhutan. With the adoption of Driglam Namzhag and its expansion into the idea of strengthening the role of Dzongkha, Nepali was dropped from the curriculum. The languages of Bhutan are still not well characterized, and several have yet to be recorded in an in-depth academic grammar. Before the 1980s, the Lhotshampa (Nepali-speaking community), mainly based in southern Bhutan, constituted approximately 30% of the population.[40] However, after a purge of Lhotshaampas from 1990–1992 this number might not accurately reflect the current population.
+
+Dzongkha is partially intelligible with Sikkimese and spoken natively by 25% of the population. Tshangla, the language of the Sharchop and the principal pre-Tibetan language of Bhutan, is spoken by a greater number of people. It is not easily classified and may constitute an independent branch of Tibeto-Burman. Nepali speakers constituted some 40% of the population as of 2006[update]. The larger minority languages are Dzala (11%), Limbu (10%), Kheng (8%), and Rai (8%). There are no reliable sources for the ethnic or linguistic composition of Bhutan, so these numbers do not add up to 100%.
+
+Bhutan has a life expectancy of 70.2 years (69.9 for males and 70.5 for females) according to the latest data for 2016 from the World Bank.[146]
+
+Source: UN World Population Prospects[147]
+
+Bhutan has two decentralized universities with eleven constituent colleges spread across the kingdom, the Royal University of Bhutan and Khesar Gyalpo University of Medical Sciences. The first five-year plan provided for a central education authority—in the form of a director of education appointed in 1961—and an organized, modern school system with free and universal primary education.
+
+Education programmes were given a boost in 1990 when the Asian Development Bank (see Glossary) granted a US$7.13 million loan for staff training and development, specialist services, equipment and furniture purchases, salaries and other recurrent costs, and facility rehabilitation and construction at Royal Bhutan Polytechnic.
+
+Since the beginning of education in Bhutan, teachers from India, especially Kerala have served in some of the most remote villages of Bhutan. In honour of their service, 43 retired teachers who served for the longest time were invited to Thimphu, Bhutan during the teachers day celebrations in 2018 and individually thanked by His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. To celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations between Bhutan and India, 80 teachers who served in Bhutan were honoured by the Education Minister Jai Bir Rai at a special ceremony organized at Kolkata, India on 6 January 2019.[148] Currently, there are 121 teachers from India placed in schools across Bhutan.
+
+Bhutan has a rich and unique cultural heritage that has largely remained intact because of its isolation from the rest of the world until the mid-20th century. One of the main attractions for tourists is the country's culture and traditions. Bhutanese tradition is deeply steeped in its Buddhist heritage.[149][150] Hinduism is the second most dominant religion in Bhutan, being most prevalent in the southern regions.[151] The government is increasingly making efforts to preserve and sustain the current culture and traditions of the country. Because of its largely unspoiled natural environment and cultural heritage, Bhutan has been referred to as The Last Shangri-La.[152]
+
+While Bhutanese citizens are free to travel abroad, Bhutan is viewed as inaccessible by many foreigners. Another reason for it being an unpopular destination is the cost, which is high for tourists on tighter budgets. Entry is free for citizens of India, Bangladesh, and the Maldives, but all other foreigners are required to sign up with a Bhutanese tour operator and pay around US$250 per day that they stay in the country, though this fee covers most travel, lodging and meal expenses.[153] Bhutan received 37,482 visitor arrivals in 2011, of which 25% were for meetings, incentives, conferencing, and exhibitions.[154]
+
+Bhutan is the first nation in the world to ban smoking. It has been illegal to smoke in public or sell tobacco, according to Tobacco Control Act of Bhutan 2010. Violators are fined the equivalent of $232—a month's salary in Bhutan.
+
+The national dress for Bhutanese men is the gho, a knee-length robe tied at the waist by a cloth belt known as the kera. Women wear an ankle-length dress, the kira, which is clipped at the shoulders with two identical brooches called the koma and tied at the waist with kera. An accompaniment to the kira is a long-sleeved blouse, the wonju which is worn underneath the kira. A long-sleeved jacket-like garment, the toego is worn over the kira. The sleeves of the wonju and the tego are folded together at the cuffs, inside out.
+
+Social status and class determine the texture, colours, and decorations that embellish the garments. Differently coloured scarves, known as rachu for women (red is the most common colour) and kabney for men, are important indicators of social standing, as Bhutan has traditionally been a feudal society. Jewellery is mostly worn by women, especially during religious festivals (tsechus) and public gatherings. To strengthen Bhutan's identity as an independent country, Bhutanese law requires all Bhutanese government employees to wear the national dress at work and all citizens to wear the national dress while visiting schools and other government offices though many citizens, particularly adults, choose to wear the customary dress as formal attire.
+
+Bhutanese architecture remains distinctively traditional, employing rammed earth and wattle and daub construction methods, stone masonry, and intricate woodwork around windows and roofs. Traditional architecture uses no nails or iron bars in construction.[34][155][156] Characteristic of the region is a type of castle fortress known as the dzong. Since ancient times, the dzongs have served as the religious and secular administration centres for their respective districts.[157] The University of Texas at El Paso in the United States has adopted Bhutanese architecture for its buildings on campus, as have the nearby Hilton Garden Inn and other buildings in the city of El Paso.[158]
+
+Bhutan has numerous public holidays, most of which coincide with traditional, seasonal, secular or religious festivals. They include the winter solstice (around 1 January, depending on the lunar calendar),[159] Lunar New Year (February or March),[160] the King's birthday and the anniversary of his coronation, the official end of monsoon season (22 September),[161] National Day (17 December),[162] and various Buddhist and Hindu celebrations.
+
+Masked dances and dance dramas are common traditional features at festivals, usually accompanied by traditional music. Energetic dancers, wearing colourful wooden or composition face masks and stylized costumes, depict heroes, demons, dæmons, death heads, animals, gods, and caricatures of common people. The dancers enjoy royal patronage, and preserve ancient folk and religious customs and perpetuate the ancient lore and art of mask-making.
+
+The music of Bhutan can generally be divided into traditional and modern varieties; traditional music comprises religious and folk genres, the latter including zhungdra and boedra.[163] The modern rigsar is played on a mix of traditional instruments and electronic keyboards, and dates back to the early 1990s; it shows the influence of Indian popular music, a hybrid form of traditional and Western popular influences.[164][165]
+
+In Bhutanese families, inheritance generally passes matrilineally through the female rather than the male line. Daughters will inherit their parents' house. A man is expected to make his own way in the world and often moves to his wife's home. Love marriages are more common in urban areas, but the tradition of arranged marriages among acquainted families is still prevalent in themost of the rural areas. Although uncommon, polygamy is accepted, often being a device to keep property in a contained family unit rather than dispersing it.[166] The previous king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who abdicated in 2006, had four queens, all of whom are sisters. The current king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, wed Jetsun Pema, 21, a commoner and daughter of a pilot, on 13 October 2011.
+
+Rice (red rice), buckwheat, and increasingly maize, are the staples of Bhutanese cuisine. The local diet also includes pork, beef, yak meat, chicken, and lamb. Soups and stews of meat and dried vegetables spiced with chilies and cheese are prepared. Ema datshi, made very spicy with cheese and chilies, might be called the national dish for its ubiquity and the pride that Bhutanese have for it. Dairy foods, particularly butter and cheese from yaks and cows, are also popular, and indeed almost all milk is turned into butter and cheese. Popular beverages include butter tea, black tea, locally brewed ara (rice wine), and beer. Bhutan is the first country in the world to have banned the sale of tobacco under its Tobacco Act of 2010.[34]
+
+Bhutan's national and most popular sport is archery.[167] Competitions are held regularly in most villages. It differs from Olympic standards in technical details such as the placement of the targets and atmosphere. Two targets are placed over 100 meters apart, and teams shoot from one end of the field to the other. Each member of the team shoots two arrows per round. Traditional Bhutanese archery is a social event, and competitions are organized between villages, towns, and amateur teams. There is usually plenty of food and drink complete with singing and dancing. Attempts to distract an opponent include standing around the target and making fun of the shooter's ability. Darts (khuru) is an equally popular outdoor team sport, in which heavy wooden darts pointed with a 10 cm nail are thrown at a paperback-sized target 10 to 20 meters away.
+
+Another traditional sport is the Digor, which resembles the shot put and horseshoe throwing.
+
+Another popular sport is basketball.[167] In 2002, Bhutan's national football team played Montserrat, in what was billed as The Other Final; the match took place on the same day Brazil played Germany in the World Cup final, but at the time Bhutan and Montserrat were the world's two lowest ranked teams. The match was held in Thimphu's Changlimithang National Stadium, and Bhutan won 4–0. A documentary of the match was made by the Dutch filmmaker Johan Kramer. Bhutan won its first two FIFA World Cup Qualifying matches, beating Sri Lanka 1–0 in Sri Lanka and 2–1 in Bhutan, taking the aggregate at 3–1.[168] Cricket has also gained popularity in Bhutan, particularly since the introduction of television channels from India. The Bhutan national cricket team is one of the most successful affiliate nations in the region.
+
+Women have begun to participate more in the work force and their participation is one of the highest in the region.[72] However, the unemployment rates among women are still higher than those of men and women are in more unsecure work fields, such as agriculture.[169] Most of the work that women do outside of the home is in family-based agriculture which is insecure and is one of the reasons why women are falling behind men when it comes to income.[72] Women also, in general, work lower-quality jobs than men and only earn 75% of men's earnings.[170] The unemployment rate among women is also higher than that of men.[169]
+
+Rooted deep in Bhutan culture is the idea of selflessness and the women of Bhutan take on this role in the context of the household.[171] Bhutan culture has shown a tolerance for domestic violence with nearly 1/4 of all women having had experienced some form of violence from their husband or partner.[169] Some Bhutanese communities have what is referred to as matrilineal communities, where the eldest daughter receives the largest share of the land.[170] This is due to the belief that she will stay and take care of her parents while the son will move out and work to get his own land and for his own family.[170] Importantly, land ownership does not necessarily equate to economic benefits - despite the eldest daughter having control of the house, it is the husband that is in charge of making decisions.[170] However, the younger generation has stepped away from this belief in splitting the land evenly between the children instead of the eldest daughter inheriting the most land.[170]
+
+Throughout Bhutan there has been an improvement in reproductive health services and there has been a drastic drop in maternal mortality rate, dropping from 1,000 in 1990 to 180 in 2010.[170] There has also been an increase in contraceptive use from less than 1/3 in 2003 to 2/3 in 2010.[170]

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+Africa, Near East (c. 3300–1200 BC)
+
+Indian subcontinent (c. 3300–1200 BC)
+
+Europe (c. 3200–600 BC)
+
+East Asia (c. 3100–300 BC)
+
+The Bronze Age is a historical period that was characterized by the use of bronze, in some areas proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, for classifying and studying ancient societies.
+
+An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by producing bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Bronze itself is harder and more durable than other metals available at the time, allowing Bronze Age civilizations to gain a technological advantage.
+
+Whilst terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, its high melting point of 1,538 °C (2,800 °F) placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tin's low melting point of 231.9 °C (449.4 °F) and copper's relatively moderate melting point of 1,085 °C (1,985 °F) placed them within the capabilities of the Neolithic pottery kilns, which date back to 6000 BC and were able to produce temperatures greater than 900 °C (1,650 °F).[1] Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact that there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition. Although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas (such as Sub-Saharan Africa), the Iron Age began as early as 2500 BC.[2]
+
+Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing. According to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia (cuneiform script) and Egypt (hieroglyphs) developed the earliest practical writing systems.
+
+The overall period is characterized by widespread use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction and development of bronze technology were not universally synchronous.[3] Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques. Tin must be mined (mainly as the tin ore cassiterite) and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of extensive use of metals and of developing trade networks (See Tin sources and trade in ancient times). A 2013 report suggests that the earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to the mid-5th millennium BC in a Vinča culture site in Pločnik (Serbia), although this culture is not conventionally considered part of the Bronze Age.[4] The dating of the foil has been disputed.[5][6]
+
+Western Asia and the Near East were the first regions to enter the Bronze Age, which began with the rise of the Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer in the mid 4th millennium BC. Cultures in the ancient Near East (often called one of "the cradles of civilization") practiced intensive year-round agriculture, developed a writing system, invented the potter's wheel, created a centralized government, written law codes, city and nation-states and empires, embarked on advanced architectural projects, introduced social stratification, economic and civil administration, slavery, and practiced organized warfare, medicine and religion. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy, mathematics and astrology.
+
+The Bronze Age in the Near East can be conveniently divided into Early, Middle and Late periods.  The dates and phases below are solely applicable to the Near East and thus not applicable universally.[7][8][9]
+
+3300–2100 BC
+
+2100–1550 BC
+
+1550–1200 BC
+
+The Hittite Empire was established in Hattusa in northern Anatolia from the 18th century BC. In the 14th century BC, the Hittite Kingdom was at its height, encompassing central Anatolia, southwestern Syria as far as Ugarit, and upper Mesopotamia. After 1180 BC, amid general turmoil in the Levant conjectured to have been associated with the sudden arrival of the Sea Peoples,[10][11] the kingdom disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived until as late as the 8th century BC.
+
+Arzawa in Western Anatolia during the second half of the second millennium BC likely extended along southern Anatolia in a belt that reaches from near the Turkish Lakes Region to the Aegean coast. Arzawa was the western neighbor – sometimes a rival and sometimes a vassal – of the Middle and New Hittite Kingdoms.
+
+The Assuwa league was a confederation of states in western Anatolia that was defeated by the Hittites under an earlier Tudhaliya I, around 1400 BC. Arzawa has been associated with the much more obscure Assuwa generally located to its north. It probably bordered it, and may even be an alternative term for it (at least during some periods).
+
+In Ancient Egypt the Bronze Age begins in the Protodynastic period, c. 3150 BC. The archaic early Bronze Age of Egypt, known as the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt,[12][13] immediately follows the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt, c. 3100 BC. It is generally taken to include the First and Second Dynasties, lasting from the Protodynastic Period of Egypt until about 2686 BC, or the beginning of the Old Kingdom. With the First Dynasty, the capital moved from Abydos to Memphis with a unified Egypt ruled by an Egyptian god-king. Abydos remained the major holy land in the south. The hallmarks of ancient Egyptian civilization, such as art, architecture and many aspects of religion, took shape during the Early Dynastic Period. Memphis in the Early Bronze Age was the largest city of the time.
+The Old Kingdom of the regional Bronze Age[12] is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley (the others being Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom).
+
+The First Intermediate Period of Egypt,[14] often described as a "dark period" in ancient Egyptian history, spanned about 100 years after the end of the Old Kingdom from about 2181 to 2055 BC. Very little monumental evidence survives from this period, especially from the early part of it. The First Intermediate Period was a dynamic time when the rule of Egypt was roughly divided between two competing for power bases: Heracleopolis in Lower Egypt and Thebes in Upper Egypt. These two kingdoms would eventually come into conflict, with the Theban kings conquering the north, resulting in the reunification of Egypt under a single ruler during the second part of the 11th Dynasty.
+
+The Middle Kingdom of Egypt lasted from 2055 to 1650 BC. During this period, the Osiris funerary cult rose to dominate Egyptian popular religion. The period comprises two phases: the 11th Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes and the 12th[15] and 13th Dynasties centered on el-Lisht. The unified kingdom was previously considered to comprise the 11th and 12th Dynasties, but historians now at least partially consider the 13th Dynasty to belong to the Middle Kingdom.
+
+During the Second Intermediate Period,[16] Ancient Egypt fell into disarray for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. It is best known for the Hyksos, whose reign comprised the 15th and 16th dynasties. The Hyksos first appeared in Egypt during the 11th Dynasty, began their climb to power in the 13th Dynasty, and emerged from the Second Intermediate Period in control of Avaris and the Delta. By the 15th Dynasty, they ruled lower Egypt, and they were expelled at the end of the 17th Dynasty.
+
+The New Kingdom of Egypt, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, lasted from the 16th to the 11th century BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period. It was Egypt's most prosperous time and marked the peak of Egypt's power. The later New Kingdom, i.e. the 19th and 20th Dynasties (1292–1069 BC), is also known as the Ramesside period, after the eleven pharaohs that took the name of Ramesses.
+
+Elam was a pre-Iranian ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia. In the Old Elamite period (Middle Bronze Age), Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian Plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a crucial role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Iranian Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it.
+
+The Oxus civilization[17] was a Bronze Age Central Asian culture dated to c. 2300–1700 BC and centered on the upper Amu Darya (Oxus). In the Early Bronze Age, the culture of the Kopet Dag oases and Altyndepe developed a proto-urban society. This corresponds to level IV at Namazga-Tepe. Altyndepe was a major center even then. Pottery was wheel-turned. Grapes were grown. The height of this urban development was reached in the Middle Bronze Age c. 2300 BC, corresponding to level V at Namazga-Depe.[18] This Bronze Age culture is called the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC).
+
+The Kulli culture,[19][20] similar to those of the Indus Valley Civilisation, was located in southern Balochistan (Gedrosia) c. 2500–2000 BC. Agriculture was the economic base of these people. At several places, dams were found, providing evidence for a highly developed water management system.
+
+Konar Sandal is associated with the hypothesized "Jiroft culture", a 3rd-millennium-BC culture postulated based on a collection of artifacts confiscated in 2001.
+
+In modern scholarship, the chronology of the Bronze Age Levant is divided into Early/Proto Syrian; corresponding to the Early Bronze. Old Syrian; corresponding to the Middle Bronze. Middle Syrian; corresponding to the Late Bronze. The term Neo-Syria is used to designate the early Iron Age.[21]
+
+The old Syrian period was dominated by the Eblaite first kingdom, Nagar and the Mariote second kingdom. The Akkadian conquered large areas of the Levant and were followed by the Amorite kingdoms, c. 2000–1600 BC, which arose in Mari, Yamhad, Qatna, Assyria.[22] From the 15th century BC onward, the term Amurru is usually applied to the region extending north of Canaan as far as Kadesh on the Orontes River.
+
+The earliest known Ugaritic contact with Egypt (and the first exact dating of Ugaritic civilization) comes from a carnelian bead identified with the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senusret I, 1971–1926 BC. A stela and a statuette from the Egyptian pharaohs Senusret III and Amenemhet III have also been found. However, it is unclear at what time these monuments got to Ugarit. In the Amarna letters, messages from Ugarit c. 1350 BC written by Ammittamru I, Niqmaddu II, and his queen, were discovered. From the 16th to the 13th century BC, Ugarit remained in constant touch with Egypt and Cyprus (named Alashiya).
+
+The Mitanni was a loosely organized state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia from c. 1500–1300 BC. Founded by an Indo-Aryan ruling class that governed a predominantly Hurrian population, Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Kassite Babylon created a power vacuum in Mesopotamia. At its beginning, Mitanni's major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids. However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni and Egypt allied to protect their mutual interests from the threat of Hittite domination. At the height of its power, during the 14th century BC, it had outposts centered on its capital, Washukanni, which archaeologists have located on the headwaters of the Khabur River. Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to Hittite, and later Assyrian attacks, and was reduced to a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire.
+
+The Israelites were an ancient Semitic-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods (15th to 6th centuries BC),[23][24][25][26][27] and lived in the region in smaller numbers after the fall of the monarchy. The name "Israel" first appears c. 1209 BC, at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the very beginning of the Iron Age, on the Merneptah Stele raised by the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah.
+
+The Arameans were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who originated in what is now modern Syria (Biblical Aram) during the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age. Large groups migrated to Mesopotamia, where they intermingled with the native Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) population. The Aramaeans never had a unified empire; they were divided into independent kingdoms all across the Near East. After the Bronze Age collapse, their political influence was confined to many Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the 8th century BC.
+
+The Mesopotamian Bronze Age began about 3500 BC and ended with the Kassite period (c. 1500 BC – c. 1155 BC). The usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division primarily based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common.
+
+The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people. Ur, Kish, Isin, Larsa and Nippur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon, Calah and Assur in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The Akkadian Empire (2335–2154 BC) became the dominant power in the region, and after its fall the Sumerians enjoyed a renaissance with the Neo-Sumerian Empire. Assyria was extant from as early as the 25th century BC, and became a regional power with the Old Assyrian Empire (c. 2025–1750 BC). The earliest mention of Babylon (then a small administrative town) appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC. The Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it briefly took over the other city-states and formed the short-lived First Babylonian Empire during what is also called the Old Babylonian Period. Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia all used the written East Semitic Akkadian language for official use and as a spoken language. By that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use in Assyria and Babylonia, and would remain so until the 1st century AD. The Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in later Assyrian and Babylonian culture, even though Babylonia (unlike the more militarily powerful Assyria) itself was founded by non-native Amorites and often ruled by other non-indigenous peoples, such as Kassites, Arameans and Chaldeans, as well as its Assyrian neighbors.
+
+The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), also known as the Oxus civilization was a Bronze Age civilization in Central Asia, dated to c. 2400–1600 BC,[28] located in present-day northern Afghanistan, eastern Turkmenistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan, centred on the upper Amu Darya (Oxus River). Its sites were discovered and named by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi (1976). Bactria was the Greek name for the area of Bactra (modern Balkh), in what is now northern Afghanistan, and Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian satrapy of Marguš, the capital of which was Merv, in modern-day southeastern Turkmenistan.
+
+According to recent studies [29] the BMAC was not a primary contributor to later South-Asian genetics.
+
+The Altai Mountains in what is now southern Russia and central Mongolia have been identified as the point of origin of a cultural enigma termed the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon.[30] It is conjectured that changes in climate in this region around 2000 BC and the ensuing ecological, economic and political changes triggered a rapid and massive migration westward into northeast Europe, eastward into China and southward into Vietnam and Thailand
+[31] across a frontier of some 4,000 miles.[30] This migration took place in just five to six generations and led to peoples from Finland in the west to Thailand in the east employing the same metal working technology and, in some areas, horse breeding and riding.[30] It is further conjectured that the same migrations spread the Uralic group of languages across Europe and Asia: some 39 languages of this group are still extant, including Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian.[30]
+However, recent genetic testings of sites in south Siberia and Kazakhstan (Andronovo horizon) would rather support a spreading of the bronze technology via Indo-European migrations eastwards, as this technology was well known for quite a while in western regions.[32][33]
+
+In China, the earliest bronze artifacts have been found in the Majiayao culture site (between 3100 and 2700 BC).[34][35]
+
+The term "Bronze Age" has been transferred to the archaeology of China from that of Western Eurasia, and there is no consensus or universally used convention delimiting the "Bronze Age" in the context of Chinese prehistory.[36]
+
+By convention, the "Early Bronze Age" in China is sometimes taken as equivalent to the "Shang dynasty" period of Chinese prehistory (16th to 11th centuries BC),[37] and the "Later Bronze Age" as equivalent to the "Zhou dynasty" period (11th to 3rd centuries BC, from the 5th century, also dubbed "Iron Age"), although there is an argument to be made that the "Bronze Age" proper never ended in China, as there is no recognizable transition to an "Iron Age".[38] Significantly, together with the jade art that precedes it, bronze was seen as a "fine" material for ritual art when compared with iron or stone, a stone only becoming popular for tombs in the Han on probable Indian influence (replacing wooden temple in that instance).[39]
+
+Bronze metallurgy in China originated in what is referred to as the Erlitou (Wade–Giles: Erh-li-t'ou) period, which some historians argue places it within the range of dates controlled by the Shang dynasty.[40] Others believe the Erlitou sites belong to the preceding Xia (Wade–Giles: Hsia) dynasty.[41] The U.S. National Gallery of Art defines the Chinese Bronze Age as the "period between about 2000 BC and 771 BC," a period that begins with the Erlitou culture and ends abruptly with the disintegration of Western Zhou rule.[42]
+
+The widespread use of bronze in Chinese metallurgy and culture dates to significantly later, probably due to Western influence. While there may be a reason to believe that bronze work developed inside China separately from outside influence,[43] the discovery of Europoid mummies in Xinjiang suggests a possible route of transmission from the West beginning in the early second millennium BC.[44] This is, however, still just speculation since there is a lack of direct evidence. A few human mummies alone cannot provide sufficient explanation of metallurgy transmission. Furthermore, the oldest bronze objects found in China so far were discovered at the Majiayao site in Gansu rather than Xinjiang[45]
+
+The Shang dynasty (also known as the Yin dynasty)[46] of the Yellow River Valley rose to power after the Xia dynasty around 1600 BC. While some direct information about the Shang dynasty comes from Shang-era inscriptions on bronze artifacts, most comes from oracle bones – turtle shells, cattle scapulae, or other bones – which bear glyphs that form the first significant corpus of recorded Chinese characters.
+
+Iron is found from the Zhou dynasty, but its use is minimal. Chinese literature dating to the 6th century BC attests knowledge of iron smelting, yet bronze continues to occupy the seat of significance in the archaeological and historical record for some time after this.[47] Historian W.C. White argues that iron did not supplant bronze "at any period before the end of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC)" and that bronze vessels make up the majority of metal vessels through the Later Han period, or to 221 BC [sic?].[48]
+
+The Chinese bronze artifacts generally are either utilitarian, like spear points or adze heads, or "ritual bronzes", which are more elaborate versions in precious materials of everyday vessels, as well as tools and weapons. Examples are the numerous large sacrificial tripods known as dings in Chinese; there are many other distinct shapes. Surviving identified Chinese ritual bronzes tend to be highly decorated, often with the taotie motif, which involves highly stylized animal faces. These appear in three main motif types: those of demons, of symbolic animals, and abstract symbols.[49] Many large bronzes also bear cast inscriptions that are the great bulk of the surviving body of early Chinese writing and have helped historians and archaeologists piece together the history of China, especially during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC).
+
+The bronzes of the Western Zhou dynasty document large portions of history not found in the extant texts that were often composed by persons of varying rank and possibly even social class. Further, the medium of cast bronze lends the record they preserve a permanence not enjoyed by manuscripts.[50] These inscriptions can commonly be subdivided into four parts: a reference to the date and place, the naming of the event commemorated, the list of gifts given to the artisan in exchange for the bronze, and a dedication.[51] The relative points of reference these vessels provide have enabled historians to place most of the vessels within a certain time frame of the Western Zhou period, allowing them to trace the evolution of the vessels and the events they record.[52]
+
+Bronze artifacts from Daegok-ri, Hwasun, Korea
+
+The beginning of the Bronze Age on the peninsula is around 1000–800 BC.[53][54] Although the Korean Bronze Age culture derives from the Liaoning and Manchuria, it exhibits unique typology and styles, especially in ritual objects.[55]
+
+The Mumun pottery period is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage over the entire length of the period, but especially 850–550 BC. The Mumun period is known for the origins of intensive agriculture and complex societies in both the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago.
+
+The Middle Mumun pottery period culture of the southern Korean Peninsula gradually adopted bronze production (c. 700–600? BC) after a period when Liaoning-style bronze daggers and other bronze artifacts were exchanged as far as the interior part of the Southern Peninsula (c. 900–700 BC). The bronze daggers lent prestige and authority to the personages who wielded and were buried with them in high-status megalithic burials at south-coastal centers such as the Igeum-dong site. Bronze was an important element in ceremonies and as for mortuary offerings until 100.
+
+2nd century BC Yayoi dōtaku bronze bell.
+
+2nd century BC Yayoi bronze spearhead.
+
+The Japanese archipelago experienced the introduction of bronze during the beginning of the Early Yayoi period (≈300 BC), which saw the introduction of metalworking and agricultural practices brought in by settlers arriving from the continent. Bronze and iron smelting techniques spread to the Japanese archipelago through contact with other ancient East Asian civilizations, particularly immigration and trade from the Korean peninsula and ancient Mainland China. Iron was mainly used for agricultural and other tools, whereas ritual and ceremonial artifacts were mainly made of bronze.
+
+The Bronze Age on the Indian subcontinent began around 3300 BC with the beginning of the Indus Valley civilization. Inhabitants of the Indus Valley, the Harappans, developed new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead and tin. The Late Harappan culture, which dates from 1900–1400 BC, overlapped the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age; thus it is difficult to date this transition accurately. It has been claimed that a 6,000 year old copper amulet manufactured in Mehrgarh in the shape of wheel spoke is the earliest example of lost wax casting in the world.[56][57]
+
+In Ban Chiang, Thailand, (Southeast Asia) bronze artifacts have been discovered dating to 2100 BC.[58] However, according to the radiocarbon dating on the human and pig bones in Ban Chiang, some scholars propose that the initial Bronze Age in Ban Chiang was in late 2nd millennium.[59] In Nyaunggan, Burma, bronze tools have been excavated along with ceramics and stone artifacts. Dating is still currently broad (3500–500 BC).[60] Ban Non Wat, excavated by Charles Higham, was a rich site with over 640 graves excavated that gleaned many complex bronze items that may have had social value connected to them.[61]
+
+Ban Chiang, however, is the most thoroughly documented site while having the clearest evidence of metallurgy when it comes to Southeast Asia. With a rough date range of late 3rd millennium BC to the first millennium AD, this site alone has various artifacts such as burial pottery (dating from 2100–1700 BC), fragments of Bronze, copper-base bangles, and much more. What's interesting about this site, however, isn't just the old age of the artifacts but the fact that this technology suggested on-site casting from the very beginning. The on-site casting supports the theory that Bronze was first introduced in Southeast Asia as fully developed which therefore shows that Bronze was innovated from a different country.[62] Some scholars believe that the copper-based metallurgy was disseminated from northwest and central China via south and southwest areas such as Guangdong province and Yunnan province and finally into southeast Asia around 1000 BC.[59] Archaeology also suggests that Bronze Age metallurgy may not have been as significant a catalyst in social stratification and warfare in Southeast Asia as in other regions, social distribution shifting away from chiefdom-states to a heterarchical network.[63] Data analyses of sites such as Ban Lum Khao, Ban Na Di, Non-Nok Tha, Khok Phanom Di, and Nong Nor have consistently led researchers to conclude that there was no entrenched hierarchy.[64]
+
+Dating back to the Neolithic Age, the first bronze drum, called the Dong Son drum, were uncovered in and around the Red River Delta regions of Northern Vietnam and Southern China. These relate to the prehistoric Dong Son Culture of Vietnam.[65]
+
+Archaeological research in Northern Vietnam indicates an increase in rates of infectious disease following the advent of metallurgy; skeletal fragments in sites dating to the early and mid-Bronze Age evidence a greater proportion of lesions than in sites of earlier periods.[66] There are a few possible implications of this. One is the increased contact with bacterial and/or fungal pathogens due to increased population density and land clearing/cultivation. The other one is decreased levels of immunocompetence in the Metal age due to changes in the diet caused by agriculture. The last is that there may have been an emergence of infectious disease in the Da But the period that evolved into a more virulent form in the metal period.[66]
+
+A few examples of named Bronze Age cultures in Europe in roughly relative order.
+
+
+
+A study in the journal Antiquity published in 2013 reported the discovery of a tin bronze foil from the Pločnik archaeological site securely dated to c. 4650 BC as well as 14 other artifacts from Serbia and Bulgaria dated to before 4000 BC has shown that early tin bronze was more common than previously thought, and developed independently in Europe 1500 years before the first tin bronze alloys in the Near East. The production of complex tin bronzes lasted for c. 500 years in the Balkans. The authors reported that evidence for the production of such complex bronzes disappears at the end of the 5th millennium coinciding with the "collapse of large cultural complexes in north-eastern Bulgaria and Thrace in the late fifth millennium BC". Tin bronzes using cassiterite tin would be reintroduced to the area again some 1500 years later.[67]
+
+The Aegean Bronze Age began around 3200 BC, when civilizations first established a far-ranging trade network. This network imported tin and charcoal to Cyprus, where copper was mined and alloyed with the tin to produce bronze. Bronze objects were then exported far and wide and supported the trade. Isotopic analysis of tin in some Mediterranean bronze artifacts suggests that they may have originated from Great Britain.[68]
+
+Knowledge of navigation was well developed at this time and reached a peak of skill not exceeded (except perhaps by Polynesian sailors) until 1730 when the invention of the chronometer enabled the precise determination of longitude.
+
+The Minoan civilization based in Knossos on the island of Crete appears to have coordinated and defended its Bronze Age trade. Illyrians are also believed to have roots in the early Bronze Age. Ancient empires valued luxury goods in contrast to staple foods, leading to famine.[69]
+
+Bronze Age collapse theories have described aspects of the end of the Age in this region. At the end of the Bronze Age in the Aegean region, the Mycenaean administration of the regional trade empire followed the decline of Minoan primacy.[70] Several Minoan client states lost much of their population to famine and/or pestilence. This would indicate that the trade network may have failed, preventing the trade that would previously have relieved such famines and prevented illness caused by malnutrition. It is also known that in this era the breadbasket of the Minoan empire, the area north of the Black Sea, also suddenly lost much of its population, and thus probably some capacity to cultivate crops.[citation needed]Drought and famine in Anatolia may have also led to the Aegean Collapse by disrupting trade networks, and therefore preventing the Aegean from accessing bronze and luxury goods.[71]
+
+The Aegean Collapse has been attributed to the exhaustion of the Cypriot forests causing the end of the bronze trade.[72][73][74] These forests are known to have existed into later times, and experiments have shown that charcoal production on the scale necessary for the bronze production of the late Bronze Age would have exhausted them in less than fifty years.
+
+The Aegean Collapse has also been attributed to the fact that as iron tools became more common, the main justification for the tin trade ended, and that trade network ceased to function as it did formerly.[75] The colonies of the Minoan empire then suffered drought, famine, war, or some combination of those three, and had no access to the distant resources of an empire by which they could easily recover.
+
+The Thera eruption occurred circa 1600 BC around the Aegean Collapse, 110 km (68 mi) north of Crete. Speculation includes a tsunami from Thera (more commonly known today as Santorini) destroyed Cretan cities. A tsunami may have destroyed the Cretan navy in its home harbor, which then lost crucial naval battles; so that in the LMIB/LMII event (c. 1450 BC) the cities of Crete burned and the Mycenaean civilization took over Knossos. If the eruption occurred in the late 17th century BC (as most chronologists now think) then its immediate effects belong to the Middle to Late Bronze Age transition, and not to the end of the Late Bronze Age, but it could have triggered the instability that led to the collapse first of Knossos and then of Bronze Age society overall. One such theory highlights the role of Cretan expertise in administering the empire, post-Thera. If this expertise was concentrated in Crete, then the Mycenaeans may have made political and commercial mistakes in administering the Cretan empire.
+
+Archaeological findings, including some on the island of Thera, suggest that the center of Minoan Civilization at the time of the eruption was actually on Thera rather than on Crete.[citation needed] According to this theory, the catastrophic loss of the political, administrative and economic center by the eruption as well as the damage wrought by the tsunami to the coastal towns and villages of Crete precipitated the decline of the Minoans. A weakened political entity with a reduced economic and military capability and fabled riches would have then been more vulnerable to human predators. Indeed, the Santorini Eruption is usually dated to c. 1630 BC, while the Mycenaean Greeks first enter the historical record a few decades later, c. 1600 BC. Thus, the later Mycenaean assaults on Crete (c. 1450 BC) and Troy ( c. 1250BC) are revealed as mere continuations of the steady encroachments of the Greeks upon the weakened Minoan world.
+
+In Central Europe, the early Bronze Age Unetice culture (1800–1600 BC) includes numerous smaller groups like the Straubing, Adlerberg and Hatvan cultures. Some very rich burials, such as the one located at Leubingen with grave gifts crafted from gold, point to an increase of social stratification already present in the Unetice culture. All in all, cemeteries of this period are rare and of small size. The Unetice culture is followed by the middle Bronze Age (1600–1200 BC) Tumulus culture, which is characterised by inhumation burials in tumuli (barrows). In the eastern Hungarian Körös tributaries, the early Bronze Age first saw the introduction of the Mako culture, followed by the Otomani and Gyulavarsand cultures.
+
+The late Bronze Age Urnfield culture (1300–700 BC) is characterized by cremation burials. It includes the Lusatian culture in eastern Germany and Poland (1300–500 BC) that continues into the Iron Age. The Central European Bronze Age is followed by the Iron Age Hallstatt culture (700–450 BC).
+
+Important sites include:
+
+The Bronze Age in Central Europe has been described in the chronological schema of German prehistorian Paul Reinecke. He described Bronze A1 (Bz A1) period (2300–2000 BC: triangular daggers, flat axes, stone wrist-guards, flint arrowheads) and Bronze A2 (Bz A2) period (1950–1700 BC: daggers with metal hilt, flanged axes, halberds, pins with perforated spherical heads, solid bracelets) and phases Hallstatt A and B (Ha A and B).
+
+The Apennine culture (also called Italian Bronze Age) is a technology complex of central and southern Italy spanning the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age proper. The Camuni were an ancient people of uncertain origin (according to Pliny the Elder, they were Euganei; according to Strabo, they were Rhaetians) who lived in Val Camonica – in what is now northern Lombardy – during the Iron Age, although human groups of hunters, shepherds and farmers are known to have lived in the area since the Neolithic.
+
+Located in Sardinia and Corsica, the Nuragic civilization lasted from the early Bronze Age (18th century BC) to the 2nd century AD, when the islands were already Romanized. They take their name from the characteristic Nuragic towers, which evolved from the pre-existing megalithic culture, which built dolmens and menhirs. The nuraghe towers are unanimously considered the best-preserved and largest megalithic remains in Europe. Their effective use is still debated: some scholars considered them as monumental tombs, others as Houses of the Giants, other as fortresses, ovens for metal fusion, prisons or, finally, temples for a solar cult. Around the end of the 3rd millennium BC, Sardinia exported towards Sicily a Culture that built small dolmens, trilithic or polygonal shaped, that served as tombs as it has been ascertained in the Sicilian dolmen of “Cava dei Servi”. From this region, they reached Malta island and other countries of Mediterranean basin.[76]
+
+The Terramare was an early Indo-European civilization in the area of what is now Pianura Padana (northern Italy) before the arrival of the Celts and in other parts of Europe. They lived in square villages of wooden stilt houses. These villages were built on land, but generally near a stream, with roads that crossed each other at right angles. The whole complex denoted the nature of a fortified settlement. Terramare was widespread in the Pianura Padana (especially along the Panaro river, between Modena and Bologna) and in the rest of Europe. The civilization developed in the Middle and Late Bronze Age, between the 17th and the 13th centuries BC.
+
+The Castellieri culture developed in Istria during the Middle Bronze Age. It lasted for more than a millennium, from the 15th century BC until the Roman conquest in the 3rd century BC. It takes its name from the fortified boroughs (Castellieri, Friulian: cjastelir) that characterized the culture.
+
+The Canegrate culture developed from the mid-Bronze Age (13th century BC) until the Iron Age in the Pianura Padana, in what are now western Lombardy, eastern Piedmont and Ticino. It takes its name from the township of Canegrate where, in the 20th century, some fifty tombs with ceramics and metal objects were found. The Canegrate culture migrated from the northwest part of the Alps and descended to Pianura Padana from the Swiss Alps passes and the Ticino.
+
+The Golasecca culture developed starting from the late Bronze Age in the Po plain. It takes its name from Golasecca, a locality next to the Ticino where, in the early 19th century, abbot Giovanni Battista Giani excavated its first findings (some fifty tombs with ceramics and metal objects). Remains of the Golasecca culture span an area of c. 20,000 square kilometers south to the Alps, between the Po, Sesia and Serio rivers, dating from the 9th to the 4th century BC.
+
+The Atlantic Bronze Age is a cultural complex of the period of approximately 1300–700 BC that includes different cultures in Portugal, Andalusia, Galicia, and the British Isles. It is marked by economic and cultural exchange. Commercial contacts extend to Denmark and the Mediterranean. The Atlantic Bronze Age was defined by many distinct regional centers of metal production, unified by a regular maritime exchange of some of their products.
+
+In Great Britain, the Bronze Age is considered to have been the period from around 2100 to 750 BC. Migration brought new people to the islands from the continent. Recent tooth enamel isotope research on bodies found in early Bronze Age graves around Stonehenge indicates that at least some of the migrants came from the area of modern Switzerland. Another example site is Must Farm, near Whittlesey, which has recently been host to the most complete Bronze Age wheel ever to be found. The Beaker culture displayed different behaviors from the earlier Neolithic people, and cultural change was significant. Integration is thought to have been peaceful, as many of the early henge sites were seemingly adopted by the newcomers. The rich Wessex culture developed in southern Britain at this time. Additionally, the climate was deteriorating; where once the weather was warm and dry it became much wetter as the Bronze Age continued, forcing the population away from easily defended sites in the hills and into the fertile valleys. Large livestock farms developed in the lowlands and appear to have contributed to economic growth and inspired increasing forest clearances. The Deverel-Rimbury culture began to emerge in the second half of the Middle Bronze Age ( c. 1400–1100 BC) to exploit these conditions. Devon and Cornwall were major sources of tin for much of western Europe and copper was extracted from sites such as the Great Orme mine in northern Wales. Social groups appear to have been tribal but with growing complexity and hierarchies becoming apparent.
+
+The burial of the dead (which, until this period, had usually been communal) became more individual. For example, whereas in the Neolithic a large chambered cairn or long barrow housed the dead, Early Bronze Age people buried their dead in individual barrows (also commonly known and marked on modern British Ordnance Survey maps as tumuli), or sometimes in cists covered with cairns.
+
+The greatest quantities of bronze objects in England were discovered in East Cambridgeshire, where the most important finds were recovered in Isleham (more than 6500 pieces).[77]
+Alloying of copper with zinc or tin to make brass or bronze was practiced soon after the discovery of copper itself. One copper mine at Great Orme in North Wales, extended to a depth of 70 meters.[78] At Alderley Edge in Cheshire, carbon dates have established mining at around 2280 to 1890 BC (at 95% probability).[79] The earliest identified metalworking site (Sigwells, Somerset) is much later, dated by Globular Urn style pottery to approximately the 12th century BC. The identifiable sherds from over 500 mould fragments included a perfect fit of the hilt of a sword in the Wilburton style held in Somerset County Museum.[80]
+
+The Bronze Age in Ireland commenced around 2000 BC when copper was alloyed with tin and used to manufacture Ballybeg type flat axes and associated metalwork. The preceding period is known as the Copper Age and is characterised by the production of flat axes, daggers, halberds and awls in copper. The period is divided into three phases: Early Bronze Age (2000–1500 BC), Middle Bronze Age (1500–1200 BC), and Late Bronze Age (1200–c. 500 BC). Ireland is also known for a relatively large number of Early Bronze Age burials.
+
+One of the characteristic types of artifact of the Early Bronze Age in Ireland is the flat axe. There are five main types of flat axes: Lough Ravel (c. 2200 BC), Ballybeg (c. 2000 BC), Killaha (c. 2000 BC), Ballyvalley (c. 2000–1600 BC), Derryniggin (c. 1600 BC), and a number of metal ingots in the shape of axes.[81]
+
+The Bronze Age in Northern Europe spans the entire 2nd millennium BC (Unetice culture, Urnfield culture, Tumulus culture, Terramare culture, Lusatian culture) lasting until c. 600 BC. The Northern Bronze Age was both a period and a Bronze Age culture in Scandinavian pre-history, c. 1700–500 BC, with sites that reached as far east as Estonia. Succeeding the Late Neolithic culture, its ethnic and linguistic affinities are unknown in the absence of written sources. It is followed by the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
+
+Even though Northern European Bronze Age cultures were relatively late, and came into existence via trade, sites present rich and well-preserved objects made of wool, wood and imported Central European bronze and gold. Many rock carvings depict ships, and the large stone burial monuments known as stone ships suggest that shipping played an important role. Thousands of rock carvings depict ships, most probably representing sewn plank built canoes for warfare, fishing, and trade. These may have a history as far back as the neolithic period and continue into the Pre-Roman Iron Age, as shown by the Hjortspring boat. There are many mounds and rock carving sites from the period. Numerous artifacts of bronze and gold are found. No written language existed in the Nordic countries during the Bronze Age. The rock carvings have been dated through comparison with depicted artifacts.
+
+Arsenical bronze artifacts of the Maykop culture in the North Caucasus have been dated around the 4th millennium BC.[82] This innovation resulted in the circulation of arsenical bronze technology over southern and eastern Europe.[83]
+
+The Yamnaya culture is a Late Copper Age/Early Bronze Age culture of the Southern Bug/Dniester/Ural region (the Pontic steppe), dating to the 36th–23rd centuries BC. The name also appears in English as Pit-Grave Culture or Ochre-Grave Culture. The Catacomb culture, c. 2800–2200 BC, comprises several related Early Bronze Age cultures occupying what is presently Russia and Ukraine. The Srubna culture was a Late Bronze Age (18th–12th centuries BC) culture. It is a successor to the Yamnaya and the Poltavka culture.
+
+Iron and copper smelting appeared around the same time in most parts of Africa.[84][85] As such, most African civilizations outside of Egypt did not experience a distinct Bronze Age. Evidence for iron smelting appears earlier or at the same time as copper smelting in Nigeria c. 900–800 BC, Rwanda and Burundi c. 700–500 BC and Tanzania c. 300 BC.[85][86][87]
+
+There is a longstanding debate about whether the development of both copper and iron metallurgy were independently developed in sub-Saharan Africa or were introduced from the outside across the Sahara Desert from North Africa or the Indian Ocean.[85] Evidence for theories of independent development and outside introduction are scarce and subject to active scholarly debate.[85] Scholars have suggested that both the relative dearth of archeological research in sub-Saharan Africa as well as long-standing prejudices have limited or biased our understanding of pre-historic metallurgy on the continent.[86][88][89] One scholar characterized the state of historical knowledge as such: "To say that the history of metallurgy in sub-Saharan Africa is complicated is perhaps an understatement."[89]
+
+The Bronze Age in Nubia started as early as 2300 BC.[90] Copper smelting was introduced by Egyptians to the Nubian city of Meroë, in modern-day Sudan, around 2600 BC.[84] A furnace for bronze casting has been found in Kerma that is dated to 2300–1900 BC.[90]
+
+Copper smelting took place in West Africa prior to the appearance of iron smelting in the region. Evidence for copper smelting furnaces was found near Agadez, Niger that has been dated as early as 2200 BC.[86] However, evidence for copper production in this region before 1000 BC is debated.[91][84][86] Evidence of copper mining and smelting has been found at Akjoujt, Mauretania that suggests small scale production c. 800 to 400 BC.[86]
+
+The Moche civilization of South America independently discovered and developed bronze smelting.[92] Bronze technology was developed further by the Incas and used widely both for utilitarian objects and sculpture.[93] A later appearance of limited bronze smelting in West Mexico suggests either contact of that region with Andean cultures or separate discovery of the technology. The Calchaquí people of Northwest Argentina had bronze technology.[94]
+
+Trade and industry played a major role in the development of the ancient Bronze Age civilizations. With artifacts of the Indus Valley Civilization being found in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, it is clear that these civilizations were not only in touch with each other but also trading with each other. Early long-distance trade was limited almost exclusively to luxury goods like spices, textiles and precious metals. Not only did this make cities with ample amounts of these products extremely rich but also led to an inter-mingling of cultures for the first time in history.[95]
+
+Trade routes were not only over land but also over water. The first and most extensive trade routes were over rivers such as the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates which led to growth of cities on the banks of these rivers. The domestication of camels at a later time also helped encourage the use of trade routes over land, linking the Indus Valley with the Mediterranean. This further led to towns sprouting up in numbers any and everywhere there was a pit-stop or caravan-to-ship port.

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+Cattle, or cows (female) and bulls (male), are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos taurus.
+
+Cattle are commonly raised as livestock for meat (beef or veal, see beef cattle), for milk (see dairy cattle), and for hides, which are used to make leather. They are used as riding animals and draft animals (oxen or bullocks, which pull carts, plows and other implements). Another product of cattle is their dung, which can be used to create manure or fuel. In some regions, such as parts of India, cattle have significant religious meaning. Cattle, mostly small breeds such as the Miniature Zebu, are also kept as pets.
+
+Around 10,500 years ago, cattle were domesticated from as few as 80 progenitors in central Anatolia, the Levant and Western Iran.[1] According to an estimate from 2011, there are 1.4 billion cattle in the world.[2] In 2009, cattle became one of the first livestock animals to have a fully mapped genome.[3]
+
+Cattle were originally identified as three separate species: Bos taurus, the European or "taurine" cattle (including similar types from Africa and Asia); Bos indicus, the zebu; and the extinct Bos primigenius, the aurochs. The aurochs is ancestral to both zebu and taurine cattle.[4] These have been reclassified as one species, Bos taurus, with three subspecies: Bos taurus primigenius, Bos taurus indicus, and Bos taurus taurus.[5][6]
+
+Complicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other closely related species. Hybrid individuals and even breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and zebu (such as the sanga cattle, Bos taurus africanus), but also between one or both of these and some other members of the genus Bos – yaks (the dzo or yattle[7]), banteng, and gaur. Hybrids such as the beefalo breed can even occur between taurine cattle and either species of bison, leading some authors to consider them part of the genus Bos, as well.[8] The hybrid origin of some types may not be obvious – for example, genetic testing of the Dwarf Lulu breed, the only taurine-type cattle in Nepal, found them to be a mix of taurine cattle, zebu, and yak.[9] However, cattle cannot be successfully hybridized with more distantly related bovines such as water buffalo or African buffalo.
+
+The aurochs originally ranged throughout Europe, North Africa, and much of Asia. In historical times, its range became restricted to Europe, and the last known individual died in Mazovia, Poland, in about 1627.[10] Breeders have attempted to recreate cattle of similar appearance to aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle, creating the Heck cattle breed.
+
+Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals. It was borrowed from Anglo-Norman catel, itself from medieval Latin capitale 'principal sum of money, capital', itself derived in turn from Latin caput 'head'. Cattle originally meant movable personal property, especially livestock of any kind, as opposed to real property (the land, which also included wild or small free-roaming animals such as chickens—they were sold as part of the land).[11] The word is a variant of chattel (a unit of personal property) and closely related to capital in the economic sense.[12] The term replaced earlier Old English feoh 'cattle, property', which survives today as fee (cf. German: Vieh, Dutch: vee, Gothic: faihu).
+
+The word "cow" came via Anglo-Saxon cū (plural cȳ), from Common Indo-European gʷōus (genitive gʷowés) = "a bovine animal", compare Persian: gâv, Sanskrit: go-, Welsh: buwch.[13] The plural cȳ became ki or kie in Middle English, and an additional plural ending was often added, giving kine, kien, but also kies, kuin and others. This is the origin of the now archaic English plural, "kine". The Scots language singular is coo or cou, and the plural is "kye".
+
+In older English sources such as the King James Version of the Bible, "cattle" refers to livestock, as opposed to "deer" which refers to wildlife.  "Wild cattle" may refer to feral cattle or to undomesticated species of the genus Bos.  Today, when used without any other qualifier, the modern meaning of "cattle" is usually restricted to domesticated bovines.[14]
+
+In general, the same words are used in different parts of the world, but with minor differences in the definitions.  The terminology described here contrasts the differences in definition between the United Kingdom and other British-influenced parts of the world such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the United States.[15]
+
+"Cattle" can only be used in the plural and not in the singular: it is a plurale tantum.[26] Thus one may refer to "three cattle" or "some cattle", but not "one cattle". "One head of cattle" is a valid though periphrastic way to refer to one animal of indeterminate or unknown age and sex; otherwise no universally used single-word singular form of cattle exists in modern English, other than the sex- and age-specific terms such as cow, bull, steer and heifer.  Historically, "ox" was not a sex-specific term for adult cattle, but generally this is now used only for working cattle, especially adult castrated males. The term is also incorporated into the names of other species, such as the musk ox and "grunting ox" (yak), and is used in some areas to describe certain cattle products such as ox-hide and oxtail.[27]
+
+Cow is in general use as a singular for the collective cattle. The word cow is easy to use when a singular is needed and the sex is unknown or irrelevant—when "there is a cow in the road", for example. Further, any herd of fully mature cattle in or near a pasture is statistically likely to consist mostly of cows, so the term is probably accurate even in the restrictive sense.  Other than the few bulls needed for breeding, the vast majority of male cattle are castrated as calves and are used as oxen or slaughtered for meat before the age of three years.  Thus, in a pastured herd, any calves or herd bulls usually are clearly distinguishable from the cows due to distinctively different sizes and clear anatomical differences. Merriam-Webster and Oxford Living Dictionaries recognize the sex-nonspecific use of cow as an alternate definition,[28][29] whereas Collins and the OED do not.
+
+Colloquially, more general nonspecific terms may denote cattle when a singular form is needed. Head of cattle is usually used only after a numeral. Australian, New Zealand and British farmers use the term beast or cattle beast. Bovine is also used in Britain. The term critter is common in the western United States and Canada, particularly when referring to young cattle.[30] In some areas of the American South (particularly the Appalachian region), where both dairy and beef cattle are present, an individual animal was once called a "beef critter", though that term is becoming archaic.
+
+Cattle raised for human consumption are called beef cattle. Within the beef cattle industry in parts of the United States, the term beef (plural beeves) is still used in its archaic sense to refer to an animal of either sex. Cows of certain breeds that are kept for the milk they give are called dairy cows or milking cows (formerly milch cows).  Most young male offspring of dairy cows are sold for veal, and may be referred to as veal calves.
+
+The term dogies is used to describe orphaned calves in the context of ranch work in the American West, as in "Keep them dogies moving".[31] In some places, a cow kept to provide milk for one family is called a "house cow".  Other obsolete terms for cattle include "neat" (this use survives in "neatsfoot oil", extracted from the feet and legs of cattle), and "beefing" (young animal fit for slaughter).
+
+An onomatopoeic term for one of the most common sounds made by cattle is moo (also called lowing). There are a number of other sounds made by cattle, including calves bawling, and bulls bellowing. Bawling is most common for cows after weaning of a calf. The bullroarer makes a sound similar to a bull's territorial call.[32]
+
+Cattle are large quadrupedal ungulate mammals with cloven hooves. Most breeds have horns, which can be as large as the Texas Longhorn or small like a scur. Careful genetic selection has allowed polled (hornless) cattle to become widespread.
+
+Cattle are ruminants, meaning their digestive system is highly specialized to allow the use of poorly digestible plants as food. Cattle have one stomach with four compartments, the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum, with the rumen being the largest compartment.
+The reticulum, the smallest compartment, is known as the "honeycomb". The omasum's main function is to absorb water and nutrients from the digestible feed. The omasum is known as the "many plies". The abomasum is like the human stomach; this is why it is known as the "true stomach".
+
+Cattle are known for regurgitating and re-chewing their food, known as cud chewing, like most ruminants.  While the animal is feeding, the food is swallowed without being chewed and goes into the rumen for storage until the animal can find a quiet place to continue the digestion process.  The food is regurgitated, a mouthful at a time, back up to the mouth, where the food, now called the cud, is chewed by the molars, grinding down the coarse vegetation to small particles.  The cud is then swallowed again and further digested by specialized microorganisms in the rumen. These microbes are primarily responsible for decomposing cellulose and other carbohydrates into volatile fatty acids cattle use as their primary metabolic fuel. The microbes inside the rumen also synthesize amino acids from non-protein nitrogenous sources, such as urea and ammonia. As these microbes reproduce in the rumen, older generations die and their cells continue on through the digestive tract. These cells are then partially digested in the small intestines, allowing cattle to gain a high-quality protein source. These features allow cattle to thrive on grasses and other tough vegetation.
+
+The gestation period for a cow is about nine months long. A newborn calf's size can vary among breeds, but a typical calf weighs 25 to 45 kg (55 to 99 lb). Adult size and weight vary significantly among breeds and sex. Steers are generally killed before reaching 750 kg (1,650 lb). Breeding stock may be allowed a longer lifespan, occasionally living as long as 25 years. The oldest recorded cow, Big Bertha, died at the age of 48 in 1993.
+
+On farms it is very common to use artificial insemination (AI),  a medically assisted reproduction technique consisting of the artificial deposition of semen in the female's genital tract.[33]  It is used in cases where the spermatozoa can not reach the fallopian tubes or simply by choice of the owner of the animal. It consists of transferring, to the uterine cavity, spermatozoa previously collected and processed, with the selection of morphologically more normal and mobile spermatozoa.
+
+A cow's udder contains two pairs of mammary glands, (commonly referred to as teats) creating four "quarters".[34] The front ones are referred to as fore quarters and the rear ones rear quarters.[35]
+
+Bulls become fertile at about seven months of age. Their fertility is closely related to the size of their testicles, and one simple test of fertility is to measure the circumference of the scrotum: a young bull is likely to be fertile once this reaches 28 centimetres (11 in); that of a fully adult bull may be over 40 centimetres (16 in).[36][37]
+
+A bull has a fibro-elastic penis. Given the small amount of erectile tissue, there is little enlargement after erection. The penis is quite rigid when non-erect, and becomes even more rigid during erection. Protrusion is not affected much by erection, but more by relaxation of the retractor penis muscle and straightening of the sigmoid flexure.[38][39][40] Induced ovulation can be manipulated to produce farming benefits. For example, to synchronise ovulation of the cattle to benefit dairy farming.
+
+The weight of adult cattle varies, depending on the breed. Smaller kinds, such as Dexter and Jersey adults, range between 272 to 454 kg (600 to 1,000 lb). Large Continental breeds, such as Charolais, Marchigiana, Belgian Blue and Chianina, adults range from 635 to 1,134 kg (1,400 to 2,500 lb). British breeds, such as Hereford, Angus, and Shorthorn, mature between 454 to 907 kg (1,000 to 2,000 lb), occasionally higher, particularly with Angus and Hereford.[41] Bulls are larger than cows of the same breed by up to a few hundred kilograms. Chianina bulls can weigh up to  1,500 kg (3,300 lb); British bulls, such as Angus and Hereford, can weigh as little as 907 kg (2,000 lb) to as much as 1,361 kg (3,000 lb).[citation needed]
+
+The world record for the heaviest bull was 1,740 kg (3,840 lb), a Chianina named Donetto, when he was exhibited at the Arezzo show in 1955.[42] The heaviest steer was eight-year-old 'Old Ben', a Shorthorn/Hereford cross weighing in at 2,140 kg (4,720 lb) in 1910.[43]
+
+In the United States, the average weight of beef cattle has steadily increased, especially since the 1970s, requiring the building of new slaughterhouses able to handle larger carcasses. New packing plants in the 1980s stimulated a large increase in cattle weights.[44] Before 1790 beef cattle averaged only 160 kg (350 lb) net; and thereafter weights climbed steadily.[45][46]
+
+In laboratory studies, young cattle are able to memorize the locations of several food sources and retain this memory for at least 8 hours, although this declined after 12 hours.[47]  Fifteen-month-old heifers learn more quickly than adult cows which have had either one or two calvings, but their longer-term memory is less stable.[48]  Mature cattle perform well in spatial learning tasks and have a good long-term memory in these tests.  Cattle tested in a radial arm maze are able to remember the locations of high-quality food for at least 30 days.  Although they initially learn to avoid low-quality food, this memory diminishes over the same duration.[49]  Under less artificial testing conditions, young cattle showed they were able to remember the location of feed for at least 48 days.[50]  Cattle can make an association between a visual stimulus and food within 1 day—memory of this association can be retained for 1 year, despite a slight decay.[51]
+
+Calves are capable of discrimination learning[52] and adult cattle compare favourably with small mammals in their learning ability in the Closed-field Test.[53]
+
+They are also able to discriminate between familiar individuals, and among humans.  Cattle can tell the difference between familiar and unfamiliar animals of the same species (conspecifics).  Studies show they behave less aggressively toward familiar individuals when they are forming a new group.[54]  Calves can also discriminate between humans based on previous experience, as shown by approaching those who handled them positively and avoiding those who handled them aversively.[55] Although cattle can discriminate between humans by their faces alone, they also use other cues such as the color of clothes when these are available.[56]
+
+In audio play-back studies, calves prefer their own mother's vocalizations compared to the vocalizations of an unfamiliar mother.[57]
+
+In laboratory studies using images, cattle can discriminate between images of the heads of cattle and other animal species.[58] They are also able to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics.  Furthermore, they are able to categorize images as familiar and unfamiliar individuals.[54]
+
+When mixed with other individuals, cloned calves from the same donor form subgroups, indicating that kin discrimination occurs and may be a basis of grouping behaviour.  It has also been shown using images of cattle that both artificially inseminated and cloned calves have similar cognitive capacities of kin and non-kin discrimination.[59]
+
+Cattle can recognize familiar individuals. Visual individual recognition is a more complex mental process than visual discrimination.  It requires the recollection of the learned idiosyncratic identity of an individual that has been previously encountered and the formation of a mental representation.[60] By using 2-dimensional images of the heads of one cow (face, profiles, ​3⁄4 views), all the tested heifers showed individual recognition of familiar and unfamiliar individuals from their own breed.   Furthermore, almost all the heifers recognized unknown individuals from different breeds, although this was achieved with greater difficulty.  Individual recognition was most difficult when the visual features of the breed being tested were quite different from the breed in the image, for example, the breed being tested had no spots whereas the image was of a spotted breed.[61]
+
+Cattle use visual/brain lateralisation in their visual scanning of novel and familiar stimuli.[62]  Domestic cattle prefer to view novel stimuli with the left eye, i.e. using the right brain hemisphere (similar to horses, Australian  magpies, chicks, toads and fish) but use the right eye, i.e. using the left hemisphere, for viewing familiar stimuli.[63]
+
+In cattle, temperament can affect production traits such as carcass and meat quality or milk yield as well as affecting the animal's overall health and reproduction. Cattle temperament is defined as "the consistent behavioral and physiological difference observed between individuals in response to a stressor or environmental challenge and is used to describe the relatively stable difference in the behavioral predisposition of an animal, which can be related to psychobiological mechanisms".[65] Generally, cattle temperament is assumed to be multidimensional. Five underlying categories of temperament traits have been proposed:[66]
+
+In a study on Holstein–Friesian heifers learning to press a panel to open a gate for access to a food reward, the researchers also recorded the heart rate and behavior of the heifers when moving along the race towards the food. When the heifers made clear improvements in learning, they had higher heart rates and tended to move more vigorously along the race. The researchers concluded this was an indication that cattle may react emotionally to their own learning improvement.[67]
+
+Negative emotional states are associated with a bias toward negative responses towards ambiguous cues in judgement tasks.  After separation from their mothers, Holstein calves showed such a cognitive bias indicative of low mood.[68]  A similar study showed that after hot-iron disbudding (dehorning), calves had a similar negative bias indicating that post-operative pain following this routine procedure results in a negative change in emotional state.[69]
+
+In studies of visual discrimination, the position of the ears has been used as an indicator of emotional state.[54] When cattle are stressed other cattle can tell by the chemicals released in their urine.[70]
+
+Cattle are very gregarious and even short-term isolation is considered to cause severe psychological stress.  When Aubrac and Friesian heifers are isolated, they increase their vocalizations and experience increased heart rate and plasma cortisol concentrations.  These physiological changes are greater in Aubracs.  When visual contact is re-instated, vocalizations rapidly decline, regardless of the familiarity of the returning cattle, however, heart rate decreases are greater if the returning cattle are familiar to the previously-isolated individual.[71]  Mirrors have been used to reduce stress in isolated cattle.[72]
+
+Cattle use all of the five widely recognized sensory modalities.  These can assist in some complex behavioural patterns, for example, in grazing behaviour.  Cattle eat mixed diets, but when given the opportunity, show a partial preference of approximately 70% clover and 30% grass. This preference has a diurnal pattern, with a stronger preference for clover in the morning, and the proportion of grass increasing towards the evening.[73]
+
+Vision is the dominant sense in cattle and they obtain almost 50% of their information visually.
+[74]
+
+Cattle are a prey animal and to assist predator detection, their eyes are located on the sides of their head rather than the front.  This gives them a wide field of view of 330° but limits binocular vision (and therefore stereopsis) to 30° to 50° compared to 140° in humans.[54][75]  This means they have a blind spot directly behind them.  Cattle have good visual acuity,[54] but compared to humans, their visual accommodation is poor.[clarification needed][74]
+
+Cattle have two kinds of color receptors in the cone cells of their retinas.   This means that cattle are dichromatic, as are most other non-primate land mammals.[76][77] There are two to three rods per cone in the fovea centralis but five to six near the optic papilla.[75] Cattle can distinguish long wavelength colors (yellow, orange and red) much better than the shorter wavelengths (blue, grey and green). Calves are able to discriminate between long (red) and short (blue) or medium (green) wavelengths, but have limited ability to discriminate between the short and medium.  They also approach handlers more quickly under red light.[78] Whilst having good color sensitivity, it is not as good as humans or sheep.[54]
+
+A common misconception about cattle (particularly bulls) is that they are enraged by the color red (something provocative is often said to be "like a red flag to a bull"). This is a myth. In bullfighting, it is the movement of the red flag or cape that irritates the bull and incites it to charge.[79]
+
+Cattle have a well-developed sense of taste and can distinguish the four primary tastes (sweet, salty, bitter and sour). They possess around 20,000 taste buds. The strength of taste perception depends on the individual's current food requirements. They avoid bitter-tasting foods (potentially toxic) and have a marked preference for sweet (high calorific value) and salty foods (electrolyte balance).  Their sensitivity to sour-tasting foods helps them to maintain optimal ruminal pH.[74]
+
+Plants have low levels of sodium and cattle have developed the capacity of seeking salt by taste and smell.  If cattle become depleted of sodium salts, they show increased locomotion directed to searching for these.  To assist in their search, the olfactory and gustatory receptors able to detect minute amounts of sodium salts increase their sensitivity as biochemical disruption develops with sodium salt depletion.[80][81]
+
+Cattle hearing ranges from 23 Hz to 35 kHz.  Their frequency of best sensitivity is 8 kHz and they have a lowest threshold of −21 db (re 20 μN/m−2), which means their hearing is more acute than horses (lowest threshold of 7 db).[82] Sound localization acuity thresholds are an average of 30°.  This means that cattle are less able to localise sounds compared to goats (18°), dogs (8°) and humans (0.8°).[83]  Because cattle have a broad foveal fields of view covering almost the entire horizon, they may not need very accurate locus information from their auditory systems to direct their gaze to a sound source.
+
+Vocalizations are an important mode of communication amongst cattle and can provide information on the age, sex, dominance status and reproductive status of the caller. Calves can recognize their mothers using vocalizations; vocal behaviour may play a role by indicating estrus and competitive display by bulls.[84]
+
+Cattle have a range of odiferous glands over their body including interdigital, infraorbital, inguinal and sebaceous glands, indicating that olfaction probably plays a large role in their social life.  Both the primary olfactory system using the olfactory bulbs, and the secondary olfactory system using the vomeronasal organ are used.[85]  This latter olfactory system is used in the flehmen response.  There is evidence that when cattle are stressed, this can be recognised by other cattle and this is communicated by alarm substances in the urine.[70]  The odour of dog faeces induces behavioural changes prior to cattle feeding, whereas the odours of urine from either stressed or non-stressed conspecifics and blood have no effect.[86]
+
+In the laboratory, cattle can be trained to recognise conspecific individuals using olfaction only.[85]
+
+In general, cattle use their sense of smell to "expand" on information detected by other sensory modalities.  However, in the case of social and reproductive behaviours, olfaction is a key source of information.[74]
+
+Cattle have tactile sensations detected mainly by mechanoreceptors, thermoreceptors and nociceptors in the skin and muzzle.  These are used most frequently when cattle explore their environment.[74]
+
+There is conflicting evidence for magnetoreception in cattle. One study reported that resting and grazing cattle tend to align their body axes in the geomagnetic north–south (N-S) direction.[87]  In a follow-up study, cattle exposed to various magnetic fields directly beneath or in the vicinity of power lines trending in various magnetic directions exhibited distinct patterns of alignment.[88] However, in 2011, a group of Czech researchers reported their failed attempt to replicate the finding using Google Earth images.[89]
+
+Under natural conditions, calves stay with their mother until weaning at 8 to 11 months.  Heifer and bull calves are equally attached to their mothers in the first few months of life.[90]  Cattle are considered to be "hider" type animals,[clarification needed] but in the artificial environment of small calving pens, close proximity between cow and calf is maintained by the mother at the first three calvings but this changes to being mediated by the calf after these.  Primiparous dams show a higher incidence of abnormal maternal behavior.[91]
+
+Beef-calves reared on the range suckle an average of 5.0 times every 24 hours with an average total time of 46 min spent suckling. There is a diurnal rhythm in suckling activity with peaks between 05:00–07:00, 10:00–13:00 and 17:00–21:00.[92]
+
+Studies on the natural weaning of zebu cattle (Bos indicus) have shown that the cow weans her calves over a 2-week period, but after that, she continues to show strong affiliatory behavior with her offspring and preferentially chooses them for grooming and as grazing partners for at least 4–5 years.[93]
+
+Semi-wild Highland cattle heifers first give birth at 2 or 3 years of age, and the timing of birth is synchronized with increases in natural food quality. Average calving interval is 391 days, and calving mortality within the first year of life is 5%.[94]
+
+One study showed that over a 4-year period, dominance relationships within a herd of semi-wild highland cattle were very firm. There were few overt aggressive conflicts and the majority of disputes were settled by agonistic (non-aggressive, competitive) behaviors that involved no physical contact between opponents (e.g. threatening and spontaneous withdrawing).  Such agonistic behavior reduces the risk of injury. Dominance status depended on age and sex, with older animals generally being dominant to young ones and males dominant to females. Young bulls gained superior dominance status over adult cows when they reached about 2 years of age.[94]
+
+As with many animal dominance hierarchies, dominance-associated aggressiveness does not correlate with rank position, but is closely related to rank distance between individuals.[94]
+
+Dominance is maintained in several ways.  Cattle often engage in mock fights where they test each other's strength in a non-aggressive way.  Licking is primarily performed by subordinates and received by dominant animals.  Mounting is a playful behavior shown by calves of both sexes and by bulls and sometimes by cows in estrus,[95] however, this is not a dominance related behavior as has been found in other species.[94]
+
+The horns of cattle are "honest signals" used in mate selection.  Furthermore, horned cattle attempt to keep greater distances between themselves and have fewer physical interactions than hornless cattle.  This leads to more stable social relationships.[96]
+
+In calves, the frequency of agonistic behavior decreases as space allowance increases, but this does not occur for changes in group size. However, in adult cattle, the number of agonistic encounters increases as the group size increases.[97]
+
+When grazing, cattle vary several aspects of their bite, i.e. tongue and jaw movements, depending on characteristics of the plant they are eating.  Bite area decreases with the density of the plants but increases with their height.  Bite area is determined by the sweep of the tongue; in one study observing 750-kilogram (1,650 lb) steers, bite area reached a maximum of approximately 170 cm2 (30 sq in).  Bite depth increases with the height of the plants.  By adjusting their behavior, cattle obtain heavier bites in swards that are tall and sparse compared with short, dense swards of equal mass/area.[98]  Cattle adjust other aspects of their grazing behavior in relation to the available food; foraging velocity decreases and intake rate increases in areas of abundant palatable forage.[99]
+
+Cattle avoid grazing areas contaminated by the faeces of other cattle more strongly than they avoid areas contaminated by sheep,[100] but they do not avoid pasture contaminated by rabbit faeces.[101]
+
+In 24 April 2009, edition of the journal Science, a team of researchers led by the National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Agriculture reported having mapped the bovine genome.[102]  The scientists found cattle have about 22,000 genes, and 80% of their genes are shared with humans, and they share about 1000 genes with dogs and rodents, but are not found in humans. Using this bovine "HapMap", researchers can track the differences between the breeds that affect the quality of meat and milk yields.[103]
+
+Behavioral traits of cattle can be as heritable as some production traits, and often, the two can be related.[104] The heritability of fear varies markedly in cattle from low (0.1) to high (0.53); such high variation is also found in pigs and sheep,  probably due to differences in the methods used.[105]  The heritability of temperament (response to isolation during handling) has been calculated as 0.36 and 0.46 for habituation to handling.[106]  Rangeland assessments show that the heritability of aggressiveness in cattle is around 0.36.[107]
+
+Quantitative trait loci (QTLs) have been found for a range of production and behavioral characteristics for both dairy and beef cattle.[108]
+
+Cattle occupy a unique role in human history, having been domesticated since at least the early neolithic age.
+
+Archeozoological and genetic data indicate that cattle were first domesticated from wild aurochs (Bos primigenius) approximately 10,500 years ago. There were two major areas of domestication: one in the Near East (specifically central Anatolia, the Levant and Western Iran), giving rise to the taurine line, and a second in the area that is now Pakistan, resulting in the indicine line.[109]  Modern mitochondrial DNA variation indicates the taurine line may have arisen from as few as 80 aurochs tamed in the upper reaches of Mesopotamia near the villages of Çayönü Tepesi in what is now southeastern Turkey and Dja'de el-Mughara in what is now northern Iraq.[1]
+
+Although European cattle are largely descended from the taurine lineage, gene flow from African cattle (partially of indicine origin) contributed substantial genomic components to both southern European cattle breeds and their New World descendants.[109]  A study on 134 breeds showed that modern taurine cattle originated from Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australia, and Europe.[110]  Some researchers have suggested that African taurine cattle are derived from a third independent domestication from North African aurochsen.[109]
+
+As early as 9000 BC both grain and cattle were used as money or as barter (the first grain remains found, considered to be evidence of pre-agricultural practice date to 17,000 BC).[111][112][113] Some evidence also exists to suggest that other animals, such as camels and goats, may have been used as currency in some parts of the world.[114] One of the advantages of using cattle as currency is that it allows the seller to set a fixed price. It even created the standard pricing. For example, two chickens were traded for one cow as cows were deemed to be more valuable than chickens.[112]
+
+Cattle are often raised by allowing herds to graze on the grasses of large tracts of rangeland. Raising cattle in this manner allows the use of land that might be unsuitable for growing crops. The most common interactions with cattle involve daily feeding, cleaning and milking. Many routine husbandry practices involve ear tagging, dehorning, loading, medical operations, vaccinations and hoof care, as well as training for agricultural shows and preparations. Also, some cultural differences occur in working with cattle; the cattle husbandry of Fulani men rests on behavioural techniques, whereas in Europe, cattle are controlled primarily by physical means, such as fences.[115]  Breeders use cattle husbandry to reduce M. bovis infection susceptibility by selective breeding and maintaining herd health to avoid concurrent disease.[116]
+
+Cattle are farmed for beef, veal, dairy, and leather. They are less commonly used for conservation grazing, or simply to maintain grassland for wildlife, such as in Epping Forest, England. They are often used in some of the most wild places for livestock. Depending on the breed, cattle can survive on hill grazing, heaths, marshes, moors and semidesert. Modern cattle are more commercial than older breeds and, having become more specialized, are less versatile. For this reason, many smaller farmers still favor old breeds, such as the Jersey dairy breed.
+In Portugal, Spain, southern France and some Latin American countries, bulls are used in the activity of bullfighting;  Jallikattu in India is a bull taming sport radically different from European bullfighting, humans are unarmed and bulls are not killed. In many other countries bullfighting is illegal. Other activities such as bull riding are seen as part of a rodeo, especially in North America. Bull-leaping, a central ritual in Bronze Age Minoan culture (see Sacred Bull), still exists in southwestern France.  In modern times, cattle are also entered into agricultural competitions. These competitions can involve live cattle or cattle carcases in hoof and hook events.
+
+In terms of food intake by humans, consumption of cattle is less efficient than of grain or vegetables with regard to land use, and hence cattle grazing consumes more area than such other agricultural production when raised on grains.[117] Nonetheless, cattle and other forms of domesticated animals can sometimes help to use plant resources in areas not easily amenable to other forms of agriculture. Bulls are sometimes used as guard animals.[118][119]
+
+The average sleep time of a domestic cow is about 4 hours a day.[120]  Cattle do have a stay apparatus,[121] but do not sleep standing up,[122] they lie down to sleep deeply.[123]  In spite of the urban legend, cows cannot be tipped over by people pushing on them.[124]
+
+The meat of adult cattle is known as beef, and that of calves is veal.  Other animal parts are also used as food products, including blood, liver, kidney, heart and oxtail.  Cattle also produce milk, and dairy cattle are specifically bred to produce the large quantities of milk processed and sold for human consumption. Cattle today are the basis of a multibillion-dollar industry worldwide. The international trade in beef for 2000 was over $30 billion and represented only 23% of world beef production.[125] Approximately 300 million cattle, including dairy cattle, are slaughtered each year for food.[126] The production of milk, which is also made into cheese, butter, yogurt, and other dairy products, is comparable in economic size to beef production, and provides an important part of the food supply for many of the world's people. Cattle hides, used for leather to make shoes, couches and clothing, are another widespread product.  Cattle remain broadly used as draft animals in many developing countries, such as India. Cattle are also used in some sporting games, including rodeo and bullfighting.
+
+Source: Helgi Library,[127] World Bank, FAOSTAT
+
+About half the world's meat comes from cattle.[128]
+
+Certain breeds of cattle, such as the Holstein-Friesian, are used to produce milk,[129][130] which can be processed into dairy products such as milk, cheese or yogurt. Dairy cattle are usually kept on specialized dairy farms designed for milk production. Most cows are milked twice per day, with milk processed at a dairy, which may be onsite at the farm or the milk may be shipped to a dairy plant for eventual sale of a dairy product.[131] For dairy cattle to continue producing milk, they must give birth to one calf per year. If the calf is male, it generally is slaughtered at a young age to produce veal.[132] They will continue to produce milk until three weeks before birth.[130] Over the last fifty years, dairy farming has become more intensive to increase the yield of milk produced by each cow. The Holstein-Friesian is the breed of dairy cow most common in the UK, Europe and the United States. It has been bred selectively to produce the highest yields of milk of any cow. Around 22 litres per day is average in the UK.[129][130]
+
+Most cattle are not kept solely for hides, which are usually a by-product of beef production. Hides are most commonly used for leather, which can be made into a variety of product, including shoes. In 2012 India was the world's largest producer of cattle hides.[133]
+
+Feral cattle are defined as being 'cattle that are not domesticated or cultivated'.[134] Populations of feral cattle are known to come from and exist in: Australia, United States of America,[135] Colombia, Argentina, Spain, France and many islands, including New Guinea, Hawaii, Galapagos, Juan Fernández Islands, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), Tristan da Cunha and Île Amsterdam,[136]  two islands of Kuchinoshima[137] and Kazura Island next to Naru Island in Japan.[138][139] Chillingham cattle is sometimes regarded as a feral breed.[140] Aleutian wild cattles can be found on Aleutian Islands.[141] The "Kinmen cattle" which is dominantly found on Kinmen Island, Taiwan is mostly domesticated while smaller portion of the population is believed to live in the wild due to accidental releases.[142]
+
+Other notable examples include cattle in the vicinity of Hong Kong (in the Shing Mun Country Park,[143] among Sai Kung District[144] and Lantau Island[145] and on Grass Island[146]), and semi-feral animals in Yangmingshan, Taiwan.[147]
+
+(2003)
+
+& Hoekstra
+
+(2003)
+
+(2003)
+
+Gut flora in cattle include methanogens that produce methane as a byproduct of enteric fermentation, which cattle belch out. The same volume of atmospheric methane has a higher global warming potential than atmospheric carbon dioxide.[151][152] Methane belching from cattle can be reduced with genetic selection, immunization, rumen defaunation, diet modification, decreased antibiotic use, and grazing management, among others.[153][154][155][156]
+
+A report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states that the livestock sector is "responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions".[157] The IPCC estimates that cattle and other livestock emit about 80 to 93 Megatonnes of methane per year,[158] accounting for an estimated 37% of anthropogenic methane emissions,[157] and additional methane is produced by anaerobic fermentation of manure in manure lagoons and other manure storage structures.[159] The net change in atmospheric methane content was recently about 1 Megatonne per year,[160]  and in some recent years there has been no increase in atmospheric methane content.[161]  While cattle fed forage actually produce more methane than grain-fed cattle, the increase may be offset by the increased carbon recapture of pastures, which recapture three times the CO2 of cropland used for grain.[162]
+
+One of the cited changes suggested to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is intensification of the livestock industry, since intensification leads to less land for a given level of production. This assertion is supported by studies of the US beef production system, suggesting practices prevailing in 2007 involved 8.6% less fossil fuel use, 16.3% less greenhouse gas emissions, 12.1% less water use, and 33.0% less land use, per unit mass of beef produced, than those used in 1977.[163]  The analysis took into account not only practices in feedlots, but also feed production (with less feed needed in more intensive production systems), forage-based cow-calf operations and back-grounding before cattle enter a feedlot (with more beef produced per head of cattle from those sources, in more intensive systems), and beef from animals derived from the dairy industry.
+
+The number of American cattle kept in confined feedlot conditions fluctuates. From 1 January 2002 through 1 January 2012, there was no significant overall upward or downward trend in the number of US cattle on feed for slaughter, which averaged about 14.046 million head over that period.[164][165]  Previously, the number had increased; it was 12.453 million in 1985.[166] Cattle on feed (for slaughter) numbered about 14.121 million on 1 January 2012, i.e. about 15.5% of the estimated inventory of 90.8 million US cattle (including calves) on that date.  Of the 14.121 million, US cattle on feed (for slaughter) in operations with 1000 head or more were estimated to number 11.9 million.[165] Cattle feedlots in this size category correspond to the regulatory definition of "large" concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) for cattle other than mature dairy cows or veal calves.[167]  Significant numbers of dairy, as well as beef cattle, are confined in CAFOs, defined as "new and existing operations which stable or confine and feed or maintain for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period more than the number of animals specified"[168] where "[c]rops, vegetation, forage growth, or post-harvest residues are not sustained in the normal growing season over any portion of the lot or facility."[169]  They may be designated as small, medium and large. Such designation of cattle CAFOs is according to cattle type (mature dairy cows, veal calves or other) and cattle numbers, but medium CAFOs are so designated only if they meet certain discharge criteria, and small CAFOs are designated only on a case-by-case basis.[170]
+
+A CAFO that discharges pollutants is required to obtain a permit, which requires a plan to manage nutrient runoff, manure, chemicals, contaminants, and other wastewater pursuant to the US Clean Water Act.[171] The regulations involving CAFO permitting have been extensively litigated.[172]
+Commonly, CAFO wastewater and manure nutrients are applied to land at agronomic rates for use by forages or crops, and it is often assumed that various constituents of wastewater and manure, e.g. organic contaminants and pathogens, will be retained, inactivated or degraded on the land with application at such rates; however, additional evidence is needed to test reliability of such assumptions
+.[173]  Concerns raised by opponents of CAFOs have included risks of contaminated water due to feedlot runoff,[174] soil erosion, human and animal exposure to toxic chemicals, development of antibiotic resistant bacteria and an increase in E. coli contamination.[175]  While research suggests some of these impacts can be mitigated by developing wastewater treatment systems[174] and planting cover crops in larger setback zones,[176] the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report in 2008 concluding that CAFOs are generally unsustainable and externalize costs.[162]
+
+An estimated 935,000 cattle operations were operating in the US in 2010.[177] In 2001, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tallied 5,990 cattle CAFOs then regulated, consisting of beef (2,200), dairy (3,150), heifer (620) and veal operations (20).[178] Since that time, the EPA has established CAFOs as an enforcement priority.  EPA enforcement highlights for fiscal year 2010 indicated enforcement actions against 12 cattle CAFOs for violations that included failures to obtain a permit, failures to meet the terms of a permit, and discharges of contaminated water.[179]
+
+Another concern is manure, which if not well-managed, can lead to adverse environmental consequences. However, manure also is a valuable source of nutrients and organic matter when used as a fertilizer.[180]  Manure was used as a fertilizer on about 6,400,000 hectares (15.8 million acres) of US cropland in 2006, with manure from cattle accounting for nearly 70% of manure applications to soybeans and about 80% or more of manure applications to corn, wheat, barley, oats and sorghum.[181]  Substitution of manure for synthetic fertilizers in crop production can be environmentally significant, as between 43 and 88 megajoules of fossil fuel energy would be used per kg of nitrogen in manufacture of synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers.[182]
+
+Grazing by cattle at low intensities can create a favourable environment for native herbs and forbs by mimicking the native grazers who they displaced; in many world regions, though, cattle are reducing biodiversity due to overgrazing.[183]  A survey of refuge managers on 123 National Wildlife Refuges in the US tallied 86 species of wildlife considered positively affected and 82 considered negatively affected by refuge cattle grazing or haying.[184] Proper management of pastures, notably managed intensive rotational grazing and grazing at low intensities can lead to less use of fossil fuel energy, increased recapture of carbon dioxide, fewer ammonia emissions into the atmosphere, reduced soil erosion, better air quality, and less water pollution.[162]
+
+The veterinary discipline dealing with cattle and cattle diseases (bovine veterinary) is called buiatrics.[185] Veterinarians and professionals working on cattle health issues are pooled in the World Association for Buiatrics, founded in 1960.[186] National associations and affiliates also exist.[187]
+
+Cattle diseases were in the center of attention in the 1980s and 1990s when the Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease, was of concern.  Cattle might catch and develop various other diseases, like blackleg, bluetongue, foot rot too.[188][189][190]
+
+In most states, as cattle health is not only a veterinarian issue, but also a public health issue, public health and food safety standards and farming regulations directly affect the daily work of farmers who keep cattle.[191] However, said rules change frequently and are often debated. For instance, in the U.K., it was proposed in 2011 that milk from tuberculosis-infected cattle should be allowed to enter the food chain.[192] Internal food safety regulations might affect a country's trade policy as well. For example, the United States has just reviewed its beef import rules according to the "mad cow standards"; while Mexico forbids the entry of cattle who are older than 30 months.[193]
+
+Cow urine is commonly used in India for internal medical purposes.[194][195]  It is distilled and then consumed by patients seeking treatment for a wide variety of illnesses.[196] At present, no conclusive medical evidence shows this has any effect.[197] However, an Indian medicine containing cow urine has already obtained U.S. patents.[198]
+
+Digital dermatitis is caused by the bacteria from the genus Treponema. It differs from foot rot and can appear under unsanitary conditions such as poor hygiene or inadequate hoof trimming, among other causes. It primarily affects dairy cattle and has been known to lower the quantity of milk produced, however the milk quality remains unaffected. Cattle are also susceptible to ringworm caused by the fungus, Trichophyton verrucosum, a contagious skin disease which may be transferred to humans exposed to infected cows.[199]
+
+Stocking density refers to the number of animals within a specified area. When stocking density reaches high levels, the behavioural needs of the animals may not be met.  This can negatively influence health, welfare and production performance.[200]
+
+The effect of overstocking in cows can have a negative effect on milk production and reproduction rates which are two very important traits for dairy farmers. Overcrowding of cows in barns has been found to reduced feeding, resting and rumination.[200] Although they consume the same amount of dry matter within the span of a day, they consume the food at a much more rapid rate, and this behaviour in cows can lead to further complications.[201] The feeding behaviour of cows during their post-milking period is very important as it has been proven that the longer animals can eat after milking, the longer they will be standing up and therefore causing less contamination to the teat ends.[202] This is necessary to reduce the risk of mastitis as infection has been shown to increase the chances of embryonic loss.[203] Sufficient rest is important for dairy cows because it is during this period that their resting blood flow increases up to 50%, this is directly proportionate to milk production.[202] Each additional hour of rest can be seen to translate to 2 to 3.5 more pounds of milk per cow daily. Stocking densities of anything over 120% have been shown to decrease the amount of time cows spend lying down.[204]
+
+Cortisol is an important stress hormone; its plasma concentrations increase greatly when subjected to high levels of stress.[205]  Increased concentration levels of cortisol have been associated with significant increases in gonadotrophin levels and lowered progestin levels. Reduction of stress is important in the reproductive state of cows as an increase in gonadotrophin and lowered progesterone levels may impinge on the ovulatory and lutenization process and to reduce the chances of successful implantation.[206] A high cortisol level will also stimulate the degradation of fats and proteins which may make it difficult for the animal to sustain its pregnancy if implanted successfully.[205]
+
+Animal rights activists have criticized the treatment of cattle, claiming that common practices in cattle husbandry, slaughter, and entertainment unnecessarily cause cattle fear, stress, and pain. They advocate for abstaining from the consumption of cattle-related animal products (such as beef, cow's milk, veal, and leather) and cattle-based entertainment (such as rodeos and bullfighting) in order to end one's participation in the cruelty, claiming that the animals are only treated this way due to market forces and popular demand.
+
+The following practices have been criticized by animal welfare and animal rights groups:[207] branding,[208] castration,[209] dehorning,[210] ear tagging,[211] nose ringing,[212] restraint,[213] tail docking,[214] the use of veal crates,[215] and cattle prods.[216] Further, the stress induced by high stocking density (such as in feedlots, auctions, and during transport) is known to negatively affect the health of cattle,[217][218] and has also been criticized.[219][220]
+
+While the treatment of dairy cows is similar to that of beef cattle, especially towards the end of their life, it has faced additional criticism.[221] To produce milk from dairy cattle, most calves are separated from their mothers soon after birth and fed milk replacement in order to retain the cows' milk for human consumption.[222] Animal welfare advocates point out that this breaks the natural bond between the mother and her calf.[222] Unwanted male calves are either slaughtered at birth or sent for veal production.[222] To prolong lactation, dairy cows are almost permanently kept pregnant through artificial insemination.[222] Because of this, some feminists state that dairy production is based on the sexual exploitation of cows.[223][224] Although cows' natural life expectancy is about twenty years,[225] after about five years the cows' milk production has dropped; they are then considered "spent" and are sent to slaughter, which is considered cruel by some.[226][227]
+
+While leather is often a by-product of slaughter, in some countries, such as India and Bangladesh, cows are raised primarily for their leather. These leather industries often make their cows walk long distances across borders to be killed in neighboring provinces and countries where cattle slaughter is legal. Some cows die along the long journey, and exhausted animals are often beaten and have chili and tobacco rubbed into their eyes to make them keep walking.[228] These practices have faced backlash from various animal rights groups.[229][230]
+
+There has been a long history of protests against rodeos,[231]  with the opposition saying that rodeos are unnecessary and cause stress, injury, and death to the animals.[232][233]
+
+The running of the bulls faces opposition due to the stress and injuries incurred by the bulls during the event.[234]
+
+Bullfighting is considered by many people, including animal rights and animal welfare advocates, to be a cruel, barbaric blood sport in which bulls are forced to suffer severe stress and a slow, torturous death.[235] A number of animal rights and animal welfare groups are involved in anti-bullfighting activities.[236]
+
+Oxen (singular ox) are cattle trained as draft animals. Often they are adult, castrated males of larger breeds, although females and bulls are also used in some areas. Usually, an ox is over four years old due to the need for training and to allow it to grow to full size. Oxen are used for plowing, transport, hauling cargo, grain-grinding by trampling or by powering machines, irrigation by powering pumps, and wagon drawing. Oxen were commonly used to skid logs in forests, and sometimes still are, in low-impact, select-cut logging. Oxen are most often used in teams of two, paired, for light work such as carting, with additional pairs added when more power is required, sometimes up to a total of 20 or more.
+
+Oxen can be trained to respond to a teamster's signals. These signals are given by verbal commands or by noise (whip cracks). Verbal commands vary according to dialect and local tradition. Oxen can pull harder and longer than horses. Though not as fast as horses, they are less prone to injury because they are more sure-footed.
+
+Many oxen are used worldwide, especially in developing countries.  About 11.3 million draft oxen are used in sub-Saharan Africa.[237]  In India, the number of draft cattle in 1998 was estimated at 65.7 million head.[238] About half the world's crop production is thought to depend on land preparation (such as plowing) made possible by animal traction.[239]
+
+The cow is mentioned often in the Quran.  The second and longest surah of the Quran is named Al-Baqara ("The Cow"). Out of the 286 verses of the surah, seven mention cows (Al Baqarah 67–73).[240][241] The name of the surah derives from this passage in which Moses orders his people to sacrifice a cow in order to resurrect a man murdered by an unknown person.[242]
+
+Cattle are venerated within the Hindu religion of India. In the Vedic period they were a symbol of plenty [243]:130 and were frequently slaughtered. In later times they gradually acquired their present status. According to the Mahabharata, they are to be treated with the same respect 'as one's mother'.[244] In the middle of the first millennium, the consumption of beef began to be disfavoured by lawgivers.[243]:144 Although there has never been any cow-goddesses or temples dedicated to them,[243]:146 cows appear in numerous stories from the Vedas and Puranas. The deity Krishna was brought up in a family of cowherders, and given the name Govinda (protector of the cows). Also, Shiva is traditionally said to ride on the back of a bull named Nandi.
+
+Milk and milk products were used in Vedic rituals.[243]:130 In the postvedic period products of the cow—milk, curd, ghee, but also cow dung and urine (gomutra), or the combination of these five (panchagavya)—began to assume an increasingly important role in ritual purification and expiation.[243]:130–131
+
+Veneration of the cow has become a symbol of the identity of Hindus as a community,[243]:20 especially since the end of the 19th century. Slaughter of cows (including oxen, bulls and calves) is forbidden by law in several states of the Indian Union. McDonald's outlets in India do not serve any beef burgers. In Maharaja Ranjit Singh's empire of the early 19th century, the killing of a cow was punishable by death.[245]
+
+Cattle are typically represented in heraldry by the bull.
+
+Arms of the Azores
+
+Arms of Mecklenburg region, Germany
+
+Arms of Turin, Italy
+
+Arms of Kaunas, Lithuania
+
+Arms of Bielsk Podlaski, Poland
+
+Arms of Ciołek, Poland
+
+Arms of Turek, Poland
+
+For 2013, the FAO estimated global cattle numbers at 1.47 billion.[249] Regionally, the FAO estimate for 2013 includes: Asia 497 million; South America 350 million; Africa 307 million; Europe 122 million; North America 102 million; Central America 47 million; Oceania 40 million; and Caribbean 9 million.
+
+Didactic model of Bovine
+
+Bovine anatomical model
+
+Didactic model of a bovine muscular system
+

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+
+
+The gastrointestinal tract, (GI tract, GIT, digestive tract, digestion tract, alimentary canal) is the tract from the mouth to the anus which includes all the organs of the digestive system in humans and other animals. Food taken in through the mouth is digested to extract nutrients and absorb energy, and expelled in the remaining waste as feces. The mouth, esophagus, stomach and intestines are all part of the gastrointestinal tract. Gastrointestinal is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the stomach and intestines. A tract is a collection of related anatomic structures or a series of connected body organs.
+
+All vertebrates and most invertebrates have a digestive tract. The sponges, cnidarians, and ctenophores are the early invertebrates with an incomplete digestive tract having just one opening instead of two, where food is taken in and waste expelled.[1][2]
+
+The human gastrointestinal tract consists of the esophagus,  stomach, and intestines, and is divided into the upper and lower gastrointestinal tracts.[3] The GI tract includes all structures between the mouth and the anus,[4] forming a continuous passageway that includes the main organs of digestion, namely, the stomach, small intestine, and large intestine. However, the complete human digestive system is made up of the gastrointestinal tract plus the accessory organs of digestion (the tongue, salivary glands, pancreas, liver and gallbladder).[5] The tract may also be divided into foregut, midgut, and hindgut, reflecting the embryological origin of each segment. The whole human GI tract is about nine metres (30 feet) long at autopsy. It is considerably shorter in the living body because the intestines, which are tubes of smooth muscle tissue, maintain constant muscle tone in a halfway-tense state but can relax in spots to allow for local distention and peristalsis.[6][7]
+
+The gastrointestinal tract contains trillions of microbes, with some 4,000 different strains of bacteria having diverse roles in maintenance of immune health and metabolism.[8][9][10] Cells of the GI tract release hormones to help regulate the digestive process. These digestive hormones, including gastrin, secretin, cholecystokinin, and ghrelin, are mediated through either intracrine or autocrine mechanisms, indicating that the cells releasing these hormones are conserved structures throughout evolution.[11]
+
+The structure and function can be described both as gross anatomy and as microscopic anatomy or histology. The tract itself is divided into upper and lower tracts, and the intestines small and large parts.[12]
+
+The upper gastrointestinal tract consists of the mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, and duodenum.[13]
+The exact demarcation between the upper and lower tracts is the suspensory muscle of the duodenum. This differentiates the embryonic borders between the foregut and midgut, and is also the division commonly used by clinicians to describe gastrointestinal bleeding as being of either "upper" or "lower" origin. Upon dissection, the duodenum may appear to be a unified organ, but it is divided into four segments based upon function, location, and internal anatomy. The four segments of the duodenum are as follows (starting at the stomach, and moving toward the jejunum): bulb, descending, horizontal, and ascending. The suspensory muscle attaches the superior border of the ascending duodenum to the diaphragm.
+
+The suspensory muscle is an important anatomical landmark which shows the formal division between the duodenum and the jejunum, the first and second parts of the small intestine, respectively.[14] This is a thin muscle which is derived from the embryonic mesoderm.
+
+The lower gastrointestinal tract includes most of the small intestine and all of the large intestine.[15] In human anatomy, the intestine (bowel, or gut. Greek: éntera) is the segment of the gastrointestinal tract extending from the pyloric sphincter of the stomach to the anus and, as in other mammals, consists of two segments, the small intestine and the large intestine. In humans, the small intestine is further subdivided into the duodenum, jejunum and ileum while the large intestine is subdivided into the, cecum, ascending, transverse, descending and sigmoid colon, rectum, and anal canal.[16][17]
+
+The small intestine begins at the duodenum and is a tubular structure, usually between 6 and 7 m long.[18] Its mucosal area in an adult human is about 30 m2.[19] The combination of the circular folds, the villi, and the microvilli increases the absorptive area of the mucosa about 600-fold, making a total area of about 250 square meters for the entire small intestine.[20] Its main function is to absorb the products of digestion (including carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and vitamins) into the bloodstream. There are three major divisions:
+
+The large intestine also called the colon, consists of the cecum, rectum, and anal canal. It also includes the appendix, which is attached to the cecum. The colon is further divided into:
+
+The main function of the large intestine is to absorb water.
+The area of the large intestinal mucosa of an adult human is about 2 m2.[19]
+
+The gut is an endoderm-derived structure. At approximately the sixteenth day of human development, the embryo begins to fold ventrally (with the embryo's ventral surface becoming concave) in two directions: the sides of the embryo fold in on each other and the head and tail fold toward one another. The result is that a piece of the yolk sac, an endoderm-lined structure in contact with the ventral aspect of the embryo, begins to be pinched off to become the primitive gut. The yolk sac remains connected to the gut tube via the vitelline duct. Usually, this structure regresses during development; in cases where it does not, it is known as Meckel's diverticulum.
+
+During fetal life, the primitive gut is gradually patterned into three segments: foregut, midgut, and hindgut. Although these terms are often used in reference to segments of the primitive gut, they are also used regularly to describe regions of the definitive gut as well.
+
+Each segment of the gut is further specified and gives rise to specific gut and gut-related structures in later development. Components derived from the gut proper, including the stomach and colon, develop as swellings or dilatations in the cells of the primitive gut. In contrast, gut-related derivatives — that is, those structures that derive from the primitive gut but are not part of the gut proper, in general, develop as out-pouchings of the primitive gut. The blood vessels supplying these structures remain constant throughout development.[21]
+
+The gastrointestinal tract has a form of general histology with some differences that reflect the specialization in functional anatomy.[22] The GI tract can be divided into four concentric layers in the following order:
+
+The mucosa is the innermost layer of the gastrointestinal tract. The mucosa surrounds the lumen, or open space within the tube. This layer comes in direct contact with digested food (chyme). The mucosa is made up of:
+
+The mucosae are highly specialized in each organ of the gastrointestinal tract to deal with the different conditions. The most variation is seen in the epithelium.
+
+The submucosa consists of a dense irregular layer of connective tissue with large blood vessels, lymphatics, and nerves branching into the mucosa and muscularis externa. It contains the  submucosal plexus, an enteric nervous plexus, situated on the inner surface of the muscularis externa.
+
+The muscular layer consists of an inner circular layer and a longitudinal outer layer. The circular layer prevents food from traveling backward and the longitudinal layer shortens the tract. The layers are not truly longitudinal or circular, rather the layers of muscle are helical with different pitches. The inner circular is helical with a steep pitch and the outer longitudinal is helical with a much shallower pitch.[23] Whilst the muscularis externa is similar throughout the entire gastrointestinal tract, an exception is the stomach which has an additional inner oblique muscular layer to aid with grinding and mixing of food. The muscularis externa of the stomach is composed of the inner oblique layer, middle circular layer, and outer longitudinal layer.
+
+Between the circular and longitudinal muscle layers is the myenteric plexus. This controls peristalsis. Activity is initiated by the pacemaker cells, (myenteric interstitial cells of Cajal). The gut has intrinsic peristaltic activity (basal electrical rhythm) due to its self-contained enteric nervous system. The rate can be modulated by the rest of the autonomic nervous system.[23]
+
+The coordinated contractions of these layers is called peristalsis and propels the food through the tract. Food in the GI tract is called a bolus (ball of food) from the mouth down to the stomach. After the stomach, the food is partially digested and semi-liquid, and is referred to as chyme. In the large intestine the remaining semi-solid substance is referred to as faeces.[23]
+
+The outermost layer of the gastrointestinal tract consists of several layers of connective tissue.
+
+Intraperitoneal parts of the GI tract are covered with serosa. These include most of the stomach, first part of the duodenum, all of the small intestine, caecum and appendix, transverse colon, sigmoid colon and rectum. In these sections of the gut there is clear boundary between the gut and the surrounding tissue. These parts of the tract have a mesentery.
+
+Retroperitoneal parts are covered with adventitia. They blend into the surrounding tissue and are fixed in position. For example, the retroperitoneal section of the duodenum usually passes through the transpyloric plane. These include the esophagus, pylorus of the stomach, distal duodenum, ascending colon, descending colon and anal canal. In addition, the oral cavity has adventitia.
+
+Approximately 20,000 protein coding genes are expressed in human cells and 75% of these genes are expressed in at least one of the different parts of the digestive organ system.[24][25] Over 600 of these genes are more specifically expressed in one or more parts of the GI tract and the corresponding proteins have functions related to digestion of food and uptake of nutrients. Examples of specific proteins with such functions are pepsinogen PGC and the lipase LIPF, expressed in chief cells, and gastric ATPase ATP4A and gastric intrinsic factor GIF, expressed in parietal cells of the stomach mucosa. Specific proteins expressed in the stomach and duodenum involved in defence include mucin proteins, such as mucin 6 and intelectin-1.[26]
+
+The time taken for food to transit through the gastrointestinal tract varies on multiple factors, including age, ethnicity, and gender.[medical citation needed] Several techniques have been used to measure transit time, including radiography following a barium-labeled meal, breath hydrogen analysis, and scintigraphic analysis following a radiolabeled meal.[medical citation needed] It takes 2.5 to 3 hours for 50% of the contents to leave the stomach.[medical citation needed] The rate of digestion is also dependent of the material being digested, as food composition from the same meal may leave the stomach at different rates.[medical citation needed] Total emptying of the stomach takes around 4-5 hours, and transit through the colon takes 30 to 50 hours.[27][28][29]
+
+The gastrointestinal tract forms an important part of the immune system.[30] The surface area of the digestive tract is estimated to be about 32 square meters, or about half a badminton court.[19] With such a large exposure (more than three times larger than the exposed surface of the skin), these immune components function to prevent pathogens from entering the blood and lymph circulatory systems.[31] Fundamental components of this protection are provided by the intestinal mucosal barrier which is composed of physical, biochemical, and immune elements elaborated by the intestinal mucosa.[32] Microorganisms also are kept at bay by an extensive immune system comprising the gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT)
+
+There are additional factors contributing to protection from pathogen invasion. For example, low pH (ranging from 1 to 4) of the stomach is fatal for many microorganisms that enter it.[33] Similarly, mucus (containing IgA antibodies) neutralizes many pathogenic microorganisms.[34] Other factors in the GI tract contribution to immune function include enzymes secreted in the saliva and bile.
+
+Beneficial bacteria also can contribute to the homeostasis of the gastrointestinal immune system. For example, Clostridia, one of the most predominant bacterial groups in the GI tract, play an important role in influencing the dynamics of the gut's immune system.[35] It has been demonstrated that the intake of a high fiber diet could be the responsible for the induction of T-regulatory cells (Tregs). This is due to the production of short-chain fatty acids during the fermentation of plant-derived nutrients  such as butyrate and propionate.  Basically, the butyrate induces the differentiation of Treg cells by enhancing histone H3 acetylation in the promoter and conserved non-coding sequence regions of the FOXP3 locus, thus regulating the T cells, resulting in the reduction of the inflammatory response and allergies.
+
+The large intestine hosts several kinds of bacteria that can deal with molecules that the human body cannot otherwise break down.[36] This is an example of symbiosis. These bacteria also account for the production of gases at host-pathogen interface, inside our intestine(this gas is released as flatulence when eliminated through the anus). However the large intestine is mainly concerned with the absorption of water from digested material (which is regulated by the hypothalamus) and the re absorption of sodium, as well as any nutrients that may have escaped primary digestion in the ileum.[citation needed]
+
+Health-enhancing intestinal bacteria of the gut flora serve to prevent the overgrowth of potentially harmful bacteria in the gut. These two types of bacteria compete for space and "food", as there are limited resources within the intestinal tract. A ratio of 80-85% beneficial to 15–20% potentially harmful bacteria generally is considered normal within the intestines.[citation needed]
+
+Enzymes such as CYP3A4, along with the antiporter activities, are also instrumental in the intestine's role of drug metabolism in the detoxification of antigens and xenobiotics.[37]
+
+There are many diseases and conditions that can affect the gastrointestinal system, including infections, inflammation and cancer.
+
+Various pathogens, such as bacteria that cause foodborne illnesses, can induce gastroenteritis which results from inflammation of the stomach and small intestine. Antibiotics to treat such bacterial infections can decrease the microbiome diversity of the gastrointestinal tract, and further enable inflammatory mediators.[38] Gastroenteritis is the most common disease of the GI tract.
+
+Diverticular disease is a condition that is very common in older people in industrialized countries.  It usually affects the large intestine but has been known to affect the small intestine as well.  Diverticulosis occurs when pouches form on the intestinal wall.  Once the pouches become inflamed it is known as diverticulitis.
+
+Inflammatory bowel disease is an inflammatory condition affecting the bowel walls, and includes the subtypes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. While Crohn's can affect the entire gastrointestinal tract, ulcerative colitis is limited to the large intestine. Crohn's disease is widely regarded as an autoimmune disease. Although ulcerative colitis is often treated as though it were an autoimmune disease, there is no consensus that it actually is such.
+
+Functional gastrointestinal disorders the most common of which is irritable bowel syndrome. Functional constipation and chronic functional abdominal pain are other functional disorders of the intestine that have physiological causes but do not have identifiable structural, chemical, or infectious pathologies.
+
+Several symptoms are used to indicate problems with the gastrointestinal tract:
+
+Gastrointestinal surgery can often be performed in the outpatient setting.  In the United States in 2012, operations on the digestive system accounted for 3 of the 25 most common ambulatory surgery procedures and constituted 9.1 percent of all outpatient ambulatory surgeries.[39]
+
+Various methods of imaging the gastrointestinal tract include the upper and lower gastrointestinal series:
+
+Intestines from animals other than humans are used in a number of ways.  From each species of livestock that is a source of milk, a corresponding rennet is obtained from the intestines of milk-fed calves.  Pig and calf intestines are eaten, and pig intestines are used as sausage casings. Calf intestines supply calf-intestinal alkaline phosphatase (CIP), and are used to make goldbeater's skin.
+Other uses are:
+
+Many birds and other animals have a specialised stomach in the digestive tract called a gizzard used for grinding up food.
+
+Another feature not found in the human but found in a range of other animals is the crop. In birds this is found as a pouch alongside the esophagus.
+
+Other animals including amphibians, birds, reptiles, and egg-laying mammals have a major difference in their GI tract in that it ends in a cloaca and not an anus.
+
+In 2020, the oldest known fossil digestive tract, of an extinct wormlike organism in the Cloudinidae was discovered; it lived during the late Ediacaran period about 550 million years ago.[46][47]

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+
+The Scout movement, also known as Scouting or the Scouts, is a voluntary non-political educational movement for young people open to all without distinction of gender, origin, race or creed, in accordance with the purpose, principles and method conceived by the founder, Lord Baden-Powell. The purpose of the Scout Movement is to contribute to the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual potentials as individuals, as responsible citizens and as members of their local, national and international communities.
+During the first half of the twentieth century, the movement grew to encompass three major age groups for boys (Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Rover Scout) and, in 1910, a new organization, Girl Guides, was created for girls (Brownie Guide, Girl Guide and Girl Scout, Ranger Guide). It is one of several worldwide youth organizations.
+
+In 1906 and 1907 Robert Baden-Powell, a lieutenant general in the British Army, wrote a book for boys about reconnaissance and scouting. This book, Scouting for Boys, was based on his earlier books about military scouting, with influence and support of Frederick Russell Burnham (Chief of Scouts in British Africa), Ernest Thompson Seton of the Woodcraft Indians, William Alexander Smith of the Boys' Brigade, and his publisher Pearson. In mid-1907 Baden-Powell held a camp on Brownsea Island in England to test ideas for his book. This camp and the publication of  Scouting for Boys (London, 1908) are generally regarded as the start of the Scout movement.
+
+The movement employs the Scout method, a programme of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports. Another widely recognized movement characteristic is the Scout uniform, by intent hiding all differences of social standing in a country and making for equality, with neckerchief and campaign hat or comparable headwear. Distinctive uniform insignia include the fleur-de-lis and the trefoil, as well as badges and other patches.
+
+The two largest umbrella organizations are the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), for boys-only and co-educational organizations, and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), primarily for girls-only organizations but also accepting co-educational organizations. The year 2007 marked the centenary of Scouting worldwide, and member organizations planned events to celebrate the occasion.
+
+The trigger for the Scouting movement was the 1908 publication of Scouting for Boys written by Robert Baden-Powell.[1][2] At Charterhouse, one of England's most famous public schools, Baden-Powell had an interest in the outdoors.[3] Later, as a military officer, Baden-Powell was stationed in British India in the 1880s where he took an interest in military scouting and in 1884 he published Reconnaissance and Scouting.[4]
+
+In 1896, Baden-Powell was assigned to the Matabeleland region in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as Chief of Staff to Gen. Frederick Carrington during the Second Matabele War. In June 1896 he met here and began a lifelong friendship with Frederick Russell Burnham, the American-born Chief of Scouts for the British Army in Africa.[5][6] This was a formative experience for Baden-Powell not only because he had the time of his life commanding reconnaissance missions into enemy territory, but because many of his later Boy Scout ideas originated here.[7] During their joint scouting patrols into the Matobo Hills, Burnham augmented Baden-Powell's woodcraft skills, inspiring him and sowing seeds for both the programme and for the code of honour later published in Scouting for Boys.[8][9] Practised by frontiersmen of the American Old West and indigenous peoples of the Americas, woodcraft was generally little known to the British Army but well known to the American scout Burnham.[5] These skills eventually formed the basis of what is now called scoutcraft, the fundamentals of Scouting. Both men recognised that wars in Africa were changing markedly and the British Army needed to adapt; so during their joint scouting missions, Baden-Powell and Burnham discussed the concept of a broad training programme in woodcraft for young men, rich in exploration, tracking, fieldcraft, and self-reliance.[10] During this time in the Matobo Hills Baden-Powell first started to wear his signature campaign hat[11] like the one worn by Burnham, and acquired his kudu horn, the Ndebele war instrument he later used every morning at Brownsea Island to wake the first Boy Scouts and to call them together in training courses.[12][13][14]
+
+Three years later, in South Africa during the Second Boer War, Baden-Powell was besieged in the small town of Mafikeng (Mafeking) by a much larger Boer army.[15] The Mafeking Cadet Corps was a group of youths that supported the troops by carrying messages, which freed the men for military duties and kept the boys occupied during the long siege. The Cadet Corps performed well, helping in the defence of the town (1899–1900), and were one of the many factors that inspired Baden-Powell to form the Scouting movement.[16][17][18] Each member received a badge that illustrated a combined compass point and spearhead. The badge's logo was similar to the fleur-de-lis shaped arrowhead that Scouting later adopted as its international symbol.[19] The Siege of Mafeking was the first time since his own childhood that Baden-Powell, a regular serving soldier, had come into the same orbit as "civilians"—women and children—and discovered for himself the usefulness of well-trained boys.
+
+In the United Kingdom, the public, through newspapers, followed Baden-Powell's struggle to hold Mafeking, and when the siege was broken he had become a national hero. This rise to fame fuelled the sales of the small instruction book he had written in 1899 about military scouting and wilderness survival, Aids to Scouting,[20] that owed much to what he had learned from discussions with Burnham.[21]
+
+On his return to England, Baden-Powell noticed that boys showed considerable interest in Aids to Scouting, which was unexpectedly used by teachers and youth organizations as their first Scouting handbook.[21] He was urged to rewrite this book for boys, especially during an inspection of the Boys' Brigade, a large youth movement drilled with military precision. Baden-Powell thought this would not be attractive and suggested that the Boys' Brigade could grow much larger were Scouting to be used.[22] He studied other schemes, parts of which he used for Scouting.
+
+In July 1906 Ernest Thompson Seton sent Baden-Powell a copy of his 1902 book The Birchbark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians.[23] Seton, a British-born Canadian-American living in the United States, met Baden-Powell in October 1906, and they shared ideas about youth training programs.[24][25] In 1907 Baden-Powell wrote a draft called Boy Patrols. In the same year, to test his ideas, he gathered 21 boys of mixed social backgrounds (from boy's schools in the London area and a section of boys from the Poole, Parkstone, Hamworthy, Bournemouth, and Winton Boys' Brigade units) and held a week-long camp in August on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, Dorset.[26] His organizational method, now known as the Patrol System and a key part of Scouting training, allowed the boys to organize themselves into small groups with an elected patrol leader.[27]
+
+In late 1907, Baden-Powell went on an extensive speaking tour arranged by his publisher, Arthur Pearson, to promote his forthcoming book, Scouting for Boys. He had not simply rewritten his Aids to Scouting; he omitted the military aspects and transferred the techniques (mainly survival skills) to non-military heroes: backwoodsmen, explorers (and later on, sailors and airmen).[28] He also added innovative educational principles (the Scout method) by which he extended the attractive game to a personal mental education.[25]
+
+At the beginning of 1908, Baden-Powell published Scouting for Boys in six fortnightly parts, setting out activities and programmes which existing youth organisations could use.[29] The reaction was phenomenal, and quite unexpected. In a very short time, Scout Patrols were created up and down the country, all following the principles of Baden-Powell's book. In 1909, the first Scout Rally was held at Crystal Palace in London, to which 11,000 Scouts came—and some girls dressed as Scouts and calling themselves "Girl Scouts". Baden-Powell retired from the Army and, in 1910, he formed The Boy Scouts Association, and later The Girl Guides. By the time of The Boy Scouts Association's first census in 1910, it had over 100,000 Scouts.[29]
+
+Scouting for Boys was published in England later in 1908 in book form. The book is now the fourth-bestselling title of all time,[30] and was the basis for the later American version of the Boy Scout Handbook.[31]
+
+At the time, Baden-Powell intended that the scheme would be used by established organizations, in particular the Boys' Brigade, from the founder William A. Smith.[32] However, because of the popularity of his person and the adventurous outdoor games he wrote about, boys spontaneously formed Scout patrols and flooded Baden-Powell with requests for assistance. He encouraged them, and the Scouting movement developed momentum. In 1910 Baden-Powell formed The Boy Scouts Association in the United Kingdom. As the movement grew, Sea Scouts, Air Scouts, and other specialized units were added to the program.[33][34]
+
+The scouts law is for boys, as follows;
+
+In his original book on boy scouting, General Baden-Powell introduced the Scout promise, as follows:[35]
+“Before he becomes a scout, a boy must take the scout's oath, thus:
+
+On my honour I promise that---
+
+While taking this oath the scout will stand, holding his right hand raised level with his shoulder, palm to the front, thumb resting on the nail of the little finger and the other three fingers upright, pointing upwards:--- This is the scout's salute and secret sign.
+
+The Boy Scout Movement swiftly established itself throughout the British Empire soon after the publication of Scouting for Boys. By 1908, Scouting was established in Gibraltar, Malta, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In 1909 Chile was the first country outside the British dominions to have a Scouting organization recognized by Baden-Powell. The first Scout rally, held in 1909 at the Crystal Palace in London, attracted 10,000 boys and a number of girls. By 1910, Argentina, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Malaya, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States had Boy Scouts.[36][37]
+
+The program initially focused on boys aged 11 to 18, but as the movement grew the need became apparent for leader training and programs for younger boys, older boys, and girls. The first Cub Scout and Rover Scout programs were in place by the late 1910s. They operated independently until they obtained official recognition from their home country's Scouting organization. In the United States, attempts at Cub programs began as early as 1911, but official recognition was not obtained until 1930.[37][38][39]
+
+Girls wanted to become part of the movement almost as soon as it began. Baden-Powell and his sister Agnes Baden-Powell introduced the Girl Guides in 1910, a parallel movement for girls, sometimes named Girl Scouts. Agnes Baden-Powell became the first president of the Girl Guides when it was formed in 1910, at the request of the girls who attended the Crystal Palace Rally. In 1914, she started Rosebuds—later renamed Brownies—for younger girls. She stepped down as president of the Girl Guides in 1920 in favor of Robert's wife Olave Baden-Powell, who was named Chief Guide (for England) in 1918 and World Chief Guide in 1930. At that time, girls were expected to remain separate from boys because of societal standards, though co-educational youth groups did exist. By the 1990s, two-thirds of the Scout organizations belonging to WOSM had become co-educational.[40]
+
+Baden-Powell could not single-handedly advise all groups who requested his assistance. Early Scoutmaster training camps were held in London and Yorkshire in 1910 and 1911. Baden-Powell wanted the training to be as practical as possible to encourage other adults to take leadership roles, so the Wood Badge course was developed to recognize adult leadership training. The development of the training was delayed by World War I, and the first Wood Badge course was not held until 1919.[41] Wood Badge is used by Boy Scout associations and combined Boy Scout and Girl Guide associations in many countries. Gilwell Park near London was purchased in 1919 on behalf of The Scout Association as an adult training site and Scouting campsite.[42] Baden-Powell wrote a book, Aids to Scoutmastership, to help Scouting Leaders, and wrote other handbooks for the use of the new Scouting sections, such as Cub Scouts and Girl Guides. One of these was Rovering to Success, written for Rover Scouts in 1922. A wide range of leader training exists in 2007, from basic to program-specific, including the Wood Badge training.
+
+Important elements of traditional Scouting have their origins in Baden-Powell's experiences in education and military training. He was a 50-year-old retired army general when he founded Scouting, and his revolutionary ideas inspired thousands of young people, from all parts of society, to get involved in activities that most had never contemplated. Comparable organizations in the English-speaking world are the Boys' Brigade and the non-militaristic Woodcraft Folk; however, they never matched the development and growth of Scouting.[43]
+
+Aspects of Scouting practice have been criticized as too militaristic.[44]
+
+Local influences have also been a strong part of Scouting. By adopting and modifying local ideologies, Scouting has been able to find acceptance in a wide variety of cultures. In the United States, Scouting uses images drawn from the U.S. frontier experience. This includes not only its selection of animal badges for Cub Scouts, but the underlying assumption that American native peoples are more closely connected with nature and therefore have special wilderness survival skills which can be used as part of the training program. By contrast, British Scouting makes use of imagery drawn from the Indian subcontinent, because that region was a significant focus in the early years of Scouting. Baden-Powell's personal experiences in India led him to adopt Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book as a major influence for the Cub Scouts; for example, the name used for the Cub Scout leader, Akela (whose name was also appropriated for the Webelos), is that of the leader of the wolf pack in the book.[45]
+
+The name "Scouting" seems to have been inspired by the important and romantic role played by military scouts performing reconnaissance in the wars of the time. In fact, Baden-Powell wrote his original military training book, Aids To Scouting, because he saw the need for the improved training of British military-enlisted scouts, particularly in initiative, self-reliance, and observational skills. The book's popularity with young boys surprised him. As he adapted the book as Scouting for Boys, it seems natural that the movement adopted the names Scouting and Boy Scouts.[46]
+
+"Duty to God" is a principle of Scouting, though it is applied differently in various countries.[47][48] The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) take a strong position, excluding atheists.[49] The Scout Association in the United Kingdom permits variations to its Promise, in order to accommodate different religious obligations.[50] While for example in the predominantly atheist Czech Republic the Scout oath doesn't mention God altogether with the organization being strictly irreligious,[51] in 2014, United Kingdom Scouts were given the choice of being able to make a variation of the Promise that replaced "duty to God" with "uphold our Scout values",[52] Scouts Canada defines Duty to God broadly in terms of "adherence to spiritual principles" and leaves it to the individual member or leader whether they can follow a Scout Promise that includes Duty to God.[53] Worldwide, roughly one in three Scouts are Muslim.[54]
+
+Scouting is taught using the Scout method, which incorporates an informal educational system that emphasizes practical activities in the outdoors. Programs exist for Scouts ranging in age from 6 to 25 (though age limits vary slightly by country), and program specifics target Scouts in a manner appropriate to their age.[55][56]
+
+The Scout method is the principal method by which the Scouting organizations, boy and girl, operate their units. WOSM describes Scouting as "a voluntary nonpolitical educational movement for young people open to all without distinction of origin, race or creed, in accordance with the purpose, principles and method conceived by the Founder".[55] It is the goal of Scouting "to contribute to the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, social and spiritual potentials as individuals, as responsible citizens and as members of their local, national and international communities."[55]
+
+The principles of Scouting describe a code of behavior for all members, and characterize the movement. The Scout method is a progressive system designed to achieve these goals, comprising seven elements: law and promise, learning by doing, team system, symbolic framework, personal progression, nature, and adult support.[57] While community service is a major element of both the WOSM and WAGGGS programs, WAGGGS includes it as an extra element of the Scout method: service in the community.[58]
+
+The Scout Law and Promise embody the joint values of the Scouting movement worldwide, and bind all Scouting associations together. The emphasis on "learning by doing" provides experiences and hands-on orientation as a practical method of learning and building self-confidence. Small groups build unity, camaraderie, and a close-knit fraternal atmosphere. These experiences, along with an emphasis on trustworthiness and personal honor, help to develop responsibility, character, self-reliance, self-confidence, reliability, and readiness; which eventually lead to collaboration and leadership. A program with a variety of progressive and attractive activities expands a Scout's horizon and bonds the Scout even more to the group. Activities and games provide an enjoyable way to develop skills such as dexterity. In an outdoor setting, they also provide contact with the natural environment.[56]
+
+Since the birth of Scouting, Scouts worldwide have taken a Scout Promise to live up to ideals of the movement, and subscribe to the Scout Law. The form of the promise and laws have varied slightly by country and over time, but must fulfil the requirements of the WOSM to qualify a National Scout Association for membership.[55]
+
+The Scout Motto, 'Be Prepared', has been used in various languages by millions of Scouts since 1907. Less well-known is the Scout Slogan, 'Do a good turn daily'.[59]
+
+Common ways to implement the Scout method include having Scouts spending time together in small groups with shared experiences, rituals, and activities, and emphasizing 'good citizenship'[60] and decision-making by young people in an age-appropriate manner. Weekly meetings often take place in local centres known as Scout dens. Cultivating a love and appreciation of the outdoors and outdoor activities is a key element. Primary activities include camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports.[61][62]
+
+Camping is most often arranged at the unit level, such as one Scout troop, but there are periodic camps (known in the US as "camporees") and "jamborees". Camps occur a few times a year and may involve several groups from a local area or region camping together for a weekend. The events usually have a theme, such as pioneering. World Scout Moots are gatherings, originally for Rover Scouts, but mainly focused on Scout Leaders. Jamborees are large national or international events held every four years, during which thousands of Scouts camp together for one or two weeks. Activities at these events will include games, Scoutcraft competitions, badge, pin or patch trading, aquatics, woodcarving, archery and activities related to the theme of the event.[63]
+
+In some countries a highlight of the year for Scouts is spending at least a week in the summer engaging in an outdoor activity. This can be a camping, hiking, sailing, or other trip with the unit, or a summer camp with broader participation (at the council, state, or provincial level). Scouts attending a summer camp work on Scout badges, advancement, and perfecting Scoutcraft skills. Summer camps can operate specialty programs for older Scouts, such as sailing, backpacking, canoeing and whitewater, caving, and fishing.[64][65]
+
+At an international level Scouting perceives one of its roles as the promotion of international harmony and peace.[66] Various initiatives are in train towards achieving this aim including the development of activities that benefit the wider community, challenge prejudice and encourage tolerance of diversity. Such programs include co-operation with non-Scouting organisations including various NGOs, the United Nations and religious institutions as set out in The Marrakech Charter.[67]
+
+The Scout uniform is a widely recognized characteristic of Scouting. In the words of Baden-Powell at the 1937 World Jamboree, it "hides all differences of social standing in a country and makes for equality; but, more important still, it covers differences of country and race and creed, and makes all feel that they are members with one another of the one great brotherhood".[68] The original uniform, still widely recognized, consisted of a khaki button-up shirt, shorts, and a broad-brimmed campaign hat. Baden-Powell also wore shorts, because he believed that being dressed like a Scout helped to reduce the age-imposed distance between adult and youth. Uniform shirts are now frequently blue, orange, red or green and shorts are frequently replaced by long trousers all year or only under cold weather.
+
+While designed for smartness and equality, the Scout uniform is also practical. Shirts traditionally have thick seams to make them ideal for use in makeshift stretchers—Scouts were trained to use them in this way with their staves, a traditional but deprecated item. The leather straps and toggles of the campaign hats or Leaders' Wood Badges could be used as emergency tourniquets, or anywhere that string was needed in a hurry. Neckerchiefs were chosen as they could easily be used as a sling or triangular bandage by a Scout in need. Scouts were encouraged to use their garters for shock cord where necessary.[68]
+
+Distinctive insignia for all are Scout uniforms, recognized and worn the world over, include the Wood Badge and the World Membership Badge. Scouting has two internationally known symbols: the trefoil is used by members of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) and the fleur-de-lis by member organizations of the WOSM and most other Scouting organizations.[69][70]
+
+The swastika was used as an early symbol by the Boy Scouts Association of the United Kingdom and others. Its earliest use in Scouting was on the Thanks Badge introduced in 1911.[71] Lord Baden-Powell's 1922 design for the Medal of Merit added a swastika to the Scout Arrowhead to symbolize good luck for the recipient. In 1934, Scouters requested a change to the design because of the connection of the swastika with its more recent use by the German National Socialist Workers (Nazi) Party. A new Medal of Merit was issued by the Boy Scouts Association in 1935.[71]
+
+Scouting and Guiding movements are generally divided into sections by age or school grade, allowing activities to be tailored to the maturity of the group's members. These age divisions have varied over time as they adapt to the local culture and environment.[72]
+
+Scouting was originally developed for adolescents—youths between the ages of 11 and 17. In most member organizations, this age group composes the Scout or Guide section. Programs were developed to meet the needs of young children (generally ages 6 to 10) and young adults (originally 18 and older, and later up to 25). Scouts and Guides were later split into "junior" and "senior" sections in many member organizations, and some organizations dropped the young adults' section. The exact age ranges for programs vary by country and association.[73][74][75]
+
+The national programs for younger children include Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts, Brownies, Daisies, Rainbow Guides, Beaver Scouts, Joey Scouts, Keas, and Teddies. Programs for post-adolescents and young adults include the Senior Section,[76] Rover Scouts, Senior Scouts, Venture Scouts, Explorer Scouts, and the Scout Network. Many organizations also have a program for members with special needs. This is usually known as Extension Scouting, but sometimes has other names, such as Scoutlink. The Scout Method has been adapted to specific programs such as Air Scouts, Sea Scouts, Rider Guides and Scoutingbands .[77]
+
+In many countries, Scouting is organized into neighborhood Scout Groups, or Districts, which contain one or more sections. Under the umbrella of the Scout Group, sections are divided according to age, each having their own terminology and leadership structure.[78]
+
+Adults interested in Scouting or Guiding, including former Scouts and Guides, often join organizations such as the International Scout and Guide Fellowship. In the United States and the Philippines, university students might join the co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega. In the United Kingdom, university students might join the Student Scout and Guide Organisation, and after graduation, the Scout and Guide Graduate Association.
+
+Scout units are usually operated by adult volunteers, such as parents and carers, former Scouts, students, and community leaders, including teachers and religious leaders. Scout Leadership positions are often divided into 'uniform' and 'lay' positions. Uniformed leaders have received formal training, such as the Wood Badge, and have received a warrant for a rank within the organization. Lay members commonly hold part-time roles such as meeting helpers, committee members and advisors, though there are a small number of full-time lay professionals.[79]
+
+A unit has uniformed positions—such as the Scoutmaster and assistants—whose titles vary among countries. In some countries, units are supported by lay members, who range from acting as meeting helpers to being members of the unit's committee. In some Scout associations, the committee members may also wear uniforms and be registered Scout leaders.[80]
+
+Above the unit are further uniformed positions, called Commissioners, at levels such as district, county, council or province, depending on the structure of the national organization. Commissioners work with lay teams and professionals. Training teams and related functions are often formed at these levels. In the UK and in other countries, the national Scout organization appoints the Chief Scout, the most senior uniformed member.[81][82][83]
+
+Following its foundation in the United Kingdom, Scouting spread around the globe. The first association outside the British Empire was founded in Chile in May 21, 1909 after a visit by Baden Powell.[84] In most countries of the world, there is now at least one Scouting (or Guiding) organization. Each is independent, but international cooperation continues to be seen as part of the Scout Movement. In 1922 the WOSM started as the governing body on policy for the national Scouting organizations (then male only). In addition to being the governing policy body, it organizes the World Scout Jamboree every four years.[85]
+
+In 1928 the WAGGGS started as the equivalent to WOSM for the then female-only national Scouting/Guiding organizations. It is also responsible for its four international centres: Our Cabaña in Mexico, Our Chalet in Switzerland, Pax Lodge in the United Kingdom, and Sangam in India.[86]
+
+Today at the international level, the two largest umbrella organizations are:
+
+There have been different approaches to co-educational Scouting. Some countries have maintained separate Scouting organizations for boys and girls,[87] In other countries, especially within Europe, Scouting and Guiding have merged, and there is a single organization for boys and girls, which is a member of both the WOSM and the WAGGGS.[88][89] The United States-based Boy Scouts of America permitted girls to join in early 2018.[90] In others, such as Australia and the United Kingdom, the national Scout association has opted to admit both boys and girls, but is only a member of the WOSM, while the national Guide association has remained as a separate movement and member of the WAGGGS. In some countries like Greece, Slovenia and Spain there are separate associations of Scouts (members of WOSM) and guides (members of WAGGGS), both admitting boys and girls.[91]
+
+The Scout Association in the United Kingdom has been co-educational at all levels since 1991, and this was optional for groups until the year 2000 when new sections were required to accept girls. The Scout Association transitioned all Scout groups and sections across the UK to become co-educational by January 2007, the year of Scouting's centenary.[92] The traditional Baden-Powell Scouts' Association has been co-educational since its formation in 1970.
+
+In the United States, the Cub Scout and Boy Scout programs of the BSA were for boys only until 2018; it has changed its policies and is now inviting girls to join, as local packs organize all-girl dens (same uniform, same book, same activities). For youths age 14 and older, Venturing has been co-educational since the 1930s. The Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) is an independent organization for girls and young women only. Adult leadership positions in the BSA and GSUSA are open to both men and women.[93][94]
+
+In 2006, of the 155 WOSM member National Scout Organizations (representing 155 countries), 122 belonged only to WOSM, and 34 belonged to both WOSM and WAGGGS. Of the 122 which belonged only to WOSM, 95 were open to boys and girls in some or all program sections, and 20 were only for boys. All 34 that belonged to both WOSM and WAGGGS were open to boys and girls.[95]
+
+WAGGGS had 144 Member Organizations in 2007 and 110 of them belonged only to WAGGGS. Of these 110, 17 were coeducational and 93 admitted only girls.[96][97][98]
+
+As of 2019, there are over 50 million registered Scouts[99] and as of 2006 10 million registered Guides[100] around the world, from 216 countries and territories.
+
+Fifteen years passed between the first publication of Scouting for Boys and the creation of the current largest supranational Scout organization, WOSM, and millions of copies had been sold in dozens of languages. By that point, Scouting was the purview of the world's youth, and several Scout associations had already formed in many countries.[103][104]
+
+Alternative groups have formed since the original formation of the Scouting "Boy Patrols". They can be a result of groups or individuals who maintain that the WOSM and WAGGGS are more political and less youth-based than envisioned by Lord Baden-Powell. They believe that Scouting in general has moved away from its original intent because of political machinations that happen to longstanding organizations, and want to return to the earliest, simplest methods.[105][106] Others do not want to follow all the original ideals of Scouting but still desire to participate in Scout-like activities.[107]
+
+In 2008, there were at least 539 independent Scouting organizations around the world,[97] 367 of them were a member of either WAGGGS or WOSM. About half of the remaining 172 Scouting organizations are only local or national oriented. About 90 national or regional Scouting associations have created their own international Scouting organizations. Those are served by five international Scouting organizations:[97]
+
+Some Scout-like organizations are also served by international organizations, many with religious elements, for example:
+
+After the inception of Scouting in the early 1900s, some nations' programs have taken part in social movements such as the nationalist resistance movements in India. Although Scouting was introduced to Africa by British officials as a way to strengthen their rule, the values they based Scouting on helped to challenge the legitimacy of British imperialism. Likewise, African Scouts used the Scout Law's principle that a Scout is a brother to all other Scouts to collectively claim full imperial citizenship.[108][109]
+
+A study has found a strong link between participating in Scouting and Guiding as a young person, and having significantly better mental health.[110] The data, from almost 10,000 individuals, came from a lifelong UK-wide study of people born in November 1958, known as the National Child Development Study.
+
+In the United Kingdom, The Scout Association had been criticised for its insistence on the use of a religious promise,[111] leading the organization to introduce an alternative in January 2014 for those not wanting to mention a god in their promise. This change made the organisation entirely non-discriminatory on the grounds of race, gender, sexuality, and religion (or lack thereof).[112]
+
+The Boy Scouts of America was the focus of criticism in the United States for not allowing the open participation of homosexuals until removing the prohibition in 2013.[113]
+
+Authoritarian communist regimes such as the Soviet Union in 1920[114] and fascist regimes like Nazi Germany in 1934[115] often either absorbed the Scout movement into government-controlled organizations, or banned Scouting entirely.
+
+Scouting has been a facet of culture during most of the twentieth century in many countries; numerous films and artwork focus on the subject.[116] Movie critic Roger Ebert mentioned the scene in which the young Boy Scout, Indiana Jones, discovers the Cross of Coronado in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as "when he discovers his life mission".[117]
+
+The works of painters Ernest Stafford Carlos, Norman Rockwell, Pierre Joubert and Joseph Csatari and the 1966 film Follow Me, Boys! are prime examples of this ethos. Scouting is often dealt with in a humorous manner, as in the 1989 film Troop Beverly Hills, the 2005 film Down and Derby, and the film Scout Camp. In 1980, Scottish singer and songwriter Gerry Rafferty recorded I was a Boy Scout as part of his Snakes and Ladders album.[118]
+

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+William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He has received multiple awards, including two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award for his acting, in addition to another Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award as producer under his production company, Plan B Entertainment.
+
+Pitt first gained recognition as a cowboy hitchhiker in the road movie Thelma & Louise (1991). His first leading roles in big-budget productions came with the drama films A River Runs Through It (1992) and Legends of the Fall (1994), and the horror film Interview with the Vampire (1994). He gave critically acclaimed performances in the crime thriller Seven (1995) and the science fiction film 12 Monkeys (1995), the latter earning him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination.
+
+Pitt starred in Fight Club (1999) and the heist film Ocean's Eleven (2001), as well as its sequels, Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). His greatest commercial successes have been Ocean's Eleven (2001), Troy (2004), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), World War Z (2013), and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), for which he won a second Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Pitt's other Academy Award nominated performances were in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011). He produced The Departed (2006) and 12 Years a Slave (2013), both of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and also The Tree of Life (2011), Moneyball (2011), and The Big Short (2015), all of which were nominated for Best Picture.
+
+As a public figure, Pitt has been cited as one of the most influential and powerful people in the American entertainment industry. For a number of years, he was cited as the world's most attractive man by various media outlets, and his personal life is the subject of wide publicity. From 2000 to 2005, he was married to the actress Jennifer Aniston, and from 2014 to 2019, he was married to the actress Angelina Jolie. Pitt and Jolie have six children together, three of whom were adopted internationally.
+
+Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, to William Alvin Pitt, the proprietor of a trucking company, and Jane Etta (née Hillhouse), a school counselor.[1][2] The family soon moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he lived together with his younger siblings, Douglas Mitchell (born 1966) and Julie Neal (born 1969).[3] Born into a conservative Christian household,[4][5] he was raised as Southern Baptist and later "oscillate[d] between agnosticism and atheism."[6] He later came back around to just belief in that "we're all connected".[7] Pitt has described Springfield as "Mark Twain country, Jesse James country," having grown up with "a lot of hills, a lot of lakes."[8]
+
+Pitt attended Kickapoo High School, where he was a member of the golf, swimming and tennis teams.[9] He participated in the school's Key and Forensics clubs, in school debates, and in musicals.[10] Following his graduation from high school, Pitt enrolled in the University of Missouri in 1982, majoring in journalism with a focus on advertising.[11] As graduation approached, Pitt did not feel ready to settle down. He loved films—"a portal into different worlds for me"—and, since films were not made in Missouri, he decided to go to where they were made.[12][13] Two weeks short of completing the coursework for a degree, Pitt left the university and moved to Los Angeles, where he took acting lessons and worked odd jobs.[12] He has named his early acting heroes as Gary Oldman, Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke.[14]
+
+While struggling to establish himself in Los Angeles, Pitt took lessons from acting coach Roy London.[10][15] Pitt's acting career began in 1987, with uncredited parts in the films No Way Out (1987), No Man's Land (1987) and Less Than Zero (1987).[10][16] In May 1987, his television debut came with a two-episode role on the NBC soap opera Another World.[17] In November of the same year, Pitt had a guest appearance on the CBS sitcom Trial and Error[18][19] and the ABC sitcom Growing Pains.[20] He appeared in four episodes of the CBS primetime series Dallas between December 1987 and February 1988 as Randy, the boyfriend of Charlie Wade (played by Shalane McCall).[21] Later in 1988, Pitt made a guest appearance on the Fox police drama 21 Jump Street.[22] In the same year, the Yugoslavian–U.S. co-production The Dark Side of the Sun (1988) gave Pitt his first leading film role, as a young American taken by his family to the Adriatic to find a remedy for a skin condition. The film was shelved at the outbreak of the Croatian War of Independence, and was not released until 1997.[10] Pitt made two motion picture appearances in 1989: the first in a supporting role in the comedy Happy Together; the second a featured role in the horror film Cutting Class, the first of Pitt's films to reach theaters.[20] He made guest appearances on television series Head of the Class, Freddy's Nightmares, Thirtysomething, and (for a second time) Growing Pains.[23]
+
+Pitt was cast as Billy Canton, a drug addict who takes advantage of a young runaway (played by Juliette Lewis) in the 1990 NBC television movie Too Young to Die?, the story of an abused teenager sentenced to death for a murder. Ken Tucker, television reviewer for Entertainment Weekly wrote: "Pitt is a magnificent slimeball as her hoody boyfriend; looking and sounding like a malevolent John Cougar Mellencamp, he's really scary."[24] The same year, Pitt co-starred in six episodes of the short-lived Fox drama Glory Days and took a supporting role in the HBO television film The Image.[25] His next appearance came in the 1991 film Across the Tracks; Pitt portrayed Joe Maloney, a high school runner with a criminal brother, played by Rick Schroder.[26] After years of supporting roles in film and frequent television guest appearances, Pitt attracted wider recognition in his supporting role in Ridley Scott's 1991 road film Thelma & Louise.[25] He played J.D., a small-time criminal who befriends Thelma (Geena Davis). His love scene with Davis has been cited as the event that defined Pitt as a sex symbol.[20][27] After Thelma & Louise, Pitt starred in the 1991 film Johnny Suede, a low-budget picture about an aspiring rock star,[28] and the 1992 live-action/animated fantasy film Cool World,[20] although neither furthered his career, having poor reviews and box office performance.[29][30]
+
+Pitt took the role of Paul Maclean in the 1992 biographical film A River Runs Through It, directed by Robert Redford.[31] His portrayal of the character was described by People's Janet Mock as a career-making performance,[32] proving that Pitt could be more than a "cowboy-hatted hunk."[33] He has admitted to feeling under pressure when making the film[3] and thought it was one of his "weakest performances ... It's so weird that it ended up being the one that I got the most attention for."[3] Pitt believed that he benefited from working with such a talented cast and crew. He compared working with Redford to playing tennis with a superior player, saying "when you play with somebody better than you, your game gets better."[32][33] In 1993, Pitt reunited with Juliette Lewis for the road film Kalifornia. He played Early Grayce, a serial killer and the boyfriend of Lewis's character in a performance described by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone as "outstanding, all boyish charm and then a snort that exudes pure menace."[34] Pitt also garnered attention for a brief appearance in the cult hit True Romance as a stoner named Floyd, providing much needed comic relief to the action film.[35] He capped the year by winning a ShoWest Award for Male Star of Tomorrow.[36]
+
+1994 marked a significant turning point in Pitt's career. Starring as the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the horror film Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, based on Anne Rice's 1976 novel of the same name,[37] he was part of an ensemble cast that included Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Slater, and Antonio Banderas.[37] Despite his winning two MTV Movie Awards at the 1995 ceremony,[38] his performance was poorly received. According to the Dallas Observer, "Brad Pitt [...] is a large part of the problem [in the film]. When directors play up his cocky, hunkish, folksy side [...] he's a joy to watch. But there's nothing about him that suggests inner torment or even self-awareness, which makes him a boring Louis."[39] Following the release of Interview with the Vampire, Pitt starred in Legends of the Fall (1994),[40] based on a novel by the same name by Jim Harrison, set in the American West during the first four decades of the twentieth century. Portraying Tristan Ludlow, son of Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins) a Cornish immigrant,[41] Pitt received his first Golden Globe Award nomination, in the Best Actor category.[42] Aidan Quinn and Henry Thomas co-starred as Pitt's brothers. Although the film's reception was mixed,[43] many film critics praised Pitt's performance. Janet Maslin of The New York Times said, "Pitt's diffident mix of acting and attitude works to such heartthrob perfection it's a shame the film's superficiality gets in his way."[44] The Deseret News predicted that Legends of the Fall would solidify Pitt's reputation as a lead actor.[45]
+
+In 1995, Pitt starred alongside Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow in the crime thriller Seven, playing a detective on the trail of a serial killer.[46] Pitt called it a great movie and declared the part would expand his acting horizons.[47] He expressed his intent to move on from "this 'pretty boy' thing [...] and play someone with flaws."[48] His performance was critically well received, with Variety saying that it was screen acting at its best, further remarking on Pitt's ability to turn in a "determined, energetic, creditable job" as the detective.[49] Seven earned $327 million at the international box office.[29] Following the success of Seven, Pitt took a supporting role as Jeffrey Goines in Terry Gilliam's 1995 science-fiction film 12 Monkeys. The movie received predominantly positive reviews, with Pitt praised in particular. Janet Maslin of the New York Times called Twelve Monkeys "fierce and disturbing" and remarked on Pitt's "startlingly frenzied performance", concluding that he "electrifies Jeffrey with a weird magnetism that becomes important later in the film."[50] He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film[42] and received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[51]
+
+The following year, he had a role in the legal drama Sleepers (1996), based on Lorenzo Carcaterra's novel of the same name.[52] The film received mixed reviews.[53] In the 1997 film The Devil's Own Pitt starred, opposite Harrison Ford, as the Irish Republican Army terrorist Rory Devany,[54] a role for which he was required to learn an Irish accent.[55] Critical opinion was divided on his accent; "Pitt finds the right tone of moral ambiguity, but at times his Irish brogue is too convincing – it's hard to understand what he's saying", wrote the San Francisco Chronicle.[56] The Charleston Gazette opined that it had favored Pitt's accent over the movie.[57] The Devil's Own grossed $140 million worldwide,[29] but was a critical failure. Later that year, he led as Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer in the Jean-Jacques Annaud film Seven Years in Tibet.[58] Pitt trained for months for the role, which demanded significant mountain climbing and trekking practice, including rock climbing in California and the European Alps with his co-star David Thewlis.[59] The film received mostly negative reviews, and was generally considered a disappointment.[60] Pitt had the lead role in 1998's fantasy romance film Meet Joe Black. He portrayed a personification of death inhabiting the body of a young man to learn what it is like to be human.[61] The film received mixed reviews, and many were critical of Pitt's performance. According to Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, Pitt was unable to "make an audience believe that he knows all the mysteries of death and eternity."[62] Roger Ebert stated "Pitt is a fine actor, but this performance is a miscalculation."[63]
+
+In 1999, Pitt portrayed Tyler Durden in Fight Club,[64][65] a film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name, directed by David Fincher.[66] Pitt prepared for the part with lessons in boxing, taekwondo, and grappling.[67] To look the part, Pitt consented to the removal of pieces of his front teeth which were restored when filming ended.[68] While promoting Fight Club, Pitt said that the film explored not taking one's aggressions out on someone else but to "have an experience, take a punch more and see how you come out on the other end."[69] Fight Club premiered at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival.[70] Despite divided critical opinion on the film as a whole,[71][72] Pitt's performance was widely praised. Paul Clinton of CNN noted the risky yet successful nature of the film,[73] while Variety remarked upon Pitt's ability to be "cool, charismatic and more dynamically physical, perhaps than [...] his breakthrough role in Thelma and Louise".[74] In spite of a worse-than-expected box office performance, Fight Club became a cult classic after its DVD release in 2000.[75]
+
+Pitt was cast as an Irish Gypsy boxer with a barely intelligible accent in Guy Ritchie's 2000 gangster film Snatch.[76] Several reviewers were critical of Snatch; however, most praised Pitt.[77] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said Pitt was "ideally cast as an Irishman whose accent is so thick even Brits can't understand him", going on to say that, before Snatch, Pitt had been "shackled by roles that called for brooding introspection, but recently he has found his calling in black comic outrageousness and flashy extroversion;"[78] while Amy Taubin of The Village Voice claimed that "Pitt gets maximum comic mileage out of a one-joke role".[79] The following year Pitt starred opposite Julia Roberts in the romantic comedy The Mexican,[80] a film that garnered a range of reviews[81] but enjoyed box office success.[29] Pitt's next role, in 2001's $143 million-grossing Cold War thriller Spy Game,[29] was as Tom Bishop, an operative of the CIA's Special Activities Division, mentored by Robert Redford's character.[82] Mark Holcomb of Salon.com enjoyed the film, although he noted that neither Pitt nor Redford provided "much of an emotional connection for the audience".[83]
+
+On November 22, 2001, Pitt made a guest appearance in the eighth season of the television series Friends, playing a man with a grudge against Rachel Green, played by Jennifer Aniston, to whom Pitt was married at the time.[84] For this performance he was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.[85] In December 2001, Pitt played Rusty Ryan in the heist film Ocean's Eleven, a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack original. He joined an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy García, and Julia Roberts.[86] Well received by critics, Ocean's Eleven was highly successful at the box office, earning $450 million worldwide.[29] Pitt appeared in two episodes of MTV's reality series Jackass in February 2002, first running through the streets of Los Angeles with several cast members in gorilla suits,[87] and participating in his own staged abduction in another episode.[88] In the same year, Pitt had a cameo role in George Clooney's directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.[89] He took on his first voice-acting roles in 2003, speaking as the titular character of the DreamWorks animated film Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas[90] and playing Boomhauer's brother, Patch, in an episode of the animated television series King of the Hill.[91]
+
+Pitt had two major film roles in 2004, starring as Achilles in Troy, and reprising his role, Rusty Ryan, in the sequel Ocean's Twelve. He spent six months sword training before the filming of Troy, based on the Iliad.[92] An on-set injury to his Achilles tendon delayed production on the picture for several weeks.[93] Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post stated that Pitt excelled at such a demanding role.[94] Troy was the first film produced by Plan B Entertainment, a film production company he had founded two years earlier with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures.[95] Ocean's Twelve earned $362 million worldwide,[29] and Pitt and Clooney's dynamic was described by CNN's Paul Clinton as "the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford."[96] In 2005, Pitt starred as John Smith in the Doug Liman-directed action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which a bored married couple discover that each is an assassin sent to kill the other. The feature received reasonable reviews but was generally lauded for the chemistry between Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who played his character's wife Jane Smith. The Star Tribune noted that "while the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry".[97] Mr. & Mrs. Smith earned $478 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest hits of 2005.[98]
+
+For his next film, Pitt starred opposite Cate Blanchett in Alejandro González Iñárritu's multi-narrative drama Babel (2006).[99] Pitt's performance was critically well-received, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said that he was credible and gave the film visibility.[100] Pitt later said he regarded taking the part as one of the best decisions of his career.[101] The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival[102] and was later featured at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.[103] Babel received seven Academy and Golden Globe award nominations, winning the Best Drama Golden Globe, and earned Pitt a nomination for the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe.[42] That same year, Pitt's company Plan B Entertainment produced The Departed, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Pitt was credited on-screen as a producer; however, only Graham King was ruled eligible for the Oscar win.[104]
+
+Reprising his role as Rusty Ryan in a third picture, Pitt starred in 2007's Ocean's Thirteen.[105] While less lucrative than the first two films, this sequel earned $311 million at the international box office.[29] Pitt's next film role was as American outlaw Jesse James in the 2007 Western drama The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, adapted from Ron Hansen's 1983 novel of the same name.[106] Directed by Andrew Dominik and produced by Pitt's company Plan B Entertainment, the film premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival,[107] with Pitt playing a "scary and charismatic" role, according to Lewis Beale of Film Journal International,[108] and earning Pitt the Volpi Cup award for Best Actor at the 64th Venice International Film Festival.[109] He eventually collected the award one year later at the 2008 festival.[110] As of January 2019, it was his own favorite of his films.[111]
+
+Pitt's next appearance was in the 2008 black comedy Burn After Reading, his first collaboration with the Coen brothers. The film received a positive reception from critics, with The Guardian calling it "a tightly wound, slickly plotted spy comedy",[112] noting that Pitt's performance was one of the funniest.[112] He was later cast as Benjamin Button, the lead in David Fincher's 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a loosely adapted version of a 1921 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story follows a man who is born an octogenarian and ages in reverse,[113] with Pitt's "sensitive" performance making Benjamin Button a "timeless masterpiece", according to Michael Sragow of The Baltimore Sun.[114] The performance earned Pitt his first Screen Actors Guild Award nomination,[115] as well as a fourth Golden Globe and second Academy Award nomination,[42][116] all in the category for Best Actor. The film received thirteen Academy Award nominations in total, and grossed $329 million at the box office worldwide.[29]
+
+Pitt's next leading role came in 2009 with the Quentin Tarantino-directed war film Inglourious Basterds, which premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.[117] Pitt played Lieutenant Aldo Raine, an American resistance fighter battling Nazis in German-occupied France.[118] The film was a box office hit, taking $311 million worldwide,[29] and garnered generally favorable reviews.[119] The film received multiple awards and nominations, including eight Academy Award nominations and seven MTV Movie Award nominations, including Best Male Performance for Pitt.[120][121] He next voiced the superhero character Metro Man in the 2010 animated feature Megamind.[122] Pitt produced and appeared in Terrence Malick's experimental drama The Tree of Life, co-starring Sean Penn, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.[123] In a performance that attracted strong praise, he portrayed the Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane in the drama Moneyball, which is based on the 2003 book of the same name written by Michael Lewis.[124] Moneyball received six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor for Pitt.[125]
+
+His next role was as mob hitman Jackie Cogan in Andrew Dominik's 2012 Killing Them Softly, based on the novel Cogan's Trade by George V. Higgins.[126] In 2013, Pitt starred in World War Z, a thriller about a zombie apocalypse, based on Max Brooks's novel of the same name. Pitt also produced the film.[127] World War Z grossed $540 million at the box office worldwide,[29] becoming Pitt's highest grossing picture.[128] Next in 2013, he produced, and played a small role in, 12 Years a Slave, a historical drama based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup.[129] The film received critical acclaim[130] and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning three, including Best Picture.[131] Also in 2013, Pitt had a supporting role in Ridley Scott's The Counselor.[132] Plan B Entertainment landed its first television series on the 2013–2014 schedule, as their joint venture with ABC Studios, the sci-fi/fantasy drama Resurrection, was picked up by ABC.[133]
+
+Pitt starred in Fury, a World War II film directed and written by David Ayer, and co-starring Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal and Michael Peña.[134][135][136] The film was released on October 17, 2014.[134] By the end of its run, Fury proved to be a commercial and critical success; it grossed more than $211 million worldwide[29] and received highly positive reviews from critics.[137] In 2015, Pitt starred opposite his wife, Jolie, in her third directorial effort, By the Sea, a romantic drama about a marriage in crisis, based on her screenplay. The film was their first collaboration since 2005's Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Pitt's next role came with the biographical comedy-drama The Big Short, which he also produced. The film was a commercial and critical success. It went on to gross over $102 million worldwide[138] and received positive reviews from critics.[139][140] The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, earning Pitt his third Academy Award nomination as producer. In 2016, Pitt starred in Robert Zemeckis's romantic thriller Allied, in which he plays a spy assassin who falls in love with a French spy (played by Marion Cotillard) during a mission to kill a German official in World War II.[141][142] In 2017, he starred in the Netflix satirical war comedy War Machine,[143] which he also produced.[144] Pitt played a recurring role as a weatherman on the late-night talk show The Jim Jefferies Show throughout 2017.[145]
+
+In 2016, it was announced that Pitt will star in the upcoming sequel to World War Z,[146] with official release date set as June 9, 2017.[147] However, in early 2017, the release date was announced to be indefinitely delayed.[148] In June, David Fincher was confirmed to direct the World War Z sequel,[149] but it was ultimately shelved due to budget issues.[150] Pitt starred as Cliff Booth, a stunt double, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, in Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.[151] For his performance in the film, he received awards for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Critics' Choice Movie Awards.[152] In 2019, he also starred in James Gray's deep space epic Ad Astra, in which he played Roy McBride, a space engineer searching the galaxy for his father.[153] Pitt's performance was praised as one of his career-best turn,[154][155] delivering a performance "that weaponizes passivity into a lethal form of self-defense".[156]
+
+Pitt will next star alongside Emma Stone in Babylon directed by Damien Chazelle.[157] and in Bullet Train directed by David Leitch.[158]
+
+Pitt visited the University of Missouri campus in October 2004 to encourage students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election,[159] in which he supported John Kerry.[159][160] Later in October, he publicly supported the principle of public funding for embryonic stem-cell research. "We have to make sure that we open up these avenues so that our best and our brightest can go find these cures that they believe they will find", he said.[161] In support of this he endorsed Proposition 71, a California ballot initiative intended to provide state government funding for stem-cell research.[162]
+
+Pitt supports One Campaign, an organization aimed at combating AIDS and poverty in the developing world.[163][164] He narrated the 2005 PBS public television series Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge, which discusses current global health issues.[165] The following year Pitt and Jolie flew to Haiti, where they visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean.[166] In May 2007, Pitt and Jolie donated $1 million to three organizations in Chad and Sudan dedicated to those affected by the crisis in the Darfur region.[167] Along with Clooney, Damon, Don Cheadle, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub, Pitt is one of the founders of Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention on stopping "mass atrocities".[168]
+
+Pitt has a sustained interest in architecture,[169] even taking time away from film to study computer-aided design at the Los Angeles offices of renowned architect Frank Gehry.[170] He narrated e2 design, a PBS television series focused on worldwide efforts to build environmentally friendly structures through sustainable architecture and design.[171] In 2000, he co-authored an architectural book on the Blacker House with the architects Thomas A. Heinz and Randell Makinson.[172] In 2006, he founded the Make It Right Foundation, organizing housing professionals in New Orleans to finance and construct 150 sustainable, affordable new houses in New Orleans's Ninth Ward following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.[173][174]
+
+The project involves 13 architectural firms and the environmental organization Global Green USA, with several of the firms donating their services.[175][176] Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bing have each committed $5 million in donations.[177] The first six homes were completed in October 2008,[178] and in September 2009 Pitt received an award in recognition of the project from the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built and operated.[179][180] Pitt met with U.S. President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in March 2009 to promote his concept of green housing as a national model and to discuss federal funding possibilities.[181]
+
+In September 2006, Pitt and Jolie established a charitable organization, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to aid humanitarian causes around the world.[182] The foundation made initial donations of $1 million each to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders,[183] followed by an October 2006 donation of $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl Foundation, an organization created in memory of the late American journalist Daniel Pearl.[184] According to federal filings, Pitt and Jolie invested $8.5 million into the foundation in 2006; it gave away $2.4 million in 2006[185] and $3.4 million in 2007.[186] In June 2009, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation donated $1 million to a U.N. refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants.[187] In January 2010, the foundation donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders for emergency medical assistance to help victims of the Haiti earthquake.[188][189]
+
+Pitt is a supporter of same-sex marriage.[190] In an October 2006 interview with Esquire, Pitt said that he would marry Jolie when everyone in America is legally able to marry.[191] In September 2008, he donated $100,000 to the campaign against California's 2008 ballot proposition Proposition 8, an initiative to overturn the state Supreme Court decision that had legalized same-sex marriage.[192] In March 2012, Pitt was featured in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, 8 – a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage – as Judge Vaughn Walker.[193]
+
+In September 2012, Pitt reaffirmed his support of President Obama, saying, "I am an Obama supporter and I'm backing his US election campaign."[194]
+
+In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Pitt was involved in successive relationships with several of his co-stars, including Robin Givens (Head of the Class),[195] Jill Schoelen (Cutting Class),[195] and Juliette Lewis (Too Young to Die? and Kalifornia).[32] In addition, Pitt had a much-publicized romance and engagement to his Seven co-star, Gwyneth Paltrow, whom he dated from 1994 to 1997.[195]
+
+Pitt met Friends actress Jennifer Aniston in 1998 and married her in a private wedding ceremony in Malibu on July 29, 2000.[196] In January 2005, Pitt and Aniston announced they had decided to separate. Two months later, Aniston filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.[197] Pitt and Aniston's divorce was finalized by the Los Angeles Superior Court on October 2, 2005.[197] Despite media reports that Pitt and Aniston had an acrimonious relationship, Pitt said in a February 2009 interview that he and Aniston "check in with each other", adding that they were both big parts of each other's lives.[198]
+
+During Pitt's divorce proceedings, his involvement with his Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-star Angelina Jolie attracted media attention. Jolie and Pitt stated that they fell in love on the set[199][200] and that there was no infidelity.[199] In April 2005, one month after Aniston filed for divorce, a set of paparazzi photographs emerged showing Pitt, Jolie, and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya; the press interpreted the pictures as evidence of a relationship between Pitt and Jolie. During 2005, the two were seen together with increasing frequency, and the entertainment media dubbed the couple "Brangelina".[201] On January 11, 2006, Jolie confirmed to People that she was pregnant with Pitt's child, thereby publicly acknowledging their relationship for the first time. Pitt and Jolie announced their engagement in April 2012 after seven years together.[202] They were married on August 23, 2014, in a private ceremony in Château Miraval, France.[203] On September 19, 2016, Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt, citing irreconcilable differences.[204] On April 12, 2019, the court restored Jolie and Pitt to single status.[205]
+
+In July 2005, Pitt accompanied Jolie to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she adopted her second child, Zahara Marley.[206][207] On December 3, 2005, Pitt was in the process of becoming the adoptive father of Zahara, and Jolie's first adopted child, Maddox Chivan.[208] On January 19, 2006, a California judge granted Jolie's request to change the children's surnames from "Jolie" to "Jolie-Pitt".[209] The adoptions were finalized soon after.[210]
+
+Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh Nouvel in Swakopmund, Namibia, on May 27, 2006. Pitt confirmed that their newborn daughter would qualify for a Namibian passport.[211] The couple sold the first pictures of Shiloh through the distributor Getty Images; the North American rights were purchased by People for over $4.1 million, while Hello! obtained the British rights for approximately $3.5 million. The proceeds from the sale were donated to charities serving African children.[212] Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled a wax figure of two-month-old Shiloh; it marked the first time an infant was recreated in wax by Madame Tussauds.[213]
+
+On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted three-year-old Pax Thien from an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.[214] Pitt adopted Pax in the United States on February 21, 2008.[215]
+
+At the Cannes Film Festival in May 2008, Jolie confirmed that she was expecting twins.[216] She gave birth to son Knox Léon and daughter Vivienne Marcheline on July 12, 2008 in Nice, France.[217] The rights for the first images of Knox and Vivienne were jointly sold to People and Hello! for $14 million—the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken.[218][219] The couple donated the proceeds to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.[218][220]
+
+Pitt has been cited as physically attractive by many sources, including Empire, who named him one of the 25 sexiest stars in film history in 1995.[10][221][222] The same year, Pitt was chosen as People's Sexiest Man Alive, an accolade he received again in 2000.[221][223] Pitt appeared on Forbes's annual Celebrity 100 list of the 100 most powerful celebrities from 2006 to 2008 placing at numbers 20, 5 and 10, respectively.[224][225][226] In 2007, he was listed among the Time 100, a compilation of the 100 most influential people in the world, as selected annually by Time.[227] The magazine credited Pitt with using "his star power to get people to look [to where] cameras don't usually catch".[227] He was again included in the Time 100 in 2009, this time in the "Builders and Titans" list.[228]
+
+Starting in 2005, Pitt's relationship with Angelina Jolie became one of the most reported celebrity stories worldwide. After confirming that Jolie was pregnant in early 2006, the significant media hype surrounding the couple reached what Reuters, in a story titled "The Brangelina fever," called "the point of insanity".[229] To avoid media attention, the couple flew to Namibia for the birth of their daughter Shiloh, which was described by a paparazzi blog as "the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ."[230] Similarly, intense media interest greeted the announcement of Jolie's second pregnancy two years later; for the two weeks Jolie spent in a seaside hospital in Nice, reporters and photographers camped outside on the promenade to report on the birth.[231]
+
+In a 2006 global industry survey by ACNielsen in 42 international markets, Pitt, together with Jolie, were found to be the favorite celebrity endorsers for brands and products worldwide.[232] Pitt has appeared in several television commercials. For the U.S. market, he starred in a Heineken commercial aired during the 2005 Super Bowl; it was directed by David Fincher, who had directed Pitt in Seven, Fight Club, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.[233] Other commercial appearances came in television spots including Acura Integra, in which he was featured opposite Russian model Tatiana Sorokko,[234] as well as SoftBank, and Edwin Jeans.[235] On June 2, 2015, the minor planet 29132 Bradpitt was named in his honor.[236]
+
+1996: Adam Sandler vs. Bob Barker – Happy Gilmore
+1997: Fairuza Balk vs. Robin Tunney – The Craft
+1998: Will Smith vs. Cockroach – Men in Black
+1999: Ben Stiller vs. Puffy the Dog – There's Something About Mary
+2000: Keanu Reeves vs. Laurence Fishburne – The Matrix
+2001: Zhang Ziyi vs. Entire bar – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
+2002: Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker vs. Hong Kong gang – Rush Hour 2
+2003: Yoda vs. Christopher Lee – Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
+2004: Uma Thurman vs. Chiaki Kuriyama – Kill Bill: Volume 1
+2005: Uma Thurman vs. Daryl Hannah – Kill Bill: Volume 2
+2006: Angelina Jolie vs. Brad Pitt – Mr. & Mrs. Smith
+2007: Gerard Butler vs. Robert Maillet – 300
+
+2008: Sean Faris vs. Cam Gigandet – Never Back Down
+2009: Robert Pattinson vs. Cam Gigandet – Twilight
+2010: Beyoncé Knowles vs. Ali Larter – Obsessed
+2011: Robert Pattinson vs. Bryce Dallas Howard and Xavier Samuel – The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
+2012: Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson vs. Alexander Ludwig – The Hunger Games
+2013: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner vs. Tom Hiddleston – The Avengers
+2014: Orlando Bloom and Evangeline Lilly vs. Orcs – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
+2015: Dylan O'Brien vs. Will Poulter – The Maze Runner
+2016: Ryan Reynolds vs. Ed Skrein – Deadpool
+2018: Gal Gadot vs. German soldiers – Wonder Woman
+2019: Brie Larson vs. Gemma Chan – Captain Marvel
+

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+
+
+Johannes Brahms (German: [joˈhanəs ˈbʁaːms]; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna. His reputation and status as a composer are such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
+
+Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. An uncompromising perfectionist, Brahms destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
+
+Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Embedded within his meticulous structures, however, are deeply romantic motifs.
+
+Brahms's father, Johann Jakob Brahms (1806–72), was from the town of Heide in Holstein. The family name was also sometimes spelt 'Brahmst' or 'Brams', and derives from 'Bram', the German word for the shrub broom.[1] Against the family's will, Johann Jakob pursued a career in music, arriving in Hamburg in 1826, where he found work as a jobbing musician and a string and wind player. In 1830, he married Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen (1789–1865), a seamstress 17 years older than he was. In the same year he was appointed as a horn player in the Hamburg militia.[2] Eventually he became a double-bass player in the Stadttheater Hamburg and the Hamburg Philharmonic Society. As Johann Jakob prospered, the family moved over the years to ever better accommodation in Hamburg.[3] Johannes Brahms was born in 1833; his sister Elisabeth (Elise) had been born in 1831 and a younger brother Fritz Friedrich (Fritz) was born in 1835.[4] Fritz also became a pianist; overshadowed by his brother, he emigrated to Caracas in 1867, and later returned to Hamburg as a teacher.[5]
+
+Johann Jakob gave his son his first musical training; Johannes also learnt to play the violin and the basics of playing the cello. From 1840 he studied piano with Otto Friedrich Willibald Cossel (1813–1865). Cossel complained in 1842 that Brahms "could be such a good player, but he will not stop his never-ending composing." At the age of 10, Brahms made his debut as a performer in a private concert including Beethoven's quintet for piano and winds Op. 16 and a piano quartet by Mozart. He also played as a solo work an étude of Henri Herz. By 1845 he had written a piano sonata in G minor.[6] His parents disapproved of his early efforts as a composer, feeling that he had better career prospects as a performer.[7]
+
+From 1845 to 1848 Brahms studied with Cossel's teacher, the pianist and composer Eduard Marxsen (1806–1887). Marxsen had been a personal acquaintance of Beethoven and Schubert, admired the works of Mozart and Haydn, and was a devotee of the music of J. S. Bach. Marxsen conveyed to Brahms the tradition of these composers and ensured that Brahms's own compositions were grounded in that tradition.[8] In 1847 Brahms made his first public appearance as a solo pianist in Hamburg, playing a fantasy by Sigismund Thalberg. His first full piano recital, in 1848, included a fugue by Bach as well as works by Marxsen and contemporary virtuosi such as Jacob Rosenhain. A second recital in April 1849 included Beethoven's Waldstein sonata and a waltz fantasia of his own composition, and garnered favourable newspaper reviews.[9]
+
+Brahms's compositions at this period are known to have included piano music, chamber music and works for male voice choir. Under the pseudonym 'G. W. Marks', some piano arrangements and fantasies were published by the Hamburg firm of Cranz in 1849. The earliest of Brahms's works which he acknowledged (his Scherzo Op. 4 and the song Heimkehr Op. 7 no. 6) date from 1851. However Brahms was later assiduous in eliminating all his early works;  even as late as 1880 he wrote to his friend Elise Giesemann to send him his manuscripts of choral music so that they could be destroyed.[10]
+
+Persistent stories of the impoverished adolescent Brahms playing in bars and brothels have only anecdotal provenance,[11] and many modern scholars dismiss them; the Brahms family was relatively prosperous, and Hamburg legislation very strictly forbade music in, or the admittance of minors to, brothels.[12][13]
+
+In 1850 Brahms met the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi and accompanied him in a number of recitals over the next few years. This was his introduction to "gypsy-style" music such as the csardas, which was later to prove the foundation of his  most lucrative and popular compositions, the two sets of Hungarian Dances (1869 and 1880).[14][15] 1850 also marked Brahms's first contact (albeit a failed one) with Robert Schumann; during Schumann's visit to Hamburg that year, friends persuaded Brahms to send the former some of his compositions, but the package was returned unopened.[16]
+
+In 1853 Brahms went on a concert tour with Reményi. In late May the two visited the violinist and composer Joseph Joachim at Hanover. Brahms had earlier heard Joachim playing the solo part in Beethoven's violin concerto and been deeply impressed.[17] Brahms played some of his own solo piano pieces for Joachim, who remembered fifty years later: "Never in the course of my artist's life have I been more completely overwhelmed".[18] This was the beginning of a friendship which was lifelong, albeit temporarily derailed when Brahms took the side of Joachim's wife in their divorce proceedings of 1883.[19] Brahms also admired Joachim as a composer, and in 1856 they were to embark on a mutual training exercise to improve their skills in (in Brahms's words) "double counterpoint, canons, fugues, preludes or whatever".[20] Bozarth notes that "products of Brahms's study of counterpoint and early music over the next few years included "dance pieces, preludes and fugues for organ, and neo-Renaissance and neo-Baroque choral works."[21]
+
+After meeting Joachim, Brahms and Reményi visited Weimar, where Brahms met Franz Liszt, Peter Cornelius, and Joachim Raff, and where Liszt performed Brahms's Op. 4 Scherzo at sight.  Reményi claimed that Brahms then slept during Liszt's performance of his own Sonata in B minor; this and other disagreements led Reményi and Brahms to part company.[22]
+
+Brahms visited Düsseldorf in October 1853, and, with a letter of introduction from Joachim,[23] was welcomed by Schumann and his wife Clara. Schumann, greatly impressed and delighted by the 20-year-old's talent, published an article entitled "Neue Bahnen" ("New Paths") in the 28 October issue of the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik nominating Brahms as one who was "fated to give expression to the times in the highest and most ideal manner".[24] This praise may have aggravated Brahms's self-critical standards of perfection and dented his confidence. He wrote to Schumann in November 1853 that his praise "will arouse such extraordinary expectations by the public that I don't know how I can begin to fulfil them".[25] While in Düsseldorf, Brahms participated with Schumann and Schumann's pupil Albert Dietrich in writing a movement each of a violin sonata for Joachim, the "F-A-E Sonata", the letters representing the initials of Joachim's personal motto Frei aber einsam ("Free but lonely").[26]
+
+Schumann's accolade led to the first publication of Brahms's works under his own name. Brahms went to Leipzig where Breitkopf & Härtel published his Opp. 1–4 (the Piano Sonatas nos. 1 and 2, the Six Songs Op. 3, and the Scherzo Op. 4), whilst Bartholf Senff published the Third Piano Sonata Op. 5 and the Six Songs Op. 6. In Leipzig, he gave recitals including his own first two piano sonatas, and met with among others Ferdinand David, Ignaz Moscheles, and Hector Berlioz.[21][27]
+
+After Schumann's attempted suicide and subsequent confinement in a mental sanatorium near Bonn in February 1854 (where he died of pneumonia in 1856), Brahms based himself in Düsseldorf, where he supported the household and dealt with business matters on Clara's behalf. Clara was not allowed to visit Robert until two days before his death, but Brahms was able to visit him and acted as a go-between. Brahms began to feel deeply for Clara, who to him represented an ideal of womanhood. Their intensely emotional platonic relationship lasted until Clara's death. In June 1854 Brahms dedicated to Clara his Op. 9, the Variations on a Theme of Schumann.[21] Clara continued to support Brahms's career by programming his music in her recitals.[28]
+
+After the publication of his Op. 10 Ballades for piano, Brahms published no further works until 1860. His major project of this period was the Piano Concerto in D minor, which he had begun as a work for two pianos in 1854 but soon realized needed a larger-scale format. Based in Hamburg at this time, he gained, with Clara's support, a position as musician to the tiny court of Detmold, the capital of the Principality of Lippe, where he spent the winters of 1857 to 1860 and for which he wrote his two Serenades (1858 and 1859, Opp. 11 and 16). In Hamburg he established a women's choir for which he wrote music and conducted. To this period also belong his first two Piano Quartets (Op. 25 and Op. 26) and the first movement of the third Piano Quartet, which eventually appeared in 1875.[21]
+
+The end of the decade brought professional setbacks for Brahms. The premiere of the First Piano Concerto in Hamburg on 22 January 1859, with the composer as soloist, was poorly received. Brahms wrote to Joachim that the performance was "a brilliant and decisive – failure...[I]t forces one to concentrate one's thoughts and increases one's courage...But the hissing was too much of a good thing..."[29] At a second performance, audience reaction was so hostile that Brahms had to be restrained from leaving the stage after the first movement.[30] As a consequence of these reactions Breitkopf and Härtel declined to take on his new compositions. Brahms consequently established a relationship with other publishers, including Simrock, who eventually became his major publishing partner.[21] Brahms further made an intervention in 1860 in the debate on the future of German music which seriously misfired. Together with Joachim and others, he prepared an attack on Liszt's followers, the so-called "New German School" (although Brahms himself was sympathetic to the music of Richard Wagner, the School's leading light). In particular they objected to the rejection of traditional musical forms and to the "rank, miserable weeds growing from Liszt-like fantasias". A draft was leaked to the press, and the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik published a parody which ridiculed Brahms and his associates as backward-looking. Brahms never again ventured into public musical polemics.[31]
+
+Brahms's personal life was also troubled. In 1859 he became engaged to Agathe von Siebold. The engagement was soon broken off, but even after this Brahms wrote to her: "I love you! I must see you again, but I am incapable of bearing fetters. Please write me ... whether ... I may come again to clasp you in my arms, to kiss you, and tell you that I love you." They never saw one another again, and Brahms later confirmed to a friend that Agathe was his "last love".[32]
+
+Brahms had hoped to be given the conductorship of the Hamburg Philharmonic, but in 1862 this post was given to the baritone Julius Stockhausen. (Brahms continued to hope for the post; but when he was finally offered the directorship in 1893, he demurred as he had "got used to the idea of having to go along other paths".)[33] In autumn 1862 Brahms made his first visit to Vienna, staying there over the winter. There he became an associate of two close members of Wagner's circle, his earlier friend Peter Cornelius and Karl Tausig, and of Joseph Hellmesberger Sr. and Julius Epstein, respectively the Director and head of violin studies, and the head of piano studies, at the Vienna Conservatoire. Brahms's circle grew to include the notable critic (and opponent of the 'New German School') Eduard Hanslick, the conductor Hermann Levi and the surgeon Theodor Billroth, who were to become amongst his greatest advocates.[34][35]
+
+In January 1863 Brahms met Richard Wagner for the first time, for whom he played his Handel Variations Op. 24, which he had completed the previous year. The meeting was cordial, although Wagner was in later years to make critical, and even insulting, comments on Brahms's music.[36] Brahms however retained at this time and later a keen interest in Wagner's music, helping with preparations for Wagner's Vienna concerts in 1862/63,[35] and being rewarded by Tausig with a manuscript of part of Wagner's Tannhäuser (which Wagner demanded back in 1875).[37] The Handel Variations also featured, together with the first Piano Quartet, in his first Viennese recitals, in which his performances were better-received by the public and critics than his music.[38]
+
+Although Brahms entertained the idea of taking up conducting posts elsewhere, he based himself increasingly in Vienna and soon made it his home. In 1863, he was appointed conductor of the Wiener Singakademie. He surprised his audiences by programming much work of the early German masters such as Heinrich Schütz and J. S. Bach, and other early composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli; more recent music was represented by works of Beethoven and Felix Mendelssohn. Brahms also wrote works for the choir, including his Motet, Op. 29. Finding however that the post encroached too much of the time he needed for composing, he left the choir in June 1864.[39] From 1864 to 1876 he spent many of his summers in Lichtental, today part of Baden-Baden, where Clara Schumann and her family also spent some time. His house in Lichtental, where he worked on many of his major compositions including A German Requiem and his middle-period chamber works, is preserved as a museum.[40]
+
+In February 1865 Brahms's mother died, and he began to compose his large choral work A German Requiem Op. 45, of which six movements were completed by 1866. Premieres of the first three movements were given in Vienna, but the complete work was first given in Bremen in 1868 to great acclaim. A seventh movement (the soprano solo "Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit") was added for the equally successful Leipzig premiere (February 1869), and the work went on to receive concert and critical acclaim throughout Germany and also in England, Switzerland and Russia, marking effectively Brahms's arrival on the world stage.[35] Brahms also experienced at this period popular success with works such as his first set of Hungarian Dances (1869), the Liebeslieder Walzer, Op. 52, (1868/69), and his collections of lieder (Opp. 43 and 46–49).[35] Following such successes he finally completed a number of works that he had wrestled with over many years such as the cantata Rinaldo (1863–1868), his first two string quartets Op. 51 nos. 1 and 2 (1865–1873), the third piano quartet (1855–1875), and most notably his first symphony which appeared in 1876, but which had been begun as early as 1855.[41][42] During 1869 Brahms had felt himself falling in love with the Schumann's daughter Julie (then aged 24 to his 36) but did not declare himself; when later that year Julie's engagement to Count Marmorito was announced, he wrote and gave to Clara the manuscript of his Alto Rhapsody (Op. 53). Clara wrote in her diary that "he called it his wedding song" and noted "the profound pain in the text and the music."[43]
+
+From 1872 to 1875, Brahms was director of the concerts of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. He ensured that the orchestra was staffed only by professionals, and conducted a repertoire which ran from Bach to the nineteenth century composers who were not of the 'New German School'; these included Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Joachim, Ferdinand Hiller, Max Bruch and himself (notably his large scale choral works, the German Requiem, the Alto Rhapsody, and the patriotic Triumphlied, Op. 55, which celebrated Prussia's victory in the 1870/71 Franco-Prussian War).[42] 1873 saw the premiere of his orchestral Variations on a Theme by Haydn, originally conceived for two pianos, which has become one of his most popular works.[42][44]
+
+Brahms's first symphony, Op. 68, appeared in 1876, though it had been begun (and a version of the first movement had been announced by Brahms to Clara and to Albert Dietrich) in the early 1860s. During the decade it evolved very gradually; the finale may not have begun its conception until 1868.[45] Brahms was cautious and typically self-deprecating about the symphony during its creation, writing to his friends that it was "long and difficult", "not exactly charming" and, significantly "long and in C Minor", which, as Richard Taruskin points out, made it clear "that Brahms was taking on the model of models [for a symphony]: Beethoven's Fifth."[46]
+
+In May 1876, Cambridge University offered to grant honorary degrees of Doctor of Music to both Brahms and Joachim, provided that they composed new pieces as "theses" and were present in Cambridge to receive their degrees. Brahms was averse to traveling to England, and requested to receive the degree 'in absentia', offering as his thesis the previously performed (November 1876) symphony.[47] But of the two, only Joachim went to England and only he was granted a degree. Brahms "acknowledged the invitation" by giving the manuscript score and parts of his first symphony to Joachim, who led the performance at Cambridge 8 March 1877 (English premiere).[48]
+
+Despite the warm reception the first symphony received, Brahms remained dissatisfied and extensively revised the second movement before the work was published. There followed a succession of well-received orchestral works; the Second Symphony Op. 73 (1877), the Violin Concerto Op. 77 (1878), dedicated to Joachim who was consulted closely during its composition, and the Academic Festival Overture (written following the conferring of an honorary degree by the University of Breslau) and Tragic Overture of 1880. The commendation of Brahms by Breslau as "the leader in the art of serious music in Germany today" led to a bilious comment from Wagner in his essay "On Poetry and Composition": "I know of some famous composers who in their concert masquerades don the disguise of a street-singer one day, the hallelujah periwig of Handel the next, the dress of a Jewish Czardas-fiddler another time, and then again the guise of a highly respectable symphony dressed up as Number Ten" (referring to Brahms's First Symphony as a putative tenth symphony of Beethoven).[49]
+
+Brahms was now recognised as a major figure in the world of music. He had been on the jury which awarded the Vienna State Prize to the (then little-known) composer Antonín Dvořák three times, first in February 1875, and later in 1876 and 1877 and had successfully recommended Dvořák to his publisher, Simrock. The two men met for the first time in 1877, and Dvořák dedicated to Brahms his String Quartet, Op. 44 of that year.[50] He also began to be the recipient of a variety of honours; Ludwig II of Bavaria awarded him the Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 1874, and the music loving Duke George of Meiningen awarded him in 1881 the Commander's Cross of the Order of the House of Meiningen.[51]
+
+At this time Brahms also chose to change his image. Having been always clean-shaven, in 1878 he surprised his friends by growing a beard, writing in September to the conductor Bernhard Scholz "I am coming with a large beard! Prepare your wife for a most awful sight."[52] The singer George Henschel recalled that after a concert "I saw a man unknown to me, rather stout, of middle height, with long hair and a full beard. In a very deep and hoarse voice he introduced himself as 'Musikdirektor Müller'... an instant later, we all found ourselves laughing heartily at the perfect success of Brahms's disguise". The incident also displays Brahms's love of practical jokes.[53]
+
+In 1882 Brahms completed his Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83, dedicated to his teacher Marxsen.[42] Brahms was invited by Hans von Bülow to undertake a premiere of the work with the Meiningen Court Orchestra; this was the beginning of his collaboration with Meiningen and with von Bülow, who was to rank Brahms as one of the 'Three Bs'; in a letter to his wife he wrote  "You know what I think of Brahms: after Bach and Beethoven the greatest, the most sublime of all composers."[54] The following years saw the premieres of his Third Symphony Op. 90 (1883) and his Fourth Symphony Op. 98 (1885). Richard Strauss, who had been appointed assistant to von Bülow at Meiningen, and had been uncertain about Brahms's music, found himself converted by the Third Symphony and was enthusiastic about the Fourth: "a giant work, great in concept and invention."[55] Another, but cautious, supporter from the younger generation was Gustav Mahler who first met Brahms in 1884 and remained a close acquaintance; he rated Brahms as superior to Anton Bruckner, but more earth-bound than Wagner and Beethoven.[56]
+
+In 1889, Theo Wangemann, a representative of the American inventor Thomas Edison, visited the composer in Vienna and invited him to make an experimental recording. Brahms played an abbreviated version of his first Hungarian Dance and of Josef Strauss's Die Libelle on the piano. Although the spoken introduction to the short piece of music is quite clear, the piano playing is largely inaudible due to heavy surface noise.[57]
+
+In that same year, Brahms was named an honorary citizen of Hamburg.[58]
+
+Brahms had become acquainted with Johann Strauss II, who was eight years his senior, in the 1870s, but their close friendship belongs to the years 1889 and after. Brahms admired much of Strauss's music, and encouraged the composer to sign up with his publisher Simrock. In autographing a fan for Strauss's wife Adele, Brahms wrote the opening notes of The Blue Danube waltz, adding the words "unfortunately not by Johannes Brahms".[59]
+
+After the successful Vienna premiere of his Second String Quintet, op. 111, in 1890, the 57-year-old Brahms came to think that he might retire from composition, telling a friend that he "had achieved enough; here I had before me a carefree old age and could enjoy it in peace."[60] He also began to find solace in escorting the mezzo-soprano Alice Barbi and may have proposed to her (she was only 28).[61] His admiration for Richard Mühlfeld, clarinettist with the Meiningen orchestra, revived his interest in composing and led him to write the Clarinet Trio, Op. 114, Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115 (1891), and the two Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120 (1894). Brahms also wrote at this time his final cycles of piano pieces, Opp. 116–19, the Vier ernste Gesänge (Four Serious Songs), Op. 121 (1896) (which were prompted by the death of Clara Schumann),[62] and the Eleven Chorale Preludes for organ, Op. 122 (1896). The last of these is a setting of "O Welt ich muss dich lassen", ("O world I must leave thee"), and are the last notes that Brahms wrote.[63] Many of these works were written in his house in Bad Ischl, where Brahms had first visited in 1882 and where he spent every summer from 1889 onwards.[64]
+
+In the summer of 1896 Brahms was diagnosed as having jaundice, and later in the year his Viennese doctor diagnosed him as having cancer of the liver (from which his father Jakob had died).[65] His last public appearance was on 7 March 1897 when he saw Hans Richter conduct his Symphony No. 4; there was an ovation after each of the four movements.[66] He made the effort, three weeks before his death, to attend the premiere of Johann Strauss's operetta Die Göttin der Vernunft (The Goddess of Reason) in March 1897.[59] His condition gradually worsened and he died on 3 April 1897, in Vienna, aged 63. Brahms is buried in the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna, under a monument designed by Victor Horta with sculpture by Ilse von Twardowski.[67]
+
+Brahms maintained a classical sense of form and order in his works, in contrast to the opulence of the music of many of his contemporaries. Thus, many admirers (though not necessarily Brahms himself) saw him as the champion of traditional forms and "pure music", as opposed to the "New German" embrace of programme music.
+
+Brahms venerated Beethoven; in the composer's home, a marble bust of Beethoven looked down on the spot where he composed, and some passages in his works are reminiscent of Beethoven's style. Brahms's First Symphony bears strongly the influence of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, as the two works are both in C minor and end in the struggle towards a C major triumph. The main theme of the finale of the First Symphony is also reminiscent of the main theme of the finale of Beethoven's Ninth, and when this resemblance was pointed out to Brahms he replied that any dunce[68] could see that. In 1876, when the work was premiered in Vienna, it was immediately hailed as "Beethoven's Tenth". Indeed, the similarity of Brahms's music to that of late Beethoven had first been noted as early as November 1853 in a letter from Albert Dietrich to Ernst Naumann.[69][70]
+
+Brahms was a master of counterpoint. "For Brahms, ... the most complicated forms of counterpoint were a natural means of expressing his emotions," writes Geiringer. "As Palestrina or Bach succeeded in giving spiritual significance to their technique, so Brahms could turn a canon in motu contrario or a canon per augmentationem into a pure piece of lyrical poetry."[71] Writers on Brahms have commented on his use of counterpoint. For example, of Op. 9, Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Geiringer writes that Brahms "displays all the resources of contrapuntal art".[72] In the A major piano quartet Opus 26, Jan Swafford notes that the third movement is "demonic-canonic", echoing Haydn's famous minuet for string quartet called the 'Witch's Round'."[73] Swafford further opines that "thematic development, counterpoint, and form were the dominant technical terms in which Brahms... thought about music".[74]
+
+Allied to his skill in counterpoint was his subtle handling of rhythm and meter.  The New Grove Dictionary of Music speculates that the his contact with Hungarian and gypsy folk music as a teenager led to "his lifelong fascination with the irregular rhythms, triplet figures and use of rubato" in his compositions.[75] The Hungarian Dances are among Brahms's most-appreciated pieces.[76] According to Musgrave (1985, p. 269) "only one composer rivals him in the advanced nature of his rhythmic thinking, and that is Stravinsky."[77]
+
+His consummate skills in counterpoint and rhythm are richly present in A German Requiem, a work that was partially inspired by his mother's death in 1865 (at which time he composed a funeral march that was to become the basis of Part Two, "Denn alles Fleisch"), but which also incorporates material from a symphony which he started in 1854 but abandoned following Schumann's suicide attempt. He once wrote that the Requiem "belonged to Schumann". The first movement of this abandoned symphony was re-worked as the first movement of the First Piano Concerto.
+
+Brahms loved the classical composers Mozart and Haydn. He especially admired Mozart, so much so that in his final years, he reportedly declared Mozart as the greatest composer. In January 10, 1896, Brahms conducted the Academic Festival Overture and both piano concertos in Berlin, and during the following celebration, Brahms interrupted Joachim's toast with "Ganz recht; auf Mozart's Wohl" (Quite right; here's Mozart's health).[78]. Brahms also compared Mozart with Beethoven to the latter's disadvantage, in a letter to Richard Heuberger, in 1896: "Dissonance, true dissonance as Mozart used it, is not to be found in Beethoven. Look at Idomeneo. Not only is it a marvel, but as Mozart was still quite young and brash when he wrote it, it was a completely new thing. You couldn't commission great music from Beethoven since he created only lesser works on commission—his more conventional pieces, his variations and the like."[79] 
+Brahms collected first editions and autographs of Mozart and Haydn's works and edited performing editions. He studied the music of pre-classical composers, including Giovanni Gabrieli, Johann Adolph Hasse, Heinrich Schütz, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, and, especially, Johann Sebastian Bach. His friends included leading musicologists, and, with Friedrich Chrysander, he edited an edition of the works of François Couperin. Brahms also edited works by C. P. E. Bach and W. F. Bach. He looked to older music for inspiration in the art of counterpoint; the themes of some of his works are modelled on Baroque sources such as Bach's The Art of Fugue in the fugal finale of Cello Sonata No. 1 or the same composer's Cantata No. 150 in the passacaglia theme of the Fourth Symphony's finale.  Peter Phillips (2007) hears affinities between Brahms's rhythmically charged contrapuntal textures and those of Renaissance masters such as Giovanni Gabrieli and William Byrd.  Referring to Byrd's Though Amaryllis dance, Philips remarks that “the cross-rhythms in this piece so excited E. H. Fellowes that he likened them to Brahms's compositional style.”[80]
+
+The early Romantic composers had a major influence on Brahms, particularly Schumann, who encouraged Brahms as a young composer. During his stay in Vienna in 1862–63, Brahms became particularly interested in the music of Franz Schubert.[81] The latter's influence may be identified in works by Brahms dating from the period, such as the two piano quartets Op. 25 and Op. 26, and the Piano Quintet which alludes to Schubert's String Quintet and Grand Duo for piano four hands.[81][82] The influence of Chopin and Mendelssohn on Brahms is less obvious, although occasionally one can find in his works what seems to be an allusion to one of theirs (for example, Brahms's Scherzo, Op. 4, alludes to Chopin's Scherzo in B-flat minor;[83] the scherzo movement in Brahms's Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 5, alludes to the finale of Mendelssohn's Piano Trio in C minor).[84]
+
+Brahms considered giving up composition when it seemed that other composers' innovations in extended tonality resulted in the rule of tonality being broken altogether. Although Wagner became fiercely critical of Brahms as the latter grew in stature and popularity, he was enthusiastically receptive of the early Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel; Brahms himself, according to many sources,[85] deeply admired Wagner's music, confining his ambivalence only to the dramaturgical precepts of Wagner's theory.
+
+Brahms wrote settings for piano and voice of 144 German folk songs, and many of his lieder reflect folk themes or depict scenes of rural life.
+
+Brahms wrote a number of major works for orchestra, including two Serenades, four symphonies, two piano concertos (No. 1 in D minor; No. 2 in B-flat major), a Violin Concerto, a Double Concerto for violin and cello, and two companion orchestral overtures, the Academic Festival Overture and the Tragic Overture.
+
+His large choral work A German Requiem is not a setting of the liturgical Missa pro defunctis but a setting of texts which Brahms selected from the Luther Bible. The work was composed in three major periods of his life. An early version of the second movement was first composed in 1854, not long after Robert Schumann's attempted suicide, and this was later used in his first piano concerto. The majority of the Requiem was composed after his mother's death in 1865. The fifth movement was added after the official premiere in 1868, and the work was published in 1869.
+
+His works in variation form include, among others, the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel and the Paganini Variations, both for solo piano, and the Variations on a Theme by Haydn (now sometimes called the Saint Anthony Variations) in versions for two pianos and for orchestra. The final movement of the Fourth Symphony, Op. 98, is formally a passacaglia.
+
+His chamber works include three string quartets, two string quintets, two string sextets, a clarinet quintet, a clarinet trio, a horn trio, a piano quintet, three piano quartets, and four piano trios (the fourth being published posthumously). He composed several instrumental sonatas with piano, including three for violin, two for cello, and two for clarinet (which were subsequently arranged for viola by the composer). His solo piano works range from his early piano sonatas and ballades to his late sets of character pieces. Brahms was a significant Lieder composer, who wrote over 200 of them. His chorale preludes for organ, Op. 122, which he wrote shortly before his death, have become an important part of the organ repertoire. They were published posthumously in 1902. The last of this set is a setting of the chorale, "O Welt ich muss dich lassen", "O world I now must leave thee" and were the last notes he wrote.
+
+Brahms was an extreme perfectionist. He destroyed many early works – including a violin sonata he had performed with Reményi and violinist Ferdinand David – and once claimed to have destroyed 20 string quartets before he issued his official First in 1873. Over the course of several years, he changed an original project for a symphony in D minor into his first piano concerto. In another instance of devotion to detail, he laboured over the official First Symphony for almost fifteen years, from about 1861 to 1876. Even after its first few performances, Brahms destroyed the original slow movement and substituted another before the score was published.
+
+Another factor that contributed to his perfectionism was Schumann's early enthusiasm,[24] which Brahms was determined to live up to.
+
+Brahms strongly preferred writing absolute music that does not refer to an explicit scene or narrative, and he never wrote an opera or a symphonic poem.
+
+Brahms looked both backward and forward; his output was often bold in its exploration of harmony and rhythm. As a result, he was an influence on composers of both conservative and modernist tendencies. Within his lifetime, his idiom left an imprint on several composers within his personal circle, who strongly admired his music, such as Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Robert Fuchs, and Julius Röntgen, as well as on Gustav Jenner, who was his only formal composition pupil. Antonín Dvořák, who received substantial assistance from Brahms, deeply admired his music and was influenced by it in several works, such as the Symphony No. 7 in D minor and the F minor Piano Trio. Features of the "Brahms style" were absorbed in a more complex synthesis with other contemporary (chiefly Wagnerian) trends by Hans Rott, Wilhelm Berger, Max Reger and Franz Schmidt, whereas the British composers Hubert Parry and Edward Elgar and the Swede Wilhelm Stenhammar all testified to learning much from Brahms. As Elgar said, "I look at the Third Symphony of Brahms, and I feel like a pygmy."[86]
+
+Ferruccio Busoni's early music shows much Brahmsian influence, and Brahms took an interest in him, though Busoni later tended to disparage Brahms. Towards the end of his life, Brahms offered substantial encouragement to Ernő Dohnányi and to Alexander von Zemlinsky. Their early chamber works (and those of Béla Bartók, who was friendly with Dohnányi) show a thoroughgoing absorption of the Brahmsian idiom. Zemlinsky, moreover, was in turn the teacher of Arnold Schoenberg, and Brahms was apparently impressed by drafts of two movements of Schoenberg's early Quartet in D major which Zemlinsky showed him in 1897. In 1933, Schoenberg wrote an essay "Brahms the Progressive" (re-written 1947), which drew attention to his fondness for motivic saturation and irregularities of rhythm and phrase; in his last book (Structural Functions of Harmony, 1948), he analysed Brahms's "enriched harmony" and exploration of remote tonal regions. These efforts paved the way for a re-evaluation of his reputation in the 20th century. Schoenberg went so far as to orchestrate one of Brahms's piano quartets. Schoenberg's pupil Anton Webern, in his 1933 lectures, posthumously published under the title The Path to the New Music, claimed Brahms as one who had anticipated the developments of the Second Viennese School, and Webern's own Op. 1, an orchestral passacaglia, is clearly in part a homage to, and development of, the variation techniques of the passacaglia-finale of Brahms's Fourth Symphony. Ann Scott[87] has shown how Brahms anticipated the procedures of the serialists by redistributing melodic fragments between instruments, as in the first movement of the Clarinet Sonata, Op.120 No. 2.
+
+Brahms was honoured in the German hall of fame, the Walhalla memorial. On 14 September 2000, he was introduced there as the 126th "rühmlich ausgezeichneter Teutscher" and 13th composer among them, with a bust by sculptor Milan Knobloch [de].[88]
+
+Brahms was baptised into the Lutheran church as an infant, and was confirmed at aged fifteen (at St. Michael's Church, Hamburg),[89][90] but has been described as an agnostic and a humanist.[91][92] The devout Catholic Antonín Dvořák wrote in a letter: "Such a man, such a fine soul – and he believes in nothing! He believes in nothing!"[93] When asked by conductor Karl Reinthaler to add additional explicitly religious text to his German Requiem, Brahms is reported to have responded, "As far as the text is concerned, I confess that I would gladly omit even the word German and instead use Human; also with my best knowledge and will I would dispense with passages like John 3:16. On the other hand, I have chosen one thing or another because I am a musician, because I needed it, and because with my venerable authors I can't delete or dispute anything. But I had better stop before I say too much."[94]
+
+Sheet music
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+Photographs

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+Braille (Braille: ⠃⠗⠁⠊⠇⠇⠑) (/breɪl/; French: [bʁaj]) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired. It is traditionally written with embossed paper. Braille users can read computer screens and other electronic supports using refreshable braille displays. They can write braille with the original slate and stylus or type it on a braille writer, such as a portable braille notetaker or computer that prints with a braille embosser.
+
+Braille is named after its creator, Louis Braille, a Frenchman who lost his sight as a result of a childhood accident. In 1824, at the age of fifteen, he developed a code for the French alphabet as an improvement on night writing. He published his system, which subsequently included musical notation, in 1829.[1] The second revision, published in 1837, was the first small binary form of writing developed in the modern era.
+
+These characters have rectangular blocks called cells  that have tiny bumps called raised dots. The number and arrangement of these dots distinguish one character from another. Since the various braille alphabets originated as transcription codes for printed writing, the mappings (sets of character designations) vary from language to language, and even within one; in English Braille there are three levels of encoding: Grade 1 – a letter-by-letter transcription used for basic literacy; Grade 2 – an addition of abbreviations and contractions; and Grade 3 – various non-standardized personal stenography.
+
+Braille cells are not the only thing to appear in braille text. There may be embossed illustrations and graphs, with the lines either solid or made of series of dots, arrows, bullets that are larger than braille dots, etc. A full braille cell includes six raised dots arranged in two columns, each column having three dots.[2] The dot positions are identified by numbers from one to six.[2] There are 64 possible combinations, including no dots at all for a word space.[3] A cell can be used to represent a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or even a word.[2]
+
+Braille literacy is a social-justice issue.[4] Early braille education is crucial to literacy, education and employment among the blind. However, in the face of changes in education policy and screen reader software, braille usage has declined in recent decades, despite the fact that technologies such as braille displays have also made braille more accessible and practical.
+
+⠏⠗⠑⠍⠊⠑⠗
+
+Braille was based on a tactile military code called night writing, developed by Charles Barbier in response to Napoleon's demand for a means for soldiers to communicate silently at night and without a light source.[5] In Barbier's system, sets of 12 embossed dots encoded 36 different sounds. It proved to be too difficult for soldiers to recognize by touch and was rejected by the military. In 1821 Barbier visited the Royal Institute for the Blind in Paris, where he met Louis Braille. Braille identified two major defects of the code: first, by representing only sounds, the code was unable to render the orthography of the words; second, the human finger could not encompass the whole 12-dot symbol without moving, and so could not move rapidly from one symbol to another. Braille's solution was to use 6-dot cells and to assign a specific pattern to each letter of the alphabet.[6]
+At first, Braille was a one-to-one transliteration of French orthography, but soon various abbreviations, contractions, and even logograms were developed, creating a system much more like shorthand.[7] The expanded English system, called Grade-2 Braille, was completed by 1905. For blind readers, Braille is an independent writing system, rather than a code of printed orthography.[8]
+
+Braille is derived from the Latin alphabet, albeit indirectly. In Braille's original system, the dot patterns were assigned to letters according to their position within the alphabetic order of the French alphabet, with accented letters and w sorted at the end.[9]
+
+The first ten letters of the alphabet, a–j, use the upper four dot positions: ⠁⠃⠉⠙⠑⠋⠛⠓⠊⠚ (black dots in the table below). These stand for the ten digits 1–9 and 0 in a system parallel to Hebrew gematria and Greek isopsephy. (Though the dots are assigned in no obvious order, the cells with the fewest dots are assigned to the first three letters (and lowest digits), abc = 123 (⠁⠃⠉), and to the three vowels in this part of the alphabet, aei (⠁⠑⠊), whereas the even digits, 4, 6, 8, 0 (⠙⠋⠓⠚), are corners/right angles.)
+
+The next ten letters, k–t, are identical to a–j, respectively, apart from the addition of a dot at position 3 (red dots in the table below): ⠅⠇⠍⠝⠕⠏⠟⠗⠎⠞:
+
+The next ten letters (the next "decade") are the same again, but with dots also at both position 3 and position 6 (green dots in the table above). Here w was left out as not being a part of the official French alphabet at the time of Braille's life; the French braille order is u v x y z ç é à è ù (⠥⠧⠭⠽⠵⠯⠿⠷⠮⠾).[note 1]
+
+The next ten letters, ending in w, are the same again, except that for this series position 6 (purple dot in the table above) is used without a dot at position 3. In French braille these are the letters â ê î ô û ë ï ü ö w (⠡⠣⠩⠹⠱⠫⠻⠳⠪⠺). W had been tacked onto the end of 39 letters of the French alphabet to accommodate English.
+
+The a–j series shifted down by one dot space (⠂⠆⠒⠲⠢⠖⠶⠦⠔⠴) is used for punctuation.  Letters a ⠁ and c ⠉, which only use dots in the top row, were shifted two places for the apostrophe and hyphen: ⠄⠤. (These are also the decade diacritics, at left in the table below, of the second and third decade.)
+
+In addition, there are ten patterns that are based on the first two letters (⠁⠃) with their dots shifted to the right; these were assigned to non-French letters (ì ä ò ⠌⠜⠬), or serve non-letter functions: ⠈ (superscript; in English the accent mark), ⠘ (currency prefix), ⠨ (capital, in English the decimal point), ⠼ (number sign), ⠸ (emphasis mark), ⠐ (symbol prefix).
+
+Originally there had been nine decades. The fifth through ninth used dashes as well as dots, but proved to be impractical and were soon abandoned. These could be replaced with what we now know as the number sign (⠼), though that only caught on for the digits (old 5th decade → modern 1st decade). The dash occupying the top row of the original sixth decade was simply dropped, producing the modern fifth decade. (See 1829 braille.)
+
+Historically, there have been three principles in assigning the values of a linear script (print) to Braille:  Using Louis Braille's original French letter values; reassigning the braille letters according to the sort order of the print alphabet being transcribed; and reassigning the letters to improve the efficiency of writing in braille.
+
+Under international consensus, most braille alphabets follow the French sorting order for the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet, and there have been attempts at unifying the letters beyond these 26 (see international braille), though differences remain, for example in German Braille and the contractions of English Braille. This unification avoids the chaos of each nation reordering the braille code to match the sorting order of its print alphabet, as happened in Algerian Braille, where braille codes were numerically reassigned to match the order of the Arabic alphabet and bear little relation to the values used in other countries (compare modern Arabic Braille, which uses the French sorting order), and as happened in an early American version of English Braille, where the letters w, x, y, z were reassigned to match English alphabetical order.  A convention sometimes seen for letters beyond the basic 26 is to exploit the physical symmetry of braille patterns iconically, for example, by assigning a reversed n to ñ or an inverted s to sh. (See Hungarian Braille and Bharati Braille, which do this to some extent.)
+
+A third principle was to assign braille codes according to frequency, with the simplest patterns (quickest ones to write with a stylus) assigned to the most frequent letters of the alphabet. Such frequency-based alphabets were used in Germany and the United States in the 19th century (see American Braille), but with the invention of the braille typewriter their advantage disappeared, and none are attested in modern use – they had the disadvantage that the resulting small number of dots in a text interfered with following the alignment of the letters, and consequently made texts more difficult to read than Braille's more arbitrary letter-assignment. Finally, there are braille scripts which don't order the codes numerically at all, such as Japanese Braille and Korean Braille, which are based on more abstract principles of syllable composition.
+
+Academic texts are sometimes written in a script of eight dots per cell rather than six, enabling them to encode a greater number of symbols. (See Gardner–Salinas braille codes.) Luxembourgish Braille has adopted eight-dot cells for general use; for example, it adds a dot below each letter to derive its capital variant.
+
+Braille was the first writing system with binary encoding.[7] The system as devised by Braille consists of two parts:[8]
+
+Within an individual cell, the dot positions are arranged in two columns of three positions. A raised dot can appear in any of the six positions, producing sixty-four (26) possible patterns, including one in which there are no raised dots. For reference purposes, a pattern is commonly described by listing the positions where dots are raised, the positions being universally numbered, from top to bottom, as 1 to 3 on the left and 4 to 6 on the right. For example, dot pattern 1-3-4 describes a cell with three dots raised, at the top and bottom in the left column and at the top of the right column:  that is, the letter ⠍ m. The lines of horizontal Braille text are separated by a space, much like visible printed text, so that the dots of one line can be differentiated from the braille text above and below. Different assignments of braille codes (or code pages) are used to map the character sets of different printed scripts to the six-bit cells. Braille assignments have also been created for mathematical and musical notation. However, because the six-dot braille cell allows only 64 (26) patterns, including space, the characters of a braille script commonly have multiple values, depending on their context. That is, character mapping between print and braille is not one-to-one.  For example, the character ⠙ corresponds in print to both the letter d and the digit 4.
+
+In addition to simple encoding, many braille alphabets use contractions to reduce the size of braille texts and to increase reading speed. (See Contracted braille)
+
+Braille may be produced by hand using a slate and stylus in which each dot is created from the back of the page, writing in mirror image, or it may be produced on a braille typewriter or Perkins Brailler, or an electronic Brailler or eBrailler. Because braille letters cannot be effectively erased and written over if an error is made, an error is overwritten with all six dots (⠿). Interpoint refers to braille printing that is offset, so that the paper can be embossed on both sides, with the dots on one side appearing between the divots that form the dots on the other.
+Using a computer or other electronic device, Braille may be produced with a braille embosser (printer) or a refreshable braille display (screen).
+
+Braille has been extended to an 8-dot code, particularly for use with braille embossers and refreshable braille displays. In 8-dot braille the additional dots are added at the bottom of the cell, giving a matrix 4 dots high by 2 dots wide. The additional dots are given the numbers 7 (for the lower-left dot) and 8 (for the lower-right dot). Eight-dot braille has the advantages that the case of an individual letter is directly coded in the cell containing the letter and that all the printable ASCII characters can be represented in a single cell. All 256 (28) possible combinations of 8 dots are encoded by the Unicode standard. Braille with six dots is frequently stored as Braille ASCII.
+
+The first 25 braille letters, up through the first half of the 3rd decade, transcribe a–z (skipping w). In English Braille, the rest of that decade is rounded out with the ligatures and, for, of, the, and with. Omitting dot 3 from these forms the 4th decade, the ligatures ch, gh, sh, th, wh, ed, er, ou, ow and the letter w.
+
+(See English Braille.)
+
+Various formatting marks affect the values of the letters that follow them. They have no direct equivalent in print. The most important in English Braille are:
+
+That is, ⠠⠁ is read as capital 'A', and ⠼⠁ as the digit '1'.
+
+Basic punctuation marks in English Braille include:
+
+⠦ is both the question mark and the opening quotation mark. Its reading depends on whether it occurs before a word or after.
+
+⠶ is used for both opening and closing parentheses. Its placement relative to spaces and other characters determines its interpretation.
+
+Punctuation varies from language to language. For example, French Braille uses ⠢ for its question mark and swaps the quotation marks and parentheses (to ⠶ and ⠦⠴); it uses the period (⠲) for the decimal point, as in print, and the decimal point (⠨) to mark capitalization.
+
+Braille contractions are words and affixes that are shortened so that they take up fewer cells. In English Braille, for example, the word afternoon is written with just three letters, ⠁⠋⠝ ⟨afn⟩, much like stenoscript. There are also several abbreviation marks that create what are effectively logograms.[8] The most common of these is dot 5, which combines with the first letter of words. With the letter ⠍ m, the resulting word is ⠐⠍ mother. There are also ligatures ("contracted" letters), which are single letters in braille but correspond to more than one letter in print. The letter ⠯ and, for example, is used to write words with the sequence a-n-d in them, such as ⠓⠯ hand.
+
+Most braille embossers support between 34 and 40 cells per line, and 25 lines per page.
+
+A manually operated Perkins braille typewriter supports a maximum of 42 cells per line (its margins are adjustable), and typical paper allows 25 lines per page.
+
+A large interlining Stainsby has 36 cells per line and 18 lines per page.
+
+An A4-sized Marburg braille frame, which allows interpoint braille (dots on both sides of the page, offset so they do not interfere with each other) has 30 cells per line and 27 lines per page.
+
+A Braille writing machine is a typewriter with six keys that allow to write in Braille alphabet on a regular white page.
+
+The first Braille typewriter to gain general acceptance was invented by Frank Haven Hall (Superintendent of the Illinois School for the Blind), and was presented to the public in 1892.[10][11]
+
+The Stainsby Brailler, developed by Henry Stainsby in 1903, is a mechanical writer with a sliding carriage that moves over an aluminium plate as it embosses Braille characters. An improved version was introduced around 1933.[12][13]
+
+In 1951 David Abraham, a woodworking teacher at the Perkins School for the Blind produced a more advanced Braille typewriter, the Perkins Brailler.[14]
+
+Braille printers or embosser were produced in 1950s.
+In 1960 Robert Mann, a teacher in MIT, wrote DOTSYS, a software that allowed automatic braille translation, and another group created an embossing device called "M.I.T. Braillemboss.". The Mitre Corporation team of Robert Gildea, Jonathan Millen, Reid Gerhart and Joseph Sullivan (now president of Duxbury Systems) developed DOTSYS III, the first braille translator written in a portable programming language. DOTSYS III was developed for the Atlanta Public Schools as a public domain program.[15][16][17]
+
+In 1991 Ernest Bate developed the Mountbatten Brailler, an electronic machine used to type braille on braille paper, giving it a number of additional features such as word processing, audio feedback and embossing. This version was improved in 2008 with a quiet writer that had an erase key.[citation needed]
+
+In 2011 David S. Morgan produced the first SMART Brailler machine, with added text to speech function and allowed digital capture of data entered.[18]
+
+Braille is usually read in printed forms such as paper books written in braille, braille public signals and also on Braille e-books. Currently more than 1% of all printed books have been translated into braille.
+
+Although the finger can read only one braille character at a time, the brain chunks braille at a higher level, processing words a digraph, root or suffix at a time. The processing largely takes place in the visual cortex.[4]
+
+Children who are blind not only have the educational disadvantage of not being able to see – they also miss out on fundamental parts of early and advanced education if not provided with the necessary tools. Children who are blind or visually impaired can begin learning pre-braille skills from a very young age to become fluent braille readers as they get older.
+
+In 1960, 50% of legally blind, school-age children were able to read braille in the U.S.[19][20] According to the 2015 Annual Report from the American Printing House for the Blind, there were 61,739 legally blind students registered in the U.S. Of these, 8.6% (5,333) were registered as braille readers, 31% (19,109) as visual readers, 9.4% (5,795) as auditory readers, 17% (10,470) as pre-readers, and 34% (21,032) as non-readers.[21]
+
+There are numerous causes for the decline in braille usage, including school budget constraints, technology advancements such as screen-reader software, and different philosophical views over how blind children should be educated.[22][23]
+
+A key turning point for braille literacy was the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, an act of Congress that moved thousands of children from specialized schools for the blind into mainstream public schools.[20] Because only a small percentage of public schools could afford to train and hire braille-qualified teachers, braille literacy has declined since the law took effect.[clarification needed][20] Braille literacy rates have improved slightly since the bill was passed,[clarification needed] in part because of pressure from consumers and advocacy groups that has led 27 states to pass legislation mandating that children who are legally blind be given the opportunity to learn braille.[22]
+
+In 1998 there were 57,425 legally blind students registered in the United States, but only 10% (5,461) of them used braille as their primary reading medium.[24][25]
+
+Early Braille education is crucial to literacy for a blind or low-vision child. A study conducted in the state of Washington found that people who learned braille at an early age did just as well, if not better than their sighted peers in several areas, including vocabulary and comprehension. In the preliminary adult study, while evaluating the correlation between adult literacy skills and employment, it was found that 44% of the participants who had learned to read in braille were unemployed, compared to the 77% unemployment rate of those who had learned to read using print.[26] Currently, among the estimated 85,000 blind adults in the United States, 90% of those who are braille-literate are employed. Among adults who do not know braille, only 33% are employed.[20] Statistically, history has proven that braille reading proficiency provides an essential skill set that allows blind or low-vision children to compete with their sighted peers in a school environment and later in life as they enter the workforce.[22]
+
+Though braille is thought to be the main way blind people read and write, in Britain (for example) out of the reported two million blind and low vision population, it is estimated that only around 15,000–20,000 people use braille.[27] Younger people are turning to electronic text on computers with screen reader software instead, a more portable communication method that they can use with their friends. A debate has started on how to make braille more attractive and for more teachers to be available to teach it.
+
+
+
+Although it is possible to transcribe print by simply substituting the equivalent braille character for its printed equivalent, in English such a character-by-character transcription (known as uncontracted braille) is only used by beginners.
+
+Braille characters are much larger than their printed equivalents, and the standard 11" by 11.5" (28 cm × 30 cm) page has room for only 25 lines of 43 characters. To reduce space and increase reading speed, most braille alphabets and orthographies use ligatures, abbreviations, and contractions. Virtually all English Braille books are transcribed in this contracted braille, which adds an additional layer of complexity to English orthography: The Library of Congress's Instruction Manual for Braille Transcribing[28] runs to over 300 pages and braille transcribers must pass certification tests.
+
+Fully contracted braille is known as Grade 2 Braille. There is an intermediate form, called Grade 1 Braille, that is between Computer Braille (one-for-one identity with print) and Grade 2 Braille. In Grade 1 Braille, the capital sign and number sign are used, and most punctuation marks are shown using their Grade 2 values.
+
+The system of contractions in English Braille begins with a set of 23 words which are contracted to single characters. Thus the word but is contracted to the single letter b, can to c, do to d, and so on. Even this simple rule creates issues requiring special cases; for example, d is, specifically, an abbreviation of the verb do; the noun do representing the note of the musical scale is a different word, and must be spelled out.
+
+Portions of words may be contracted, and many rules govern this process. For example, the character with dots 2-3-5 (the letter "f" lowered in the Braille cell) stands for "ff" when used in the middle of a word. At the beginning of a word, this same character stands for the word "to"; the character is written in braille with no space following it. (This contraction was removed in the Unified English Braille Code.) At the end of a word, the same character represents an exclamation point.
+
+Some contractions are more similar than their print equivalents. For example, the contraction ⟨lr⟩, meaning 'letter', differs from ⟨ll⟩, meaning 'little', only by one dot in the second letter: ⠇⠇ little, ⠇⠗ letter. This causes greater confusion between the braille spellings of these words and can hinder the learning process of contracted braille.[29]
+
+The contraction rules take into account the linguistic structure of the word; thus, contractions are generally not to be used when their use would alter the usual braille form of a base word to which a prefix or suffix has been added. Some portions of the transcription rules are not fully codified and rely on the judgment of the transcriber. Thus, when the contraction rules permit the same word in more than one way, preference is given to "the contraction that more nearly approximates correct pronunciation."
+
+Grade 3 Braille[30] is a variety of non-standardized systems that include many additional shorthand-like contractions. They are not used for publication, but by individuals for their personal convenience.
+
+When people produce braille, this is called braille transcription. When computer software produces braille, this is called braille
+translation. Braille translation software exists to handle most of the common languages of the world, and many technical areas,
+such as mathematics (mathematical notation), for example WIMATS, music (musical notation), and tactile graphics.
+
+Since Braille is one of the few writing systems where tactile perception is used, as opposed to visual perception, a braille reader must develop new skills.  One skill important for Braille readers is the ability to create smooth and even pressures when running one's fingers along the words. There are many different styles and techniques used for the understanding and development of braille, even though a study by B. F. Holland[31] suggests that there is no specific technique that is superior to any other.
+
+Another study by Lowenfield & Abel[32] shows that braille can be read "the fastest and best... by students who read using the index fingers of both hands". Another important reading skill emphasized in this study is to finish reading the end of a line with the right hand and to find the beginning of the next line with the left hand simultaneously. One final conclusion drawn by both Lowenfield and Abel is that children have difficulty using both hands independently where the right hand is the dominant hand.  But this hand preference does not correlate to other activities.
+
+
+
+When Braille was first adapted to languages other than French, many schemes were adopted, including mapping the native alphabet to the alphabetical order of French – e.g. in English W, which was not in the French alphabet at the time, is mapped to braille X, X to Y, Y to Z, and Z to the first French-accented letter – or completely rearranging the alphabet such that common letters are represented by the simplest braille patterns. Consequently, mutual intelligibility was greatly hindered by this state of affairs. In 1878, the International Congress on Work for the Blind, held in Paris, proposed an international braille standard, where braille codes for different languages and scripts would be based, not on the order of a particular alphabet, but on phonetic correspondence and transliteration to Latin.[33]
+
+This unified braille has been applied to the languages of India and Africa, Arabic, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Russian, and Armenian, as well as nearly all Latin-script languages. Greek, for example, gamma is written as Latin g, despite the fact that it has the alphabetic position of c; Hebrew bet, the second letter of the alphabet and cognate with the Latin letter b, is sometimes pronounced /b/ and sometimes /v/, and is written b or v accordingly; Russian ts is written as c, which is the usual letter for /ts/ in those Slavic languages that use the Latin alphabet; and Arabic f is written as f, despite being historically p, and occurring in that part of the Arabic alphabet (between historic o and q).
+
+Other systems for assigning values to braille patterns are also followed beside the simple mapping of the alphabetical order onto the original French order. Some braille alphabets start with unified braille, and then diverge significantly based on the phonology of the target languages, while others diverge even further.
+
+In the various Chinese systems, traditional braille values are used for initial consonants and the simple vowels. In both Mandarin and Cantonese Braille, however, characters have different readings depending on whether they are placed in syllable-initial (onset) or syllable-final (rime) position. For instance, the cell for Latin k, ⠅, represents Cantonese k (g in Yale and other modern romanizations) when initial, but aak when final, while Latin j, ⠚, represents Cantonese initial j but final oei.
+
+Novel systems of braille mapping include Korean, which adopts separate syllable-initial and syllable-final forms for its consonants, explicitly grouping braille cells into syllabic groups in the same way as hangul. Japanese, meanwhile, combines independent vowel dot patterns and modifier consonant dot patterns into a single braille cell – an abugida representation of each Japanese mora.
+
+The current series of Canadian banknotes has a tactile feature consisting of raised dots that indicate the denomination, allowing bills to be easily identified by blind or low vision people. It does not use standard braille; rather, the feature uses a system developed in consultation with blind and low vision Canadians after research indicated that braille was not sufficiently robust and that not all potential users read braille. Mexican bank notes, Australian bank notes, Indian rupee notes, Israeli new shekel notes[34] and Russian ruble notes also have special raised symbols to make them identifiable by persons who are blind or low vision.[35]
+
+In India there are instances where the parliament acts have been published in braille, such as The Right to Information Act.[36]
+
+In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990[37] requires various building signage to be in braille.
+
+In the United Kingdom, it is required that medicines have the name of the medicine in Braille on the labeling.[38]
+
+Australia also recently introduced the tactile feature onto their five-dollar banknote[39]
+
+U.K. September 2017 – On the front of the £10 polymer note (the side with raised print), there are two clusters of raised dots in the top left hand corner. This tactile feature helps blind and partially sighted people identify the value of the note.[40]
+
+Braille was added to the Unicode Standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0.
+
+Most braille embossers and refreshable braille displays do not support Unicode, using instead 6-dot braille ASCII.  Some embossers have proprietary control codes for 8-dot braille or for full graphics mode, where dots may be placed anywhere on the page without leaving any space between braille cells so that continuous lines can be drawn in diagrams, but these are rarely used and are not standard.
+
+The Unicode standard encodes 8-dot braille glyphs according to their binary appearance, rather than following their assigned numeric order. Dot 1 corresponds to the least significant bit of the low byte of the Unicode scalar value, and dot 8 to the high bit of that byte.
+
+The Unicode block for braille is U+2800 ... U+28FF:
+
+Every year on January 4, World Braille Day is observed internationally to commemorate the birth of Louis Braille and to recognize his efforts, but the event is not considered a public holiday.[41]

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+In human anatomy, the arm is the part of the upper limb between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint.  In common usage, the arm extends to the hand. It can be divided into the upper arm, which extends from the shoulder to the elbow, the forearm which extends from the elbow to the hand, and the hand. Anatomically the shoulder girdle with bones and corresponding muscles is by definition a part of the arm. The Latin term brachium may refer to either the arm as a whole or to the upper arm on its own.[1][2][3]
+
+The humerus is one of the three long bones of the arm. It joins with the scapula at the shoulder joint and with the other long bones of the arm, the ulna and radius at the elbow joint.[4] The elbow is a complex hinge joint between the end of the humerus and the ends of the radius and ulna.[5]
+
+The arm is divided by a fascial layer (known as lateral and medial intermuscular septa) separating the muscles into two osteofascial compartments: the anterior and the posterior compartments of the arm. The fascia merges with the periosteum (outer bone layer) of the humerus.[6]
+
+The anterior compartment contains three muscles: biceps brachii, brachioradialis and coracobrachialis muscles. They are all innervated by the musculocutaneous nerve. The posterior compartment contains only the triceps brachii muscle, supplied by the radial nerve.[7][8][9]
+
+The musculocutaneous nerve, from C5, C6, C7, is the main supplier of muscles of the anterior compartment. It originates from the lateral cord of the brachial plexus of nerves. It pierces the coracobrachialis muscle and gives off branches to the muscle, as well as to brachialis and biceps brachii. It terminates as the anterior cutaneous nerve of the forearm.
+
+The radial nerve, which is from the fifth cervical spinal nerve to the first thoracic spinal nerve, originates as the continuation of the posterior cord of the brachial plexus. This nerve enters the lower triangular space (an imaginary space bounded by, amongst others, the shaft of the humerus and the triceps brachii) of the arm and lies deep to the triceps brachii. Here it travels with the deep artery of the arm, which sits in the radial groove of the humerus. This fact is very important clinically as a fracture of the shaft of the bone here can cause lesions or even transections in the nerve.
+
+Other nerves passing through give no supply to the arm. These include:
+
+The main artery in the arm is the brachial artery. This artery is a continuation of the axillary artery. The point at which the axillary becomes the brachial is distal to the lower border of teres major. The brachial artery gives off an unimportant branch, the deep artery of arm. This branching occurs just below the lower border of teres major.
+
+The brachial artery continues to the cubital fossa in the anterior compartment of the arm. It travels in a plane between the biceps and triceps muscles, the same as the median nerve and basilic vein. It is accompanied by venae comitantes (accompanying veins). It gives branches to the muscles of the anterior compartment. The artery is in between the median nerve and the tendon of the biceps muscle in the cubital fossa. It then continues into the forearm.
+
+The deep artery of the arm travels through the lower triangular space with the radial nerve. From here onwards it has an intimate relationship with the radial nerve. They are both found deep to the triceps muscle and are located on the spiral groove of the humerus. Therefore, fracture of the bone may not only lead to lesion of the radial nerve, but also haematoma of the internal structures of the arm. The artery then continues on to anastamose with the recurrent radial branch of the brachial artery, providing a diffuse blood supply for the elbow joint.
+
+The veins of the arm carry blood from the extremities of the limb, as well as drain the arm itself. The two main veins are the basilic and the cephalic veins. There is a connecting vein between the two, the median cubital vein, which passes through the cubital fossa and is clinically important for venepuncture (withdrawing blood).
+
+The basilic vein travels on the medial side of the arm and terminates at the level of the seventh rib.
+
+The cephalic vein travels on the lateral side of the arm and terminates as the axillary vein. It passes through the deltopectoral triangle, a space between the deltoid and the pectoralis major muscles.
+
+In Hindu, Buddhist and Egyptian iconography the symbol of the arm is used to illustrate the power of the sovereign. In Hindu tradition gods are depicted with several arms which carry specific symbols of their powers. It is believed that several arms depict omnipotence of gods. In popular culture Thakur did not have arms in the movie Sholay.
+
+In West Africa, the Bambara use forearm to symbolize the spirit, which is a link between God and man.
+
+Symbolic gestures of raising both hands signal surrender, appeals for mercy, and justice.[10]
+
+The cubital fossa is clinically important for venepuncture and for blood pressure measurement.[11]
+
+When the arm is fractured this may refer to a fracture of the humerus bone.
+
+Veins on the arm may be taken when a coronary artery bypass graft is needed.
+
+In other animals, the term arm can also be used for analogous structures, (such as one of the paired forelimbs of a four-legged animal or the arms of cephalopods). In anatomical usage, the term arm may[1] sometimes refer specifically to the segment between the shoulder and the elbow,[12][13] while the segment between the elbow and wrist is the forearm. However, in common, literary, and historical usage, arm refers to the entire upper limb from shoulder to wrist. This article uses the former definition; see upper limb for the wider definition.[6]
+
+In primates the arm is adapted for precise positioning of the hand and thus assist in the hand's manipulative tasks. The ball and socket shoulder joint allows for movement of the arms in a wide circular plane, while the structure of the two forearm bones which can rotate around each other allows for additional range of motion at that level.[14]
+
+Gross anatomy of the upper arm and elbow.

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@@ -0,0 +1,465 @@
+
+
+Coordinates: 10°S 52°W / 10°S 52°W / -10; -52
+
+Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil; Brazilian Portuguese: [bɾaˈziw]),[nt 1] officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil),[10] is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers (3.2 million square miles)[11] and with over 211 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the sixth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states and the Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas;[12][13] it is also one of the most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass immigration from around the world;[14] as well as the most populous Roman Catholic-majority country.
+
+Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers (4,655 mi).[15] It borders all other countries in South America except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent's land area.[16] Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats.[15] This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, and is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.
+
+Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808 when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. The country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic.[17] Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[18]
+
+Brazil is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank[19] and a newly industrialized country,[20] with the largest share of global wealth in Latin America. It is considered an advanced emerging economy.[21] It has the ninth largest GDP in the world by nominal, and eight by PPP measures.[22][23] It is one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24] Brazil is a regional power and sometimes considered a great[25][26][27] or a middle power in international affairs.[27][28][29][30][31][26] On account of its international recognition and influence, the country is subsequently classified as an emerging power[32] and a potential superpower by several analysts.[33][34][35] Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.
+
+The word "Brazil" likely comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast.[36] In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa ("ember") and the suffix -il (from -iculum or -ilium).[37] As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was highly valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil.[38] Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi) along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders (mostly Portuguese, but also French) in return for assorted European consumer goods.[39]
+
+The official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross" (Terra da Santa Cruz),[40] but European sailors and merchants commonly called it simply the "Land of Brazil" (Terra do Brasil) because of the brazilwood trade.[41] The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name. Some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots".[42]
+
+In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama". This was the name the indigenous population gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".[43]
+
+Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years.[46][47]
+
+The earliest pottery ever found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago (6000 BC). The pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the tropical forest region supported a complex prehistoric culture.[48] The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from 400 CE to 1400 CE, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, and complex social formations such as chiefdoms.[45]
+
+Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people,[49] mostly semi-nomadic, who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. The indigenous population of Brazil comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups (e.g. the Tupis, Guaranis, Gês and Arawaks). The Tupí people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás, and there were also many subdivisions of the other groups.[50]
+
+Before the arrival of the Europeans, the boundaries between these groups and their subgroups were marked by wars that arose from differences in culture, language and moral beliefs.[51] These wars also involved large-scale military actions on land and water, with cannibalistic rituals on prisoners of war.[52][53] While heredity had some weight, leadership status was more subdued over time, than allocated in succession ceremonies and conventions.[51] Slavery among the Indians had a different meaning than it had for Europeans, since it originated from a diverse socioeconomic organization, in which asymmetries were translated into kinship relations.[54]
+
+The land now called Brazil was claimed for the Portuguese Empire on 22 April 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral.[55] The Portuguese encountered indigenous peoples divided into several tribes, most of whom spoke languages of the Tupi–Guarani family, and fought among themselves.[56] Though the first settlement was founded in 1532, colonization effectively began in 1534, when King John III of Portugal divided the territory into the fifteen private and autonomous Captaincy Colonies of Brazil.[57][58]
+
+However, the decentralized and unorganized tendencies of the captaincy colonies proved problematic, and in 1549 the Portuguese king restructured them into the Governorate General of Brazil in the city of Salvador, which became the capital of a single and centralized Portuguese colony in South America.[58][59] In the first two centuries of colonization, Indigenous and European groups lived in constant war, establishing opportunistic alliances in order to gain advantages against each other.[60][61][62][63] By the mid-16th century, cane sugar had become Brazil's most important export,[56][64] and slaves purchased in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the slave market of Western Africa[65] (not only those from Portuguese allies of their colonies in Angola and Mozambique), had become its largest import,[66][67] to cope with plantations of sugarcane, due to increasing international demand for Brazilian sugar.[68][69]
+
+By the end of the 17th century, sugarcane exports began to decline,[70] and the discovery of gold by bandeirantes in the 1690s would become the new backbone of the colony's economy, fostering a Brazilian Gold Rush[71] which attracted thousands of new settlers to Brazil from Portugal and all Portuguese colonies around the world.[72] This increased level of immigration in turn caused some conflicts between newcomers and old settlers.[73]
+
+Portuguese expeditions known as Bandeiras gradually advanced the Portugal colonial original frontiers in South America to approximately the current Brazilian borders.[74][75] In this era other European powers tried to colonize parts of Brazil, in incursions that the Portuguese had to fight, notably the French in Rio during the 1560s, in Maranhão during the 1610s, and the Dutch in Bahia and Pernambuco, during the Dutch–Portuguese War, after the end of Iberian Union.[76]
+
+The Portuguese colonial administration in Brazil had two objectives that would ensure colonial order and the monopoly of Portugal's wealthiest and largest colony: to keep under control and eradicate all forms of slave rebellion and resistance, such as the Quilombo of Palmares,[77] and to repress all movements for autonomy or independence, such as the Minas Conspiracy.[78]
+
+In late 1807, Spanish and Napoleonic forces threatened the security of continental Portugal, causing Prince Regent João, in the name of Queen Maria I, to move the royal court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro.[79] There they established some of Brazil's first financial institutions, such as its local stock exchanges,[80] and its National Bank, additionally ending the Portuguese monopoly on Brazilian trade and opening Brazil to other nations. In 1809, in retaliation for being forced into exile, the Prince Regent ordered the Portuguese conquest of French Guiana.[81]
+
+With the end of the Peninsular War in 1814, the courts of Europe demanded that Queen Maria I and Prince Regent João return to Portugal, deeming it unfit for the head of an ancient European monarchy to reside in a colony. In 1815, to justify continuing to live in Brazil, where the royal court had thrived for six years, the Crown established the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves, thus creating a pluricontinental transatlantic monarchic state.[82] However, the leadership in Portugal, resentful of the new status of its larger colony, continued to demand the return of court to Lisbon (v. Liberal Revolution of 1820). In 1821, acceding to the demands of revolutionaries who had taken the city of Porto,[83] D. João VI departed for Lisbon. There he swore an oath to the new constitution, leaving his son, Prince Pedro de Alcântara, as Regent of the Kingdom of Brazil.[84]
+
+Tensions between Portuguese and Brazilians increased, and the Portuguese Cortes, guided by the new political regime imposed by the 1820 Liberal Revolution, tried to re-establish Brazil as a colony.[85] The Brazilians refused to yield, and Prince Pedro decided to stand with them, declaring the country's independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822.[86] A month later, Prince Pedro was declared the first Emperor of Brazil, with the royal title of Dom Pedro I, resulting in the foundation of the Empire of Brazil.[87]
+
+The Brazilian War of Independence, which had already begun along this process, spread through the northern, northeastern regions and in Cisplatina province.[88] The last Portuguese soldiers surrendered on 8 March 1824;[89] Portugal officially recognized Brazil on 29 August 1825.[90]
+
+On 7 April 1831, worn down by years of administrative turmoil and political dissent with both liberal and conservative sides of politics, including an attempt of republican secession,[91] and unreconciled to the way that absolutists in Portugal had given in the succession of King John VI, Pedro I went to Portugal to reclaim his daughter's crown, abdicating the Brazilian throne in favor of his five-year-old son and heir (who thus became the Empire's second monarch, with the royal title of Dom Pedro II).[92]
+
+As the new Emperor could not exert his constitutional powers until he came of age, a regency was set up by the National Assembly.[93] In the absence of a charismatic figure who could represent a moderate face of power, during this period a series of localized rebellions took place, such as the Cabanagem in Grão-Pará Province, the Malê Revolt in Salvador da Bahia, the Balaiada (Maranhão), the Sabinada (Bahia), and the Ragamuffin War, which began in Rio Grande do Sul and was supported by Giuseppe Garibaldi. These emerged from the dissatisfaction of the provinces with the central power, coupled with old and latent social tensions peculiar to a vast, slaveholding and newly independent nation state.[94] This period of internal political and social upheaval, which included the Praieira revolt in Pernambuco, was overcome only at the end of the 1840s, years after the end of the regency, which occurred with the premature coronation of Pedro II in 1841.[95]
+
+During the last phase of the monarchy, internal political debate centered on the issue of slavery. The Atlantic slave trade was abandoned in 1850,[96] as a result of the British Aberdeen Act, but only in May 1888 after a long process of internal mobilization and debate for an ethical and legal dismantling of slavery in the country, was the institution formally abolished.[97]
+
+The foreign-affairs policies of the monarchy dealt with issues with the countries of the Southern Cone with whom Brazil had borders. Long after the Cisplatine War that resulted in independence for Uruguay,[98] Brazil won three international wars during the 58-year reign of Pedro II. These were the Platine War, the Uruguayan War and the devastating Paraguayan War, the largest war effort in Brazilian history.[99][100]
+
+Although there was no desire among the majority of Brazilians to change the country's form of government,[101] on 15 November 1889, in disagreement with the majority of Army officers, as well as with rural and financial elites (for different reasons), the monarchy was overthrown by a military coup.[102] 15 November is now Republic Day, a national holiday.[103]
+
+The early republican government was nothing more than a military dictatorship, with army dominating affairs both in Rio de Janeiro and in the states. Freedom of the press disappeared and elections were controlled by those in power.[104] Not until 1894, following an economic crisis and a military one, did civilians take power, remaining there until October 1930.[105][106][107]
+
+If in relation to its foreign policy, the country in this first republican period maintained a relative balance characterized by a success in resolving border disputes with neighboring countries,[108] only broken by the Acre War (1899–1902) and its involvement in World War I (1914–1918),[109][110][111] followed by a failed attempt to exert a prominent role in the League of Nations;[112] Internally, from the crisis of Encilhamento[113][114][115] and the Armada Revolts,[116] a prolonged cycle of financial, political and social instability began until the 1920s, keeping the country besieged by various rebellions, both civilian[117][118][119] and military.[120][121][122]
+
+Little by little, a cycle of general instability sparked by these crises undermined the regime to such an extent that in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate Getúlio Vargas, supported by most of the military, successfully led the October 1930 Coup.[123][124] Vargas and the military were supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed the Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers and replaced the states' governors with their own supporters.[125][126]
+
+In the 1930s, three failed attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power occurred. The first was the Constitutionalist Revolution in 1932, led by the Paulista oligarchy. The second was a Communist uprising in November 1935, and the last one a putsch attempt by local fascists in May 1938.[127][128][129] The 1935 uprising created a security crisis in which the Congress transferred more power to the executive. The 1937 coup d'état resulted in the cancellation of the 1938 election, formalized Vargas as dictator, beginning the Estado Novo era, which was noted for government brutality and censorship of the press.[130]
+
+Foreign policy during the Vargas years was marked by the antecedents[clarification needed] and World War II. Brazil remained neutral until August 1942, when the country entered on the allied side,[131][132] after suffering retaliation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, in a strategic dispute over the South Atlantic.[133] In addition to its participation in the battle of the Atlantic, Brazil also sent an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian campaign.[134]
+
+With the Allied victory in 1945 and the end of the Nazi-fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas's position became unsustainable and he was swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with democracy "reinstated" by the same army that had ended it 15 years earlier.[135] Vargas committed suicide in August 1954 amid a political crisis, after having returned to power by election in 1950.[136][137]
+
+Several brief interim governments followed Vargas's suicide.[138] Juscelino Kubitschek became president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory posture towards the political opposition that allowed him to govern without major crises.[139] The economy and industrial sector grew remarkably,[140] but his greatest achievement was the construction of the new capital city of Brasília, inaugurated in 1960.[141]
+
+Kubitschek's successor, Jânio Quadros, resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office.[142] His vice-president, João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political opposition[143] and was deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a military regime.[144]
+
+The new regime was intended to be transitory[145] but gradually closed in on itself and became a full dictatorship with the promulgation of the Fifth Institutional Act in 1968.[146] Oppression was not limited to those who resorted to guerrilla tactics to fight the regime, but also reached institutional opponents, artists, journalists and other members of civil society,[147][148] inside and outside the country through the infamous "Operation Condor".[149][150] Despite its brutality, like other authoritarian regimes, due to an economic boom, known as an "economic miracle", the regime reached a peak in popularity in the early 1970s.[151]
+
+Slowly, however, the wear and tear of years of dictatorial power that had not slowed the repression, even after the defeat of the leftist guerrillas,[152] plus the inability to deal with the economic crises of the period and popular pressure, made an opening policy inevitable, which from the regime side was led by Generals Ernesto Geisel and Golbery do Couto e Silva.[153] With the enactment of the Amnesty Law in 1979, Brazil began a slow return to democracy, which was completed during the 1980s.[95]
+
+Civilians returned to power in 1985 when José Sarney assumed the presidency. He became unpopular during his tenure through failure to control the economic crisis and hyperinflation he inherited from the military regime.[154] Sarney's unsuccessful government led to the election in 1989 of the almost-unknown Fernando Collor, subsequently impeached by the National Congress in 1992.[155]
+
+Collor was succeeded by his vice-president, Itamar Franco, who appointed Fernando Henrique Cardoso Minister of Finance. In 1994, Cardoso produced a highly successful Plano Real,[156] that, after decades of failed economic plans made by previous governments attempting to curb hyperinflation, finally stabilized the Brazilian economy.[157][158] Cardoso won the 1994 election, and again in 1998.[159]
+
+The peaceful transition of power from Cardoso to his main opposition leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006), was seen as proof that Brazil had achieved a long-sought political stability.[160][161] However, sparked by indignation and frustrations accumulated over decades from corruption, police brutality, inefficiencies of the political establishment and public service, numerous peaceful protests erupted in Brazil from the middle of first term of Dilma Rousseff, who had succeeded Lula after winning election in 2010.[162][163]
+
+Enhanced by political and economic crises with evidence of involvement by politicians from all the primary political parties in several bribery and tax evasion schemes,[164][165] with large street protests for and against her,[166] Rousseff was impeached by the Brazilian Congress in 2016.[167][168] In 2017, the Supreme Court asked for the investigation of 71 Brazilian lawmakers and nine ministers in President Michel Temer's cabinet allegedly linked to the Petrobras corruption scandal.[169] President Temer is himself accused of corruption.[170] In 2018, 62% of the population on a poll claimed that corruption was Brazil's biggest problem.[171]
+
+On 25 February 2020, the COVID-19 virus was confirmed to have spread to Brazil on 25 February 2020.[172] On 19 June 2020, the country reported its 1 millionth case; at this time, there had been nearly 49,000 reported deaths.[173][174] As of July 2020, Brazil has the second-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world behind the US, but ahead of India.
+
+Brazil occupies a large area along the eastern coast of South America and includes much of the continent's interior,[175] sharing land borders with Uruguay to the south; Argentina and Paraguay to the southwest; Bolivia and Peru to the west; Colombia to the northwest; and Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and France (French overseas region of French Guiana) to the north. It shares a border with every South American country except Ecuador and Chile.[15]
+
+It also encompasses a number of oceanic archipelagos, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz.[15] Its size, relief, climate, and natural resources make Brazil geographically diverse.[175] Including its Atlantic islands, Brazil lies between latitudes 6°N and 34°S, and longitudes 28° and 74°W.[15]
+
+Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, and third largest in the Americas, with a total area of 8,515,767.049 km2 (3,287,956 sq mi),[176] including 55,455 km2 (21,411 sq mi) of water.[15] It spans four time zones; from UTC−5 comprising the state of Acre and the westernmost portion of Amazonas, to UTC−4 in the western states, to UTC−3 in the eastern states (the national time) and UTC−2 in the Atlantic islands.[177]
+
+Brazil is the only country in the world that has the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn running through it. Brazilian topography is also diverse and includes hills, mountains, plains, highlands, and scrublands. Much of the terrain lies between 200 metres (660 ft) and 800 metres (2,600 ft) in elevation.[178] The main upland area occupies most of the southern half of the country.[178] The northwestern parts of the plateau consist of broad, rolling terrain broken by low, rounded hills.[178]
+
+The southeastern section is more rugged, with a complex mass of ridges and mountain ranges reaching elevations of up to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft).[178] These ranges include the Mantiqueira and Espinhaço mountains and the Serra do Mar.[178]
+
+In the north, the Guiana Highlands form a major drainage divide, separating rivers that flow south into the Amazon Basin from rivers that empty into the Orinoco River system, in Venezuela, to the north. The highest point in Brazil is the Pico da Neblina at 2,994 metres (9,823 ft), and the lowest is the Atlantic Ocean.[15]
+
+Brazil has a dense and complex system of rivers, one of the world's most extensive, with eight major drainage basins, all of which drain into the Atlantic.[179] Major rivers include the Amazon (the world's second-longest river and the largest in terms of volume of water), the Paraná and its major tributary the Iguaçu (which includes the Iguazu Falls), the Negro, São Francisco, Xingu, Madeira and Tapajós rivers.[179]
+
+The climate of Brazil comprises a wide range of weather conditions across a large area and varied topography, but most of the country is tropical.[15] According to the Köppen system, Brazil hosts six major climatic subtypes: desert, equatorial, tropical, semiarid, oceanic and subtropical. The different climatic conditions produce environments ranging from equatorial rainforests in the north and semiarid deserts in the northeast, to temperate coniferous forests in the south and tropical savannas in central Brazil.[180] Many regions have starkly different microclimates.[181][182]
+
+An equatorial climate characterizes much of northern Brazil. There is no real dry season, but there are some variations in the period of the year when most rain falls.[180] Temperatures average 25 °C (77 °F),[182] with more significant temperature variation between night and day than between seasons.[181]
+
+Over central Brazil rainfall is more seasonal, characteristic of a savanna climate.[181] This region is as extensive as the Amazon basin but has a very different climate as it lies farther south at a higher altitude.[180] In the interior northeast, seasonal rainfall is even more extreme.[183]
+
+The semiarid climatic region generally receives less than 800 millimetres (31.5 in) of rain,[183] most of which generally falls in a period of three to five months of the year[184] and occasionally less than this, creating long periods of drought.[181] Brazil's 1877–78 Grande Seca (Great Drought), the worst in Brazil's history,[185] caused approximately half a million deaths.[186] A similarly devastating drought occurred in 1915.[187]
+
+South of Bahia, near the coasts, and more southerly most of the state of São Paulo, the distribution of rainfall changes, with rain falling throughout the year.[180] The south enjoys subtropical conditions, with cool winters and average annual temperatures not exceeding 18 °C (64.4 °F);[182] winter frosts and snowfall are not rare in the highest areas.[180][181]
+
+Brazil's large territory comprises different ecosystems, such as the Amazon rainforest, recognized as having the greatest biological diversity in the world,[188] with the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado, sustaining the greatest biodiversity.[189] In the south, the Araucaria pine forest grows under temperate conditions.[189] The rich wildlife of Brazil reflects the variety of natural habitats. Scientists estimate that the total number of plant and animal species in Brazil could approach four million, mostly invertebrates.[189]
+
+Larger mammals include carnivores pumas, jaguars, ocelots, rare bush dogs, and foxes, and herbivores peccaries, tapirs, anteaters, sloths, opossums, and armadillos. Deer are plentiful in the south, and many species of New World monkeys are found in the northern rain forests.[189][190] Concern for the environment has grown in response to global interest in environmental issues.[191] Brazil's Amazon Basin is home to an extremely diverse array of fish species, including the red-bellied piranha.
+
+By 2013, Brazil's "dramatic policy-driven reduction in Amazon Basin deforestation" was a "global exception in terms of forest change", according to scientific journal Science.[192]:852 From 2003 to 2011, compared to all other countries in the world, Brazil had the "largest decline in annual forest loss", as indicated in the study using high-resolution satellite maps showing global forest cover changes.[192]:850 The annual loss of forest cover decreased from a 2003/2004 record high of more than 40,000 square kilometres (4,000×10^3 ha; 9.9×10^6 acres; 15,000 sq mi) to a 2010/2011 low of under 20,000 square kilometres (2,000×10^3 ha; 4.9×10^6 acres; 7,700 sq mi),[192]:850 reversing widespread deforestation[192]:852 from the 1970s to 2003.
+
+However, in 2019, when the Bolsonaro government came to power, the rate of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest increased sharply threatening to reach a tipping point after it the forest will collapse, having severe consequences for the world. (see Tipping points in the climate system)  This can also complicate the trade agreement with the European Union[193] Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Bolsonaro criticised what he described as sensational reporting in the international media. "It is a fallacy to say that the Amazon is the heritage of humankind, and a misconception, as confirmed by scientists, to say that our Amazonian forests are the lungs of world. Using these fallacies, certain countries instead of helping, embarked on the media lies and behaved in a disrespectful manner and with a colonialist spirit." he said. President Jair Bolsonaro asserted Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon.[194]
+
+According to a 2008 GreenPeace article, the natural heritage of Brazil is severely threatened by cattle ranching and agriculture, logging, mining, resettlement, oil and gas extraction, over-fishing, wildlife trade, dams and infrastructure, water pollution, climate change, fire, and invasive species.[188] In many areas of the country, the natural environment is threatened by development.[195] The construction of highways has opened up previously remote areas for agriculture and settlement; dams have flooded valleys and inundated wildlife habitats; and mines have scarred and polluted the landscape.[191][196] At least 70 dams are said to be planned for the Amazon region, including the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.[197] In summer 2019, 2 states in Brazil Paraná and Santa Catarina banned fracking, what will have positive effects on the climate and water quality, because the shale gas and shale oil reserves in the state of Parana are the larger in the southern hemisphere.[198][199]
+
+The form of government is a democratic federative republic, with a presidential system.[17] The president is both head of state and head of government of the Union and is elected for a four-year term,[17] with the possibility of re-election for a second successive term. The current president is Jair Bolsonaro. The previous president, Michel Temer, replaced Dilma Rousseff after her impeachment.[200] The President appoints the Ministers of State, who assist in government.[17] Legislative houses in each political entity are the main source of law in Brazil. The National Congress is the Federation's bicameral legislature, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. Judiciary authorities exercise jurisdictional duties almost exclusively. Brazil is a democracy, according to the Democracy Index 2010.[201]
+
+The political-administrative organization of the Federative Republic of Brazil comprises the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities.[17] The Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities, are the "spheres of government". The federation is set on five fundamental principles:[17] sovereignty, citizenship, dignity of human beings, the social values of labor and freedom of enterprise, and political pluralism. The classic tripartite branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial under a checks and balances system) are formally established by the Constitution.[17] The executive and legislative are organized independently in all three spheres of government, while the judiciary is organized only at the federal and state and Federal District spheres.
+
+All members of the executive and legislative branches are directly elected.[202][203][204] Judges and other judicial officials are appointed after passing entry exams.[202] For most of its democratic history, Brazil has had a multi-party system, proportional representation. Voting is compulsory for the literate between 18 and 70 years old and optional for illiterates and those between 16 and 18 or beyond 70.[17]
+
+Together with several smaller parties, four political parties stand out: Workers' Party (PT), Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) and Democrats (DEM). Fifteen political parties are represented in Congress. It is common for politicians to switch parties, and thus the proportion of congressional seats held by particular parties changes regularly.[205] Almost all governmental and administrative functions are exercised by authorities and agencies affiliated to the Executive.
+
+Brazilian law is based on the civil law legal system[206] and civil law concepts prevail over common law practice. Most of Brazilian law is codified, although non-codified statutes also represent a substantial part, playing a complementary role. Court decisions set out interpretive guidelines; however, they are seldom binding on other specific cases. Doctrinal works and the works of academic jurists have strong influence in law creation and in law cases.
+
+The legal system is based on the Federal Constitution, promulgated on 5 October 1988, and the fundamental law of Brazil. All other legislation and court decisions must conform to its rules.[207] As of April 2007[update], there have been 53 amendments. States have their own constitutions, which must not contradict the Federal Constitution.[208] Municipalities and the Federal District have "organic laws" (leis orgânicas), which act in a similar way to constitutions.[209] Legislative entities are the main source of statutes, although in certain matters judiciary and executive bodies may enact legal norms.[17] Jurisdiction is administered by the judiciary entities, although in rare situations the Federal Constitution allows the Federal Senate to pass on legal judgments.[17] There are also specialized military, labor, and electoral courts.[17] The highest court is the Supreme Federal Court.
+
+This system has been criticized over the last few decades for the slow pace of decision-making. Lawsuits on appeal may take several years to resolve, and in some cases more than a decade elapses before definitive rulings.[210] Nevertheless, the Supreme Federal Tribunal was the first court in the world to transmit its sessions on television, and also via YouTube.[211][212] More recently, in December 2009, the Supreme Court adopted Twitter to display items on the day planner of the ministers, to inform the daily actions of the Court and the most important decisions made by them.[213]
+
+The armed forces of Brazil are the largest in Latin America by active personnel and the largest in terms of military equipment.[214] It consists of the Brazilian Army (including the Army Aviation Command), the Brazilian Navy (including the Marine Corps and Naval Aviation), and the Brazilian Air Force. Brazil's conscription policy gives it one of the world's largest military forces, estimated at more than 1.6 million reservists annually.[215]
+
+Numbering close to 236,000 active personnel,[216] the Brazilian Army has the largest number of armored vehicles in South America, including armored transports and tanks.[217] It is also unique in Latin America for its large, elite forces specializing in unconventional missions, the Brazilian Special Operations Command,[218][219][220] and the versatile Strategic Rapid Action Force, made up of highly mobilized and prepared Special Operations Brigade, Infantry Brigade Parachutist,[221][222] 1st Jungle Infantry Battalion (Airmobile)[223] and 12th Brigade Light Infantry (Airmobile)[224] able to act anywhere in the country, on short notice, to counter external aggression.[225] The states' Military Police and the Military Firefighters Corps are described as an ancillary forces of the Army by the constitution, but are under the control of each state's governor.[17]
+
+Brazil's navy, the second-largest in the Americas, once operated some of the most powerful warships in the world with the two Minas Geraes-class dreadnoughts, which sparked a South American dreadnought race between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.[226] Today, it is a green water force and has a group of specialized elite in retaking ships and naval facilities, GRUMEC, unit specially trained to protect Brazilian oil platforms along its coast.[227] It is the only navy in Latin America that operates an aircraft carrier, PHM Atlantico,[228] and one of the ten navies of the world to operate one.[217]
+
+The Air Force is the largest in Latin America and has about 700 manned aircraft in service and effective about 67,000 personnel.[229]
+
+Brazil has not been invaded since 1865 during the Paraguayan War.[230] Additionally, Brazil has no contested territorial disputes with any of its neighbors[231] and neither does it have rivalries, like Chile and Bolivia have with each other.[232][233] The Brazilian military has also three times intervened militarily to overthrow the Brazilian government.[234] It has built a tradition of participating in UN peacekeeping missions such as in Haiti, East Timor and Central African Republic.[235] Brazil signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[236]
+
+Brazil's international relations are based on Article 4 of the Federal Constitution, which establishes non-intervention, self-determination, international cooperation and the peaceful settlement of conflicts as the guiding principles of Brazil's relationship with other countries and multilateral organizations.[237]
+
+According to the Constitution, the President has ultimate authority over foreign policy, while the Congress is tasked with reviewing and considering all diplomatic nominations and international treaties, as well as legislation relating to Brazilian foreign policy.[238]
+
+Brazil's foreign policy is a by-product of the country's position as a regional power in Latin America, a leader among developing countries, and an emerging world power.[239] Brazilian foreign policy has generally been based on the principles of multilateralism, peaceful dispute settlement, and non-intervention in the affairs of other countries.[240]
+
+Brazil is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language.
+
+An increasingly well-developed tool of Brazil's foreign policy is providing aid as a donor to other developing countries.[241] Brazil does not just use its growing economic strength to provide financial aid, but it also provides high levels of expertise and most importantly of all, a quiet non-confrontational diplomacy to improve governance levels.[241] Total aid is estimated to be around $1 billion per year, which includes:[241]
+
+In addition, Brazil manages a peacekeeping mission in Haiti ($350 million) and makes in-kind contributions to the World Food Programme ($300 million).[241] This is in addition to humanitarian assistance and contributions to multilateral development agencies. The scale of this aid places it on par with China and India.[241] The Brazilian South-South aid has been described as a "global model in waiting."[242]
+
+In Brazil, the Constitution establishes five different police agencies for law enforcement: Federal Police Department, Federal Highway Police, Federal Railroad Police, Military Police and Civil Police. Of these, the first three are affiliated with federal authorities and the last two are subordinate to state governments. All police forces are the responsibility of the executive branch of any of the federal or state powers.[17] The National Public Security Force also can act in public disorder situations arising anywhere in the country.[243]
+
+The country still has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide. In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the number of 32 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest rates of homicide of the world.[244] The number considered tolerable by the WHO is about 10 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[245] In 2018, Brazil had a record 63,880 murders.[246] However, there are differences between the crime rates in the Brazilian states. While in São Paulo the homicide rate registered in 2013 was 10.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, in Alagoas it was 64.7 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[247]
+
+Brazil also has high levels of incarceration and the third largest prison population in the world (behind only China and the United States), with an estimated total of approximately 700,000 prisoners around the country (June 2014), an increase of about 300% compared to the index registered in 1992.[248] The high number of prisoners eventually overloaded the Brazilian prison system, leading to a shortfall of about 200,000 accommodations.[249]
+
+Brazil is a federation composed of 26 states, one federal district, and the 5570 municipalities.[17] States have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Federal government. They have a governor and a unicameral legislative body elected directly by their voters. They also have independent Courts of Law for common justice. Despite this, states have much less autonomy to create their own laws than in the United States. For example, criminal and civil laws can be voted by only the federal bicameral Congress and are uniform throughout the country.[17]
+
+The states and the federal district may be grouped into regions: Northern, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast and Southern. The Brazilian regions are merely geographical, not political or administrative divisions, and they do not have any specific form of government. Although defined by law, Brazilian regions are useful mainly for statistical purposes, and also to define the distribution of federal funds in development projects.
+
+Municipalities, as the states, have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Union and state government.[17] Each has a mayor and an elected legislative body, but no separate Court of Law. Indeed, a Court of Law organized by the state can encompass many municipalities in a single justice administrative division called comarca (county).
+
+Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America, the world's ninth largest economy and the eighth largest in purchasing power parity (PPP) according to 2018 estimates. Brazil has a mixed economy with abundant natural resources. After rapid growth in preceding decades, the country entered an ongoing recession in 2014 amid a political corruption scandal and nationwide protests.
+
+Its Gross domestic product (PPP) per capita was $15,919 in 2017[250] putting Brazil in the 77th position according to IMF data. Active in agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service sectors Brazil has a labor force of over 107 million (ranking 6th worldwide) and unemployment of 6.2% (ranking 64th worldwide).[251]
+
+The country has been expanding its presence in international financial and commodities markets, and is one of a group of four emerging economies called the BRIC countries.[252] Brazil has been the world's largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24]
+
+Brazil's diversified economy includes agriculture, industry, and a wide range of services.[254] Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing accounted for 5.1% of the GDP in 2007.[255] Brazil is one of the largest producer of oranges, coffee, sugar cane, cassava and sisal, soybeans and papayas.[256]
+
+Industry in Brazil – from automobiles, steel and petrochemicals to computers, aircraft and consumer durables – accounted for 30.8% of the gross domestic product.[255] Industry is highly concentrated in metropolitan São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte.[257] Brazil has become the fourth largest car market in the world.[258] Major export products include aircraft, electrical equipment, automobiles, ethanol, textiles, footwear, iron ore, steel, coffee, orange juice, soybeans and corned beef.[259] In total, Brazil ranks 23rd worldwide in value of exports.
+
+Brazil pegged its currency, the real, to the U.S. dollar in 1994. However, after the East Asian financial crisis, the Russian default in 1998[260] and the series of adverse financial events that followed it, the Central Bank of Brazil temporarily changed its monetary policy to a managed float regime[261] scheme while undergoing a currency crisis, until definitively changing the exchange regime to free-float in January 1999.[262]
+
+Brazil received an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package in mid-2002 of $30.4 billion,[263] a record sum at the time. Brazil's central bank repaid the IMF loan in 2005, although it was not due to be repaid until 2006.[264] One of the issues the Central Bank of Brazil recently dealt with was an excess of speculative short-term capital inflows to the country, which may have contributed to a fall in the value of the U.S. dollar against the real during that period.[265] Nonetheless, foreign direct investment (FDI), related to long-term, less speculative investment in production, is estimated to be $193.8 billion for 2007.[266] Inflation monitoring and control currently plays a major part in the Central bank's role in setting short-term interest rates as a monetary policy measure.[267]
+
+Between 1993 and 2010, 7012 mergers and acquisitions with a total known value of $707 billion with the involvement of Brazilian firms were announced.[268] The year 2010 was a new record in terms of value with US$115 billion in transactions. The largest transaction with involvement of Brazilian companies was the Cia. Vale do Rio Doce acquisition of Inco in a tender offer valued at US$18.9 billion.
+
+Corruption costs Brazil almost $41 billion a year alone in 2010, with 69.9% of the country's firms identifying the issue as a major constraint in successfully penetrating the global market.[269] Local government corruption is so prevalent that voters perceive it as a problem only if it surpasses certain levels, and only if a local media e.g. a radio station is present to divulge the findings of corruption charges.[270] Initiatives, like this exposure, strengthen awareness which is indicated by the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index; ranking Brazil 69th out of 178 countries in 2012.[271]
+The purchasing power in Brazil is eroded by the so-called Brazil cost.[272]
+
+Brazil also has a large cooperative sector that provides 50% of the food in the country.[273] The world's largest healthcare cooperative Unimed is also located in Brazil, and accounts for 32% of the healthcare insurance market in the country.[274]
+
+Brazil is the world's tenth largest energy consumer with much of its energy coming from renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity and ethanol; the Itaipu Dam is the world's largest hydroelectric plant by energy generation.[275] The first car with an ethanol engine was produced in 1978 and the first airplane engine running on ethanol in 2005.[276]
+
+Recent oil discoveries in the Pre-salt layer have opened the door for a large increase in oil production.[277] The governmental agencies responsible for the energy policy are the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the National Council for Energy Policy, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, and the National Agency of Electricity.[278]
+
+Tourism in Brazil is a growing sector and key to the economy of several regions of the country. The country had 6.36 million visitors in 2015, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the main destination in South America and second in Latin America after Mexico.[280] Revenues from international tourists reached US$6 billion in 2010, showing a recovery from the 2008–2009 economic crisis.[281] Historical records of 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts were reached in 2011.[282][283]
+
+Natural areas are its most popular tourism product, a combination of ecotourism with leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as cultural tourism. Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, cultural tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to São Paulo.[284]
+
+In terms of the 2015 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Brazil ranked in the 28st place at the world's level, third in the Americas, after Canada and United States.[285][286]
+
+Brazil's main competitive advantages are its natural resources, which ranked 1st on this criteria out of all countries considered, and ranked 23rd for its cultural resources, due to its many World Heritage sites. The TTCI report notes Brazil's main weaknesses: its ground transport infrastructure remains underdeveloped (ranked 116th), with the quality of roads ranking in 105th place; and the country continues to suffer from a lack of price competitiveness (ranked 114th), due in part to high ticket taxes and airport charges, as well as high prices and high taxation. Safety and security have improved significantly: 75th in 2011, up from 128th in 2008.[286]
+
+According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), international travel to Brazil accelerated in 2000, particularly during 2004 and 2005. However, in 2006 a slow-down took place, and international arrivals had almost no growth in 2007–08.[287][288][289]
+
+In spite of this trend, revenues from international tourism continued to rise, from USD 4 billion in 2005 to 5 billion in 2007, despite 330 000 fewer arrivals. This favorable trend is the result of the strong devaluation of the US dollar against the Brazilian Real, which began in 2004, but which makes Brazil a more expensive international destination.[290]
+
+This trend changed in 2009, when both visitors and revenues fell as a result of the Great Recession of 2008–09.[291] By 2010, the industry had recovered, and arrivals grew above 2006 levels to 5.2 million international visitors, and receipts from these visitors reached US$6 billion.[281] In 2011 the historical record was reached with 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts.[282][283]
+
+Despite continuing record-breaking international tourism revenues, the number of Brazilian tourists travelling overseas has been growing steadily since 2003, resulting in a net negative foreign exchange balance, as more money is spent abroad by Brazilians than comes in as receipts from international tourists visiting Brazil.[292]
+
+Tourism expenditures abroad grew from US$5.8 billion in 2006, to US$8.2 billion in 2007, a 42% increase, representing a net deficit of US$3.3 billion in 2007, as compared to US$1.5 billion in 2006, a 125% increase from the previous year.[292] This trend is caused by Brazilians taking advantage of the stronger Real to travel and making relatively cheaper expenditures abroad.[292] Brazilians traveling overseas in 2006 represented 4% of the country's population.[293]
+
+In 2005, tourism contributed with 3.2% of the country's revenues from exports of goods and services, and represented 7% of direct and indirect employment in the Brazilian economy.[294] In 2006 direct employment in the sector reached 1.9 million people.[295]
+
+Domestic tourism is a fundamental market segment for the industry, as 51 million people traveled throughout the country in 2005,[296] and direct revenues from Brazilian tourists reached US$22 billion,[297] 5.6 times more receipts than international tourists in 2005.
+
+In 2005, Rio de Janeiro, Foz do Iguaçu, São Paulo, Florianópolis and Salvador were the most visited cities by international tourists for leisure trips. The most popular destinations for business trips were São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre.[298] In 2006 Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza were the most popular destinations for business trips.
+
+Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies.[299] Brazil's most esteemed technological hubs are the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Butantan Institute, the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Center, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the INPE.[300][301]
+
+The Brazilian Space Agency has the most advanced space program in Latin America, with significant resources to launch vehicles, and manufacture of satellites.[302] Owner of relative technological sophistication, the country develops submarines, aircraft, as well as being involved in space research, having a Vehicle Launch Center Light and being the only country in the Southern Hemisphere the integrate team building International Space Station (ISS).[303]
+
+The country is also a pioneer in the search for oil in deep water, from where it extracts 73% of its reserves.
+Uranium is enriched at the Resende Nuclear Fuel Factory, mostly for research purposes (as Brazil obtains 88% from its electricity from hydroelectricity[304]) and the country's first nuclear submarine was delivered in 2015 (by France).[305]
+
+Brazil is one of the three countries in Latin America[306] with an operational Synchrotron Laboratory, a research facility on physics, chemistry, material science and life sciences, and Brazil is the only Latin American country to have a semiconductor company with its own fabrication plant, the CEITEC.[307] According to the Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010 of the World Economic Forum, Brazil is the world's 61st largest developer of information technology.[308]
+
+Brazil also has a large number of outstanding scientific personalities. Among the most renowned Brazilian inventors are priests Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Landell de Moura and Francisco João de Azevedo, besides Alberto Santos-Dumont,[309] Evaristo Conrado Engelberg,[310] Manuel Dias de Abreu,[311] Andreas Pavel[312] and Nélio José Nicolai.[313]
+
+Brazilian science is represented by the likes of César Lattes (Brazilian physicist Pathfinder of Pi Meson),[314] Mário Schenberg (considered the greatest theoretical physicist of Brazil),[315] José Leite Lopes (only Brazilian physicist holder of the UNESCO Science Prize),[316] Artur Ávila (the first Latin American winner of the Fields Medal)[317] and Fritz Müller (pioneer in factual support of the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin).[318]
+
+Brazilian roads are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic. The road system totaled 1.98 million km (1.23 million mi) in 2002. The total of paved roads increased from 35,496 km (22,056 mi) (22,056 mi) in 1967 to 184,140 km (114,419 mi) (114,425 mi) in 2002.[321]
+
+The first investments in road infrastructure have given up in the 1920s, the government of Washington Luis, being pursued in the governments of Getúlio Vargas and Eurico Gaspar Dutra.[322] President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–61), who designed and built the capital Brasília, was another supporter of highways. Kubitschek was responsible for the installation of major car manufacturers in the country (Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors arrived in Brazil during his rule) and one of the points used to attract them was support for the construction of highways. With the implementation of Fiat in 1976 ending an automobile market closed loop, from the end of the 1990s the country has received large foreign direct investments installing in its territory other major car manufacturers and utilities, such as Iveco, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Hyundai, Toyota among others.[323] Brazil is the seventh most important country in the auto industry.[324]
+
+Brazil's railway system has been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction. The total length of railway track was 30,875 km (19,185 mi) in 2002, as compared with 31,848 km (19,789 mi) in 1970. Most of the railway system belonged to the Federal Railroad Corporation RFFSA, which was privatized in 2007.[325] The São Paulo Metro was the first underground transit system in Brazil. The other metro systems are in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Teresina and Fortaleza.
+
+The country has an extensive rail network of 28,538 kilometres (17,733 miles) in length, the tenth largest network in the world.[326] Currently, the Brazilian government, unlike the past, seeks to encourage this mode of transport; an example of this incentive is the project of the Rio–São Paulo high-speed rail, that will connect the two main cities of the country to carry passengers.
+
+There are about 2,500 airports in Brazil, including landing fields: the second largest number in the world, after the United States.[327] São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, near São Paulo, is the largest and busiest airport with nearly 20 million passengers annually, while handling the vast majority of commercial traffic for the country.[328]
+
+For freight transport waterways are of importance, e.g. the industrial zones of Manaus can be reached only by means of the Solimões–Amazonas waterway (3,250 kilometres (2,020 miles) with 6 metres (20 feet) minimum depth). The country also has 50,000 kilometres (31,000 miles) of waterways.[326]
+
+Coastal shipping links widely separated parts of the country. Bolivia and Paraguay have been given free ports at Santos. Of the 36 deep-water ports, Santos, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Paranaguá, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Vitória, Suape, Manaus and São Francisco do Sul are the most important.[329] Bulk carriers have to wait up to 18 days before being serviced, container ships 36.3 hours on average.[330]
+
+The Brazilian public health system, the Unified Health System (SUS), is managed and provided by all levels of government,[332] being the largest system of this type in the world.[333] On the other hand, private healthcare systems play a complementary role.[334]
+
+Public health services are universal and offered to all citizens of the country for free. However, the construction and maintenance of health centers and hospitals are financed by taxes, and the country spends about 9% of its GDP on expenditures in the area. In 2012, Brazil had 1.85 doctors and 2.3 hospital beds for every 1,000 inhabitants.[335][336]
+
+Despite all the progress made since the creation of the universal health care system in 1988, there are still several public health problems in Brazil. In 2006, the main points to be solved were the high infant (2.51%) and maternal mortality rates (73.1 deaths per 1000 births).[337]
+
+The number of deaths from noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (151.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and cancer (72.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), also has a considerable impact on the health of the Brazilian population. Finally, external but preventable factors such as car accidents, violence and suicide caused 14.9% of all deaths in the country.[337] The Brazilian health system was ranked 125th among the 191 countries evaluated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000.[338]
+
+The Federal Constitution and the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education determine that the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities must manage and organize their respective education systems. Each of these public educational systems is responsible for its own maintenance, which manages funds as well as the mechanisms and funding sources. The constitution reserves 25% of the state budget and 18% of federal taxes and municipal taxes for education.[339]
+
+According to the IBGE, in 2011, the literacy rate of the population was 90.4%, meaning that 13 million (9.6% of population) people are still illiterate in the country; functional illiteracy has reached 21.6% of the population.[340] Illiteracy is highest in the Northeast, where 19.9% of the population is illiterate.[341]
+
+Higher education starts with undergraduate or sequential courses, which may offer different options of specialization in academic or professional careers. Depending on the choice, students can improve their educational background with courses of post-graduate studies or broad sense.
+
+Attending an institution of higher education is required by Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education. Kindergarten, elementary and medium education are required of all students, provided the student does not hold any disability, whether physical, mental, visual or hearing.
+
+The University of São Paulo is the second best university in Latin America, according to recent 2019 QS World University Rankings. Of the top 20 Latin American universities, eight are Brazilian. Most of them are public.[342]
+
+Brazil's private institutions tend to be more exclusive and offer better quality education, so many high-income families send their children there. The result is a segregated educational system that reflects extreme income disparities and reinforces social inequality. However, efforts to change this are making impacts.[343]
+
+The Brazilian press was officially born in Rio de Janeiro on 13 May 1808 with the creation of the Royal Printing National Press by the Prince Regent Dom João.[345]
+
+The Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, the first newspaper published in the country, began to circulate on 10 September 1808.[346] The largest newspapers nowadays are Folha de S.Paulo, Super Notícia, O Globo and O Estado de S. Paulo.[347]
+
+Radio broadcasting began on 7 September 1922, with a speech by then President Pessoa, and was formalized on 20 April 1923 with the creation of "Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro."[348]
+
+Television in Brazil began officially on 18 September 1950, with the founding of TV Tupi by Assis Chateaubriand.[349] Since then television has grown in the country, creating large commercial broadcast networks such as Globo, SBT, RecordTV, Bandeirantes and RedeTV. Today it is the most important factor in popular culture of Brazilian society, indicated by research showing that as much as 67%[350][351] of the general population follow the same daily soap opera broadcast. Digital Television, using the SBTVD standard (based on the Japanese standard ISDB-T), was adopted on 29 June 2006 and launched on 2 November 2007.[352] In May 2010, the Brazilian government launched TV Brasil Internacional, an international television station, initially broadcasting to 49 countries.[353] Commercial television channels broadcast internationally include Globo Internacional, RecordTV Internacional and Band Internacional.
+
+The population of Brazil, as recorded by the 2008 PNAD, was approximately 190 million[356] (22.31 inhabitants per square kilometre or 57.8/sq mi), with a ratio of men to women of 0.95:1[357] and 83.75% of the population defined as urban.[358] The population is heavily concentrated in the Southeastern (79.8 million inhabitants) and Northeastern (53.5 million inhabitants) regions, while the two most extensive regions, the Center-West and the North, which together make up 64.12% of the Brazilian territory, have a total of only 29.1 million inhabitants.
+
+The first census in Brazil was carried out in 1872 and recorded a population of 9,930,478.[359] From 1880 to 1930, 4 million Europeans arrived.[360] Brazil's population increased significantly between 1940 and 1970, because of a decline in the mortality rate, even though the birth rate underwent a slight decline. In the 1940s the annual population growth rate was 2.4%, rising to 3.0% in the 1950s and remaining at 2.9% in the 1960s, as life expectancy rose from 44 to 54 years[361] and to 72.6 years in 2007.[362]
+It has been steadily falling since the 1960s, from 3.04% per year between 1950 and 1960 to 1.05% in 2008 and is expected to fall to a negative value of –0.29% by 2050[363] thus completing the demographic transition.[364]
+
+In 2008, the illiteracy rate was 11.48%[365] and among the youth (ages 15–19) 1.74%. It was highest (20.30%) in the Northeast, which had a large proportion of rural poor.[366] Illiteracy was high (24.18%) among the rural population and lower (9.05%) among the urban population.[367]
+
+According to the National Research by Household Sample (PNAD) of 2008, 48.43% of the population (about 92 million) described themselves as White; 43.80% (about 83 million) as Pardo (brown), 6.84% (about 13 million) as Black; 0.58% (about 1.1 million) as Asian; and 0.28% (about 536 thousand) as Amerindian (officially called indígena, Indigenous), while 0.07% (about 130 thousand) did not declare their race.[369]
+
+In 2007, the National Indian Foundation estimated that Brazil has 67 different uncontacted tribes, up from their estimate of 40 in 2005. Brazil is believed to have the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world.[370]
+
+Since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, considerable genetic mixing between Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans has taken place in all regions of the country (with European ancestry being dominant nationwide according to the vast majority of all autosomal studies undertaken covering the entire population, accounting for between 65% to 77%).[371][372][373][374]
+
+Race and ethnicity in Brazil[375][376][377]
+
+Brazilian society is more markedly divided by social class lines, although a high income disparity is found between race groups, so racism and classism can be conflated. Socially significant closeness to one racial group is taken in account more in the basis of appearance (phenotypes) rather than ancestry, to the extent that full siblings can pertain to different "racial" groups.[378] Socioeconomic factors are also significant, because a minority of pardos are likely to start declaring themselves White or Black if socially upward.[379] Skin color and facial features do not line quite well with ancestry (usually, Afro-Brazilians are evenly mixed and European ancestry is dominant in Whites and pardos with a significant non-European contribution, but the individual variation is great).[374][380][381][382]
+
+The brown population (officially called pardo in Portuguese, also colloquially moreno)[383][384] is a broad category that includes caboclos (assimilated Amerindians in general, and descendants of Whites and Natives), mulatos (descendants of primarily Whites and Afro-Brazilians) and cafuzos (descendants of Afro-Brazilians and Natives).[383][384][385][386][387] People of considerable Amerindian ancestry form the majority of the population in the Northern, Northeastern and Center-Western regions.[388]
+
+Higher percents of Blacks, mulattoes and tri-racials can be found in the eastern coast of the Northeastern region from Bahia to Paraíba[387][389] and also in northern Maranhão,[390][391] southern Minas Gerais[392] and in eastern Rio de Janeiro.[387][392] From the 19th century, Brazil opened its borders to immigration. About five million people from over 60 countries migrated to Brazil between 1808 and 1972, most of them of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arab origin.[393][394]. Brazil has the second largest Jewish community in Latin America making up 0.06% of its population.[395]
+
+Religion in Brazil (2010 Census)
+
+Religion in Brazil (2020 estimate by Datafolha) [396]
+
+Roman Catholicism is the country's predominant faith. Brazil has the world's largest Catholic population.[397][398] According to the 2010 Demographic Census (the PNAD survey does not inquire about religion), 64.63% of the population followed Roman Catholicism; 22.2% Protestantism; 2.0% Kardecist spiritism; 3.2% other religions, undeclared or undetermined; while 8.0% have no religion.[5]
+
+Religion in Brazil was formed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of enslaved African peoples and indigenous peoples.[399]. This confluence of faiths during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil led to the development of a diverse array of syncretistic practices within the overarching umbrella of Brazilian Catholic Church, characterized by traditional Portuguese festivities,[400] and in some instances, Allan Kardec's Spiritism (a religion which incorporates elements of spiritualism and Christianity). Religious pluralism increased during the 20th century,[401] and the Protestant community has grown to include over 22% of the population.[402] The most common Protestant denominations are Evangelical Pentecostal ones. Other Protestant branches with a notable presence in the country include the Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and the Reformed tradition.[403]
+
+However,  in the last ten years Protestantism, has spread in Brazil, while the proportion of Catholics has dropped significantly. The country has no census since 2010, but demographs estimate evangelical population will be majority after 2032, because Protestantism accounted for fewer than 5% of the population until the 1960s, but by 2000 made up over 15% of those affiliated with a church, now the evangelical group are the most rapidly growing religious group and more costly. [404] [405]
+
+After Protestantism, individuals professing no religion are also a significant group, exceeding 8% of the population as of the 2010 census. The cities of Boa Vista, Salvador, and Porto Velho have the greatest proportion of Irreligious residents in Brazil. Teresina, Fortaleza, and Florianópolis were the most Roman Catholic in the country.[406] Greater Rio de Janeiro, not including the city proper, is the most irreligious and least Roman Catholic Brazilian periphery, while Greater Porto Alegre and Greater Fortaleza are on the opposite sides of the lists, respectively.[406]
+
+In October 2009, the Brazilian Senate approved and enacted by the President of  Brazil in February 2010, an agreement with the Vatican, in which the Legal Statute of the Catholic Church in Brazil is recognized. The agreement confirmed norms that were normally complied with regarding religious education in public elementary schools (which also ensures the teaching of other beliefs), marriage and spiritual assistance in prisons and hospitals. The project was criticized by parliamentarians who understood the end of the secular state with the approval of the agreement.[410][411]
+
+According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) urban areas already concentrate 84.35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants.[412]
+The largest urban agglomerations in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte – all in the Southeastern Region – with 21.1, 12.3, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively.[413][414][415] The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina.[416]
+
+The official language of Brazil is Portuguese[419] (Article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil), which almost all of the population speaks and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio, television, and for business and administrative purposes. Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity and giving it a national culture distinct from those of its Spanish-speaking neighbors.[420]
+
+Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, mostly similar to 16th-century Central and Southern dialects of European Portuguese[421] (despite a very substantial number of Portuguese colonial settlers, and more recent immigrants, coming from Northern regions, and in minor degree Portuguese Macaronesia), with a few influences from the Amerindian and African languages, especially West African and Bantu restricted to the vocabulary only.[422] As a result,[citation needed] the language is somewhat different, mostly in phonology, from the language of Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries (the dialects of the other countries, partly because of the more recent end of Portuguese colonialism in these regions, have a closer connection to contemporary European Portuguese). These differences are comparable to those between American and British English.[422]
+
+In 1990, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which included representatives from all countries with Portuguese as the official language, reached an agreement on the reform of the Portuguese orthography to unify the two standards then in use by Brazil on one side and the remaining lusophone countries on the other. This spelling reform went into effect in Brazil on 1 January 2009. In Portugal, the reform was signed into law by the President on 21 July 2008 allowing for a six-year adaptation period, during which both orthographies will co-exist. The remaining CPLP countries are free to establish their own transition timetables.[423]
+
+The sign language law legally recognized in 2002,[424] (the law was regulated in 2005)[425] the use of the Brazilian Sign Language, more commonly known by its Portuguese acronym LIBRAS, in education and government services. The language must be taught as a part of the education and speech and language pathology curricula. LIBRAS teachers, instructors and translators are recognized professionals. Schools and health services must provide access ("inclusion") to deaf people.[426]
+
+Minority languages are spoken throughout the nation. One hundred and eighty Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas and a significant number of other languages are spoken by immigrants and their descendants.[422] In the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Nheengatu (a currently endangered South American creole language – or an 'anti-creole', according to some linguists – with mostly Indigenous Brazilian languages lexicon and Portuguese-based grammar that, together with its southern relative língua geral paulista, once was a major lingua franca in Brazil,[427] being replaced by Portuguese only after governmental prohibition led by major political changes)[excessive detail?], Baniwa and Tucano languages had been granted co-official status with Portuguese.[428]
+
+There are significant communities of German (mostly the Brazilian Hunsrückisch, a High German language dialect) and Italian (mostly the Talian, a Venetian dialect) origins in the Southern and Southeastern regions, whose ancestors' native languages were carried along to Brazil, and which, still alive there, are influenced by the Portuguese language.[429][430] Talian is officially a historic patrimony of Rio Grande do Sul,[431] and two German dialects possess co-official status in a few municipalities.[432] Italian is also recognized as ethnic language in the Santa Teresa microregion and Vila Velha (Espirito Santo state), and is taught as mandatory second language at school.[2]
+
+Learning at least one second language (generally English or Spanish) is mandatory for all the 12 grades of the mandatory education system (primary and secondary education, there called ensino fundamental and ensino médio respectively). Brazil is the first country in South America to offer Esperanto to secondary students.[433]
+
+The core culture of Brazil is derived from Portuguese culture, because of its strong colonial ties with the Portuguese Empire.[434] Among other influences, the Portuguese introduced the Portuguese language, Roman Catholicism and colonial architectural styles. The culture was, however, also strongly influenced by African, indigenous and non-Portuguese European cultures and traditions.[435]
+Some aspects of Brazilian culture were influenced by the contributions of Italian, German and other European as well as Japanese, Jewish and Arab immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries.[436] The indigenous Amerindians influenced Brazil's language and cuisine; and the Africans influenced language, cuisine, music, dance and religion.[437]
+
+Brazilian art has developed since the 16th century into different styles that range from Baroque (the dominant style in Brazil until the early 19th century)[438][439] to Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstractionism. Brazilian cinema dates back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century and has gained a new level of international acclaim since the 1960s.[440]
+
+The architecture of Brazil is influenced by Europe, especially Portugal. It has a history that goes back 500 years to the time when Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil in 1500. Portuguese colonial architecture was the first wave of architecture to go to Brazil.[441] It is the basis for all Brazilian architecture of later centuries.[442] In the 19th century during the time of the Empire of Brazil, Brazil followed European trends and adopted Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. Then in the 20th century especially in Brasilia, Brazil experimented with Modernist architecture.
+
+The colonial architecture of Brazil dates to the early 16th century when Brazil was first explored, conquered and settled by the Portuguese. The Portuguese built architecture familiar to them in Europe in their aim to colonize Brazil. They built Portuguese colonial architecture which included churches, civic architecture including houses and forts in Brazilian cities and the countryside. During 19th century Brazilian architecture saw the introduction of more European styles to Brazil such as Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. This was usually mixed with Brazilian influences from their own heritage which produced a unique form of Brazilian architecture. In the 1950s the modernist architecture was introduced when Brasilia was built as new federal capital in the interior of Brazil to help develop the interior. The architect Oscar Niemeyer idealized and built government buildings, churches and civic buildings in the modernist style.[443][444]
+
+The music of Brazil was formed mainly from the fusion of European and African elements.[446] Until the nineteenth century, Portugal was the gateway to most of the influences that built Brazilian music, although many of these elements were not of Portuguese origin, but generally European. The first was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, author of sacred pieces with influence of Viennese classicism.[447] The major contribution of the African element was the rhythmic diversity and some dances and instruments that had a bigger role in the development of popular music and folk, flourishing especially in the twentieth century.[446]
+
+Popular music since the late eighteenth century began to show signs of forming a characteristically Brazilian sound, with samba considered the most typical and on the UNESCO cultural heritage list.[448] Maracatu and Afoxê are two Afro-Brazilian music traditions that have been popularized by their appearance in the annual Brazilian Carnivals.[449] The sport of capoeira is usually played with its own music referred to as capoeira music, which is usually considered to be a call-and-response type of folk music.[450] Forró is a type of folk music prominent during the Festa Junina in northeastern Brazil.[451] Jack A. Draper III, a professor of Portuguese at the University of Missouri,[452] argues that Forró was used as a way to subdue feelings of nostalgia for a rural lifestyle.[453]
+
+Choro is a very popular music instrumental style. Its origins are in 19th-century Rio de Janeiro. In spite of the name, the style often has a fast and happy rhythm, characterized by virtuosity, improvisation, subtle modulations and full of syncopation and counterpoint.[454] Bossa nova is also a well-known style of Brazilian music developed and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s.[455] The phrase "bossa nova" means literally "new trend".[456] A lyrical fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova acquired a large following starting in the 1960s.[457]
+
+Brazilian literature dates back to the 16th century, to the writings of the first Portuguese explorers in Brazil, such as Pêro Vaz de Caminha, filled with descriptions of fauna, flora and commentary about the indigenous population that fascinated European readers.[459]
+
+Brazil produced significant works in Romanticism – novelists like Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and José de Alencar wrote novels about love and pain. Alencar, in his long career, also treated indigenous people as heroes in the Indigenist novels O Guarani, Iracema and Ubirajara.[460] Machado de Assis, one of his contemporaries, wrote in virtually all genres and continues to gain international prestige from critics worldwide.[461][462][463]
+
+Brazilian Modernism, evidenced by the Week of Modern Art in 1922, was concerned with a nationalist avant-garde literature,[464] while Post-Modernism brought a generation of distinct poets like João Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Vinicius de Moraes, Cora Coralina, Graciliano Ramos, Cecília Meireles, and internationally known writers dealing with universal and regional subjects like Jorge Amado, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector and Manuel Bandeira.[465][466][467]
+
+Brazilian cuisine varies greatly by region, reflecting the country's varying mix of indigenous and immigrant populations. This has created a national cuisine marked by the preservation of regional differences.[468] Examples are Feijoada, considered the country's national dish;[469] and regional foods such as beiju, feijão tropeiro, vatapá, moqueca, polenta (from Italian cuisine) and acarajé (from African cuisine).[470]
+
+The national beverage is coffee and cachaça is Brazil's native liquor. Cachaça is distilled from sugar cane and is the main ingredient in the national cocktail, Caipirinha.[471]
+
+A typical meal consists mostly of rice and beans with beef, salad, french fries and a fried egg.[472] Often, it is mixed with cassava flour (farofa). Fried potatoes, fried cassava, fried banana, fried meat and fried cheese are very often eaten in lunch and served in most typical restaurants.[473] Popular snacks are pastel (a fried pastry); coxinha (a variation of chicken croquete); pão de queijo (cheese bread and cassava flour / tapioca); pamonha (corn and milk paste); esfirra (a variation of Lebanese pastry); kibbeh (from Arabic cuisine); empanada (pastry) and empada, little salt pies filled with shrimps or heart of palm.
+
+Brazil has a variety of desserts such as brigadeiros (chocolate fudge balls), bolo de rolo (roll cake with goiabada), cocada (a coconut sweet), beijinhos (coconut truffles and clove) and romeu e julieta (cheese with goiabada). Peanuts are used to make paçoca, rapadura and pé-de-moleque. Local common fruits like açaí, cupuaçu, mango, papaya, cocoa, cashew, guava, orange, lime, passionfruit, pineapple, and hog plum are turned in juices and used to make chocolates, ice pops and ice cream.[474]
+
+The Brazilian film industry began in the late 19th century, during the early days of the Belle Époque. While there were national film productions during the early 20th century, American films such as Rio the Magnificent were made in Rio de Janeiro to promote tourism in the city.[475] The films Limite (1931) and Ganga Bruta (1933), the latter being produced by Adhemar Gonzaga through the prolific studio Cinédia, were poorly received at release and failed at the box office, but are acclaimed nowadays and placed among the finest Brazilian films of all time.[476] The 1941 unfinished film It's All True was divided in four segments, two of which were filmed in Brazil and directed by Orson Welles; it was originally produced as part of the United States' Good Neighbor Policy during Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo government.
+
+During the 1960s, the Cinema Novo movement rose to prominence with directors such as Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Paulo Cesar Saraceni and Arnaldo Jabor. Rocha's films Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) and Terra em Transe (1967) are considered to be some of the greatest and most influential in Brazilian film history.[477]
+
+During the 1990s, Brazil saw a surge of critical and commercial success with films such as O Quatrilho (Fábio Barreto, 1995), O Que É Isso, Companheiro? (Bruno Barreto, 1997) and Central do Brasil (Walter Salles, 1998), all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the latter receiving a Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Montenegro. The 2002 crime film City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles, was critically acclaimed, scoring 90% on Rotten Tomatoes,[478] being placed in Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Decade list[479] and receiving four Academy Award nominations in 2004, including Best Director. Notable film festivals in Brazil include the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festivals and the Gramado Festival.
+
+The theatre in Brazil has its origins in the period of Jesuit expansion when theater was used for the dissemination of Catholic doctrine in the 16th century. in the 17th and 18th centuries the first dramatists who appeared on the scene of European derivation was for court or private performances.[480] During the 19th century, dramatic theater gained importance and thickness, whose first representative was Luis Carlos Martins Pena (1813–1848), capable of describing contemporary reality. Always in this period the comedy of costume and comic production was imposed. Significant, also in the nineteenth century, was also the playwright Antônio Gonçalves Dias.[481] There were also numerous operas and orchestras. The Brazilian conductor Antônio Carlos Gomes became internationally known with operas like Il Guarany. At the end of the 19th century orchestrated dramaturgias became very popular and were accompanied with songs of famous artists like the conductress Chiquinha Gonzaga.[482]
+
+Already in the early 20th century there was the presence of theaters, entrepreneurs and actor companies, but paradoxically the quality of the products staggered, and only in 1940 the Brazilian theater received a boost of renewal thanks to the action of Paschoal Carlos Magno and his student's theater, the comedians group and the Italian actors Adolfo Celi, Ruggero Jacobbi and Aldo Calvo, founders of the Teatro Brasileiro de Comedia. From the 1960s it was attended by a theater dedicated to social and religious issues and to the flourishing of schools of dramatic art. The most prominent authors at this stage were Jorge Andrade and Ariano Suassuna.[481]
+
+Brazilian painting emerged in the late 16th century,[483] influenced by Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism and Abstracionism making it a major art style called Brazilian academic art.[484][485] The Missão Artística Francesa (French Artistic Mission) arrived in Brazil in 1816 proposing the creation of an art academy modeled after the respected Académie des Beaux-Arts, with graduation courses both for artists and craftsmen for activities such as modeling, decorating, carpentry and others and bringing artists like Jean-Baptiste Debret.[485]
+
+Upon the creation of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, new artistic movements spread across the country during the 19th century and later the event called Week of Modern Art broke definitely with academic tradition in 1922 and started a nationalist trend which was influenced by modernist arts. Among the best-known Brazilian painters are Ricardo do Pilar and Manuel da Costa Ataíde (baroque and rococo), Victor Meirelles, Pedro Américo and Almeida Junior (romanticism and realism), Anita Malfatti, Ismael Nery, Lasar Segall, Emiliano di Cavalcanti, Vicente do Rego Monteiro, and Tarsila do Amaral (expressionism, surrealism and cubism), Aldo Bonadei, José Pancetti and Cândido Portinari (modernism).[486]
+
+The most popular sport in Brazil is football.[488] The Brazilian men's national team is ranked among the best in the world according to the FIFA World Rankings, and has won the World Cup tournament a record five times.[489][490]
+
+Volleyball, basketball, auto racing, and martial arts also attract large audiences. The Brazil men's national volleyball team, for example, currently holds the titles of the World League, World Grand Champions Cup, World Championship and the World Cup. In auto racing, three Brazilian drivers have won the Formula One world championship eight times.[491][492][493]
+
+Some sport variations have their origins in Brazil: beach football,[494] futsal (indoor football)[495] and footvolley emerged in Brazil as variations of football. In martial arts, Brazilians developed Capoeira,[496] Vale tudo,[497] and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.[498]
+
+Brazil has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, like the 1950 FIFA World Cup[499] and recently has hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2019 Copa América.[500] The São Paulo circuit, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, hosts the annual Grand Prix of Brazil.[501] São Paulo organized the IV Pan American Games in 1963, and Rio de Janeiro hosted the XV Pan American Games in 2007.[502] On 2 October 2009, Rio de Janeiro was selected to host the 2016 Olympic Games and 2016 Paralympic Games, making it the first South American city to host the games[503] and second in Latin America, after Mexico City. Furthermore, the country hosted the FIBA Basketball World Cups in 1954 and 1963. At the 1963 event, the Brazil national basketball team won one of its two world championship titles.[504]
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+Portuguese India
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+17th century
+Portuguese India
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+18th century
+Portuguese India
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+16th century
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+17th century
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+19th century
+Portuguese Macau
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+20th century
+Portuguese Macau
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+15th century [Atlantic islands]
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+16th century [Canada]
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+Lat. and Long. 15°45′S 47°57′W / 15.750°S 47.950°W / -15.750; -47.950 (Brasilia)

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+Bratislava (/ˌbrætɪˈslɑːvə/, also US: /ˌbrɑːt-/,[3][4] Slovak: [ˈbracislaʋa] (listen); German: Pressburg, formerly Preßburg [ˈprɛsbʊrk] (listen); Hungarian: Pozsony) is the capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 430,000,[5] however, it is expected to be more than 660,000 - approximately 150% of the official figures.[6] It is one of the smaller capitals of Europe but still the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia, occupying both banks of the River Danube and the left bank of the River Morava. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two sovereign states.[7]
+
+The city's history has been influenced by people of many nations and religions, including Austrians, Bulgarians, Croats, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, Jews, Serbs[8] and Slovaks.[9] It was the coronation site and legislative center and capital of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1536 to 1783,[10] and has been home to many Slovak, Hungarian and German historical figures.
+
+Bratislava is the political, cultural and economic centre of Slovakia. It is the seat of the Slovak president, the parliament and the Slovak Executive. It has several universities, and many museums, theatres, galleries and other cultural and educational institutions.[11] Many of Slovakia's large businesses and financial institutions have headquarters there.
+
+In 2017, Bratislava was ranked as the third richest region of the European Union by GDP (PPP) per capita (after Hamburg and Luxembourg City). GDP at purchasing power parity is about three times higher than in other Slovak regions.[12][13] Bratislava receives around 1 million tourists every year.[14]
+
+The city received its contemporary name in 1919. Until then, it was mostly known in English by its German name, Pressburg, since after 1526 it was dominated mostly by the Habsburg Monarchy and the city had a relevant ethnic-German population. That is the term from which the pre-1919 Slovak (Prešporok) and Czech (Prešpurk) names are derived.[15]
+
+Linguist Ján Stanislav believed the city's Hungarian name, Pozsony, was attributed to the surname Božan, likely a prince who owned the castle before 950. Although the Latin name was also based on the same surname, according to research by lexicologist Milan Majtán, the Hungarian version was never officially represented in official records during the time in which this prince would have lived. The three versions, however, were all related to those found in Slovak, Czech, and German: Vratislaburgum (905), Braslavespurch, and Preslavasburc (both 907).[16]
+
+The medieval settlement Brezalauspurc (literally: Braslav's castle) is sometimes attributed to Bratislava, but the actual location of Brezalauspurc is under scholarly debate. The city's modern name is credited to Pavol Jozef Šafárik's misinterpretation of Braslav as Bratislav in his analysis of mediaeval sources, which led him to invent the term Břetislaw, which later became Bratislav.[17]
+
+During the revolution of 1918–1919, the name 'Wilsonov' or 'Wilsonstadt' (after President Woodrow Wilson) was proposed by American Slovaks, as he supported national self-determination. The name Bratislava, which had been used only by some Slovak patriots, became official in March 1919 with the aim that a Slavic name could support the demands that the city should be part of Czechoslovakia.[18]
+
+Other alternative names of the city in the past include Greek: Ιστρόπολις Istropolis (meaning "Danube City", also used in Latin), Czech: Prešpurk, French: Presbourg, Italian: Presburgo, Latin: Posonium, Romanian: Pojon and Serbo-Croatian: Požun / Пожун.
+
+In older documents, confusion can be caused by the Latin forms Bratislavia, Wratislavia etc., which refer to Wrocław, Poland, not Bratislava.[19]
+
+The first known permanent settlement of the area began with the Linear Pottery Culture, around 5000 BC in the Neolithic era. About 200 BC, the Celtic Boii tribe founded the first significant settlement, a fortified town known as an oppidum. They also established a mint, producing silver coins known as biatecs.[20]
+
+The area fell under Roman influence from the 1st to the 4th century AD and was made part of the Danubian Limes, a border defence system.[21] The Romans introduced grape growing to the area and began a tradition of winemaking, which survives to the present.[22]
+
+The Slavs arrived from the East between the 5th and 6th centuries during the Migration Period.[23] As a response to onslaughts by Avars, the local Slavic tribes rebelled and established Samo's Empire (623–658), the first known Slavic political entity. In the 9th century, the castles at Bratislava (Brezalauspurc) and Devín (Dowina) were important centres of the Slavic states: the Principality of Nitra and Great Moravia.[24] Scholars have debated the identification as fortresses of the two castles built in Great Moravia, based on linguistic arguments and because of the absence of convincing archaeological evidence.[25][26]
+
+The first written reference to a settlement named "Brezalauspurc" dates to 907 and is related to the Battle of Pressburg, during which a Bavarian army was defeated by the Hungarians. It is connected to the fall of Great Moravia, already weakened by its own inner decline[27] and under the attacks of the Hungarians.[28] The exact location of the battle remains unknown, and some interpretations place it west of Lake Balaton.[29]
+
+In the 10th century, the territory of Pressburg (what would later become Pozsony county) became part of Hungary (called the "Kingdom of Hungary" from 1000). It developed as a key economic and administrative centre on the kingdom's frontier.[30] This strategic position destined the city to be the site of frequent attacks and battles, but also brought it economic development and high political status. It was granted its first known "town privileges" in 1291 by the Hungarian King Andrew III,[31] and was declared a free royal town in 1405 by King Sigismund. In 1436 he authorized the town to use its own coat of arms.[32]
+
+The Kingdom of Hungary was defeated by the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Mohács in 1526. The Turks besieged and damaged Pressburg, but failed to conquer it.[33] Owing to Ottoman advances into Hungarian territory, the city was designated the new capital of Hungary in 1536, after becoming part of the Habsburg Monarchy and marking the beginning of a new era. The city became a coronation town and the seat of kings, archbishops (1543), the nobility and all major organisations and offices. Between 1536 and 1830, eleven Hungarian kings and queens were crowned at St. Martin's Cathedral.[34] The 17th century was marked by anti-Habsburg uprisings, fighting with the Turks, floods, plagues and other disasters, which diminished the population.[35]
+
+Pressburg flourished during the 18th-century reign of Queen Maria Theresa,[36] becoming the largest and most important town in Hungary.[37] The population tripled; many new palaces,[36] monasteries, mansions, and streets were built, and the city was the centre of social and cultural life of the region.[38] Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gave a concert in 1762 in the Pálffy Palace. Joseph Haydn performed in 1784 in the Grassalkovich Palace. Ludwig van Beethoven was a guest in 1796 in the Keglević Palace.[39][40]
+
+The city started to lose its importance under the reign of Maria Theresa's son Joseph II,[36] especially after the crown jewels were taken to Vienna in 1783 in an attempt to strengthen the relations between Austria and Hungary. Many central offices subsequently moved to Buda, followed by a large segment of the nobility.[41] The first newspapers in Hungarian and Slovak were published here: Magyar hírmondó in 1780, and Presspurske Nowiny in 1783.[42] In the course of the 18th century, the city became a centre for the Slovak national movement.
+
+The city's 19th-century history was closely tied to the major events in Europe. The Peace of Pressburg between Austria and France was signed here in 1805.[43] Theben Castle was ruined by Napoleon's French troops during an invasion of 1809.[44] In 1825 the Hungarian National Learned Society (the present Hungarian Academy of Sciences) was founded in Pressburg using a donation from István Széchenyi. In 1843 Hungarian was proclaimed the official language in legislation, public administration and education by the Diet in the city.[45]
+
+As a reaction to the Revolutions of 1848, Ferdinand V signed the so-called April laws, which included the abolition of serfdom, at the Primate's Palace.[46] The city chose the revolutionary Hungarian side, but was captured by the Austrians in December 1848.[47]
+
+Industry developed rapidly in the 19th century. The first horse-drawn railway in the Kingdom of Hungary,[48] from Pressburg to Szentgyörgy (Svätý Jur), was built in 1840.[49] A new line to Vienna using steam locomotives was opened in 1848, and a line to Pest in 1850.[50] Many new industrial, financial and other institutions were founded; for example, the first bank in present-day Slovakia was founded in 1842.[51] The city's first permanent bridge over the Danube, Starý most, was built in 1891.[52]
+
+Before World War I, the city had a population that was 42% German, 41% Hungarian and 15% Slovak (1910 census, the population was influenced by Magyarization). The first post war census in 1919 declared the city's ethnic composition at 36% German, 33% Slovak and 29% Hungarian but this may have reflected changing self-identification, rather than an exchange of peoples. Many people were bi- or trilingual and multicultural. After World War I and the formation of Czechoslovakia on October 28, 1918, the city was incorporated into the new state despite its representatives' reluctance.[53] The dominant Hungarian and German population tried to prevent annexation of the city to Czechoslovakia and declared it a free city. However, the Czechoslovak Legions occupied the city on January 1, 1919, and made it part of Czechoslovakia, against the wish of the local population, on reasons of its economic importance for the new state [53] The city became the seat of Slovakia's political organs and organizations and became Slovakia's capital on 4 February.[54] On February 12, 1919 the German and Hungarian population started a protest against the Czechoslovak occupation. According to Marcell Jankovics, lawyer, publicist and member of the Hungarian Parliament, the Czechoslovak Legions opened fire on the unarmed demonstrators. [55] Slovak sources don't deny the shooting, but add that the Legionaries were defending themselves from violent and aggressive behavior of the demonstrators. A contemporary Slovak language newspaper reported that "a mob spat on our soldiers, tore down badges from their hats, physically attacked them and shot on them from windows."[56][57][58]
+
+On March 27, 1919, the name Bratislava was officially adopted for the first time to replace the previous Slovak name Prešporok.[59] Left without any protection after the retreat of the Hungarian army, many Hungarians were expelled or fled.[60] Czechs and Slovaks moved their households to Bratislava. Education in Hungarian and German was radically reduced in the city.[61] By the 1930 Czechoslovakian census, the Hungarian population of Bratislava had decreased to 15.8% (see the Demographics of Bratislava article for more details).
+
+In 1938, Nazi Germany annexed neighbouring Austria in the Anschluss; later that year it also annexed the still-separate from Bratislava Petržalka and Devín boroughs on ethnic grounds, as these had many ethnic Germans.[62][63] Bratislava was declared the capital of the first independent Slovak Republic on March 14, 1939, but the new state quickly fell under Nazi influence. In 1941–1942 and 1944–1945, the new Slovak government cooperated in deporting most of Bratislava's approximately 15,000 Jews;[64] they were transported to concentration camps, where most were killed or died before the end of the war.[65]
+
+Bratislava was bombarded by the Allies, occupied by German troops in 1944, and eventually taken by troops of the Soviet 2nd Ukrainian Front on 4 April 1945.[62][66] At the end of World War II, most of Bratislava's ethnic Germans were evacuated by the German authorities. A few returned after the war, but were soon expelled without their properties under the Beneš decrees,[67] part of a widespread expulsion of ethnic Germans from eastern Europe.
+
+After the Communist Party seized power in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, the city became part of the Eastern Bloc. The city annexed new land, and the population rose significantly, becoming 90% Slovak. Large residential areas consisting of high-rise prefabricated panel buildings, such as those in the Petržalka borough, were built. The Communist government also built several new grandiose buildings, such as the Most Slovenského národného povstania bridge and the Slovak Radio headquarters.
+
+In 1968, after the unsuccessful Czechoslovak attempt to liberalise the Communist regime, the city was occupied by Warsaw Pact troops. Shortly thereafter, it became capital of the Slovak Socialist Republic, one of the two states of the federalized Czechoslovakia.
+
+Bratislava's dissidents anticipated the fall of Communism with the Bratislava candle demonstration in 1988, and the city became one of the foremost centres of the anti-Communist Velvet Revolution in 1989.[68]
+
+In 1993, the city became the capital of the newly formed Slovak Republic following the Velvet Divorce.[69]
+
+Bratislava is situated in southwestern Slovakia, within the Bratislava Region. Its location on the borders with Austria and Hungary makes it the only national capital that borders between two countries. It is only 18 kilometres (11.2 mi) from the border with Hungary and only 60 kilometres (37.3 mi) from the Austrian capital Vienna.[70]
+
+The city has a total area of 367.58 square kilometres (141.9 sq mi), making it the second-largest city in Slovakia by area (after the township of Vysoké Tatry).[71] Bratislava straddles the Danube River, along which it had developed and for centuries the chief transportation route to other areas. The river passes through the city from the west to the southeast. The Middle Danube basin begins at Devín Gate in western Bratislava. Other rivers are the Morava River, which forms the northwestern border of the city and enters the Danube at Devín, the Little Danube, and the Vydrica, which enters the Danube in the borough of Karlova Ves.
+
+The Carpathian mountain range begins in city territory with the Little Carpathians (Malé Karpaty). The Záhorie and Danubian lowlands stretch into Bratislava. The city's lowest point is at the Danube's surface at 126 metres (413 ft) above mean sea level, and the highest point is Devínska Kobyla at 514 metres (1,686 ft). The average altitude is 140 metres (460 ft).[72]
+
+Bratislava lies in the north temperate zone and has a moderately continental climate[73] (original/US Köppen–Geiger climate classification Cfb[74]/Dfb, Trewartha climate classification DCbo, USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 7b[75]) with mean annual temperature (1990–2009)[76] of around 10.5 °C (50.9 °F), average temperature of 21 °C (70 °F) in the warmest month and −1 °C (30 °F) in the coldest month, four distinct seasons[73] and precipitation spread rather evenly throughout the year. It is often windy with a marked variation between hot summers and cold, humid winters. The city is in one of the warmest and driest parts of Slovakia.[77]
+
+Recently, the transitions from winter to summer and summer to winter have been rapid, with short autumn and spring periods. Snow occurs less frequently than previously.[73] Extreme temperatures (1981–2013) – record high: 39.4 °C (102.9 °F),[78] record low: −24.6 °C (−12.3 °F). Some areas, particularly Devín and Devínska Nová Ves, are vulnerable to floods from the Danube and Morava rivers.[79] New flood protection has been built on both banks.[80]
+
+The cityscape of Bratislava is characterised by medieval towers and grandiose 20th-century buildings, but it underwent profound changes in a construction boom at the start of the 21st century.[84]
+
+Most historical buildings are concentrated in the Old Town. Bratislava's Town Hall is a complex of three buildings erected in the 14th–15th centuries and now hosts the Bratislava City Museum. Michael's Gate is the only gate that has been preserved from the medieval fortifications, and it ranks among the oldest of the town's buildings;[85] the narrowest house in Europe is nearby.[86] The University Library building, erected in 1756, was used by the Diet of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1802 to 1848.[87] Much of the significant legislation of the Hungarian Reform Era (such as the abolition of serfdom and the foundation of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) was enacted there.[87]
+
+The historic centre is characterised by many baroque palaces. The Grassalkovich Palace, built around 1760, is now the residence of the Slovak president, and the Slovak government now has its seat in the former Archiepiscopal Palace.[88] In 1805, diplomats of emperors Napoleon and Francis II signed the fourth Peace of Pressburg in the Primate's Palace, after Napoleon's victory in the Battle of Austerlitz.[89] Some smaller houses are historically significant; composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel was born in an 18th-century house in the Old Town.
+
+Notable cathedrals and churches include the Gothic St. Martin's Cathedral built in the 13th–16th centuries, which served as the coronation church of the Kingdom of Hungary between 1563 and 1830.[90] The Franciscan Church, dating to the 13th century, has been a place of knighting ceremonies and is the oldest preserved sacral building in the city.[91] The Church of St. Elizabeth, better known as the Blue Church due to its colour, is built entirely in the Hungarian Secessionist style. Bratislava has one surviving functioning synagogue, out of the three major ones existing before the holocaust.
+
+A curiosity is the underground (formerly ground-level) restored portion of the Jewish cemetery where 19th-century Rabbi Moses Sofer is buried, located at the base of the castle hill near the entrance to a tram tunnel.[92] The only military cemetery in Bratislava is Slavín, unveiled in 1960 in honour of Soviet Army soldiers who fell during the liberation of Bratislava in April 1945. It offers an excellent view of the city and the Little Carpathians.[93][94]
+
+Other prominent 20th-century structures include the Most Slovenského národného povstania (Bridge of the Slovak national uprising) across the Danube featuring a UFO-like tower restaurant, Slovak Radio's inverted-pyramid-shaped headquarters, and the uniquely designed Kamzík TV Tower with an observation deck and rotating restaurant. In the early 21st century, new edifices have transformed the traditional cityscape. At the beginning of the 21st Century, a construction boom has spawned new public structures,[95] such as the Most Apollo and a new building of the Slovak National Theatre,[96] as well as private real-estate development.[97]
+
+One of the most prominent structures in the city is Bratislava Castle, situated on a plateau 85 metres (279 ft) above the Danube. The castle hill site has been inhabited since the transitional period between the Stone and Bronze ages[98] and has been the acropolis of a Celtic town, part of the Roman limes Romanus, a huge Slavic fortified settlement, and a political, military and religious centre for Great Moravia.[99] A stone castle was not constructed until the 10th century, when the area was part of the Kingdom of Hungary.
+
+The castle was converted into a Gothic anti-Hussite fortress under Sigismund of Luxemburg in 1430, became a Renaissance castle in 1562,[100] and was rebuilt in 1649 in the baroque style. Under Queen Maria Theresa, the castle became a prestigious royal seat. In 1811, the castle was inadvertently destroyed by fire and lay in ruins until the 1950s,[101] when it was rebuilt mostly in its former Theresian style.
+
+The ruined and recently renovated Devín Castle is in the borough of Devín, on top of a rock where the Morava River, which forms the border between Austria and Slovakia, enters the Danube. It is one of the most important Slovak archaeological sites and contains a museum dedicated to its history.[102] Due to its strategic location, Devín Castle was a very important frontier castle of Great Moravia and the early Hungarian state. It was destroyed by Napoleon's troops in 1809. It is an important symbol of Slovak and Slavic history.[103]
+
+Rusovce mansion, with its English park, is in the Rusovce borough. The house was originally built in the 17th century and was turned into an English neo-Gothic-style mansion in 1841–1844.[104] The borough is also known for the ruins of the Roman military camp Gerulata, part of limes Romanus, a border defence system. Gerulata was built and used between the 1st and 4th centuries AD.[105]
+
+Due to its location in the foothills of the Little Carpathians and its riparian vegetation on the Danubian floodplains, Bratislava has forests close to the city centre. The total amount of public green space is 46.8 square kilometres (18.1 sq mi), or 110 square metres (1,200 sq ft) per inhabitant.[106]
+The largest city park is Horský park (literally, Mountainous Park), in the Old Town. Bratislavský lesný park (Bratislava Forest Park) is located in the Little Carpathians and includes many locales popular among visitors, such as Železná studienka and Koliba. The Forest Park covers an area of 27.3 square kilometres (10.5 sq mi), of which 96% is forested mostly with oak and mixed oak/hornbeam forest, and contains original flora and fauna such as European badgers, red foxes, wild boar and red and roe deer. On the right bank of the Danube, in the borough of Petržalka, is Janko Kráľ Park founded in 1774–76.[107] A new city park is planned for Petržalka between the Malý Draždiak and Veľký Draždiak lakes.[97]
+
+Bratislava's zoological park is located in Mlynská dolina, near the headquarters of Slovak Television. The zoo, founded in 1960, currently houses 152 species of animals, including the rare white lion and white tiger. The Botanical Gardens, which belong to Comenius University, can be found on the Danube riverfront and house more than 120 species of domestic and foreign origin.[108]
+
+The city has a number of natural and man-made lakes, most of which are used for recreation. Examples include Štrkovec lake in Ružinov, Kuchajda in Nové Mesto, Zlaté Piesky and the Vajnory lakes in the north-east, and Rusovce lake in the south, which is popular with nudists.[109]
+
+From the city's origin until the 19th century, Germans were the dominant ethnic group.[15] By the end of World War One 42% of the population of Pressburg spoke German as their native language, 40% Hungarian, and 15% Slovak.[15]
+
+After the formation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, Bratislava remained a multi-ethnic city, but with a different demographic trend. Due to Slovakization,[113][114] the proportion of Slovaks and Czechs increased in the city, while the proportion of Germans and Hungarians fell. In 1938, 59% of population were Slovaks or Czechs, while Germans represented 22% and Hungarians 13% of the city's population.[115] The creation of the first Slovak Republic in 1939 brought other changes, most notably the expulsion of many Czechs and the deportation or flight of the Jews during the Holocaust.[15][116] In 1945, most of the Germans were evacuated. After the restoration of Czechoslovakia, the Beneš decrees (partly revoked in 1948) collectively punished ethnic German and Hungarian minorities by expropriation and deportation to Germany, Austria, and Hungary for their alleged collaborationism with Nazi Germany and Hungary against Czechoslovakia.[65][117][118]
+
+The city thereby obtained its clearly Slovak character.[65] Hundreds of citizens were expelled during the communist oppression of the 1950s, with the aim of replacing "reactionary" people with the proletarian class.[15][65] Since the 1950s, the Slovaks have been the dominant ethnicity in the town, making up around 90% of the city's population.[15]
+
+Bratislava is the seat of the Slovak parliament, presidency, ministries, supreme court (Slovak: Najvyšší súd), and central bank. It is the seat of the Bratislava Region and, since 2002, also of the Bratislava Self-Governing Region. The city also has many foreign embassies and consulates.
+
+The current local government (Mestská samospráva)[119] structure has been in place since 1990.[120] It is composed of a mayor (primátor),[121] a city board (Mestská rada),[122] a city council (Mestské zastupiteľstvo),[123] city commissions (Komisie mestského zastupiteľstva),[124] and a city magistrate's office (Magistrát).[125]
+
+The mayor, based at the Primate's Palace, is the city's top executive officer and is elected to a four-year term of office. The current mayor of Bratislava is Matúš Vallo, who won the election held on November 10, 2018 as an independent candidate. The city council is the city's legislative body, responsible for issues such as budget, local ordinances, city planning, road maintenance, education, and culture.[126] The Council usually convenes once a month and consists of 45 members elected to four-year terms concurrent with the mayor's. Many of the council's executive functions are carried out by the city commission at the council's direction.[124] The city board is a 28-member body composed of the mayor and his deputies, the borough mayors, and up to ten city council members. The board is an executive and supervisory arm of the city council and also serves in an advisory role to the mayor.[122]
+
+Administratively, Bratislava is divided into five districts: Bratislava I (the city centre), Bratislava II (eastern parts), Bratislava III (north-eastern parts), Bratislava IV (western and northern parts) and Bratislava V (southern parts on the right bank of the Danube, including Petržalka, the most densely populated residential area in Central Europe).[127]
+
+For self-governance purposes, the city is divided into 17 boroughs, each of which has its own mayor (starosta) and council. The number of councillors in each depends on the size and population of the borough.[128] Each of the boroughs coincides with the city's 20 cadastral areas, except for two cases: Nové Mesto is further divided into the Nové Mesto and Vinohrady cadastral areas and Ružinov is divided into Ružinov, Nivy and Trnávka. Further unofficial division recognizes additional quarters and localities.
+
+The Bratislava Region is the wealthiest and most economically prosperous region in Slovakia, despite being the smallest by area and having the third smallest population of the eight Slovak regions. It accounts for about 26% of the Slovak GDP.[129]
+
+The average monthly salary in the Bratislava region in 2018 was €1,492.[130]
+
+The unemployment rate in Bratislava was 1.83% in December 2007.[131] Many governmental institutions and private companies have their headquarters in Bratislava. More than 75% of Bratislava's population works in the service sector, mainly composed of trade, banking, IT, telecommunications, and tourism.[132] The Bratislava Stock Exchange (BSSE), the organiser of the public securities market, was founded on 15 March 1991.[133]
+
+Companies operating predominantly in Bratislava with the highest value added according to the 2018 Trend Top 200 ranking, include the Volkswagen Bratislava Plant, Slovnaft refinery (MOL), Eset (software developer), Asseco (software company), PPC Power (producer of heat and steam) and Trenkwalder personnel agency.[134]
+
+Volkswagen Group took over and expanded the BAZ factory in 1991, and has since considerably expanded production beyond original Skoda Auto models.[135] Currently,[timeframe?] 68% of production is focused on SUVs: Audi Q7; VW Touareg; as well as the body and under-chassis of the Porsche Cayenne. Since 2012, production has also included the Volkswagen up!, SEAT Mii and Skoda Citigo.[136]
+
+In recent years, service and high-tech-oriented businesses have prospered in Bratislava. Many global companies, including IBM, Dell, Lenovo, AT&T, SAP, Amazon, Johnson Controls, Swiss Re and Accenture, have built outsourcing and service centres here or plan to do so soon.[137] Reasons for the influx of multi-national corporations include proximity to Western Europe, skilled labour force and the high density of universities and research facilities.[138] Also Slovak IT companies included ESET, Sygic and Pixel Federation have headquarters in Bratislava.
+
+Other large companies and employers with headquarters in Bratislava include Slovak Telekom, Orange Slovensko, Slovenská sporiteľňa, Tatra banka, Doprastav, Hewlett-Packard Slovakia, Slovnaft, Henkel Slovensko, Slovenský plynárenský priemysel, Kraft Foods Slovakia, Whirlpool Slovakia, Železnice Slovenskej republiky, AeroMobil, and Tesco Stores Slovak Republic.
+
+The Slovak economy's strong growth in the 2000s has led to a boom in the construction industry, and several major projects have been completed or are planned in Bratislava.[95] Areas attracting developers include the Danube riverfront, where two major projects are already finished: River Park in the Old Town, and Eurovea near the Apollo Bridge.[139][140] Other locations under development include the areas around the main railway and bus stations, the former industrial zone near the Old Town and in the boroughs of Petržalka, Nové Mesto and Ružinov.[127][141][142] It is expected that investors will spend €1.2 billion on new projects by 2010.[143] 
+In 2010 the city had a balanced budget of €277 million, with one fifth used for investment.[144] Bratislava holds shares in 17 companies directly, including the city's public transport company Dopravný podnik Bratislava, the waste collection and disposal company, and the water utility.[145] The city also manages municipal organisations such as the city police (Mestská polícia), Bratislava City Museum and ZOO Bratislava.[146]
+
+In 2006, Bratislava had 77 commercial accommodation facilities, of which 45 were hotels, with a total capacity of 9,940 beds.[147] A total of 986,201 visitors, 754,870 of whom were foreigners, stayed overnight. Altogether, visitors made 1,338,497 overnight stays.[147] However, a considerable share of visits is made by those who visit Bratislava for a single day, and their exact number is not known. The largest numbers of foreign visitors come from the Czech Republic, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland and Austria.[147]
+
+Among other factors, the growth of low-cost airline flights to Bratislava, led by Ryanair, has led to conspicuous stag parties, primarily from the UK. While these are a boom to the city's tourism industry, cultural differences and vandalism have led to concern by local officials.[148] Reflecting the popularity of rowdy parties in Bratislava in the early to mid-2000s, the city was a setting in the 2004 comedy film Eurotrip, which was actually filmed in the city of Prague, the Czech Republic.
+
+Bratislava has seven major shopping centres: Aupark, Avion Shopping Park, Bory Mall, Central, Eurovea, Polus City Center and Shopping Palace.
+
+A month before Christmas the Main Square in Bratislava is illuminated by a Christmas tree and the Christmas market stalls are officially opened. Around 100 booths are opened every year. It is opened most of the day as well as in the evening.[citation needed]
+
+Bratislava is the cultural heart of Slovakia. Owing to its historical multi-cultural character, local culture is influenced by various ethnic and religious groups, including Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, and Jews.[9][dead link][149] Bratislava enjoys numerous theatres, museums, galleries, concert halls, cinemas, film clubs, and foreign cultural institutions.[150]
+
+Bratislava is the seat of the Slovak National Theatre, housed in two buildings.[151] The first is a Neo-Renaissance theatre building situated in the Old Town at the end of Hviezdoslav Square. The new building, opened to the public in 2007, is on the riverfront.[96][151] The theatre has three ensembles: opera, ballet and drama.[151] Smaller theatres include the Bratislava Puppet Theatre, the Astorka Korzo '90 theatre, the Arena Theatre, L+S Studio, and the Naive Theatre of Radošina.
+
+Music in Bratislava flourished in the 18th century and was closely linked to Viennese musical life. Mozart visited the town at the age of six. Among other notable composers who visited or lived in the town were Haydn, Liszt, Bartók and Beethoven. It is also the birthplace of the composers Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ernő Dohnányi, and Franz Schmidt. Bratislava is home to both the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra and the chamber orchestra, Capella Istropolitana. The city hosts several annual festivals, such as the Bratislava Music Festival and Bratislava Jazz Days.[152] The Wilsonic Festival, held annually since 2000, brings dozens of international musical acts to the city each year.[153] During the summer, various musical events take place as part of the Bratislava Cultural Summer at Bratislava Castle. Apart from musical festivals, it is possible to hear music ranging from underground to well known pop stars.[154]
+
+Bratislava is home to two of Slovakia's national folk dance ensembles, Lúčnica and Slovenský ľudový umelecký kolektív (SĽUK).[155][156][157]
+
+The Slovak National Museum (Slovenské národné múzeum), founded in 1961, has its headquarters in Bratislava on the riverfront in the Old Town, along with the Natural History Museum, which is one of its subdivisions. It is the largest cultural institution in Slovakia, and manages 16 specialized museums in Bratislava and beyond.[158] The Bratislava City Museum (Múzeum mesta Bratislavy), established in 1868, is the oldest museum in continuous operation in Slovakia.[159] Its primary goal is to chronicle Bratislava's history in various forms from the earliest periods using historical and archaeological collections. It offers permanent displays in eight specialised museums.
+
+The Slovak National Gallery, founded in 1948, offers the most extensive network of galleries in Slovakia. Two displays in Bratislava are next to one another at Esterházy Palace (Esterházyho palác, Eszterházy palota) and the Water Barracks (Vodné kasárne, Vizikaszárnya) on the Danube riverfront in the Old Town. The Bratislava City Gallery, founded in 1961, is the second-largest Slovak gallery of its kind. The gallery offers permanent displays at Pálffy Palace (Pálffyho palác, Pálffy palota) and Mirbach Palace (Mirbachov palác, Mirbach palota), in the Old Town.[160] Danubiana Art Museum, one of the youngest art museums in Europe, is near Čunovo waterworks.[161]
+
+As the national capital, Bratislava is home to national and many local media outlets. Notable TV stations based in the city include Slovak Television (Slovenská televízia), Markíza, JOJ and TA3. Slovak Radio (Slovenský rozhlas) has its seat in the centre, and many Slovak commercial radio stations are based in the city. National newspapers based in Bratislava include SME, Pravda, Nový čas, Hospodárske noviny and the English-language The Slovak Spectator. Two news agencies are headquartered there: the News Agency of the Slovak Republic (TASR) and the Slovak News Agency (SITA).
+
+Various sports and sports teams have a long tradition in Bratislava, with many teams and individuals competing in Slovak and international leagues and competitions.
+
+Football is currently represented by the only club playing in the top Slovak football league, the Fortuna Liga. ŠK Slovan Bratislava, founded in 1919, has its home ground at the Tehelné pole stadium. ŠK Slovan is the most successful football club in Slovak history, being the only club from the former Czechoslovakia to win the European football competition the Cup Winners' Cup, in 1969.[162]
+FC Petržalka akadémia is the oldest of Bratislava's football clubs, founded in 1898, and is based at Stadium FC Petržalka 1898 in Petržalka (formerly at Pasienky in Nové Mesto and Štadión Petržalka in Petržalka). They are currently the only Slovak team to win at least one match in the UEFA Champions League group stage, with a 5–0 win over Celtic FC in the qualifying round being the most well-known, alongside a 3–2 win over FC Porto. Before then FC Košice in the 1997–98 season lost all six matches, despite being the first Slovak side since independence to play in the competition.
+
+In 2010 Artmedia were relegated from the Corgon Liga under their new name of MFK Petržalka, finishing 12th and bottom. FC Petržalka akadémia currently competes in 5. liga after bankruptcy in summer 2014. Another known club from the city is FK Inter Bratislava. Founded in 1945, they have their home ground at Stadium ŠKP Inter Dúbravka in Dúbravka, (formerly at Štadión Pasienky) and currently plays in the 3. liga. There are many more clubs with long tradition and successful history despite the lack of success in last years, e.g. LP Domino Bratislava currently playing in 4. liga; FK Rača Bratislava competing in the 3. liga as well as Inter; FK ŠKP Inter Dúbravka Bratislava, following ŠKP Devín (successful team from 1990s) and partially following the original Inter (original Inter bankrupted in 2009, sold the Corgoň Liga license to FK Senica and legally merged with FC ŠKP Dúbravka; current Inter has taken over the tradition, name, colours, fans etc., but legally is no successor of the original Inter); FC Tatran Devín, the club that was successful mostly at youth level and merged with ŠKP Bratislava in 1995; MŠK Iskra Petržalka, playing under the name ŠK Iskra Matadorfix Bratislava in the former 1st League (today 2nd) in 1997/98.
+
+Bratislava is home to three winter sports arenas: Ondrej Nepela Winter Sports Stadium, V. Dzurilla Winter Sports Stadium, and Dúbravka Winter Sports Stadium. The HC Slovan Bratislava ice hockey team has represented Bratislava from the 2012–13 season in the Kontinental Hockey League. Slovnaft Arena, a part of Ondrej Nepela Winter Sports Stadium, is home to HC Slovan. The Ice Hockey World Championships in 1959 and 1992 were played in Bratislava, and the 2011 World Championship were held in Bratislava and Košice, for which a new arena was built.[163] The city also played host to the World Championship in 2019.
+
+The Čunovo Water Sports Centre is a whitewater slalom and rafting area, close to the Gabčíkovo dam. It hosts several international and national canoe and kayak competitions annually.
+
+The National Tennis Centre, which includes Aegon Arena, hosts various cultural, sporting and social events. Several Davis Cup matches have been played there, including the 2005 Davis Cup final. The city is represented in the top Slovak leagues in women's and men's basketball, women's handball and volleyball, and men's water polo. The Devín–Bratislava National run is the oldest athletic event in Slovakia,[164] and the Bratislava City Marathon has been held annually since 2006. A race track is located in Petržalka, where horse racing and dog racing events and dog shows are held regularly.
+
+Bratislava is also the centre of rugby union in Slovakia.
+
+The first university in Bratislava, in the Kingdom of Hungary (and also in the territory of present-day Slovakia) was Universitas Istropolitana, founded in 1465 by King Matthias Corvinus. It was closed in 1490 after his death.[165]
+
+Bratislava is the seat of the largest university (Comenius University, 27,771 students),[166] the largest technical university (Slovak University of Technology, 18,473 students),[167] and the oldest art schools (the Academy of Performing Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts and Design) in Slovakia. Other institutions of tertiary education are the public University of Economics and the first private college in Slovakia, City University of Seattle.[168] In total, about 56,000 students attend university in Bratislava.[169]
+
+There are 65 public primary schools, nine private primary schools and ten religious primary schools.[170] Overall, they enroll 25,821 pupils.[170] The city's system of secondary education (some middle schools and all high schools) consists of 39 gymnasia with 16,048 students,[171] 37 specialized high schools with 10,373 students,[172] and 27 vocational schools with 8,863 students (data as of 2007[update]).[173][174]
+
+The Slovak Academy of Sciences is also based in Bratislava. However, the city is one of the few European capitals to have neither an observatory nor a planetarium. The nearest observatory is in Modra, 30 kilometres (19 mi) away, and the nearest planetarium is in Hlohovec, 70 kilometres (43 mi) away.
+
+The geographical position of Bratislava in Central Europe has long made it a natural crossroads for international trade traffic.[175]
+
+Public transport in Bratislava is managed by Dopravný podnik Bratislava, a city-owned company. The transport system is known as Mestská hromadná doprava (MHD, Municipal Mass Transit) and employs buses, trams and trolleybuses.[176] An additional service, Bratislavská integrovaná doprava (Bratislava Integrated Transport), links train and bus routes in the city with points beyond.
+
+As a rail hub, the city has direct connections to Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and the rest of Slovakia. Bratislava-Petržalka railway station and Bratislava Main station are the principal railway stations. Main bus station (Autobusová stanica Mlynské Nivy or AS Mlynské Nivy) is located at Mlynské Nivy, east of city centre and offers bus connections to cities in Slovakia and international bus lines.
+
+The motorway system provides direct access to Brno in the Czech Republic, Budapest in Hungary, Trnava and other points in Slovakia. The A6 motorway between Bratislava and Vienna was opened in November 2007.[177]
+
+The Port of Bratislava is one of the two international river ports in Slovakia. The port provides access to the Black Sea via the Danube and to the North Sea through the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal. Additionally, tourist lines operate from Bratislava's passenger port, including routes to Devín, Vienna and elsewhere.
+In Bratislava there are currently five bridges standing over the Danube (ordered by the flow of the river): Most Lafranconi (Lafranconi Bridge), Most SNP (Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising), Starý most (The Old Bridge), Most Apollo (Apollo Bridge) and Prístavný most (The Harbor Bridge).
+
+Bratislava's M. R. Štefánik Airport is the main international airport in Slovakia. The airport is located 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) north-east of the city centre. It serves civil and governmental, scheduled and unscheduled domestic and international flights. The current runways support the landing of all common types of aircraft currently used. It served 2,024,000 passengers in 2007.[178] Bratislava is also served by the Vienna International Airport located 49 kilometres (30.4 mi) west of the city centre.
+
+Bratislava is twinned with:
+
+* Numbers in parentheses list the year of twinning. The first agreement was signed with the city of Perugia, Umbria, in Italy on July 18, 1962.
+
+People who have received the honorary citizenship of Bratislava are:
+
+View from the Slovak National Uprising Bridge
+
+Main entrance of the Bratislava Castle
+
+Hviezdoslav Square
+
+Primate's Square
+
+Michael's Gate
+
+Laurinc Gate
+
+Kalvínsky kostol
+
+Church of Saint Stephen
+
+Trinitarian Church
+
+The Old Town of Bratislava
+
+Streets of the Old Town
+
+Bratislava Old Town
+
+Laurinská Street
+
+Stará Tržnica Market Hall, the oldest indoor market in Bratislava
+
+New high-rise apartments being built
+
+Einsteinova street
+
+Danube promenade
+
+Embankment
+
+Danube river and the Slovak National Uprising Bridge
+
+Apollo Bridge
+
+Polus City Shopping Center
+
+Slovak Radio headquarters building
+
+Kuchajda Lake
+
+CityShuttle train connects Bratislava with Austria's capital Vienna.
+
+Refinery of Slovnaft in Bratislava
+
+Map of Bratislava in city centre
+
+Manhole cover in Bratislava
+
+Danube embankment
+
+The records for genealogical research are available at the state archive "Statny Archiv in Bratislava, Slovakia"

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+
+
+
+Ovis guineensis Linnaeus, 1758
+Ovis strepsiceros Linnaeus, 1758
+
+Sheep (Ovis aries) are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like most ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name sheep applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female is referred to as a ewe (/juː/), an intact male as a ram, occasionally a tup, a castrated male as a wether, and a young sheep as a  lamb.
+
+Sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia; one of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleeces, meat (lamb, hogget or mutton) and milk. A sheep's wool is the most widely used animal fiber, and is usually harvested by shearing. Ovine meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones in Commonwealth countries, and lamb in the United States (including from adults).  Sheep continue to be important for wool and meat today, and are also occasionally raised for pelts, as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science.
+
+Sheep husbandry is practised throughout the majority of the inhabited world, and has been fundamental to many civilizations. In the modern era, Australia, New Zealand, the southern and central South American nations, and the British Isles are most closely associated with sheep production.
+
+There are a large lexicon of unique terms for sheep husbandry which vary considerably by region and dialect. Use of the word sheep began in Middle English as a derivation of the Old English word scēap; it is both the singular and plural name for the animal. A group of sheep is called a flock. Many other specific terms for the various life stages of sheep exist, generally related to lambing, shearing, and age.
+
+Being a key animal in the history of farming, sheep have a deeply entrenched place in human culture, and find representation in much modern language and symbology. As livestock, sheep are most often associated with pastoral, Arcadian imagery. Sheep figure in many mythologies—such as the Golden Fleece—and major religions, especially the Abrahamic traditions. In both ancient and modern religious ritual, sheep are used as sacrificial animals.
+
+The exact line of descent between domestic sheep and their wild ancestors is unclear.[1] The most common hypothesis states that Ovis aries is descended from the Asiatic (O. orientalis) species of mouflon.[2]:5 Sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated by humankind (although the domestication of dogs may have taken place more than 20,000 years earlier); the domestication date is estimated to fall between 11,000 and 9,000 B.C in Mesopotamia.[2]:4[3]:11–14[4]:2[5] The rearing of sheep for secondary products, and the resulting breed development, began in either southwest Asia or western Europe.[6] Initially, sheep were kept solely for meat, milk and skins. Archaeological evidence from statuary found at sites in Iran suggests that selection for woolly sheep may have begun around 6000 BC,[2]:5[3]:11 and the earliest woven wool garments have been dated to two to three thousand years later.[7]:8
+
+Sheep husbandry spread quickly in  Europe. Excavations show that in about 6000 BC, during the Neolithic period of prehistory, the Castelnovien people, living around Châteauneuf-les-Martigues near present-day Marseille in the south of France, were among the first in Europe to keep domestic sheep.[8] Practically from its inception, ancient Greek civilization relied on sheep as primary livestock, and were even said to name individual animals.[3]:13 Ancient Romans kept sheep on a wide scale, and were an important agent in the spread of sheep raising. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (Naturalis Historia), speaks at length about sheep and wool.[9] European colonists spread the practice to the New World from 1493 onwards.[2][3]:12
+
+Domestic sheep are relatively small ruminants, usually with a crimped hair called wool and often with horns forming a lateral spiral. Domestic sheep differ from their wild relatives and ancestors in several respects, having become uniquely neotenic as a result of selective breeding by humans.[10][11] A few primitive breeds of sheep retain some of the characteristics of their wild cousins, such as short tails. Depending on breed, domestic sheep may have no horns at all (i.e. polled), or horns in both sexes, or in males only. Most horned breeds have a single pair, but a few breeds may have several.[2]
+
+Another trait unique to domestic sheep as compared to wild ovines is their wide variation in color. Wild sheep are largely variations of brown hues, and variation within species is extremely limited. Colors of domestic sheep range from pure white to dark chocolate brown, and even spotted or piebald.[12][13] Selection for easily dyeable white fleeces began early in sheep domestication, and as white wool is a dominant trait it spread quickly. However, colored sheep do appear in many modern breeds, and may even appear as a recessive trait in white flocks.[12][13] While white wool is desirable for large commercial markets, there is a niche market for colored fleeces, mostly for handspinning.[3] The nature of the fleece varies widely among the breeds, from dense and highly crimped, to long and hairlike. There is variation of wool type and quality even among members of the same flock, so wool classing is a step in the commercial processing of the fibre.
+
+Depending on breed, sheep show a range of heights and weights. Their rate of growth and mature weight is a heritable trait that is often selected for in breeding.[4] Ewes typically weigh between 45 and 100 kilograms (100 and 220 lb), and rams between 45 and 160 kilograms (100 and 350 lb).[14] When all deciduous teeth have erupted, the sheep has 20 teeth.[15] Mature sheep have 32 teeth. As with other ruminants, the front teeth in the lower jaw bite against a hard, toothless pad in the upper jaw. These are used to pick off vegetation, then the rear teeth grind it before it is swallowed. There are eight lower front teeth in ruminants, but there is some disagreement as to whether these are eight incisors, or six incisors and two incisor-shaped canines. This means that the dental formula for sheep is either 0.0.3.34.0.3.3 or 0.0.3.33.1.3.3 [16] There is a large diastema between the incisors and the molars.
+In the first few years of life one can calculate the age of sheep from their front teeth, as a pair of milk teeth is replaced by larger adult teeth each year, the full set of eight adult front teeth being complete at about four years of age. The front teeth are then gradually lost as sheep age, making it harder for them to feed and hindering the health and productivity of the animal. For this reason, domestic sheep on normal pasture begin to slowly decline from four years on, and the life expectancy of a sheep is 10 to 12 years, though some sheep may live as long as 20 years.[2][17][7]
+
+Sheep have good hearing, and are sensitive to noise when being handled.[18] Sheep have horizontal slit-shaped pupils, with excellent peripheral vision; with visual fields of about 270° to 320°, sheep can see behind themselves without turning their heads.[3][19] Many breeds have only short hair on the face, and some have facial wool (if any) confined to the poll and or the area of the mandibular angle; the wide angles of peripheral vision apply to these breeds. A few breeds tend to have considerable wool on the face; for some individuals of these breeds, peripheral vision may be greatly reduced by "wool blindness", unless recently shorn about the face.[20] Sheep have poor depth perception; shadows and dips in the ground may cause sheep to baulk. In general, sheep have a tendency to move out of the dark and into well-lit areas,[21] and prefer to move uphill when disturbed. Sheep also have an excellent sense of smell, and, like all species of their genus, have scent glands just in front of the eyes, and interdigitally on the feet. The purpose of these glands is uncertain,[22] but those on the face may be used in breeding behaviors.[4] The foot glands might also be related to reproduction,[4] but alternative functions, such as secretion of a waste product or a scent marker to help lost sheep find their flock, have also been proposed.[22]
+
+Sheep and goats are closely related: both are in the subfamily Caprinae. However, they are separate species, so hybrids rarely occur, and are always infertile. A hybrid of a ewe and a buck (a male goat) is called a sheep-goat hybrid, and is not to be confused with the sheep-goat chimera, though both are known as geep. Visual differences between sheep and goats include the beard of goats and divided upper lip of sheep. Sheep tails also hang down, even when short or docked, while the short tails of goats are held upwards. Also, sheep breeds are often naturally polled (either in both sexes or just in the female), while naturally polled goats are rare (though many are polled artificially). Males of the two species differ in that buck goats acquire a unique and strong odor during the rut, whereas rams do not.[7]
+
+The domestic sheep is a multi-purpose animal, and the more than 200 breeds now in existence were created to serve these diverse purposes.[2][23] Some sources give a count of a thousand or more breeds,[24][25] but these numbers cannot be verified, according to some sources.[3][7] However, several hundred breeds of sheep have been identified by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), with the estimated number varying somewhat from time to time: e.g. 863 breeds as of 1993,[26] 1314 breeds as of 1995[27]  and 1229 breeds as of 2006.[28] (These numbers exclude extinct breeds, which are also tallied by the FAO.) For the purpose of such tallies, the FAO definition of a breed is "either a subspecific group of domestic livestock with definable and identifiable external characteristics that enable it to be separated by visual appraisal from other similarly defined groups within the same species or a group for which geographical and/or cultural separation from phenotypically similar groups has led to acceptance of its separate identity."[28] Almost all sheep are classified as being best suited to furnishing a certain product: wool, meat, milk, hides, or a combination in a dual-purpose breed. Other features used when classifying sheep include face color (generally white or black), tail length, presence or lack of horns, and the topography for which the breed has been developed. This last point is especially stressed in the UK, where breeds are described as either upland (hill or mountain) or lowland breeds.[21] A sheep may also be of a fat-tailed type, which is a dual-purpose sheep common in Africa and Asia with larger deposits of fat within and around its tail.
+
+Breeds are often categorized by the type of their wool. Fine wool breeds are those that have wool of great crimp and density, which are preferred for textiles. Most of these were derived from Merino sheep, and the breed continues to dominate the world sheep industry. Downs breeds have wool between the extremes, and are typically fast-growing meat and ram breeds with dark faces.[29] Some major medium wool breeds, such as the Corriedale, are dual-purpose crosses of long and fine-wooled breeds and were created for high-production commercial flocks. Long wool breeds are the largest of sheep, with long wool and a slow rate of growth. Long wool sheep are most valued for crossbreeding to improve the attributes of other sheep types. For example: the American Columbia breed was developed by crossing Lincoln rams (a long wool breed) with fine-wooled Rambouillet ewes.
+
+Coarse or carpet wool sheep are those with a medium to long length wool of characteristic coarseness. Breeds traditionally used for carpet wool show great variability, but the chief requirement is a wool that will not break down under heavy use (as would that of the finer breeds). As the demand for carpet-quality wool declines, some breeders of this type of sheep are attempting to use a few of these traditional breeds for alternative purposes. Others have always been primarily meat-class sheep.[30]
+
+A minor class of sheep are the dairy breeds. Dual-purpose breeds that may primarily be meat or wool sheep are often used secondarily as milking animals, but there are a few breeds that are predominantly used for milking. These sheep produce a higher quantity of milk and have slightly longer lactation curves.[31] In the quality of their milk, the fat and protein content percentages of dairy sheep vary from non-dairy breeds, but lactose content does not.[32]
+
+A last group of sheep breeds is that of fur or hair sheep, which do not grow wool at all. Hair sheep are similar to the early domesticated sheep kept before woolly breeds were developed, and are raised for meat and pelts. Some modern breeds of hair sheep, such as the Dorper, result from crosses between wool and hair breeds. For meat and hide producers, hair sheep are cheaper to keep, as they do not need shearing.[30] Hair sheep are also more resistant to parasites and hot weather.[7]
+
+With the modern rise of corporate agribusiness and the decline of localized family farms, many breeds of sheep are in danger of extinction. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust of the UK lists 22 native breeds as having only 3,000 registered animals (each), and The Livestock Conservancy lists 14 as either "critical" or "threatened".[33][34][35] Preferences for breeds with uniform characteristics and fast growth have pushed heritage (or heirloom) breeds to the margins of the sheep industry.[30] Those that remain are maintained through the efforts of conservation organizations, breed registries, and individual farmers dedicated to their preservation.
+
+Sheep are herbivorous mammals. Most breeds prefer to graze on grass and other short roughage, avoiding the taller woody parts of plants that goats readily consume.[36] Both sheep and goats use their lips and tongues to select parts of the plant that are easier to digest or higher in nutrition.[36] Sheep, however, graze well in monoculture pastures where most goats fare poorly.[36]
+
+Like all ruminants, sheep have a complex digestive system composed of four chambers, allowing them to break down cellulose from stems, leaves, and seed hulls into simpler carbohydrates. When sheep graze, vegetation is chewed into a mass called a bolus, which is then passed into the rumen, via the reticulum. The rumen is a 19- to 38-liter (5 to 10 gallon) organ in which feed is fermented.[37] The fermenting organisms include bacteria, fungi, and protozoa.[38]  (Other important rumen organisms include some archaea, which produce methane from carbon dioxide.[39])  The bolus is periodically regurgitated back to the mouth as cud for additional chewing and salivation.[37] After fermentation in the rumen, feed passes into the reticulum and the omasum; special feeds such as grains may bypass the rumen altogether. After the first three chambers, food moves into the abomasum for final digestion before processing by the intestines. The abomasum is the only one of the four chambers analogous to the human stomach, and is sometimes called the "true stomach".[40]
+
+Other than forage, the other staple feed for sheep is hay, often during the winter months. The ability to thrive solely on pasture (even without hay) varies with breed, but all sheep can survive on this diet.[30] Also included in some sheep's diets are minerals, either in a trace mix or in licks. Feed provided to sheep must be specially formulated, as most cattle, poultry, pig, and even some goat feeds contain levels of copper that are lethal to sheep.[3] The same danger applies to mineral supplements such as salt licks.[41]
+
+Sheep follow a diurnal pattern of activity, feeding from dawn to dusk, stopping sporadically to rest and chew their cud. Ideal pasture for sheep is not lawnlike grass, but an array of grasses, legumes and forbs.[42] Types of land where sheep are raised vary widely, from pastures that are seeded and improved intentionally to rough, native lands. Common plants toxic to sheep are present in most of the world, and include (but are not limited to) cherry, some oaks and acorns, tomato, yew, rhubarb, potato, and rhododendron.[43]
+
+Sheep are largely grazing herbivores, unlike browsing animals such as goats and deer that prefer taller foliage. With a much narrower face, sheep crop plants very close to the ground and can overgraze a pasture much faster than cattle.[7] For this reason, many shepherds use managed intensive rotational grazing, where a flock is rotated through multiple pastures, giving plants time to recover.[7][21] Paradoxically, sheep can both cause and solve the spread of invasive plant species. By disturbing the natural state of pasture, sheep and other livestock can pave the way for invasive plants. However, sheep also prefer to eat invasives such as cheatgrass, leafy spurge, kudzu and spotted knapweed over native species such as sagebrush, making grazing sheep effective for conservation grazing.[44] Research conducted in Imperial County, California compared lamb grazing with herbicides for weed control in seedling alfalfa fields. Three trials demonstrated that grazing lambs were just as effective as herbicides in controlling winter weeds. Entomologists also compared grazing lambs to insecticides for insect control in winter alfalfa. In this trial, lambs provided insect control as effectively as insecticides.[45]
+
+Sheep are flock animals and strongly gregarious; much sheep behavior can be understood on the basis of these tendencies. The dominance hierarchy of sheep and their natural inclination to follow a leader to new pastures were the pivotal factors in sheep being one of the first domesticated livestock species.[46] Furthermore, in contrast to the red deer and gazelle (two other ungulates of primary importance to meat production in prehistoric times), sheep do not defend territories although they do form home ranges.[47]  All sheep have a tendency to congregate close to other members of a flock, although this behavior varies with breed,[18] and sheep can become stressed when separated from their flock members.[4] During flocking, sheep have a strong tendency to follow, and a leader may simply be the first individual to move.  Relationships in flocks tend to be closest among related sheep: in mixed-breed flocks, subgroups of the same breed tend to form, and a ewe and her direct descendants often move as a unit within large flocks.[3]  Sheep can become hefted to one particular local pasture (heft) so they do not roam freely in unfenced landscapes. Lambs learn the heft from ewes and if whole flocks are culled it must be retaught to the replacement animals.[4][48]
+
+Flock behaviour in sheep is generally only exhibited in groups of four or more sheep; fewer sheep may not react as expected when alone or with few other sheep.[3] Being a prey species, the primary defense mechanism of sheep is to flee from danger when their flight zone is entered. Cornered sheep may charge and butt, or threaten by hoof stamping and adopting an aggressive posture. This is particularly true for ewes with newborn lambs.[3]
+
+In regions where sheep have no natural predators, none of the native breeds of sheep exhibit a strong flocking behavior.[7]
+
+Farmers exploit flocking behavior to keep sheep together on unfenced pastures such as hill farming, and to move them more easily. For this purpose shepherds may use herding dogs in this effort, with a highly bred herding ability. Sheep are food-oriented, and association of humans with regular feeding often results in sheep soliciting people for food.[49] Those who are moving sheep may exploit this behavior by leading sheep with buckets of feed.[50][51]
+
+Sheep establish a dominance hierarchy through fighting, threats and competitiveness. Dominant animals are inclined to be more aggressive with other sheep, and usually feed first at troughs.[52] Primarily among rams, horn size is a factor in the flock hierarchy.[53] Rams with different size horns may be less inclined to fight to establish the dominance order, while rams with similarly sized horns are more so.[53] Merinos have an almost linear hierarchy whereas there is a less rigid structure in Border Leicesters when a competitive feeding situation arises.[54]
+
+In sheep, position in a moving flock is highly correlated with social dominance, but there is no definitive study to show consistent voluntary leadership by an individual sheep.[54]
+
+Sheep are frequently thought of as unintelligent animals.[55] Their flocking behavior and quickness to flee and panic can make shepherding a difficult endeavor for the uninitiated. Despite these perceptions, a University of Illinois monograph on sheep reported their intelligence to be just below that of pigs and on par with that of cattle.[3]
+Sheep can recognize individual human and ovine faces and remember them for years.[56][57] In addition to long-term facial recognition of individuals, sheep can also differentiate emotional states through facial characteristics.[56][57] If worked with patiently, sheep may learn their names, and many sheep are trained to be led by halter for showing and other purposes.[3] Sheep have also responded well to clicker training.[3] Sheep have been used as pack animals; Tibetan nomads distribute baggage equally throughout a flock as it is herded between living sites.[3]
+
+It has been reported that some sheep have apparently shown problem-solving abilities; a flock in West Yorkshire, England allegedly found a way to get over cattle grids by rolling on their backs, although documentation of this has relied on anecdotal accounts.[58]
+
+Sounds made by domestic sheep include bleats, grunts, rumbles and snorts.   Bleating ("baaing") is used mostly for contact communication, especially between dam and lambs, but also at times between other flock members.[59]  The bleats of individual sheep are distinctive, enabling the ewe and her lambs to recognize each other's vocalizations.[60]  Vocal communication between lambs and their dam declines to a very low level within several weeks after parturition.[59]  A variety of bleats may be heard, depending on sheep age and circumstances. Apart from contact communication, bleating may signal distress, frustration or impatience; however, sheep are usually silent when in pain.  Isolation commonly prompts bleating by sheep.[61]  Pregnant ewes may grunt when in labor.[62]  Rumbling sounds are made by the ram during courting;  somewhat similar rumbling sounds may be made by the ewe,[59] especially when with her neonate lambs.  A snort (explosive exhalation through the nostrils) may signal aggression or a warning,[59][63] and is often elicited from startled sheep.[64]
+
+In sheep breeds lacking facial wool, the visual field is wide. In 10 sheep (Cambridge, Lleyn and Welsh Mountain breeds, which lack facial wool), the visual field ranged from 298° to 325°, averaging 313.1°, with binocular overlap ranging from 44.5° to 74°, averaging 61.7°.[65] In some breeds, unshorn facial wool can limit the visual field; in some individuals, this may be enough to cause "wool blindness". In 60 Merinos, visual fields ranged from 219.1° to 303.0°, averaging 269.9°, and the binocular field ranged from 8.9° to 77.7°, averaging 47.5°; 36% of the measurements were limited by wool,[66] although photographs of the experiments indicate that only limited facial wool regrowth had occurred since shearing. In addition to facial wool (in some breeds), visual field limitations can include ears and (in some breeds) horns,[66] so the visual field can be extended by tilting the head. Sheep eyes exhibit very low hyperopia and little astigmatism. Such visual characteristics are likely to produce a well-focused retinal image of objects in both the middle and long distance.[65] Because sheep eyes have no accommodation, one might expect the image of very near objects to be blurred, but a rather clear near image could be provided by the tapetum and large retinal image of the sheep's eye, and adequate close vision may occur at muzzle length.[65] Good depth perception, inferred from the sheep's sure-footedness, was confirmed in "visual cliff" experiments;[66][67] behavioral responses indicating depth perception are seen in lambs at one day old.[68] Sheep are thought to have colour vision, and can distinguish between a variety of colours: black, red, brown, green, yellow and white.[69] Sight is a vital part of sheep communication, and when grazing, they maintain visual contact with each other.[70] Each sheep lifts its head upwards to check the position of other sheep in the flock. This constant monitoring is probably what keeps the sheep in a flock as they move along grazing. Sheep become stressed when isolated; this stress is reduced if they are provided with a mirror, indicating that the sight of other sheep reduces stress.[71]
+
+Taste is the most important sense in sheep, establishing forage preferences, with sweet and sour plants being preferred and bitter plants being more commonly rejected. Touch and sight are also important in relation to specific plant characteristics, such as succulence and growth form.[72]
+
+The ram uses his vomeronasal organ (sometimes called the Jacobson's organ) to sense the pheromones of ewes and detect when they are in estrus.[73] The ewe uses her vomeronasal organ for early recognition of her neonate lamb.[74]
+
+Sheep follow a similar reproductive strategy to other herd animals. A group of ewes is generally mated by a single ram, who has either been chosen by a breeder or (in feral populations) has established dominance through physical contest with other rams.[30] Most sheep are seasonal breeders, although some are able to breed year-round.[30] Ewes generally reach sexual maturity at six to eight months old, and rams generally at four to six months.[30] However, there are exceptions. For example, Finnsheep ewe lambs may reach puberty as early as 3 to 4 months, and Merino ewes sometimes reach puberty at 18 to 20 months.[75] Ewes have estrus cycles about every 17 days,[76] during which they emit a scent and indicate readiness through physical displays towards rams. A minority of rams (8% on average) display a preference for homosexuality[77] and a small number of the females that were accompanied by a male fetus in utero are freemartins (female animals that are behaviorally masculine and lack functioning ovaries).[78][79][80][81]
+
+In feral sheep, rams may fight during the rut to determine which individuals may mate with ewes. Rams, especially unfamiliar ones, will also fight outside the breeding period to establish dominance; rams can kill one another if allowed to mix freely.[30] During the rut, even usually friendly rams may become aggressive towards humans due to increases in their hormone levels.[4]
+
+After mating, sheep have a gestation period of about five months,[82] and normal labor takes one to three hours.[83] Although some breeds regularly throw larger litters of lambs, most produce single or twin lambs.[4][84] During or soon after labor, ewes and lambs may be confined to small lambing jugs,[85] small pens designed to aid both careful observation of ewes and to cement the bond between them and their lambs.[21][30]
+
+Ovine obstetrics can be problematic. By selectively breeding ewes that produce multiple offspring with higher birth weights for generations, sheep producers have inadvertently caused some domestic sheep to have difficulty lambing; balancing ease of lambing with high productivity is one of the dilemmas of sheep breeding.[86] In the case of any such problems, those present at lambing may assist the ewe by extracting or repositioning lambs.[30] After the birth, ewes ideally break the amniotic sac (if it is not broken during labor), and begin licking clean the lamb.[30] Most lambs will begin standing within an hour of birth.[30] In normal situations, lambs nurse after standing, receiving vital colostrum milk. Lambs that either fail to nurse or are rejected by the ewe require help to survive, such as bottle-feeding or fostering by another ewe.[87]
+
+Most lambs begin life being born outdoors. After lambs are several weeks old, lamb marking (ear tagging, docking, mulesing, and castrating) is carried out.[30] Vaccinations are usually carried out at this point as well. Ear tags with numbers are attached, or ear marks are applied, for ease of later identification of sheep. Docking and castration are commonly done after 24 hours (to avoid interference with maternal bonding and consumption of colostrum) and are often done not later than one week after birth, to minimize pain, stress, recovery time and complications.[88][89] The first course of vaccinations (commonly anti-clostridial) is commonly given at an age of about 10 to 12 weeks; i.e. when the concentration of maternal antibodies passively acquired via colostrum is expected to have fallen low enough to permit development of active immunity.[90][91][92] Ewes are often revaccinated annually about 3 weeks before lambing, to provide high antibody concentrations in colostrum during the first several hours after lambing.[93] Ram lambs that will either be slaughtered or separated from ewes before sexual maturity are not usually castrated.[21] Objections to all these procedures have been raised by animal rights groups, but farmers defend them by saying they save money, and inflict only temporary pain.[4][30]
+
+Sheep may fall victim to poisons, infectious diseases, and physical injuries. As a prey species, a sheep's system is adapted to hide the obvious signs of illness, to prevent being targeted by predators.[4] However, some signs of ill health are obvious, with sick sheep eating little, vocalizing excessively, and being generally listless.[94] Throughout history, much of the money and labor of sheep husbandry has aimed to prevent sheep ailments. Historically, shepherds often created remedies by experimentation on the farm. In some developed countries, including the United States, sheep lack the economic importance for drug companies to perform expensive clinical trials required to approve more than a relatively limited number of drugs for ovine use.[95] However, extra-label drug use in sheep production is permitted in many jurisdictions, subject to certain restrictions.  In the US, for example, regulations governing extra-label drug use in animals are found in 21 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Part 530.[96] In the 20th and 21st centuries, a minority of sheep owners have turned to alternative treatments such as homeopathy, herbalism and even traditional Chinese medicine to treat sheep veterinary problems.[3][4] Despite some favorable anecdotal evidence, the effectiveness of alternative veterinary medicine has been met with skepticism in scientific journals.[3][4][97] The need for traditional anti-parasite drugs and antibiotics is widespread, and is the main impediment to certified organic farming with sheep.[30]
+
+Many breeders take a variety of preventive measures to ward off problems. The first is to ensure all sheep are healthy when purchased. Many buyers avoid outlets known to be clearing houses for animals culled from healthy flocks as either sick or simply inferior.[4] This can also mean maintaining a closed flock, and quarantining new sheep for a month. Two fundamental preventive programs are maintaining good nutrition and reducing stress in the sheep. Restraint, isolation, loud noises, novel situations, pain, heat, extreme cold, fatigue and other stressors can lead to secretion of cortisol, a stress hormone, in amounts that may indicate welfare problems.[98][99][100][101]  Excessive stress can compromise the immune system.[101]  "Shipping fever" (pneumonic mannheimiosis, formerly called pasteurellosis) is a disease of particular concern, that can occur as a result of stress, notably during transport and (or) handling.[102][103]  Pain, fear and several other stressors can cause secretion of epinephrine (adrenaline).  Considerable epinephrine secretion in the final days before slaughter can adversely affect meat quality (by causing glycogenolysis, removing the substrate for normal post-slaughter acidification of meat) and result in meat becoming more susceptible to colonization by spoilage bacteria.[99]  Because of such issues, low-stress handling is essential in sheep management.   Avoiding poisoning is also important; common poisons are pesticide sprays, inorganic fertilizer, motor oil, as well as radiator coolant containing ethylene glycol.[104]
+
+Common forms of preventive medication for sheep are vaccinations and treatments for parasites. Both external and internal parasites are the most prevalent malady in sheep, and are either fatal, or reduce the productivity of flocks.[4] Worms are the most common internal parasites. They are ingested during grazing, incubate within the sheep, and are expelled through the digestive system (beginning the cycle again). Oral anti-parasitic medicines, known as drenches, are given to a flock to treat worms, sometimes after worm eggs in the feces has been counted to assess infestation levels. Afterwards, sheep may be moved to a new pasture to avoid ingesting the same parasites.[21]  External sheep parasites include: lice (for different parts of the body), sheep keds, nose bots, sheep itch mites, and maggots. Keds are blood-sucking parasites that cause general malnutrition and decreased productivity, but are not fatal. Maggots are those of the bot fly and the blow-fly, commonly Lucilia sericata or its relative L. cuprina. Fly maggots cause the extremely destructive condition of flystrike. Flies lay their eggs in wounds or wet, manure-soiled wool; when the maggots hatch they burrow into a sheep's flesh, eventually causing death if untreated. In addition to other treatments, crutching (shearing wool from a sheep's rump) is a common preventive method. Some countries allow mulesing, a practice that involves stripping away the skin on the rump to prevent fly-strike, normally performed when the sheep is a lamb.[105][106]  Nose bots are fly larvae that inhabit a sheep's sinuses, causing breathing difficulties and discomfort. Common signs are a discharge from the nasal passage, sneezing, and frantic movement such as head shaking. External parasites may be controlled through the use of backliners, sprays or immersive sheep dips.[4]
+
+A wide array of bacterial and viral diseases affect sheep. Diseases of the hoof, such as foot rot and foot scald may occur, and are treated with footbaths and other remedies. Foot rot is present in over 97% of flocks in the UK.[107] These painful conditions cause lameness and hinder feeding. Ovine Johne's disease is a wasting disease that affects young sheep. Bluetongue disease is an insect-borne illness causing fever and inflammation of the mucous membranes. Ovine rinderpest (or peste des petits ruminants) is a highly contagious and often fatal viral disease affecting sheep and goats. Sheep may also be affected by primary [108] or secondary photosensitization. Tetanus can also afflict sheep through wounds from shearing, docking, castration, or vaccination. The organism also can be introduced into the reproductive tract by unsanitary humans who assist ewes during lambing.[109]
+
+A few sheep conditions are transmissible to humans. Orf (also known as scabby mouth, contagious ecthyma or soremouth) is a skin disease leaving lesions that is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact. Cutaneous anthrax is also called woolsorter's disease, as the spores can be transmitted in unwashed wool. More seriously, the organisms that can cause spontaneous enzootic abortion in sheep are easily transmitted to pregnant women. Also of concern are the prion disease scrapie and the virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), as both can devastate flocks. The latter poses a slight risk to humans. During the 2001 FMD pandemic in the UK, hundreds of sheep were culled and some rare British breeds were at risk of extinction due to this.[4]
+
+Of the 600,300 sheep lost to the US economy in 2004, 37.3% were lost to predators, while 26.5% were lost to some form of disease. Poisoning accounted for 1.7% of non-productive deaths.[110]
+
+Other than parasites and disease, predation is a threat to sheep and the profitability of sheep raising. Sheep have little ability to defend themselves, compared with other species kept as livestock. Even if sheep survive an attack, they may die from their injuries or simply from panic.[4] However, the impact of predation varies dramatically with region. In Africa, Australia, the Americas, and parts of Europe and Asia predators are a serious problem. In the United States, for instance, over one third of sheep deaths in 2004 were caused by predation.[110] In contrast, other nations are virtually devoid of sheep predators, particularly islands known for extensive sheep husbandry.[4] Worldwide, canids—including the domestic dog—are responsible for most sheep deaths.[111][112][113] Other animals that occasionally prey on sheep include: felines, bears, birds of prey, ravens and feral hogs.[110][114]
+
+Sheep producers have used a wide variety of measures to combat predation. Pre-modern shepherds used their own presence, livestock guardian dogs, and protective structures such as barns and fencing. Fencing (both regular and electric), penning sheep at night and lambing indoors all continue to be widely used.[30] More modern shepherds used guns, traps, and poisons to kill predators,[115] causing significant decreases in predator populations. In the wake of the environmental and conservation movements, the use of these methods now usually falls under the purview of specially designated government agencies in most developed countries.[116]
+
+The 1970s saw a resurgence in the use of livestock guardian dogs and the development of new methods of predator control by sheep producers, many of them non-lethal.[21] Donkeys and guard llamas have been used since the 1980s in sheep operations, using the same basic principle as livestock guardian dogs.[4] Interspecific pasturing, usually with larger livestock such as cattle or horses, may help to deter predators, even if such species do not actively guard sheep.[30] In addition to animal guardians, contemporary sheep operations may use non-lethal predator deterrents such as motion-activated lights and noisy alarms.[4]
+
+Sheep are an important part of the global agricultural economy. However, their once vital status has been largely replaced by other livestock species, especially the pig, chicken, and cow.[21] China, Australia, India, and Iran have the largest modern flocks, and serve both local and exportation needs for wool and mutton.[117] Other countries such as New Zealand have smaller flocks but retain a large international economic impact due to their export of sheep products. Sheep also play a major role in many local economies, which may be niche markets focused on organic or sustainable agriculture and local food customers.[3][118] Especially in developing countries, such flocks may be a part of subsistence agriculture rather than a system of trade. Sheep themselves may be a medium of trade in barter economies.[3]
+
+Domestic sheep provide a wide array of raw materials. Wool was one of the first textiles, although in the late 20th century wool prices began to fall dramatically as the result of the popularity and cheap prices for synthetic fabrics.[3] For many sheep owners, the cost of shearing is greater than the possible profit from the fleece, making subsisting on wool production alone practically impossible without farm subsidies.[3] Fleeces are used as material in making alternative products such as wool insulation.[119] In the 21st century, the sale of meat is the most profitable enterprise in the sheep industry, even though far less sheep meat is consumed than chicken, pork or beef.[21]
+
+Sheepskin is likewise used for making clothes, footwear, rugs, and other products. Byproducts from the slaughter of sheep are also of value: sheep tallow can be used in candle and soap making, sheep bone and cartilage has been used to furnish carved items such as dice and buttons as well as rendered glue and gelatin.[120] Sheep intestine can be formed into sausage casings, and lamb intestine has been formed into surgical sutures, as well as strings for musical instruments and tennis rackets.[2] Sheep droppings, which are high in cellulose, have even been sterilized and mixed with traditional pulp materials to make paper.[121] Of all sheep byproducts, perhaps the most valuable is lanolin: the waterproof, fatty substance found naturally in sheep's wool and used as a base for innumerable cosmetics and other products.[2]
+
+Some farmers who keep sheep also make a profit from live sheep. Providing lambs for youth programs such as 4-H and competition at agricultural shows is often a dependable avenue for the sale of sheep.[122] Farmers may also choose to focus on a particular breed of sheep in order to sell registered purebred animals, as well as provide a ram rental service for breeding.[123] A new option for deriving profit from live sheep is the rental of flocks for grazing; these "mowing services" are hired in order to keep unwanted vegetation down in public spaces and to lessen fire hazard.[124]
+
+Despite the falling demand and price for sheep products in many markets, sheep have distinct economic advantages when compared with other livestock. They do not require expensive housing,[125] such as that used in the intensive farming of chickens or pigs. They are an efficient use of land; roughly six sheep can be kept on the amount that would suffice for a single cow or horse.[4][126] Sheep can also consume plants, such as noxious weeds, that most other animals will not touch, and produce more young at a faster rate.[127] Also, in contrast to most livestock species, the cost of raising sheep is not necessarily tied to the price of feed crops such as grain, soybeans and corn.[128] Combined with the  lower cost of quality sheep, all these factors combine to equal a lower overhead for sheep producers, thus entailing a higher profitability potential for the small farmer.[128] Sheep are especially beneficial for independent producers, including family farms with limited resources, as the sheep industry is one of the few types of animal agriculture that has not been vertically integrated by agribusiness.[129] However, small flocks, from 10 to 50 ewes, often are not profitable because they tend to be poorly managed. The primary reason is that mechanization is not feasible, so return per hour of labor is not maximized. Small farm flocks generally are used simply to control weeds on irrigation ditches or maintained as a hobby.[130]
+
+Sheep meat and milk were one of the earliest staple proteins consumed by human civilization after the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture.[4]  Sheep meat prepared for food is known as either mutton or lamb, and approximately 540 million sheep are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide.[131] "Mutton" is derived from the Old French moton, which was the word for sheep used by the Anglo-Norman rulers of much of the British Isles in the Middle Ages. This became the name for sheep meat in English, while the Old English word sceap was kept for the live animal.[132] Throughout modern history, "mutton" has been limited to the meat of mature sheep usually at least two years of age; "lamb" is used for that of immature sheep less than a year.[133][134][135]
+
+In the 21st century, the nations with the highest consumption of sheep meat are the Arab States of the Persian Gulf, New Zealand, Australia, Greece, Uruguay, the United Kingdom and Ireland.[3] These countries eat 14–40 lbs (3–18 kg) of sheep meat per capita, per annum.[3][135] Sheep meat is also popular in France, Africa (especially the Arab World), the Caribbean, the rest of the Middle East, India, and parts of China.[135] This often reflects a history of sheep production. In these countries in particular, dishes comprising alternative cuts and offal may be popular or traditional. Sheep testicles—called animelles or lamb fries—are considered a delicacy in many parts of the world. Perhaps the most unusual dish of sheep meat is the Scottish haggis, composed of various sheep innards cooked along with oatmeal and chopped onions inside its stomach.[136]  In comparison, countries such as the U.S. consume only a pound or less (under 0.5 kg), with Americans eating 50 pounds (22 kg) of pork and 65 pounds (29 kg) of beef.[135] In addition, such countries rarely eat mutton, and may favor the more expensive cuts of lamb: mostly lamb chops and leg of lamb.[3]
+
+Though sheep's milk may be drunk rarely in fresh form,[137] today it is used predominantly in cheese and yogurt making. Sheep have only two teats, and produce a far smaller volume of milk than cows.[4] However, as sheep's milk contains far more fat, solids, and minerals than cow's milk, it is ideal for the cheese-making process.[32] It also resists contamination during cooling better because of its much higher calcium content.[32]  Well-known cheeses made from sheep milk include the Feta of Bulgaria and Greece, Roquefort of France, Manchego from Spain, the Pecorino Romano (the Italian word for sheep is pecore) and Ricotta of Italy. Yogurts, especially some forms of strained yogurt, may also be made from sheep milk.[138] Many of these products are now often made with cow's milk, especially when produced outside their country of origin.[3] Sheep milk contains 4.8% lactose, which may affect those who are intolerant.[3]
+
+As with other domestic animals, the meat of uncastrated males is inferior in quality, especially as they grow. A "bucky" lamb is a lamb which was not castrated early enough, or which was castrated improperly (resulting in one testicle being retained). These lambs are worth less at market.[139][140][141]
+
+Sheep are generally too large and reproduce too slowly to make ideal research subjects, and thus are not a common model organism.[142] They have, however, played an influential role in some fields of science. In particular, the Roslin Institute of Edinburgh, Scotland used sheep for genetics research that produced groundbreaking results. In 1995, two ewes named Megan and Morag were the first mammals cloned from differentiated cells. A year later, a Finnish Dorset sheep named Dolly, dubbed "the world's most famous sheep" in Scientific American,[143] was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell. Following this, Polly and Molly were the first mammals to be simultaneously cloned and transgenic.
+
+As of 2008, the sheep genome has not been fully sequenced, although a detailed genetic map has been published,[144] and a draft version of the complete genome produced by assembling sheep DNA sequences using information given by the genomes of other mammals.[145] In 2012, a transgenic sheep named "Peng Peng" was cloned by Chinese scientists, who spliced his genes with that of a roundworm (C. elegans) in order to increase production of fats healthier for human consumption.[146]
+
+In the study of natural selection, the population of Soay sheep that remain on the island of Hirta have been used to explore the relation of body size and coloration to reproductive success.[147] Soay sheep come in several colors, and researchers investigated why the larger, darker sheep were in decline; this occurrence contradicted the rule of thumb that larger members of a population tend to be more successful reproductively.[148] The feral Soays on Hirta are especially useful subjects because they are isolated.[149]
+
+Sheep are one of the few animals where the molecular basis of the diversity of male sexual preferences has been examined.[150] However, this research has been controversial, and much publicity has been produced by a study at the Oregon Health and Science University that investigated the mechanisms that produce homosexuality in rams. Organizations such as PETA campaigned against the study, accusing scientists of trying to cure homosexuality in the sheep.[77] OHSU and the involved scientists vehemently denied such accusations.[77]
+
+Domestic sheep are sometimes used in medical research, particularly for researching cardiovascular physiology, in areas such as hypertension and heart failure.[151][152] Pregnant sheep are also a useful model for human pregnancy,[153] and have been used to investigate the effects on fetal development of malnutrition and hypoxia.[154] In behavioral sciences, sheep have been used in isolated cases for the study of facial recognition, as their mental process of recognition is qualitatively similar to humans.[155]
+
+Sheep have had a strong presence in many cultures, especially in areas where they form the most common type of livestock. In the English language, to call someone a sheep or ovine may allude that they are timid and easily led.[156] In contradiction to this image, male sheep are often used as symbols of virility and power; the logos of the Los Angeles Rams football team and the Dodge Ram pickup truck allude to males of the bighorn sheep, Ovis canadensis.
+
+Counting sheep is popularly said to be an aid to sleep, and some ancient systems of counting sheep persist today. Sheep also enter in colloquial sayings and idiom frequently with such phrases as "black sheep". To call an individual a black sheep implies that they are an odd or disreputable member of a group.[157] This usage derives from the recessive trait that causes an occasional black lamb to be born into an entirely white flock. These black sheep were considered undesirable by shepherds, as black wool is not as commercially viable as white wool.[157] Citizens who accept overbearing governments have been referred to by the Portmanteau neologism of sheeple. Somewhat differently, the adjective "sheepish" is also used to describe embarrassment.[158]
+
+In British heraldry, sheep appear in the form of rams, sheep proper and lambs. These are distinguished by the ram being depicted with horns and a tail, the sheep with neither and the lamb with its tail only. A further variant of the lamb, termed the Paschal lamb, is depicted as carrying a Christian cross and with a halo over its head. Rams' heads, portrayed without a neck and facing the viewer, are also found in British armories. The fleece, depicted as an entire sheepskin carried by a ring around its midsection, originally became known through its use in the arms of the Order of the Golden Fleece and was later adopted by towns and individuals with connections to the wool industry.[159]
+
+In antiquity, symbolism involving sheep cropped up in religions in the ancient Near East, the Mideast, and the Mediterranean area: Çatalhöyük, ancient Egyptian religion, the Cana'anite and Phoenician tradition, Judaism, Greek religion, and others. Religious symbolism and ritual involving sheep began with some of the first known faiths: Skulls of rams (along with bulls) occupied central placement in shrines at the Çatalhöyük settlement in 8,000 BCE.[160] In Ancient Egyptian religion, the ram was the symbol of several gods: Khnum, Heryshaf and Amun (in his incarnation as a god of fertility).[3] Other deities occasionally shown with ram features include the goddess Ishtar, the Phoenician god Baal-Hamon, and the Babylonian god Ea-Oannes.[3] In Madagascar, sheep were not eaten as they were believed to be incarnations of the souls of ancestors.[161]
+
+There are many ancient Greek references to sheep: that of Chrysomallos, the golden-fleeced ram, continuing to be told through into the modern era. Astrologically, Aries, the ram, is the first sign of the classical Greek zodiac, and the sheep is the eighth of the twelve animals associated with the 12-year cycle of in the Chinese zodiac, related to the Chinese calendar.[161] In Mongolia, shagai are an ancient form of dice made from the cuboid bones of sheep that are often used for fortunetelling purposes.
+
+Sheep play an important role in all the Abrahamic faiths; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, King David and the Islamic prophet Muhammad were all shepherds. According to the Biblical story of the Binding of Isaac, a ram is sacrificed as a substitute for Isaac after an angel stays Abraham's hand (in the Islamic tradition, Abraham was about to sacrifice Ishmael). Eid al-Adha is a major annual festival in Islam in which sheep (or other animals) are sacrificed in remembrance of this act.[162][163] Sheep are occasionally sacrificed to commemorate important secular events in Islamic cultures.[164] Greeks and Romans sacrificed sheep regularly in religious practice, and Judaism once sacrificed sheep as a Korban (sacrifice), such as the Passover lamb .[161] Ovine symbols—such as the ceremonial blowing of a shofar—still find a presence in modern Judaic traditions.
+
+Collectively, followers of Christianity are often referred to as a flock, with Christ as the Good Shepherd, and sheep are an element in the Christian iconography of the birth of Jesus. Some Christian saints are considered patrons of shepherds, and even of sheep themselves. Christ is also portrayed as the Sacrificial lamb of God (Agnus Dei) and Easter celebrations in Greece and Romania traditionally feature a meal of Paschal lamb. A church leader is often called the pastor, which is derived from the Latin word for shepherd. In many western Christian traditions bishops carry a staff, which also serves as a symbol of the episcopal office, known as a crosier, which is modeled on the shepherd's crook.
+
+Sheep are key symbols in fables and nursery rhymes like The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Little Bo Peep, Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, and Mary Had a Little Lamb; novels such as George Orwell's Animal Farm and Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase; songs such as Bach's Sheep may safely graze (Schafe können sicher weiden) and Pink Floyd's Sheep, and poems like William Blake's "The Lamb".
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+Ancient Near East (1200–550 BC)
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+Europe
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+Iron Age metallurgy
+Ancient iron production
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+The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Chalcolithic) and the Bronze Age. The concept has been mostly applied to Europe and the Ancient Near East, and, by analogy, also to other parts of the Old World.
+
+The duration of the Iron Age varies depending on the region under consideration. It is defined by archaeological convention, and the mere presence of some cast or wrought iron is not sufficient to represent an Iron Age culture; rather, the "Iron Age" begins locally when the production of iron or steel has been brought to the point where iron tools and weapons superior to their bronze equivalents become widespread.[1] For example, Tutankhamun's meteoric iron dagger comes from the Bronze Age. In the Ancient Near East, this transition takes place in the wake of the so-called Bronze Age collapse, in the 12th century BC. The technology soon spread throughout the Mediterranean Basin region and to South Asia. Its further spread to Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Central Europe is somewhat delayed, and Northern Europe is reached still later, by about 500 BC.
+
+The Iron Age is taken to end, also by convention, with the beginning of the historiographical record.
+This usually does not represent a clear break in the archaeological record; for the Ancient Near East, the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire c. 550 BC (considered historical by virtue of the record by Herodotus) is usually taken as a cut-off date, and in Central and Western Europe, the Roman conquests of the 1st century BC serve as marking for the end of the Iron Age. The Germanic Iron Age of Scandinavia is taken to end c. 800 AD, with the beginning of the Viking Age.
+
+In South Asia (Indian sub-continent), the Iron Age is taken to begin with the ironworking Painted Gray Ware culture in the 18th century BC, and to end with the reign of Ashoka (3rd century BC). The use of the term "Iron Age" in the archaeology of South, East, and Southeast Asia is more recent and less common than for western Eurasia; at least in China prehistory had ended before iron-working arrived, so the term is infrequently used. The Sahel (Sudan region) and Sub-Saharan Africa are outside of the three-age system, there being no Bronze Age, but the term "Iron Age" is sometimes used in reference to early cultures practicing ironworking such as the Nok culture of Nigeria.
+
+The three-age system was introduced in the first half of the 19th century for the archaeology of Europe in particular, and by the later 19th century expanded to the archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Its name harks back to the mythological "Ages of Man" of Hesiod. As an archaeological era, it was first introduced for Scandinavia by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the 1830s. By the 1860s, it was embraced as a useful division of the "earliest history of mankind" in general[2] and began to be applied in Assyriology. The development of the now-conventional periodization in the archaeology of the Ancient Near East was developed in the 1920s to 1930s.[3]
+As its name suggests, Iron Age technology is characterized by the production of tools and weaponry by ferrous metallurgy (ironworking), more specifically from carbon steel.
+
+Increasingly the Iron Age in Europe is being seen as a part of the Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East, in ancient India (with the post-Rigvedic Vedic civilization), ancient Iran, and ancient Greece (with the Greek Dark Ages). In other regions of Europe the Iron Age began in the 8th century BC in Central Europe and the 6th century BC in Northern Europe. The Near Eastern Iron Age is divided into two subsections, Iron I and Iron II. Iron I (1200–1000 BC) illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with the previous Late Bronze Age. There is no definitive cultural break between the 13th and 12th centuries BC throughout the entire region, although certain new features in the hill country, Transjordan and coastal region may suggest the appearance of the Aramaean and Sea People groups. There is evidence, however, of strong continuity with Bronze Age culture, although as one moves later into Iron I the culture begins to diverge more significantly from that of the late 2nd millennium.
+
+The Iron Age as an archaeological period is roughly defined as that part of the prehistory of a culture or region during which ferrous metallurgy was the dominant technology of metalworking.
+
+The characteristic of an Iron Age culture is the mass production of tools and weapons made from steel, typically alloys with a carbon content between approximately 0.30% and 1.2% by weight.[citation needed]
+Only with the capability of the production of carbon steel does ferrous metallurgy result in tools or weapons that are equal or superior to bronze. The use of steel has been based as much on economics as on metallurgical advancements. Early steel was made by smelting iron.
+
+By convention, the Iron Age in the Ancient Near East is taken to last from c. 1200 BC (the Bronze Age collapse) to c. 550 BC (or 539 BC), roughly the beginning of historiography with Herodotus; the end of the proto-historical period. In Central and Western Europe, the Iron Age is taken to last from c. 800 BC to c. 1 BC, in Northern Europe from c. 500 BC to 800 AD.
+
+In China, there is no recognizable prehistoric period characterized by ironworking, as Bronze Age China transitions almost directly into the Qin dynasty of imperial China; "Iron Age" in the context of China is sometimes used for the transitional period of c. 500 BC to 100 BC during which ferrous metallurgy was present even if not dominant.
+
+The earliest-known iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh, Lower Egypt. They have been identified as meteoric iron shaped by careful hammering.[4] Meteoric iron, a characteristic iron–nickel alloy, was used by various ancient peoples thousands of years before the Iron Age. Such iron, being in its native metallic state, required no smelting of ores.[5][6]
+
+Smelted iron appears sporadically in the archeological record from the middle Bronze Age. Whilst terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, its high melting point of 1,538 °C (2,800 °F) placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tin's low melting point of 231.9 °C (449.4 °F) and copper's relatively moderate melting point of 1,085 °C (1,985 °F) placed them within the capabilities of the Neolithic pottery kilns, which date back to 6000 BC and were able to produce temperatures greater than 900 °C (1,650 °F).[7] In addition to specially designed furnaces, ancient iron production needed to develop complex procedures for the removal of impurities, the regulation of the admixture of carbon, and for hot-working to achieve a useful balance of hardness and strength in steel.
+
+The earliest tentative evidence for iron-making is a small number of iron fragments with the appropriate amounts of carbon admixture found in the Proto-Hittite layers at Kaman-Kalehöyük and dated to 2200–2000  BC. Akanuma (2008) concludes that "The combination of carbon dating, archaeological context, and archaeometallurgical examination indicates that it is likely that the use of ironware made of steel had already begun in the third millennium BC in Central Anatolia".[8] Souckova-Siegolová (2001) shows that iron implements were made in Central Anatolia in very limited quantities around 1800 BC and were in general use by elites, though not by commoners, during the New Hittite Empire (∼1400–1200 BC).[9]
+
+Similarly, recent archaeological remains of iron working in the Ganges Valley in India have been tentatively dated to 1800  BC. Tewari (2003) concludes that "knowledge of iron smelting and manufacturing of iron artifacts was well known in the Eastern Vindhyas and iron had been in use in the Central Ganga Plain, at least from the early second millennium BC".[10] By the Middle Bronze Age increasing numbers of smelted iron objects (distinguishable from meteoric iron by the lack of nickel in the product) appeared in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and South Asia. African sites are turning up dates as early as 2000-1200 BC.[11][12][13][14]
+
+Modern archaeological evidence identifies the start of large-scale iron production in around 1200  BC, marking the end of the Bronze Age. Between 1200 BC and 1000 BC diffusion in the understanding of iron metallurgy and the use of iron objects was fast and far-flung. Anthony Snodgrass[15][16] suggests that a shortage of tin, as a part of the Bronze Age Collapse and trade disruptions in the Mediterranean around 1300  BC, forced metalworkers to seek an alternative to bronze. As evidence, many bronze implements were recycled into weapons during that time. More widespread use of iron led to improved steel-making technology at a lower cost. Thus, even when tin became available again, iron was cheaper, stronger and lighter, and forged iron implements superseded cast bronze tools permanently.[17]
+
+The Iron Age in the Ancient Near East is believed to have begun with the discovery of iron smelting and smithing techniques in Anatolia or the Caucasus and Balkans in the late 2nd millennium BC (c. 1300  BC).[18] The earliest bloomery smelting of iron is found at Tell Hammeh, Jordan around 930 BC (14C dating).
+
+The Early Iron Age artefacts found in Kultepe site, Azerbaijan show that iron smelting was known and used in this region before the 2nd millennium BC (as early as the 3rd millennium BC).[19][20]
+
+In the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, the initial use of iron reaches far back, to perhaps 3000 BC.[21] One of the earliest smelted iron artifacts known was a dagger with an iron blade found in a Hattic tomb in Anatolia, dating from 2500 BC.[22] The widespread use of iron weapons which replaced bronze weapons rapidly disseminated throughout the Near East (North Africa, southwest Asia) by the beginning of the 1st millennium BC.
+
+The development of iron smelting was once attributed to the Hittites of Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age.
+As part of the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age, the Bronze Age collapse saw the slow, comparatively continuous spread of iron-working technology in the region.
+It was long held that the success of the Hittite Empire during the Late Bronze Age had been based on the advantages entailed by the "monopoly" on ironworking at the time.[23] Accordingly, the invading Sea Peoples would have been responsible for spreading the knowledge through that region.
+The view of such a "Hittite monopoly" has come under scrutiny and no longer represents a scholarly consensus.[23]
+While there are some iron objects from Bronze Age Anatolia, the number is comparable to iron objects found in Egypt and other places of the same time period; and only a small number of these objects are weapons.[24]
+
+
+
+
+
+The Iron Age in Egyptian archaeology essentially corresponds to the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt.
+
+Iron metal is singularly scarce in collections of Egyptian antiquities. Bronze remained the primary material there until the conquest by Neo-Assyrian Empire in 671 BC. The explanation of this would seem to lie in the fact that the relics are in most cases the paraphernalia of tombs, the funeral vessels and vases, and iron being considered an impure metal by the ancient Egyptians it was never used in their manufacture of these or for any religious purposes. It was attributed to Seth, the spirit of evil who according to Egyptian tradition governed the central deserts of Africa.[21]
+In the Black Pyramid of Abusir, dating before 2000 BC, Gaston Maspero found some pieces of iron. In the funeral text of Pepi I, the metal is mentioned.[21] A sword bearing the name of pharaoh Merneptah as well as a battle axe with an iron blade and gold-decorated bronze shaft were both found in the excavation of Ugarit.[22] A dagger with an iron blade found in Tutankhamun's tomb, 13th century BC, was recently examined and found to be of meteoric origin.[26][27][28]
+
+In Europe, the Iron Age is the last stage of prehistoric Europe and the first of the protohistoric periods, which initially means descriptions of a particular area by Greek and Roman writers. For much of Europe, the period came to an abrupt local end after conquest by the Romans, though ironworking remained the dominant technology until recent times. Elsewhere it may last until the early centuries AD, and either Christianization or a new conquest in the Migration Period.
+
+Iron working was introduced to Europe in the late 11th century BC,[29] probably from the Caucasus, and slowly spread northwards and westwards over the succeeding 500 years. The Iron Age did not start when iron first appeared in Europe but it began to replace bronze in the preparation of tools and weapons.[30] It did not happen at the same time all around Europe; local cultural developments played a role in the transition to the Iron Age. For example, the Iron Age of Prehistoric Ireland begins around 500 BC (when the Greek Iron Age had already ended) and finishes around 400 AD. The widespread use of the technology of iron was implemented in Europe simultaneously with Asia.[31] The prehistoric Iron Age in Central Europe divided into two periods based on historical events – Hallstatt culture (early Iron Age) and La Tène (late Iron Age) cultures.[32] Material cultures of Hallstatt and La Tène consist of 4 phases (A, B, C, D phases).[33][34][35]
+
+Flat graves
+
+Pottery made of polychrome
+
+heavy iron and bronze swords
+
+dagger swords, brooches, and ring ornaments, girdle mounts
+
+s-shaped, spiral and
+
+round designs
+
+Iron swords, heavy knives, lanceheads
+
+iron chains, iron swords, belts, heavy spearheads
+
+iron reaping-hooks, saws, scythes and hammers
+
+The Iron Age in Europe is characterized by an elaboration of designs in weapons, implements, and utensils.[21] These are no longer cast but hammered into shape, and decoration is elaborate and curvilinear rather than simple rectilinear; the forms and character of the ornamentation of the northern European weapons resemble in some respects Roman arms, while in other respects they are peculiar and evidently representative of northern art.
+
+Citania de Briterios located in Guimaraes, Portugal is one of the examples of archaeological sites of the Iron Age. This settlement (fortified villages) covered an area of 3.8 hectares and served for Celtiberians as a stronghold against Roman invasions. İt dates more than 2500 years back. The site was researched by Francisco Martins Sarmento starting from 1874. A number of amphoras, coins, fragments of pottery, weapons, pieces of jewelry, as well as ruins of a bath and its Pedra Formosa (literally Handsome Stone) revealed here.[36][37]
+
+The Iron Age in Central Asia began when iron objects appear among the Indo-European Saka in present-day Xinjiang between the 10th century BC and the 7th century BC, such as those found at the cemetery site of Chawuhukou.[38]
+
+The Pazyryk culture is an Iron Age archaeological culture (c. 6th to 3rd centuries BC) identified by excavated artifacts and mummified humans found in the Siberian permafrost in the Altay Mountains.
+
+In China, Chinese bronze inscriptions are found around 1200 BC, preceding the development of iron metallurgy, which was known by the 9th century BC,[39][40]  Therefore, in China prehistory had given way to history periodized by ruling dynasties by the start of iron use, so "Iron Age" is not typically used as to describe a period in Chinese history. Iron metallurgy reached the Yangtse Valley toward the end of the 6th century BC.[41] The few objects were found at Changsha and Nanjing. The mortuary evidence suggests that the initial use of iron in Lingnan belongs to the mid-to-late Warring States period (from about 350 BC). Important non-precious husi style metal finds include Iron tools found at the tomb at Guwei-cun of the 4th century BC.[42]
+
+The techniques used in Lingnan are a combination of bivalve moulds of distinct southern tradition and the incorporation of piece mould technology from the Zhongyuan. The products of the combination of these two periods are bells, vessels, weapons and ornaments, and the sophisticated cast.
+
+An Iron Age culture of the Tibetan Plateau has tentatively been associated with the Zhang Zhung culture described in early Tibetan writings.
+
+
+
+Iron objects were introduced to the Korean peninsula through trade with chiefdoms and state-level societies in the Yellow Sea area in the 4th century BC, just at the end of the Warring States Period but before the Western Han Dynasty began.[43][44] Yoon proposes that iron was first introduced to chiefdoms located along North Korean river valleys that flow into the Yellow Sea such as the Cheongcheon and Taedong Rivers.[45] Iron production quickly followed in the 2nd century BC, and iron implements came to be used by farmers by the 1st century in southern Korea.[43] The earliest known cast-iron axes in southern Korea are found in the Geum River basin. The time that iron production begins is the same time that complex chiefdoms of Proto-historic Korea emerged. The complex chiefdoms were the precursors of early states such as Silla, Baekje, Goguryeo, and Gaya[44][46] Iron ingots were an important mortuary item and indicated the wealth or prestige of the deceased in this period.[47]
+
+In Japan, iron items, such as tools, weapons, and decorative objects, are postulated to have entered Japan during the late Yayoi period (c. 300 BC–AD 300)[48] or the succeeding Kofun period (c. AD 250–538), most likely through contacts with the Korean Peninsula and China.
+
+Distinguishing characteristics of the Yayoi period include the appearance of new pottery styles and the start of intensive rice agriculture in paddy fields. Yayoi culture flourished in a geographic area from southern Kyūshū to northern Honshū. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes referred to collectively as the Yamato period; The word kofun is Japanese for the type of burial mounds dating from that era.
+
+Iron was being used in Mundigak to manufacture some items in the 3rd millennium BC such as a small copper/bronze bell with an iron clapper, a copper/bronze rod with two iron decorative buttons,. and a copper/bronze mirror handle with a decorative iron button.[49] Artefacts including small knives and blades have been discovered in the Indian state of Telangana which have been dated between 2,400 BC and 1800 BC[50][51] The history of metallurgy in the Indian subcontinent began prior to the 3rd millennium BC. Archaeological sites in India, such as Malhar, Dadupur, Raja Nala Ka Tila, Lahuradewa, Kosambi and Jhusi, Allahabad in present-day Uttar Pradesh show iron implements in the period 1800–1200 BC.[10] As the evidence from the sites Raja Nala ka tila, Malhar suggest the use of Iron in c.1800/1700 BC. The extensive use of iron smelting is from Malhar and its surrounding area. This site is assumed as the center for smelted bloomer iron to this area due to its location in the Karamnasa River and Ganga River. This site shows agricultural technology as iron implements sickles, nails, clamps, spearheads, etc. by at least c.1500 BC[52] Archaeological excavations in Hyderabad show an Iron Age burial site.[53]
+
+The beginning of the 1st millennium BC saw extensive developments in iron metallurgy in India. Technological advancement and mastery of iron metallurgy were achieved during this period of peaceful settlements. One ironworking centre in east India has been dated to the first millennium BC.[54] In Southern India (present-day Mysore) iron appeared as early as 12th to 11th centuries BC; these developments were too early for any significant close contact with the northwest of the country.[54] The Indian Upanishads mention metallurgy.[55] and the Indian Mauryan period saw advances in metallurgy.[56] As early as 300  BC, certainly by AD 200, high-quality steel was produced in southern India, by what would later be called the crucible technique. In this system, high-purity wrought iron, charcoal, and glass were mixed in a crucible and heated until the iron melted and absorbed the carbon.[57]
+
+The protohistoric Early Iron Age in Sri Lanka lasted from 1000  BC to 600  BC. however, evidence of Iron usage was found in Excavation of a Protohistoric Canoe burial Site in Haldummulla[58] and has been dated to 2400 BC. Radiocarbon evidence has been collected from Anuradhapura and Aligala shelter in Sigiriya.[59][60][61][62] The Anuradhapura settlement is recorded to extend 10 ha (25 acres) by 800 BC and grew to 50 ha (120 acres) by 700–600 BC to become a town.[63] The skeletal remains of an Early Iron Age chief were excavated in Anaikoddai, Jaffna. The name 'Ko Veta' is engraved in Brahmi script on a seal buried with the skeleton and is assigned by the excavators to the 3rd century BC. Ko, meaning "King" in Tamil, is comparable to such names as Ko Atan and Ko Putivira occurring in contemporary Brahmi inscriptions in south India.[64] It is also speculated that Early Iron Age sites may exist in Kandarodai, Matota, Pilapitiya and Tissamaharama.[65]
+
+Archaeology in Thailand at sites Ban Don Ta Phet and Khao Sam Kaeo yielding metallic, stone, and glass artifacts stylistically associated with the Indian subcontinent suggest Indianization of Southeast Asia beginning in the 4th to 2nd centuries BC during the late Iron Age.[66]
+
+In Philippines and Vietnam, the Sa Huynh culture showed evidence of an extensive trade network. Sa Huynh beads were made from glass, carnelian, agate, olivine, zircon, gold and garnet; most of these materials were not local to the region and were most likely imported. Han-Dynasty-style bronze mirrors were also found in Sa Huynh sites. Conversely, Sa Huynh produced ear ornaments have been found in archaeological sites in Central Thailand, Taiwan (Orchid Island).[67]:211–217
+
+In Sub-Saharan Africa, where there was no continent-wide universal Bronze Age, the use of iron succeeded immediately the use of stone.[21]
+Metallurgy was characterized by the absence of a Bronze Age, and the transition from stone to iron in tool substances. Early evidence for iron technology in Sub-Saharan Africa can be found at sites such as KM2 and KM3 in northwest Tanzania. Nubia was one of the relatively few places in Africa to have a sustained Bronze Age along with Egypt and much of the rest of North Africa.
+
+Very early copper and bronze working sites in Niger may date to as early as 1500 BC. There is also evidence of iron metallurgy in Termit, Niger from around this period.[11][68]
+Nubia was a major manufacturer and exporter of iron after the expulsion of the Nubian dynasty from Egypt by the Assyrians in the 7th century BC.[69]
+
+Though there is some uncertainty, some archaeologists believe that iron metallurgy was developed independently in sub-Saharan West Africa, separately from Eurasia and neighboring parts of North And Northeast Africa.[70][71]
+
+Archaeological sites containing iron smelting furnaces and slag have also been excavated at sites in the Nsukka region of southeast Nigeria in what is now Igboland: dating to 2000 BC at the site of Lejja (Eze-Uzomaka 2009)[14][71] and to 750 BC and at the site of Opi (Holl 2009).[71] The site of Gbabiri (in the Central African Republic) has yielded evidence of iron metallurgy, from a reduction furnace and blacksmith workshop; with earliest dates of 896-773 BC and 907-796 BC respectively.[72] Similarly, smelting in bloomery-type furnaces appear in the Nok culture of central Nigeria by about 550 BC and possibly a few centuries earlier.[73][74][70][72]
+
+Iron and copper working in Sub-Saharan Africa spread south and east from Central Africa in conjunction with the Bantu expansion, from the Cameroon region to the African Great Lakes in the 3rd century BC, reaching the Cape around AD 400.[11]
+However, iron working may have been practiced in Central Africa as early as the 3rd millennium BC.[75]
+Instances of carbon steel based on complex preheating principles were found to be in production around the 1st century AD in northwest Tanzania.[76]
+
+Broborg Knivsta, prehistoric castle

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@@ -0,0 +1,317 @@
+Coordinates: 48°00′N 3°00′W / 48.000°N 3.000°W / 48.000; -3.000
+
+Brittany (/ˈbrɪtəni/; French: Bretagne [bʁətaɲ] (listen); Breton: Breizh, pronounced [bʁɛjs] or [bʁɛx];[1] Gallo: Bertaèyn [bəʁtaɛɲ]) is a cultural region in the west of France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period of Roman occupation. It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as a separate nation under the crown.
+
+Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain, with which it shares an etymology).[2] It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, Normandy to the northeast, Pays de la Loire to the southeast, the Bay of Biscay to the south, and the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its land area is 34,023 km2 (13,136 sq mi).
+
+Brittany is the site of some of the world's oldest standing architecture, home to the Barnenez, the Tumulus Saint-Michel and others, which date to the early 5th millennium BC.[3][4] Today, the historical province of Brittany is split among four French departments: Finistère in the west, Côtes-d'Armor in the north, Ille-et-Vilaine in the northeast and Morbihan in the south on the Bay of Biscay.[5] Since reorganisation in 1956, the modern administrative region of Brittany comprises only four of the five Breton departments, or 80% of historical Brittany. The remaining area of old Brittany, the Loire-Atlantique department around Nantes, now forms part of the Pays de la Loire region.
+
+At the 2010 census, the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,475,295. Of these, 71% lived in the region of Brittany, while 29% lived in the Loire-Atlantique department. In 2012, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes (897,713 inhabitants), Rennes (690,467 inhabitants), and Brest (314,844 inhabitants).[6] Brittany is the traditional homeland of the Breton people and is recognised by the Celtic League as one of the six Celtic nations,[7][8][9][10] retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history. A nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the French Republic.[11]
+
+The word Brittany, along with its French, Breton and Gallo equivalents Bretagne, Breizh and Bertaèyn, derive from the Latin Britannia, which means "Britons' land". This word had been used by the Romans since the 1st century to refer to Great Britain, and more specifically the Roman province of Britain. This word derives from a Greek word, Πρεττανικη (Prettanike) or Βρεττανίαι (Brettaniai), used by Pytheas, an explorer from Massalia who visited the British Islands around 320 BC. The Greek word itself comes from the common Brythonic ethnonym reconstructed as *Pritanī, itself from Proto-Celtic *kʷritanoi (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷer- 'to cut, make').
+
+The Romans called Brittany Armorica. It was a quite indefinite region that extended along the English Channel coast from the Seine estuary, then along the Atlantic coast to the Loire estuary and, according to several sources, maybe to the Garonne estuary. This term probably comes from a Gallic word, aremorica, which means "close to the sea".[12] Another name, Letauia (in English "Litavis"), was used until the 12th century. It possibly means "wide and flat" or "to expand" and it gave the Welsh name for Brittany: Llydaw.[13]
+
+After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, many Britons settled in western Armorica, and the region started to be called Britannia, although this name only replaced Armorica in the sixth century or perhaps by the end of the fifth.[14] Later, authors like Geoffrey of Monmouth used the terms Britannia minor and Britannia major to distinguish Brittany from Britain.
+
+Breton-speaking people may pronounce the word Breizh in two different ways, according to their region of origin. Breton can be divided into two main dialects: the KLT (Kerne-Leon-Tregor) and the dialect of Vannes. KLT speakers pronounce it [brɛjs] and would write it Breiz, while the Vannetais speakers pronounce it [brɛχ] and would write it Breih. The official spelling is a compromise between both variants, with a z and an h together. In 1941, efforts to unify the dialects led to the creation of the so-called Breton zh, a standard which has never been widely accepted.[1] On its side, Gallo language has never had a widely accepted writing system and several ones coexist. For instance, the name of the region in that language can be written Bertaèyn in ELG script, or Bertègn in MOGA, and a couple of other scripts also exist.[15]
+
+Brittany has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Paleolithic. The first settlers were Neanderthals. This population was scarce and very similar to the other Neanderthals found in the whole of Western Europe. Their only original feature was a distinct culture, called "Colombanian".[16] One of the oldest hearths in the world has been found in Plouhinec, Finistère. It is 450,000 years old.
+
+Homo sapiens settled in Brittany around 35,000 years ago. They replaced or absorbed the Neanderthals and developed local industries, similar to the Châtelperronian or to the Magdalenian. After the last glacial period, the warmer climate allowed the area to become heavily wooded. At that time, Brittany was populated by relatively large communities who started to change their lifestyles from a life of hunting and gathering, to become settled farmers. Agriculture was introduced during the 5th millennium BC by migrants from the south and east. However, the Neolithic Revolution in Brittany did not happen due to a radical change of population, but by slow immigration and exchange of skills.[17]
+
+Neolithic Brittany is characterised by important megalithic production and sites such as Quelfénnec, it is sometimes designated as the "core area" of megalithic culture.[18] The oldest monuments, cairns, were followed by princely tombs and stone rows. The Morbihan département, on the southern coast, comprises a large share of these structures, including the Carnac stones and the Broken Menhir of Er Grah in the Locmariaquer megaliths, the largest single stone erected by Neolithic people.
+
+During the protohistorical period, Brittany was inhabited by five Celtic tribes:[19]
+
+Those people had strong economic ties to the Insular Celts, especially for the tin trade. Several tribes also belonged to an "Armorican confederation" which, according to Julius Caesar, gathered the Curiosolitae, the Redones, the Osismii, the Unelli, the Caletes, the Lemovices and the Ambibarii.[21] The last four peoples mentioned by Caesar were respectively located in Cotentin (Lower-Normandy), pays de Caux (Upper-Normandy), Limousin (Aquitany) and the location of the Ambibarii is unknown. The Caletes are sometimes also considered as Belgians and ″Lemovices″ is probably a mistake for ″Lexovii″ (Lower-Normandy).
+
+The region became part of the Roman Republic in 51 BC. It was included in the province of Gallia Lugdunensis in 13 BC. Gallic towns and villages were redeveloped according to Roman standards, and several cities were created. These cities are Condate (Rennes), Vorgium (Carhaix), Darioritum (Vannes) and Condevincum or Condevicnum (Nantes). Together with Fanum Martis (Corseul), they were the capitals of the local civitates. They all had a grid plan and a forum, and sometimes a temple, a basilica, thermae or an aqueduct, like Carhaix.
+
+The Romans also built three major roads through the region. However, most of the population remained rural. The free peasants lived in small huts, whereas the landowners and their employees lived in proper villae rusticae. The Gallic deities continued to be worshiped, and were often assimilated to the Roman gods. Only a small number of statues depicting Roman gods were found in Brittany, and most of the time they combine Celtic elements.[22]
+
+During the 3rd century AD, the region was attacked several times by Franks, Alamanni and pirates. At the same time, the local economy collapsed and many farming estates were abandoned. To face the invasions, many towns and cities were fortified, like Nantes, Rennes and Vannes.[22]
+
+Toward the end of the 4th century, the Britons of what is now Wales and the South-Western peninsula of Great Britain began to emigrate to Armorica.
+
+The history behind such an establishment is unclear, but medieval Breton, Angevin and Welsh sources connect it to a figure known as Conan Meriadoc. Welsh literary sources assert that Conan came to Armorica on the orders of the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus,[a] who sent some of his British troops to Gaul to enforce his claims and settled them in Armorica. This account was supported by the Counts of Anjou, who claimed descent from a Roman soldier[b] expelled from Lower Brittany by Conan on Magnus's orders.
+
+Regardless of the truth of this story, Brythonic (British Celtic) settlement probably increased during the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries.
+
+Scholars such as Léon Fleuriot have suggested a two-wave model of migration from Britain which saw the emergence of an independent Breton people and established the dominance of the Brythonic Breton language in Armorica.[23] Their petty kingdoms are now known by the names of the counties that succeeded them—Domnonée (Devon), Cornouaille (Cornwall), Léon (Caerleon); but these names in Breton and Latin are in most cases identical to their British homelands. (In Breton and French, however, Gwened or Vannetais continued the name of the indigenous Veneti.) Although the details remain confused, these colonies consisted of related and intermarried dynasties which repeatedly unified (as by the 7th-century Saint Judicaël) before splintering again according to Celtic inheritance practices.
+
+The area was finally consolidated in the 840s under Nominoe in resistance to Frankish control.[24] Among the immigrant Britons, there were some clergymen who helped the evangelisation of the region, which was still pagan, particularly in rural areas.
+
+The army recruited for Flavius Aetius to combat Attila the Hun at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains included Romans, Visigoths, Franks, Alans and Armoricans, amongst others.  The Alans were placed front and centre, opposite the Huns. The Armoricans supplied archers who attacked the Huns' front lines during the main battle and thwarted Attila's night assault on the Roman camp with a hail of arrows "like rain".  After the battle was won, Aetius sent the Alans to Armorica and Galicia.
+
+The late 5th century Brittonic leader Riothamus received correspondence from the eminent Roman jurist Sidonius Apollinaris and was called "King of the Britons" by Jordanes.  Some suggest that he was a Breton, though others believe that he was from Britain, pointing to the passage that he arrived in the land of the Biturges "by way of Ocean", which would hardly have been efficient or required for a Breton.  Both historians describe Riothamus's losing battle against King Euric of the Visigoths at Déols around the year 470.
+
+In response to a plea from the Roman Emperor Anthemius, Riothamus had led twelve thousand men to establish a military presence in Bourges in central Gaul, but was betrayed by Arvandus, the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, and subsequently ambushed by Euric's army.[c] After a long battle, the Armorican survivors escaped to Avallon in Burgundy, after which they are lost to history.  According to Breton king-lists, Riotham survived and reigned as Prince of Domnonia until his death sometime between 500 and 520, though this may have been a different person.
+
+At the beginning of the medieval era, Brittany was divided between three kingdoms, Domnonea, Cornouaille and Broërec. These realms eventually merged into a single state during the 9th century.[25][26] The unification of Brittany was carried out by Nominoe, king between 845 and 851 and considered as the Breton Pater Patriae. His son Erispoe secured the independence of the new kingdom of Brittany and won the Battle of Jengland against Charles the Bald. The Bretons won another war in 867, and the kingdom reached then its maximum extent: it received parts of Normandy, Maine and Anjou and the Channel Islands.
+
+Brittany was heavily attacked by the Vikings at the beginning of the 10th century. The kingdom lost its eastern territories, including Normandy and Anjou, and the county of Nantes was given to Fulk I of Anjou in 909. However, Nantes was seized by the Vikings in 914.
+
+Nantes was eventually liberated by Alan II of Brittany in 937 with the support of his god-brother King Æthelstan of England.
+
+Alan II totally expelled the Vikings from Brittany and recreated a strong Breton state. For aiding in removing problem Alan paid homage to Louis IV of France (who was Æthelstan's nephew and had returned from England in the same year as Alan II) and thus Brittany ceased to be a kingdom and became a duchy.
+
+Several Breton lords helped William the Conqueror to invade England and received large estates there (e.g. William's double-second cousin Alan Rufus and the latter's brother Brian of Brittany). Some of these lords were powerful rivals.
+
+Medieval Brittany was far from being a united nation. The French king maintained envoys in Brittany, alliances contracted by local lords often overlapped and there was no specific Breton unity. For example, Brittany replaced Latin with French as its official language in the 13th century, 300 years before France did so itself, and the Breton language didnt have formal status.
+
+The foreign policy of the Duchy changed many times; the Dukes were usually independent but they often contracted alliances with England or France depending on who was threatening them at that point. Their support for each nation became very important during the 14th century, because the English kings had started to claim the French throne.
+
+The Breton War of Succession, a local episode of the Hundred Years' War, saw the House of Blois, backed by the French, fighting with the House of Montfort, backed by the English. The Montforts won in 1364 and enjoyed a period of total independence until the end of the Hundred Years' War, because France was weakened and stopped sending royal envoys to the Court of Brittany.
+
+English diplomatic failures led to the Breton cavalry commanders Arthur, Comte de Richemont (later to become Arthur III, Duke of Brittany) and his nephew Peter II, Duke of Brittany playing key roles on the French side during the deciding stages of the war (including the battles of Patay, Formigny and Castillon and the Treaty of Arras).
+
+Brittany importantly lost the Mad War against France in 1488, mostly because of its internal divisions which were exacerbated by the corruption at the court of Francis II, Duke of Brittany. Indeed, some rebel Breton lords were fighting on the French side.
+
+As a result of the Mad War, the Duke Francis II could not marry off his daughter Anne without the King of France's consent. Nonetheless, she married the Holy Roman Emperor in 1490,  leading to a crisis with France. Charles VIII of France besieged Rennes and had the marriage cancelled. He eventually married Anne of Brittany. After he died childless, the Duchess had to marry his heir and cousin Louis XII. Anne unsuccessfully tried to preserve Breton independence, but she died in 1514 and the union between the two crowns was formally carried out by Francis I in 1532. He granted several privileges to Brittany, such as exemption from the gabelle, a tax on salt which was very unpopular in France.[27] Under the Ancien Régime, Brittany and France were governed as separate countries but under the same crown, so Breton aristocrats in the French royal court were classed as Princes étrangers (foreign princes).
+
+From the 15th to the 18th century, Brittany reached an economic golden age.[d] The region was located on the seaways between Spain, England and the Netherlands and it greatly benefited from the creation of a French colonial empire. Local seaports like Brest and Saint-Brieuc quickly expanded, and Lorient, first spelled "L'Orient", was founded in the 17th century. Saint-Malo was then known for its corsairs, Brest was a major base for the French Navy and Nantes flourished with the Atlantic slave trade. On its side, the inland provided hemp ropes and canvas and linen sheets. However, Colbertism, which encouraged the creation of many factories, did not favour the Breton industry because most of the royal factories were opened in other provinces. Moreover, several conflicts between France and England led the latter to restrain its trade, and the Breton economy went into recession during the 18th century.
+
+Two significant revolts occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries: the Revolt of the papier timbré (1675) and the Pontcallec conspiracy (1719). Both arose from attempts to resist centralisation and assert Breton constitutional exceptions to tax.[28]
+
+Many Bretons crossed the Atlantic to support the American War of Independence.[29] These included many sailors such as Armand de Kersaint and soldiers such as Charles Armand Tuffin, marquis de la Rouërie.
+
+The Duchy was legally abolished during the French Revolution, in 1789, and divided into five departments. Brittany also lost all its privileges. Three years later, the area became a centre of royalist and Catholic resistance to the Revolution during the Chouannerie. During the 19th century, Brittany remained in economic recession, and many Bretons emigrated to other French regions, particularly to Paris. This trend remained strong until the beginning of the 20th century. Nonetheless, the region was also modernising, with new roads and railways being built, and some places being industrialised. Nantes specialised in shipbuilding and food processing (sugar, exotic fruits and vegetables, fish...), Fougères in glass and shoe production, and metallurgy was practised in small towns such as Châteaubriant and Lochrist, known for its labour movements.
+
+The region remained deeply Catholic, and during the Second Empire, the conservative values were strongly reasserted. When the Republic was re-established in 1871, there were rumours that Breton troops were mistrusted and mistreated at Camp Conlie during the Franco-Prussian War because of fears that they were a threat to the Republic.[30]
+
+During the 19th century, the Breton language started to decline precipitously, mainly because of the Francization policy conducted under the Third Republic. On one hand, children were not allowed to speak Breton at school, and were punished by teachers if they did. Famously, signs in schools read: "It is forbidden to speak Breton and to spit on the floor" ("Il est interdit de parler Breton et de cracher par terre").[31]
+
+At the same time, the Celtic Revival led to the foundation of the Breton Regionalist Union (URB) and later to independence movements linked to Irish, Welsh, and Scottish independence parties in the UK, and to pan-Celticism. However, the audience of these movements remained very low and their ideas did not reach a large public until the 20th century. The Seiz Breur movement, created in 1923, permitted a Breton artistic revival[32] but its ties with Nazism and the collaborationism of the Breton National Party during World War II weakened Breton nationalism in the post-war period.
+
+Brittany lost 240,000 men during the First World War.[33] The Second World War was also catastrophic for the region. It was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940 and freed after Operation Cobra in August 1944. However, the areas around Saint-Nazaire and Lorient only surrendered on 10 and 11 May 1945, several days after the German capitulation. The two port towns had been virtually destroyed by Allied air raids, like Brest and Saint-Malo, and other towns, such as Nantes and Rennes, had also suffered.
+
+In 1956, Brittany was legally reconstituted as the Region of Brittany, although the region excluded the ducal capital of Nantes and the surrounding area. Nevertheless, Brittany retained its cultural distinctiveness, and a new cultural revival emerged during the 1960s and 1970s. Bilingual schools were opened, singers started to write songs in Breton, and ecological catastrophes such as the Amoco Cadiz oil spill or the Erika oil spill and water pollution because of intensive pig farming favoured new movements to protect the natural heritage.
+
+Brittany as a political entity disappeared in 1790, when it was divided into five départements. The Breton départements more or less correspond to the nine Catholic dioceses that appeared at the beginning of the Middle Ages. They were often called "pays" or "bro" ("country" in French and Breton) and they also served as fiscal and military districts.[34] Brittany is also divided between Lower Brittany ("Basse Bretagne" and "Breizh Izel"), corresponding to the western half, where Breton is traditionally spoken, and Upper Brittany ("Haute Bretagne" and "Breizh Uhel"), corresponding to the eastern half, where Gallo is traditionally spoken. The historical Breton dioceses were:
+
+During the French Revolution, four dioceses were suppressed and the five remaining ones were modified to have the same administrative borders as the départements.
+
+Brittany has several historical capital cities. When it was an independent duchy, the Estates of Brittany, which can be compared to a parliament, met in various towns: Dinan, Ploërmel, Redon, Rennes, Vitré, Guérande, and, most of all, Vannes, where they met 19 times, and Nantes, 17 times. The Court and the government were also very mobile, and each dynasty favoured its own castles and estates. The dukes mostly lived in Nantes, Vannes, Redon, Rennes, Fougères, Dol-de-Bretagne, Dinan and Guérande. All these towns except Vannes are located in Upper Brittany, thus not in the Breton speaking area.
+
+Among all these towns, only Nantes, Rennes and Vannes, which were the biggest ones, could really pretend to the capital status. The dukes were crowned in Rennes and they had a large castle there; it was however destroyed during the 15th century. Vannes, on its side, was the seat of the Chamber of Accounts and of the Parliament until the union with France. The Parliament was then transferred to Rennes, and the Chamber of Accounts to Nantes. Nantes, nicknamed "the city of the Dukes of Brittany", was also the permanent residence of the last dukes. The Château des ducs de Bretagne still stands in the city centre. Nowadays, Rennes is the only official capital of the region of Brittany. It is also the seat of an ecclesiastical province encompassing Brittany and the Pays de la Loire region.
+
+During the French Revolution, Brittany was divided into five départements, each made up of three or four arrondissements. The arrondissements are further divided in cantons, which are themselves made up of one or several communes. The communes and the départements have a local council elected by their citizens, but arrondissements and cantons are not run by elected officials. The cantons serve as an electoral district for the election of the département councils and arrondissements are run by a subprefect appointed by the French president. The president also appoints a prefect in each département.
+
+Because the départements are small and numerous, the French government tried to create wider regions during the 20th century. For the Breton nationalists, it was an occasion to recreate Brittany as a political and administrative entity, but the new region had to be economically efficient. Nantes and its département, Loire-Atlantique, raised concerns because they were off-centered, more integrated with the Loire Valley than with the Breton peninsula. The French government and local politicians also feared that Nantes, because of its population and its former Breton capital status, would have maintained a harmful competition with Rennes to get the regional institutions and investments.
+
+Several drafts for French regions had been proposed since the 1920s, and the definitive regions were drawn in 1956. The new Brittany had four départements, and Loire-Atlantique formed the Pays de la Loire region together with parts of Anjou, Maine and Poitou. In 1972, the regions received their present competencies, with an elected regional council. Since then, the region of Brittany has had its own council and administrative bodies.
+
+When the region of Brittany was created, several local politicians opposed the exclusion of Loire-Atlantique, and the question still remains.
+
+The obstacles to reunification are the same as in 1956: having Nantes in Brittany could harm the position of Rennes and create an economic imbalance between Lower and Upper Brittany. Moreover, the Pays de la Loire region could not exist without Loire-Atlantique, because it would lose its political and economic capital. Without Loire-Atlantique, the other départements would not form an efficient region any more, and would have to integrate neighbouring regions such as the Centre-Val de Loire and Poitou-Charentes.
+
+However, several institutions have backed the reunification, such as the regional council of Brittany since 2008 and the Loire-Atlantique council since 2001. Some politicians like Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French prime minister and former mayor of Nantes, favour instead the creation of a "Greater West region", which would encompass Brittany and the Pays de la Loire region. Polls show that 58% of the Bretons and 62% of the inhabitants in Loire-Atlantique favour the reunification.[35]
+
+Until the end of the 20th century, Brittany had been characterised by a strong Catholic and conservative influence. However, some areas such as the industrial region around Saint-Nazaire and Lorient and the surroundings of Tréguier are traditional Socialist and Communist strongholds. Left-wing parties, mainly the Socialist party and the Greens, have become more and more powerful after the 1970s and they have formed a majority in the Regional Council of Brittany since 2004. The Loire-Atlantique and Ille-et-Vilaine councils have also been held by the left since 2004.
+
+The Socialist party has held the Côtes-d'Armor council since 1976, and the Finistère council since 1998. On its side, Morbihan remains a right-wing stronghold. The local parties have a very small audience, except the Union Démocratique Bretonne which has seats at the Regional Council and in other local assemblies. It advocates more autonomy for the region and its positions are very close to the Socialist parties. It also has a strong ecological orientation. The audience of far-right parties is lower in Brittany than in the rest of France.[36]
+
+Brittany is the largest French peninsula. It is around 34,030 km2 (13,140 sq mi) and stretches towards the northwest and the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered to the north by the English Channel, to the south by the Bay of Biscay and the waters located between the western coast and Ushant island form the Iroise Sea.
+
+The Breton coast is very indented, with many cliffs, rias and capes. The Gulf of Morbihan is a vast natural harbour with some forty islands that is almost a closed sea. In total, around 800 islands lie off the mainland; the largest being Belle Île, in the south. Brittany has over 2,860 km (1,780 mi) of coastline; it represents a third of the total French coastline.
+
+The region is generally hilly because it corresponds to the western end of the Armorican massif, a very old range that also extends in Normandy and the Pays de la Loire region. Because of this continuity, the Breton border with the rest of France is not marked by any strong geographical landmark, apart from the river Couesnon, which separates Brittany from Normandy.
+
+The Armorican massif reaches its maximal elevation outside of Brittany, in neighbouring Mayenne, at 417 m, and slopes towards the west before straightening on its western extremity, with the Montagnes Noires and the Monts d'Arrée. The highest hill in Brittany is the Roc'h Ruz in the Monts d'Arrée, at 385 m (1,263 ft). It is closely followed by several neighbouring hills culminating at around 384 m above sea level.[37]
+
+Coastal areas are usually named Armor or Arvor ("by the sea" in Breton), and the inland is called Argoat ("by the forest"). The best soils were primitively covered by large forests which had been progressively replaced by bocage during the Middle Ages. The Breton bocage, with its small fields enclosed by thick hedgerows, has almost disappeared since the 1960s to fit the modern agricultural needs and methods, particularly mechanisation.
+
+Several forests still exist, such as the Paimpont forest, sometimes said to be the Arthurian Brocéliande. The poor and rocky areas are covered by large heathland and moorlands, and Brittany has several marshes, like the Brière, included in a regional natural park. Another regional park encompasses the Monts d'Arrée and the Iroise seacoast. The Iroise Sea is also a UNESCO biosphere reserve.
+
+The Breton peninsula appeared during the Cadomian Orogeny, which formed its northern coastline, between Guingamp and Fougères. The southern part emerged during the Hercynian orogeny. At the same time, an intense volcanic activity left large quantities of granite. Between the Cadomian and Hercynian periods, the region was submerged several times and the sea left fossils and sedimentary rocks, mostly schist and sandstone. Because of the absence of limestone, soils in Brittany are usually acid.
+
+The Armorican massif straightened and flattened several times during the formation of the Pyrenees and the Alps. Changes in sea levels and climate led to a strong erosion and to the formation of more sedimentary rocks. Metamorphism is responsible for the distinctive local blue schist and for the rich subsoil of the Groix island, which comprises glaucophane and epidote.[38]
+
+During the Quaternary glaciations, Brittany was covered by loess and rivers started to fill the valleys with alluvial deposits. The valleys themselves were a result of a strong tectonic activity between the African and the Eurasian plate. The present Breton landscape did not acquired its final shape before one million years ago. The Breton subsoil is characterised by a huge amount of fractures that form a large aquifer containing several millions square meters of water.[38]
+
+Brittany lies within the north temperate zone. It has a changeable, maritime climate, similar to Cornwall. Rainfall occurs regularly but sunny, cloudless days are also common. In the summer months, temperatures in the region can reach 30 °C (86 °F), yet the climate remains comfortable, especially when compared to the French regions located south of the Loire. The temperature difference between summer and winter is about fifteen degrees, but it varies depending on the proximity of the sea. The weather is generally milder on the seacoast than inland but rainfall occurs with the same intensity on both. The Monts d'Arrée, despite their low elevation, have much more rainfall than the rest of the region. The south coast, between Lorient and Pornic, enjoys more than 2,000 hours of sunshine per year.[39]
+
+Brittany's wildlife is typical of France with several distinctions. On one hand, the region, due to its long coastline, has a rich oceanic fauna, and some birds cannot be seen in other French regions. On the other hand, the species found in the inland are usually common for France, and because Brittany is a peninsula, the number of species is lower in its western extremity than in the eastern part.
+
+A variety of seabirds can be seen close to the seaside, which is home to colonies of cormorants, gulls, razorbills, northern gannets, common murres and Atlantic puffins. Most of these birds breed on isolated islands and rocks and thus are hard to observe. The inland is home to common European species including pheasants, barn swallows, woodcocks, common swifts, partridges...[40]
+
+Like Cornwall, Wales and Ireland, the waters of Brittany attract marine animals including basking sharks, grey seals, leatherback turtles, dolphins, porpoises, jellyfish, crabs and lobsters. Bass is common along the coast, small-spotted catsharks live on the continental shelf, rattails and anglerfish populate the deep waters. River fish of note include trout, Atlantic salmon, pikes, shades and lampreys. The Breton rivers are also home to beavers and otters and to some invasive American species, such as the coypu which destroys the ecosystem and accelerated the extinction of the European mink.[41]
+
+Among the invertebrates, Brittany is notably home to the escargot de Quimper, the freshwater pearl mussel and the white-clawed crayfish.[42] The larger Breton mammals died out during the modern period, including the wolf. Today, mammals of note include roe deer, wild boar, foxes, hares and several species of bat.[43]
+
+Brittany is widely known for the Breton horse, a local breed of draft horse, and for the Brittany gun dog. The region also has its own breeds of cattle, some of which are on the brink of extinction: the Bretonne Pie Noir, the Froment du Léon, the Armorican and the Nantaise.
+
+The Breton forests, dunes, moorlands and marshes are home to several iconic plants, such as endemic cistus, aster and linaria varieties, the horseshoe vetch and the lotus maritimus.[44]
+
+Brittany has the same education system as the rest of France. As in other French regions, formal education before the 19th century was the preserve of the elite. Before 1460, Brittany did not have a university, and Breton students had to go to Angers, Poitiers or Caen. The University of Nantes was founded under the duke Francis II, who wanted to affirm the Breton independence from France. All the traditional disciplines were taught here: arts, theology, law and medicine. During the 17th century, it had around 1,500 students. It declined during the 18th century, mostly because Nantes was flourishing with the Atlantic slave trade and paid no attention to its cultural institutions.
+
+A mayor eventually asked the university to be relocated to Rennes, more devoted to culture and science, and the faculties progressively moved there after 1735.[45] The transfer was interrupted by the French Revolution, and all the French universities were dissolved in 1793.
+
+Napoleon reorganised the French education system in 1808. He created new universities and invented two secondary education institutions: the "collèges" and the "lycées" which were opened in numerous towns to educate boys and form a new elite. A new University of Rennes was progressively recreated during the 19th century. In the meantime, several laws were promoted to open schools, notably for girls. In 1882, Jules Ferry succeeded in passing a law which made primary education in France free, non-clerical (laïque) and mandatory. Thus, free schools were opened in almost every villages of Brittany. Jules Ferry also promoted education policies establishing French language as the language of the Republic, and mandatory education was a mean to eradicate regional languages and dialects. In Brittany, it was forbidden for the pupils to speak Breton or Gallo, and the two were strongly depreciated. Humiliating practices aimed at stamping out the Breton language and culture prevailed in state schools until the late 1960s.[46] In response, the Diwan schools were founded in 1977 to teach Breton by immersion. They have taught a few thousand young people from elementary school to high school, and they have gained more and more fame owing to their high level of results in school exams.[47] A bilingual approach has also been implemented in some state schools after 1979, and some Catholic schools have done the same after 1990. Besides, Brittany, with the neighbouring Pays de la Loire region, remains a stronghold for Catholic private education with around 1,400 schools.[48]
+
+During the 20th century, tertiary education was developed with the creation of the École centrale de Nantes in 1919, the University of Nantes in 1961, the ESC Bretagne Brest in 1962, the University of Western Brittany in 1971, the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne in 1977 and the University of Southern Brittany in 1995. The Catholic University of the West, based in Angers, also opened classes in several Breton towns. In 1969, the University of Rennes was divided between the University of Rennes 1 and the University of Rennes 2 – Upper Brittany. After the Second World War, the Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, the foremost French military academy, settled in Coëtquidan.
+
+Brittany, apart from some areas such as Lorient, Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, has never been heavily industrialised. Today, fishing and agriculture remain important activities. Brittany has more than 40,000 agricultural exploitations, mostly oriented towards cattle, pig and poultry breeding, as well as cereal and vegetable production. The number of exploitations tends to diminish, but as a result, they are merged into very large estates. Brittany is the first producer in France for vegetables (green beans, onions, artichokes, potatoes, tomatoes...). Cereals are mostly grown for cattle feeding. Wine, especially muscadet, is made in a small region south of Nantes. Brittany is the first region in France for fishing. The activity employs around 9,000 people, and more than 60 firms work in fish and seafood processing.[49]
+
+Although relatively new, the Breton industry has been constantly growing since 1980. Food processing (meat, vegetables...) represents a third of the industrial jobs, but other activities are also important for the local economy. Shipbuilding, both commercial and military, is implanted in Saint-Nazaire (Chantiers de l'Atlantique), Lorient and Brest; Airbus has plants in Saint-Nazaire and Nantes; and Peugeot has a large factory in Rennes. Brittany is the second French region for telecommunication and the fifth for electronics, two activities mainly developed in Rennes, Lannion and Brest. Tourism is particularly important for the seacoast and Brittany is one of the most visited regions in France.[49] In April 2019, The Guardian's travel section included two Brittany locations in its list of 20 of the most beautiful villages in France. The two were Rochefort-en-Terre with "its covered market, 12th-century church, medieval castle, 19th-century chateau, and 16th- and 17th-century mansions" and Locronan, where "East India Company’s offices still stand on the village square, as well as 17th-century merchants' dwellings".[50]
+
+The unemployment rate in Brittany is lower than in other French regions and it is usually around 6 or 7% of the active population.[51] Because of the global financial crisis started in 2007, unemployment rose to 8.7% in the Region Brittany and 8.4% in Loire-Atlantique in late 2012. However, these figures remain under the French national rate (9.9% at the same period).[52][53] Some industries, such as construction, industry, catering or transport, usually have difficulties finding employees.[51]
+
+In 2009, Region Brittany's gross domestic product reached 82 billion euros. It was the seventh richest region in France and it produced 4.4% of the national GDP. The Breton GDP per capita was around 25,739 euros in 2009.[54] It was lower than the French result, 29,897 euros, but higher than the European one, 23,500 euros. The GDP of the Loire-Atlantique département is around 26 billion euros, and the GDP of the five historical Breton départements would be at around 108 billion euros.[55]
+
+In 2012, the population in Region Brittany was estimated to 3,195,317 and Loire-Atlantique had around 1,303,103 inhabitants, thus historical Brittany's population can be estimated at 4,552,918, the highest in its history.[56][57] The population in Region Brittany had grown by 0.9% between 1999 and 2000, and the growth rate reached more than 1% in Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan. The region around Rennes and the south are the more attractive areas, whereas the population is declining in the centre and in the westernmost parts. While most of the metropolitan areas are growing, the cities themselves tend to stagnate or regress, such as for Brest, Lorient, Saint-Brieuc and Saint-Malo. In 2008, Ille-et-Vilaine had 967,588 inhabitants, it was followed by Morbihan, 710,034 inhabitants, Finistère 890,509 inhabitants, and Côtes-d'Armor, with 581,570 inhabitants.
+
+The largest cities in Region Brittany were Rennes, with 206,655, Brest, 142,097, Quimper, 63,929, Lorient, 58,148, Vannes, 52,983, Saint-Malo, 48,211, and Saint-Brieuc, 45,879. All the other communes had under 20,000 inhabitants. Brittany is also characterised by a great number of small towns, such as Vitré, Concarneau, Morlaix or Auray. Loire-Atlantique has two major cities, Nantes, with 283,288 inhabitants and an urban area encompassing 873,133, and Saint-Nazaire, with 67,031 inhabitants. Loire-Atlantique's population is more rapidly growing than Region Brittany's and it is the 12th most populated French département.[58] Nevertheless, since the 1990s, Rennes has consistently ranked as one of France's fastest growing metropolitan areas.
+
+In 1851, Brittany had around 2.7 million inhabitants and the demographic growth stayed low until the second half of the 20th century, mainly because of an important emigration. Brittany had 3.2 million inhabitants in 1962 and the growth was mainly due to Loire-Atlantique and the steady growth of Nantes. Without the Loire-Atlantique's figures, the Breton population only numbered 2.4 million in 1962, nearly unchanged from its population of 2.3 million in 1851.[59][60] After the 1960s, the whole region has had a strong demographic growth because of the decline of the traditional emigration to richer French regions. Instead, Brittany has become attractive, particularly for families, young retired persons and active people over 35 years old.[61]
+
+Breton political parties do not have wide support and their electoral success is small. However, Bretons have a strong cultural identity. According to a poll made in 2008, 50% of the inhabitants of the Region Brittany consider themselves as much Breton as French, 22.5% feel more Breton than French, and 15.4% more French than Breton. A minority, 1.5%, considers itself Breton but not French, while 9.3% do not consider themselves to be Breton at all.[62]
+
+51.9% of the poll respondents agreed that Brittany should have more political power, and 31.1% thought that it should stay the same. Only 4.6% favoured independence, and 9.4% were undecided.[62]
+
+A 2012 poll taken in the five departments of historical Brittany showed that 48% of the respondents considered themselves belonging first to France, 37% to Brittany, and 10% to Europe. It also showed that Breton identity is stronger among people younger than 35. 53% of them considering themselves to belong first to Brittany. 50% of the older respondents considered themselves belonging first to France. Primary Breton identity is at its lowest among the respondents over 65: 58% consider themselves to belong first to France, with European identify secondary. 21% of the respondents over 65 considering themselves to be European first. Breton self-identification is stronger among people who vote left-wing. It is stronger among employees than employers.[63]
+
+French, the only official language of the French Republic, is spoken today by the vast majority in Brittany, and it is the mother tongue of most people. Nonetheless, French was not widely known before the 19th century, and two regional languages exist in Brittany: Breton and Gallo. They are separated by a language border that has constantly moved back since the Middle Ages.
+
+The current border runs from Plouha on the English Channel to the Rhuys Peninsula on the Bay of Biscay. Because of their origins and practice, Breton and Gallo can be compared to Scottish Gaelic and Scots language in Scotland[citation needed]. Both have been recognised as "Langues de Bretagne" (languages of Brittany) by the Regional Council of Brittany since 2004.
+
+Breton is a Celtic language derived from the historical Common Brittonic language, and is most closely related to Cornish and Welsh. It was imported to Western Armorica during the 5th century by Britons fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. Breton remained the language of the rural population, but since the Middle Ages the bourgeoisie, the nobility, and the higher clergy have spoken French.
+
+Government policies in the 19th and 20th centuries made education compulsory and, at the same time, forbade the use of Breton in schools to push non-French speakers into adopting the French language. Nevertheless, until the 1960s Breton was spoken or understood by many of the inhabitants of western Brittany. During the 1970s, Breton schools were opened and the local authorities started to promote the language, which was on the brink of extinction because parents had stopped teaching it to their children.
+
+Having declined from more than one million speakers around 1950 to about 200,000 in the first decade of the 21st century, of whom 61% are more than 60 years old, Breton is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. However, the number of children attending bilingual classes has risen 33% between 2006 and 2012 to 14,709.[64][65]
+
+The Breton language has several dialects which have no precise limits but rather form a continuum. Most of them are very similar to each other, with only some phonetic and lexical differences. The three main dialects spoken in the western end of Brittany are:
+
+in opposition to the Vannetais, spoken around Vannes, which is the most differentiated Breton dialect.
+
+According to a 1999 INSEE survey, 12% of the adults of Brittany speak Breton.[66]
+
+Gallo is spoken on the eastern half of Brittany. It is not itself a Celtic language. Like French, it is also descended from Latin (and is classified in the Langues d'oïl branch), but has some Celtic influences, particularly in its vocabulary, whereas French has influences from both Celtic (Gaulish) and Frankish (the Germanic language which arrived after Latin in much of the rest of France).
+
+Unlike Breton, Gallo does not have a long promotion history and it is still often perceived as a poor rural dialect. Moreover, because of its linguistic relationship with Gallo, French imposed itself more easily as the main language in Upper Brittany than in Breton speaking areas. Gallo was simply felt to be an incorrect way of speaking French rather than a separate language. Gallo transmission from parents to children is extremely low and efforts to standardise and publish books in Gallo did not reverse the decline of the language and its lack of prestige.[67]
+
+Gallo is also threatened by the Breton language revival, because Breton is gaining ground in territories that were not previously part of the main Breton-speaking area, and most of all because Breton appears as the national language of Brittany, thus leaving no place for Gallo.[67]
+
+Gallo had never been written before the 20th century, and several writing systems were created. They are however rarely known by the population and signs in Gallo are often unreadable, even for fluent speakers. In Loire-Atlantique, where Gallo is not promoted at all by the local authorities, many people do not even know the word "Gallo" and have no idea that it has writing systems and publications.[67]
+
+The Gallo community is estimated at between 28,300[68] and 200,000[67] speakers. The language is taught on a non-compulsory basis in some schools, high-schools and universities, particularly in Ille-et-Vilaine.[67]
+
+Bretons are mainly Catholic and the Christianisation occurred during the Roman Gaul and Frank era. During the Briton emigration to Brittany, several Christian missionaries, mostly Welsh, came in the region and founded dioceses. They are known as the "Seven founder saints":
+
+Other notable early missionaries are Gildas and the Irish saint Columbanus. In total, Brittany numbers more than 300 "saints" (only a few recognised by the Catholic Church) and, since the 19th century at least, it has been known as one of the most devoutly Catholic regions in France, together with the neighbouring Pays de la Loire region. The proportion of students attending Catholic private schools is the highest in France. The patron saint of Brittany is Saint Anne, the Virgin's mother, but Ivo of Kermartin, a 13th-century priest, called Saint-Yves in French and Sant-Erwan in Breton, can also be considered as a patron saint. His feast, 19 May, is Brittany's national day.
+
+Many distinctive traditions and customs have also been preserved in Brittany. Among them, the "Pardons" are one of the most traditional demonstrations of popular Catholicism. These penitential ceremonies occur in some villages in Lower Brittany on the feast day of the parish's saint. The penitents form a procession and they walk together to a shrine, a church or any sacred place. Some Pardons are reputed for their length, and they all finish by large meals and popular feasts.
+
+There is a very old pilgrimage called the Tro Breizh (tour of Brittany), where the pilgrims walk around Brittany from the grave of one of the seven founder saints to another. Historically, the pilgrimage was made in one trip (a total distance of around 600 km) for all seven saints. Nowadays, however, pilgrims complete the circuit over the course of several years. In 2002, the Tro Breizh included a special pilgrimage to Wales, symbolically making the reverse journey of the Welshmen Sant Paol, Sant Brieg, and Sant Samzun.[69]
+
+The most powerful folk figure is the Ankou or the "Reaper of Death". Sometimes a skeleton wrapped in a shroud with the Breton flat hat, sometimes described as a real human being (the last dead of the year, devoted to bring the dead to Death), he makes his journeys by night carrying an upturned scythe which he throws before him to reap his harvest. Sometimes he is on foot but mostly he travels with a cart, the Karrig an Ankou, drawn by two oxen and a lean horse. Two servants dressed in the same shroud and hat as the Ankou pile the dead into the cart, and to hear it creaking at night means you have little time left to live.[70]
+
+As official religious statistics are forbidden in France, there are no official figures about religious practices in Brittany. However, successive polls show that the region tends to be more and more nonreligious. Catholic religion has started to decline after the Second World War, during the urbanisation of Brittany. A poll conducted in 2006 showed that Morbihan was the only département to have a strong Catholic population, around 70% of its inhabitants belonging to that religion. Loire-Atlantique and Côtes-d'Armor were among the least Catholic French départements, with only 50% of Catholics, while Ille-et-Vilaine and Finistère were at around 65%. Other religions are almost non-existent, apart from Islam which gathers between 1 and 3% of the inhabitants in Ille-et-Vilaine and Loire-Atlantique.[71]
+
+Brittany is home to many megalithic monuments; the words menhir and dolmen come from the Breton language. The largest menhir alignments are the Carnac stones. Other major sites include the Barnenez cairn, the Locmariaquer megaliths, the Menhir de Champ-Dolent, the Mane Braz tumulus and the Gavrinis tomb. Monuments from the Roman period are rare, but include a large temple in Corseul and scarce ruins of villas and city walls in Rennes and Nantes.
+
+Brittany has a large number of medieval buildings. They include numerous Romanesque and French Gothic churches, usually built in local sandstone and granit, castles and half-timbered houses visible in villages, towns and cities. Several Breton towns still have their medieval walls, such as Guérande, Concarneau, Saint-Malo, Vannes, Fougères and Dinan. Major churches include Saint-Pol-de-Léon Cathedral, Tréguier Cathedral, Dol Cathedral, Nantes Cathedral and the Kreisker chapel. Most of the Breton castles were rebuilt between the 13th and the 15th century, such as the Château de Suscinio, the Château de Dinan, the Château de Combourg, the Château de Largoët, the Château de Tonquédec, the Josselin Castle and the Château de Trécesson. The most impressive castles can be seen along the border with France, where stand the Château de Fougères, the Château de Vitré, the Château de Châteaubriant and the Château de Clisson.
+
+The French Renaissance occurred when Brittany lost its independence. The Renaissance architecture is almost absent in the region, except in Upper Brittany, close to the border with France. Major sites include the Château des ducs de Bretagne, the last permanent residence of the dukes, which displays the transition from late Gothic to Renaissance style. The Château de Châteaubriant, a former fortress, was transformed into a vast palace in the Italian style.
+
+In Lower Brittany, the medieval style never totally disappeared. However, local innovations permitted some changes and the birth of a particular style. Its most distinctive feature is the parish close, which displays an elaborately decorated church surrounded by an entirely walled churchyard. Many villages still have their closes, they date from the 16th and 17th centuries and sometimes include an elaborately carved calvary sculpture.
+
+During the 17th and the 18th centuries, the main seaports and towns obtained a typical French look, with baroque and neoclassical buildings. Nantes, which was at the time the biggest French harbour, received a theatre, large avenues and quays, and Rennes was redesigned after a fire in 1720. At the same period, the wealthy ship-owners from Saint-Malo built many mansions called "Malouinières" around their town. Along the coast, Vauban and other French architects designed several citadels, such as in Le Palais and Port-Louis. In rural areas, Breton houses remained simple, with a single floor and a longhouse pattern. They were built with local materials: mostly granite in Lower Brittany and schist in Upper Brittany. Slates and reeds were usually used for roofing. During the 19th century, the Breton architecture was mainly characterised by the Gothic Revival and Eclecticism. Clisson, the southernmost Breton town, was rebuilt in an Italian Romantic style around 1820. The Breton lighthouses were mostly built during the 19th century. The most famous are Ar Men, Phare d'Eckmühl, La Vieille and La Jument. The lighthouse on the Île Vierge is, with 77 meters, the highest in Europe.
+
+At the end of the 19th century, several seaside resorts were created along the coast and villas and hotels were built in historicist, Art Nouveau, and later in the Art Deco styles. These architectures are particularly present in Dinard, La Baule and Bénodet. Architecture from the 20th century can be seen in Saint-Nazaire, Brest and Lorient, three cities destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt afterwards, and in the works of the Breton nationalist architects like James Bouillé and Olier Mordrel.
+
+Until the 19th century, Catholicism had been the main inspiration for Breton artists. The region has a great number of baroque retables, made between the 17th and the 19th century. Breton sculptors were also famous for their ship models that served as ex-votos and for their richly decorated furniture, which features naïve Breton characters and traditional patterns. The box-bed is the most famous Breton piece of furniture. The Breton style had a strong revival between 1900 and the Second World War and it was used by the Seiz Breur movement. The Seiz Breur artists also tried to invent a modern Breton art by rejecting French standards and mixing traditional techniques with new materials. The leading artists of that period were the designer René-Yves Creston, the illustrators Jeanne Malivel and Xavier Haas, and the sculptors Raffig Tullou, Francis Renaud, Georges Robin, Joseph Savina, Jules-Charles Le Bozec and Jean Fréour.
+
+Brittany is also known for its needlework, which can be seen on its numerous headdress models, and for its faience production, which started at the beginning of the 18th century. Quimper faience is known worldwide for its bowls and plates painted by hand, and other towns, such as Pornic, also maintain a similar tradition. The potteries usually feature naïve Breton characters in traditional clothing and daily scenes. The designs have a strong traditional Breton influence, but Orientalism and Art Deco have also been used.
+
+Because of its distinct culture and natural landscape, Brittany has inspired many French artists since the 19th century. The Pont-Aven School, which started to emerge in the 1850s and lasted until the beginning of the 20th century, had a decisive influence on modern painting. The artists who settled in Pont-Aven wanted to break away from the Academic style of the École des Beaux-Arts and later from Impressionism when it began to decline. Among them were Paul Gauguin, Paul Signac, Marc Chagall, Paul Sérusier and Raymond Wintz. Before them, Brittany had also been visited by Academic and Romantic painters like Jean Antoine Théodore de Gudin and Jules Achille Noël who were looking for dramatic seascapes and storms.
+
+Since the early 1970s, Brittany has experienced a tremendous revival of its folk music. Numerous festivals were created, along with smaller fest-noz (popular feasts). The bagadoù, bands composed of bagpipes, bombards and drums (including snare), are also a modern creation, inspired by the Scottish pipe bands. The Lann-Bihoué bagad, one of the most well-known, belongs to the French Navy. It is the only one that does not take part to the annual bagadoù competitions. Celtic harp is also common, as are vocals and dances. The Kan ha diskan is the most common type of singing. The performers sing calls and responses while dancing. Breton dances usually imply circles, chains or couples and they are different in every region. The oldest dances seem to be the passepied and the gavotte, and the newest ones derive from the quadrille and French Renaissance dances.
+
+In the 1960s, several Breton artists started to use contemporary patterns to create a Breton pop music. Among them, Alan Stivell highly contributed to popularise the Celtic harp and Breton music in the world. He also used American rock and roll in his works and influenced 1970s Breton bands such as Kornog, Gwerz and Tri Yann, who revived traditional songs and made them popular across France. Soldat Louis is the main Breton rock band,[citation needed] and Breton singers include Gilles Servat, Glenmor, Dan Ar Braz, Yann-Fañch Kemener, Denez Prigent, Nolwenn Korbell and Nolwenn Leroy. The Manau Hip hop group from Paris has strong Breton and Celtic inspirations.
+
+Yann Tiersen, who composed the soundtrack for Amélie, the Electro band Yelle and the avant-garde singer Brigitte Fontaine are also from Brittany. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray was one of the first western European composers to be influenced by what is now known as world music.
+
+Brittany is closely associated with the Matter of Britain and King Arthur. According to Wace, Brocéliande is located in Brittany and it is nowadays considered to be Paimpont forest. There, ruins of a castle surrounded by a lake are associated with the Lady of the Lake, a dolmen is said to be Merlin's tomb and a path is presented as Morgan le Fay's Val sans Retour. Tristan and Iseult are also said to have lived in Brittany. Another major Breton legend is the story about Ys, a city swallowed by the ocean.
+
+Breton literature before the 19th century was mostly oral.  The oral tradition entertained by medieval poets died out during the 15th century and books in Breton were very rare before 1850. At that time, local writers started to collect and publish local tales and legends and wrote original works.  Published between 1925 and the Second World War, the literary journal Gwalarn favoured a modern Breton literature and helped translating widely known novels into Breton.  After the war, the journal Al Liamm pursued that mission. Among the authors writing in Breton are Auguste Brizeux, a Romantic poet, the neo-Druidic bard Erwan Berthou, Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué, who collected the local legends about King Arthur, Roparz Hemon, founder of Gwalarn, Pêr-Jakez Helias, Glenmor, Pêr Denez and Meavenn.
+
+Breton literature in French includes 19th-century historical novels by Émile Souvestre, travel journals by Anatole Le Braz, poems and novels by Charles Le Goffic, the works of the singer-songwriter Théodore Botrel and of the maritime writer Henri Queffélec. Brittany is also the birthplace of many French writers like François-René de Chateaubriand, Jules Verne, Ernest Renan, Félicité Robert de Lamennais and Pierre Abélard Max Jacob, Alfred Jarry, Victor Segalen, Xavier Grall, Jean Rouaud, Irène Frain, Herve Jaouen,[72] Alain Robbe-Grillet, Pierre-Jakez Hélias, Tristan Corbière, Paul Féval, Jean Guéhenno, Arthur Bernède, André Breton, Patrick Poivre d'Arvor
+
+The Asterix comics, set during the time of Julius Caesar and written in the second half of the twentieth century, are set in Armorica, now Brittany.
+
+The Museum of Brittany, located in Rennes, was founded in 1856. Its collections are mainly dedicated to the history of the region. Museums dedicated to Prehistory and local megaliths are located in Carnac and Penmarch, while several towns like Vannes and Nantes have a museum presenting their own history.
+
+The Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes owns a large collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities as well as drawings and engravings by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Parmigianino, Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt. Its French art collection gathers works by Georges de La Tour, François Boucher, Paul Gauguin, Auguste Rodin, Camille Corot and Robert Delaunay. It has also works by Pablo Picasso, Rubens, Peter Lely and Paolo Veronese. The collections of the Museum of Fine Arts of Nantes are more dedicated to modern and contemporary art and contain works by Edward Burne-Jones, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet, Paul Signac, Tamara de Lempicka, Wassily Kandinsky, Max Ernst, Pierre Soulages and Piero Manzoni. The Museums of Fine Arts of Brest and Quimper offer similar collections, with large quantities of French painting together with the works of some Italian and Dutch artists. The Museum of Fine Arts Pont-Aven is dedicated to the School of Pont-Aven. Contemporary sculptures can be seen in the park around the Château de Kerguéhennec, in Bignan.
+
+Museums in Saint-Malo, Lorient and Douarnenez are dedicated to ships and maritime traditions and history. The Musée national de la Marine has a large annex in Brest and a submarine is opened to visitors in Lorient. In the same town, it is also possible to visit the Keroman Submarine Museum, and the Cité de la voile Éric Tabarly, a museum dedicated to sailing. In Saint-Nazaire, where many transatlantic ships where built, including SS Normandie and SS France, a museum showing transatlantic interiors was installed in a Second World War base. Nantes has a museum dedicated to Jules Verne, a Natural History Museum and a museum of archaeology and design, the Musée Dobrée.
+
+Brittany has a vibrant calendar of festivals and events. It hosts some of France's biggest contemporary music festivals, such as La Route du Rock in Saint-Malo, the Vieilles Charrues in Carhaix, the Rencontres Trans Musicales in Rennes, the Festival du Bout du Monde in Crozon, the Hellfest in Clisson and the Astropolis in Brest. The Festival Interceltique de Lorient welcomes each year participants all the Celtic nations and their diasporas. La Folle Journée, in Nantes, is the largest classical music festival in France.
+
+The Breton culture is highlighted during the Fête de la Bretagne, which occurs in many places around Saint-Yves's day (19 May), and during the Festival de Cornouaille in Quimper. Several towns also organise historical re-enactments and events celebrating local traditions, such as the Filets Bleus in Concarneau which celebrates fishing.
+
+Brittany also has some film festivals like the Three Continents Festival in Nantes. The Utopiales international science fiction festival is held in the same city. Brest and Douarnenez both organise large tall ship meetings.
+
+Football, cycling and sailing are the three most popular sports in Brittany. Major football teams are the FC Nantes, the Stade Rennais F.C., the FC Lorient, the Stade Brestois 29, the Vannes OC and the En Avant de Guingamp. Professional footballers coming from the region also form the Brittany national football team which sometimes plays with national teams.
+
+Several Bretons have won the Tour de France: Bernard Hinault, Louison Bobet, Jean Robic and Lucien Petit-Breton as riders, and Cyrille Guimard as a directeur sportif.
+
+Sailing is particularly important for sea-resorts like La Trinité-sur-Mer, Pornichet, Concarneau, Lorient and the îles de Glénan, where a prestigious school is located. A great number of Bretons have become acclaimed sailors, such as: Éric Tabarly, Loïck Peyron, Jean Le Cam, Michel Desjoyeaux, Olivier de Kersauson, Thomas Coville, Vincent Riou and Marc Pajot. The Route du Rhum, the Transat Québec-Saint-Malo, the Jules Verne Trophy are the main Breton sailing competitions. The Solitaire du Figaro stages often start in Brittany.
+
+Gouren, a style of folk wrestling, is the most popular Breton sport. The Boule bretonne is related to pétanque. The Palets, common in Upper Brittany and in other French regions, is also related to pétanque, but players use iron disks instead of balls and they have to throw them on a wooden board.
+
+Although Muscadet and Gros Plant white wines are produced south of the Loire, the traditional drink of Brittany is cider. Brittany is the second-largest cider-producing region in France.[73] Breton cider is traditionally served in a bowl or a cup. Brittany also has a long beer-brewing tradition, tracing its roots back to the 17th century. Young artisanal brewers are keeping a variety of beer types alive,[74] such as Coreff de Morlaix, Tri Martolod and Britt. Stronger alcohols include the chouchen, a sort of mead made with wild honey, and an apple eau de vie called lambig.
+
+Crêpes and galettes are the two most well-known Breton dishes. The crêpes, made and served with butter, are eaten for dessert and the galettes are usually salty and made with buckwheat. They traditionally replaced bread as basic food and they can be served with cheese, sausages, bacon, mushrooms or eggs. They can be accompanied by Breton buttermilk called lait ribot. Brittany also has a dish similar to the pot-au-feu known as the kig ha farz, which consists of stewed pork or beef with buckwheat dumplings.
+
+Surrounded by the sea, Brittany offers a wide range of fresh seafood and fish, especially mussels and oysters. Among the seafood specialities is a fish stew called cotriade. The beurre blanc sauce, invented in Saint-Julien-de-Concelles, close to Nantes, is often served with fish. Brittany is also known for its salt, mainly harvested around Guérande and used in butter and milk caramels. The region is notable for its biscuit factories, many towns having their own: Quimper, Lorient, Pont-Aven, Saint-Brieuc, BN and LU in Nantes, La Trinitaine in La Trinité-sur-Mer, and Galettes Saint-Michel in Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef. They usually make their biscuits with salted butter and sell them in iron boxes. Famous Breton pastries include the kouign amann ("butter cake" in Breton) made with bread dough and high quantities of butter and sugar, and the  far, a sort of sweet Yorkshire pudding usually made with plums.
+
+Until the 1970s, the Breton road network was poor because maritime and rail transport prevailed. The French president Charles de Gaulle implemented a major road construction plan in the 1970 and Brittany received over 10 billion francs of investments during 25 years.[75] More than 10,000 km of motorways were built, permitting Breton road transport to multiply by four. The Breton motorways are not toll roads, contrarily to the usual French highways.[76][77]
+
+The main road artery linking cities and other settlements along the north coast is the Route nationale 12 which connects the cities of Rennes, Saint-Brieuc, Morlaix and Brest. It also provides a link to southern Normandy, terminating in Paris. In south Brittany the Route nationale 165 performs a similar role along the south coast providing connections between Nantes, Vannes, Lorient, Quimper and Brest. The Route nationale 164 crosses the centre of the peninsula and connects Rennes to Loudéac, Morlaix and Châteaulin, and the Route nationale 166 links Rennes to Vannes. The Route nationale 137 provides connections between Saint-Malo, Rennes and Nantes and terminates in Bordeaux.
+
+Nantes is linked to Paris by the A11 autoroute, and Rennes is both on the A81 autoroute to Paris and the A84 autoroute to Caen. These highways are standard French toll road.
+
+The biggest Breton airport is Nantes Atlantique Airport. Destination served include the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Morocco. It will be replaced around 2017 by the new Aéroport du Grand Ouest, located 30 km to the north-west of Nantes. The Brest Bretagne Airport is the second airport in Brittany. It is followed by Rennes – Saint-Jacques, Lorient South Brittany and Dinard – Saint-Malo. The Saint-Brieuc – Armor airport serves flights between Brittany and the Channel Islands. Others smaller airport operates domestic flights in Quimper, and Lannion.
+
+Brittany is on two major TGV lines, one linking Paris to Nantes and Le Croisic, on the south coast, and another linking Paris to Rennes and Brest. The LGV Atlantique which stops at Le Mans will be extended to Rennes in 2017, providing faster connections between Paris and Brittany. TGV train services also link the region with cities such as Lyon, Strasbourg, Marseille, and Lille. Secondary train services are operated by TER Bretagne which provides connections between small towns such as Vannes, Carhaix, Roscoff and Paimpol. TER Bretagne also manages coach lines and connections between Rennes and Nantes. TER Pays de la Loire operates trains between Nantes and smaller towns in Loire-Atlantique.
+
+There are ferry services that take passengers, vehicles and freight to Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands. The main companies are Brittany Ferries which operates lines between Plymouth and Roscoff, Portsmouth and Saint-Malo, and Roscoff and Cork. Irish Ferries operates the route Rosslare-Roscoff and Condor Ferries link Saint-Malo with Jersey.
+
+Cycling has always been one of the main sports of Brittany, but leisure cycling and the infrastructure to support it have been growing extremely rapidly. An extensive network of cycle paths and recommended cycle routes has opened up all over the region. Some of these are routes using mainly smaller roads and both signposted and maintained by communes individually, but many are based on dedicated cycle paths often formed by converting disused railway tracks. These help form routes such as 'Vélodyssée' from Roscoff to Nantes and several major routes under the 'V' label (following signs V1, V2 etc.).[78] The old tow-path of the Nantes-Brest canal is now open to cyclists along its entire 385 km length though in places (unlike rail-based cycle paths) it is very meandering and leaving the path will both shorten the distance and provide variety.[79]
+
+As a general rule cyclists are very well respected in the region and many larger towns have cycle-lanes – however traffic is 'cycle-friendly' even in their absence.
+
+The modern flag of Brittany was designed in 1923. It is called Gwenn ha Du ("white and black" in Breton) and it features eleven ermine spots (their number may vary) and nine stripes, the black ones represent the Breton speaking historical dioceses, and the white ones symbolise the gallo speaking dioceses. The flag was created to replace the traditional ermine plain standard, considered too aristocratic and royalist. It was inspired by the American flag and the British Red Ensign.[80] Since the 1920s, the flag has become very popular and it is flown from a large number of institutions. Apart from the ermine flag, Breton historic banners include the Kroaz Du, a white flag with a black cross, the perfect negative of the Cornish flag.
+
+The coat of arms of Brittany, ermine plain, was adopted by John III in 1316. Ermine had been used in Brittany long before, and there is no clue about its origin. It was probably chosen by the dukes because of its similarity with the French fleur-de-lis. The ermine, or stoat, as an animal became the badge of John IV at the end of the 14th century. It appeared later on numerous locations, including churches and castles. According to popular traditions, Anne of Brittany was hunting with her court when she saw a white ermine who preferred to die than to cross a dirty marsh. This episode would have inspired the duchess' motto : "Potius mori quam foedari" ("rather death than dishonour").[81] The motto has later been reused by Breton regiments, local World War II Resistants and cultural movements.
+
+The Breton anthem, although not official, is Bro Gozh ma Zadoù – ("Old Land of My Fathers"). It re-employs both the Welsh anthem's music and that of "Bro Goth agan Tasow" (the national anthem of Cornwall; its lyrics were written at the end of the 19th century).
+
+Colloquial Breton emblems include the Celtic triskelion, the menhirs and dolmens, local dishes such as the galettes, the Bigouden headdress and the traditional black round hat, the fisherman and his yellow raincoat, etc. BZH is a common abbreviation for "Breizh" ("Brittany" in Breton) and people often put BZH stickers on their car-plates, although it is forbidden under French laws.[82] .bzh is an approved Internet top level domain for the Breton culture and languages.[83][84]
+
+Merlin's tomb in the Brocéliande forest, Paimpont
+
+A dolmen in Plouharnel
+
+The city wall of Guérande
+
+Castle of Saint-Malo, Qui Qu'en Grogne Tower
+
+Château de Suscinio
+
+Île Vierge lighthouse
+
+Parlement of Brittany in Rennes
+
+Abbey and lighthouse of Saint-Mathieu
+
+Ar Meilhoù Glaz, a Bagad from Quimper
+
+Festival du chant de marin, sea songs festival in Paimpol
+
+A Breton headdress from Batz-sur-Mer
+
+Modern Brittany - Illustration from Legends & Romances of Brittany by Lewis Spence, illustrated by W. Otway Cannell.

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+The City Municipality of Bremen (/ˈbreɪmən/, also US: /ˈbrɛmən/;[3][4][5] German: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, IPA: [ˈʃtatɡəˌmaɪndə ˈbʁeːmən] (listen); Low German also: Breem or Bräm) is the capital of the German federal state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (also called just "Bremen" for short), a two-city-state consisting of the cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven. With around 570,000 inhabitants, the Hanseatic city is the 11th largest city of Germany as well as the second largest city in Northern Germany after Hamburg.
+
+Bremen is the largest city on the River Weser, the longest river flowing entirely in Germany, lying some 60 km (37 mi) upstream from its mouth into the North Sea, and is surrounded by the state of Lower Saxony. A commercial and industrial city, Bremen is, together with Oldenburg and Bremerhaven, part of the Bremen/Oldenburg Metropolitan Region, with 2.5 million people. Bremen is contiguous with the Lower Saxon towns of Delmenhorst, Stuhr, Achim, Weyhe, Schwanewede and Lilienthal. There is an exclave of Bremen in Bremerhaven, the "Citybremian Overseas Port Area Bremerhaven" (Stadtbremisches Überseehafengebiet Bremerhaven). Bremen is the fourth largest city in the Low German dialect area after Hamburg, Dortmund and Essen.
+
+Bremen's port, together with the port of Bremerhaven at the mouth of the Weser, is the second largest port in Germany after the Port of Hamburg. The airport of Bremen (Flughafen Bremen "Hans Koschnick") lies in the southern borough of Neustadt-Neuenland and is Germany's 12th busiest airport.
+
+Bremen is a major cultural and economic hub of Northern Germany. The city is home to dozens of historical galleries and museums, ranging from historical sculptures to major art museums, such as the Bremen Overseas Museum (Übersee-Museum Bremen).[6] The Bremen City Hall and the Bremen Roland are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Bremen is well known through the Brothers Grimm's fairy tale "Town Musicians of Bremen" (Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten), and there is a statue dedicated to it in front of the city hall.
+
+Bremen has a reputation as a working-class city.[7] The city is home to many multinational companies and manufacturing centers. Companies headquartered in Bremen include the Hachez chocolate company and Vector Foiltec.[8] Bremen's best known football club is Bundesliga club SV Werder Bremen, who play in the Weser Stadium (Weserstadion), that sits directly on the bank of the Weser.
+
+The marshes and moraines near Bremen have been settled since about 12,000 BC. Burial places and settlements in Bremen-Mahndorf and Bremen-Osterholz date back to the 7th century AD. Since the Renaissance, some scientists have believed that the entry Fabiranum or Phabiranon in Ptolemy's Fourth Map of Europe,[9] written in AD 150, refers to Bremen. But Ptolemy gives geographic coordinates, and these refer to a site northeast of the mouth of the river Visurgis (Weser). In Ptolemy's time the Chauci lived in the area now called north-western Germany or Lower Saxony. By the end of the 3rd century, they had merged with the Saxons. During the Saxon Wars (772–804) the Saxons, led by Widukind, fought against the West Germanic Franks, the founders of the Carolingian Empire, and lost the war.
+
+Charlemagne, the King of the Franks, made a new law, the Lex Saxonum, which forbade the Saxons from worshipping Odin (the god of the Saxons); instead they had to convert to Christianity on pain of death. In 787 Willehad of Bremen became the first Bishop of Bremen. In 848 the archdiocese of Hamburg merged with the diocese of Bremen to become Hamburg-Bremen Archdiocese, with its seat in Bremen, and in the following centuries the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen were the driving force behind the Christianisation of Northern Germany. In 888, at the behest of Archbishop Rimbert, Kaiser Arnulf of Carinthia, the Carolingian King of East Francia, granted Bremen the rights to hold its own markets, mint its own coins and make its own customs laws.
+
+The city's first stone walls were built in 1032. Around that time trade with Norway, England and the northern Netherlands began to grow, thus increasing the importance of the city.
+
+In 1186 the Bremian Prince-Archbishop Hartwig of Uthlede and his bailiff in Bremen confirmed – without generally waiving the prince-archbishop's overlordship over the city – the Gelnhausen Privilege, by which Frederick I Barbarossa granted the city considerable privileges. The city was recognised as a political entity with its own laws. Property within the municipal boundaries could not be subjected to feudal overlordship; this also applied to serfs who acquired property, if they lived in the city for a year and a day, after which they were to be regarded as free persons. Property was to be freely inherited without feudal claims for reversion to its original owner. This privilege laid the foundation for Bremen's later status of imperial immediacy (Free Imperial City).
+
+The tax obligations of city to the prince-archbishopric were both a burden and a lever of influence. The city participated in the Diets of the neighbouring Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen as part of the Bremian Estates; in the context of the Landtag the city could offer or withhold its consent on tax levies proposed by the prince-archbishop in his governance of the region. Since the city was the principal taxpayer, its consent for taxes was generally sought. In this way the city wielded fiscal and political power within the Prince-Archbishopric, while not allowing the Prince-Archbishopric to rule in the city against its consent. In 1260 Bremen joined the Hanseatic League.
+
+In 1350, the number of inhabitants reached 20,000. Around this time the Hansekogge (cog ship) became a unique product of Bremen.
+
+In 1362, representatives of Bremen rendered homage to Albert II, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen in Langwedel. In return, Albert confirmed the city's privileges and brokered a peace between the city and Gerhard III, Count of Hoya, who since 1358 had held some burghers of Bremen in captivity. The city had to bail them out. In 1365 an extra tax, levied to finance the ransom, caused an uprising among the burghers and artisans that was put down by the city council after much bloodshed.
+
+In 1366, Albert II tried to take advantage of the dispute between Bremen's city council and the guilds, whose members had expelled some city councillors from the city. When these councillors appealed to Albert II for help, many artisans and burghers regarded this as a treasonous act, fearing that this appeal to the prince would only provoke him to abolish the autonomy of the city.
+
+The fortified city maintained its own guards, not allowing soldiers of the Prince-Archbishop to enter it. The city reserved an extra very narrow gate, the so-called Bishop's Needle (Latin: Acus episcopi, first mentioned in 1274), for all clergy, including the Prince-Archbishop. The narrowness of the gate made it physically impossible for him to enter surrounded by his knights.
+
+Nevertheless, on the night of 29 May 1366, Albert's troops, helped by some burghers, invaded the city. Afterward, the city had to again render him homage: the Bremen Roland, symbol of the city's autonomy, was destroyed; and a new city council was appointed. In return, the new council granted Albert a credit amounting to the then-enormous sum of 20,000 Bremen marks.
+
+But city councillors of the previous council, who had fled to the County of Oldenburg, gained the support of the counts and recaptured the city on June 27, 1366. The members of the intermediate council were regarded as traitors and beheaded, and the city de facto regained its autonomy. Thereupon, the city of Bremen, which had for a long time held an autonomous status, acted almost completely independent of the Prince-Archbishop. Albert failed to obtain control over the city of Bremen a second time, since he was always short of money and lacked the support of his family, the Welfs, who were preparing for and fighting the Lüneburg War of Succession (1370–88).
+
+By the end of the 1360s Bremen had provided credit to Albert II to finance his lavish lifestyle, and gained in return the fortress of Vörde along with the dues levied in its bailiwick as guarantee for the credit. In 1369 Bremen again lent money to Albert II against the collateral of his mint, which was from then on run by the city council, which took over his right to mint coins. In 1377 Bremen purchased from Duke Frederick I of Brunswick-Lüneburg many of the Prince-Archbishop's castles, which Albert had pledged as security for a loan to Frederick's predecessor. Thus Bremen gained a powerful position in the Prince-Archbishopric (ecclesiastical principality), in effect sidelining its actual ruler.
+
+The declining knightly family of Bederkesa had become deeply indebted,[10]:29 and, having already sold many of their possessions, had even pawned half their say in the Bailiwick of Bederkesa (Amt Bederkesa) to the aspiring Mandelsloh family (a noble house, or Adelsgeschlecht). They lost the rest of their claims to the city of Bremen, when in 1381 its troops prevented the three Mandelsloh brothers from lending them to Albert II as territorial power.[10]:30 The Mandelslohs and other robber barons from the Prince-Bishopric of Verden and the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen ravaged burghers of the city of Bremen as well as inhabitants throughout the Prince-Archbishopric.
+
+In 1381 the city's troops successfully ended the brigandage and captured the Castle of Bederkesa and its bailiwick. Thus Bremen gained a foothold to uphold peace and order in its forecourt on the lower course of the Weser. In 1386 the city of Bremen became the liege lord of the noble families holding the estates of Altluneburg and Elmlohe, who had previously been vassals of the Knights of Bederkesa.  The city replaced in 1404 the old wooden statue of Roland, which had been destroyed in 1366 by the Bederkesa, with a larger limestone model; this statue has managed to survive six centuries and two World Wars into the 21st.
+
+In 1411 the jointly ruling dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg, Eric IV and his sons Eric V and John IV, pawned their share in the Bederkesa bailiwick and castle to the Senate of Bremen, including all "they have in the jurisdictions in the Frisian Land of Wursten and in Lehe (Bremerhaven), which belongs to the aforementioned castle and Vogtei".[11] Their share in jurisdiction, Vogtei (bailiwick) and castle had been acquired from the plague-stricken Knights of Bederkesa.[11] In 1421, Bremen acquired also the remaining half of the rights of the Bederkesa knights, including their remaining share in Bederkesa Castle.[10]:30
+
+During the 1440s, Bremen was often in conflict with the Dutch states. The city began offering contracts to pirates to attack its enemies, and it became a regional hub of piracy. These pirates targeted foreign shipping around the North Sea and captured numerous vessels. One notorious captain, known as Grote Gherd ("Big Gerry"), captured 13 ships from Flanders in a single expedition.[12][13][14]
+
+In 1648 the Prince-Archbishopric was transformed into the Duchy of Bremen, which was first ruled in personal union by the Swedish Crown. In November 1654, after the Second Bremian War, Bremen had to cede Bederkesa and the settlement of Lehe to the Duchy of Bremen (Treaty of Stade, 1654).
+
+When the Protestant Reformation swept through Northern Germany, St Peter's cathedral belonged to the cathedral immunity district (German: Domfreiheit; cf. also Liberty), an extraterritorial enclave of the neighbouring Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. In 1532, the cathedral chapter which was still Catholic at that time closed St Peter's after a mob consisting of Bremen's burghers had forcefully interrupted a Catholic Mass and prompted a pastor to hold a Lutheran service.
+
+In 1547, the chapter, which had in the meantime become predominantly Lutheran, appointed the Dutch Albert Rizaeus, called Hardenberg, as the first Cathedral pastor of Protestant affiliation. Rizaeus turned out to be a partisan of the Zwinglian understanding of the Lord's Supper, which was rejected by the then Lutheran majority of burghers, the city council, and chapter. So in 1561 – after heated disputes – Rizaeus was dismissed and banned from the city and the cathedral again closed its doors.
+
+However, as a consequence of that controversy the majority of Bremen's burghers and city council adopted Calvinism by the 1590s, while the chapter, which was at the same time the body of secular government in the neighbouring Prince-Archbishopric, clung to Lutheranism. This antagonism between a Calvinistic majority and a Lutheran minority, though it had a powerful position in its immunity district (mediatised as part of the city in 1803), remained dominant until in 1873 the Calvinist and Lutheran congregations of Bremen were reconciled and founded a united administrative umbrella Bremen Protestant Church, which still exists today, comprising the bulk of Bremen's burghers.
+
+At the beginning of the 17th century, Bremen continued to play its double role, wielding fiscal and political power within the Prince-Archbishopric, but not allowing the Prince-Archbishopric to rule in the city without its consent.
+
+Soon after the beginning of the Thirty Years' War Bremen declared its neutrality, as did most of the territories in the Lower Saxon Circle. John Frederick, Lutheran Administrator of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, desperately tried to keep his Prince-Archbishopric out of the war, with the complete agreement of the Estates and the city of Bremen. When in 1623 the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, which was fighting in the Eighty Years' War for its independence against Habsburg's Spanish and imperial forces, requested its Calvinist co-religionist Bremen to join them, the city refused, but started to reinforce its fortifications.
+
+In 1623 the territories comprising the Lower Saxon Circle decided to recruit an army in order to maintain an armed neutrality, since troops of the Catholic League were already operating in the neighbouring Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle and dangerously close to their region. The concomitant effects of the war, debasement of the currency and rising prices, had already caused inflation which was also felt in Bremen.
+
+In 1623 the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, diplomatically supported by King James I of England, the brother-in-law of Christian IV of Denmark, started a new anti-Habsburg campaign. Thus the troops of the Catholic League were otherwise occupied and Bremen seemed relieved. But soon after this the imperial troops under Albrecht von Wallenstein headed north in an attempt to destroy the fading Hanseatic League, in order to reduce the Hanseatic cities of Bremen, Hamburg and the Lübeck and to establish a Baltic trade monopoly, to be run by some imperial favourites including Spaniards and Poles. The idea was to win Sweden's and Denmark's support, both of which had for a long time sought the destruction of the Hanseatic League.
+
+In May 1625, Duke Christian IV of Holstein was elected – in the latter of his functions – by the Lower Saxon Circle's member territories commander-in-chief of the Lower Saxon troops. In the same year Christian IV joined the Anglo-Dutch military coalition. Christian IV ordered his troops to capture all the important traffic hubs in the Prince-Archbishopric and commenced the Battle of Lutter am Barenberge, on 27 August 1626, where he was defeated by the Leaguist troops under Johan 't Serclaes, Count of Tilly. Christian IV and his surviving troops fled to the Prince-Archbishopric and established their headquarters in Stade.
+
+In 1627 Christian IV withdrew from the Prince-Archbishopric, in order to oppose Wallenstein's invasion of his Duchy of Holstein. Tilly then invaded the Prince-Archbishopric and captured its southern part. Bremen shut its city gates and entrenched itself behind its improved fortifications. In 1628, Tilly turned on the city, and Bremen paid him a ransom of 10,000 rixdollars in order to spare it a siege. The city remained unoccupied throughout the war.
+
+The takeover by the Catholic League enabled Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, to implement the Edict of Restitution, decreed March 6, 1629, within the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen including the city of Bremen. In September 1629 Francis William of Wartenberg, appointed by Ferdinand II as chairman of the imperial restitution commission for the Lower Saxon Circle, in carrying out the provisions of the Edict of Restitution, ordered the Bremian Chapter, seated in Bremen, to render an account of all the capitular and prince-archiepiscopal estates (not to be confused with the Estates). The Chapter refused, arguing first that the order had not been authorised and later that due to disputes with Bremen's city council, they could not freely travel to render an account, let alone do the necessary research on the estates. The anti-Catholic attitudes of Bremen's burghers and council was to make it completely impossible to prepare the restitution of estates from the Lutheran Chapter to the Roman Catholic Church. Even Lutheran capitulars were uneasy in Calvinistic Bremen.
+
+Bremen's city council ordered that the capitular and prince-archiepiscopal estates within the boundaries of the unoccupied city were not to be restituted to the Catholic Church. The council argued that the city had long been Protestant, but the restitution commission replied that the city was de jure a part of the Prince-Archbishopric, so Protestantism had illegitimately taken over Catholic-owned estates. The city council replied that under these circumstances it would rather separate from the Holy Roman Empire and join the quasi-independent Republic of the Seven Netherlands.[15] The city was neither to be conquered nor to be successfully besieged due to its new fortifications and its access to the North Sea.
+
+In October 1631 an army, newly recruited by John Frederick, started to reconquer the Prince-Archbishopric — helped by forces from Sweden and the city of Bremen. John Frederick returned to office, only to implement the supremacy of Sweden, insisting that it retain supreme command until the end of the war. With the impending enforcement of the military Major Power of Sweden over the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, which was under negotiation at the Treaty of Westphalia, the city of Bremen feared it would fall under Swedish rule too. Therefore, the city appealed for an imperial confirmation of its status of imperial immediacy from 1186 (Gelnhausen Privilege). In 1646 Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, granted the requested confirmation (Diploma of Linz) to the Free Imperial City.
+
+Nevertheless, Sweden, represented by its imperial fief Bremen-Verden, which comprised the secularised prince-bishoprics of Bremen and Verden, did not accept the imperial immediacy of the city of Bremen. Swedish Bremen-Verden tried to remediatise the Free Imperial City of Bremen (i.e., to make it switch its allegiance to Sweden). With this in view, Swedish Bremen-Verden twice waged war on Bremen. In 1381 the city of Bremen had imposed de facto rule in an area around Bederkesa and west of it as far as the lower branch of the Weser near Bremerlehe (a part of present-day Bremerhaven). Early in 1653, Bremen-Verden's Swedish troops captured Bremerlehe by force. In February 1654 the city of Bremen managed to get Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, to grant it a seat and the vote in the Holy Roman Empire's Diet, thus accepting the city's status as Free Imperial City of Bremen.
+
+Ferdinand III demanded that Christina of Sweden, Duchess regnant of Bremen-Verden, compensate the city of Bremen for the damages caused and restitute Bremerlehe. When in March 1654 the city of Bremen started to recruit soldiers in the area of Bederkesa, in order to prepare for further arbitrary acts, Swedish Bremen-Verden enacted the First Bremian War (March to July 1654), arguing that it was acting in self-defence. The Free Imperial City of Bremen had meanwhile urged Ferdinand III to support it, who in July 1654 asked Charles X Gustav of Sweden, Christina's successor as Duke of Bremen-Verden, to cease the conflict, which resulted in the First Stade Recess [de] (November 1654). This treaty left the main issue, the acceptance of the city of Bremen's imperial immediacy, unresolved. But the city agreed to pay tribute and levy taxes in favour of Swedish Bremen-Verden and to cede its possessions around Bederkesa and Bremerlehe, which was why it was later called Lehe.
+
+In December 1660 the city council of Bremen rendered homage as Free Imperial City of Bremen to Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. In 1663 the city gained a seat and a vote in the Imperial Diet, despite sharp protest from Swedish Bremen-Verden. In March 1664 the Swedish Diet came out in favour of waging war on the Free Imperial City of Bremen. Right after Leopold I, who was busy with wars against the Ottoman Empire, had enfeoffed the minor King Charles XI of Sweden with Bremen-Verden, while the neighbouring Brunswick and Lunenburg-Celle was occupied by succession quarrels and France not opposed, Sweden started the Second Bremian War (1665–66) from its Bremen-Verden fief.
+
+The Swedes under Carl Gustaf Wrangel laid siege to the city of Bremen. The siege brought Brandenburg-Prussia, Brunswick and Lunenburg-Celle, Denmark, Leopold I and the Netherlands onto the scene, who were all in favour of the city, with Brandenburgian, Cellean, Danish, and Dutch troops at Bremen-Verden's borders ready to invade. So on 15 November 1666 Sweden had to sign the Treaty of Habenhausen, obliging it to destroy the fortresses built close to Bremen and banning Bremen from sending its representative to the Diet of the Lower Saxon Circle. From then on no further Swedish attempts were made to capture the city.
+
+In 1700 Bremen introduced – like all Protestant territories of imperial immediacy – the Improved Calendar, as it was called by Protestants, in order not to mention the name of Pope Gregory XIII. So Sunday, 18 February of Old Style was followed by Monday, 1 March New Style.
+
+The harbour of Vegesack became part of the city of Bremen in 1803. In 1811, Napoleon invaded Bremen and integrated it as the capital of the Département de Bouches-du-Weser (Department of the Mouths of the Weser) into the French State. In 1813, the French – as they retreated – withdrew from Bremen. Johann Smidt, Bremen's representative at the Congress of Vienna, was successful in achieving the non-mediatisation of Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, by which they were not incorporated into neighbouring monarchies, but became sovereign republics. Bremen joined the North German Confederation in 1867 and four years later became an autonomous component state of the new-founded German Empire and its successors.
+
+The first German steamship was manufactured in 1817 in the shipyard of Johann Lange. In 1827, Bremen, under Johann Smidt, its mayor at that time, purchased land from the Kingdom of Hanover, to establish the city of Bremerhaven (Port of Bremen) as an outpost of Bremen because the river Weser was silting up. The shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) was founded in 1857. Lloyd was a byword for commercial shipping and is now a part of Hapag-Lloyd.
+
+Beck's Brewery was founded in 1873 and remains in operation today as part of Anheuser-Busch InBev.  In 1872, the Bremen Cotton Exchange was founded.
+
+The Soviet Republic of Bremen existed from January to February 1919 in the aftermath of World War I, before it was overthrown by Gerstenberg Freikorps.
+
+Henrich Focke, Georg Wulf and Werner Naumann founded Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG in Bremen in 1923; the aircraft construction company as of 2010[update] forms part of Airbus,[citation needed] a manufacturer of civil and military aircraft. Borgward, an automobile manufacturer, was founded in 1929, and is today part of Daimler AG.
+
+The villages of Grohn, Schönebeck, Aumund, Hammersbeck, Fähr, Lobbendorf, Blumenthal, Farge and Rekum [de; nds] became part of the city of Bremen in 1939. The Bremen-Vegesack concentration camp operated during World War II.
+
+Allied bombing destroyed the majority of the historical Hanseatic city as well as 60% of the built up area of Bremen during World War II.[18] The British 3rd Infantry Division under General Whistler captured Bremen in late April 1945.[19]
+
+In 1946 Bremen's mayor Wilhelm Kaisen (SPD) travelled to the U.S. to re-establish Bremen's statehood, as Bremen had traditionally been a city-state, in order to prevent its incorporation into the state of Lower Saxony in the British zone of occupation. In 1947 the city became an enclave, part of the American occupation zone surrounded by the British zone.
+
+In 1947, Martin Mende founded Nordmende, a manufacturer of entertainment electronics. The company existed until 1987. OHB-System, a manufacturer of medium-sized space-flight satellites, was founded in 1958.
+
+The University of Bremen, founded in 1971, is one of 11 institutions classed as an "Elite university" in Germany, and teaches approximately 23,500 people from 126 countries.
+
+Bremen lies on both sides of the River Weser, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) upstream of its estuary on the North Sea and its transition to the Outer Weser by Bremerhaven. Opposite Bremen's Altstadt is the point where the "Middle Weser" becomes the "Lower Weser" and, from the area of Bremen's port, the river has been made navigable to ocean-going vessels.  The region on the left bank of the Lower Weser, through which the Ochtum flows, is the Weser Marshes, the landscape on its right bank is part of the Elbe-Weser Triangle.  The Lesum, and its tributaries, the Wümme and Hamme, the Schönebecker Aue and Blumenthaler Aue, are the downstream tributaries of the Weser.
+
+The city's municipal area is about 38 kilometres (24 miles) long and 16 kilometres (10 miles) wide.  In terms of area, Bremen is the thirteenth largest city in Germany; and in terms of population the second largest city in northwest Germany after Hamburg and the tenth largest in the whole of Germany (see: List of cities in Germany).[contradictory]
+
+Bremen lies about 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of the city of Oldenburg, 110 kilometres (68 miles) southwest of Hamburg, 120 kilometres (75 miles) northwest of Hanover, 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of Minden and 105 kilometres (65 miles) northeast of Osnabrück. Part of Bremerhaven's port territory forms an exclave of the City of Bremen.
+
+The inner city lies on a Weser dune, which reaches a natural height of 10.5 m above sea level (NN) at Bremen Cathedral; its highest point, though, is 14.4 m above sea level (NN) and lies to the east at the Polizeihaus, Am Wall 196. The highest natural feature in the city of Bremen is 32.5 m above NN and lies in Friedehorst Park in the northwestern borough of Burglesum.[20]:25 As a result, Bremen has the lowest high point of all the German states.[21]
+
+Bremen has a moderate oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfb) due to its proximity to the North Sea coast and temperate maritime air masses that move in with the predominantly westerly winds from the Atlantic Ocean. However, periods in which continental air masses predominate may occur at any time of the year and can lead to heat waves in the summer and prolonged periods of frost in the winter. In general though, extremes are rare in Bremen and temperatures below −15 °C (5.0 °F) and above 35 °C (95.0 °F) occur only once every couple of years. The record high temperature was 37.6 °C (99.7 °F) on 9 August 1992, while the official record low temperature was −23.6 °C (−10.5 °F) on 13 February 1940.[22] However, the astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers reported to have measured −27,3 °C on 23. January 1823.[23] Being at some distance from the main North Sea, Bremen still has a somewhat wider temperature range than Bremerhaven that is located on the mouth of Weser.
+
+Average temperatures have risen continually over the last decades, leading to a 0.6 °C (1.1 °F) rise in the mean annual temperature between 1961–90 and 1981–2010 reference periods. As in most parts of Germany, the year 2014 has been the warmest year on record averaging 11.1 °C (52.0 °F), making Bremen the second-warmest German state after Berlin in 2014.[24] While Bremen is located in the comparatively cloudy northwestern part of Germany, there has been a significant increase in average sunshine hours over the last decades, especially in the months of April, May and July, causing the annual mean to rise by 62 hours between the two reference periods mentioned above.[25] This trend has continued over the last 10 years, which average 1614 hours of sunshine, a good 130 hours more than in the international reference period of 1961–90.[26] Nevertheless, especially the winters remain extremely gloomy by international standards with December averaging hardly more than one hour of sunshine (out of 7 astronomically possible) per day, a feature that Bremen shares with most of Germany and its neighbouring countries, though.
+
+Precipitation is distributed fairly even around the year with a small peak in summer mainly due to convective precipitation, i.e. showers and thunderstorms. Snowfall and the period of snow cover are variable; whereas in some years, hardly any snow accumulation occurs, there has recently been a series of unusually snowy winters, peaking in the record year 2010 counting 84 days with a snow cover.[27] Nevertheless, snow accumulation of more than 20 centimetres (8 in) remains exceptional, the record being 68 centimetres (26.8 in) of snow on 18 February 1979.
+
+The warmest months in Bremen are June, July, and August, with average high temperatures of 20.2 to 22.6 °C (68.4 to 72.7 °F). The coldest are December, January, and February, with average low temperatures of −1.1 to 0.3 °C (30.0 to 32.5 °F). Typical of its maritime location, autumn tends to remain mild well into October, while spring arrives later than in the southwestern parts of the country.
+
+As of 2015[update], Bremen had a population of 557,464 of whom about 89,713 (16%) had foreign citizenship.[20]:39 Furthermore, 32% of the city population were of non-German origin/ethnicity as of 2017.[30]
+
+Number of minorities in Bremen by nationality as of 31 December 2015:[20]:39
+
+The Stadtbürgerschaft (municipal assembly) is made up of 68 of the 83 legislators of the state legislature, the Bremische Bürgerschaft, who reside in the city of Bremen. The legislature is elected by the citizens of Bremen every four years.
+
+Bremen has a reputation as a Left-wing city. This left wing atmosphere largely stems from a transition from an industrial economy to a service economy.[31] In elections for the Stadtbürgerschaft, the Social Democratic Party has dominated for decades. The Greens have also been very successful in city elections. The state of Bremen, which consists of the city, is governed by a coalition of the Social Democratic Party and The Greens.
+
+One of the two mayors (Bürgermeister) is elected President of the Senate (Präsident des Senats) and serves as head of the city and the state. The current president is Carsten Sieling
+
+Provisional results; the AfD did not reach the 5% threshold in Bremerhaven (and will hence only receive seats for votes from Bremen), the BIW did not reach the threshold in Bremen (and will only receive one seat in Bremerhaven, none in Bremen).[32][33]
+
+Neustadt, Südervorstadt and Gartenstadt Süd between Alte Neustadt and the airport city
+
+More contemporary tourist attractions include:
+
+View from the Stephani-Bridge in the direction of the Cathedral
+
+Schlachte
+
+Baumwollbörse (Cotton exchange)
+
+The Parkhotel in the Bürgerpark (central park)
+
+Musical-Theater
+
+Central Park Wallanlagen
+
+The city hall (Rathaus)
+
+Swineherd and pigs sculpture in Bremen
+
+The Weser River in Bremen
+
+A building on Böttcherstraße
+
+Bremer Bank
+
+Central Bremen and the Weser from St. Petri Dom
+
+Bremen Airport
+
+The skyscraper Weser Tower designed by Helmut Jahn
+
+Böttcherstraße
+
+Schnoor
+
+Beck & Co
+
+Bremen-Arena
+
+The Freie Waldorfschule in Bremen-Sebaldsbrück was Germany's first school built to the Passivhaus low-energy building standard.[42]
+
+According to data from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, Bremen had a GDP per capita of $53,379 in 2013, higher than the average for Germany as a whole. For comparison, in 2013, the World Bank reported Germany had a GDP per capita of $46,268, and the EU overall had a GDP per capita of $35,408 in the same year.[43]
+
+Bremen is the second development centre of the region, after Hamburg. It forms part of the production network of Airbus SAS and this is where equipping of the wing units for all widebody Airbus aircraft and the manufacture of small sheet metal parts takes place. Structural assembly, including that of metal landing flaps, is another focal point. Within the framework of Airbus A380 production, assembly of the landing flaps (high lift systems) is carried out here. The pre-final assembly of the fuselage section (excluding the cockpit) of the A400M military transport aircraft takes place before delivery on to Spain.[44]
+
+More than 3,100 persons are employed at Airbus Bremen, the second largest Airbus site in Germany. As part of the Centre of Excellence – Wing/Pylon, Bremen is responsible for the design and manufacture of high-lift systems for the wings of Airbus aircraft. The entire process chain for the high-lift elements is established here, including the project office, technology engineering, flight physics, system engineering, structure development, verification tests, structural assembly, wing equipping and ultimate delivery to the final assembly line. In addition, Bremen manufactures sheet metal parts like clips and thrust crests for all Airbus aircraft as part of the Centre of Excellence – Fuselage and Cabin.[45]
+
+In Bremen there is a plant of EADS Astrium and the headquarters of OHB-System, respectively the first and the third space companies of European Union.
+
+There is also a Mercedes-Benz factory in Bremen, building the C, CLK, SL, SLK, and GLK series of cars.[46]
+
+Beck & Co's headlining brew Beck's and St Pauli Girl beers are brewed in Bremen. In past centuries when Bremen's port was the "key to Europe", the city also had a large number of wine importers, but the number is down to a precious few. Apart from that there is another link between Bremen and wine: about 800 years ago, quality wines were produced here. The largest wine cellar in the world is located in Bremen (below the city's main square),[citation needed] which was once said to hold over 1 million bottles, but during WWII was raided by occupying forces.
+
+A large number of food producing or trading companies are located in Bremen with their German or European headquarters: Anheuser-Busch InBev (Beck's Brewery), Kellogg's, Kraft Foods (Kraft, Jacobs Coffee, Milka Chocolate, Milram, Miràcoli), Frosta (frosted food), Nordsee (chain of sea fast food), Melitta Kaffee, Eduscho Kaffee, Azul Kaffee, Vitakraft (pet articles and food for cats, dogs, birds, fish, rodents and other pets), Atlanta AG (Chiquita banana), chocolatier Hachez (fine chocolate and confiserie), feodora chocolatier.
+
+Bremer Woll-Kämmerei (BWK), a worldwide operating company for manufacturing wool and trading in wool and similar products, is headquartered in Bremen.
+
+Bremen has an international airport situated 3 km (2 mi) south of the city centre.
+
+Trams in Bremen and local bus services are offered by the Bremer Straßenbahn AG (translates from German as Bremen Tramways Corporation), often abbreviated BSAG, the public transport provider for Bremen.[47]
+
+The Bremen S-Bahn covers the Bremen/Oldenburg Metropolitan Region, from Bremerhaven in the north to Twistringen in the south and from Oldenburg in the west, centred on Bremen Central Station. It has been in operation since 2010.[48] This network unified existing regional transport in Bremen as well as surrounding cities, including Bremerhaven, Delmenhorst, Twistringen, Nordenham, Oldenburg, and Verden an der Aller. The network lies completely within the area of the Bremen-Lower Saxony Transport Association, whose tariff structure applies.
+
+Bremen is home to the football team Werder Bremen, who won the German Football Championship for the fourth time and the German Football Cup for the fifth time in 2004, making them only the fourth team in German football history to win the double; the club won the German Football Cup for the sixth time in 2009. Only Bayern Munich has won more titles. In the final match of the 2009–10 season, Werder Bremen lost to Bayern Munich. The home stadium of SV Werder Bremen is the Weserstadion, a pure football stadium, almost completely surrounded by solar cells. It is one of the biggest buildings in Europe delivering alternative energy.
+
+With 18000 students,[50] the University of Bremen is the largest university in Bremen, and is also home to the international Goethe-Institut and the Fallturm Bremen. Additionally, Bremen has a University of the Arts and the Bremen University of Applied Sciences. In 2001, the private Jacobs University Bremen was founded. All major German research foundations maintain institutes in Bremen, with a focus on marine sciences: The Max Planck Society with the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community with the Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (zmt).[51] The Bremerhaven-based Alfred-Wegener-Institute of the Helmholtz Association closely cooperates with the aforementioned institutes, especially within the MARUM[52] a center for marine environmental sciences, affiliated to the University of Bremen. Furthermore, The Fraunhofer Society is present in Bremen with centers for applied material research (IFAM[53]) and medical image computing (MEVIS[54]).
+
+Bremen is twinned with:[55]
+
+^1 Then German Democratic Republic
+
+"Informal" relationships:

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+
+
+Coordinates: 10°S 52°W / 10°S 52°W / -10; -52
+
+Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil; Brazilian Portuguese: [bɾaˈziw]),[nt 1] officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil),[10] is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers (3.2 million square miles)[11] and with over 211 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the sixth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states and the Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas;[12][13] it is also one of the most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass immigration from around the world;[14] as well as the most populous Roman Catholic-majority country.
+
+Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers (4,655 mi).[15] It borders all other countries in South America except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent's land area.[16] Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats.[15] This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, and is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.
+
+Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808 when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. The country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic.[17] Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[18]
+
+Brazil is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank[19] and a newly industrialized country,[20] with the largest share of global wealth in Latin America. It is considered an advanced emerging economy.[21] It has the ninth largest GDP in the world by nominal, and eight by PPP measures.[22][23] It is one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24] Brazil is a regional power and sometimes considered a great[25][26][27] or a middle power in international affairs.[27][28][29][30][31][26] On account of its international recognition and influence, the country is subsequently classified as an emerging power[32] and a potential superpower by several analysts.[33][34][35] Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.
+
+The word "Brazil" likely comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast.[36] In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa ("ember") and the suffix -il (from -iculum or -ilium).[37] As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was highly valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil.[38] Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi) along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders (mostly Portuguese, but also French) in return for assorted European consumer goods.[39]
+
+The official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross" (Terra da Santa Cruz),[40] but European sailors and merchants commonly called it simply the "Land of Brazil" (Terra do Brasil) because of the brazilwood trade.[41] The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name. Some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots".[42]
+
+In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama". This was the name the indigenous population gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".[43]
+
+Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years.[46][47]
+
+The earliest pottery ever found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago (6000 BC). The pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the tropical forest region supported a complex prehistoric culture.[48] The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from 400 CE to 1400 CE, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, and complex social formations such as chiefdoms.[45]
+
+Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people,[49] mostly semi-nomadic, who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. The indigenous population of Brazil comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups (e.g. the Tupis, Guaranis, Gês and Arawaks). The Tupí people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás, and there were also many subdivisions of the other groups.[50]
+
+Before the arrival of the Europeans, the boundaries between these groups and their subgroups were marked by wars that arose from differences in culture, language and moral beliefs.[51] These wars also involved large-scale military actions on land and water, with cannibalistic rituals on prisoners of war.[52][53] While heredity had some weight, leadership status was more subdued over time, than allocated in succession ceremonies and conventions.[51] Slavery among the Indians had a different meaning than it had for Europeans, since it originated from a diverse socioeconomic organization, in which asymmetries were translated into kinship relations.[54]
+
+The land now called Brazil was claimed for the Portuguese Empire on 22 April 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral.[55] The Portuguese encountered indigenous peoples divided into several tribes, most of whom spoke languages of the Tupi–Guarani family, and fought among themselves.[56] Though the first settlement was founded in 1532, colonization effectively began in 1534, when King John III of Portugal divided the territory into the fifteen private and autonomous Captaincy Colonies of Brazil.[57][58]
+
+However, the decentralized and unorganized tendencies of the captaincy colonies proved problematic, and in 1549 the Portuguese king restructured them into the Governorate General of Brazil in the city of Salvador, which became the capital of a single and centralized Portuguese colony in South America.[58][59] In the first two centuries of colonization, Indigenous and European groups lived in constant war, establishing opportunistic alliances in order to gain advantages against each other.[60][61][62][63] By the mid-16th century, cane sugar had become Brazil's most important export,[56][64] and slaves purchased in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the slave market of Western Africa[65] (not only those from Portuguese allies of their colonies in Angola and Mozambique), had become its largest import,[66][67] to cope with plantations of sugarcane, due to increasing international demand for Brazilian sugar.[68][69]
+
+By the end of the 17th century, sugarcane exports began to decline,[70] and the discovery of gold by bandeirantes in the 1690s would become the new backbone of the colony's economy, fostering a Brazilian Gold Rush[71] which attracted thousands of new settlers to Brazil from Portugal and all Portuguese colonies around the world.[72] This increased level of immigration in turn caused some conflicts between newcomers and old settlers.[73]
+
+Portuguese expeditions known as Bandeiras gradually advanced the Portugal colonial original frontiers in South America to approximately the current Brazilian borders.[74][75] In this era other European powers tried to colonize parts of Brazil, in incursions that the Portuguese had to fight, notably the French in Rio during the 1560s, in Maranhão during the 1610s, and the Dutch in Bahia and Pernambuco, during the Dutch–Portuguese War, after the end of Iberian Union.[76]
+
+The Portuguese colonial administration in Brazil had two objectives that would ensure colonial order and the monopoly of Portugal's wealthiest and largest colony: to keep under control and eradicate all forms of slave rebellion and resistance, such as the Quilombo of Palmares,[77] and to repress all movements for autonomy or independence, such as the Minas Conspiracy.[78]
+
+In late 1807, Spanish and Napoleonic forces threatened the security of continental Portugal, causing Prince Regent João, in the name of Queen Maria I, to move the royal court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro.[79] There they established some of Brazil's first financial institutions, such as its local stock exchanges,[80] and its National Bank, additionally ending the Portuguese monopoly on Brazilian trade and opening Brazil to other nations. In 1809, in retaliation for being forced into exile, the Prince Regent ordered the Portuguese conquest of French Guiana.[81]
+
+With the end of the Peninsular War in 1814, the courts of Europe demanded that Queen Maria I and Prince Regent João return to Portugal, deeming it unfit for the head of an ancient European monarchy to reside in a colony. In 1815, to justify continuing to live in Brazil, where the royal court had thrived for six years, the Crown established the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves, thus creating a pluricontinental transatlantic monarchic state.[82] However, the leadership in Portugal, resentful of the new status of its larger colony, continued to demand the return of court to Lisbon (v. Liberal Revolution of 1820). In 1821, acceding to the demands of revolutionaries who had taken the city of Porto,[83] D. João VI departed for Lisbon. There he swore an oath to the new constitution, leaving his son, Prince Pedro de Alcântara, as Regent of the Kingdom of Brazil.[84]
+
+Tensions between Portuguese and Brazilians increased, and the Portuguese Cortes, guided by the new political regime imposed by the 1820 Liberal Revolution, tried to re-establish Brazil as a colony.[85] The Brazilians refused to yield, and Prince Pedro decided to stand with them, declaring the country's independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822.[86] A month later, Prince Pedro was declared the first Emperor of Brazil, with the royal title of Dom Pedro I, resulting in the foundation of the Empire of Brazil.[87]
+
+The Brazilian War of Independence, which had already begun along this process, spread through the northern, northeastern regions and in Cisplatina province.[88] The last Portuguese soldiers surrendered on 8 March 1824;[89] Portugal officially recognized Brazil on 29 August 1825.[90]
+
+On 7 April 1831, worn down by years of administrative turmoil and political dissent with both liberal and conservative sides of politics, including an attempt of republican secession,[91] and unreconciled to the way that absolutists in Portugal had given in the succession of King John VI, Pedro I went to Portugal to reclaim his daughter's crown, abdicating the Brazilian throne in favor of his five-year-old son and heir (who thus became the Empire's second monarch, with the royal title of Dom Pedro II).[92]
+
+As the new Emperor could not exert his constitutional powers until he came of age, a regency was set up by the National Assembly.[93] In the absence of a charismatic figure who could represent a moderate face of power, during this period a series of localized rebellions took place, such as the Cabanagem in Grão-Pará Province, the Malê Revolt in Salvador da Bahia, the Balaiada (Maranhão), the Sabinada (Bahia), and the Ragamuffin War, which began in Rio Grande do Sul and was supported by Giuseppe Garibaldi. These emerged from the dissatisfaction of the provinces with the central power, coupled with old and latent social tensions peculiar to a vast, slaveholding and newly independent nation state.[94] This period of internal political and social upheaval, which included the Praieira revolt in Pernambuco, was overcome only at the end of the 1840s, years after the end of the regency, which occurred with the premature coronation of Pedro II in 1841.[95]
+
+During the last phase of the monarchy, internal political debate centered on the issue of slavery. The Atlantic slave trade was abandoned in 1850,[96] as a result of the British Aberdeen Act, but only in May 1888 after a long process of internal mobilization and debate for an ethical and legal dismantling of slavery in the country, was the institution formally abolished.[97]
+
+The foreign-affairs policies of the monarchy dealt with issues with the countries of the Southern Cone with whom Brazil had borders. Long after the Cisplatine War that resulted in independence for Uruguay,[98] Brazil won three international wars during the 58-year reign of Pedro II. These were the Platine War, the Uruguayan War and the devastating Paraguayan War, the largest war effort in Brazilian history.[99][100]
+
+Although there was no desire among the majority of Brazilians to change the country's form of government,[101] on 15 November 1889, in disagreement with the majority of Army officers, as well as with rural and financial elites (for different reasons), the monarchy was overthrown by a military coup.[102] 15 November is now Republic Day, a national holiday.[103]
+
+The early republican government was nothing more than a military dictatorship, with army dominating affairs both in Rio de Janeiro and in the states. Freedom of the press disappeared and elections were controlled by those in power.[104] Not until 1894, following an economic crisis and a military one, did civilians take power, remaining there until October 1930.[105][106][107]
+
+If in relation to its foreign policy, the country in this first republican period maintained a relative balance characterized by a success in resolving border disputes with neighboring countries,[108] only broken by the Acre War (1899–1902) and its involvement in World War I (1914–1918),[109][110][111] followed by a failed attempt to exert a prominent role in the League of Nations;[112] Internally, from the crisis of Encilhamento[113][114][115] and the Armada Revolts,[116] a prolonged cycle of financial, political and social instability began until the 1920s, keeping the country besieged by various rebellions, both civilian[117][118][119] and military.[120][121][122]
+
+Little by little, a cycle of general instability sparked by these crises undermined the regime to such an extent that in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate Getúlio Vargas, supported by most of the military, successfully led the October 1930 Coup.[123][124] Vargas and the military were supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed the Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers and replaced the states' governors with their own supporters.[125][126]
+
+In the 1930s, three failed attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power occurred. The first was the Constitutionalist Revolution in 1932, led by the Paulista oligarchy. The second was a Communist uprising in November 1935, and the last one a putsch attempt by local fascists in May 1938.[127][128][129] The 1935 uprising created a security crisis in which the Congress transferred more power to the executive. The 1937 coup d'état resulted in the cancellation of the 1938 election, formalized Vargas as dictator, beginning the Estado Novo era, which was noted for government brutality and censorship of the press.[130]
+
+Foreign policy during the Vargas years was marked by the antecedents[clarification needed] and World War II. Brazil remained neutral until August 1942, when the country entered on the allied side,[131][132] after suffering retaliation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, in a strategic dispute over the South Atlantic.[133] In addition to its participation in the battle of the Atlantic, Brazil also sent an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian campaign.[134]
+
+With the Allied victory in 1945 and the end of the Nazi-fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas's position became unsustainable and he was swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with democracy "reinstated" by the same army that had ended it 15 years earlier.[135] Vargas committed suicide in August 1954 amid a political crisis, after having returned to power by election in 1950.[136][137]
+
+Several brief interim governments followed Vargas's suicide.[138] Juscelino Kubitschek became president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory posture towards the political opposition that allowed him to govern without major crises.[139] The economy and industrial sector grew remarkably,[140] but his greatest achievement was the construction of the new capital city of Brasília, inaugurated in 1960.[141]
+
+Kubitschek's successor, Jânio Quadros, resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office.[142] His vice-president, João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political opposition[143] and was deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a military regime.[144]
+
+The new regime was intended to be transitory[145] but gradually closed in on itself and became a full dictatorship with the promulgation of the Fifth Institutional Act in 1968.[146] Oppression was not limited to those who resorted to guerrilla tactics to fight the regime, but also reached institutional opponents, artists, journalists and other members of civil society,[147][148] inside and outside the country through the infamous "Operation Condor".[149][150] Despite its brutality, like other authoritarian regimes, due to an economic boom, known as an "economic miracle", the regime reached a peak in popularity in the early 1970s.[151]
+
+Slowly, however, the wear and tear of years of dictatorial power that had not slowed the repression, even after the defeat of the leftist guerrillas,[152] plus the inability to deal with the economic crises of the period and popular pressure, made an opening policy inevitable, which from the regime side was led by Generals Ernesto Geisel and Golbery do Couto e Silva.[153] With the enactment of the Amnesty Law in 1979, Brazil began a slow return to democracy, which was completed during the 1980s.[95]
+
+Civilians returned to power in 1985 when José Sarney assumed the presidency. He became unpopular during his tenure through failure to control the economic crisis and hyperinflation he inherited from the military regime.[154] Sarney's unsuccessful government led to the election in 1989 of the almost-unknown Fernando Collor, subsequently impeached by the National Congress in 1992.[155]
+
+Collor was succeeded by his vice-president, Itamar Franco, who appointed Fernando Henrique Cardoso Minister of Finance. In 1994, Cardoso produced a highly successful Plano Real,[156] that, after decades of failed economic plans made by previous governments attempting to curb hyperinflation, finally stabilized the Brazilian economy.[157][158] Cardoso won the 1994 election, and again in 1998.[159]
+
+The peaceful transition of power from Cardoso to his main opposition leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006), was seen as proof that Brazil had achieved a long-sought political stability.[160][161] However, sparked by indignation and frustrations accumulated over decades from corruption, police brutality, inefficiencies of the political establishment and public service, numerous peaceful protests erupted in Brazil from the middle of first term of Dilma Rousseff, who had succeeded Lula after winning election in 2010.[162][163]
+
+Enhanced by political and economic crises with evidence of involvement by politicians from all the primary political parties in several bribery and tax evasion schemes,[164][165] with large street protests for and against her,[166] Rousseff was impeached by the Brazilian Congress in 2016.[167][168] In 2017, the Supreme Court asked for the investigation of 71 Brazilian lawmakers and nine ministers in President Michel Temer's cabinet allegedly linked to the Petrobras corruption scandal.[169] President Temer is himself accused of corruption.[170] In 2018, 62% of the population on a poll claimed that corruption was Brazil's biggest problem.[171]
+
+On 25 February 2020, the COVID-19 virus was confirmed to have spread to Brazil on 25 February 2020.[172] On 19 June 2020, the country reported its 1 millionth case; at this time, there had been nearly 49,000 reported deaths.[173][174] As of July 2020, Brazil has the second-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world behind the US, but ahead of India.
+
+Brazil occupies a large area along the eastern coast of South America and includes much of the continent's interior,[175] sharing land borders with Uruguay to the south; Argentina and Paraguay to the southwest; Bolivia and Peru to the west; Colombia to the northwest; and Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and France (French overseas region of French Guiana) to the north. It shares a border with every South American country except Ecuador and Chile.[15]
+
+It also encompasses a number of oceanic archipelagos, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz.[15] Its size, relief, climate, and natural resources make Brazil geographically diverse.[175] Including its Atlantic islands, Brazil lies between latitudes 6°N and 34°S, and longitudes 28° and 74°W.[15]
+
+Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, and third largest in the Americas, with a total area of 8,515,767.049 km2 (3,287,956 sq mi),[176] including 55,455 km2 (21,411 sq mi) of water.[15] It spans four time zones; from UTC−5 comprising the state of Acre and the westernmost portion of Amazonas, to UTC−4 in the western states, to UTC−3 in the eastern states (the national time) and UTC−2 in the Atlantic islands.[177]
+
+Brazil is the only country in the world that has the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn running through it. Brazilian topography is also diverse and includes hills, mountains, plains, highlands, and scrublands. Much of the terrain lies between 200 metres (660 ft) and 800 metres (2,600 ft) in elevation.[178] The main upland area occupies most of the southern half of the country.[178] The northwestern parts of the plateau consist of broad, rolling terrain broken by low, rounded hills.[178]
+
+The southeastern section is more rugged, with a complex mass of ridges and mountain ranges reaching elevations of up to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft).[178] These ranges include the Mantiqueira and Espinhaço mountains and the Serra do Mar.[178]
+
+In the north, the Guiana Highlands form a major drainage divide, separating rivers that flow south into the Amazon Basin from rivers that empty into the Orinoco River system, in Venezuela, to the north. The highest point in Brazil is the Pico da Neblina at 2,994 metres (9,823 ft), and the lowest is the Atlantic Ocean.[15]
+
+Brazil has a dense and complex system of rivers, one of the world's most extensive, with eight major drainage basins, all of which drain into the Atlantic.[179] Major rivers include the Amazon (the world's second-longest river and the largest in terms of volume of water), the Paraná and its major tributary the Iguaçu (which includes the Iguazu Falls), the Negro, São Francisco, Xingu, Madeira and Tapajós rivers.[179]
+
+The climate of Brazil comprises a wide range of weather conditions across a large area and varied topography, but most of the country is tropical.[15] According to the Köppen system, Brazil hosts six major climatic subtypes: desert, equatorial, tropical, semiarid, oceanic and subtropical. The different climatic conditions produce environments ranging from equatorial rainforests in the north and semiarid deserts in the northeast, to temperate coniferous forests in the south and tropical savannas in central Brazil.[180] Many regions have starkly different microclimates.[181][182]
+
+An equatorial climate characterizes much of northern Brazil. There is no real dry season, but there are some variations in the period of the year when most rain falls.[180] Temperatures average 25 °C (77 °F),[182] with more significant temperature variation between night and day than between seasons.[181]
+
+Over central Brazil rainfall is more seasonal, characteristic of a savanna climate.[181] This region is as extensive as the Amazon basin but has a very different climate as it lies farther south at a higher altitude.[180] In the interior northeast, seasonal rainfall is even more extreme.[183]
+
+The semiarid climatic region generally receives less than 800 millimetres (31.5 in) of rain,[183] most of which generally falls in a period of three to five months of the year[184] and occasionally less than this, creating long periods of drought.[181] Brazil's 1877–78 Grande Seca (Great Drought), the worst in Brazil's history,[185] caused approximately half a million deaths.[186] A similarly devastating drought occurred in 1915.[187]
+
+South of Bahia, near the coasts, and more southerly most of the state of São Paulo, the distribution of rainfall changes, with rain falling throughout the year.[180] The south enjoys subtropical conditions, with cool winters and average annual temperatures not exceeding 18 °C (64.4 °F);[182] winter frosts and snowfall are not rare in the highest areas.[180][181]
+
+Brazil's large territory comprises different ecosystems, such as the Amazon rainforest, recognized as having the greatest biological diversity in the world,[188] with the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado, sustaining the greatest biodiversity.[189] In the south, the Araucaria pine forest grows under temperate conditions.[189] The rich wildlife of Brazil reflects the variety of natural habitats. Scientists estimate that the total number of plant and animal species in Brazil could approach four million, mostly invertebrates.[189]
+
+Larger mammals include carnivores pumas, jaguars, ocelots, rare bush dogs, and foxes, and herbivores peccaries, tapirs, anteaters, sloths, opossums, and armadillos. Deer are plentiful in the south, and many species of New World monkeys are found in the northern rain forests.[189][190] Concern for the environment has grown in response to global interest in environmental issues.[191] Brazil's Amazon Basin is home to an extremely diverse array of fish species, including the red-bellied piranha.
+
+By 2013, Brazil's "dramatic policy-driven reduction in Amazon Basin deforestation" was a "global exception in terms of forest change", according to scientific journal Science.[192]:852 From 2003 to 2011, compared to all other countries in the world, Brazil had the "largest decline in annual forest loss", as indicated in the study using high-resolution satellite maps showing global forest cover changes.[192]:850 The annual loss of forest cover decreased from a 2003/2004 record high of more than 40,000 square kilometres (4,000×10^3 ha; 9.9×10^6 acres; 15,000 sq mi) to a 2010/2011 low of under 20,000 square kilometres (2,000×10^3 ha; 4.9×10^6 acres; 7,700 sq mi),[192]:850 reversing widespread deforestation[192]:852 from the 1970s to 2003.
+
+However, in 2019, when the Bolsonaro government came to power, the rate of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest increased sharply threatening to reach a tipping point after it the forest will collapse, having severe consequences for the world. (see Tipping points in the climate system)  This can also complicate the trade agreement with the European Union[193] Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Bolsonaro criticised what he described as sensational reporting in the international media. "It is a fallacy to say that the Amazon is the heritage of humankind, and a misconception, as confirmed by scientists, to say that our Amazonian forests are the lungs of world. Using these fallacies, certain countries instead of helping, embarked on the media lies and behaved in a disrespectful manner and with a colonialist spirit." he said. President Jair Bolsonaro asserted Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon.[194]
+
+According to a 2008 GreenPeace article, the natural heritage of Brazil is severely threatened by cattle ranching and agriculture, logging, mining, resettlement, oil and gas extraction, over-fishing, wildlife trade, dams and infrastructure, water pollution, climate change, fire, and invasive species.[188] In many areas of the country, the natural environment is threatened by development.[195] The construction of highways has opened up previously remote areas for agriculture and settlement; dams have flooded valleys and inundated wildlife habitats; and mines have scarred and polluted the landscape.[191][196] At least 70 dams are said to be planned for the Amazon region, including the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.[197] In summer 2019, 2 states in Brazil Paraná and Santa Catarina banned fracking, what will have positive effects on the climate and water quality, because the shale gas and shale oil reserves in the state of Parana are the larger in the southern hemisphere.[198][199]
+
+The form of government is a democratic federative republic, with a presidential system.[17] The president is both head of state and head of government of the Union and is elected for a four-year term,[17] with the possibility of re-election for a second successive term. The current president is Jair Bolsonaro. The previous president, Michel Temer, replaced Dilma Rousseff after her impeachment.[200] The President appoints the Ministers of State, who assist in government.[17] Legislative houses in each political entity are the main source of law in Brazil. The National Congress is the Federation's bicameral legislature, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. Judiciary authorities exercise jurisdictional duties almost exclusively. Brazil is a democracy, according to the Democracy Index 2010.[201]
+
+The political-administrative organization of the Federative Republic of Brazil comprises the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities.[17] The Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities, are the "spheres of government". The federation is set on five fundamental principles:[17] sovereignty, citizenship, dignity of human beings, the social values of labor and freedom of enterprise, and political pluralism. The classic tripartite branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial under a checks and balances system) are formally established by the Constitution.[17] The executive and legislative are organized independently in all three spheres of government, while the judiciary is organized only at the federal and state and Federal District spheres.
+
+All members of the executive and legislative branches are directly elected.[202][203][204] Judges and other judicial officials are appointed after passing entry exams.[202] For most of its democratic history, Brazil has had a multi-party system, proportional representation. Voting is compulsory for the literate between 18 and 70 years old and optional for illiterates and those between 16 and 18 or beyond 70.[17]
+
+Together with several smaller parties, four political parties stand out: Workers' Party (PT), Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) and Democrats (DEM). Fifteen political parties are represented in Congress. It is common for politicians to switch parties, and thus the proportion of congressional seats held by particular parties changes regularly.[205] Almost all governmental and administrative functions are exercised by authorities and agencies affiliated to the Executive.
+
+Brazilian law is based on the civil law legal system[206] and civil law concepts prevail over common law practice. Most of Brazilian law is codified, although non-codified statutes also represent a substantial part, playing a complementary role. Court decisions set out interpretive guidelines; however, they are seldom binding on other specific cases. Doctrinal works and the works of academic jurists have strong influence in law creation and in law cases.
+
+The legal system is based on the Federal Constitution, promulgated on 5 October 1988, and the fundamental law of Brazil. All other legislation and court decisions must conform to its rules.[207] As of April 2007[update], there have been 53 amendments. States have their own constitutions, which must not contradict the Federal Constitution.[208] Municipalities and the Federal District have "organic laws" (leis orgânicas), which act in a similar way to constitutions.[209] Legislative entities are the main source of statutes, although in certain matters judiciary and executive bodies may enact legal norms.[17] Jurisdiction is administered by the judiciary entities, although in rare situations the Federal Constitution allows the Federal Senate to pass on legal judgments.[17] There are also specialized military, labor, and electoral courts.[17] The highest court is the Supreme Federal Court.
+
+This system has been criticized over the last few decades for the slow pace of decision-making. Lawsuits on appeal may take several years to resolve, and in some cases more than a decade elapses before definitive rulings.[210] Nevertheless, the Supreme Federal Tribunal was the first court in the world to transmit its sessions on television, and also via YouTube.[211][212] More recently, in December 2009, the Supreme Court adopted Twitter to display items on the day planner of the ministers, to inform the daily actions of the Court and the most important decisions made by them.[213]
+
+The armed forces of Brazil are the largest in Latin America by active personnel and the largest in terms of military equipment.[214] It consists of the Brazilian Army (including the Army Aviation Command), the Brazilian Navy (including the Marine Corps and Naval Aviation), and the Brazilian Air Force. Brazil's conscription policy gives it one of the world's largest military forces, estimated at more than 1.6 million reservists annually.[215]
+
+Numbering close to 236,000 active personnel,[216] the Brazilian Army has the largest number of armored vehicles in South America, including armored transports and tanks.[217] It is also unique in Latin America for its large, elite forces specializing in unconventional missions, the Brazilian Special Operations Command,[218][219][220] and the versatile Strategic Rapid Action Force, made up of highly mobilized and prepared Special Operations Brigade, Infantry Brigade Parachutist,[221][222] 1st Jungle Infantry Battalion (Airmobile)[223] and 12th Brigade Light Infantry (Airmobile)[224] able to act anywhere in the country, on short notice, to counter external aggression.[225] The states' Military Police and the Military Firefighters Corps are described as an ancillary forces of the Army by the constitution, but are under the control of each state's governor.[17]
+
+Brazil's navy, the second-largest in the Americas, once operated some of the most powerful warships in the world with the two Minas Geraes-class dreadnoughts, which sparked a South American dreadnought race between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.[226] Today, it is a green water force and has a group of specialized elite in retaking ships and naval facilities, GRUMEC, unit specially trained to protect Brazilian oil platforms along its coast.[227] It is the only navy in Latin America that operates an aircraft carrier, PHM Atlantico,[228] and one of the ten navies of the world to operate one.[217]
+
+The Air Force is the largest in Latin America and has about 700 manned aircraft in service and effective about 67,000 personnel.[229]
+
+Brazil has not been invaded since 1865 during the Paraguayan War.[230] Additionally, Brazil has no contested territorial disputes with any of its neighbors[231] and neither does it have rivalries, like Chile and Bolivia have with each other.[232][233] The Brazilian military has also three times intervened militarily to overthrow the Brazilian government.[234] It has built a tradition of participating in UN peacekeeping missions such as in Haiti, East Timor and Central African Republic.[235] Brazil signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[236]
+
+Brazil's international relations are based on Article 4 of the Federal Constitution, which establishes non-intervention, self-determination, international cooperation and the peaceful settlement of conflicts as the guiding principles of Brazil's relationship with other countries and multilateral organizations.[237]
+
+According to the Constitution, the President has ultimate authority over foreign policy, while the Congress is tasked with reviewing and considering all diplomatic nominations and international treaties, as well as legislation relating to Brazilian foreign policy.[238]
+
+Brazil's foreign policy is a by-product of the country's position as a regional power in Latin America, a leader among developing countries, and an emerging world power.[239] Brazilian foreign policy has generally been based on the principles of multilateralism, peaceful dispute settlement, and non-intervention in the affairs of other countries.[240]
+
+Brazil is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language.
+
+An increasingly well-developed tool of Brazil's foreign policy is providing aid as a donor to other developing countries.[241] Brazil does not just use its growing economic strength to provide financial aid, but it also provides high levels of expertise and most importantly of all, a quiet non-confrontational diplomacy to improve governance levels.[241] Total aid is estimated to be around $1 billion per year, which includes:[241]
+
+In addition, Brazil manages a peacekeeping mission in Haiti ($350 million) and makes in-kind contributions to the World Food Programme ($300 million).[241] This is in addition to humanitarian assistance and contributions to multilateral development agencies. The scale of this aid places it on par with China and India.[241] The Brazilian South-South aid has been described as a "global model in waiting."[242]
+
+In Brazil, the Constitution establishes five different police agencies for law enforcement: Federal Police Department, Federal Highway Police, Federal Railroad Police, Military Police and Civil Police. Of these, the first three are affiliated with federal authorities and the last two are subordinate to state governments. All police forces are the responsibility of the executive branch of any of the federal or state powers.[17] The National Public Security Force also can act in public disorder situations arising anywhere in the country.[243]
+
+The country still has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide. In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the number of 32 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest rates of homicide of the world.[244] The number considered tolerable by the WHO is about 10 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[245] In 2018, Brazil had a record 63,880 murders.[246] However, there are differences between the crime rates in the Brazilian states. While in São Paulo the homicide rate registered in 2013 was 10.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, in Alagoas it was 64.7 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[247]
+
+Brazil also has high levels of incarceration and the third largest prison population in the world (behind only China and the United States), with an estimated total of approximately 700,000 prisoners around the country (June 2014), an increase of about 300% compared to the index registered in 1992.[248] The high number of prisoners eventually overloaded the Brazilian prison system, leading to a shortfall of about 200,000 accommodations.[249]
+
+Brazil is a federation composed of 26 states, one federal district, and the 5570 municipalities.[17] States have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Federal government. They have a governor and a unicameral legislative body elected directly by their voters. They also have independent Courts of Law for common justice. Despite this, states have much less autonomy to create their own laws than in the United States. For example, criminal and civil laws can be voted by only the federal bicameral Congress and are uniform throughout the country.[17]
+
+The states and the federal district may be grouped into regions: Northern, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast and Southern. The Brazilian regions are merely geographical, not political or administrative divisions, and they do not have any specific form of government. Although defined by law, Brazilian regions are useful mainly for statistical purposes, and also to define the distribution of federal funds in development projects.
+
+Municipalities, as the states, have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Union and state government.[17] Each has a mayor and an elected legislative body, but no separate Court of Law. Indeed, a Court of Law organized by the state can encompass many municipalities in a single justice administrative division called comarca (county).
+
+Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America, the world's ninth largest economy and the eighth largest in purchasing power parity (PPP) according to 2018 estimates. Brazil has a mixed economy with abundant natural resources. After rapid growth in preceding decades, the country entered an ongoing recession in 2014 amid a political corruption scandal and nationwide protests.
+
+Its Gross domestic product (PPP) per capita was $15,919 in 2017[250] putting Brazil in the 77th position according to IMF data. Active in agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service sectors Brazil has a labor force of over 107 million (ranking 6th worldwide) and unemployment of 6.2% (ranking 64th worldwide).[251]
+
+The country has been expanding its presence in international financial and commodities markets, and is one of a group of four emerging economies called the BRIC countries.[252] Brazil has been the world's largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24]
+
+Brazil's diversified economy includes agriculture, industry, and a wide range of services.[254] Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing accounted for 5.1% of the GDP in 2007.[255] Brazil is one of the largest producer of oranges, coffee, sugar cane, cassava and sisal, soybeans and papayas.[256]
+
+Industry in Brazil – from automobiles, steel and petrochemicals to computers, aircraft and consumer durables – accounted for 30.8% of the gross domestic product.[255] Industry is highly concentrated in metropolitan São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte.[257] Brazil has become the fourth largest car market in the world.[258] Major export products include aircraft, electrical equipment, automobiles, ethanol, textiles, footwear, iron ore, steel, coffee, orange juice, soybeans and corned beef.[259] In total, Brazil ranks 23rd worldwide in value of exports.
+
+Brazil pegged its currency, the real, to the U.S. dollar in 1994. However, after the East Asian financial crisis, the Russian default in 1998[260] and the series of adverse financial events that followed it, the Central Bank of Brazil temporarily changed its monetary policy to a managed float regime[261] scheme while undergoing a currency crisis, until definitively changing the exchange regime to free-float in January 1999.[262]
+
+Brazil received an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package in mid-2002 of $30.4 billion,[263] a record sum at the time. Brazil's central bank repaid the IMF loan in 2005, although it was not due to be repaid until 2006.[264] One of the issues the Central Bank of Brazil recently dealt with was an excess of speculative short-term capital inflows to the country, which may have contributed to a fall in the value of the U.S. dollar against the real during that period.[265] Nonetheless, foreign direct investment (FDI), related to long-term, less speculative investment in production, is estimated to be $193.8 billion for 2007.[266] Inflation monitoring and control currently plays a major part in the Central bank's role in setting short-term interest rates as a monetary policy measure.[267]
+
+Between 1993 and 2010, 7012 mergers and acquisitions with a total known value of $707 billion with the involvement of Brazilian firms were announced.[268] The year 2010 was a new record in terms of value with US$115 billion in transactions. The largest transaction with involvement of Brazilian companies was the Cia. Vale do Rio Doce acquisition of Inco in a tender offer valued at US$18.9 billion.
+
+Corruption costs Brazil almost $41 billion a year alone in 2010, with 69.9% of the country's firms identifying the issue as a major constraint in successfully penetrating the global market.[269] Local government corruption is so prevalent that voters perceive it as a problem only if it surpasses certain levels, and only if a local media e.g. a radio station is present to divulge the findings of corruption charges.[270] Initiatives, like this exposure, strengthen awareness which is indicated by the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index; ranking Brazil 69th out of 178 countries in 2012.[271]
+The purchasing power in Brazil is eroded by the so-called Brazil cost.[272]
+
+Brazil also has a large cooperative sector that provides 50% of the food in the country.[273] The world's largest healthcare cooperative Unimed is also located in Brazil, and accounts for 32% of the healthcare insurance market in the country.[274]
+
+Brazil is the world's tenth largest energy consumer with much of its energy coming from renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity and ethanol; the Itaipu Dam is the world's largest hydroelectric plant by energy generation.[275] The first car with an ethanol engine was produced in 1978 and the first airplane engine running on ethanol in 2005.[276]
+
+Recent oil discoveries in the Pre-salt layer have opened the door for a large increase in oil production.[277] The governmental agencies responsible for the energy policy are the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the National Council for Energy Policy, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, and the National Agency of Electricity.[278]
+
+Tourism in Brazil is a growing sector and key to the economy of several regions of the country. The country had 6.36 million visitors in 2015, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the main destination in South America and second in Latin America after Mexico.[280] Revenues from international tourists reached US$6 billion in 2010, showing a recovery from the 2008–2009 economic crisis.[281] Historical records of 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts were reached in 2011.[282][283]
+
+Natural areas are its most popular tourism product, a combination of ecotourism with leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as cultural tourism. Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, cultural tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to São Paulo.[284]
+
+In terms of the 2015 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Brazil ranked in the 28st place at the world's level, third in the Americas, after Canada and United States.[285][286]
+
+Brazil's main competitive advantages are its natural resources, which ranked 1st on this criteria out of all countries considered, and ranked 23rd for its cultural resources, due to its many World Heritage sites. The TTCI report notes Brazil's main weaknesses: its ground transport infrastructure remains underdeveloped (ranked 116th), with the quality of roads ranking in 105th place; and the country continues to suffer from a lack of price competitiveness (ranked 114th), due in part to high ticket taxes and airport charges, as well as high prices and high taxation. Safety and security have improved significantly: 75th in 2011, up from 128th in 2008.[286]
+
+According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), international travel to Brazil accelerated in 2000, particularly during 2004 and 2005. However, in 2006 a slow-down took place, and international arrivals had almost no growth in 2007–08.[287][288][289]
+
+In spite of this trend, revenues from international tourism continued to rise, from USD 4 billion in 2005 to 5 billion in 2007, despite 330 000 fewer arrivals. This favorable trend is the result of the strong devaluation of the US dollar against the Brazilian Real, which began in 2004, but which makes Brazil a more expensive international destination.[290]
+
+This trend changed in 2009, when both visitors and revenues fell as a result of the Great Recession of 2008–09.[291] By 2010, the industry had recovered, and arrivals grew above 2006 levels to 5.2 million international visitors, and receipts from these visitors reached US$6 billion.[281] In 2011 the historical record was reached with 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts.[282][283]
+
+Despite continuing record-breaking international tourism revenues, the number of Brazilian tourists travelling overseas has been growing steadily since 2003, resulting in a net negative foreign exchange balance, as more money is spent abroad by Brazilians than comes in as receipts from international tourists visiting Brazil.[292]
+
+Tourism expenditures abroad grew from US$5.8 billion in 2006, to US$8.2 billion in 2007, a 42% increase, representing a net deficit of US$3.3 billion in 2007, as compared to US$1.5 billion in 2006, a 125% increase from the previous year.[292] This trend is caused by Brazilians taking advantage of the stronger Real to travel and making relatively cheaper expenditures abroad.[292] Brazilians traveling overseas in 2006 represented 4% of the country's population.[293]
+
+In 2005, tourism contributed with 3.2% of the country's revenues from exports of goods and services, and represented 7% of direct and indirect employment in the Brazilian economy.[294] In 2006 direct employment in the sector reached 1.9 million people.[295]
+
+Domestic tourism is a fundamental market segment for the industry, as 51 million people traveled throughout the country in 2005,[296] and direct revenues from Brazilian tourists reached US$22 billion,[297] 5.6 times more receipts than international tourists in 2005.
+
+In 2005, Rio de Janeiro, Foz do Iguaçu, São Paulo, Florianópolis and Salvador were the most visited cities by international tourists for leisure trips. The most popular destinations for business trips were São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre.[298] In 2006 Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza were the most popular destinations for business trips.
+
+Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies.[299] Brazil's most esteemed technological hubs are the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Butantan Institute, the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Center, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the INPE.[300][301]
+
+The Brazilian Space Agency has the most advanced space program in Latin America, with significant resources to launch vehicles, and manufacture of satellites.[302] Owner of relative technological sophistication, the country develops submarines, aircraft, as well as being involved in space research, having a Vehicle Launch Center Light and being the only country in the Southern Hemisphere the integrate team building International Space Station (ISS).[303]
+
+The country is also a pioneer in the search for oil in deep water, from where it extracts 73% of its reserves.
+Uranium is enriched at the Resende Nuclear Fuel Factory, mostly for research purposes (as Brazil obtains 88% from its electricity from hydroelectricity[304]) and the country's first nuclear submarine was delivered in 2015 (by France).[305]
+
+Brazil is one of the three countries in Latin America[306] with an operational Synchrotron Laboratory, a research facility on physics, chemistry, material science and life sciences, and Brazil is the only Latin American country to have a semiconductor company with its own fabrication plant, the CEITEC.[307] According to the Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010 of the World Economic Forum, Brazil is the world's 61st largest developer of information technology.[308]
+
+Brazil also has a large number of outstanding scientific personalities. Among the most renowned Brazilian inventors are priests Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Landell de Moura and Francisco João de Azevedo, besides Alberto Santos-Dumont,[309] Evaristo Conrado Engelberg,[310] Manuel Dias de Abreu,[311] Andreas Pavel[312] and Nélio José Nicolai.[313]
+
+Brazilian science is represented by the likes of César Lattes (Brazilian physicist Pathfinder of Pi Meson),[314] Mário Schenberg (considered the greatest theoretical physicist of Brazil),[315] José Leite Lopes (only Brazilian physicist holder of the UNESCO Science Prize),[316] Artur Ávila (the first Latin American winner of the Fields Medal)[317] and Fritz Müller (pioneer in factual support of the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin).[318]
+
+Brazilian roads are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic. The road system totaled 1.98 million km (1.23 million mi) in 2002. The total of paved roads increased from 35,496 km (22,056 mi) (22,056 mi) in 1967 to 184,140 km (114,419 mi) (114,425 mi) in 2002.[321]
+
+The first investments in road infrastructure have given up in the 1920s, the government of Washington Luis, being pursued in the governments of Getúlio Vargas and Eurico Gaspar Dutra.[322] President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–61), who designed and built the capital Brasília, was another supporter of highways. Kubitschek was responsible for the installation of major car manufacturers in the country (Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors arrived in Brazil during his rule) and one of the points used to attract them was support for the construction of highways. With the implementation of Fiat in 1976 ending an automobile market closed loop, from the end of the 1990s the country has received large foreign direct investments installing in its territory other major car manufacturers and utilities, such as Iveco, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Hyundai, Toyota among others.[323] Brazil is the seventh most important country in the auto industry.[324]
+
+Brazil's railway system has been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction. The total length of railway track was 30,875 km (19,185 mi) in 2002, as compared with 31,848 km (19,789 mi) in 1970. Most of the railway system belonged to the Federal Railroad Corporation RFFSA, which was privatized in 2007.[325] The São Paulo Metro was the first underground transit system in Brazil. The other metro systems are in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Teresina and Fortaleza.
+
+The country has an extensive rail network of 28,538 kilometres (17,733 miles) in length, the tenth largest network in the world.[326] Currently, the Brazilian government, unlike the past, seeks to encourage this mode of transport; an example of this incentive is the project of the Rio–São Paulo high-speed rail, that will connect the two main cities of the country to carry passengers.
+
+There are about 2,500 airports in Brazil, including landing fields: the second largest number in the world, after the United States.[327] São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, near São Paulo, is the largest and busiest airport with nearly 20 million passengers annually, while handling the vast majority of commercial traffic for the country.[328]
+
+For freight transport waterways are of importance, e.g. the industrial zones of Manaus can be reached only by means of the Solimões–Amazonas waterway (3,250 kilometres (2,020 miles) with 6 metres (20 feet) minimum depth). The country also has 50,000 kilometres (31,000 miles) of waterways.[326]
+
+Coastal shipping links widely separated parts of the country. Bolivia and Paraguay have been given free ports at Santos. Of the 36 deep-water ports, Santos, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Paranaguá, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Vitória, Suape, Manaus and São Francisco do Sul are the most important.[329] Bulk carriers have to wait up to 18 days before being serviced, container ships 36.3 hours on average.[330]
+
+The Brazilian public health system, the Unified Health System (SUS), is managed and provided by all levels of government,[332] being the largest system of this type in the world.[333] On the other hand, private healthcare systems play a complementary role.[334]
+
+Public health services are universal and offered to all citizens of the country for free. However, the construction and maintenance of health centers and hospitals are financed by taxes, and the country spends about 9% of its GDP on expenditures in the area. In 2012, Brazil had 1.85 doctors and 2.3 hospital beds for every 1,000 inhabitants.[335][336]
+
+Despite all the progress made since the creation of the universal health care system in 1988, there are still several public health problems in Brazil. In 2006, the main points to be solved were the high infant (2.51%) and maternal mortality rates (73.1 deaths per 1000 births).[337]
+
+The number of deaths from noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (151.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and cancer (72.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), also has a considerable impact on the health of the Brazilian population. Finally, external but preventable factors such as car accidents, violence and suicide caused 14.9% of all deaths in the country.[337] The Brazilian health system was ranked 125th among the 191 countries evaluated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000.[338]
+
+The Federal Constitution and the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education determine that the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities must manage and organize their respective education systems. Each of these public educational systems is responsible for its own maintenance, which manages funds as well as the mechanisms and funding sources. The constitution reserves 25% of the state budget and 18% of federal taxes and municipal taxes for education.[339]
+
+According to the IBGE, in 2011, the literacy rate of the population was 90.4%, meaning that 13 million (9.6% of population) people are still illiterate in the country; functional illiteracy has reached 21.6% of the population.[340] Illiteracy is highest in the Northeast, where 19.9% of the population is illiterate.[341]
+
+Higher education starts with undergraduate or sequential courses, which may offer different options of specialization in academic or professional careers. Depending on the choice, students can improve their educational background with courses of post-graduate studies or broad sense.
+
+Attending an institution of higher education is required by Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education. Kindergarten, elementary and medium education are required of all students, provided the student does not hold any disability, whether physical, mental, visual or hearing.
+
+The University of São Paulo is the second best university in Latin America, according to recent 2019 QS World University Rankings. Of the top 20 Latin American universities, eight are Brazilian. Most of them are public.[342]
+
+Brazil's private institutions tend to be more exclusive and offer better quality education, so many high-income families send their children there. The result is a segregated educational system that reflects extreme income disparities and reinforces social inequality. However, efforts to change this are making impacts.[343]
+
+The Brazilian press was officially born in Rio de Janeiro on 13 May 1808 with the creation of the Royal Printing National Press by the Prince Regent Dom João.[345]
+
+The Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, the first newspaper published in the country, began to circulate on 10 September 1808.[346] The largest newspapers nowadays are Folha de S.Paulo, Super Notícia, O Globo and O Estado de S. Paulo.[347]
+
+Radio broadcasting began on 7 September 1922, with a speech by then President Pessoa, and was formalized on 20 April 1923 with the creation of "Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro."[348]
+
+Television in Brazil began officially on 18 September 1950, with the founding of TV Tupi by Assis Chateaubriand.[349] Since then television has grown in the country, creating large commercial broadcast networks such as Globo, SBT, RecordTV, Bandeirantes and RedeTV. Today it is the most important factor in popular culture of Brazilian society, indicated by research showing that as much as 67%[350][351] of the general population follow the same daily soap opera broadcast. Digital Television, using the SBTVD standard (based on the Japanese standard ISDB-T), was adopted on 29 June 2006 and launched on 2 November 2007.[352] In May 2010, the Brazilian government launched TV Brasil Internacional, an international television station, initially broadcasting to 49 countries.[353] Commercial television channels broadcast internationally include Globo Internacional, RecordTV Internacional and Band Internacional.
+
+The population of Brazil, as recorded by the 2008 PNAD, was approximately 190 million[356] (22.31 inhabitants per square kilometre or 57.8/sq mi), with a ratio of men to women of 0.95:1[357] and 83.75% of the population defined as urban.[358] The population is heavily concentrated in the Southeastern (79.8 million inhabitants) and Northeastern (53.5 million inhabitants) regions, while the two most extensive regions, the Center-West and the North, which together make up 64.12% of the Brazilian territory, have a total of only 29.1 million inhabitants.
+
+The first census in Brazil was carried out in 1872 and recorded a population of 9,930,478.[359] From 1880 to 1930, 4 million Europeans arrived.[360] Brazil's population increased significantly between 1940 and 1970, because of a decline in the mortality rate, even though the birth rate underwent a slight decline. In the 1940s the annual population growth rate was 2.4%, rising to 3.0% in the 1950s and remaining at 2.9% in the 1960s, as life expectancy rose from 44 to 54 years[361] and to 72.6 years in 2007.[362]
+It has been steadily falling since the 1960s, from 3.04% per year between 1950 and 1960 to 1.05% in 2008 and is expected to fall to a negative value of –0.29% by 2050[363] thus completing the demographic transition.[364]
+
+In 2008, the illiteracy rate was 11.48%[365] and among the youth (ages 15–19) 1.74%. It was highest (20.30%) in the Northeast, which had a large proportion of rural poor.[366] Illiteracy was high (24.18%) among the rural population and lower (9.05%) among the urban population.[367]
+
+According to the National Research by Household Sample (PNAD) of 2008, 48.43% of the population (about 92 million) described themselves as White; 43.80% (about 83 million) as Pardo (brown), 6.84% (about 13 million) as Black; 0.58% (about 1.1 million) as Asian; and 0.28% (about 536 thousand) as Amerindian (officially called indígena, Indigenous), while 0.07% (about 130 thousand) did not declare their race.[369]
+
+In 2007, the National Indian Foundation estimated that Brazil has 67 different uncontacted tribes, up from their estimate of 40 in 2005. Brazil is believed to have the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world.[370]
+
+Since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, considerable genetic mixing between Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans has taken place in all regions of the country (with European ancestry being dominant nationwide according to the vast majority of all autosomal studies undertaken covering the entire population, accounting for between 65% to 77%).[371][372][373][374]
+
+Race and ethnicity in Brazil[375][376][377]
+
+Brazilian society is more markedly divided by social class lines, although a high income disparity is found between race groups, so racism and classism can be conflated. Socially significant closeness to one racial group is taken in account more in the basis of appearance (phenotypes) rather than ancestry, to the extent that full siblings can pertain to different "racial" groups.[378] Socioeconomic factors are also significant, because a minority of pardos are likely to start declaring themselves White or Black if socially upward.[379] Skin color and facial features do not line quite well with ancestry (usually, Afro-Brazilians are evenly mixed and European ancestry is dominant in Whites and pardos with a significant non-European contribution, but the individual variation is great).[374][380][381][382]
+
+The brown population (officially called pardo in Portuguese, also colloquially moreno)[383][384] is a broad category that includes caboclos (assimilated Amerindians in general, and descendants of Whites and Natives), mulatos (descendants of primarily Whites and Afro-Brazilians) and cafuzos (descendants of Afro-Brazilians and Natives).[383][384][385][386][387] People of considerable Amerindian ancestry form the majority of the population in the Northern, Northeastern and Center-Western regions.[388]
+
+Higher percents of Blacks, mulattoes and tri-racials can be found in the eastern coast of the Northeastern region from Bahia to Paraíba[387][389] and also in northern Maranhão,[390][391] southern Minas Gerais[392] and in eastern Rio de Janeiro.[387][392] From the 19th century, Brazil opened its borders to immigration. About five million people from over 60 countries migrated to Brazil between 1808 and 1972, most of them of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arab origin.[393][394]. Brazil has the second largest Jewish community in Latin America making up 0.06% of its population.[395]
+
+Religion in Brazil (2010 Census)
+
+Religion in Brazil (2020 estimate by Datafolha) [396]
+
+Roman Catholicism is the country's predominant faith. Brazil has the world's largest Catholic population.[397][398] According to the 2010 Demographic Census (the PNAD survey does not inquire about religion), 64.63% of the population followed Roman Catholicism; 22.2% Protestantism; 2.0% Kardecist spiritism; 3.2% other religions, undeclared or undetermined; while 8.0% have no religion.[5]
+
+Religion in Brazil was formed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of enslaved African peoples and indigenous peoples.[399]. This confluence of faiths during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil led to the development of a diverse array of syncretistic practices within the overarching umbrella of Brazilian Catholic Church, characterized by traditional Portuguese festivities,[400] and in some instances, Allan Kardec's Spiritism (a religion which incorporates elements of spiritualism and Christianity). Religious pluralism increased during the 20th century,[401] and the Protestant community has grown to include over 22% of the population.[402] The most common Protestant denominations are Evangelical Pentecostal ones. Other Protestant branches with a notable presence in the country include the Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and the Reformed tradition.[403]
+
+However,  in the last ten years Protestantism, has spread in Brazil, while the proportion of Catholics has dropped significantly. The country has no census since 2010, but demographs estimate evangelical population will be majority after 2032, because Protestantism accounted for fewer than 5% of the population until the 1960s, but by 2000 made up over 15% of those affiliated with a church, now the evangelical group are the most rapidly growing religious group and more costly. [404] [405]
+
+After Protestantism, individuals professing no religion are also a significant group, exceeding 8% of the population as of the 2010 census. The cities of Boa Vista, Salvador, and Porto Velho have the greatest proportion of Irreligious residents in Brazil. Teresina, Fortaleza, and Florianópolis were the most Roman Catholic in the country.[406] Greater Rio de Janeiro, not including the city proper, is the most irreligious and least Roman Catholic Brazilian periphery, while Greater Porto Alegre and Greater Fortaleza are on the opposite sides of the lists, respectively.[406]
+
+In October 2009, the Brazilian Senate approved and enacted by the President of  Brazil in February 2010, an agreement with the Vatican, in which the Legal Statute of the Catholic Church in Brazil is recognized. The agreement confirmed norms that were normally complied with regarding religious education in public elementary schools (which also ensures the teaching of other beliefs), marriage and spiritual assistance in prisons and hospitals. The project was criticized by parliamentarians who understood the end of the secular state with the approval of the agreement.[410][411]
+
+According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) urban areas already concentrate 84.35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants.[412]
+The largest urban agglomerations in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte – all in the Southeastern Region – with 21.1, 12.3, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively.[413][414][415] The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina.[416]
+
+The official language of Brazil is Portuguese[419] (Article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil), which almost all of the population speaks and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio, television, and for business and administrative purposes. Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity and giving it a national culture distinct from those of its Spanish-speaking neighbors.[420]
+
+Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, mostly similar to 16th-century Central and Southern dialects of European Portuguese[421] (despite a very substantial number of Portuguese colonial settlers, and more recent immigrants, coming from Northern regions, and in minor degree Portuguese Macaronesia), with a few influences from the Amerindian and African languages, especially West African and Bantu restricted to the vocabulary only.[422] As a result,[citation needed] the language is somewhat different, mostly in phonology, from the language of Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries (the dialects of the other countries, partly because of the more recent end of Portuguese colonialism in these regions, have a closer connection to contemporary European Portuguese). These differences are comparable to those between American and British English.[422]
+
+In 1990, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which included representatives from all countries with Portuguese as the official language, reached an agreement on the reform of the Portuguese orthography to unify the two standards then in use by Brazil on one side and the remaining lusophone countries on the other. This spelling reform went into effect in Brazil on 1 January 2009. In Portugal, the reform was signed into law by the President on 21 July 2008 allowing for a six-year adaptation period, during which both orthographies will co-exist. The remaining CPLP countries are free to establish their own transition timetables.[423]
+
+The sign language law legally recognized in 2002,[424] (the law was regulated in 2005)[425] the use of the Brazilian Sign Language, more commonly known by its Portuguese acronym LIBRAS, in education and government services. The language must be taught as a part of the education and speech and language pathology curricula. LIBRAS teachers, instructors and translators are recognized professionals. Schools and health services must provide access ("inclusion") to deaf people.[426]
+
+Minority languages are spoken throughout the nation. One hundred and eighty Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas and a significant number of other languages are spoken by immigrants and their descendants.[422] In the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Nheengatu (a currently endangered South American creole language – or an 'anti-creole', according to some linguists – with mostly Indigenous Brazilian languages lexicon and Portuguese-based grammar that, together with its southern relative língua geral paulista, once was a major lingua franca in Brazil,[427] being replaced by Portuguese only after governmental prohibition led by major political changes)[excessive detail?], Baniwa and Tucano languages had been granted co-official status with Portuguese.[428]
+
+There are significant communities of German (mostly the Brazilian Hunsrückisch, a High German language dialect) and Italian (mostly the Talian, a Venetian dialect) origins in the Southern and Southeastern regions, whose ancestors' native languages were carried along to Brazil, and which, still alive there, are influenced by the Portuguese language.[429][430] Talian is officially a historic patrimony of Rio Grande do Sul,[431] and two German dialects possess co-official status in a few municipalities.[432] Italian is also recognized as ethnic language in the Santa Teresa microregion and Vila Velha (Espirito Santo state), and is taught as mandatory second language at school.[2]
+
+Learning at least one second language (generally English or Spanish) is mandatory for all the 12 grades of the mandatory education system (primary and secondary education, there called ensino fundamental and ensino médio respectively). Brazil is the first country in South America to offer Esperanto to secondary students.[433]
+
+The core culture of Brazil is derived from Portuguese culture, because of its strong colonial ties with the Portuguese Empire.[434] Among other influences, the Portuguese introduced the Portuguese language, Roman Catholicism and colonial architectural styles. The culture was, however, also strongly influenced by African, indigenous and non-Portuguese European cultures and traditions.[435]
+Some aspects of Brazilian culture were influenced by the contributions of Italian, German and other European as well as Japanese, Jewish and Arab immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries.[436] The indigenous Amerindians influenced Brazil's language and cuisine; and the Africans influenced language, cuisine, music, dance and religion.[437]
+
+Brazilian art has developed since the 16th century into different styles that range from Baroque (the dominant style in Brazil until the early 19th century)[438][439] to Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstractionism. Brazilian cinema dates back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century and has gained a new level of international acclaim since the 1960s.[440]
+
+The architecture of Brazil is influenced by Europe, especially Portugal. It has a history that goes back 500 years to the time when Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil in 1500. Portuguese colonial architecture was the first wave of architecture to go to Brazil.[441] It is the basis for all Brazilian architecture of later centuries.[442] In the 19th century during the time of the Empire of Brazil, Brazil followed European trends and adopted Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. Then in the 20th century especially in Brasilia, Brazil experimented with Modernist architecture.
+
+The colonial architecture of Brazil dates to the early 16th century when Brazil was first explored, conquered and settled by the Portuguese. The Portuguese built architecture familiar to them in Europe in their aim to colonize Brazil. They built Portuguese colonial architecture which included churches, civic architecture including houses and forts in Brazilian cities and the countryside. During 19th century Brazilian architecture saw the introduction of more European styles to Brazil such as Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. This was usually mixed with Brazilian influences from their own heritage which produced a unique form of Brazilian architecture. In the 1950s the modernist architecture was introduced when Brasilia was built as new federal capital in the interior of Brazil to help develop the interior. The architect Oscar Niemeyer idealized and built government buildings, churches and civic buildings in the modernist style.[443][444]
+
+The music of Brazil was formed mainly from the fusion of European and African elements.[446] Until the nineteenth century, Portugal was the gateway to most of the influences that built Brazilian music, although many of these elements were not of Portuguese origin, but generally European. The first was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, author of sacred pieces with influence of Viennese classicism.[447] The major contribution of the African element was the rhythmic diversity and some dances and instruments that had a bigger role in the development of popular music and folk, flourishing especially in the twentieth century.[446]
+
+Popular music since the late eighteenth century began to show signs of forming a characteristically Brazilian sound, with samba considered the most typical and on the UNESCO cultural heritage list.[448] Maracatu and Afoxê are two Afro-Brazilian music traditions that have been popularized by their appearance in the annual Brazilian Carnivals.[449] The sport of capoeira is usually played with its own music referred to as capoeira music, which is usually considered to be a call-and-response type of folk music.[450] Forró is a type of folk music prominent during the Festa Junina in northeastern Brazil.[451] Jack A. Draper III, a professor of Portuguese at the University of Missouri,[452] argues that Forró was used as a way to subdue feelings of nostalgia for a rural lifestyle.[453]
+
+Choro is a very popular music instrumental style. Its origins are in 19th-century Rio de Janeiro. In spite of the name, the style often has a fast and happy rhythm, characterized by virtuosity, improvisation, subtle modulations and full of syncopation and counterpoint.[454] Bossa nova is also a well-known style of Brazilian music developed and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s.[455] The phrase "bossa nova" means literally "new trend".[456] A lyrical fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova acquired a large following starting in the 1960s.[457]
+
+Brazilian literature dates back to the 16th century, to the writings of the first Portuguese explorers in Brazil, such as Pêro Vaz de Caminha, filled with descriptions of fauna, flora and commentary about the indigenous population that fascinated European readers.[459]
+
+Brazil produced significant works in Romanticism – novelists like Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and José de Alencar wrote novels about love and pain. Alencar, in his long career, also treated indigenous people as heroes in the Indigenist novels O Guarani, Iracema and Ubirajara.[460] Machado de Assis, one of his contemporaries, wrote in virtually all genres and continues to gain international prestige from critics worldwide.[461][462][463]
+
+Brazilian Modernism, evidenced by the Week of Modern Art in 1922, was concerned with a nationalist avant-garde literature,[464] while Post-Modernism brought a generation of distinct poets like João Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Vinicius de Moraes, Cora Coralina, Graciliano Ramos, Cecília Meireles, and internationally known writers dealing with universal and regional subjects like Jorge Amado, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector and Manuel Bandeira.[465][466][467]
+
+Brazilian cuisine varies greatly by region, reflecting the country's varying mix of indigenous and immigrant populations. This has created a national cuisine marked by the preservation of regional differences.[468] Examples are Feijoada, considered the country's national dish;[469] and regional foods such as beiju, feijão tropeiro, vatapá, moqueca, polenta (from Italian cuisine) and acarajé (from African cuisine).[470]
+
+The national beverage is coffee and cachaça is Brazil's native liquor. Cachaça is distilled from sugar cane and is the main ingredient in the national cocktail, Caipirinha.[471]
+
+A typical meal consists mostly of rice and beans with beef, salad, french fries and a fried egg.[472] Often, it is mixed with cassava flour (farofa). Fried potatoes, fried cassava, fried banana, fried meat and fried cheese are very often eaten in lunch and served in most typical restaurants.[473] Popular snacks are pastel (a fried pastry); coxinha (a variation of chicken croquete); pão de queijo (cheese bread and cassava flour / tapioca); pamonha (corn and milk paste); esfirra (a variation of Lebanese pastry); kibbeh (from Arabic cuisine); empanada (pastry) and empada, little salt pies filled with shrimps or heart of palm.
+
+Brazil has a variety of desserts such as brigadeiros (chocolate fudge balls), bolo de rolo (roll cake with goiabada), cocada (a coconut sweet), beijinhos (coconut truffles and clove) and romeu e julieta (cheese with goiabada). Peanuts are used to make paçoca, rapadura and pé-de-moleque. Local common fruits like açaí, cupuaçu, mango, papaya, cocoa, cashew, guava, orange, lime, passionfruit, pineapple, and hog plum are turned in juices and used to make chocolates, ice pops and ice cream.[474]
+
+The Brazilian film industry began in the late 19th century, during the early days of the Belle Époque. While there were national film productions during the early 20th century, American films such as Rio the Magnificent were made in Rio de Janeiro to promote tourism in the city.[475] The films Limite (1931) and Ganga Bruta (1933), the latter being produced by Adhemar Gonzaga through the prolific studio Cinédia, were poorly received at release and failed at the box office, but are acclaimed nowadays and placed among the finest Brazilian films of all time.[476] The 1941 unfinished film It's All True was divided in four segments, two of which were filmed in Brazil and directed by Orson Welles; it was originally produced as part of the United States' Good Neighbor Policy during Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo government.
+
+During the 1960s, the Cinema Novo movement rose to prominence with directors such as Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Paulo Cesar Saraceni and Arnaldo Jabor. Rocha's films Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) and Terra em Transe (1967) are considered to be some of the greatest and most influential in Brazilian film history.[477]
+
+During the 1990s, Brazil saw a surge of critical and commercial success with films such as O Quatrilho (Fábio Barreto, 1995), O Que É Isso, Companheiro? (Bruno Barreto, 1997) and Central do Brasil (Walter Salles, 1998), all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the latter receiving a Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Montenegro. The 2002 crime film City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles, was critically acclaimed, scoring 90% on Rotten Tomatoes,[478] being placed in Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Decade list[479] and receiving four Academy Award nominations in 2004, including Best Director. Notable film festivals in Brazil include the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festivals and the Gramado Festival.
+
+The theatre in Brazil has its origins in the period of Jesuit expansion when theater was used for the dissemination of Catholic doctrine in the 16th century. in the 17th and 18th centuries the first dramatists who appeared on the scene of European derivation was for court or private performances.[480] During the 19th century, dramatic theater gained importance and thickness, whose first representative was Luis Carlos Martins Pena (1813–1848), capable of describing contemporary reality. Always in this period the comedy of costume and comic production was imposed. Significant, also in the nineteenth century, was also the playwright Antônio Gonçalves Dias.[481] There were also numerous operas and orchestras. The Brazilian conductor Antônio Carlos Gomes became internationally known with operas like Il Guarany. At the end of the 19th century orchestrated dramaturgias became very popular and were accompanied with songs of famous artists like the conductress Chiquinha Gonzaga.[482]
+
+Already in the early 20th century there was the presence of theaters, entrepreneurs and actor companies, but paradoxically the quality of the products staggered, and only in 1940 the Brazilian theater received a boost of renewal thanks to the action of Paschoal Carlos Magno and his student's theater, the comedians group and the Italian actors Adolfo Celi, Ruggero Jacobbi and Aldo Calvo, founders of the Teatro Brasileiro de Comedia. From the 1960s it was attended by a theater dedicated to social and religious issues and to the flourishing of schools of dramatic art. The most prominent authors at this stage were Jorge Andrade and Ariano Suassuna.[481]
+
+Brazilian painting emerged in the late 16th century,[483] influenced by Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism and Abstracionism making it a major art style called Brazilian academic art.[484][485] The Missão Artística Francesa (French Artistic Mission) arrived in Brazil in 1816 proposing the creation of an art academy modeled after the respected Académie des Beaux-Arts, with graduation courses both for artists and craftsmen for activities such as modeling, decorating, carpentry and others and bringing artists like Jean-Baptiste Debret.[485]
+
+Upon the creation of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, new artistic movements spread across the country during the 19th century and later the event called Week of Modern Art broke definitely with academic tradition in 1922 and started a nationalist trend which was influenced by modernist arts. Among the best-known Brazilian painters are Ricardo do Pilar and Manuel da Costa Ataíde (baroque and rococo), Victor Meirelles, Pedro Américo and Almeida Junior (romanticism and realism), Anita Malfatti, Ismael Nery, Lasar Segall, Emiliano di Cavalcanti, Vicente do Rego Monteiro, and Tarsila do Amaral (expressionism, surrealism and cubism), Aldo Bonadei, José Pancetti and Cândido Portinari (modernism).[486]
+
+The most popular sport in Brazil is football.[488] The Brazilian men's national team is ranked among the best in the world according to the FIFA World Rankings, and has won the World Cup tournament a record five times.[489][490]
+
+Volleyball, basketball, auto racing, and martial arts also attract large audiences. The Brazil men's national volleyball team, for example, currently holds the titles of the World League, World Grand Champions Cup, World Championship and the World Cup. In auto racing, three Brazilian drivers have won the Formula One world championship eight times.[491][492][493]
+
+Some sport variations have their origins in Brazil: beach football,[494] futsal (indoor football)[495] and footvolley emerged in Brazil as variations of football. In martial arts, Brazilians developed Capoeira,[496] Vale tudo,[497] and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.[498]
+
+Brazil has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, like the 1950 FIFA World Cup[499] and recently has hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2019 Copa América.[500] The São Paulo circuit, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, hosts the annual Grand Prix of Brazil.[501] São Paulo organized the IV Pan American Games in 1963, and Rio de Janeiro hosted the XV Pan American Games in 2007.[502] On 2 October 2009, Rio de Janeiro was selected to host the 2016 Olympic Games and 2016 Paralympic Games, making it the first South American city to host the games[503] and second in Latin America, after Mexico City. Furthermore, the country hosted the FIBA Basketball World Cups in 1954 and 1963. At the 1963 event, the Brazil national basketball team won one of its two world championship titles.[504]
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+Portuguese Macau
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+Lat. and Long. 15°45′S 47°57′W / 15.750°S 47.950°W / -15.750; -47.950 (Brasilia)

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+Coordinates: 10°S 52°W / 10°S 52°W / -10; -52
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+Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil; Brazilian Portuguese: [bɾaˈziw]),[nt 1] officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil),[10] is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers (3.2 million square miles)[11] and with over 211 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the sixth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states and the Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas;[12][13] it is also one of the most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass immigration from around the world;[14] as well as the most populous Roman Catholic-majority country.
+
+Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers (4,655 mi).[15] It borders all other countries in South America except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent's land area.[16] Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats.[15] This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, and is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.
+
+Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808 when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. The country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic.[17] Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[18]
+
+Brazil is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank[19] and a newly industrialized country,[20] with the largest share of global wealth in Latin America. It is considered an advanced emerging economy.[21] It has the ninth largest GDP in the world by nominal, and eight by PPP measures.[22][23] It is one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24] Brazil is a regional power and sometimes considered a great[25][26][27] or a middle power in international affairs.[27][28][29][30][31][26] On account of its international recognition and influence, the country is subsequently classified as an emerging power[32] and a potential superpower by several analysts.[33][34][35] Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.
+
+The word "Brazil" likely comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast.[36] In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa ("ember") and the suffix -il (from -iculum or -ilium).[37] As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was highly valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil.[38] Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi) along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders (mostly Portuguese, but also French) in return for assorted European consumer goods.[39]
+
+The official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross" (Terra da Santa Cruz),[40] but European sailors and merchants commonly called it simply the "Land of Brazil" (Terra do Brasil) because of the brazilwood trade.[41] The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name. Some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots".[42]
+
+In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama". This was the name the indigenous population gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".[43]
+
+Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years.[46][47]
+
+The earliest pottery ever found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago (6000 BC). The pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the tropical forest region supported a complex prehistoric culture.[48] The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from 400 CE to 1400 CE, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, and complex social formations such as chiefdoms.[45]
+
+Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people,[49] mostly semi-nomadic, who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. The indigenous population of Brazil comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups (e.g. the Tupis, Guaranis, Gês and Arawaks). The Tupí people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás, and there were also many subdivisions of the other groups.[50]
+
+Before the arrival of the Europeans, the boundaries between these groups and their subgroups were marked by wars that arose from differences in culture, language and moral beliefs.[51] These wars also involved large-scale military actions on land and water, with cannibalistic rituals on prisoners of war.[52][53] While heredity had some weight, leadership status was more subdued over time, than allocated in succession ceremonies and conventions.[51] Slavery among the Indians had a different meaning than it had for Europeans, since it originated from a diverse socioeconomic organization, in which asymmetries were translated into kinship relations.[54]
+
+The land now called Brazil was claimed for the Portuguese Empire on 22 April 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral.[55] The Portuguese encountered indigenous peoples divided into several tribes, most of whom spoke languages of the Tupi–Guarani family, and fought among themselves.[56] Though the first settlement was founded in 1532, colonization effectively began in 1534, when King John III of Portugal divided the territory into the fifteen private and autonomous Captaincy Colonies of Brazil.[57][58]
+
+However, the decentralized and unorganized tendencies of the captaincy colonies proved problematic, and in 1549 the Portuguese king restructured them into the Governorate General of Brazil in the city of Salvador, which became the capital of a single and centralized Portuguese colony in South America.[58][59] In the first two centuries of colonization, Indigenous and European groups lived in constant war, establishing opportunistic alliances in order to gain advantages against each other.[60][61][62][63] By the mid-16th century, cane sugar had become Brazil's most important export,[56][64] and slaves purchased in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the slave market of Western Africa[65] (not only those from Portuguese allies of their colonies in Angola and Mozambique), had become its largest import,[66][67] to cope with plantations of sugarcane, due to increasing international demand for Brazilian sugar.[68][69]
+
+By the end of the 17th century, sugarcane exports began to decline,[70] and the discovery of gold by bandeirantes in the 1690s would become the new backbone of the colony's economy, fostering a Brazilian Gold Rush[71] which attracted thousands of new settlers to Brazil from Portugal and all Portuguese colonies around the world.[72] This increased level of immigration in turn caused some conflicts between newcomers and old settlers.[73]
+
+Portuguese expeditions known as Bandeiras gradually advanced the Portugal colonial original frontiers in South America to approximately the current Brazilian borders.[74][75] In this era other European powers tried to colonize parts of Brazil, in incursions that the Portuguese had to fight, notably the French in Rio during the 1560s, in Maranhão during the 1610s, and the Dutch in Bahia and Pernambuco, during the Dutch–Portuguese War, after the end of Iberian Union.[76]
+
+The Portuguese colonial administration in Brazil had two objectives that would ensure colonial order and the monopoly of Portugal's wealthiest and largest colony: to keep under control and eradicate all forms of slave rebellion and resistance, such as the Quilombo of Palmares,[77] and to repress all movements for autonomy or independence, such as the Minas Conspiracy.[78]
+
+In late 1807, Spanish and Napoleonic forces threatened the security of continental Portugal, causing Prince Regent João, in the name of Queen Maria I, to move the royal court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro.[79] There they established some of Brazil's first financial institutions, such as its local stock exchanges,[80] and its National Bank, additionally ending the Portuguese monopoly on Brazilian trade and opening Brazil to other nations. In 1809, in retaliation for being forced into exile, the Prince Regent ordered the Portuguese conquest of French Guiana.[81]
+
+With the end of the Peninsular War in 1814, the courts of Europe demanded that Queen Maria I and Prince Regent João return to Portugal, deeming it unfit for the head of an ancient European monarchy to reside in a colony. In 1815, to justify continuing to live in Brazil, where the royal court had thrived for six years, the Crown established the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves, thus creating a pluricontinental transatlantic monarchic state.[82] However, the leadership in Portugal, resentful of the new status of its larger colony, continued to demand the return of court to Lisbon (v. Liberal Revolution of 1820). In 1821, acceding to the demands of revolutionaries who had taken the city of Porto,[83] D. João VI departed for Lisbon. There he swore an oath to the new constitution, leaving his son, Prince Pedro de Alcântara, as Regent of the Kingdom of Brazil.[84]
+
+Tensions between Portuguese and Brazilians increased, and the Portuguese Cortes, guided by the new political regime imposed by the 1820 Liberal Revolution, tried to re-establish Brazil as a colony.[85] The Brazilians refused to yield, and Prince Pedro decided to stand with them, declaring the country's independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822.[86] A month later, Prince Pedro was declared the first Emperor of Brazil, with the royal title of Dom Pedro I, resulting in the foundation of the Empire of Brazil.[87]
+
+The Brazilian War of Independence, which had already begun along this process, spread through the northern, northeastern regions and in Cisplatina province.[88] The last Portuguese soldiers surrendered on 8 March 1824;[89] Portugal officially recognized Brazil on 29 August 1825.[90]
+
+On 7 April 1831, worn down by years of administrative turmoil and political dissent with both liberal and conservative sides of politics, including an attempt of republican secession,[91] and unreconciled to the way that absolutists in Portugal had given in the succession of King John VI, Pedro I went to Portugal to reclaim his daughter's crown, abdicating the Brazilian throne in favor of his five-year-old son and heir (who thus became the Empire's second monarch, with the royal title of Dom Pedro II).[92]
+
+As the new Emperor could not exert his constitutional powers until he came of age, a regency was set up by the National Assembly.[93] In the absence of a charismatic figure who could represent a moderate face of power, during this period a series of localized rebellions took place, such as the Cabanagem in Grão-Pará Province, the Malê Revolt in Salvador da Bahia, the Balaiada (Maranhão), the Sabinada (Bahia), and the Ragamuffin War, which began in Rio Grande do Sul and was supported by Giuseppe Garibaldi. These emerged from the dissatisfaction of the provinces with the central power, coupled with old and latent social tensions peculiar to a vast, slaveholding and newly independent nation state.[94] This period of internal political and social upheaval, which included the Praieira revolt in Pernambuco, was overcome only at the end of the 1840s, years after the end of the regency, which occurred with the premature coronation of Pedro II in 1841.[95]
+
+During the last phase of the monarchy, internal political debate centered on the issue of slavery. The Atlantic slave trade was abandoned in 1850,[96] as a result of the British Aberdeen Act, but only in May 1888 after a long process of internal mobilization and debate for an ethical and legal dismantling of slavery in the country, was the institution formally abolished.[97]
+
+The foreign-affairs policies of the monarchy dealt with issues with the countries of the Southern Cone with whom Brazil had borders. Long after the Cisplatine War that resulted in independence for Uruguay,[98] Brazil won three international wars during the 58-year reign of Pedro II. These were the Platine War, the Uruguayan War and the devastating Paraguayan War, the largest war effort in Brazilian history.[99][100]
+
+Although there was no desire among the majority of Brazilians to change the country's form of government,[101] on 15 November 1889, in disagreement with the majority of Army officers, as well as with rural and financial elites (for different reasons), the monarchy was overthrown by a military coup.[102] 15 November is now Republic Day, a national holiday.[103]
+
+The early republican government was nothing more than a military dictatorship, with army dominating affairs both in Rio de Janeiro and in the states. Freedom of the press disappeared and elections were controlled by those in power.[104] Not until 1894, following an economic crisis and a military one, did civilians take power, remaining there until October 1930.[105][106][107]
+
+If in relation to its foreign policy, the country in this first republican period maintained a relative balance characterized by a success in resolving border disputes with neighboring countries,[108] only broken by the Acre War (1899–1902) and its involvement in World War I (1914–1918),[109][110][111] followed by a failed attempt to exert a prominent role in the League of Nations;[112] Internally, from the crisis of Encilhamento[113][114][115] and the Armada Revolts,[116] a prolonged cycle of financial, political and social instability began until the 1920s, keeping the country besieged by various rebellions, both civilian[117][118][119] and military.[120][121][122]
+
+Little by little, a cycle of general instability sparked by these crises undermined the regime to such an extent that in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate Getúlio Vargas, supported by most of the military, successfully led the October 1930 Coup.[123][124] Vargas and the military were supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed the Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers and replaced the states' governors with their own supporters.[125][126]
+
+In the 1930s, three failed attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power occurred. The first was the Constitutionalist Revolution in 1932, led by the Paulista oligarchy. The second was a Communist uprising in November 1935, and the last one a putsch attempt by local fascists in May 1938.[127][128][129] The 1935 uprising created a security crisis in which the Congress transferred more power to the executive. The 1937 coup d'état resulted in the cancellation of the 1938 election, formalized Vargas as dictator, beginning the Estado Novo era, which was noted for government brutality and censorship of the press.[130]
+
+Foreign policy during the Vargas years was marked by the antecedents[clarification needed] and World War II. Brazil remained neutral until August 1942, when the country entered on the allied side,[131][132] after suffering retaliation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, in a strategic dispute over the South Atlantic.[133] In addition to its participation in the battle of the Atlantic, Brazil also sent an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian campaign.[134]
+
+With the Allied victory in 1945 and the end of the Nazi-fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas's position became unsustainable and he was swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with democracy "reinstated" by the same army that had ended it 15 years earlier.[135] Vargas committed suicide in August 1954 amid a political crisis, after having returned to power by election in 1950.[136][137]
+
+Several brief interim governments followed Vargas's suicide.[138] Juscelino Kubitschek became president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory posture towards the political opposition that allowed him to govern without major crises.[139] The economy and industrial sector grew remarkably,[140] but his greatest achievement was the construction of the new capital city of Brasília, inaugurated in 1960.[141]
+
+Kubitschek's successor, Jânio Quadros, resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office.[142] His vice-president, João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political opposition[143] and was deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a military regime.[144]
+
+The new regime was intended to be transitory[145] but gradually closed in on itself and became a full dictatorship with the promulgation of the Fifth Institutional Act in 1968.[146] Oppression was not limited to those who resorted to guerrilla tactics to fight the regime, but also reached institutional opponents, artists, journalists and other members of civil society,[147][148] inside and outside the country through the infamous "Operation Condor".[149][150] Despite its brutality, like other authoritarian regimes, due to an economic boom, known as an "economic miracle", the regime reached a peak in popularity in the early 1970s.[151]
+
+Slowly, however, the wear and tear of years of dictatorial power that had not slowed the repression, even after the defeat of the leftist guerrillas,[152] plus the inability to deal with the economic crises of the period and popular pressure, made an opening policy inevitable, which from the regime side was led by Generals Ernesto Geisel and Golbery do Couto e Silva.[153] With the enactment of the Amnesty Law in 1979, Brazil began a slow return to democracy, which was completed during the 1980s.[95]
+
+Civilians returned to power in 1985 when José Sarney assumed the presidency. He became unpopular during his tenure through failure to control the economic crisis and hyperinflation he inherited from the military regime.[154] Sarney's unsuccessful government led to the election in 1989 of the almost-unknown Fernando Collor, subsequently impeached by the National Congress in 1992.[155]
+
+Collor was succeeded by his vice-president, Itamar Franco, who appointed Fernando Henrique Cardoso Minister of Finance. In 1994, Cardoso produced a highly successful Plano Real,[156] that, after decades of failed economic plans made by previous governments attempting to curb hyperinflation, finally stabilized the Brazilian economy.[157][158] Cardoso won the 1994 election, and again in 1998.[159]
+
+The peaceful transition of power from Cardoso to his main opposition leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006), was seen as proof that Brazil had achieved a long-sought political stability.[160][161] However, sparked by indignation and frustrations accumulated over decades from corruption, police brutality, inefficiencies of the political establishment and public service, numerous peaceful protests erupted in Brazil from the middle of first term of Dilma Rousseff, who had succeeded Lula after winning election in 2010.[162][163]
+
+Enhanced by political and economic crises with evidence of involvement by politicians from all the primary political parties in several bribery and tax evasion schemes,[164][165] with large street protests for and against her,[166] Rousseff was impeached by the Brazilian Congress in 2016.[167][168] In 2017, the Supreme Court asked for the investigation of 71 Brazilian lawmakers and nine ministers in President Michel Temer's cabinet allegedly linked to the Petrobras corruption scandal.[169] President Temer is himself accused of corruption.[170] In 2018, 62% of the population on a poll claimed that corruption was Brazil's biggest problem.[171]
+
+On 25 February 2020, the COVID-19 virus was confirmed to have spread to Brazil on 25 February 2020.[172] On 19 June 2020, the country reported its 1 millionth case; at this time, there had been nearly 49,000 reported deaths.[173][174] As of July 2020, Brazil has the second-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world behind the US, but ahead of India.
+
+Brazil occupies a large area along the eastern coast of South America and includes much of the continent's interior,[175] sharing land borders with Uruguay to the south; Argentina and Paraguay to the southwest; Bolivia and Peru to the west; Colombia to the northwest; and Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and France (French overseas region of French Guiana) to the north. It shares a border with every South American country except Ecuador and Chile.[15]
+
+It also encompasses a number of oceanic archipelagos, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz.[15] Its size, relief, climate, and natural resources make Brazil geographically diverse.[175] Including its Atlantic islands, Brazil lies between latitudes 6°N and 34°S, and longitudes 28° and 74°W.[15]
+
+Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, and third largest in the Americas, with a total area of 8,515,767.049 km2 (3,287,956 sq mi),[176] including 55,455 km2 (21,411 sq mi) of water.[15] It spans four time zones; from UTC−5 comprising the state of Acre and the westernmost portion of Amazonas, to UTC−4 in the western states, to UTC−3 in the eastern states (the national time) and UTC−2 in the Atlantic islands.[177]
+
+Brazil is the only country in the world that has the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn running through it. Brazilian topography is also diverse and includes hills, mountains, plains, highlands, and scrublands. Much of the terrain lies between 200 metres (660 ft) and 800 metres (2,600 ft) in elevation.[178] The main upland area occupies most of the southern half of the country.[178] The northwestern parts of the plateau consist of broad, rolling terrain broken by low, rounded hills.[178]
+
+The southeastern section is more rugged, with a complex mass of ridges and mountain ranges reaching elevations of up to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft).[178] These ranges include the Mantiqueira and Espinhaço mountains and the Serra do Mar.[178]
+
+In the north, the Guiana Highlands form a major drainage divide, separating rivers that flow south into the Amazon Basin from rivers that empty into the Orinoco River system, in Venezuela, to the north. The highest point in Brazil is the Pico da Neblina at 2,994 metres (9,823 ft), and the lowest is the Atlantic Ocean.[15]
+
+Brazil has a dense and complex system of rivers, one of the world's most extensive, with eight major drainage basins, all of which drain into the Atlantic.[179] Major rivers include the Amazon (the world's second-longest river and the largest in terms of volume of water), the Paraná and its major tributary the Iguaçu (which includes the Iguazu Falls), the Negro, São Francisco, Xingu, Madeira and Tapajós rivers.[179]
+
+The climate of Brazil comprises a wide range of weather conditions across a large area and varied topography, but most of the country is tropical.[15] According to the Köppen system, Brazil hosts six major climatic subtypes: desert, equatorial, tropical, semiarid, oceanic and subtropical. The different climatic conditions produce environments ranging from equatorial rainforests in the north and semiarid deserts in the northeast, to temperate coniferous forests in the south and tropical savannas in central Brazil.[180] Many regions have starkly different microclimates.[181][182]
+
+An equatorial climate characterizes much of northern Brazil. There is no real dry season, but there are some variations in the period of the year when most rain falls.[180] Temperatures average 25 °C (77 °F),[182] with more significant temperature variation between night and day than between seasons.[181]
+
+Over central Brazil rainfall is more seasonal, characteristic of a savanna climate.[181] This region is as extensive as the Amazon basin but has a very different climate as it lies farther south at a higher altitude.[180] In the interior northeast, seasonal rainfall is even more extreme.[183]
+
+The semiarid climatic region generally receives less than 800 millimetres (31.5 in) of rain,[183] most of which generally falls in a period of three to five months of the year[184] and occasionally less than this, creating long periods of drought.[181] Brazil's 1877–78 Grande Seca (Great Drought), the worst in Brazil's history,[185] caused approximately half a million deaths.[186] A similarly devastating drought occurred in 1915.[187]
+
+South of Bahia, near the coasts, and more southerly most of the state of São Paulo, the distribution of rainfall changes, with rain falling throughout the year.[180] The south enjoys subtropical conditions, with cool winters and average annual temperatures not exceeding 18 °C (64.4 °F);[182] winter frosts and snowfall are not rare in the highest areas.[180][181]
+
+Brazil's large territory comprises different ecosystems, such as the Amazon rainforest, recognized as having the greatest biological diversity in the world,[188] with the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado, sustaining the greatest biodiversity.[189] In the south, the Araucaria pine forest grows under temperate conditions.[189] The rich wildlife of Brazil reflects the variety of natural habitats. Scientists estimate that the total number of plant and animal species in Brazil could approach four million, mostly invertebrates.[189]
+
+Larger mammals include carnivores pumas, jaguars, ocelots, rare bush dogs, and foxes, and herbivores peccaries, tapirs, anteaters, sloths, opossums, and armadillos. Deer are plentiful in the south, and many species of New World monkeys are found in the northern rain forests.[189][190] Concern for the environment has grown in response to global interest in environmental issues.[191] Brazil's Amazon Basin is home to an extremely diverse array of fish species, including the red-bellied piranha.
+
+By 2013, Brazil's "dramatic policy-driven reduction in Amazon Basin deforestation" was a "global exception in terms of forest change", according to scientific journal Science.[192]:852 From 2003 to 2011, compared to all other countries in the world, Brazil had the "largest decline in annual forest loss", as indicated in the study using high-resolution satellite maps showing global forest cover changes.[192]:850 The annual loss of forest cover decreased from a 2003/2004 record high of more than 40,000 square kilometres (4,000×10^3 ha; 9.9×10^6 acres; 15,000 sq mi) to a 2010/2011 low of under 20,000 square kilometres (2,000×10^3 ha; 4.9×10^6 acres; 7,700 sq mi),[192]:850 reversing widespread deforestation[192]:852 from the 1970s to 2003.
+
+However, in 2019, when the Bolsonaro government came to power, the rate of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest increased sharply threatening to reach a tipping point after it the forest will collapse, having severe consequences for the world. (see Tipping points in the climate system)  This can also complicate the trade agreement with the European Union[193] Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Bolsonaro criticised what he described as sensational reporting in the international media. "It is a fallacy to say that the Amazon is the heritage of humankind, and a misconception, as confirmed by scientists, to say that our Amazonian forests are the lungs of world. Using these fallacies, certain countries instead of helping, embarked on the media lies and behaved in a disrespectful manner and with a colonialist spirit." he said. President Jair Bolsonaro asserted Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon.[194]
+
+According to a 2008 GreenPeace article, the natural heritage of Brazil is severely threatened by cattle ranching and agriculture, logging, mining, resettlement, oil and gas extraction, over-fishing, wildlife trade, dams and infrastructure, water pollution, climate change, fire, and invasive species.[188] In many areas of the country, the natural environment is threatened by development.[195] The construction of highways has opened up previously remote areas for agriculture and settlement; dams have flooded valleys and inundated wildlife habitats; and mines have scarred and polluted the landscape.[191][196] At least 70 dams are said to be planned for the Amazon region, including the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.[197] In summer 2019, 2 states in Brazil Paraná and Santa Catarina banned fracking, what will have positive effects on the climate and water quality, because the shale gas and shale oil reserves in the state of Parana are the larger in the southern hemisphere.[198][199]
+
+The form of government is a democratic federative republic, with a presidential system.[17] The president is both head of state and head of government of the Union and is elected for a four-year term,[17] with the possibility of re-election for a second successive term. The current president is Jair Bolsonaro. The previous president, Michel Temer, replaced Dilma Rousseff after her impeachment.[200] The President appoints the Ministers of State, who assist in government.[17] Legislative houses in each political entity are the main source of law in Brazil. The National Congress is the Federation's bicameral legislature, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. Judiciary authorities exercise jurisdictional duties almost exclusively. Brazil is a democracy, according to the Democracy Index 2010.[201]
+
+The political-administrative organization of the Federative Republic of Brazil comprises the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities.[17] The Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities, are the "spheres of government". The federation is set on five fundamental principles:[17] sovereignty, citizenship, dignity of human beings, the social values of labor and freedom of enterprise, and political pluralism. The classic tripartite branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial under a checks and balances system) are formally established by the Constitution.[17] The executive and legislative are organized independently in all three spheres of government, while the judiciary is organized only at the federal and state and Federal District spheres.
+
+All members of the executive and legislative branches are directly elected.[202][203][204] Judges and other judicial officials are appointed after passing entry exams.[202] For most of its democratic history, Brazil has had a multi-party system, proportional representation. Voting is compulsory for the literate between 18 and 70 years old and optional for illiterates and those between 16 and 18 or beyond 70.[17]
+
+Together with several smaller parties, four political parties stand out: Workers' Party (PT), Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) and Democrats (DEM). Fifteen political parties are represented in Congress. It is common for politicians to switch parties, and thus the proportion of congressional seats held by particular parties changes regularly.[205] Almost all governmental and administrative functions are exercised by authorities and agencies affiliated to the Executive.
+
+Brazilian law is based on the civil law legal system[206] and civil law concepts prevail over common law practice. Most of Brazilian law is codified, although non-codified statutes also represent a substantial part, playing a complementary role. Court decisions set out interpretive guidelines; however, they are seldom binding on other specific cases. Doctrinal works and the works of academic jurists have strong influence in law creation and in law cases.
+
+The legal system is based on the Federal Constitution, promulgated on 5 October 1988, and the fundamental law of Brazil. All other legislation and court decisions must conform to its rules.[207] As of April 2007[update], there have been 53 amendments. States have their own constitutions, which must not contradict the Federal Constitution.[208] Municipalities and the Federal District have "organic laws" (leis orgânicas), which act in a similar way to constitutions.[209] Legislative entities are the main source of statutes, although in certain matters judiciary and executive bodies may enact legal norms.[17] Jurisdiction is administered by the judiciary entities, although in rare situations the Federal Constitution allows the Federal Senate to pass on legal judgments.[17] There are also specialized military, labor, and electoral courts.[17] The highest court is the Supreme Federal Court.
+
+This system has been criticized over the last few decades for the slow pace of decision-making. Lawsuits on appeal may take several years to resolve, and in some cases more than a decade elapses before definitive rulings.[210] Nevertheless, the Supreme Federal Tribunal was the first court in the world to transmit its sessions on television, and also via YouTube.[211][212] More recently, in December 2009, the Supreme Court adopted Twitter to display items on the day planner of the ministers, to inform the daily actions of the Court and the most important decisions made by them.[213]
+
+The armed forces of Brazil are the largest in Latin America by active personnel and the largest in terms of military equipment.[214] It consists of the Brazilian Army (including the Army Aviation Command), the Brazilian Navy (including the Marine Corps and Naval Aviation), and the Brazilian Air Force. Brazil's conscription policy gives it one of the world's largest military forces, estimated at more than 1.6 million reservists annually.[215]
+
+Numbering close to 236,000 active personnel,[216] the Brazilian Army has the largest number of armored vehicles in South America, including armored transports and tanks.[217] It is also unique in Latin America for its large, elite forces specializing in unconventional missions, the Brazilian Special Operations Command,[218][219][220] and the versatile Strategic Rapid Action Force, made up of highly mobilized and prepared Special Operations Brigade, Infantry Brigade Parachutist,[221][222] 1st Jungle Infantry Battalion (Airmobile)[223] and 12th Brigade Light Infantry (Airmobile)[224] able to act anywhere in the country, on short notice, to counter external aggression.[225] The states' Military Police and the Military Firefighters Corps are described as an ancillary forces of the Army by the constitution, but are under the control of each state's governor.[17]
+
+Brazil's navy, the second-largest in the Americas, once operated some of the most powerful warships in the world with the two Minas Geraes-class dreadnoughts, which sparked a South American dreadnought race between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.[226] Today, it is a green water force and has a group of specialized elite in retaking ships and naval facilities, GRUMEC, unit specially trained to protect Brazilian oil platforms along its coast.[227] It is the only navy in Latin America that operates an aircraft carrier, PHM Atlantico,[228] and one of the ten navies of the world to operate one.[217]
+
+The Air Force is the largest in Latin America and has about 700 manned aircraft in service and effective about 67,000 personnel.[229]
+
+Brazil has not been invaded since 1865 during the Paraguayan War.[230] Additionally, Brazil has no contested territorial disputes with any of its neighbors[231] and neither does it have rivalries, like Chile and Bolivia have with each other.[232][233] The Brazilian military has also three times intervened militarily to overthrow the Brazilian government.[234] It has built a tradition of participating in UN peacekeeping missions such as in Haiti, East Timor and Central African Republic.[235] Brazil signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[236]
+
+Brazil's international relations are based on Article 4 of the Federal Constitution, which establishes non-intervention, self-determination, international cooperation and the peaceful settlement of conflicts as the guiding principles of Brazil's relationship with other countries and multilateral organizations.[237]
+
+According to the Constitution, the President has ultimate authority over foreign policy, while the Congress is tasked with reviewing and considering all diplomatic nominations and international treaties, as well as legislation relating to Brazilian foreign policy.[238]
+
+Brazil's foreign policy is a by-product of the country's position as a regional power in Latin America, a leader among developing countries, and an emerging world power.[239] Brazilian foreign policy has generally been based on the principles of multilateralism, peaceful dispute settlement, and non-intervention in the affairs of other countries.[240]
+
+Brazil is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language.
+
+An increasingly well-developed tool of Brazil's foreign policy is providing aid as a donor to other developing countries.[241] Brazil does not just use its growing economic strength to provide financial aid, but it also provides high levels of expertise and most importantly of all, a quiet non-confrontational diplomacy to improve governance levels.[241] Total aid is estimated to be around $1 billion per year, which includes:[241]
+
+In addition, Brazil manages a peacekeeping mission in Haiti ($350 million) and makes in-kind contributions to the World Food Programme ($300 million).[241] This is in addition to humanitarian assistance and contributions to multilateral development agencies. The scale of this aid places it on par with China and India.[241] The Brazilian South-South aid has been described as a "global model in waiting."[242]
+
+In Brazil, the Constitution establishes five different police agencies for law enforcement: Federal Police Department, Federal Highway Police, Federal Railroad Police, Military Police and Civil Police. Of these, the first three are affiliated with federal authorities and the last two are subordinate to state governments. All police forces are the responsibility of the executive branch of any of the federal or state powers.[17] The National Public Security Force also can act in public disorder situations arising anywhere in the country.[243]
+
+The country still has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide. In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the number of 32 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest rates of homicide of the world.[244] The number considered tolerable by the WHO is about 10 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[245] In 2018, Brazil had a record 63,880 murders.[246] However, there are differences between the crime rates in the Brazilian states. While in São Paulo the homicide rate registered in 2013 was 10.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, in Alagoas it was 64.7 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[247]
+
+Brazil also has high levels of incarceration and the third largest prison population in the world (behind only China and the United States), with an estimated total of approximately 700,000 prisoners around the country (June 2014), an increase of about 300% compared to the index registered in 1992.[248] The high number of prisoners eventually overloaded the Brazilian prison system, leading to a shortfall of about 200,000 accommodations.[249]
+
+Brazil is a federation composed of 26 states, one federal district, and the 5570 municipalities.[17] States have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Federal government. They have a governor and a unicameral legislative body elected directly by their voters. They also have independent Courts of Law for common justice. Despite this, states have much less autonomy to create their own laws than in the United States. For example, criminal and civil laws can be voted by only the federal bicameral Congress and are uniform throughout the country.[17]
+
+The states and the federal district may be grouped into regions: Northern, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast and Southern. The Brazilian regions are merely geographical, not political or administrative divisions, and they do not have any specific form of government. Although defined by law, Brazilian regions are useful mainly for statistical purposes, and also to define the distribution of federal funds in development projects.
+
+Municipalities, as the states, have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Union and state government.[17] Each has a mayor and an elected legislative body, but no separate Court of Law. Indeed, a Court of Law organized by the state can encompass many municipalities in a single justice administrative division called comarca (county).
+
+Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America, the world's ninth largest economy and the eighth largest in purchasing power parity (PPP) according to 2018 estimates. Brazil has a mixed economy with abundant natural resources. After rapid growth in preceding decades, the country entered an ongoing recession in 2014 amid a political corruption scandal and nationwide protests.
+
+Its Gross domestic product (PPP) per capita was $15,919 in 2017[250] putting Brazil in the 77th position according to IMF data. Active in agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service sectors Brazil has a labor force of over 107 million (ranking 6th worldwide) and unemployment of 6.2% (ranking 64th worldwide).[251]
+
+The country has been expanding its presence in international financial and commodities markets, and is one of a group of four emerging economies called the BRIC countries.[252] Brazil has been the world's largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24]
+
+Brazil's diversified economy includes agriculture, industry, and a wide range of services.[254] Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing accounted for 5.1% of the GDP in 2007.[255] Brazil is one of the largest producer of oranges, coffee, sugar cane, cassava and sisal, soybeans and papayas.[256]
+
+Industry in Brazil – from automobiles, steel and petrochemicals to computers, aircraft and consumer durables – accounted for 30.8% of the gross domestic product.[255] Industry is highly concentrated in metropolitan São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte.[257] Brazil has become the fourth largest car market in the world.[258] Major export products include aircraft, electrical equipment, automobiles, ethanol, textiles, footwear, iron ore, steel, coffee, orange juice, soybeans and corned beef.[259] In total, Brazil ranks 23rd worldwide in value of exports.
+
+Brazil pegged its currency, the real, to the U.S. dollar in 1994. However, after the East Asian financial crisis, the Russian default in 1998[260] and the series of adverse financial events that followed it, the Central Bank of Brazil temporarily changed its monetary policy to a managed float regime[261] scheme while undergoing a currency crisis, until definitively changing the exchange regime to free-float in January 1999.[262]
+
+Brazil received an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package in mid-2002 of $30.4 billion,[263] a record sum at the time. Brazil's central bank repaid the IMF loan in 2005, although it was not due to be repaid until 2006.[264] One of the issues the Central Bank of Brazil recently dealt with was an excess of speculative short-term capital inflows to the country, which may have contributed to a fall in the value of the U.S. dollar against the real during that period.[265] Nonetheless, foreign direct investment (FDI), related to long-term, less speculative investment in production, is estimated to be $193.8 billion for 2007.[266] Inflation monitoring and control currently plays a major part in the Central bank's role in setting short-term interest rates as a monetary policy measure.[267]
+
+Between 1993 and 2010, 7012 mergers and acquisitions with a total known value of $707 billion with the involvement of Brazilian firms were announced.[268] The year 2010 was a new record in terms of value with US$115 billion in transactions. The largest transaction with involvement of Brazilian companies was the Cia. Vale do Rio Doce acquisition of Inco in a tender offer valued at US$18.9 billion.
+
+Corruption costs Brazil almost $41 billion a year alone in 2010, with 69.9% of the country's firms identifying the issue as a major constraint in successfully penetrating the global market.[269] Local government corruption is so prevalent that voters perceive it as a problem only if it surpasses certain levels, and only if a local media e.g. a radio station is present to divulge the findings of corruption charges.[270] Initiatives, like this exposure, strengthen awareness which is indicated by the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index; ranking Brazil 69th out of 178 countries in 2012.[271]
+The purchasing power in Brazil is eroded by the so-called Brazil cost.[272]
+
+Brazil also has a large cooperative sector that provides 50% of the food in the country.[273] The world's largest healthcare cooperative Unimed is also located in Brazil, and accounts for 32% of the healthcare insurance market in the country.[274]
+
+Brazil is the world's tenth largest energy consumer with much of its energy coming from renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity and ethanol; the Itaipu Dam is the world's largest hydroelectric plant by energy generation.[275] The first car with an ethanol engine was produced in 1978 and the first airplane engine running on ethanol in 2005.[276]
+
+Recent oil discoveries in the Pre-salt layer have opened the door for a large increase in oil production.[277] The governmental agencies responsible for the energy policy are the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the National Council for Energy Policy, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, and the National Agency of Electricity.[278]
+
+Tourism in Brazil is a growing sector and key to the economy of several regions of the country. The country had 6.36 million visitors in 2015, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the main destination in South America and second in Latin America after Mexico.[280] Revenues from international tourists reached US$6 billion in 2010, showing a recovery from the 2008–2009 economic crisis.[281] Historical records of 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts were reached in 2011.[282][283]
+
+Natural areas are its most popular tourism product, a combination of ecotourism with leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as cultural tourism. Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, cultural tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to São Paulo.[284]
+
+In terms of the 2015 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Brazil ranked in the 28st place at the world's level, third in the Americas, after Canada and United States.[285][286]
+
+Brazil's main competitive advantages are its natural resources, which ranked 1st on this criteria out of all countries considered, and ranked 23rd for its cultural resources, due to its many World Heritage sites. The TTCI report notes Brazil's main weaknesses: its ground transport infrastructure remains underdeveloped (ranked 116th), with the quality of roads ranking in 105th place; and the country continues to suffer from a lack of price competitiveness (ranked 114th), due in part to high ticket taxes and airport charges, as well as high prices and high taxation. Safety and security have improved significantly: 75th in 2011, up from 128th in 2008.[286]
+
+According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), international travel to Brazil accelerated in 2000, particularly during 2004 and 2005. However, in 2006 a slow-down took place, and international arrivals had almost no growth in 2007–08.[287][288][289]
+
+In spite of this trend, revenues from international tourism continued to rise, from USD 4 billion in 2005 to 5 billion in 2007, despite 330 000 fewer arrivals. This favorable trend is the result of the strong devaluation of the US dollar against the Brazilian Real, which began in 2004, but which makes Brazil a more expensive international destination.[290]
+
+This trend changed in 2009, when both visitors and revenues fell as a result of the Great Recession of 2008–09.[291] By 2010, the industry had recovered, and arrivals grew above 2006 levels to 5.2 million international visitors, and receipts from these visitors reached US$6 billion.[281] In 2011 the historical record was reached with 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts.[282][283]
+
+Despite continuing record-breaking international tourism revenues, the number of Brazilian tourists travelling overseas has been growing steadily since 2003, resulting in a net negative foreign exchange balance, as more money is spent abroad by Brazilians than comes in as receipts from international tourists visiting Brazil.[292]
+
+Tourism expenditures abroad grew from US$5.8 billion in 2006, to US$8.2 billion in 2007, a 42% increase, representing a net deficit of US$3.3 billion in 2007, as compared to US$1.5 billion in 2006, a 125% increase from the previous year.[292] This trend is caused by Brazilians taking advantage of the stronger Real to travel and making relatively cheaper expenditures abroad.[292] Brazilians traveling overseas in 2006 represented 4% of the country's population.[293]
+
+In 2005, tourism contributed with 3.2% of the country's revenues from exports of goods and services, and represented 7% of direct and indirect employment in the Brazilian economy.[294] In 2006 direct employment in the sector reached 1.9 million people.[295]
+
+Domestic tourism is a fundamental market segment for the industry, as 51 million people traveled throughout the country in 2005,[296] and direct revenues from Brazilian tourists reached US$22 billion,[297] 5.6 times more receipts than international tourists in 2005.
+
+In 2005, Rio de Janeiro, Foz do Iguaçu, São Paulo, Florianópolis and Salvador were the most visited cities by international tourists for leisure trips. The most popular destinations for business trips were São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre.[298] In 2006 Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza were the most popular destinations for business trips.
+
+Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies.[299] Brazil's most esteemed technological hubs are the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Butantan Institute, the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Center, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the INPE.[300][301]
+
+The Brazilian Space Agency has the most advanced space program in Latin America, with significant resources to launch vehicles, and manufacture of satellites.[302] Owner of relative technological sophistication, the country develops submarines, aircraft, as well as being involved in space research, having a Vehicle Launch Center Light and being the only country in the Southern Hemisphere the integrate team building International Space Station (ISS).[303]
+
+The country is also a pioneer in the search for oil in deep water, from where it extracts 73% of its reserves.
+Uranium is enriched at the Resende Nuclear Fuel Factory, mostly for research purposes (as Brazil obtains 88% from its electricity from hydroelectricity[304]) and the country's first nuclear submarine was delivered in 2015 (by France).[305]
+
+Brazil is one of the three countries in Latin America[306] with an operational Synchrotron Laboratory, a research facility on physics, chemistry, material science and life sciences, and Brazil is the only Latin American country to have a semiconductor company with its own fabrication plant, the CEITEC.[307] According to the Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010 of the World Economic Forum, Brazil is the world's 61st largest developer of information technology.[308]
+
+Brazil also has a large number of outstanding scientific personalities. Among the most renowned Brazilian inventors are priests Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Landell de Moura and Francisco João de Azevedo, besides Alberto Santos-Dumont,[309] Evaristo Conrado Engelberg,[310] Manuel Dias de Abreu,[311] Andreas Pavel[312] and Nélio José Nicolai.[313]
+
+Brazilian science is represented by the likes of César Lattes (Brazilian physicist Pathfinder of Pi Meson),[314] Mário Schenberg (considered the greatest theoretical physicist of Brazil),[315] José Leite Lopes (only Brazilian physicist holder of the UNESCO Science Prize),[316] Artur Ávila (the first Latin American winner of the Fields Medal)[317] and Fritz Müller (pioneer in factual support of the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin).[318]
+
+Brazilian roads are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic. The road system totaled 1.98 million km (1.23 million mi) in 2002. The total of paved roads increased from 35,496 km (22,056 mi) (22,056 mi) in 1967 to 184,140 km (114,419 mi) (114,425 mi) in 2002.[321]
+
+The first investments in road infrastructure have given up in the 1920s, the government of Washington Luis, being pursued in the governments of Getúlio Vargas and Eurico Gaspar Dutra.[322] President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–61), who designed and built the capital Brasília, was another supporter of highways. Kubitschek was responsible for the installation of major car manufacturers in the country (Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors arrived in Brazil during his rule) and one of the points used to attract them was support for the construction of highways. With the implementation of Fiat in 1976 ending an automobile market closed loop, from the end of the 1990s the country has received large foreign direct investments installing in its territory other major car manufacturers and utilities, such as Iveco, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Hyundai, Toyota among others.[323] Brazil is the seventh most important country in the auto industry.[324]
+
+Brazil's railway system has been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction. The total length of railway track was 30,875 km (19,185 mi) in 2002, as compared with 31,848 km (19,789 mi) in 1970. Most of the railway system belonged to the Federal Railroad Corporation RFFSA, which was privatized in 2007.[325] The São Paulo Metro was the first underground transit system in Brazil. The other metro systems are in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Teresina and Fortaleza.
+
+The country has an extensive rail network of 28,538 kilometres (17,733 miles) in length, the tenth largest network in the world.[326] Currently, the Brazilian government, unlike the past, seeks to encourage this mode of transport; an example of this incentive is the project of the Rio–São Paulo high-speed rail, that will connect the two main cities of the country to carry passengers.
+
+There are about 2,500 airports in Brazil, including landing fields: the second largest number in the world, after the United States.[327] São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, near São Paulo, is the largest and busiest airport with nearly 20 million passengers annually, while handling the vast majority of commercial traffic for the country.[328]
+
+For freight transport waterways are of importance, e.g. the industrial zones of Manaus can be reached only by means of the Solimões–Amazonas waterway (3,250 kilometres (2,020 miles) with 6 metres (20 feet) minimum depth). The country also has 50,000 kilometres (31,000 miles) of waterways.[326]
+
+Coastal shipping links widely separated parts of the country. Bolivia and Paraguay have been given free ports at Santos. Of the 36 deep-water ports, Santos, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Paranaguá, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Vitória, Suape, Manaus and São Francisco do Sul are the most important.[329] Bulk carriers have to wait up to 18 days before being serviced, container ships 36.3 hours on average.[330]
+
+The Brazilian public health system, the Unified Health System (SUS), is managed and provided by all levels of government,[332] being the largest system of this type in the world.[333] On the other hand, private healthcare systems play a complementary role.[334]
+
+Public health services are universal and offered to all citizens of the country for free. However, the construction and maintenance of health centers and hospitals are financed by taxes, and the country spends about 9% of its GDP on expenditures in the area. In 2012, Brazil had 1.85 doctors and 2.3 hospital beds for every 1,000 inhabitants.[335][336]
+
+Despite all the progress made since the creation of the universal health care system in 1988, there are still several public health problems in Brazil. In 2006, the main points to be solved were the high infant (2.51%) and maternal mortality rates (73.1 deaths per 1000 births).[337]
+
+The number of deaths from noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (151.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and cancer (72.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), also has a considerable impact on the health of the Brazilian population. Finally, external but preventable factors such as car accidents, violence and suicide caused 14.9% of all deaths in the country.[337] The Brazilian health system was ranked 125th among the 191 countries evaluated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000.[338]
+
+The Federal Constitution and the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education determine that the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities must manage and organize their respective education systems. Each of these public educational systems is responsible for its own maintenance, which manages funds as well as the mechanisms and funding sources. The constitution reserves 25% of the state budget and 18% of federal taxes and municipal taxes for education.[339]
+
+According to the IBGE, in 2011, the literacy rate of the population was 90.4%, meaning that 13 million (9.6% of population) people are still illiterate in the country; functional illiteracy has reached 21.6% of the population.[340] Illiteracy is highest in the Northeast, where 19.9% of the population is illiterate.[341]
+
+Higher education starts with undergraduate or sequential courses, which may offer different options of specialization in academic or professional careers. Depending on the choice, students can improve their educational background with courses of post-graduate studies or broad sense.
+
+Attending an institution of higher education is required by Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education. Kindergarten, elementary and medium education are required of all students, provided the student does not hold any disability, whether physical, mental, visual or hearing.
+
+The University of São Paulo is the second best university in Latin America, according to recent 2019 QS World University Rankings. Of the top 20 Latin American universities, eight are Brazilian. Most of them are public.[342]
+
+Brazil's private institutions tend to be more exclusive and offer better quality education, so many high-income families send their children there. The result is a segregated educational system that reflects extreme income disparities and reinforces social inequality. However, efforts to change this are making impacts.[343]
+
+The Brazilian press was officially born in Rio de Janeiro on 13 May 1808 with the creation of the Royal Printing National Press by the Prince Regent Dom João.[345]
+
+The Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, the first newspaper published in the country, began to circulate on 10 September 1808.[346] The largest newspapers nowadays are Folha de S.Paulo, Super Notícia, O Globo and O Estado de S. Paulo.[347]
+
+Radio broadcasting began on 7 September 1922, with a speech by then President Pessoa, and was formalized on 20 April 1923 with the creation of "Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro."[348]
+
+Television in Brazil began officially on 18 September 1950, with the founding of TV Tupi by Assis Chateaubriand.[349] Since then television has grown in the country, creating large commercial broadcast networks such as Globo, SBT, RecordTV, Bandeirantes and RedeTV. Today it is the most important factor in popular culture of Brazilian society, indicated by research showing that as much as 67%[350][351] of the general population follow the same daily soap opera broadcast. Digital Television, using the SBTVD standard (based on the Japanese standard ISDB-T), was adopted on 29 June 2006 and launched on 2 November 2007.[352] In May 2010, the Brazilian government launched TV Brasil Internacional, an international television station, initially broadcasting to 49 countries.[353] Commercial television channels broadcast internationally include Globo Internacional, RecordTV Internacional and Band Internacional.
+
+The population of Brazil, as recorded by the 2008 PNAD, was approximately 190 million[356] (22.31 inhabitants per square kilometre or 57.8/sq mi), with a ratio of men to women of 0.95:1[357] and 83.75% of the population defined as urban.[358] The population is heavily concentrated in the Southeastern (79.8 million inhabitants) and Northeastern (53.5 million inhabitants) regions, while the two most extensive regions, the Center-West and the North, which together make up 64.12% of the Brazilian territory, have a total of only 29.1 million inhabitants.
+
+The first census in Brazil was carried out in 1872 and recorded a population of 9,930,478.[359] From 1880 to 1930, 4 million Europeans arrived.[360] Brazil's population increased significantly between 1940 and 1970, because of a decline in the mortality rate, even though the birth rate underwent a slight decline. In the 1940s the annual population growth rate was 2.4%, rising to 3.0% in the 1950s and remaining at 2.9% in the 1960s, as life expectancy rose from 44 to 54 years[361] and to 72.6 years in 2007.[362]
+It has been steadily falling since the 1960s, from 3.04% per year between 1950 and 1960 to 1.05% in 2008 and is expected to fall to a negative value of –0.29% by 2050[363] thus completing the demographic transition.[364]
+
+In 2008, the illiteracy rate was 11.48%[365] and among the youth (ages 15–19) 1.74%. It was highest (20.30%) in the Northeast, which had a large proportion of rural poor.[366] Illiteracy was high (24.18%) among the rural population and lower (9.05%) among the urban population.[367]
+
+According to the National Research by Household Sample (PNAD) of 2008, 48.43% of the population (about 92 million) described themselves as White; 43.80% (about 83 million) as Pardo (brown), 6.84% (about 13 million) as Black; 0.58% (about 1.1 million) as Asian; and 0.28% (about 536 thousand) as Amerindian (officially called indígena, Indigenous), while 0.07% (about 130 thousand) did not declare their race.[369]
+
+In 2007, the National Indian Foundation estimated that Brazil has 67 different uncontacted tribes, up from their estimate of 40 in 2005. Brazil is believed to have the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world.[370]
+
+Since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, considerable genetic mixing between Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans has taken place in all regions of the country (with European ancestry being dominant nationwide according to the vast majority of all autosomal studies undertaken covering the entire population, accounting for between 65% to 77%).[371][372][373][374]
+
+Race and ethnicity in Brazil[375][376][377]
+
+Brazilian society is more markedly divided by social class lines, although a high income disparity is found between race groups, so racism and classism can be conflated. Socially significant closeness to one racial group is taken in account more in the basis of appearance (phenotypes) rather than ancestry, to the extent that full siblings can pertain to different "racial" groups.[378] Socioeconomic factors are also significant, because a minority of pardos are likely to start declaring themselves White or Black if socially upward.[379] Skin color and facial features do not line quite well with ancestry (usually, Afro-Brazilians are evenly mixed and European ancestry is dominant in Whites and pardos with a significant non-European contribution, but the individual variation is great).[374][380][381][382]
+
+The brown population (officially called pardo in Portuguese, also colloquially moreno)[383][384] is a broad category that includes caboclos (assimilated Amerindians in general, and descendants of Whites and Natives), mulatos (descendants of primarily Whites and Afro-Brazilians) and cafuzos (descendants of Afro-Brazilians and Natives).[383][384][385][386][387] People of considerable Amerindian ancestry form the majority of the population in the Northern, Northeastern and Center-Western regions.[388]
+
+Higher percents of Blacks, mulattoes and tri-racials can be found in the eastern coast of the Northeastern region from Bahia to Paraíba[387][389] and also in northern Maranhão,[390][391] southern Minas Gerais[392] and in eastern Rio de Janeiro.[387][392] From the 19th century, Brazil opened its borders to immigration. About five million people from over 60 countries migrated to Brazil between 1808 and 1972, most of them of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arab origin.[393][394]. Brazil has the second largest Jewish community in Latin America making up 0.06% of its population.[395]
+
+Religion in Brazil (2010 Census)
+
+Religion in Brazil (2020 estimate by Datafolha) [396]
+
+Roman Catholicism is the country's predominant faith. Brazil has the world's largest Catholic population.[397][398] According to the 2010 Demographic Census (the PNAD survey does not inquire about religion), 64.63% of the population followed Roman Catholicism; 22.2% Protestantism; 2.0% Kardecist spiritism; 3.2% other religions, undeclared or undetermined; while 8.0% have no religion.[5]
+
+Religion in Brazil was formed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of enslaved African peoples and indigenous peoples.[399]. This confluence of faiths during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil led to the development of a diverse array of syncretistic practices within the overarching umbrella of Brazilian Catholic Church, characterized by traditional Portuguese festivities,[400] and in some instances, Allan Kardec's Spiritism (a religion which incorporates elements of spiritualism and Christianity). Religious pluralism increased during the 20th century,[401] and the Protestant community has grown to include over 22% of the population.[402] The most common Protestant denominations are Evangelical Pentecostal ones. Other Protestant branches with a notable presence in the country include the Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and the Reformed tradition.[403]
+
+However,  in the last ten years Protestantism, has spread in Brazil, while the proportion of Catholics has dropped significantly. The country has no census since 2010, but demographs estimate evangelical population will be majority after 2032, because Protestantism accounted for fewer than 5% of the population until the 1960s, but by 2000 made up over 15% of those affiliated with a church, now the evangelical group are the most rapidly growing religious group and more costly. [404] [405]
+
+After Protestantism, individuals professing no religion are also a significant group, exceeding 8% of the population as of the 2010 census. The cities of Boa Vista, Salvador, and Porto Velho have the greatest proportion of Irreligious residents in Brazil. Teresina, Fortaleza, and Florianópolis were the most Roman Catholic in the country.[406] Greater Rio de Janeiro, not including the city proper, is the most irreligious and least Roman Catholic Brazilian periphery, while Greater Porto Alegre and Greater Fortaleza are on the opposite sides of the lists, respectively.[406]
+
+In October 2009, the Brazilian Senate approved and enacted by the President of  Brazil in February 2010, an agreement with the Vatican, in which the Legal Statute of the Catholic Church in Brazil is recognized. The agreement confirmed norms that were normally complied with regarding religious education in public elementary schools (which also ensures the teaching of other beliefs), marriage and spiritual assistance in prisons and hospitals. The project was criticized by parliamentarians who understood the end of the secular state with the approval of the agreement.[410][411]
+
+According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) urban areas already concentrate 84.35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants.[412]
+The largest urban agglomerations in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte – all in the Southeastern Region – with 21.1, 12.3, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively.[413][414][415] The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina.[416]
+
+The official language of Brazil is Portuguese[419] (Article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil), which almost all of the population speaks and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio, television, and for business and administrative purposes. Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity and giving it a national culture distinct from those of its Spanish-speaking neighbors.[420]
+
+Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, mostly similar to 16th-century Central and Southern dialects of European Portuguese[421] (despite a very substantial number of Portuguese colonial settlers, and more recent immigrants, coming from Northern regions, and in minor degree Portuguese Macaronesia), with a few influences from the Amerindian and African languages, especially West African and Bantu restricted to the vocabulary only.[422] As a result,[citation needed] the language is somewhat different, mostly in phonology, from the language of Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries (the dialects of the other countries, partly because of the more recent end of Portuguese colonialism in these regions, have a closer connection to contemporary European Portuguese). These differences are comparable to those between American and British English.[422]
+
+In 1990, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which included representatives from all countries with Portuguese as the official language, reached an agreement on the reform of the Portuguese orthography to unify the two standards then in use by Brazil on one side and the remaining lusophone countries on the other. This spelling reform went into effect in Brazil on 1 January 2009. In Portugal, the reform was signed into law by the President on 21 July 2008 allowing for a six-year adaptation period, during which both orthographies will co-exist. The remaining CPLP countries are free to establish their own transition timetables.[423]
+
+The sign language law legally recognized in 2002,[424] (the law was regulated in 2005)[425] the use of the Brazilian Sign Language, more commonly known by its Portuguese acronym LIBRAS, in education and government services. The language must be taught as a part of the education and speech and language pathology curricula. LIBRAS teachers, instructors and translators are recognized professionals. Schools and health services must provide access ("inclusion") to deaf people.[426]
+
+Minority languages are spoken throughout the nation. One hundred and eighty Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas and a significant number of other languages are spoken by immigrants and their descendants.[422] In the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Nheengatu (a currently endangered South American creole language – or an 'anti-creole', according to some linguists – with mostly Indigenous Brazilian languages lexicon and Portuguese-based grammar that, together with its southern relative língua geral paulista, once was a major lingua franca in Brazil,[427] being replaced by Portuguese only after governmental prohibition led by major political changes)[excessive detail?], Baniwa and Tucano languages had been granted co-official status with Portuguese.[428]
+
+There are significant communities of German (mostly the Brazilian Hunsrückisch, a High German language dialect) and Italian (mostly the Talian, a Venetian dialect) origins in the Southern and Southeastern regions, whose ancestors' native languages were carried along to Brazil, and which, still alive there, are influenced by the Portuguese language.[429][430] Talian is officially a historic patrimony of Rio Grande do Sul,[431] and two German dialects possess co-official status in a few municipalities.[432] Italian is also recognized as ethnic language in the Santa Teresa microregion and Vila Velha (Espirito Santo state), and is taught as mandatory second language at school.[2]
+
+Learning at least one second language (generally English or Spanish) is mandatory for all the 12 grades of the mandatory education system (primary and secondary education, there called ensino fundamental and ensino médio respectively). Brazil is the first country in South America to offer Esperanto to secondary students.[433]
+
+The core culture of Brazil is derived from Portuguese culture, because of its strong colonial ties with the Portuguese Empire.[434] Among other influences, the Portuguese introduced the Portuguese language, Roman Catholicism and colonial architectural styles. The culture was, however, also strongly influenced by African, indigenous and non-Portuguese European cultures and traditions.[435]
+Some aspects of Brazilian culture were influenced by the contributions of Italian, German and other European as well as Japanese, Jewish and Arab immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries.[436] The indigenous Amerindians influenced Brazil's language and cuisine; and the Africans influenced language, cuisine, music, dance and religion.[437]
+
+Brazilian art has developed since the 16th century into different styles that range from Baroque (the dominant style in Brazil until the early 19th century)[438][439] to Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstractionism. Brazilian cinema dates back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century and has gained a new level of international acclaim since the 1960s.[440]
+
+The architecture of Brazil is influenced by Europe, especially Portugal. It has a history that goes back 500 years to the time when Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil in 1500. Portuguese colonial architecture was the first wave of architecture to go to Brazil.[441] It is the basis for all Brazilian architecture of later centuries.[442] In the 19th century during the time of the Empire of Brazil, Brazil followed European trends and adopted Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. Then in the 20th century especially in Brasilia, Brazil experimented with Modernist architecture.
+
+The colonial architecture of Brazil dates to the early 16th century when Brazil was first explored, conquered and settled by the Portuguese. The Portuguese built architecture familiar to them in Europe in their aim to colonize Brazil. They built Portuguese colonial architecture which included churches, civic architecture including houses and forts in Brazilian cities and the countryside. During 19th century Brazilian architecture saw the introduction of more European styles to Brazil such as Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. This was usually mixed with Brazilian influences from their own heritage which produced a unique form of Brazilian architecture. In the 1950s the modernist architecture was introduced when Brasilia was built as new federal capital in the interior of Brazil to help develop the interior. The architect Oscar Niemeyer idealized and built government buildings, churches and civic buildings in the modernist style.[443][444]
+
+The music of Brazil was formed mainly from the fusion of European and African elements.[446] Until the nineteenth century, Portugal was the gateway to most of the influences that built Brazilian music, although many of these elements were not of Portuguese origin, but generally European. The first was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, author of sacred pieces with influence of Viennese classicism.[447] The major contribution of the African element was the rhythmic diversity and some dances and instruments that had a bigger role in the development of popular music and folk, flourishing especially in the twentieth century.[446]
+
+Popular music since the late eighteenth century began to show signs of forming a characteristically Brazilian sound, with samba considered the most typical and on the UNESCO cultural heritage list.[448] Maracatu and Afoxê are two Afro-Brazilian music traditions that have been popularized by their appearance in the annual Brazilian Carnivals.[449] The sport of capoeira is usually played with its own music referred to as capoeira music, which is usually considered to be a call-and-response type of folk music.[450] Forró is a type of folk music prominent during the Festa Junina in northeastern Brazil.[451] Jack A. Draper III, a professor of Portuguese at the University of Missouri,[452] argues that Forró was used as a way to subdue feelings of nostalgia for a rural lifestyle.[453]
+
+Choro is a very popular music instrumental style. Its origins are in 19th-century Rio de Janeiro. In spite of the name, the style often has a fast and happy rhythm, characterized by virtuosity, improvisation, subtle modulations and full of syncopation and counterpoint.[454] Bossa nova is also a well-known style of Brazilian music developed and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s.[455] The phrase "bossa nova" means literally "new trend".[456] A lyrical fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova acquired a large following starting in the 1960s.[457]
+
+Brazilian literature dates back to the 16th century, to the writings of the first Portuguese explorers in Brazil, such as Pêro Vaz de Caminha, filled with descriptions of fauna, flora and commentary about the indigenous population that fascinated European readers.[459]
+
+Brazil produced significant works in Romanticism – novelists like Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and José de Alencar wrote novels about love and pain. Alencar, in his long career, also treated indigenous people as heroes in the Indigenist novels O Guarani, Iracema and Ubirajara.[460] Machado de Assis, one of his contemporaries, wrote in virtually all genres and continues to gain international prestige from critics worldwide.[461][462][463]
+
+Brazilian Modernism, evidenced by the Week of Modern Art in 1922, was concerned with a nationalist avant-garde literature,[464] while Post-Modernism brought a generation of distinct poets like João Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Vinicius de Moraes, Cora Coralina, Graciliano Ramos, Cecília Meireles, and internationally known writers dealing with universal and regional subjects like Jorge Amado, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector and Manuel Bandeira.[465][466][467]
+
+Brazilian cuisine varies greatly by region, reflecting the country's varying mix of indigenous and immigrant populations. This has created a national cuisine marked by the preservation of regional differences.[468] Examples are Feijoada, considered the country's national dish;[469] and regional foods such as beiju, feijão tropeiro, vatapá, moqueca, polenta (from Italian cuisine) and acarajé (from African cuisine).[470]
+
+The national beverage is coffee and cachaça is Brazil's native liquor. Cachaça is distilled from sugar cane and is the main ingredient in the national cocktail, Caipirinha.[471]
+
+A typical meal consists mostly of rice and beans with beef, salad, french fries and a fried egg.[472] Often, it is mixed with cassava flour (farofa). Fried potatoes, fried cassava, fried banana, fried meat and fried cheese are very often eaten in lunch and served in most typical restaurants.[473] Popular snacks are pastel (a fried pastry); coxinha (a variation of chicken croquete); pão de queijo (cheese bread and cassava flour / tapioca); pamonha (corn and milk paste); esfirra (a variation of Lebanese pastry); kibbeh (from Arabic cuisine); empanada (pastry) and empada, little salt pies filled with shrimps or heart of palm.
+
+Brazil has a variety of desserts such as brigadeiros (chocolate fudge balls), bolo de rolo (roll cake with goiabada), cocada (a coconut sweet), beijinhos (coconut truffles and clove) and romeu e julieta (cheese with goiabada). Peanuts are used to make paçoca, rapadura and pé-de-moleque. Local common fruits like açaí, cupuaçu, mango, papaya, cocoa, cashew, guava, orange, lime, passionfruit, pineapple, and hog plum are turned in juices and used to make chocolates, ice pops and ice cream.[474]
+
+The Brazilian film industry began in the late 19th century, during the early days of the Belle Époque. While there were national film productions during the early 20th century, American films such as Rio the Magnificent were made in Rio de Janeiro to promote tourism in the city.[475] The films Limite (1931) and Ganga Bruta (1933), the latter being produced by Adhemar Gonzaga through the prolific studio Cinédia, were poorly received at release and failed at the box office, but are acclaimed nowadays and placed among the finest Brazilian films of all time.[476] The 1941 unfinished film It's All True was divided in four segments, two of which were filmed in Brazil and directed by Orson Welles; it was originally produced as part of the United States' Good Neighbor Policy during Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo government.
+
+During the 1960s, the Cinema Novo movement rose to prominence with directors such as Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Paulo Cesar Saraceni and Arnaldo Jabor. Rocha's films Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) and Terra em Transe (1967) are considered to be some of the greatest and most influential in Brazilian film history.[477]
+
+During the 1990s, Brazil saw a surge of critical and commercial success with films such as O Quatrilho (Fábio Barreto, 1995), O Que É Isso, Companheiro? (Bruno Barreto, 1997) and Central do Brasil (Walter Salles, 1998), all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the latter receiving a Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Montenegro. The 2002 crime film City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles, was critically acclaimed, scoring 90% on Rotten Tomatoes,[478] being placed in Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Decade list[479] and receiving four Academy Award nominations in 2004, including Best Director. Notable film festivals in Brazil include the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festivals and the Gramado Festival.
+
+The theatre in Brazil has its origins in the period of Jesuit expansion when theater was used for the dissemination of Catholic doctrine in the 16th century. in the 17th and 18th centuries the first dramatists who appeared on the scene of European derivation was for court or private performances.[480] During the 19th century, dramatic theater gained importance and thickness, whose first representative was Luis Carlos Martins Pena (1813–1848), capable of describing contemporary reality. Always in this period the comedy of costume and comic production was imposed. Significant, also in the nineteenth century, was also the playwright Antônio Gonçalves Dias.[481] There were also numerous operas and orchestras. The Brazilian conductor Antônio Carlos Gomes became internationally known with operas like Il Guarany. At the end of the 19th century orchestrated dramaturgias became very popular and were accompanied with songs of famous artists like the conductress Chiquinha Gonzaga.[482]
+
+Already in the early 20th century there was the presence of theaters, entrepreneurs and actor companies, but paradoxically the quality of the products staggered, and only in 1940 the Brazilian theater received a boost of renewal thanks to the action of Paschoal Carlos Magno and his student's theater, the comedians group and the Italian actors Adolfo Celi, Ruggero Jacobbi and Aldo Calvo, founders of the Teatro Brasileiro de Comedia. From the 1960s it was attended by a theater dedicated to social and religious issues and to the flourishing of schools of dramatic art. The most prominent authors at this stage were Jorge Andrade and Ariano Suassuna.[481]
+
+Brazilian painting emerged in the late 16th century,[483] influenced by Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism and Abstracionism making it a major art style called Brazilian academic art.[484][485] The Missão Artística Francesa (French Artistic Mission) arrived in Brazil in 1816 proposing the creation of an art academy modeled after the respected Académie des Beaux-Arts, with graduation courses both for artists and craftsmen for activities such as modeling, decorating, carpentry and others and bringing artists like Jean-Baptiste Debret.[485]
+
+Upon the creation of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, new artistic movements spread across the country during the 19th century and later the event called Week of Modern Art broke definitely with academic tradition in 1922 and started a nationalist trend which was influenced by modernist arts. Among the best-known Brazilian painters are Ricardo do Pilar and Manuel da Costa Ataíde (baroque and rococo), Victor Meirelles, Pedro Américo and Almeida Junior (romanticism and realism), Anita Malfatti, Ismael Nery, Lasar Segall, Emiliano di Cavalcanti, Vicente do Rego Monteiro, and Tarsila do Amaral (expressionism, surrealism and cubism), Aldo Bonadei, José Pancetti and Cândido Portinari (modernism).[486]
+
+The most popular sport in Brazil is football.[488] The Brazilian men's national team is ranked among the best in the world according to the FIFA World Rankings, and has won the World Cup tournament a record five times.[489][490]
+
+Volleyball, basketball, auto racing, and martial arts also attract large audiences. The Brazil men's national volleyball team, for example, currently holds the titles of the World League, World Grand Champions Cup, World Championship and the World Cup. In auto racing, three Brazilian drivers have won the Formula One world championship eight times.[491][492][493]
+
+Some sport variations have their origins in Brazil: beach football,[494] futsal (indoor football)[495] and footvolley emerged in Brazil as variations of football. In martial arts, Brazilians developed Capoeira,[496] Vale tudo,[497] and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.[498]
+
+Brazil has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, like the 1950 FIFA World Cup[499] and recently has hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2019 Copa América.[500] The São Paulo circuit, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, hosts the annual Grand Prix of Brazil.[501] São Paulo organized the IV Pan American Games in 1963, and Rio de Janeiro hosted the XV Pan American Games in 2007.[502] On 2 October 2009, Rio de Janeiro was selected to host the 2016 Olympic Games and 2016 Paralympic Games, making it the first South American city to host the games[503] and second in Latin America, after Mexico City. Furthermore, the country hosted the FIBA Basketball World Cups in 1954 and 1963. At the 1963 event, the Brazil national basketball team won one of its two world championship titles.[504]
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+Portuguese Macau
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+Lat. and Long. 15°45′S 47°57′W / 15.750°S 47.950°W / -15.750; -47.950 (Brasilia)

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+Coordinates: 10°S 52°W / 10°S 52°W / -10; -52
+
+Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil; Brazilian Portuguese: [bɾaˈziw]),[nt 1] officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil),[10] is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers (3.2 million square miles)[11] and with over 211 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the sixth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states and the Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas;[12][13] it is also one of the most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass immigration from around the world;[14] as well as the most populous Roman Catholic-majority country.
+
+Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers (4,655 mi).[15] It borders all other countries in South America except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent's land area.[16] Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats.[15] This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, and is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.
+
+Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808 when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. The country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic.[17] Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[18]
+
+Brazil is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank[19] and a newly industrialized country,[20] with the largest share of global wealth in Latin America. It is considered an advanced emerging economy.[21] It has the ninth largest GDP in the world by nominal, and eight by PPP measures.[22][23] It is one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24] Brazil is a regional power and sometimes considered a great[25][26][27] or a middle power in international affairs.[27][28][29][30][31][26] On account of its international recognition and influence, the country is subsequently classified as an emerging power[32] and a potential superpower by several analysts.[33][34][35] Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.
+
+The word "Brazil" likely comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast.[36] In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa ("ember") and the suffix -il (from -iculum or -ilium).[37] As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was highly valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil.[38] Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi) along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders (mostly Portuguese, but also French) in return for assorted European consumer goods.[39]
+
+The official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross" (Terra da Santa Cruz),[40] but European sailors and merchants commonly called it simply the "Land of Brazil" (Terra do Brasil) because of the brazilwood trade.[41] The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name. Some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots".[42]
+
+In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama". This was the name the indigenous population gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".[43]
+
+Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years.[46][47]
+
+The earliest pottery ever found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago (6000 BC). The pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the tropical forest region supported a complex prehistoric culture.[48] The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from 400 CE to 1400 CE, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, and complex social formations such as chiefdoms.[45]
+
+Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people,[49] mostly semi-nomadic, who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. The indigenous population of Brazil comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups (e.g. the Tupis, Guaranis, Gês and Arawaks). The Tupí people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás, and there were also many subdivisions of the other groups.[50]
+
+Before the arrival of the Europeans, the boundaries between these groups and their subgroups were marked by wars that arose from differences in culture, language and moral beliefs.[51] These wars also involved large-scale military actions on land and water, with cannibalistic rituals on prisoners of war.[52][53] While heredity had some weight, leadership status was more subdued over time, than allocated in succession ceremonies and conventions.[51] Slavery among the Indians had a different meaning than it had for Europeans, since it originated from a diverse socioeconomic organization, in which asymmetries were translated into kinship relations.[54]
+
+The land now called Brazil was claimed for the Portuguese Empire on 22 April 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral.[55] The Portuguese encountered indigenous peoples divided into several tribes, most of whom spoke languages of the Tupi–Guarani family, and fought among themselves.[56] Though the first settlement was founded in 1532, colonization effectively began in 1534, when King John III of Portugal divided the territory into the fifteen private and autonomous Captaincy Colonies of Brazil.[57][58]
+
+However, the decentralized and unorganized tendencies of the captaincy colonies proved problematic, and in 1549 the Portuguese king restructured them into the Governorate General of Brazil in the city of Salvador, which became the capital of a single and centralized Portuguese colony in South America.[58][59] In the first two centuries of colonization, Indigenous and European groups lived in constant war, establishing opportunistic alliances in order to gain advantages against each other.[60][61][62][63] By the mid-16th century, cane sugar had become Brazil's most important export,[56][64] and slaves purchased in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the slave market of Western Africa[65] (not only those from Portuguese allies of their colonies in Angola and Mozambique), had become its largest import,[66][67] to cope with plantations of sugarcane, due to increasing international demand for Brazilian sugar.[68][69]
+
+By the end of the 17th century, sugarcane exports began to decline,[70] and the discovery of gold by bandeirantes in the 1690s would become the new backbone of the colony's economy, fostering a Brazilian Gold Rush[71] which attracted thousands of new settlers to Brazil from Portugal and all Portuguese colonies around the world.[72] This increased level of immigration in turn caused some conflicts between newcomers and old settlers.[73]
+
+Portuguese expeditions known as Bandeiras gradually advanced the Portugal colonial original frontiers in South America to approximately the current Brazilian borders.[74][75] In this era other European powers tried to colonize parts of Brazil, in incursions that the Portuguese had to fight, notably the French in Rio during the 1560s, in Maranhão during the 1610s, and the Dutch in Bahia and Pernambuco, during the Dutch–Portuguese War, after the end of Iberian Union.[76]
+
+The Portuguese colonial administration in Brazil had two objectives that would ensure colonial order and the monopoly of Portugal's wealthiest and largest colony: to keep under control and eradicate all forms of slave rebellion and resistance, such as the Quilombo of Palmares,[77] and to repress all movements for autonomy or independence, such as the Minas Conspiracy.[78]
+
+In late 1807, Spanish and Napoleonic forces threatened the security of continental Portugal, causing Prince Regent João, in the name of Queen Maria I, to move the royal court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro.[79] There they established some of Brazil's first financial institutions, such as its local stock exchanges,[80] and its National Bank, additionally ending the Portuguese monopoly on Brazilian trade and opening Brazil to other nations. In 1809, in retaliation for being forced into exile, the Prince Regent ordered the Portuguese conquest of French Guiana.[81]
+
+With the end of the Peninsular War in 1814, the courts of Europe demanded that Queen Maria I and Prince Regent João return to Portugal, deeming it unfit for the head of an ancient European monarchy to reside in a colony. In 1815, to justify continuing to live in Brazil, where the royal court had thrived for six years, the Crown established the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves, thus creating a pluricontinental transatlantic monarchic state.[82] However, the leadership in Portugal, resentful of the new status of its larger colony, continued to demand the return of court to Lisbon (v. Liberal Revolution of 1820). In 1821, acceding to the demands of revolutionaries who had taken the city of Porto,[83] D. João VI departed for Lisbon. There he swore an oath to the new constitution, leaving his son, Prince Pedro de Alcântara, as Regent of the Kingdom of Brazil.[84]
+
+Tensions between Portuguese and Brazilians increased, and the Portuguese Cortes, guided by the new political regime imposed by the 1820 Liberal Revolution, tried to re-establish Brazil as a colony.[85] The Brazilians refused to yield, and Prince Pedro decided to stand with them, declaring the country's independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822.[86] A month later, Prince Pedro was declared the first Emperor of Brazil, with the royal title of Dom Pedro I, resulting in the foundation of the Empire of Brazil.[87]
+
+The Brazilian War of Independence, which had already begun along this process, spread through the northern, northeastern regions and in Cisplatina province.[88] The last Portuguese soldiers surrendered on 8 March 1824;[89] Portugal officially recognized Brazil on 29 August 1825.[90]
+
+On 7 April 1831, worn down by years of administrative turmoil and political dissent with both liberal and conservative sides of politics, including an attempt of republican secession,[91] and unreconciled to the way that absolutists in Portugal had given in the succession of King John VI, Pedro I went to Portugal to reclaim his daughter's crown, abdicating the Brazilian throne in favor of his five-year-old son and heir (who thus became the Empire's second monarch, with the royal title of Dom Pedro II).[92]
+
+As the new Emperor could not exert his constitutional powers until he came of age, a regency was set up by the National Assembly.[93] In the absence of a charismatic figure who could represent a moderate face of power, during this period a series of localized rebellions took place, such as the Cabanagem in Grão-Pará Province, the Malê Revolt in Salvador da Bahia, the Balaiada (Maranhão), the Sabinada (Bahia), and the Ragamuffin War, which began in Rio Grande do Sul and was supported by Giuseppe Garibaldi. These emerged from the dissatisfaction of the provinces with the central power, coupled with old and latent social tensions peculiar to a vast, slaveholding and newly independent nation state.[94] This period of internal political and social upheaval, which included the Praieira revolt in Pernambuco, was overcome only at the end of the 1840s, years after the end of the regency, which occurred with the premature coronation of Pedro II in 1841.[95]
+
+During the last phase of the monarchy, internal political debate centered on the issue of slavery. The Atlantic slave trade was abandoned in 1850,[96] as a result of the British Aberdeen Act, but only in May 1888 after a long process of internal mobilization and debate for an ethical and legal dismantling of slavery in the country, was the institution formally abolished.[97]
+
+The foreign-affairs policies of the monarchy dealt with issues with the countries of the Southern Cone with whom Brazil had borders. Long after the Cisplatine War that resulted in independence for Uruguay,[98] Brazil won three international wars during the 58-year reign of Pedro II. These were the Platine War, the Uruguayan War and the devastating Paraguayan War, the largest war effort in Brazilian history.[99][100]
+
+Although there was no desire among the majority of Brazilians to change the country's form of government,[101] on 15 November 1889, in disagreement with the majority of Army officers, as well as with rural and financial elites (for different reasons), the monarchy was overthrown by a military coup.[102] 15 November is now Republic Day, a national holiday.[103]
+
+The early republican government was nothing more than a military dictatorship, with army dominating affairs both in Rio de Janeiro and in the states. Freedom of the press disappeared and elections were controlled by those in power.[104] Not until 1894, following an economic crisis and a military one, did civilians take power, remaining there until October 1930.[105][106][107]
+
+If in relation to its foreign policy, the country in this first republican period maintained a relative balance characterized by a success in resolving border disputes with neighboring countries,[108] only broken by the Acre War (1899–1902) and its involvement in World War I (1914–1918),[109][110][111] followed by a failed attempt to exert a prominent role in the League of Nations;[112] Internally, from the crisis of Encilhamento[113][114][115] and the Armada Revolts,[116] a prolonged cycle of financial, political and social instability began until the 1920s, keeping the country besieged by various rebellions, both civilian[117][118][119] and military.[120][121][122]
+
+Little by little, a cycle of general instability sparked by these crises undermined the regime to such an extent that in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate Getúlio Vargas, supported by most of the military, successfully led the October 1930 Coup.[123][124] Vargas and the military were supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed the Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers and replaced the states' governors with their own supporters.[125][126]
+
+In the 1930s, three failed attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power occurred. The first was the Constitutionalist Revolution in 1932, led by the Paulista oligarchy. The second was a Communist uprising in November 1935, and the last one a putsch attempt by local fascists in May 1938.[127][128][129] The 1935 uprising created a security crisis in which the Congress transferred more power to the executive. The 1937 coup d'état resulted in the cancellation of the 1938 election, formalized Vargas as dictator, beginning the Estado Novo era, which was noted for government brutality and censorship of the press.[130]
+
+Foreign policy during the Vargas years was marked by the antecedents[clarification needed] and World War II. Brazil remained neutral until August 1942, when the country entered on the allied side,[131][132] after suffering retaliation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, in a strategic dispute over the South Atlantic.[133] In addition to its participation in the battle of the Atlantic, Brazil also sent an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian campaign.[134]
+
+With the Allied victory in 1945 and the end of the Nazi-fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas's position became unsustainable and he was swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with democracy "reinstated" by the same army that had ended it 15 years earlier.[135] Vargas committed suicide in August 1954 amid a political crisis, after having returned to power by election in 1950.[136][137]
+
+Several brief interim governments followed Vargas's suicide.[138] Juscelino Kubitschek became president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory posture towards the political opposition that allowed him to govern without major crises.[139] The economy and industrial sector grew remarkably,[140] but his greatest achievement was the construction of the new capital city of Brasília, inaugurated in 1960.[141]
+
+Kubitschek's successor, Jânio Quadros, resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office.[142] His vice-president, João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political opposition[143] and was deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a military regime.[144]
+
+The new regime was intended to be transitory[145] but gradually closed in on itself and became a full dictatorship with the promulgation of the Fifth Institutional Act in 1968.[146] Oppression was not limited to those who resorted to guerrilla tactics to fight the regime, but also reached institutional opponents, artists, journalists and other members of civil society,[147][148] inside and outside the country through the infamous "Operation Condor".[149][150] Despite its brutality, like other authoritarian regimes, due to an economic boom, known as an "economic miracle", the regime reached a peak in popularity in the early 1970s.[151]
+
+Slowly, however, the wear and tear of years of dictatorial power that had not slowed the repression, even after the defeat of the leftist guerrillas,[152] plus the inability to deal with the economic crises of the period and popular pressure, made an opening policy inevitable, which from the regime side was led by Generals Ernesto Geisel and Golbery do Couto e Silva.[153] With the enactment of the Amnesty Law in 1979, Brazil began a slow return to democracy, which was completed during the 1980s.[95]
+
+Civilians returned to power in 1985 when José Sarney assumed the presidency. He became unpopular during his tenure through failure to control the economic crisis and hyperinflation he inherited from the military regime.[154] Sarney's unsuccessful government led to the election in 1989 of the almost-unknown Fernando Collor, subsequently impeached by the National Congress in 1992.[155]
+
+Collor was succeeded by his vice-president, Itamar Franco, who appointed Fernando Henrique Cardoso Minister of Finance. In 1994, Cardoso produced a highly successful Plano Real,[156] that, after decades of failed economic plans made by previous governments attempting to curb hyperinflation, finally stabilized the Brazilian economy.[157][158] Cardoso won the 1994 election, and again in 1998.[159]
+
+The peaceful transition of power from Cardoso to his main opposition leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006), was seen as proof that Brazil had achieved a long-sought political stability.[160][161] However, sparked by indignation and frustrations accumulated over decades from corruption, police brutality, inefficiencies of the political establishment and public service, numerous peaceful protests erupted in Brazil from the middle of first term of Dilma Rousseff, who had succeeded Lula after winning election in 2010.[162][163]
+
+Enhanced by political and economic crises with evidence of involvement by politicians from all the primary political parties in several bribery and tax evasion schemes,[164][165] with large street protests for and against her,[166] Rousseff was impeached by the Brazilian Congress in 2016.[167][168] In 2017, the Supreme Court asked for the investigation of 71 Brazilian lawmakers and nine ministers in President Michel Temer's cabinet allegedly linked to the Petrobras corruption scandal.[169] President Temer is himself accused of corruption.[170] In 2018, 62% of the population on a poll claimed that corruption was Brazil's biggest problem.[171]
+
+On 25 February 2020, the COVID-19 virus was confirmed to have spread to Brazil on 25 February 2020.[172] On 19 June 2020, the country reported its 1 millionth case; at this time, there had been nearly 49,000 reported deaths.[173][174] As of July 2020, Brazil has the second-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world behind the US, but ahead of India.
+
+Brazil occupies a large area along the eastern coast of South America and includes much of the continent's interior,[175] sharing land borders with Uruguay to the south; Argentina and Paraguay to the southwest; Bolivia and Peru to the west; Colombia to the northwest; and Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and France (French overseas region of French Guiana) to the north. It shares a border with every South American country except Ecuador and Chile.[15]
+
+It also encompasses a number of oceanic archipelagos, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz.[15] Its size, relief, climate, and natural resources make Brazil geographically diverse.[175] Including its Atlantic islands, Brazil lies between latitudes 6°N and 34°S, and longitudes 28° and 74°W.[15]
+
+Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, and third largest in the Americas, with a total area of 8,515,767.049 km2 (3,287,956 sq mi),[176] including 55,455 km2 (21,411 sq mi) of water.[15] It spans four time zones; from UTC−5 comprising the state of Acre and the westernmost portion of Amazonas, to UTC−4 in the western states, to UTC−3 in the eastern states (the national time) and UTC−2 in the Atlantic islands.[177]
+
+Brazil is the only country in the world that has the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn running through it. Brazilian topography is also diverse and includes hills, mountains, plains, highlands, and scrublands. Much of the terrain lies between 200 metres (660 ft) and 800 metres (2,600 ft) in elevation.[178] The main upland area occupies most of the southern half of the country.[178] The northwestern parts of the plateau consist of broad, rolling terrain broken by low, rounded hills.[178]
+
+The southeastern section is more rugged, with a complex mass of ridges and mountain ranges reaching elevations of up to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft).[178] These ranges include the Mantiqueira and Espinhaço mountains and the Serra do Mar.[178]
+
+In the north, the Guiana Highlands form a major drainage divide, separating rivers that flow south into the Amazon Basin from rivers that empty into the Orinoco River system, in Venezuela, to the north. The highest point in Brazil is the Pico da Neblina at 2,994 metres (9,823 ft), and the lowest is the Atlantic Ocean.[15]
+
+Brazil has a dense and complex system of rivers, one of the world's most extensive, with eight major drainage basins, all of which drain into the Atlantic.[179] Major rivers include the Amazon (the world's second-longest river and the largest in terms of volume of water), the Paraná and its major tributary the Iguaçu (which includes the Iguazu Falls), the Negro, São Francisco, Xingu, Madeira and Tapajós rivers.[179]
+
+The climate of Brazil comprises a wide range of weather conditions across a large area and varied topography, but most of the country is tropical.[15] According to the Köppen system, Brazil hosts six major climatic subtypes: desert, equatorial, tropical, semiarid, oceanic and subtropical. The different climatic conditions produce environments ranging from equatorial rainforests in the north and semiarid deserts in the northeast, to temperate coniferous forests in the south and tropical savannas in central Brazil.[180] Many regions have starkly different microclimates.[181][182]
+
+An equatorial climate characterizes much of northern Brazil. There is no real dry season, but there are some variations in the period of the year when most rain falls.[180] Temperatures average 25 °C (77 °F),[182] with more significant temperature variation between night and day than between seasons.[181]
+
+Over central Brazil rainfall is more seasonal, characteristic of a savanna climate.[181] This region is as extensive as the Amazon basin but has a very different climate as it lies farther south at a higher altitude.[180] In the interior northeast, seasonal rainfall is even more extreme.[183]
+
+The semiarid climatic region generally receives less than 800 millimetres (31.5 in) of rain,[183] most of which generally falls in a period of three to five months of the year[184] and occasionally less than this, creating long periods of drought.[181] Brazil's 1877–78 Grande Seca (Great Drought), the worst in Brazil's history,[185] caused approximately half a million deaths.[186] A similarly devastating drought occurred in 1915.[187]
+
+South of Bahia, near the coasts, and more southerly most of the state of São Paulo, the distribution of rainfall changes, with rain falling throughout the year.[180] The south enjoys subtropical conditions, with cool winters and average annual temperatures not exceeding 18 °C (64.4 °F);[182] winter frosts and snowfall are not rare in the highest areas.[180][181]
+
+Brazil's large territory comprises different ecosystems, such as the Amazon rainforest, recognized as having the greatest biological diversity in the world,[188] with the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado, sustaining the greatest biodiversity.[189] In the south, the Araucaria pine forest grows under temperate conditions.[189] The rich wildlife of Brazil reflects the variety of natural habitats. Scientists estimate that the total number of plant and animal species in Brazil could approach four million, mostly invertebrates.[189]
+
+Larger mammals include carnivores pumas, jaguars, ocelots, rare bush dogs, and foxes, and herbivores peccaries, tapirs, anteaters, sloths, opossums, and armadillos. Deer are plentiful in the south, and many species of New World monkeys are found in the northern rain forests.[189][190] Concern for the environment has grown in response to global interest in environmental issues.[191] Brazil's Amazon Basin is home to an extremely diverse array of fish species, including the red-bellied piranha.
+
+By 2013, Brazil's "dramatic policy-driven reduction in Amazon Basin deforestation" was a "global exception in terms of forest change", according to scientific journal Science.[192]:852 From 2003 to 2011, compared to all other countries in the world, Brazil had the "largest decline in annual forest loss", as indicated in the study using high-resolution satellite maps showing global forest cover changes.[192]:850 The annual loss of forest cover decreased from a 2003/2004 record high of more than 40,000 square kilometres (4,000×10^3 ha; 9.9×10^6 acres; 15,000 sq mi) to a 2010/2011 low of under 20,000 square kilometres (2,000×10^3 ha; 4.9×10^6 acres; 7,700 sq mi),[192]:850 reversing widespread deforestation[192]:852 from the 1970s to 2003.
+
+However, in 2019, when the Bolsonaro government came to power, the rate of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest increased sharply threatening to reach a tipping point after it the forest will collapse, having severe consequences for the world. (see Tipping points in the climate system)  This can also complicate the trade agreement with the European Union[193] Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Bolsonaro criticised what he described as sensational reporting in the international media. "It is a fallacy to say that the Amazon is the heritage of humankind, and a misconception, as confirmed by scientists, to say that our Amazonian forests are the lungs of world. Using these fallacies, certain countries instead of helping, embarked on the media lies and behaved in a disrespectful manner and with a colonialist spirit." he said. President Jair Bolsonaro asserted Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon.[194]
+
+According to a 2008 GreenPeace article, the natural heritage of Brazil is severely threatened by cattle ranching and agriculture, logging, mining, resettlement, oil and gas extraction, over-fishing, wildlife trade, dams and infrastructure, water pollution, climate change, fire, and invasive species.[188] In many areas of the country, the natural environment is threatened by development.[195] The construction of highways has opened up previously remote areas for agriculture and settlement; dams have flooded valleys and inundated wildlife habitats; and mines have scarred and polluted the landscape.[191][196] At least 70 dams are said to be planned for the Amazon region, including the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.[197] In summer 2019, 2 states in Brazil Paraná and Santa Catarina banned fracking, what will have positive effects on the climate and water quality, because the shale gas and shale oil reserves in the state of Parana are the larger in the southern hemisphere.[198][199]
+
+The form of government is a democratic federative republic, with a presidential system.[17] The president is both head of state and head of government of the Union and is elected for a four-year term,[17] with the possibility of re-election for a second successive term. The current president is Jair Bolsonaro. The previous president, Michel Temer, replaced Dilma Rousseff after her impeachment.[200] The President appoints the Ministers of State, who assist in government.[17] Legislative houses in each political entity are the main source of law in Brazil. The National Congress is the Federation's bicameral legislature, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. Judiciary authorities exercise jurisdictional duties almost exclusively. Brazil is a democracy, according to the Democracy Index 2010.[201]
+
+The political-administrative organization of the Federative Republic of Brazil comprises the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities.[17] The Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities, are the "spheres of government". The federation is set on five fundamental principles:[17] sovereignty, citizenship, dignity of human beings, the social values of labor and freedom of enterprise, and political pluralism. The classic tripartite branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial under a checks and balances system) are formally established by the Constitution.[17] The executive and legislative are organized independently in all three spheres of government, while the judiciary is organized only at the federal and state and Federal District spheres.
+
+All members of the executive and legislative branches are directly elected.[202][203][204] Judges and other judicial officials are appointed after passing entry exams.[202] For most of its democratic history, Brazil has had a multi-party system, proportional representation. Voting is compulsory for the literate between 18 and 70 years old and optional for illiterates and those between 16 and 18 or beyond 70.[17]
+
+Together with several smaller parties, four political parties stand out: Workers' Party (PT), Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) and Democrats (DEM). Fifteen political parties are represented in Congress. It is common for politicians to switch parties, and thus the proportion of congressional seats held by particular parties changes regularly.[205] Almost all governmental and administrative functions are exercised by authorities and agencies affiliated to the Executive.
+
+Brazilian law is based on the civil law legal system[206] and civil law concepts prevail over common law practice. Most of Brazilian law is codified, although non-codified statutes also represent a substantial part, playing a complementary role. Court decisions set out interpretive guidelines; however, they are seldom binding on other specific cases. Doctrinal works and the works of academic jurists have strong influence in law creation and in law cases.
+
+The legal system is based on the Federal Constitution, promulgated on 5 October 1988, and the fundamental law of Brazil. All other legislation and court decisions must conform to its rules.[207] As of April 2007[update], there have been 53 amendments. States have their own constitutions, which must not contradict the Federal Constitution.[208] Municipalities and the Federal District have "organic laws" (leis orgânicas), which act in a similar way to constitutions.[209] Legislative entities are the main source of statutes, although in certain matters judiciary and executive bodies may enact legal norms.[17] Jurisdiction is administered by the judiciary entities, although in rare situations the Federal Constitution allows the Federal Senate to pass on legal judgments.[17] There are also specialized military, labor, and electoral courts.[17] The highest court is the Supreme Federal Court.
+
+This system has been criticized over the last few decades for the slow pace of decision-making. Lawsuits on appeal may take several years to resolve, and in some cases more than a decade elapses before definitive rulings.[210] Nevertheless, the Supreme Federal Tribunal was the first court in the world to transmit its sessions on television, and also via YouTube.[211][212] More recently, in December 2009, the Supreme Court adopted Twitter to display items on the day planner of the ministers, to inform the daily actions of the Court and the most important decisions made by them.[213]
+
+The armed forces of Brazil are the largest in Latin America by active personnel and the largest in terms of military equipment.[214] It consists of the Brazilian Army (including the Army Aviation Command), the Brazilian Navy (including the Marine Corps and Naval Aviation), and the Brazilian Air Force. Brazil's conscription policy gives it one of the world's largest military forces, estimated at more than 1.6 million reservists annually.[215]
+
+Numbering close to 236,000 active personnel,[216] the Brazilian Army has the largest number of armored vehicles in South America, including armored transports and tanks.[217] It is also unique in Latin America for its large, elite forces specializing in unconventional missions, the Brazilian Special Operations Command,[218][219][220] and the versatile Strategic Rapid Action Force, made up of highly mobilized and prepared Special Operations Brigade, Infantry Brigade Parachutist,[221][222] 1st Jungle Infantry Battalion (Airmobile)[223] and 12th Brigade Light Infantry (Airmobile)[224] able to act anywhere in the country, on short notice, to counter external aggression.[225] The states' Military Police and the Military Firefighters Corps are described as an ancillary forces of the Army by the constitution, but are under the control of each state's governor.[17]
+
+Brazil's navy, the second-largest in the Americas, once operated some of the most powerful warships in the world with the two Minas Geraes-class dreadnoughts, which sparked a South American dreadnought race between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.[226] Today, it is a green water force and has a group of specialized elite in retaking ships and naval facilities, GRUMEC, unit specially trained to protect Brazilian oil platforms along its coast.[227] It is the only navy in Latin America that operates an aircraft carrier, PHM Atlantico,[228] and one of the ten navies of the world to operate one.[217]
+
+The Air Force is the largest in Latin America and has about 700 manned aircraft in service and effective about 67,000 personnel.[229]
+
+Brazil has not been invaded since 1865 during the Paraguayan War.[230] Additionally, Brazil has no contested territorial disputes with any of its neighbors[231] and neither does it have rivalries, like Chile and Bolivia have with each other.[232][233] The Brazilian military has also three times intervened militarily to overthrow the Brazilian government.[234] It has built a tradition of participating in UN peacekeeping missions such as in Haiti, East Timor and Central African Republic.[235] Brazil signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[236]
+
+Brazil's international relations are based on Article 4 of the Federal Constitution, which establishes non-intervention, self-determination, international cooperation and the peaceful settlement of conflicts as the guiding principles of Brazil's relationship with other countries and multilateral organizations.[237]
+
+According to the Constitution, the President has ultimate authority over foreign policy, while the Congress is tasked with reviewing and considering all diplomatic nominations and international treaties, as well as legislation relating to Brazilian foreign policy.[238]
+
+Brazil's foreign policy is a by-product of the country's position as a regional power in Latin America, a leader among developing countries, and an emerging world power.[239] Brazilian foreign policy has generally been based on the principles of multilateralism, peaceful dispute settlement, and non-intervention in the affairs of other countries.[240]
+
+Brazil is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language.
+
+An increasingly well-developed tool of Brazil's foreign policy is providing aid as a donor to other developing countries.[241] Brazil does not just use its growing economic strength to provide financial aid, but it also provides high levels of expertise and most importantly of all, a quiet non-confrontational diplomacy to improve governance levels.[241] Total aid is estimated to be around $1 billion per year, which includes:[241]
+
+In addition, Brazil manages a peacekeeping mission in Haiti ($350 million) and makes in-kind contributions to the World Food Programme ($300 million).[241] This is in addition to humanitarian assistance and contributions to multilateral development agencies. The scale of this aid places it on par with China and India.[241] The Brazilian South-South aid has been described as a "global model in waiting."[242]
+
+In Brazil, the Constitution establishes five different police agencies for law enforcement: Federal Police Department, Federal Highway Police, Federal Railroad Police, Military Police and Civil Police. Of these, the first three are affiliated with federal authorities and the last two are subordinate to state governments. All police forces are the responsibility of the executive branch of any of the federal or state powers.[17] The National Public Security Force also can act in public disorder situations arising anywhere in the country.[243]
+
+The country still has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide. In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the number of 32 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest rates of homicide of the world.[244] The number considered tolerable by the WHO is about 10 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[245] In 2018, Brazil had a record 63,880 murders.[246] However, there are differences between the crime rates in the Brazilian states. While in São Paulo the homicide rate registered in 2013 was 10.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, in Alagoas it was 64.7 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[247]
+
+Brazil also has high levels of incarceration and the third largest prison population in the world (behind only China and the United States), with an estimated total of approximately 700,000 prisoners around the country (June 2014), an increase of about 300% compared to the index registered in 1992.[248] The high number of prisoners eventually overloaded the Brazilian prison system, leading to a shortfall of about 200,000 accommodations.[249]
+
+Brazil is a federation composed of 26 states, one federal district, and the 5570 municipalities.[17] States have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Federal government. They have a governor and a unicameral legislative body elected directly by their voters. They also have independent Courts of Law for common justice. Despite this, states have much less autonomy to create their own laws than in the United States. For example, criminal and civil laws can be voted by only the federal bicameral Congress and are uniform throughout the country.[17]
+
+The states and the federal district may be grouped into regions: Northern, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast and Southern. The Brazilian regions are merely geographical, not political or administrative divisions, and they do not have any specific form of government. Although defined by law, Brazilian regions are useful mainly for statistical purposes, and also to define the distribution of federal funds in development projects.
+
+Municipalities, as the states, have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Union and state government.[17] Each has a mayor and an elected legislative body, but no separate Court of Law. Indeed, a Court of Law organized by the state can encompass many municipalities in a single justice administrative division called comarca (county).
+
+Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America, the world's ninth largest economy and the eighth largest in purchasing power parity (PPP) according to 2018 estimates. Brazil has a mixed economy with abundant natural resources. After rapid growth in preceding decades, the country entered an ongoing recession in 2014 amid a political corruption scandal and nationwide protests.
+
+Its Gross domestic product (PPP) per capita was $15,919 in 2017[250] putting Brazil in the 77th position according to IMF data. Active in agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service sectors Brazil has a labor force of over 107 million (ranking 6th worldwide) and unemployment of 6.2% (ranking 64th worldwide).[251]
+
+The country has been expanding its presence in international financial and commodities markets, and is one of a group of four emerging economies called the BRIC countries.[252] Brazil has been the world's largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24]
+
+Brazil's diversified economy includes agriculture, industry, and a wide range of services.[254] Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing accounted for 5.1% of the GDP in 2007.[255] Brazil is one of the largest producer of oranges, coffee, sugar cane, cassava and sisal, soybeans and papayas.[256]
+
+Industry in Brazil – from automobiles, steel and petrochemicals to computers, aircraft and consumer durables – accounted for 30.8% of the gross domestic product.[255] Industry is highly concentrated in metropolitan São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte.[257] Brazil has become the fourth largest car market in the world.[258] Major export products include aircraft, electrical equipment, automobiles, ethanol, textiles, footwear, iron ore, steel, coffee, orange juice, soybeans and corned beef.[259] In total, Brazil ranks 23rd worldwide in value of exports.
+
+Brazil pegged its currency, the real, to the U.S. dollar in 1994. However, after the East Asian financial crisis, the Russian default in 1998[260] and the series of adverse financial events that followed it, the Central Bank of Brazil temporarily changed its monetary policy to a managed float regime[261] scheme while undergoing a currency crisis, until definitively changing the exchange regime to free-float in January 1999.[262]
+
+Brazil received an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package in mid-2002 of $30.4 billion,[263] a record sum at the time. Brazil's central bank repaid the IMF loan in 2005, although it was not due to be repaid until 2006.[264] One of the issues the Central Bank of Brazil recently dealt with was an excess of speculative short-term capital inflows to the country, which may have contributed to a fall in the value of the U.S. dollar against the real during that period.[265] Nonetheless, foreign direct investment (FDI), related to long-term, less speculative investment in production, is estimated to be $193.8 billion for 2007.[266] Inflation monitoring and control currently plays a major part in the Central bank's role in setting short-term interest rates as a monetary policy measure.[267]
+
+Between 1993 and 2010, 7012 mergers and acquisitions with a total known value of $707 billion with the involvement of Brazilian firms were announced.[268] The year 2010 was a new record in terms of value with US$115 billion in transactions. The largest transaction with involvement of Brazilian companies was the Cia. Vale do Rio Doce acquisition of Inco in a tender offer valued at US$18.9 billion.
+
+Corruption costs Brazil almost $41 billion a year alone in 2010, with 69.9% of the country's firms identifying the issue as a major constraint in successfully penetrating the global market.[269] Local government corruption is so prevalent that voters perceive it as a problem only if it surpasses certain levels, and only if a local media e.g. a radio station is present to divulge the findings of corruption charges.[270] Initiatives, like this exposure, strengthen awareness which is indicated by the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index; ranking Brazil 69th out of 178 countries in 2012.[271]
+The purchasing power in Brazil is eroded by the so-called Brazil cost.[272]
+
+Brazil also has a large cooperative sector that provides 50% of the food in the country.[273] The world's largest healthcare cooperative Unimed is also located in Brazil, and accounts for 32% of the healthcare insurance market in the country.[274]
+
+Brazil is the world's tenth largest energy consumer with much of its energy coming from renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity and ethanol; the Itaipu Dam is the world's largest hydroelectric plant by energy generation.[275] The first car with an ethanol engine was produced in 1978 and the first airplane engine running on ethanol in 2005.[276]
+
+Recent oil discoveries in the Pre-salt layer have opened the door for a large increase in oil production.[277] The governmental agencies responsible for the energy policy are the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the National Council for Energy Policy, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, and the National Agency of Electricity.[278]
+
+Tourism in Brazil is a growing sector and key to the economy of several regions of the country. The country had 6.36 million visitors in 2015, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the main destination in South America and second in Latin America after Mexico.[280] Revenues from international tourists reached US$6 billion in 2010, showing a recovery from the 2008–2009 economic crisis.[281] Historical records of 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts were reached in 2011.[282][283]
+
+Natural areas are its most popular tourism product, a combination of ecotourism with leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as cultural tourism. Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, cultural tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to São Paulo.[284]
+
+In terms of the 2015 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Brazil ranked in the 28st place at the world's level, third in the Americas, after Canada and United States.[285][286]
+
+Brazil's main competitive advantages are its natural resources, which ranked 1st on this criteria out of all countries considered, and ranked 23rd for its cultural resources, due to its many World Heritage sites. The TTCI report notes Brazil's main weaknesses: its ground transport infrastructure remains underdeveloped (ranked 116th), with the quality of roads ranking in 105th place; and the country continues to suffer from a lack of price competitiveness (ranked 114th), due in part to high ticket taxes and airport charges, as well as high prices and high taxation. Safety and security have improved significantly: 75th in 2011, up from 128th in 2008.[286]
+
+According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), international travel to Brazil accelerated in 2000, particularly during 2004 and 2005. However, in 2006 a slow-down took place, and international arrivals had almost no growth in 2007–08.[287][288][289]
+
+In spite of this trend, revenues from international tourism continued to rise, from USD 4 billion in 2005 to 5 billion in 2007, despite 330 000 fewer arrivals. This favorable trend is the result of the strong devaluation of the US dollar against the Brazilian Real, which began in 2004, but which makes Brazil a more expensive international destination.[290]
+
+This trend changed in 2009, when both visitors and revenues fell as a result of the Great Recession of 2008–09.[291] By 2010, the industry had recovered, and arrivals grew above 2006 levels to 5.2 million international visitors, and receipts from these visitors reached US$6 billion.[281] In 2011 the historical record was reached with 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts.[282][283]
+
+Despite continuing record-breaking international tourism revenues, the number of Brazilian tourists travelling overseas has been growing steadily since 2003, resulting in a net negative foreign exchange balance, as more money is spent abroad by Brazilians than comes in as receipts from international tourists visiting Brazil.[292]
+
+Tourism expenditures abroad grew from US$5.8 billion in 2006, to US$8.2 billion in 2007, a 42% increase, representing a net deficit of US$3.3 billion in 2007, as compared to US$1.5 billion in 2006, a 125% increase from the previous year.[292] This trend is caused by Brazilians taking advantage of the stronger Real to travel and making relatively cheaper expenditures abroad.[292] Brazilians traveling overseas in 2006 represented 4% of the country's population.[293]
+
+In 2005, tourism contributed with 3.2% of the country's revenues from exports of goods and services, and represented 7% of direct and indirect employment in the Brazilian economy.[294] In 2006 direct employment in the sector reached 1.9 million people.[295]
+
+Domestic tourism is a fundamental market segment for the industry, as 51 million people traveled throughout the country in 2005,[296] and direct revenues from Brazilian tourists reached US$22 billion,[297] 5.6 times more receipts than international tourists in 2005.
+
+In 2005, Rio de Janeiro, Foz do Iguaçu, São Paulo, Florianópolis and Salvador were the most visited cities by international tourists for leisure trips. The most popular destinations for business trips were São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre.[298] In 2006 Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza were the most popular destinations for business trips.
+
+Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies.[299] Brazil's most esteemed technological hubs are the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Butantan Institute, the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Center, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the INPE.[300][301]
+
+The Brazilian Space Agency has the most advanced space program in Latin America, with significant resources to launch vehicles, and manufacture of satellites.[302] Owner of relative technological sophistication, the country develops submarines, aircraft, as well as being involved in space research, having a Vehicle Launch Center Light and being the only country in the Southern Hemisphere the integrate team building International Space Station (ISS).[303]
+
+The country is also a pioneer in the search for oil in deep water, from where it extracts 73% of its reserves.
+Uranium is enriched at the Resende Nuclear Fuel Factory, mostly for research purposes (as Brazil obtains 88% from its electricity from hydroelectricity[304]) and the country's first nuclear submarine was delivered in 2015 (by France).[305]
+
+Brazil is one of the three countries in Latin America[306] with an operational Synchrotron Laboratory, a research facility on physics, chemistry, material science and life sciences, and Brazil is the only Latin American country to have a semiconductor company with its own fabrication plant, the CEITEC.[307] According to the Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010 of the World Economic Forum, Brazil is the world's 61st largest developer of information technology.[308]
+
+Brazil also has a large number of outstanding scientific personalities. Among the most renowned Brazilian inventors are priests Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Landell de Moura and Francisco João de Azevedo, besides Alberto Santos-Dumont,[309] Evaristo Conrado Engelberg,[310] Manuel Dias de Abreu,[311] Andreas Pavel[312] and Nélio José Nicolai.[313]
+
+Brazilian science is represented by the likes of César Lattes (Brazilian physicist Pathfinder of Pi Meson),[314] Mário Schenberg (considered the greatest theoretical physicist of Brazil),[315] José Leite Lopes (only Brazilian physicist holder of the UNESCO Science Prize),[316] Artur Ávila (the first Latin American winner of the Fields Medal)[317] and Fritz Müller (pioneer in factual support of the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin).[318]
+
+Brazilian roads are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic. The road system totaled 1.98 million km (1.23 million mi) in 2002. The total of paved roads increased from 35,496 km (22,056 mi) (22,056 mi) in 1967 to 184,140 km (114,419 mi) (114,425 mi) in 2002.[321]
+
+The first investments in road infrastructure have given up in the 1920s, the government of Washington Luis, being pursued in the governments of Getúlio Vargas and Eurico Gaspar Dutra.[322] President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–61), who designed and built the capital Brasília, was another supporter of highways. Kubitschek was responsible for the installation of major car manufacturers in the country (Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors arrived in Brazil during his rule) and one of the points used to attract them was support for the construction of highways. With the implementation of Fiat in 1976 ending an automobile market closed loop, from the end of the 1990s the country has received large foreign direct investments installing in its territory other major car manufacturers and utilities, such as Iveco, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Hyundai, Toyota among others.[323] Brazil is the seventh most important country in the auto industry.[324]
+
+Brazil's railway system has been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction. The total length of railway track was 30,875 km (19,185 mi) in 2002, as compared with 31,848 km (19,789 mi) in 1970. Most of the railway system belonged to the Federal Railroad Corporation RFFSA, which was privatized in 2007.[325] The São Paulo Metro was the first underground transit system in Brazil. The other metro systems are in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Teresina and Fortaleza.
+
+The country has an extensive rail network of 28,538 kilometres (17,733 miles) in length, the tenth largest network in the world.[326] Currently, the Brazilian government, unlike the past, seeks to encourage this mode of transport; an example of this incentive is the project of the Rio–São Paulo high-speed rail, that will connect the two main cities of the country to carry passengers.
+
+There are about 2,500 airports in Brazil, including landing fields: the second largest number in the world, after the United States.[327] São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, near São Paulo, is the largest and busiest airport with nearly 20 million passengers annually, while handling the vast majority of commercial traffic for the country.[328]
+
+For freight transport waterways are of importance, e.g. the industrial zones of Manaus can be reached only by means of the Solimões–Amazonas waterway (3,250 kilometres (2,020 miles) with 6 metres (20 feet) minimum depth). The country also has 50,000 kilometres (31,000 miles) of waterways.[326]
+
+Coastal shipping links widely separated parts of the country. Bolivia and Paraguay have been given free ports at Santos. Of the 36 deep-water ports, Santos, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Paranaguá, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Vitória, Suape, Manaus and São Francisco do Sul are the most important.[329] Bulk carriers have to wait up to 18 days before being serviced, container ships 36.3 hours on average.[330]
+
+The Brazilian public health system, the Unified Health System (SUS), is managed and provided by all levels of government,[332] being the largest system of this type in the world.[333] On the other hand, private healthcare systems play a complementary role.[334]
+
+Public health services are universal and offered to all citizens of the country for free. However, the construction and maintenance of health centers and hospitals are financed by taxes, and the country spends about 9% of its GDP on expenditures in the area. In 2012, Brazil had 1.85 doctors and 2.3 hospital beds for every 1,000 inhabitants.[335][336]
+
+Despite all the progress made since the creation of the universal health care system in 1988, there are still several public health problems in Brazil. In 2006, the main points to be solved were the high infant (2.51%) and maternal mortality rates (73.1 deaths per 1000 births).[337]
+
+The number of deaths from noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (151.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and cancer (72.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), also has a considerable impact on the health of the Brazilian population. Finally, external but preventable factors such as car accidents, violence and suicide caused 14.9% of all deaths in the country.[337] The Brazilian health system was ranked 125th among the 191 countries evaluated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000.[338]
+
+The Federal Constitution and the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education determine that the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities must manage and organize their respective education systems. Each of these public educational systems is responsible for its own maintenance, which manages funds as well as the mechanisms and funding sources. The constitution reserves 25% of the state budget and 18% of federal taxes and municipal taxes for education.[339]
+
+According to the IBGE, in 2011, the literacy rate of the population was 90.4%, meaning that 13 million (9.6% of population) people are still illiterate in the country; functional illiteracy has reached 21.6% of the population.[340] Illiteracy is highest in the Northeast, where 19.9% of the population is illiterate.[341]
+
+Higher education starts with undergraduate or sequential courses, which may offer different options of specialization in academic or professional careers. Depending on the choice, students can improve their educational background with courses of post-graduate studies or broad sense.
+
+Attending an institution of higher education is required by Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education. Kindergarten, elementary and medium education are required of all students, provided the student does not hold any disability, whether physical, mental, visual or hearing.
+
+The University of São Paulo is the second best university in Latin America, according to recent 2019 QS World University Rankings. Of the top 20 Latin American universities, eight are Brazilian. Most of them are public.[342]
+
+Brazil's private institutions tend to be more exclusive and offer better quality education, so many high-income families send their children there. The result is a segregated educational system that reflects extreme income disparities and reinforces social inequality. However, efforts to change this are making impacts.[343]
+
+The Brazilian press was officially born in Rio de Janeiro on 13 May 1808 with the creation of the Royal Printing National Press by the Prince Regent Dom João.[345]
+
+The Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, the first newspaper published in the country, began to circulate on 10 September 1808.[346] The largest newspapers nowadays are Folha de S.Paulo, Super Notícia, O Globo and O Estado de S. Paulo.[347]
+
+Radio broadcasting began on 7 September 1922, with a speech by then President Pessoa, and was formalized on 20 April 1923 with the creation of "Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro."[348]
+
+Television in Brazil began officially on 18 September 1950, with the founding of TV Tupi by Assis Chateaubriand.[349] Since then television has grown in the country, creating large commercial broadcast networks such as Globo, SBT, RecordTV, Bandeirantes and RedeTV. Today it is the most important factor in popular culture of Brazilian society, indicated by research showing that as much as 67%[350][351] of the general population follow the same daily soap opera broadcast. Digital Television, using the SBTVD standard (based on the Japanese standard ISDB-T), was adopted on 29 June 2006 and launched on 2 November 2007.[352] In May 2010, the Brazilian government launched TV Brasil Internacional, an international television station, initially broadcasting to 49 countries.[353] Commercial television channels broadcast internationally include Globo Internacional, RecordTV Internacional and Band Internacional.
+
+The population of Brazil, as recorded by the 2008 PNAD, was approximately 190 million[356] (22.31 inhabitants per square kilometre or 57.8/sq mi), with a ratio of men to women of 0.95:1[357] and 83.75% of the population defined as urban.[358] The population is heavily concentrated in the Southeastern (79.8 million inhabitants) and Northeastern (53.5 million inhabitants) regions, while the two most extensive regions, the Center-West and the North, which together make up 64.12% of the Brazilian territory, have a total of only 29.1 million inhabitants.
+
+The first census in Brazil was carried out in 1872 and recorded a population of 9,930,478.[359] From 1880 to 1930, 4 million Europeans arrived.[360] Brazil's population increased significantly between 1940 and 1970, because of a decline in the mortality rate, even though the birth rate underwent a slight decline. In the 1940s the annual population growth rate was 2.4%, rising to 3.0% in the 1950s and remaining at 2.9% in the 1960s, as life expectancy rose from 44 to 54 years[361] and to 72.6 years in 2007.[362]
+It has been steadily falling since the 1960s, from 3.04% per year between 1950 and 1960 to 1.05% in 2008 and is expected to fall to a negative value of –0.29% by 2050[363] thus completing the demographic transition.[364]
+
+In 2008, the illiteracy rate was 11.48%[365] and among the youth (ages 15–19) 1.74%. It was highest (20.30%) in the Northeast, which had a large proportion of rural poor.[366] Illiteracy was high (24.18%) among the rural population and lower (9.05%) among the urban population.[367]
+
+According to the National Research by Household Sample (PNAD) of 2008, 48.43% of the population (about 92 million) described themselves as White; 43.80% (about 83 million) as Pardo (brown), 6.84% (about 13 million) as Black; 0.58% (about 1.1 million) as Asian; and 0.28% (about 536 thousand) as Amerindian (officially called indígena, Indigenous), while 0.07% (about 130 thousand) did not declare their race.[369]
+
+In 2007, the National Indian Foundation estimated that Brazil has 67 different uncontacted tribes, up from their estimate of 40 in 2005. Brazil is believed to have the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world.[370]
+
+Since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, considerable genetic mixing between Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans has taken place in all regions of the country (with European ancestry being dominant nationwide according to the vast majority of all autosomal studies undertaken covering the entire population, accounting for between 65% to 77%).[371][372][373][374]
+
+Race and ethnicity in Brazil[375][376][377]
+
+Brazilian society is more markedly divided by social class lines, although a high income disparity is found between race groups, so racism and classism can be conflated. Socially significant closeness to one racial group is taken in account more in the basis of appearance (phenotypes) rather than ancestry, to the extent that full siblings can pertain to different "racial" groups.[378] Socioeconomic factors are also significant, because a minority of pardos are likely to start declaring themselves White or Black if socially upward.[379] Skin color and facial features do not line quite well with ancestry (usually, Afro-Brazilians are evenly mixed and European ancestry is dominant in Whites and pardos with a significant non-European contribution, but the individual variation is great).[374][380][381][382]
+
+The brown population (officially called pardo in Portuguese, also colloquially moreno)[383][384] is a broad category that includes caboclos (assimilated Amerindians in general, and descendants of Whites and Natives), mulatos (descendants of primarily Whites and Afro-Brazilians) and cafuzos (descendants of Afro-Brazilians and Natives).[383][384][385][386][387] People of considerable Amerindian ancestry form the majority of the population in the Northern, Northeastern and Center-Western regions.[388]
+
+Higher percents of Blacks, mulattoes and tri-racials can be found in the eastern coast of the Northeastern region from Bahia to Paraíba[387][389] and also in northern Maranhão,[390][391] southern Minas Gerais[392] and in eastern Rio de Janeiro.[387][392] From the 19th century, Brazil opened its borders to immigration. About five million people from over 60 countries migrated to Brazil between 1808 and 1972, most of them of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arab origin.[393][394]. Brazil has the second largest Jewish community in Latin America making up 0.06% of its population.[395]
+
+Religion in Brazil (2010 Census)
+
+Religion in Brazil (2020 estimate by Datafolha) [396]
+
+Roman Catholicism is the country's predominant faith. Brazil has the world's largest Catholic population.[397][398] According to the 2010 Demographic Census (the PNAD survey does not inquire about religion), 64.63% of the population followed Roman Catholicism; 22.2% Protestantism; 2.0% Kardecist spiritism; 3.2% other religions, undeclared or undetermined; while 8.0% have no religion.[5]
+
+Religion in Brazil was formed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of enslaved African peoples and indigenous peoples.[399]. This confluence of faiths during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil led to the development of a diverse array of syncretistic practices within the overarching umbrella of Brazilian Catholic Church, characterized by traditional Portuguese festivities,[400] and in some instances, Allan Kardec's Spiritism (a religion which incorporates elements of spiritualism and Christianity). Religious pluralism increased during the 20th century,[401] and the Protestant community has grown to include over 22% of the population.[402] The most common Protestant denominations are Evangelical Pentecostal ones. Other Protestant branches with a notable presence in the country include the Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and the Reformed tradition.[403]
+
+However,  in the last ten years Protestantism, has spread in Brazil, while the proportion of Catholics has dropped significantly. The country has no census since 2010, but demographs estimate evangelical population will be majority after 2032, because Protestantism accounted for fewer than 5% of the population until the 1960s, but by 2000 made up over 15% of those affiliated with a church, now the evangelical group are the most rapidly growing religious group and more costly. [404] [405]
+
+After Protestantism, individuals professing no religion are also a significant group, exceeding 8% of the population as of the 2010 census. The cities of Boa Vista, Salvador, and Porto Velho have the greatest proportion of Irreligious residents in Brazil. Teresina, Fortaleza, and Florianópolis were the most Roman Catholic in the country.[406] Greater Rio de Janeiro, not including the city proper, is the most irreligious and least Roman Catholic Brazilian periphery, while Greater Porto Alegre and Greater Fortaleza are on the opposite sides of the lists, respectively.[406]
+
+In October 2009, the Brazilian Senate approved and enacted by the President of  Brazil in February 2010, an agreement with the Vatican, in which the Legal Statute of the Catholic Church in Brazil is recognized. The agreement confirmed norms that were normally complied with regarding religious education in public elementary schools (which also ensures the teaching of other beliefs), marriage and spiritual assistance in prisons and hospitals. The project was criticized by parliamentarians who understood the end of the secular state with the approval of the agreement.[410][411]
+
+According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) urban areas already concentrate 84.35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants.[412]
+The largest urban agglomerations in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte – all in the Southeastern Region – with 21.1, 12.3, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively.[413][414][415] The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina.[416]
+
+The official language of Brazil is Portuguese[419] (Article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil), which almost all of the population speaks and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio, television, and for business and administrative purposes. Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity and giving it a national culture distinct from those of its Spanish-speaking neighbors.[420]
+
+Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, mostly similar to 16th-century Central and Southern dialects of European Portuguese[421] (despite a very substantial number of Portuguese colonial settlers, and more recent immigrants, coming from Northern regions, and in minor degree Portuguese Macaronesia), with a few influences from the Amerindian and African languages, especially West African and Bantu restricted to the vocabulary only.[422] As a result,[citation needed] the language is somewhat different, mostly in phonology, from the language of Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries (the dialects of the other countries, partly because of the more recent end of Portuguese colonialism in these regions, have a closer connection to contemporary European Portuguese). These differences are comparable to those between American and British English.[422]
+
+In 1990, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which included representatives from all countries with Portuguese as the official language, reached an agreement on the reform of the Portuguese orthography to unify the two standards then in use by Brazil on one side and the remaining lusophone countries on the other. This spelling reform went into effect in Brazil on 1 January 2009. In Portugal, the reform was signed into law by the President on 21 July 2008 allowing for a six-year adaptation period, during which both orthographies will co-exist. The remaining CPLP countries are free to establish their own transition timetables.[423]
+
+The sign language law legally recognized in 2002,[424] (the law was regulated in 2005)[425] the use of the Brazilian Sign Language, more commonly known by its Portuguese acronym LIBRAS, in education and government services. The language must be taught as a part of the education and speech and language pathology curricula. LIBRAS teachers, instructors and translators are recognized professionals. Schools and health services must provide access ("inclusion") to deaf people.[426]
+
+Minority languages are spoken throughout the nation. One hundred and eighty Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas and a significant number of other languages are spoken by immigrants and their descendants.[422] In the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Nheengatu (a currently endangered South American creole language – or an 'anti-creole', according to some linguists – with mostly Indigenous Brazilian languages lexicon and Portuguese-based grammar that, together with its southern relative língua geral paulista, once was a major lingua franca in Brazil,[427] being replaced by Portuguese only after governmental prohibition led by major political changes)[excessive detail?], Baniwa and Tucano languages had been granted co-official status with Portuguese.[428]
+
+There are significant communities of German (mostly the Brazilian Hunsrückisch, a High German language dialect) and Italian (mostly the Talian, a Venetian dialect) origins in the Southern and Southeastern regions, whose ancestors' native languages were carried along to Brazil, and which, still alive there, are influenced by the Portuguese language.[429][430] Talian is officially a historic patrimony of Rio Grande do Sul,[431] and two German dialects possess co-official status in a few municipalities.[432] Italian is also recognized as ethnic language in the Santa Teresa microregion and Vila Velha (Espirito Santo state), and is taught as mandatory second language at school.[2]
+
+Learning at least one second language (generally English or Spanish) is mandatory for all the 12 grades of the mandatory education system (primary and secondary education, there called ensino fundamental and ensino médio respectively). Brazil is the first country in South America to offer Esperanto to secondary students.[433]
+
+The core culture of Brazil is derived from Portuguese culture, because of its strong colonial ties with the Portuguese Empire.[434] Among other influences, the Portuguese introduced the Portuguese language, Roman Catholicism and colonial architectural styles. The culture was, however, also strongly influenced by African, indigenous and non-Portuguese European cultures and traditions.[435]
+Some aspects of Brazilian culture were influenced by the contributions of Italian, German and other European as well as Japanese, Jewish and Arab immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries.[436] The indigenous Amerindians influenced Brazil's language and cuisine; and the Africans influenced language, cuisine, music, dance and religion.[437]
+
+Brazilian art has developed since the 16th century into different styles that range from Baroque (the dominant style in Brazil until the early 19th century)[438][439] to Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstractionism. Brazilian cinema dates back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century and has gained a new level of international acclaim since the 1960s.[440]
+
+The architecture of Brazil is influenced by Europe, especially Portugal. It has a history that goes back 500 years to the time when Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil in 1500. Portuguese colonial architecture was the first wave of architecture to go to Brazil.[441] It is the basis for all Brazilian architecture of later centuries.[442] In the 19th century during the time of the Empire of Brazil, Brazil followed European trends and adopted Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. Then in the 20th century especially in Brasilia, Brazil experimented with Modernist architecture.
+
+The colonial architecture of Brazil dates to the early 16th century when Brazil was first explored, conquered and settled by the Portuguese. The Portuguese built architecture familiar to them in Europe in their aim to colonize Brazil. They built Portuguese colonial architecture which included churches, civic architecture including houses and forts in Brazilian cities and the countryside. During 19th century Brazilian architecture saw the introduction of more European styles to Brazil such as Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. This was usually mixed with Brazilian influences from their own heritage which produced a unique form of Brazilian architecture. In the 1950s the modernist architecture was introduced when Brasilia was built as new federal capital in the interior of Brazil to help develop the interior. The architect Oscar Niemeyer idealized and built government buildings, churches and civic buildings in the modernist style.[443][444]
+
+The music of Brazil was formed mainly from the fusion of European and African elements.[446] Until the nineteenth century, Portugal was the gateway to most of the influences that built Brazilian music, although many of these elements were not of Portuguese origin, but generally European. The first was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, author of sacred pieces with influence of Viennese classicism.[447] The major contribution of the African element was the rhythmic diversity and some dances and instruments that had a bigger role in the development of popular music and folk, flourishing especially in the twentieth century.[446]
+
+Popular music since the late eighteenth century began to show signs of forming a characteristically Brazilian sound, with samba considered the most typical and on the UNESCO cultural heritage list.[448] Maracatu and Afoxê are two Afro-Brazilian music traditions that have been popularized by their appearance in the annual Brazilian Carnivals.[449] The sport of capoeira is usually played with its own music referred to as capoeira music, which is usually considered to be a call-and-response type of folk music.[450] Forró is a type of folk music prominent during the Festa Junina in northeastern Brazil.[451] Jack A. Draper III, a professor of Portuguese at the University of Missouri,[452] argues that Forró was used as a way to subdue feelings of nostalgia for a rural lifestyle.[453]
+
+Choro is a very popular music instrumental style. Its origins are in 19th-century Rio de Janeiro. In spite of the name, the style often has a fast and happy rhythm, characterized by virtuosity, improvisation, subtle modulations and full of syncopation and counterpoint.[454] Bossa nova is also a well-known style of Brazilian music developed and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s.[455] The phrase "bossa nova" means literally "new trend".[456] A lyrical fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova acquired a large following starting in the 1960s.[457]
+
+Brazilian literature dates back to the 16th century, to the writings of the first Portuguese explorers in Brazil, such as Pêro Vaz de Caminha, filled with descriptions of fauna, flora and commentary about the indigenous population that fascinated European readers.[459]
+
+Brazil produced significant works in Romanticism – novelists like Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and José de Alencar wrote novels about love and pain. Alencar, in his long career, also treated indigenous people as heroes in the Indigenist novels O Guarani, Iracema and Ubirajara.[460] Machado de Assis, one of his contemporaries, wrote in virtually all genres and continues to gain international prestige from critics worldwide.[461][462][463]
+
+Brazilian Modernism, evidenced by the Week of Modern Art in 1922, was concerned with a nationalist avant-garde literature,[464] while Post-Modernism brought a generation of distinct poets like João Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Vinicius de Moraes, Cora Coralina, Graciliano Ramos, Cecília Meireles, and internationally known writers dealing with universal and regional subjects like Jorge Amado, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector and Manuel Bandeira.[465][466][467]
+
+Brazilian cuisine varies greatly by region, reflecting the country's varying mix of indigenous and immigrant populations. This has created a national cuisine marked by the preservation of regional differences.[468] Examples are Feijoada, considered the country's national dish;[469] and regional foods such as beiju, feijão tropeiro, vatapá, moqueca, polenta (from Italian cuisine) and acarajé (from African cuisine).[470]
+
+The national beverage is coffee and cachaça is Brazil's native liquor. Cachaça is distilled from sugar cane and is the main ingredient in the national cocktail, Caipirinha.[471]
+
+A typical meal consists mostly of rice and beans with beef, salad, french fries and a fried egg.[472] Often, it is mixed with cassava flour (farofa). Fried potatoes, fried cassava, fried banana, fried meat and fried cheese are very often eaten in lunch and served in most typical restaurants.[473] Popular snacks are pastel (a fried pastry); coxinha (a variation of chicken croquete); pão de queijo (cheese bread and cassava flour / tapioca); pamonha (corn and milk paste); esfirra (a variation of Lebanese pastry); kibbeh (from Arabic cuisine); empanada (pastry) and empada, little salt pies filled with shrimps or heart of palm.
+
+Brazil has a variety of desserts such as brigadeiros (chocolate fudge balls), bolo de rolo (roll cake with goiabada), cocada (a coconut sweet), beijinhos (coconut truffles and clove) and romeu e julieta (cheese with goiabada). Peanuts are used to make paçoca, rapadura and pé-de-moleque. Local common fruits like açaí, cupuaçu, mango, papaya, cocoa, cashew, guava, orange, lime, passionfruit, pineapple, and hog plum are turned in juices and used to make chocolates, ice pops and ice cream.[474]
+
+The Brazilian film industry began in the late 19th century, during the early days of the Belle Époque. While there were national film productions during the early 20th century, American films such as Rio the Magnificent were made in Rio de Janeiro to promote tourism in the city.[475] The films Limite (1931) and Ganga Bruta (1933), the latter being produced by Adhemar Gonzaga through the prolific studio Cinédia, were poorly received at release and failed at the box office, but are acclaimed nowadays and placed among the finest Brazilian films of all time.[476] The 1941 unfinished film It's All True was divided in four segments, two of which were filmed in Brazil and directed by Orson Welles; it was originally produced as part of the United States' Good Neighbor Policy during Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo government.
+
+During the 1960s, the Cinema Novo movement rose to prominence with directors such as Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Paulo Cesar Saraceni and Arnaldo Jabor. Rocha's films Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) and Terra em Transe (1967) are considered to be some of the greatest and most influential in Brazilian film history.[477]
+
+During the 1990s, Brazil saw a surge of critical and commercial success with films such as O Quatrilho (Fábio Barreto, 1995), O Que É Isso, Companheiro? (Bruno Barreto, 1997) and Central do Brasil (Walter Salles, 1998), all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the latter receiving a Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Montenegro. The 2002 crime film City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles, was critically acclaimed, scoring 90% on Rotten Tomatoes,[478] being placed in Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Decade list[479] and receiving four Academy Award nominations in 2004, including Best Director. Notable film festivals in Brazil include the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festivals and the Gramado Festival.
+
+The theatre in Brazil has its origins in the period of Jesuit expansion when theater was used for the dissemination of Catholic doctrine in the 16th century. in the 17th and 18th centuries the first dramatists who appeared on the scene of European derivation was for court or private performances.[480] During the 19th century, dramatic theater gained importance and thickness, whose first representative was Luis Carlos Martins Pena (1813–1848), capable of describing contemporary reality. Always in this period the comedy of costume and comic production was imposed. Significant, also in the nineteenth century, was also the playwright Antônio Gonçalves Dias.[481] There were also numerous operas and orchestras. The Brazilian conductor Antônio Carlos Gomes became internationally known with operas like Il Guarany. At the end of the 19th century orchestrated dramaturgias became very popular and were accompanied with songs of famous artists like the conductress Chiquinha Gonzaga.[482]
+
+Already in the early 20th century there was the presence of theaters, entrepreneurs and actor companies, but paradoxically the quality of the products staggered, and only in 1940 the Brazilian theater received a boost of renewal thanks to the action of Paschoal Carlos Magno and his student's theater, the comedians group and the Italian actors Adolfo Celi, Ruggero Jacobbi and Aldo Calvo, founders of the Teatro Brasileiro de Comedia. From the 1960s it was attended by a theater dedicated to social and religious issues and to the flourishing of schools of dramatic art. The most prominent authors at this stage were Jorge Andrade and Ariano Suassuna.[481]
+
+Brazilian painting emerged in the late 16th century,[483] influenced by Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism and Abstracionism making it a major art style called Brazilian academic art.[484][485] The Missão Artística Francesa (French Artistic Mission) arrived in Brazil in 1816 proposing the creation of an art academy modeled after the respected Académie des Beaux-Arts, with graduation courses both for artists and craftsmen for activities such as modeling, decorating, carpentry and others and bringing artists like Jean-Baptiste Debret.[485]
+
+Upon the creation of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, new artistic movements spread across the country during the 19th century and later the event called Week of Modern Art broke definitely with academic tradition in 1922 and started a nationalist trend which was influenced by modernist arts. Among the best-known Brazilian painters are Ricardo do Pilar and Manuel da Costa Ataíde (baroque and rococo), Victor Meirelles, Pedro Américo and Almeida Junior (romanticism and realism), Anita Malfatti, Ismael Nery, Lasar Segall, Emiliano di Cavalcanti, Vicente do Rego Monteiro, and Tarsila do Amaral (expressionism, surrealism and cubism), Aldo Bonadei, José Pancetti and Cândido Portinari (modernism).[486]
+
+The most popular sport in Brazil is football.[488] The Brazilian men's national team is ranked among the best in the world according to the FIFA World Rankings, and has won the World Cup tournament a record five times.[489][490]
+
+Volleyball, basketball, auto racing, and martial arts also attract large audiences. The Brazil men's national volleyball team, for example, currently holds the titles of the World League, World Grand Champions Cup, World Championship and the World Cup. In auto racing, three Brazilian drivers have won the Formula One world championship eight times.[491][492][493]
+
+Some sport variations have their origins in Brazil: beach football,[494] futsal (indoor football)[495] and footvolley emerged in Brazil as variations of football. In martial arts, Brazilians developed Capoeira,[496] Vale tudo,[497] and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.[498]
+
+Brazil has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, like the 1950 FIFA World Cup[499] and recently has hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2019 Copa América.[500] The São Paulo circuit, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, hosts the annual Grand Prix of Brazil.[501] São Paulo organized the IV Pan American Games in 1963, and Rio de Janeiro hosted the XV Pan American Games in 2007.[502] On 2 October 2009, Rio de Janeiro was selected to host the 2016 Olympic Games and 2016 Paralympic Games, making it the first South American city to host the games[503] and second in Latin America, after Mexico City. Furthermore, the country hosted the FIBA Basketball World Cups in 1954 and 1963. At the 1963 event, the Brazil national basketball team won one of its two world championship titles.[504]
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+Portuguese India
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+17th century
+Portuguese India
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+18th century
+Portuguese India
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+Portuguese Macau
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+Portuguese Macau
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+15th century [Atlantic islands]
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+16th century [Canada]
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+Lat. and Long. 15°45′S 47°57′W / 15.750°S 47.950°W / -15.750; -47.950 (Brasilia)

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+Coordinates: 10°S 52°W / 10°S 52°W / -10; -52
+
+Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil; Brazilian Portuguese: [bɾaˈziw]),[nt 1] officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil),[10] is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers (3.2 million square miles)[11] and with over 211 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the sixth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states and the Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas;[12][13] it is also one of the most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass immigration from around the world;[14] as well as the most populous Roman Catholic-majority country.
+
+Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers (4,655 mi).[15] It borders all other countries in South America except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent's land area.[16] Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats.[15] This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, and is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.
+
+Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808 when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. The country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic.[17] Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[18]
+
+Brazil is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank[19] and a newly industrialized country,[20] with the largest share of global wealth in Latin America. It is considered an advanced emerging economy.[21] It has the ninth largest GDP in the world by nominal, and eight by PPP measures.[22][23] It is one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24] Brazil is a regional power and sometimes considered a great[25][26][27] or a middle power in international affairs.[27][28][29][30][31][26] On account of its international recognition and influence, the country is subsequently classified as an emerging power[32] and a potential superpower by several analysts.[33][34][35] Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.
+
+The word "Brazil" likely comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast.[36] In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa ("ember") and the suffix -il (from -iculum or -ilium).[37] As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was highly valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil.[38] Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi) along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders (mostly Portuguese, but also French) in return for assorted European consumer goods.[39]
+
+The official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross" (Terra da Santa Cruz),[40] but European sailors and merchants commonly called it simply the "Land of Brazil" (Terra do Brasil) because of the brazilwood trade.[41] The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name. Some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots".[42]
+
+In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama". This was the name the indigenous population gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".[43]
+
+Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years.[46][47]
+
+The earliest pottery ever found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago (6000 BC). The pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the tropical forest region supported a complex prehistoric culture.[48] The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from 400 CE to 1400 CE, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, and complex social formations such as chiefdoms.[45]
+
+Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people,[49] mostly semi-nomadic, who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. The indigenous population of Brazil comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups (e.g. the Tupis, Guaranis, Gês and Arawaks). The Tupí people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás, and there were also many subdivisions of the other groups.[50]
+
+Before the arrival of the Europeans, the boundaries between these groups and their subgroups were marked by wars that arose from differences in culture, language and moral beliefs.[51] These wars also involved large-scale military actions on land and water, with cannibalistic rituals on prisoners of war.[52][53] While heredity had some weight, leadership status was more subdued over time, than allocated in succession ceremonies and conventions.[51] Slavery among the Indians had a different meaning than it had for Europeans, since it originated from a diverse socioeconomic organization, in which asymmetries were translated into kinship relations.[54]
+
+The land now called Brazil was claimed for the Portuguese Empire on 22 April 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral.[55] The Portuguese encountered indigenous peoples divided into several tribes, most of whom spoke languages of the Tupi–Guarani family, and fought among themselves.[56] Though the first settlement was founded in 1532, colonization effectively began in 1534, when King John III of Portugal divided the territory into the fifteen private and autonomous Captaincy Colonies of Brazil.[57][58]
+
+However, the decentralized and unorganized tendencies of the captaincy colonies proved problematic, and in 1549 the Portuguese king restructured them into the Governorate General of Brazil in the city of Salvador, which became the capital of a single and centralized Portuguese colony in South America.[58][59] In the first two centuries of colonization, Indigenous and European groups lived in constant war, establishing opportunistic alliances in order to gain advantages against each other.[60][61][62][63] By the mid-16th century, cane sugar had become Brazil's most important export,[56][64] and slaves purchased in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the slave market of Western Africa[65] (not only those from Portuguese allies of their colonies in Angola and Mozambique), had become its largest import,[66][67] to cope with plantations of sugarcane, due to increasing international demand for Brazilian sugar.[68][69]
+
+By the end of the 17th century, sugarcane exports began to decline,[70] and the discovery of gold by bandeirantes in the 1690s would become the new backbone of the colony's economy, fostering a Brazilian Gold Rush[71] which attracted thousands of new settlers to Brazil from Portugal and all Portuguese colonies around the world.[72] This increased level of immigration in turn caused some conflicts between newcomers and old settlers.[73]
+
+Portuguese expeditions known as Bandeiras gradually advanced the Portugal colonial original frontiers in South America to approximately the current Brazilian borders.[74][75] In this era other European powers tried to colonize parts of Brazil, in incursions that the Portuguese had to fight, notably the French in Rio during the 1560s, in Maranhão during the 1610s, and the Dutch in Bahia and Pernambuco, during the Dutch–Portuguese War, after the end of Iberian Union.[76]
+
+The Portuguese colonial administration in Brazil had two objectives that would ensure colonial order and the monopoly of Portugal's wealthiest and largest colony: to keep under control and eradicate all forms of slave rebellion and resistance, such as the Quilombo of Palmares,[77] and to repress all movements for autonomy or independence, such as the Minas Conspiracy.[78]
+
+In late 1807, Spanish and Napoleonic forces threatened the security of continental Portugal, causing Prince Regent João, in the name of Queen Maria I, to move the royal court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro.[79] There they established some of Brazil's first financial institutions, such as its local stock exchanges,[80] and its National Bank, additionally ending the Portuguese monopoly on Brazilian trade and opening Brazil to other nations. In 1809, in retaliation for being forced into exile, the Prince Regent ordered the Portuguese conquest of French Guiana.[81]
+
+With the end of the Peninsular War in 1814, the courts of Europe demanded that Queen Maria I and Prince Regent João return to Portugal, deeming it unfit for the head of an ancient European monarchy to reside in a colony. In 1815, to justify continuing to live in Brazil, where the royal court had thrived for six years, the Crown established the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves, thus creating a pluricontinental transatlantic monarchic state.[82] However, the leadership in Portugal, resentful of the new status of its larger colony, continued to demand the return of court to Lisbon (v. Liberal Revolution of 1820). In 1821, acceding to the demands of revolutionaries who had taken the city of Porto,[83] D. João VI departed for Lisbon. There he swore an oath to the new constitution, leaving his son, Prince Pedro de Alcântara, as Regent of the Kingdom of Brazil.[84]
+
+Tensions between Portuguese and Brazilians increased, and the Portuguese Cortes, guided by the new political regime imposed by the 1820 Liberal Revolution, tried to re-establish Brazil as a colony.[85] The Brazilians refused to yield, and Prince Pedro decided to stand with them, declaring the country's independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822.[86] A month later, Prince Pedro was declared the first Emperor of Brazil, with the royal title of Dom Pedro I, resulting in the foundation of the Empire of Brazil.[87]
+
+The Brazilian War of Independence, which had already begun along this process, spread through the northern, northeastern regions and in Cisplatina province.[88] The last Portuguese soldiers surrendered on 8 March 1824;[89] Portugal officially recognized Brazil on 29 August 1825.[90]
+
+On 7 April 1831, worn down by years of administrative turmoil and political dissent with both liberal and conservative sides of politics, including an attempt of republican secession,[91] and unreconciled to the way that absolutists in Portugal had given in the succession of King John VI, Pedro I went to Portugal to reclaim his daughter's crown, abdicating the Brazilian throne in favor of his five-year-old son and heir (who thus became the Empire's second monarch, with the royal title of Dom Pedro II).[92]
+
+As the new Emperor could not exert his constitutional powers until he came of age, a regency was set up by the National Assembly.[93] In the absence of a charismatic figure who could represent a moderate face of power, during this period a series of localized rebellions took place, such as the Cabanagem in Grão-Pará Province, the Malê Revolt in Salvador da Bahia, the Balaiada (Maranhão), the Sabinada (Bahia), and the Ragamuffin War, which began in Rio Grande do Sul and was supported by Giuseppe Garibaldi. These emerged from the dissatisfaction of the provinces with the central power, coupled with old and latent social tensions peculiar to a vast, slaveholding and newly independent nation state.[94] This period of internal political and social upheaval, which included the Praieira revolt in Pernambuco, was overcome only at the end of the 1840s, years after the end of the regency, which occurred with the premature coronation of Pedro II in 1841.[95]
+
+During the last phase of the monarchy, internal political debate centered on the issue of slavery. The Atlantic slave trade was abandoned in 1850,[96] as a result of the British Aberdeen Act, but only in May 1888 after a long process of internal mobilization and debate for an ethical and legal dismantling of slavery in the country, was the institution formally abolished.[97]
+
+The foreign-affairs policies of the monarchy dealt with issues with the countries of the Southern Cone with whom Brazil had borders. Long after the Cisplatine War that resulted in independence for Uruguay,[98] Brazil won three international wars during the 58-year reign of Pedro II. These were the Platine War, the Uruguayan War and the devastating Paraguayan War, the largest war effort in Brazilian history.[99][100]
+
+Although there was no desire among the majority of Brazilians to change the country's form of government,[101] on 15 November 1889, in disagreement with the majority of Army officers, as well as with rural and financial elites (for different reasons), the monarchy was overthrown by a military coup.[102] 15 November is now Republic Day, a national holiday.[103]
+
+The early republican government was nothing more than a military dictatorship, with army dominating affairs both in Rio de Janeiro and in the states. Freedom of the press disappeared and elections were controlled by those in power.[104] Not until 1894, following an economic crisis and a military one, did civilians take power, remaining there until October 1930.[105][106][107]
+
+If in relation to its foreign policy, the country in this first republican period maintained a relative balance characterized by a success in resolving border disputes with neighboring countries,[108] only broken by the Acre War (1899–1902) and its involvement in World War I (1914–1918),[109][110][111] followed by a failed attempt to exert a prominent role in the League of Nations;[112] Internally, from the crisis of Encilhamento[113][114][115] and the Armada Revolts,[116] a prolonged cycle of financial, political and social instability began until the 1920s, keeping the country besieged by various rebellions, both civilian[117][118][119] and military.[120][121][122]
+
+Little by little, a cycle of general instability sparked by these crises undermined the regime to such an extent that in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate Getúlio Vargas, supported by most of the military, successfully led the October 1930 Coup.[123][124] Vargas and the military were supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed the Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers and replaced the states' governors with their own supporters.[125][126]
+
+In the 1930s, three failed attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power occurred. The first was the Constitutionalist Revolution in 1932, led by the Paulista oligarchy. The second was a Communist uprising in November 1935, and the last one a putsch attempt by local fascists in May 1938.[127][128][129] The 1935 uprising created a security crisis in which the Congress transferred more power to the executive. The 1937 coup d'état resulted in the cancellation of the 1938 election, formalized Vargas as dictator, beginning the Estado Novo era, which was noted for government brutality and censorship of the press.[130]
+
+Foreign policy during the Vargas years was marked by the antecedents[clarification needed] and World War II. Brazil remained neutral until August 1942, when the country entered on the allied side,[131][132] after suffering retaliation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, in a strategic dispute over the South Atlantic.[133] In addition to its participation in the battle of the Atlantic, Brazil also sent an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian campaign.[134]
+
+With the Allied victory in 1945 and the end of the Nazi-fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas's position became unsustainable and he was swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with democracy "reinstated" by the same army that had ended it 15 years earlier.[135] Vargas committed suicide in August 1954 amid a political crisis, after having returned to power by election in 1950.[136][137]
+
+Several brief interim governments followed Vargas's suicide.[138] Juscelino Kubitschek became president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory posture towards the political opposition that allowed him to govern without major crises.[139] The economy and industrial sector grew remarkably,[140] but his greatest achievement was the construction of the new capital city of Brasília, inaugurated in 1960.[141]
+
+Kubitschek's successor, Jânio Quadros, resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office.[142] His vice-president, João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political opposition[143] and was deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a military regime.[144]
+
+The new regime was intended to be transitory[145] but gradually closed in on itself and became a full dictatorship with the promulgation of the Fifth Institutional Act in 1968.[146] Oppression was not limited to those who resorted to guerrilla tactics to fight the regime, but also reached institutional opponents, artists, journalists and other members of civil society,[147][148] inside and outside the country through the infamous "Operation Condor".[149][150] Despite its brutality, like other authoritarian regimes, due to an economic boom, known as an "economic miracle", the regime reached a peak in popularity in the early 1970s.[151]
+
+Slowly, however, the wear and tear of years of dictatorial power that had not slowed the repression, even after the defeat of the leftist guerrillas,[152] plus the inability to deal with the economic crises of the period and popular pressure, made an opening policy inevitable, which from the regime side was led by Generals Ernesto Geisel and Golbery do Couto e Silva.[153] With the enactment of the Amnesty Law in 1979, Brazil began a slow return to democracy, which was completed during the 1980s.[95]
+
+Civilians returned to power in 1985 when José Sarney assumed the presidency. He became unpopular during his tenure through failure to control the economic crisis and hyperinflation he inherited from the military regime.[154] Sarney's unsuccessful government led to the election in 1989 of the almost-unknown Fernando Collor, subsequently impeached by the National Congress in 1992.[155]
+
+Collor was succeeded by his vice-president, Itamar Franco, who appointed Fernando Henrique Cardoso Minister of Finance. In 1994, Cardoso produced a highly successful Plano Real,[156] that, after decades of failed economic plans made by previous governments attempting to curb hyperinflation, finally stabilized the Brazilian economy.[157][158] Cardoso won the 1994 election, and again in 1998.[159]
+
+The peaceful transition of power from Cardoso to his main opposition leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006), was seen as proof that Brazil had achieved a long-sought political stability.[160][161] However, sparked by indignation and frustrations accumulated over decades from corruption, police brutality, inefficiencies of the political establishment and public service, numerous peaceful protests erupted in Brazil from the middle of first term of Dilma Rousseff, who had succeeded Lula after winning election in 2010.[162][163]
+
+Enhanced by political and economic crises with evidence of involvement by politicians from all the primary political parties in several bribery and tax evasion schemes,[164][165] with large street protests for and against her,[166] Rousseff was impeached by the Brazilian Congress in 2016.[167][168] In 2017, the Supreme Court asked for the investigation of 71 Brazilian lawmakers and nine ministers in President Michel Temer's cabinet allegedly linked to the Petrobras corruption scandal.[169] President Temer is himself accused of corruption.[170] In 2018, 62% of the population on a poll claimed that corruption was Brazil's biggest problem.[171]
+
+On 25 February 2020, the COVID-19 virus was confirmed to have spread to Brazil on 25 February 2020.[172] On 19 June 2020, the country reported its 1 millionth case; at this time, there had been nearly 49,000 reported deaths.[173][174] As of July 2020, Brazil has the second-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world behind the US, but ahead of India.
+
+Brazil occupies a large area along the eastern coast of South America and includes much of the continent's interior,[175] sharing land borders with Uruguay to the south; Argentina and Paraguay to the southwest; Bolivia and Peru to the west; Colombia to the northwest; and Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and France (French overseas region of French Guiana) to the north. It shares a border with every South American country except Ecuador and Chile.[15]
+
+It also encompasses a number of oceanic archipelagos, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz.[15] Its size, relief, climate, and natural resources make Brazil geographically diverse.[175] Including its Atlantic islands, Brazil lies between latitudes 6°N and 34°S, and longitudes 28° and 74°W.[15]
+
+Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, and third largest in the Americas, with a total area of 8,515,767.049 km2 (3,287,956 sq mi),[176] including 55,455 km2 (21,411 sq mi) of water.[15] It spans four time zones; from UTC−5 comprising the state of Acre and the westernmost portion of Amazonas, to UTC−4 in the western states, to UTC−3 in the eastern states (the national time) and UTC−2 in the Atlantic islands.[177]
+
+Brazil is the only country in the world that has the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn running through it. Brazilian topography is also diverse and includes hills, mountains, plains, highlands, and scrublands. Much of the terrain lies between 200 metres (660 ft) and 800 metres (2,600 ft) in elevation.[178] The main upland area occupies most of the southern half of the country.[178] The northwestern parts of the plateau consist of broad, rolling terrain broken by low, rounded hills.[178]
+
+The southeastern section is more rugged, with a complex mass of ridges and mountain ranges reaching elevations of up to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft).[178] These ranges include the Mantiqueira and Espinhaço mountains and the Serra do Mar.[178]
+
+In the north, the Guiana Highlands form a major drainage divide, separating rivers that flow south into the Amazon Basin from rivers that empty into the Orinoco River system, in Venezuela, to the north. The highest point in Brazil is the Pico da Neblina at 2,994 metres (9,823 ft), and the lowest is the Atlantic Ocean.[15]
+
+Brazil has a dense and complex system of rivers, one of the world's most extensive, with eight major drainage basins, all of which drain into the Atlantic.[179] Major rivers include the Amazon (the world's second-longest river and the largest in terms of volume of water), the Paraná and its major tributary the Iguaçu (which includes the Iguazu Falls), the Negro, São Francisco, Xingu, Madeira and Tapajós rivers.[179]
+
+The climate of Brazil comprises a wide range of weather conditions across a large area and varied topography, but most of the country is tropical.[15] According to the Köppen system, Brazil hosts six major climatic subtypes: desert, equatorial, tropical, semiarid, oceanic and subtropical. The different climatic conditions produce environments ranging from equatorial rainforests in the north and semiarid deserts in the northeast, to temperate coniferous forests in the south and tropical savannas in central Brazil.[180] Many regions have starkly different microclimates.[181][182]
+
+An equatorial climate characterizes much of northern Brazil. There is no real dry season, but there are some variations in the period of the year when most rain falls.[180] Temperatures average 25 °C (77 °F),[182] with more significant temperature variation between night and day than between seasons.[181]
+
+Over central Brazil rainfall is more seasonal, characteristic of a savanna climate.[181] This region is as extensive as the Amazon basin but has a very different climate as it lies farther south at a higher altitude.[180] In the interior northeast, seasonal rainfall is even more extreme.[183]
+
+The semiarid climatic region generally receives less than 800 millimetres (31.5 in) of rain,[183] most of which generally falls in a period of three to five months of the year[184] and occasionally less than this, creating long periods of drought.[181] Brazil's 1877–78 Grande Seca (Great Drought), the worst in Brazil's history,[185] caused approximately half a million deaths.[186] A similarly devastating drought occurred in 1915.[187]
+
+South of Bahia, near the coasts, and more southerly most of the state of São Paulo, the distribution of rainfall changes, with rain falling throughout the year.[180] The south enjoys subtropical conditions, with cool winters and average annual temperatures not exceeding 18 °C (64.4 °F);[182] winter frosts and snowfall are not rare in the highest areas.[180][181]
+
+Brazil's large territory comprises different ecosystems, such as the Amazon rainforest, recognized as having the greatest biological diversity in the world,[188] with the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado, sustaining the greatest biodiversity.[189] In the south, the Araucaria pine forest grows under temperate conditions.[189] The rich wildlife of Brazil reflects the variety of natural habitats. Scientists estimate that the total number of plant and animal species in Brazil could approach four million, mostly invertebrates.[189]
+
+Larger mammals include carnivores pumas, jaguars, ocelots, rare bush dogs, and foxes, and herbivores peccaries, tapirs, anteaters, sloths, opossums, and armadillos. Deer are plentiful in the south, and many species of New World monkeys are found in the northern rain forests.[189][190] Concern for the environment has grown in response to global interest in environmental issues.[191] Brazil's Amazon Basin is home to an extremely diverse array of fish species, including the red-bellied piranha.
+
+By 2013, Brazil's "dramatic policy-driven reduction in Amazon Basin deforestation" was a "global exception in terms of forest change", according to scientific journal Science.[192]:852 From 2003 to 2011, compared to all other countries in the world, Brazil had the "largest decline in annual forest loss", as indicated in the study using high-resolution satellite maps showing global forest cover changes.[192]:850 The annual loss of forest cover decreased from a 2003/2004 record high of more than 40,000 square kilometres (4,000×10^3 ha; 9.9×10^6 acres; 15,000 sq mi) to a 2010/2011 low of under 20,000 square kilometres (2,000×10^3 ha; 4.9×10^6 acres; 7,700 sq mi),[192]:850 reversing widespread deforestation[192]:852 from the 1970s to 2003.
+
+However, in 2019, when the Bolsonaro government came to power, the rate of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest increased sharply threatening to reach a tipping point after it the forest will collapse, having severe consequences for the world. (see Tipping points in the climate system)  This can also complicate the trade agreement with the European Union[193] Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Bolsonaro criticised what he described as sensational reporting in the international media. "It is a fallacy to say that the Amazon is the heritage of humankind, and a misconception, as confirmed by scientists, to say that our Amazonian forests are the lungs of world. Using these fallacies, certain countries instead of helping, embarked on the media lies and behaved in a disrespectful manner and with a colonialist spirit." he said. President Jair Bolsonaro asserted Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon.[194]
+
+According to a 2008 GreenPeace article, the natural heritage of Brazil is severely threatened by cattle ranching and agriculture, logging, mining, resettlement, oil and gas extraction, over-fishing, wildlife trade, dams and infrastructure, water pollution, climate change, fire, and invasive species.[188] In many areas of the country, the natural environment is threatened by development.[195] The construction of highways has opened up previously remote areas for agriculture and settlement; dams have flooded valleys and inundated wildlife habitats; and mines have scarred and polluted the landscape.[191][196] At least 70 dams are said to be planned for the Amazon region, including the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.[197] In summer 2019, 2 states in Brazil Paraná and Santa Catarina banned fracking, what will have positive effects on the climate and water quality, because the shale gas and shale oil reserves in the state of Parana are the larger in the southern hemisphere.[198][199]
+
+The form of government is a democratic federative republic, with a presidential system.[17] The president is both head of state and head of government of the Union and is elected for a four-year term,[17] with the possibility of re-election for a second successive term. The current president is Jair Bolsonaro. The previous president, Michel Temer, replaced Dilma Rousseff after her impeachment.[200] The President appoints the Ministers of State, who assist in government.[17] Legislative houses in each political entity are the main source of law in Brazil. The National Congress is the Federation's bicameral legislature, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. Judiciary authorities exercise jurisdictional duties almost exclusively. Brazil is a democracy, according to the Democracy Index 2010.[201]
+
+The political-administrative organization of the Federative Republic of Brazil comprises the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities.[17] The Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities, are the "spheres of government". The federation is set on five fundamental principles:[17] sovereignty, citizenship, dignity of human beings, the social values of labor and freedom of enterprise, and political pluralism. The classic tripartite branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial under a checks and balances system) are formally established by the Constitution.[17] The executive and legislative are organized independently in all three spheres of government, while the judiciary is organized only at the federal and state and Federal District spheres.
+
+All members of the executive and legislative branches are directly elected.[202][203][204] Judges and other judicial officials are appointed after passing entry exams.[202] For most of its democratic history, Brazil has had a multi-party system, proportional representation. Voting is compulsory for the literate between 18 and 70 years old and optional for illiterates and those between 16 and 18 or beyond 70.[17]
+
+Together with several smaller parties, four political parties stand out: Workers' Party (PT), Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) and Democrats (DEM). Fifteen political parties are represented in Congress. It is common for politicians to switch parties, and thus the proportion of congressional seats held by particular parties changes regularly.[205] Almost all governmental and administrative functions are exercised by authorities and agencies affiliated to the Executive.
+
+Brazilian law is based on the civil law legal system[206] and civil law concepts prevail over common law practice. Most of Brazilian law is codified, although non-codified statutes also represent a substantial part, playing a complementary role. Court decisions set out interpretive guidelines; however, they are seldom binding on other specific cases. Doctrinal works and the works of academic jurists have strong influence in law creation and in law cases.
+
+The legal system is based on the Federal Constitution, promulgated on 5 October 1988, and the fundamental law of Brazil. All other legislation and court decisions must conform to its rules.[207] As of April 2007[update], there have been 53 amendments. States have their own constitutions, which must not contradict the Federal Constitution.[208] Municipalities and the Federal District have "organic laws" (leis orgânicas), which act in a similar way to constitutions.[209] Legislative entities are the main source of statutes, although in certain matters judiciary and executive bodies may enact legal norms.[17] Jurisdiction is administered by the judiciary entities, although in rare situations the Federal Constitution allows the Federal Senate to pass on legal judgments.[17] There are also specialized military, labor, and electoral courts.[17] The highest court is the Supreme Federal Court.
+
+This system has been criticized over the last few decades for the slow pace of decision-making. Lawsuits on appeal may take several years to resolve, and in some cases more than a decade elapses before definitive rulings.[210] Nevertheless, the Supreme Federal Tribunal was the first court in the world to transmit its sessions on television, and also via YouTube.[211][212] More recently, in December 2009, the Supreme Court adopted Twitter to display items on the day planner of the ministers, to inform the daily actions of the Court and the most important decisions made by them.[213]
+
+The armed forces of Brazil are the largest in Latin America by active personnel and the largest in terms of military equipment.[214] It consists of the Brazilian Army (including the Army Aviation Command), the Brazilian Navy (including the Marine Corps and Naval Aviation), and the Brazilian Air Force. Brazil's conscription policy gives it one of the world's largest military forces, estimated at more than 1.6 million reservists annually.[215]
+
+Numbering close to 236,000 active personnel,[216] the Brazilian Army has the largest number of armored vehicles in South America, including armored transports and tanks.[217] It is also unique in Latin America for its large, elite forces specializing in unconventional missions, the Brazilian Special Operations Command,[218][219][220] and the versatile Strategic Rapid Action Force, made up of highly mobilized and prepared Special Operations Brigade, Infantry Brigade Parachutist,[221][222] 1st Jungle Infantry Battalion (Airmobile)[223] and 12th Brigade Light Infantry (Airmobile)[224] able to act anywhere in the country, on short notice, to counter external aggression.[225] The states' Military Police and the Military Firefighters Corps are described as an ancillary forces of the Army by the constitution, but are under the control of each state's governor.[17]
+
+Brazil's navy, the second-largest in the Americas, once operated some of the most powerful warships in the world with the two Minas Geraes-class dreadnoughts, which sparked a South American dreadnought race between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.[226] Today, it is a green water force and has a group of specialized elite in retaking ships and naval facilities, GRUMEC, unit specially trained to protect Brazilian oil platforms along its coast.[227] It is the only navy in Latin America that operates an aircraft carrier, PHM Atlantico,[228] and one of the ten navies of the world to operate one.[217]
+
+The Air Force is the largest in Latin America and has about 700 manned aircraft in service and effective about 67,000 personnel.[229]
+
+Brazil has not been invaded since 1865 during the Paraguayan War.[230] Additionally, Brazil has no contested territorial disputes with any of its neighbors[231] and neither does it have rivalries, like Chile and Bolivia have with each other.[232][233] The Brazilian military has also three times intervened militarily to overthrow the Brazilian government.[234] It has built a tradition of participating in UN peacekeeping missions such as in Haiti, East Timor and Central African Republic.[235] Brazil signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[236]
+
+Brazil's international relations are based on Article 4 of the Federal Constitution, which establishes non-intervention, self-determination, international cooperation and the peaceful settlement of conflicts as the guiding principles of Brazil's relationship with other countries and multilateral organizations.[237]
+
+According to the Constitution, the President has ultimate authority over foreign policy, while the Congress is tasked with reviewing and considering all diplomatic nominations and international treaties, as well as legislation relating to Brazilian foreign policy.[238]
+
+Brazil's foreign policy is a by-product of the country's position as a regional power in Latin America, a leader among developing countries, and an emerging world power.[239] Brazilian foreign policy has generally been based on the principles of multilateralism, peaceful dispute settlement, and non-intervention in the affairs of other countries.[240]
+
+Brazil is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language.
+
+An increasingly well-developed tool of Brazil's foreign policy is providing aid as a donor to other developing countries.[241] Brazil does not just use its growing economic strength to provide financial aid, but it also provides high levels of expertise and most importantly of all, a quiet non-confrontational diplomacy to improve governance levels.[241] Total aid is estimated to be around $1 billion per year, which includes:[241]
+
+In addition, Brazil manages a peacekeeping mission in Haiti ($350 million) and makes in-kind contributions to the World Food Programme ($300 million).[241] This is in addition to humanitarian assistance and contributions to multilateral development agencies. The scale of this aid places it on par with China and India.[241] The Brazilian South-South aid has been described as a "global model in waiting."[242]
+
+In Brazil, the Constitution establishes five different police agencies for law enforcement: Federal Police Department, Federal Highway Police, Federal Railroad Police, Military Police and Civil Police. Of these, the first three are affiliated with federal authorities and the last two are subordinate to state governments. All police forces are the responsibility of the executive branch of any of the federal or state powers.[17] The National Public Security Force also can act in public disorder situations arising anywhere in the country.[243]
+
+The country still has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide. In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the number of 32 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest rates of homicide of the world.[244] The number considered tolerable by the WHO is about 10 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[245] In 2018, Brazil had a record 63,880 murders.[246] However, there are differences between the crime rates in the Brazilian states. While in São Paulo the homicide rate registered in 2013 was 10.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, in Alagoas it was 64.7 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[247]
+
+Brazil also has high levels of incarceration and the third largest prison population in the world (behind only China and the United States), with an estimated total of approximately 700,000 prisoners around the country (June 2014), an increase of about 300% compared to the index registered in 1992.[248] The high number of prisoners eventually overloaded the Brazilian prison system, leading to a shortfall of about 200,000 accommodations.[249]
+
+Brazil is a federation composed of 26 states, one federal district, and the 5570 municipalities.[17] States have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Federal government. They have a governor and a unicameral legislative body elected directly by their voters. They also have independent Courts of Law for common justice. Despite this, states have much less autonomy to create their own laws than in the United States. For example, criminal and civil laws can be voted by only the federal bicameral Congress and are uniform throughout the country.[17]
+
+The states and the federal district may be grouped into regions: Northern, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast and Southern. The Brazilian regions are merely geographical, not political or administrative divisions, and they do not have any specific form of government. Although defined by law, Brazilian regions are useful mainly for statistical purposes, and also to define the distribution of federal funds in development projects.
+
+Municipalities, as the states, have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Union and state government.[17] Each has a mayor and an elected legislative body, but no separate Court of Law. Indeed, a Court of Law organized by the state can encompass many municipalities in a single justice administrative division called comarca (county).
+
+Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America, the world's ninth largest economy and the eighth largest in purchasing power parity (PPP) according to 2018 estimates. Brazil has a mixed economy with abundant natural resources. After rapid growth in preceding decades, the country entered an ongoing recession in 2014 amid a political corruption scandal and nationwide protests.
+
+Its Gross domestic product (PPP) per capita was $15,919 in 2017[250] putting Brazil in the 77th position according to IMF data. Active in agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service sectors Brazil has a labor force of over 107 million (ranking 6th worldwide) and unemployment of 6.2% (ranking 64th worldwide).[251]
+
+The country has been expanding its presence in international financial and commodities markets, and is one of a group of four emerging economies called the BRIC countries.[252] Brazil has been the world's largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24]
+
+Brazil's diversified economy includes agriculture, industry, and a wide range of services.[254] Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing accounted for 5.1% of the GDP in 2007.[255] Brazil is one of the largest producer of oranges, coffee, sugar cane, cassava and sisal, soybeans and papayas.[256]
+
+Industry in Brazil – from automobiles, steel and petrochemicals to computers, aircraft and consumer durables – accounted for 30.8% of the gross domestic product.[255] Industry is highly concentrated in metropolitan São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte.[257] Brazil has become the fourth largest car market in the world.[258] Major export products include aircraft, electrical equipment, automobiles, ethanol, textiles, footwear, iron ore, steel, coffee, orange juice, soybeans and corned beef.[259] In total, Brazil ranks 23rd worldwide in value of exports.
+
+Brazil pegged its currency, the real, to the U.S. dollar in 1994. However, after the East Asian financial crisis, the Russian default in 1998[260] and the series of adverse financial events that followed it, the Central Bank of Brazil temporarily changed its monetary policy to a managed float regime[261] scheme while undergoing a currency crisis, until definitively changing the exchange regime to free-float in January 1999.[262]
+
+Brazil received an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package in mid-2002 of $30.4 billion,[263] a record sum at the time. Brazil's central bank repaid the IMF loan in 2005, although it was not due to be repaid until 2006.[264] One of the issues the Central Bank of Brazil recently dealt with was an excess of speculative short-term capital inflows to the country, which may have contributed to a fall in the value of the U.S. dollar against the real during that period.[265] Nonetheless, foreign direct investment (FDI), related to long-term, less speculative investment in production, is estimated to be $193.8 billion for 2007.[266] Inflation monitoring and control currently plays a major part in the Central bank's role in setting short-term interest rates as a monetary policy measure.[267]
+
+Between 1993 and 2010, 7012 mergers and acquisitions with a total known value of $707 billion with the involvement of Brazilian firms were announced.[268] The year 2010 was a new record in terms of value with US$115 billion in transactions. The largest transaction with involvement of Brazilian companies was the Cia. Vale do Rio Doce acquisition of Inco in a tender offer valued at US$18.9 billion.
+
+Corruption costs Brazil almost $41 billion a year alone in 2010, with 69.9% of the country's firms identifying the issue as a major constraint in successfully penetrating the global market.[269] Local government corruption is so prevalent that voters perceive it as a problem only if it surpasses certain levels, and only if a local media e.g. a radio station is present to divulge the findings of corruption charges.[270] Initiatives, like this exposure, strengthen awareness which is indicated by the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index; ranking Brazil 69th out of 178 countries in 2012.[271]
+The purchasing power in Brazil is eroded by the so-called Brazil cost.[272]
+
+Brazil also has a large cooperative sector that provides 50% of the food in the country.[273] The world's largest healthcare cooperative Unimed is also located in Brazil, and accounts for 32% of the healthcare insurance market in the country.[274]
+
+Brazil is the world's tenth largest energy consumer with much of its energy coming from renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity and ethanol; the Itaipu Dam is the world's largest hydroelectric plant by energy generation.[275] The first car with an ethanol engine was produced in 1978 and the first airplane engine running on ethanol in 2005.[276]
+
+Recent oil discoveries in the Pre-salt layer have opened the door for a large increase in oil production.[277] The governmental agencies responsible for the energy policy are the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the National Council for Energy Policy, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, and the National Agency of Electricity.[278]
+
+Tourism in Brazil is a growing sector and key to the economy of several regions of the country. The country had 6.36 million visitors in 2015, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the main destination in South America and second in Latin America after Mexico.[280] Revenues from international tourists reached US$6 billion in 2010, showing a recovery from the 2008–2009 economic crisis.[281] Historical records of 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts were reached in 2011.[282][283]
+
+Natural areas are its most popular tourism product, a combination of ecotourism with leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as cultural tourism. Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, cultural tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to São Paulo.[284]
+
+In terms of the 2015 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Brazil ranked in the 28st place at the world's level, third in the Americas, after Canada and United States.[285][286]
+
+Brazil's main competitive advantages are its natural resources, which ranked 1st on this criteria out of all countries considered, and ranked 23rd for its cultural resources, due to its many World Heritage sites. The TTCI report notes Brazil's main weaknesses: its ground transport infrastructure remains underdeveloped (ranked 116th), with the quality of roads ranking in 105th place; and the country continues to suffer from a lack of price competitiveness (ranked 114th), due in part to high ticket taxes and airport charges, as well as high prices and high taxation. Safety and security have improved significantly: 75th in 2011, up from 128th in 2008.[286]
+
+According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), international travel to Brazil accelerated in 2000, particularly during 2004 and 2005. However, in 2006 a slow-down took place, and international arrivals had almost no growth in 2007–08.[287][288][289]
+
+In spite of this trend, revenues from international tourism continued to rise, from USD 4 billion in 2005 to 5 billion in 2007, despite 330 000 fewer arrivals. This favorable trend is the result of the strong devaluation of the US dollar against the Brazilian Real, which began in 2004, but which makes Brazil a more expensive international destination.[290]
+
+This trend changed in 2009, when both visitors and revenues fell as a result of the Great Recession of 2008–09.[291] By 2010, the industry had recovered, and arrivals grew above 2006 levels to 5.2 million international visitors, and receipts from these visitors reached US$6 billion.[281] In 2011 the historical record was reached with 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts.[282][283]
+
+Despite continuing record-breaking international tourism revenues, the number of Brazilian tourists travelling overseas has been growing steadily since 2003, resulting in a net negative foreign exchange balance, as more money is spent abroad by Brazilians than comes in as receipts from international tourists visiting Brazil.[292]
+
+Tourism expenditures abroad grew from US$5.8 billion in 2006, to US$8.2 billion in 2007, a 42% increase, representing a net deficit of US$3.3 billion in 2007, as compared to US$1.5 billion in 2006, a 125% increase from the previous year.[292] This trend is caused by Brazilians taking advantage of the stronger Real to travel and making relatively cheaper expenditures abroad.[292] Brazilians traveling overseas in 2006 represented 4% of the country's population.[293]
+
+In 2005, tourism contributed with 3.2% of the country's revenues from exports of goods and services, and represented 7% of direct and indirect employment in the Brazilian economy.[294] In 2006 direct employment in the sector reached 1.9 million people.[295]
+
+Domestic tourism is a fundamental market segment for the industry, as 51 million people traveled throughout the country in 2005,[296] and direct revenues from Brazilian tourists reached US$22 billion,[297] 5.6 times more receipts than international tourists in 2005.
+
+In 2005, Rio de Janeiro, Foz do Iguaçu, São Paulo, Florianópolis and Salvador were the most visited cities by international tourists for leisure trips. The most popular destinations for business trips were São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre.[298] In 2006 Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza were the most popular destinations for business trips.
+
+Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies.[299] Brazil's most esteemed technological hubs are the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Butantan Institute, the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Center, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the INPE.[300][301]
+
+The Brazilian Space Agency has the most advanced space program in Latin America, with significant resources to launch vehicles, and manufacture of satellites.[302] Owner of relative technological sophistication, the country develops submarines, aircraft, as well as being involved in space research, having a Vehicle Launch Center Light and being the only country in the Southern Hemisphere the integrate team building International Space Station (ISS).[303]
+
+The country is also a pioneer in the search for oil in deep water, from where it extracts 73% of its reserves.
+Uranium is enriched at the Resende Nuclear Fuel Factory, mostly for research purposes (as Brazil obtains 88% from its electricity from hydroelectricity[304]) and the country's first nuclear submarine was delivered in 2015 (by France).[305]
+
+Brazil is one of the three countries in Latin America[306] with an operational Synchrotron Laboratory, a research facility on physics, chemistry, material science and life sciences, and Brazil is the only Latin American country to have a semiconductor company with its own fabrication plant, the CEITEC.[307] According to the Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010 of the World Economic Forum, Brazil is the world's 61st largest developer of information technology.[308]
+
+Brazil also has a large number of outstanding scientific personalities. Among the most renowned Brazilian inventors are priests Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Landell de Moura and Francisco João de Azevedo, besides Alberto Santos-Dumont,[309] Evaristo Conrado Engelberg,[310] Manuel Dias de Abreu,[311] Andreas Pavel[312] and Nélio José Nicolai.[313]
+
+Brazilian science is represented by the likes of César Lattes (Brazilian physicist Pathfinder of Pi Meson),[314] Mário Schenberg (considered the greatest theoretical physicist of Brazil),[315] José Leite Lopes (only Brazilian physicist holder of the UNESCO Science Prize),[316] Artur Ávila (the first Latin American winner of the Fields Medal)[317] and Fritz Müller (pioneer in factual support of the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin).[318]
+
+Brazilian roads are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic. The road system totaled 1.98 million km (1.23 million mi) in 2002. The total of paved roads increased from 35,496 km (22,056 mi) (22,056 mi) in 1967 to 184,140 km (114,419 mi) (114,425 mi) in 2002.[321]
+
+The first investments in road infrastructure have given up in the 1920s, the government of Washington Luis, being pursued in the governments of Getúlio Vargas and Eurico Gaspar Dutra.[322] President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–61), who designed and built the capital Brasília, was another supporter of highways. Kubitschek was responsible for the installation of major car manufacturers in the country (Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors arrived in Brazil during his rule) and one of the points used to attract them was support for the construction of highways. With the implementation of Fiat in 1976 ending an automobile market closed loop, from the end of the 1990s the country has received large foreign direct investments installing in its territory other major car manufacturers and utilities, such as Iveco, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Hyundai, Toyota among others.[323] Brazil is the seventh most important country in the auto industry.[324]
+
+Brazil's railway system has been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction. The total length of railway track was 30,875 km (19,185 mi) in 2002, as compared with 31,848 km (19,789 mi) in 1970. Most of the railway system belonged to the Federal Railroad Corporation RFFSA, which was privatized in 2007.[325] The São Paulo Metro was the first underground transit system in Brazil. The other metro systems are in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Teresina and Fortaleza.
+
+The country has an extensive rail network of 28,538 kilometres (17,733 miles) in length, the tenth largest network in the world.[326] Currently, the Brazilian government, unlike the past, seeks to encourage this mode of transport; an example of this incentive is the project of the Rio–São Paulo high-speed rail, that will connect the two main cities of the country to carry passengers.
+
+There are about 2,500 airports in Brazil, including landing fields: the second largest number in the world, after the United States.[327] São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, near São Paulo, is the largest and busiest airport with nearly 20 million passengers annually, while handling the vast majority of commercial traffic for the country.[328]
+
+For freight transport waterways are of importance, e.g. the industrial zones of Manaus can be reached only by means of the Solimões–Amazonas waterway (3,250 kilometres (2,020 miles) with 6 metres (20 feet) minimum depth). The country also has 50,000 kilometres (31,000 miles) of waterways.[326]
+
+Coastal shipping links widely separated parts of the country. Bolivia and Paraguay have been given free ports at Santos. Of the 36 deep-water ports, Santos, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Paranaguá, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Vitória, Suape, Manaus and São Francisco do Sul are the most important.[329] Bulk carriers have to wait up to 18 days before being serviced, container ships 36.3 hours on average.[330]
+
+The Brazilian public health system, the Unified Health System (SUS), is managed and provided by all levels of government,[332] being the largest system of this type in the world.[333] On the other hand, private healthcare systems play a complementary role.[334]
+
+Public health services are universal and offered to all citizens of the country for free. However, the construction and maintenance of health centers and hospitals are financed by taxes, and the country spends about 9% of its GDP on expenditures in the area. In 2012, Brazil had 1.85 doctors and 2.3 hospital beds for every 1,000 inhabitants.[335][336]
+
+Despite all the progress made since the creation of the universal health care system in 1988, there are still several public health problems in Brazil. In 2006, the main points to be solved were the high infant (2.51%) and maternal mortality rates (73.1 deaths per 1000 births).[337]
+
+The number of deaths from noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (151.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and cancer (72.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), also has a considerable impact on the health of the Brazilian population. Finally, external but preventable factors such as car accidents, violence and suicide caused 14.9% of all deaths in the country.[337] The Brazilian health system was ranked 125th among the 191 countries evaluated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000.[338]
+
+The Federal Constitution and the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education determine that the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities must manage and organize their respective education systems. Each of these public educational systems is responsible for its own maintenance, which manages funds as well as the mechanisms and funding sources. The constitution reserves 25% of the state budget and 18% of federal taxes and municipal taxes for education.[339]
+
+According to the IBGE, in 2011, the literacy rate of the population was 90.4%, meaning that 13 million (9.6% of population) people are still illiterate in the country; functional illiteracy has reached 21.6% of the population.[340] Illiteracy is highest in the Northeast, where 19.9% of the population is illiterate.[341]
+
+Higher education starts with undergraduate or sequential courses, which may offer different options of specialization in academic or professional careers. Depending on the choice, students can improve their educational background with courses of post-graduate studies or broad sense.
+
+Attending an institution of higher education is required by Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education. Kindergarten, elementary and medium education are required of all students, provided the student does not hold any disability, whether physical, mental, visual or hearing.
+
+The University of São Paulo is the second best university in Latin America, according to recent 2019 QS World University Rankings. Of the top 20 Latin American universities, eight are Brazilian. Most of them are public.[342]
+
+Brazil's private institutions tend to be more exclusive and offer better quality education, so many high-income families send their children there. The result is a segregated educational system that reflects extreme income disparities and reinforces social inequality. However, efforts to change this are making impacts.[343]
+
+The Brazilian press was officially born in Rio de Janeiro on 13 May 1808 with the creation of the Royal Printing National Press by the Prince Regent Dom João.[345]
+
+The Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, the first newspaper published in the country, began to circulate on 10 September 1808.[346] The largest newspapers nowadays are Folha de S.Paulo, Super Notícia, O Globo and O Estado de S. Paulo.[347]
+
+Radio broadcasting began on 7 September 1922, with a speech by then President Pessoa, and was formalized on 20 April 1923 with the creation of "Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro."[348]
+
+Television in Brazil began officially on 18 September 1950, with the founding of TV Tupi by Assis Chateaubriand.[349] Since then television has grown in the country, creating large commercial broadcast networks such as Globo, SBT, RecordTV, Bandeirantes and RedeTV. Today it is the most important factor in popular culture of Brazilian society, indicated by research showing that as much as 67%[350][351] of the general population follow the same daily soap opera broadcast. Digital Television, using the SBTVD standard (based on the Japanese standard ISDB-T), was adopted on 29 June 2006 and launched on 2 November 2007.[352] In May 2010, the Brazilian government launched TV Brasil Internacional, an international television station, initially broadcasting to 49 countries.[353] Commercial television channels broadcast internationally include Globo Internacional, RecordTV Internacional and Band Internacional.
+
+The population of Brazil, as recorded by the 2008 PNAD, was approximately 190 million[356] (22.31 inhabitants per square kilometre or 57.8/sq mi), with a ratio of men to women of 0.95:1[357] and 83.75% of the population defined as urban.[358] The population is heavily concentrated in the Southeastern (79.8 million inhabitants) and Northeastern (53.5 million inhabitants) regions, while the two most extensive regions, the Center-West and the North, which together make up 64.12% of the Brazilian territory, have a total of only 29.1 million inhabitants.
+
+The first census in Brazil was carried out in 1872 and recorded a population of 9,930,478.[359] From 1880 to 1930, 4 million Europeans arrived.[360] Brazil's population increased significantly between 1940 and 1970, because of a decline in the mortality rate, even though the birth rate underwent a slight decline. In the 1940s the annual population growth rate was 2.4%, rising to 3.0% in the 1950s and remaining at 2.9% in the 1960s, as life expectancy rose from 44 to 54 years[361] and to 72.6 years in 2007.[362]
+It has been steadily falling since the 1960s, from 3.04% per year between 1950 and 1960 to 1.05% in 2008 and is expected to fall to a negative value of –0.29% by 2050[363] thus completing the demographic transition.[364]
+
+In 2008, the illiteracy rate was 11.48%[365] and among the youth (ages 15–19) 1.74%. It was highest (20.30%) in the Northeast, which had a large proportion of rural poor.[366] Illiteracy was high (24.18%) among the rural population and lower (9.05%) among the urban population.[367]
+
+According to the National Research by Household Sample (PNAD) of 2008, 48.43% of the population (about 92 million) described themselves as White; 43.80% (about 83 million) as Pardo (brown), 6.84% (about 13 million) as Black; 0.58% (about 1.1 million) as Asian; and 0.28% (about 536 thousand) as Amerindian (officially called indígena, Indigenous), while 0.07% (about 130 thousand) did not declare their race.[369]
+
+In 2007, the National Indian Foundation estimated that Brazil has 67 different uncontacted tribes, up from their estimate of 40 in 2005. Brazil is believed to have the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world.[370]
+
+Since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, considerable genetic mixing between Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans has taken place in all regions of the country (with European ancestry being dominant nationwide according to the vast majority of all autosomal studies undertaken covering the entire population, accounting for between 65% to 77%).[371][372][373][374]
+
+Race and ethnicity in Brazil[375][376][377]
+
+Brazilian society is more markedly divided by social class lines, although a high income disparity is found between race groups, so racism and classism can be conflated. Socially significant closeness to one racial group is taken in account more in the basis of appearance (phenotypes) rather than ancestry, to the extent that full siblings can pertain to different "racial" groups.[378] Socioeconomic factors are also significant, because a minority of pardos are likely to start declaring themselves White or Black if socially upward.[379] Skin color and facial features do not line quite well with ancestry (usually, Afro-Brazilians are evenly mixed and European ancestry is dominant in Whites and pardos with a significant non-European contribution, but the individual variation is great).[374][380][381][382]
+
+The brown population (officially called pardo in Portuguese, also colloquially moreno)[383][384] is a broad category that includes caboclos (assimilated Amerindians in general, and descendants of Whites and Natives), mulatos (descendants of primarily Whites and Afro-Brazilians) and cafuzos (descendants of Afro-Brazilians and Natives).[383][384][385][386][387] People of considerable Amerindian ancestry form the majority of the population in the Northern, Northeastern and Center-Western regions.[388]
+
+Higher percents of Blacks, mulattoes and tri-racials can be found in the eastern coast of the Northeastern region from Bahia to Paraíba[387][389] and also in northern Maranhão,[390][391] southern Minas Gerais[392] and in eastern Rio de Janeiro.[387][392] From the 19th century, Brazil opened its borders to immigration. About five million people from over 60 countries migrated to Brazil between 1808 and 1972, most of them of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arab origin.[393][394]. Brazil has the second largest Jewish community in Latin America making up 0.06% of its population.[395]
+
+Religion in Brazil (2010 Census)
+
+Religion in Brazil (2020 estimate by Datafolha) [396]
+
+Roman Catholicism is the country's predominant faith. Brazil has the world's largest Catholic population.[397][398] According to the 2010 Demographic Census (the PNAD survey does not inquire about religion), 64.63% of the population followed Roman Catholicism; 22.2% Protestantism; 2.0% Kardecist spiritism; 3.2% other religions, undeclared or undetermined; while 8.0% have no religion.[5]
+
+Religion in Brazil was formed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of enslaved African peoples and indigenous peoples.[399]. This confluence of faiths during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil led to the development of a diverse array of syncretistic practices within the overarching umbrella of Brazilian Catholic Church, characterized by traditional Portuguese festivities,[400] and in some instances, Allan Kardec's Spiritism (a religion which incorporates elements of spiritualism and Christianity). Religious pluralism increased during the 20th century,[401] and the Protestant community has grown to include over 22% of the population.[402] The most common Protestant denominations are Evangelical Pentecostal ones. Other Protestant branches with a notable presence in the country include the Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and the Reformed tradition.[403]
+
+However,  in the last ten years Protestantism, has spread in Brazil, while the proportion of Catholics has dropped significantly. The country has no census since 2010, but demographs estimate evangelical population will be majority after 2032, because Protestantism accounted for fewer than 5% of the population until the 1960s, but by 2000 made up over 15% of those affiliated with a church, now the evangelical group are the most rapidly growing religious group and more costly. [404] [405]
+
+After Protestantism, individuals professing no religion are also a significant group, exceeding 8% of the population as of the 2010 census. The cities of Boa Vista, Salvador, and Porto Velho have the greatest proportion of Irreligious residents in Brazil. Teresina, Fortaleza, and Florianópolis were the most Roman Catholic in the country.[406] Greater Rio de Janeiro, not including the city proper, is the most irreligious and least Roman Catholic Brazilian periphery, while Greater Porto Alegre and Greater Fortaleza are on the opposite sides of the lists, respectively.[406]
+
+In October 2009, the Brazilian Senate approved and enacted by the President of  Brazil in February 2010, an agreement with the Vatican, in which the Legal Statute of the Catholic Church in Brazil is recognized. The agreement confirmed norms that were normally complied with regarding religious education in public elementary schools (which also ensures the teaching of other beliefs), marriage and spiritual assistance in prisons and hospitals. The project was criticized by parliamentarians who understood the end of the secular state with the approval of the agreement.[410][411]
+
+According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) urban areas already concentrate 84.35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants.[412]
+The largest urban agglomerations in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte – all in the Southeastern Region – with 21.1, 12.3, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively.[413][414][415] The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina.[416]
+
+The official language of Brazil is Portuguese[419] (Article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil), which almost all of the population speaks and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio, television, and for business and administrative purposes. Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity and giving it a national culture distinct from those of its Spanish-speaking neighbors.[420]
+
+Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, mostly similar to 16th-century Central and Southern dialects of European Portuguese[421] (despite a very substantial number of Portuguese colonial settlers, and more recent immigrants, coming from Northern regions, and in minor degree Portuguese Macaronesia), with a few influences from the Amerindian and African languages, especially West African and Bantu restricted to the vocabulary only.[422] As a result,[citation needed] the language is somewhat different, mostly in phonology, from the language of Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries (the dialects of the other countries, partly because of the more recent end of Portuguese colonialism in these regions, have a closer connection to contemporary European Portuguese). These differences are comparable to those between American and British English.[422]
+
+In 1990, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which included representatives from all countries with Portuguese as the official language, reached an agreement on the reform of the Portuguese orthography to unify the two standards then in use by Brazil on one side and the remaining lusophone countries on the other. This spelling reform went into effect in Brazil on 1 January 2009. In Portugal, the reform was signed into law by the President on 21 July 2008 allowing for a six-year adaptation period, during which both orthographies will co-exist. The remaining CPLP countries are free to establish their own transition timetables.[423]
+
+The sign language law legally recognized in 2002,[424] (the law was regulated in 2005)[425] the use of the Brazilian Sign Language, more commonly known by its Portuguese acronym LIBRAS, in education and government services. The language must be taught as a part of the education and speech and language pathology curricula. LIBRAS teachers, instructors and translators are recognized professionals. Schools and health services must provide access ("inclusion") to deaf people.[426]
+
+Minority languages are spoken throughout the nation. One hundred and eighty Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas and a significant number of other languages are spoken by immigrants and their descendants.[422] In the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Nheengatu (a currently endangered South American creole language – or an 'anti-creole', according to some linguists – with mostly Indigenous Brazilian languages lexicon and Portuguese-based grammar that, together with its southern relative língua geral paulista, once was a major lingua franca in Brazil,[427] being replaced by Portuguese only after governmental prohibition led by major political changes)[excessive detail?], Baniwa and Tucano languages had been granted co-official status with Portuguese.[428]
+
+There are significant communities of German (mostly the Brazilian Hunsrückisch, a High German language dialect) and Italian (mostly the Talian, a Venetian dialect) origins in the Southern and Southeastern regions, whose ancestors' native languages were carried along to Brazil, and which, still alive there, are influenced by the Portuguese language.[429][430] Talian is officially a historic patrimony of Rio Grande do Sul,[431] and two German dialects possess co-official status in a few municipalities.[432] Italian is also recognized as ethnic language in the Santa Teresa microregion and Vila Velha (Espirito Santo state), and is taught as mandatory second language at school.[2]
+
+Learning at least one second language (generally English or Spanish) is mandatory for all the 12 grades of the mandatory education system (primary and secondary education, there called ensino fundamental and ensino médio respectively). Brazil is the first country in South America to offer Esperanto to secondary students.[433]
+
+The core culture of Brazil is derived from Portuguese culture, because of its strong colonial ties with the Portuguese Empire.[434] Among other influences, the Portuguese introduced the Portuguese language, Roman Catholicism and colonial architectural styles. The culture was, however, also strongly influenced by African, indigenous and non-Portuguese European cultures and traditions.[435]
+Some aspects of Brazilian culture were influenced by the contributions of Italian, German and other European as well as Japanese, Jewish and Arab immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries.[436] The indigenous Amerindians influenced Brazil's language and cuisine; and the Africans influenced language, cuisine, music, dance and religion.[437]
+
+Brazilian art has developed since the 16th century into different styles that range from Baroque (the dominant style in Brazil until the early 19th century)[438][439] to Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstractionism. Brazilian cinema dates back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century and has gained a new level of international acclaim since the 1960s.[440]
+
+The architecture of Brazil is influenced by Europe, especially Portugal. It has a history that goes back 500 years to the time when Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil in 1500. Portuguese colonial architecture was the first wave of architecture to go to Brazil.[441] It is the basis for all Brazilian architecture of later centuries.[442] In the 19th century during the time of the Empire of Brazil, Brazil followed European trends and adopted Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. Then in the 20th century especially in Brasilia, Brazil experimented with Modernist architecture.
+
+The colonial architecture of Brazil dates to the early 16th century when Brazil was first explored, conquered and settled by the Portuguese. The Portuguese built architecture familiar to them in Europe in their aim to colonize Brazil. They built Portuguese colonial architecture which included churches, civic architecture including houses and forts in Brazilian cities and the countryside. During 19th century Brazilian architecture saw the introduction of more European styles to Brazil such as Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. This was usually mixed with Brazilian influences from their own heritage which produced a unique form of Brazilian architecture. In the 1950s the modernist architecture was introduced when Brasilia was built as new federal capital in the interior of Brazil to help develop the interior. The architect Oscar Niemeyer idealized and built government buildings, churches and civic buildings in the modernist style.[443][444]
+
+The music of Brazil was formed mainly from the fusion of European and African elements.[446] Until the nineteenth century, Portugal was the gateway to most of the influences that built Brazilian music, although many of these elements were not of Portuguese origin, but generally European. The first was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, author of sacred pieces with influence of Viennese classicism.[447] The major contribution of the African element was the rhythmic diversity and some dances and instruments that had a bigger role in the development of popular music and folk, flourishing especially in the twentieth century.[446]
+
+Popular music since the late eighteenth century began to show signs of forming a characteristically Brazilian sound, with samba considered the most typical and on the UNESCO cultural heritage list.[448] Maracatu and Afoxê are two Afro-Brazilian music traditions that have been popularized by their appearance in the annual Brazilian Carnivals.[449] The sport of capoeira is usually played with its own music referred to as capoeira music, which is usually considered to be a call-and-response type of folk music.[450] Forró is a type of folk music prominent during the Festa Junina in northeastern Brazil.[451] Jack A. Draper III, a professor of Portuguese at the University of Missouri,[452] argues that Forró was used as a way to subdue feelings of nostalgia for a rural lifestyle.[453]
+
+Choro is a very popular music instrumental style. Its origins are in 19th-century Rio de Janeiro. In spite of the name, the style often has a fast and happy rhythm, characterized by virtuosity, improvisation, subtle modulations and full of syncopation and counterpoint.[454] Bossa nova is also a well-known style of Brazilian music developed and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s.[455] The phrase "bossa nova" means literally "new trend".[456] A lyrical fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova acquired a large following starting in the 1960s.[457]
+
+Brazilian literature dates back to the 16th century, to the writings of the first Portuguese explorers in Brazil, such as Pêro Vaz de Caminha, filled with descriptions of fauna, flora and commentary about the indigenous population that fascinated European readers.[459]
+
+Brazil produced significant works in Romanticism – novelists like Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and José de Alencar wrote novels about love and pain. Alencar, in his long career, also treated indigenous people as heroes in the Indigenist novels O Guarani, Iracema and Ubirajara.[460] Machado de Assis, one of his contemporaries, wrote in virtually all genres and continues to gain international prestige from critics worldwide.[461][462][463]
+
+Brazilian Modernism, evidenced by the Week of Modern Art in 1922, was concerned with a nationalist avant-garde literature,[464] while Post-Modernism brought a generation of distinct poets like João Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Vinicius de Moraes, Cora Coralina, Graciliano Ramos, Cecília Meireles, and internationally known writers dealing with universal and regional subjects like Jorge Amado, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector and Manuel Bandeira.[465][466][467]
+
+Brazilian cuisine varies greatly by region, reflecting the country's varying mix of indigenous and immigrant populations. This has created a national cuisine marked by the preservation of regional differences.[468] Examples are Feijoada, considered the country's national dish;[469] and regional foods such as beiju, feijão tropeiro, vatapá, moqueca, polenta (from Italian cuisine) and acarajé (from African cuisine).[470]
+
+The national beverage is coffee and cachaça is Brazil's native liquor. Cachaça is distilled from sugar cane and is the main ingredient in the national cocktail, Caipirinha.[471]
+
+A typical meal consists mostly of rice and beans with beef, salad, french fries and a fried egg.[472] Often, it is mixed with cassava flour (farofa). Fried potatoes, fried cassava, fried banana, fried meat and fried cheese are very often eaten in lunch and served in most typical restaurants.[473] Popular snacks are pastel (a fried pastry); coxinha (a variation of chicken croquete); pão de queijo (cheese bread and cassava flour / tapioca); pamonha (corn and milk paste); esfirra (a variation of Lebanese pastry); kibbeh (from Arabic cuisine); empanada (pastry) and empada, little salt pies filled with shrimps or heart of palm.
+
+Brazil has a variety of desserts such as brigadeiros (chocolate fudge balls), bolo de rolo (roll cake with goiabada), cocada (a coconut sweet), beijinhos (coconut truffles and clove) and romeu e julieta (cheese with goiabada). Peanuts are used to make paçoca, rapadura and pé-de-moleque. Local common fruits like açaí, cupuaçu, mango, papaya, cocoa, cashew, guava, orange, lime, passionfruit, pineapple, and hog plum are turned in juices and used to make chocolates, ice pops and ice cream.[474]
+
+The Brazilian film industry began in the late 19th century, during the early days of the Belle Époque. While there were national film productions during the early 20th century, American films such as Rio the Magnificent were made in Rio de Janeiro to promote tourism in the city.[475] The films Limite (1931) and Ganga Bruta (1933), the latter being produced by Adhemar Gonzaga through the prolific studio Cinédia, were poorly received at release and failed at the box office, but are acclaimed nowadays and placed among the finest Brazilian films of all time.[476] The 1941 unfinished film It's All True was divided in four segments, two of which were filmed in Brazil and directed by Orson Welles; it was originally produced as part of the United States' Good Neighbor Policy during Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo government.
+
+During the 1960s, the Cinema Novo movement rose to prominence with directors such as Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Paulo Cesar Saraceni and Arnaldo Jabor. Rocha's films Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) and Terra em Transe (1967) are considered to be some of the greatest and most influential in Brazilian film history.[477]
+
+During the 1990s, Brazil saw a surge of critical and commercial success with films such as O Quatrilho (Fábio Barreto, 1995), O Que É Isso, Companheiro? (Bruno Barreto, 1997) and Central do Brasil (Walter Salles, 1998), all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the latter receiving a Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Montenegro. The 2002 crime film City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles, was critically acclaimed, scoring 90% on Rotten Tomatoes,[478] being placed in Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Decade list[479] and receiving four Academy Award nominations in 2004, including Best Director. Notable film festivals in Brazil include the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festivals and the Gramado Festival.
+
+The theatre in Brazil has its origins in the period of Jesuit expansion when theater was used for the dissemination of Catholic doctrine in the 16th century. in the 17th and 18th centuries the first dramatists who appeared on the scene of European derivation was for court or private performances.[480] During the 19th century, dramatic theater gained importance and thickness, whose first representative was Luis Carlos Martins Pena (1813–1848), capable of describing contemporary reality. Always in this period the comedy of costume and comic production was imposed. Significant, also in the nineteenth century, was also the playwright Antônio Gonçalves Dias.[481] There were also numerous operas and orchestras. The Brazilian conductor Antônio Carlos Gomes became internationally known with operas like Il Guarany. At the end of the 19th century orchestrated dramaturgias became very popular and were accompanied with songs of famous artists like the conductress Chiquinha Gonzaga.[482]
+
+Already in the early 20th century there was the presence of theaters, entrepreneurs and actor companies, but paradoxically the quality of the products staggered, and only in 1940 the Brazilian theater received a boost of renewal thanks to the action of Paschoal Carlos Magno and his student's theater, the comedians group and the Italian actors Adolfo Celi, Ruggero Jacobbi and Aldo Calvo, founders of the Teatro Brasileiro de Comedia. From the 1960s it was attended by a theater dedicated to social and religious issues and to the flourishing of schools of dramatic art. The most prominent authors at this stage were Jorge Andrade and Ariano Suassuna.[481]
+
+Brazilian painting emerged in the late 16th century,[483] influenced by Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism and Abstracionism making it a major art style called Brazilian academic art.[484][485] The Missão Artística Francesa (French Artistic Mission) arrived in Brazil in 1816 proposing the creation of an art academy modeled after the respected Académie des Beaux-Arts, with graduation courses both for artists and craftsmen for activities such as modeling, decorating, carpentry and others and bringing artists like Jean-Baptiste Debret.[485]
+
+Upon the creation of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, new artistic movements spread across the country during the 19th century and later the event called Week of Modern Art broke definitely with academic tradition in 1922 and started a nationalist trend which was influenced by modernist arts. Among the best-known Brazilian painters are Ricardo do Pilar and Manuel da Costa Ataíde (baroque and rococo), Victor Meirelles, Pedro Américo and Almeida Junior (romanticism and realism), Anita Malfatti, Ismael Nery, Lasar Segall, Emiliano di Cavalcanti, Vicente do Rego Monteiro, and Tarsila do Amaral (expressionism, surrealism and cubism), Aldo Bonadei, José Pancetti and Cândido Portinari (modernism).[486]
+
+The most popular sport in Brazil is football.[488] The Brazilian men's national team is ranked among the best in the world according to the FIFA World Rankings, and has won the World Cup tournament a record five times.[489][490]
+
+Volleyball, basketball, auto racing, and martial arts also attract large audiences. The Brazil men's national volleyball team, for example, currently holds the titles of the World League, World Grand Champions Cup, World Championship and the World Cup. In auto racing, three Brazilian drivers have won the Formula One world championship eight times.[491][492][493]
+
+Some sport variations have their origins in Brazil: beach football,[494] futsal (indoor football)[495] and footvolley emerged in Brazil as variations of football. In martial arts, Brazilians developed Capoeira,[496] Vale tudo,[497] and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.[498]
+
+Brazil has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, like the 1950 FIFA World Cup[499] and recently has hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2019 Copa América.[500] The São Paulo circuit, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, hosts the annual Grand Prix of Brazil.[501] São Paulo organized the IV Pan American Games in 1963, and Rio de Janeiro hosted the XV Pan American Games in 2007.[502] On 2 October 2009, Rio de Janeiro was selected to host the 2016 Olympic Games and 2016 Paralympic Games, making it the first South American city to host the games[503] and second in Latin America, after Mexico City. Furthermore, the country hosted the FIBA Basketball World Cups in 1954 and 1963. At the 1963 event, the Brazil national basketball team won one of its two world championship titles.[504]
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+Portuguese Macau
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+15th century [Atlantic islands]
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+Lat. and Long. 15°45′S 47°57′W / 15.750°S 47.950°W / -15.750; -47.950 (Brasilia)

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+Coordinates: 10°S 52°W / 10°S 52°W / -10; -52
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+Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil; Brazilian Portuguese: [bɾaˈziw]),[nt 1] officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil),[10] is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers (3.2 million square miles)[11] and with over 211 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the sixth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states and the Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas;[12][13] it is also one of the most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass immigration from around the world;[14] as well as the most populous Roman Catholic-majority country.
+
+Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers (4,655 mi).[15] It borders all other countries in South America except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent's land area.[16] Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats.[15] This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, and is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.
+
+Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808 when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. The country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic.[17] Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[18]
+
+Brazil is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank[19] and a newly industrialized country,[20] with the largest share of global wealth in Latin America. It is considered an advanced emerging economy.[21] It has the ninth largest GDP in the world by nominal, and eight by PPP measures.[22][23] It is one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24] Brazil is a regional power and sometimes considered a great[25][26][27] or a middle power in international affairs.[27][28][29][30][31][26] On account of its international recognition and influence, the country is subsequently classified as an emerging power[32] and a potential superpower by several analysts.[33][34][35] Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.
+
+The word "Brazil" likely comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast.[36] In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa ("ember") and the suffix -il (from -iculum or -ilium).[37] As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was highly valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil.[38] Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi) along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders (mostly Portuguese, but also French) in return for assorted European consumer goods.[39]
+
+The official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross" (Terra da Santa Cruz),[40] but European sailors and merchants commonly called it simply the "Land of Brazil" (Terra do Brasil) because of the brazilwood trade.[41] The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name. Some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots".[42]
+
+In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama". This was the name the indigenous population gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".[43]
+
+Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years.[46][47]
+
+The earliest pottery ever found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago (6000 BC). The pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the tropical forest region supported a complex prehistoric culture.[48] The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from 400 CE to 1400 CE, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, and complex social formations such as chiefdoms.[45]
+
+Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people,[49] mostly semi-nomadic, who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. The indigenous population of Brazil comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups (e.g. the Tupis, Guaranis, Gês and Arawaks). The Tupí people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás, and there were also many subdivisions of the other groups.[50]
+
+Before the arrival of the Europeans, the boundaries between these groups and their subgroups were marked by wars that arose from differences in culture, language and moral beliefs.[51] These wars also involved large-scale military actions on land and water, with cannibalistic rituals on prisoners of war.[52][53] While heredity had some weight, leadership status was more subdued over time, than allocated in succession ceremonies and conventions.[51] Slavery among the Indians had a different meaning than it had for Europeans, since it originated from a diverse socioeconomic organization, in which asymmetries were translated into kinship relations.[54]
+
+The land now called Brazil was claimed for the Portuguese Empire on 22 April 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral.[55] The Portuguese encountered indigenous peoples divided into several tribes, most of whom spoke languages of the Tupi–Guarani family, and fought among themselves.[56] Though the first settlement was founded in 1532, colonization effectively began in 1534, when King John III of Portugal divided the territory into the fifteen private and autonomous Captaincy Colonies of Brazil.[57][58]
+
+However, the decentralized and unorganized tendencies of the captaincy colonies proved problematic, and in 1549 the Portuguese king restructured them into the Governorate General of Brazil in the city of Salvador, which became the capital of a single and centralized Portuguese colony in South America.[58][59] In the first two centuries of colonization, Indigenous and European groups lived in constant war, establishing opportunistic alliances in order to gain advantages against each other.[60][61][62][63] By the mid-16th century, cane sugar had become Brazil's most important export,[56][64] and slaves purchased in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the slave market of Western Africa[65] (not only those from Portuguese allies of their colonies in Angola and Mozambique), had become its largest import,[66][67] to cope with plantations of sugarcane, due to increasing international demand for Brazilian sugar.[68][69]
+
+By the end of the 17th century, sugarcane exports began to decline,[70] and the discovery of gold by bandeirantes in the 1690s would become the new backbone of the colony's economy, fostering a Brazilian Gold Rush[71] which attracted thousands of new settlers to Brazil from Portugal and all Portuguese colonies around the world.[72] This increased level of immigration in turn caused some conflicts between newcomers and old settlers.[73]
+
+Portuguese expeditions known as Bandeiras gradually advanced the Portugal colonial original frontiers in South America to approximately the current Brazilian borders.[74][75] In this era other European powers tried to colonize parts of Brazil, in incursions that the Portuguese had to fight, notably the French in Rio during the 1560s, in Maranhão during the 1610s, and the Dutch in Bahia and Pernambuco, during the Dutch–Portuguese War, after the end of Iberian Union.[76]
+
+The Portuguese colonial administration in Brazil had two objectives that would ensure colonial order and the monopoly of Portugal's wealthiest and largest colony: to keep under control and eradicate all forms of slave rebellion and resistance, such as the Quilombo of Palmares,[77] and to repress all movements for autonomy or independence, such as the Minas Conspiracy.[78]
+
+In late 1807, Spanish and Napoleonic forces threatened the security of continental Portugal, causing Prince Regent João, in the name of Queen Maria I, to move the royal court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro.[79] There they established some of Brazil's first financial institutions, such as its local stock exchanges,[80] and its National Bank, additionally ending the Portuguese monopoly on Brazilian trade and opening Brazil to other nations. In 1809, in retaliation for being forced into exile, the Prince Regent ordered the Portuguese conquest of French Guiana.[81]
+
+With the end of the Peninsular War in 1814, the courts of Europe demanded that Queen Maria I and Prince Regent João return to Portugal, deeming it unfit for the head of an ancient European monarchy to reside in a colony. In 1815, to justify continuing to live in Brazil, where the royal court had thrived for six years, the Crown established the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves, thus creating a pluricontinental transatlantic monarchic state.[82] However, the leadership in Portugal, resentful of the new status of its larger colony, continued to demand the return of court to Lisbon (v. Liberal Revolution of 1820). In 1821, acceding to the demands of revolutionaries who had taken the city of Porto,[83] D. João VI departed for Lisbon. There he swore an oath to the new constitution, leaving his son, Prince Pedro de Alcântara, as Regent of the Kingdom of Brazil.[84]
+
+Tensions between Portuguese and Brazilians increased, and the Portuguese Cortes, guided by the new political regime imposed by the 1820 Liberal Revolution, tried to re-establish Brazil as a colony.[85] The Brazilians refused to yield, and Prince Pedro decided to stand with them, declaring the country's independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822.[86] A month later, Prince Pedro was declared the first Emperor of Brazil, with the royal title of Dom Pedro I, resulting in the foundation of the Empire of Brazil.[87]
+
+The Brazilian War of Independence, which had already begun along this process, spread through the northern, northeastern regions and in Cisplatina province.[88] The last Portuguese soldiers surrendered on 8 March 1824;[89] Portugal officially recognized Brazil on 29 August 1825.[90]
+
+On 7 April 1831, worn down by years of administrative turmoil and political dissent with both liberal and conservative sides of politics, including an attempt of republican secession,[91] and unreconciled to the way that absolutists in Portugal had given in the succession of King John VI, Pedro I went to Portugal to reclaim his daughter's crown, abdicating the Brazilian throne in favor of his five-year-old son and heir (who thus became the Empire's second monarch, with the royal title of Dom Pedro II).[92]
+
+As the new Emperor could not exert his constitutional powers until he came of age, a regency was set up by the National Assembly.[93] In the absence of a charismatic figure who could represent a moderate face of power, during this period a series of localized rebellions took place, such as the Cabanagem in Grão-Pará Province, the Malê Revolt in Salvador da Bahia, the Balaiada (Maranhão), the Sabinada (Bahia), and the Ragamuffin War, which began in Rio Grande do Sul and was supported by Giuseppe Garibaldi. These emerged from the dissatisfaction of the provinces with the central power, coupled with old and latent social tensions peculiar to a vast, slaveholding and newly independent nation state.[94] This period of internal political and social upheaval, which included the Praieira revolt in Pernambuco, was overcome only at the end of the 1840s, years after the end of the regency, which occurred with the premature coronation of Pedro II in 1841.[95]
+
+During the last phase of the monarchy, internal political debate centered on the issue of slavery. The Atlantic slave trade was abandoned in 1850,[96] as a result of the British Aberdeen Act, but only in May 1888 after a long process of internal mobilization and debate for an ethical and legal dismantling of slavery in the country, was the institution formally abolished.[97]
+
+The foreign-affairs policies of the monarchy dealt with issues with the countries of the Southern Cone with whom Brazil had borders. Long after the Cisplatine War that resulted in independence for Uruguay,[98] Brazil won three international wars during the 58-year reign of Pedro II. These were the Platine War, the Uruguayan War and the devastating Paraguayan War, the largest war effort in Brazilian history.[99][100]
+
+Although there was no desire among the majority of Brazilians to change the country's form of government,[101] on 15 November 1889, in disagreement with the majority of Army officers, as well as with rural and financial elites (for different reasons), the monarchy was overthrown by a military coup.[102] 15 November is now Republic Day, a national holiday.[103]
+
+The early republican government was nothing more than a military dictatorship, with army dominating affairs both in Rio de Janeiro and in the states. Freedom of the press disappeared and elections were controlled by those in power.[104] Not until 1894, following an economic crisis and a military one, did civilians take power, remaining there until October 1930.[105][106][107]
+
+If in relation to its foreign policy, the country in this first republican period maintained a relative balance characterized by a success in resolving border disputes with neighboring countries,[108] only broken by the Acre War (1899–1902) and its involvement in World War I (1914–1918),[109][110][111] followed by a failed attempt to exert a prominent role in the League of Nations;[112] Internally, from the crisis of Encilhamento[113][114][115] and the Armada Revolts,[116] a prolonged cycle of financial, political and social instability began until the 1920s, keeping the country besieged by various rebellions, both civilian[117][118][119] and military.[120][121][122]
+
+Little by little, a cycle of general instability sparked by these crises undermined the regime to such an extent that in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate Getúlio Vargas, supported by most of the military, successfully led the October 1930 Coup.[123][124] Vargas and the military were supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed the Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers and replaced the states' governors with their own supporters.[125][126]
+
+In the 1930s, three failed attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power occurred. The first was the Constitutionalist Revolution in 1932, led by the Paulista oligarchy. The second was a Communist uprising in November 1935, and the last one a putsch attempt by local fascists in May 1938.[127][128][129] The 1935 uprising created a security crisis in which the Congress transferred more power to the executive. The 1937 coup d'état resulted in the cancellation of the 1938 election, formalized Vargas as dictator, beginning the Estado Novo era, which was noted for government brutality and censorship of the press.[130]
+
+Foreign policy during the Vargas years was marked by the antecedents[clarification needed] and World War II. Brazil remained neutral until August 1942, when the country entered on the allied side,[131][132] after suffering retaliation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, in a strategic dispute over the South Atlantic.[133] In addition to its participation in the battle of the Atlantic, Brazil also sent an expeditionary force to fight in the Italian campaign.[134]
+
+With the Allied victory in 1945 and the end of the Nazi-fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas's position became unsustainable and he was swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with democracy "reinstated" by the same army that had ended it 15 years earlier.[135] Vargas committed suicide in August 1954 amid a political crisis, after having returned to power by election in 1950.[136][137]
+
+Several brief interim governments followed Vargas's suicide.[138] Juscelino Kubitschek became president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory posture towards the political opposition that allowed him to govern without major crises.[139] The economy and industrial sector grew remarkably,[140] but his greatest achievement was the construction of the new capital city of Brasília, inaugurated in 1960.[141]
+
+Kubitschek's successor, Jânio Quadros, resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office.[142] His vice-president, João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political opposition[143] and was deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a military regime.[144]
+
+The new regime was intended to be transitory[145] but gradually closed in on itself and became a full dictatorship with the promulgation of the Fifth Institutional Act in 1968.[146] Oppression was not limited to those who resorted to guerrilla tactics to fight the regime, but also reached institutional opponents, artists, journalists and other members of civil society,[147][148] inside and outside the country through the infamous "Operation Condor".[149][150] Despite its brutality, like other authoritarian regimes, due to an economic boom, known as an "economic miracle", the regime reached a peak in popularity in the early 1970s.[151]
+
+Slowly, however, the wear and tear of years of dictatorial power that had not slowed the repression, even after the defeat of the leftist guerrillas,[152] plus the inability to deal with the economic crises of the period and popular pressure, made an opening policy inevitable, which from the regime side was led by Generals Ernesto Geisel and Golbery do Couto e Silva.[153] With the enactment of the Amnesty Law in 1979, Brazil began a slow return to democracy, which was completed during the 1980s.[95]
+
+Civilians returned to power in 1985 when José Sarney assumed the presidency. He became unpopular during his tenure through failure to control the economic crisis and hyperinflation he inherited from the military regime.[154] Sarney's unsuccessful government led to the election in 1989 of the almost-unknown Fernando Collor, subsequently impeached by the National Congress in 1992.[155]
+
+Collor was succeeded by his vice-president, Itamar Franco, who appointed Fernando Henrique Cardoso Minister of Finance. In 1994, Cardoso produced a highly successful Plano Real,[156] that, after decades of failed economic plans made by previous governments attempting to curb hyperinflation, finally stabilized the Brazilian economy.[157][158] Cardoso won the 1994 election, and again in 1998.[159]
+
+The peaceful transition of power from Cardoso to his main opposition leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006), was seen as proof that Brazil had achieved a long-sought political stability.[160][161] However, sparked by indignation and frustrations accumulated over decades from corruption, police brutality, inefficiencies of the political establishment and public service, numerous peaceful protests erupted in Brazil from the middle of first term of Dilma Rousseff, who had succeeded Lula after winning election in 2010.[162][163]
+
+Enhanced by political and economic crises with evidence of involvement by politicians from all the primary political parties in several bribery and tax evasion schemes,[164][165] with large street protests for and against her,[166] Rousseff was impeached by the Brazilian Congress in 2016.[167][168] In 2017, the Supreme Court asked for the investigation of 71 Brazilian lawmakers and nine ministers in President Michel Temer's cabinet allegedly linked to the Petrobras corruption scandal.[169] President Temer is himself accused of corruption.[170] In 2018, 62% of the population on a poll claimed that corruption was Brazil's biggest problem.[171]
+
+On 25 February 2020, the COVID-19 virus was confirmed to have spread to Brazil on 25 February 2020.[172] On 19 June 2020, the country reported its 1 millionth case; at this time, there had been nearly 49,000 reported deaths.[173][174] As of July 2020, Brazil has the second-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world behind the US, but ahead of India.
+
+Brazil occupies a large area along the eastern coast of South America and includes much of the continent's interior,[175] sharing land borders with Uruguay to the south; Argentina and Paraguay to the southwest; Bolivia and Peru to the west; Colombia to the northwest; and Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and France (French overseas region of French Guiana) to the north. It shares a border with every South American country except Ecuador and Chile.[15]
+
+It also encompasses a number of oceanic archipelagos, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz.[15] Its size, relief, climate, and natural resources make Brazil geographically diverse.[175] Including its Atlantic islands, Brazil lies between latitudes 6°N and 34°S, and longitudes 28° and 74°W.[15]
+
+Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, and third largest in the Americas, with a total area of 8,515,767.049 km2 (3,287,956 sq mi),[176] including 55,455 km2 (21,411 sq mi) of water.[15] It spans four time zones; from UTC−5 comprising the state of Acre and the westernmost portion of Amazonas, to UTC−4 in the western states, to UTC−3 in the eastern states (the national time) and UTC−2 in the Atlantic islands.[177]
+
+Brazil is the only country in the world that has the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn running through it. Brazilian topography is also diverse and includes hills, mountains, plains, highlands, and scrublands. Much of the terrain lies between 200 metres (660 ft) and 800 metres (2,600 ft) in elevation.[178] The main upland area occupies most of the southern half of the country.[178] The northwestern parts of the plateau consist of broad, rolling terrain broken by low, rounded hills.[178]
+
+The southeastern section is more rugged, with a complex mass of ridges and mountain ranges reaching elevations of up to 1,200 metres (3,900 ft).[178] These ranges include the Mantiqueira and Espinhaço mountains and the Serra do Mar.[178]
+
+In the north, the Guiana Highlands form a major drainage divide, separating rivers that flow south into the Amazon Basin from rivers that empty into the Orinoco River system, in Venezuela, to the north. The highest point in Brazil is the Pico da Neblina at 2,994 metres (9,823 ft), and the lowest is the Atlantic Ocean.[15]
+
+Brazil has a dense and complex system of rivers, one of the world's most extensive, with eight major drainage basins, all of which drain into the Atlantic.[179] Major rivers include the Amazon (the world's second-longest river and the largest in terms of volume of water), the Paraná and its major tributary the Iguaçu (which includes the Iguazu Falls), the Negro, São Francisco, Xingu, Madeira and Tapajós rivers.[179]
+
+The climate of Brazil comprises a wide range of weather conditions across a large area and varied topography, but most of the country is tropical.[15] According to the Köppen system, Brazil hosts six major climatic subtypes: desert, equatorial, tropical, semiarid, oceanic and subtropical. The different climatic conditions produce environments ranging from equatorial rainforests in the north and semiarid deserts in the northeast, to temperate coniferous forests in the south and tropical savannas in central Brazil.[180] Many regions have starkly different microclimates.[181][182]
+
+An equatorial climate characterizes much of northern Brazil. There is no real dry season, but there are some variations in the period of the year when most rain falls.[180] Temperatures average 25 °C (77 °F),[182] with more significant temperature variation between night and day than between seasons.[181]
+
+Over central Brazil rainfall is more seasonal, characteristic of a savanna climate.[181] This region is as extensive as the Amazon basin but has a very different climate as it lies farther south at a higher altitude.[180] In the interior northeast, seasonal rainfall is even more extreme.[183]
+
+The semiarid climatic region generally receives less than 800 millimetres (31.5 in) of rain,[183] most of which generally falls in a period of three to five months of the year[184] and occasionally less than this, creating long periods of drought.[181] Brazil's 1877–78 Grande Seca (Great Drought), the worst in Brazil's history,[185] caused approximately half a million deaths.[186] A similarly devastating drought occurred in 1915.[187]
+
+South of Bahia, near the coasts, and more southerly most of the state of São Paulo, the distribution of rainfall changes, with rain falling throughout the year.[180] The south enjoys subtropical conditions, with cool winters and average annual temperatures not exceeding 18 °C (64.4 °F);[182] winter frosts and snowfall are not rare in the highest areas.[180][181]
+
+Brazil's large territory comprises different ecosystems, such as the Amazon rainforest, recognized as having the greatest biological diversity in the world,[188] with the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado, sustaining the greatest biodiversity.[189] In the south, the Araucaria pine forest grows under temperate conditions.[189] The rich wildlife of Brazil reflects the variety of natural habitats. Scientists estimate that the total number of plant and animal species in Brazil could approach four million, mostly invertebrates.[189]
+
+Larger mammals include carnivores pumas, jaguars, ocelots, rare bush dogs, and foxes, and herbivores peccaries, tapirs, anteaters, sloths, opossums, and armadillos. Deer are plentiful in the south, and many species of New World monkeys are found in the northern rain forests.[189][190] Concern for the environment has grown in response to global interest in environmental issues.[191] Brazil's Amazon Basin is home to an extremely diverse array of fish species, including the red-bellied piranha.
+
+By 2013, Brazil's "dramatic policy-driven reduction in Amazon Basin deforestation" was a "global exception in terms of forest change", according to scientific journal Science.[192]:852 From 2003 to 2011, compared to all other countries in the world, Brazil had the "largest decline in annual forest loss", as indicated in the study using high-resolution satellite maps showing global forest cover changes.[192]:850 The annual loss of forest cover decreased from a 2003/2004 record high of more than 40,000 square kilometres (4,000×10^3 ha; 9.9×10^6 acres; 15,000 sq mi) to a 2010/2011 low of under 20,000 square kilometres (2,000×10^3 ha; 4.9×10^6 acres; 7,700 sq mi),[192]:850 reversing widespread deforestation[192]:852 from the 1970s to 2003.
+
+However, in 2019, when the Bolsonaro government came to power, the rate of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest increased sharply threatening to reach a tipping point after it the forest will collapse, having severe consequences for the world. (see Tipping points in the climate system)  This can also complicate the trade agreement with the European Union[193] Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Bolsonaro criticised what he described as sensational reporting in the international media. "It is a fallacy to say that the Amazon is the heritage of humankind, and a misconception, as confirmed by scientists, to say that our Amazonian forests are the lungs of world. Using these fallacies, certain countries instead of helping, embarked on the media lies and behaved in a disrespectful manner and with a colonialist spirit." he said. President Jair Bolsonaro asserted Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon.[194]
+
+According to a 2008 GreenPeace article, the natural heritage of Brazil is severely threatened by cattle ranching and agriculture, logging, mining, resettlement, oil and gas extraction, over-fishing, wildlife trade, dams and infrastructure, water pollution, climate change, fire, and invasive species.[188] In many areas of the country, the natural environment is threatened by development.[195] The construction of highways has opened up previously remote areas for agriculture and settlement; dams have flooded valleys and inundated wildlife habitats; and mines have scarred and polluted the landscape.[191][196] At least 70 dams are said to be planned for the Amazon region, including the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam.[197] In summer 2019, 2 states in Brazil Paraná and Santa Catarina banned fracking, what will have positive effects on the climate and water quality, because the shale gas and shale oil reserves in the state of Parana are the larger in the southern hemisphere.[198][199]
+
+The form of government is a democratic federative republic, with a presidential system.[17] The president is both head of state and head of government of the Union and is elected for a four-year term,[17] with the possibility of re-election for a second successive term. The current president is Jair Bolsonaro. The previous president, Michel Temer, replaced Dilma Rousseff after her impeachment.[200] The President appoints the Ministers of State, who assist in government.[17] Legislative houses in each political entity are the main source of law in Brazil. The National Congress is the Federation's bicameral legislature, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. Judiciary authorities exercise jurisdictional duties almost exclusively. Brazil is a democracy, according to the Democracy Index 2010.[201]
+
+The political-administrative organization of the Federative Republic of Brazil comprises the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities.[17] The Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities, are the "spheres of government". The federation is set on five fundamental principles:[17] sovereignty, citizenship, dignity of human beings, the social values of labor and freedom of enterprise, and political pluralism. The classic tripartite branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial under a checks and balances system) are formally established by the Constitution.[17] The executive and legislative are organized independently in all three spheres of government, while the judiciary is organized only at the federal and state and Federal District spheres.
+
+All members of the executive and legislative branches are directly elected.[202][203][204] Judges and other judicial officials are appointed after passing entry exams.[202] For most of its democratic history, Brazil has had a multi-party system, proportional representation. Voting is compulsory for the literate between 18 and 70 years old and optional for illiterates and those between 16 and 18 or beyond 70.[17]
+
+Together with several smaller parties, four political parties stand out: Workers' Party (PT), Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) and Democrats (DEM). Fifteen political parties are represented in Congress. It is common for politicians to switch parties, and thus the proportion of congressional seats held by particular parties changes regularly.[205] Almost all governmental and administrative functions are exercised by authorities and agencies affiliated to the Executive.
+
+Brazilian law is based on the civil law legal system[206] and civil law concepts prevail over common law practice. Most of Brazilian law is codified, although non-codified statutes also represent a substantial part, playing a complementary role. Court decisions set out interpretive guidelines; however, they are seldom binding on other specific cases. Doctrinal works and the works of academic jurists have strong influence in law creation and in law cases.
+
+The legal system is based on the Federal Constitution, promulgated on 5 October 1988, and the fundamental law of Brazil. All other legislation and court decisions must conform to its rules.[207] As of April 2007[update], there have been 53 amendments. States have their own constitutions, which must not contradict the Federal Constitution.[208] Municipalities and the Federal District have "organic laws" (leis orgânicas), which act in a similar way to constitutions.[209] Legislative entities are the main source of statutes, although in certain matters judiciary and executive bodies may enact legal norms.[17] Jurisdiction is administered by the judiciary entities, although in rare situations the Federal Constitution allows the Federal Senate to pass on legal judgments.[17] There are also specialized military, labor, and electoral courts.[17] The highest court is the Supreme Federal Court.
+
+This system has been criticized over the last few decades for the slow pace of decision-making. Lawsuits on appeal may take several years to resolve, and in some cases more than a decade elapses before definitive rulings.[210] Nevertheless, the Supreme Federal Tribunal was the first court in the world to transmit its sessions on television, and also via YouTube.[211][212] More recently, in December 2009, the Supreme Court adopted Twitter to display items on the day planner of the ministers, to inform the daily actions of the Court and the most important decisions made by them.[213]
+
+The armed forces of Brazil are the largest in Latin America by active personnel and the largest in terms of military equipment.[214] It consists of the Brazilian Army (including the Army Aviation Command), the Brazilian Navy (including the Marine Corps and Naval Aviation), and the Brazilian Air Force. Brazil's conscription policy gives it one of the world's largest military forces, estimated at more than 1.6 million reservists annually.[215]
+
+Numbering close to 236,000 active personnel,[216] the Brazilian Army has the largest number of armored vehicles in South America, including armored transports and tanks.[217] It is also unique in Latin America for its large, elite forces specializing in unconventional missions, the Brazilian Special Operations Command,[218][219][220] and the versatile Strategic Rapid Action Force, made up of highly mobilized and prepared Special Operations Brigade, Infantry Brigade Parachutist,[221][222] 1st Jungle Infantry Battalion (Airmobile)[223] and 12th Brigade Light Infantry (Airmobile)[224] able to act anywhere in the country, on short notice, to counter external aggression.[225] The states' Military Police and the Military Firefighters Corps are described as an ancillary forces of the Army by the constitution, but are under the control of each state's governor.[17]
+
+Brazil's navy, the second-largest in the Americas, once operated some of the most powerful warships in the world with the two Minas Geraes-class dreadnoughts, which sparked a South American dreadnought race between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.[226] Today, it is a green water force and has a group of specialized elite in retaking ships and naval facilities, GRUMEC, unit specially trained to protect Brazilian oil platforms along its coast.[227] It is the only navy in Latin America that operates an aircraft carrier, PHM Atlantico,[228] and one of the ten navies of the world to operate one.[217]
+
+The Air Force is the largest in Latin America and has about 700 manned aircraft in service and effective about 67,000 personnel.[229]
+
+Brazil has not been invaded since 1865 during the Paraguayan War.[230] Additionally, Brazil has no contested territorial disputes with any of its neighbors[231] and neither does it have rivalries, like Chile and Bolivia have with each other.[232][233] The Brazilian military has also three times intervened militarily to overthrow the Brazilian government.[234] It has built a tradition of participating in UN peacekeeping missions such as in Haiti, East Timor and Central African Republic.[235] Brazil signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[236]
+
+Brazil's international relations are based on Article 4 of the Federal Constitution, which establishes non-intervention, self-determination, international cooperation and the peaceful settlement of conflicts as the guiding principles of Brazil's relationship with other countries and multilateral organizations.[237]
+
+According to the Constitution, the President has ultimate authority over foreign policy, while the Congress is tasked with reviewing and considering all diplomatic nominations and international treaties, as well as legislation relating to Brazilian foreign policy.[238]
+
+Brazil's foreign policy is a by-product of the country's position as a regional power in Latin America, a leader among developing countries, and an emerging world power.[239] Brazilian foreign policy has generally been based on the principles of multilateralism, peaceful dispute settlement, and non-intervention in the affairs of other countries.[240]
+
+Brazil is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language.
+
+An increasingly well-developed tool of Brazil's foreign policy is providing aid as a donor to other developing countries.[241] Brazil does not just use its growing economic strength to provide financial aid, but it also provides high levels of expertise and most importantly of all, a quiet non-confrontational diplomacy to improve governance levels.[241] Total aid is estimated to be around $1 billion per year, which includes:[241]
+
+In addition, Brazil manages a peacekeeping mission in Haiti ($350 million) and makes in-kind contributions to the World Food Programme ($300 million).[241] This is in addition to humanitarian assistance and contributions to multilateral development agencies. The scale of this aid places it on par with China and India.[241] The Brazilian South-South aid has been described as a "global model in waiting."[242]
+
+In Brazil, the Constitution establishes five different police agencies for law enforcement: Federal Police Department, Federal Highway Police, Federal Railroad Police, Military Police and Civil Police. Of these, the first three are affiliated with federal authorities and the last two are subordinate to state governments. All police forces are the responsibility of the executive branch of any of the federal or state powers.[17] The National Public Security Force also can act in public disorder situations arising anywhere in the country.[243]
+
+The country still has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide. In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the number of 32 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest rates of homicide of the world.[244] The number considered tolerable by the WHO is about 10 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[245] In 2018, Brazil had a record 63,880 murders.[246] However, there are differences between the crime rates in the Brazilian states. While in São Paulo the homicide rate registered in 2013 was 10.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, in Alagoas it was 64.7 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[247]
+
+Brazil also has high levels of incarceration and the third largest prison population in the world (behind only China and the United States), with an estimated total of approximately 700,000 prisoners around the country (June 2014), an increase of about 300% compared to the index registered in 1992.[248] The high number of prisoners eventually overloaded the Brazilian prison system, leading to a shortfall of about 200,000 accommodations.[249]
+
+Brazil is a federation composed of 26 states, one federal district, and the 5570 municipalities.[17] States have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Federal government. They have a governor and a unicameral legislative body elected directly by their voters. They also have independent Courts of Law for common justice. Despite this, states have much less autonomy to create their own laws than in the United States. For example, criminal and civil laws can be voted by only the federal bicameral Congress and are uniform throughout the country.[17]
+
+The states and the federal district may be grouped into regions: Northern, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast and Southern. The Brazilian regions are merely geographical, not political or administrative divisions, and they do not have any specific form of government. Although defined by law, Brazilian regions are useful mainly for statistical purposes, and also to define the distribution of federal funds in development projects.
+
+Municipalities, as the states, have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the Union and state government.[17] Each has a mayor and an elected legislative body, but no separate Court of Law. Indeed, a Court of Law organized by the state can encompass many municipalities in a single justice administrative division called comarca (county).
+
+Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America, the world's ninth largest economy and the eighth largest in purchasing power parity (PPP) according to 2018 estimates. Brazil has a mixed economy with abundant natural resources. After rapid growth in preceding decades, the country entered an ongoing recession in 2014 amid a political corruption scandal and nationwide protests.
+
+Its Gross domestic product (PPP) per capita was $15,919 in 2017[250] putting Brazil in the 77th position according to IMF data. Active in agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service sectors Brazil has a labor force of over 107 million (ranking 6th worldwide) and unemployment of 6.2% (ranking 64th worldwide).[251]
+
+The country has been expanding its presence in international financial and commodities markets, and is one of a group of four emerging economies called the BRIC countries.[252] Brazil has been the world's largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years.[24]
+
+Brazil's diversified economy includes agriculture, industry, and a wide range of services.[254] Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing accounted for 5.1% of the GDP in 2007.[255] Brazil is one of the largest producer of oranges, coffee, sugar cane, cassava and sisal, soybeans and papayas.[256]
+
+Industry in Brazil – from automobiles, steel and petrochemicals to computers, aircraft and consumer durables – accounted for 30.8% of the gross domestic product.[255] Industry is highly concentrated in metropolitan São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte.[257] Brazil has become the fourth largest car market in the world.[258] Major export products include aircraft, electrical equipment, automobiles, ethanol, textiles, footwear, iron ore, steel, coffee, orange juice, soybeans and corned beef.[259] In total, Brazil ranks 23rd worldwide in value of exports.
+
+Brazil pegged its currency, the real, to the U.S. dollar in 1994. However, after the East Asian financial crisis, the Russian default in 1998[260] and the series of adverse financial events that followed it, the Central Bank of Brazil temporarily changed its monetary policy to a managed float regime[261] scheme while undergoing a currency crisis, until definitively changing the exchange regime to free-float in January 1999.[262]
+
+Brazil received an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package in mid-2002 of $30.4 billion,[263] a record sum at the time. Brazil's central bank repaid the IMF loan in 2005, although it was not due to be repaid until 2006.[264] One of the issues the Central Bank of Brazil recently dealt with was an excess of speculative short-term capital inflows to the country, which may have contributed to a fall in the value of the U.S. dollar against the real during that period.[265] Nonetheless, foreign direct investment (FDI), related to long-term, less speculative investment in production, is estimated to be $193.8 billion for 2007.[266] Inflation monitoring and control currently plays a major part in the Central bank's role in setting short-term interest rates as a monetary policy measure.[267]
+
+Between 1993 and 2010, 7012 mergers and acquisitions with a total known value of $707 billion with the involvement of Brazilian firms were announced.[268] The year 2010 was a new record in terms of value with US$115 billion in transactions. The largest transaction with involvement of Brazilian companies was the Cia. Vale do Rio Doce acquisition of Inco in a tender offer valued at US$18.9 billion.
+
+Corruption costs Brazil almost $41 billion a year alone in 2010, with 69.9% of the country's firms identifying the issue as a major constraint in successfully penetrating the global market.[269] Local government corruption is so prevalent that voters perceive it as a problem only if it surpasses certain levels, and only if a local media e.g. a radio station is present to divulge the findings of corruption charges.[270] Initiatives, like this exposure, strengthen awareness which is indicated by the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index; ranking Brazil 69th out of 178 countries in 2012.[271]
+The purchasing power in Brazil is eroded by the so-called Brazil cost.[272]
+
+Brazil also has a large cooperative sector that provides 50% of the food in the country.[273] The world's largest healthcare cooperative Unimed is also located in Brazil, and accounts for 32% of the healthcare insurance market in the country.[274]
+
+Brazil is the world's tenth largest energy consumer with much of its energy coming from renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity and ethanol; the Itaipu Dam is the world's largest hydroelectric plant by energy generation.[275] The first car with an ethanol engine was produced in 1978 and the first airplane engine running on ethanol in 2005.[276]
+
+Recent oil discoveries in the Pre-salt layer have opened the door for a large increase in oil production.[277] The governmental agencies responsible for the energy policy are the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the National Council for Energy Policy, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, and the National Agency of Electricity.[278]
+
+Tourism in Brazil is a growing sector and key to the economy of several regions of the country. The country had 6.36 million visitors in 2015, ranking in terms of the international tourist arrivals as the main destination in South America and second in Latin America after Mexico.[280] Revenues from international tourists reached US$6 billion in 2010, showing a recovery from the 2008–2009 economic crisis.[281] Historical records of 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts were reached in 2011.[282][283]
+
+Natural areas are its most popular tourism product, a combination of ecotourism with leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as cultural tourism. Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, cultural tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to São Paulo.[284]
+
+In terms of the 2015 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which is a measurement of the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries, Brazil ranked in the 28st place at the world's level, third in the Americas, after Canada and United States.[285][286]
+
+Brazil's main competitive advantages are its natural resources, which ranked 1st on this criteria out of all countries considered, and ranked 23rd for its cultural resources, due to its many World Heritage sites. The TTCI report notes Brazil's main weaknesses: its ground transport infrastructure remains underdeveloped (ranked 116th), with the quality of roads ranking in 105th place; and the country continues to suffer from a lack of price competitiveness (ranked 114th), due in part to high ticket taxes and airport charges, as well as high prices and high taxation. Safety and security have improved significantly: 75th in 2011, up from 128th in 2008.[286]
+
+According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), international travel to Brazil accelerated in 2000, particularly during 2004 and 2005. However, in 2006 a slow-down took place, and international arrivals had almost no growth in 2007–08.[287][288][289]
+
+In spite of this trend, revenues from international tourism continued to rise, from USD 4 billion in 2005 to 5 billion in 2007, despite 330 000 fewer arrivals. This favorable trend is the result of the strong devaluation of the US dollar against the Brazilian Real, which began in 2004, but which makes Brazil a more expensive international destination.[290]
+
+This trend changed in 2009, when both visitors and revenues fell as a result of the Great Recession of 2008–09.[291] By 2010, the industry had recovered, and arrivals grew above 2006 levels to 5.2 million international visitors, and receipts from these visitors reached US$6 billion.[281] In 2011 the historical record was reached with 5.4 million visitors and US$6.8 billion in receipts.[282][283]
+
+Despite continuing record-breaking international tourism revenues, the number of Brazilian tourists travelling overseas has been growing steadily since 2003, resulting in a net negative foreign exchange balance, as more money is spent abroad by Brazilians than comes in as receipts from international tourists visiting Brazil.[292]
+
+Tourism expenditures abroad grew from US$5.8 billion in 2006, to US$8.2 billion in 2007, a 42% increase, representing a net deficit of US$3.3 billion in 2007, as compared to US$1.5 billion in 2006, a 125% increase from the previous year.[292] This trend is caused by Brazilians taking advantage of the stronger Real to travel and making relatively cheaper expenditures abroad.[292] Brazilians traveling overseas in 2006 represented 4% of the country's population.[293]
+
+In 2005, tourism contributed with 3.2% of the country's revenues from exports of goods and services, and represented 7% of direct and indirect employment in the Brazilian economy.[294] In 2006 direct employment in the sector reached 1.9 million people.[295]
+
+Domestic tourism is a fundamental market segment for the industry, as 51 million people traveled throughout the country in 2005,[296] and direct revenues from Brazilian tourists reached US$22 billion,[297] 5.6 times more receipts than international tourists in 2005.
+
+In 2005, Rio de Janeiro, Foz do Iguaçu, São Paulo, Florianópolis and Salvador were the most visited cities by international tourists for leisure trips. The most popular destinations for business trips were São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre.[298] In 2006 Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza were the most popular destinations for business trips.
+
+Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies.[299] Brazil's most esteemed technological hubs are the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Butantan Institute, the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Center, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the INPE.[300][301]
+
+The Brazilian Space Agency has the most advanced space program in Latin America, with significant resources to launch vehicles, and manufacture of satellites.[302] Owner of relative technological sophistication, the country develops submarines, aircraft, as well as being involved in space research, having a Vehicle Launch Center Light and being the only country in the Southern Hemisphere the integrate team building International Space Station (ISS).[303]
+
+The country is also a pioneer in the search for oil in deep water, from where it extracts 73% of its reserves.
+Uranium is enriched at the Resende Nuclear Fuel Factory, mostly for research purposes (as Brazil obtains 88% from its electricity from hydroelectricity[304]) and the country's first nuclear submarine was delivered in 2015 (by France).[305]
+
+Brazil is one of the three countries in Latin America[306] with an operational Synchrotron Laboratory, a research facility on physics, chemistry, material science and life sciences, and Brazil is the only Latin American country to have a semiconductor company with its own fabrication plant, the CEITEC.[307] According to the Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010 of the World Economic Forum, Brazil is the world's 61st largest developer of information technology.[308]
+
+Brazil also has a large number of outstanding scientific personalities. Among the most renowned Brazilian inventors are priests Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Landell de Moura and Francisco João de Azevedo, besides Alberto Santos-Dumont,[309] Evaristo Conrado Engelberg,[310] Manuel Dias de Abreu,[311] Andreas Pavel[312] and Nélio José Nicolai.[313]
+
+Brazilian science is represented by the likes of César Lattes (Brazilian physicist Pathfinder of Pi Meson),[314] Mário Schenberg (considered the greatest theoretical physicist of Brazil),[315] José Leite Lopes (only Brazilian physicist holder of the UNESCO Science Prize),[316] Artur Ávila (the first Latin American winner of the Fields Medal)[317] and Fritz Müller (pioneer in factual support of the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin).[318]
+
+Brazilian roads are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic. The road system totaled 1.98 million km (1.23 million mi) in 2002. The total of paved roads increased from 35,496 km (22,056 mi) (22,056 mi) in 1967 to 184,140 km (114,419 mi) (114,425 mi) in 2002.[321]
+
+The first investments in road infrastructure have given up in the 1920s, the government of Washington Luis, being pursued in the governments of Getúlio Vargas and Eurico Gaspar Dutra.[322] President Juscelino Kubitschek (1956–61), who designed and built the capital Brasília, was another supporter of highways. Kubitschek was responsible for the installation of major car manufacturers in the country (Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors arrived in Brazil during his rule) and one of the points used to attract them was support for the construction of highways. With the implementation of Fiat in 1976 ending an automobile market closed loop, from the end of the 1990s the country has received large foreign direct investments installing in its territory other major car manufacturers and utilities, such as Iveco, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Honda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Hyundai, Toyota among others.[323] Brazil is the seventh most important country in the auto industry.[324]
+
+Brazil's railway system has been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction. The total length of railway track was 30,875 km (19,185 mi) in 2002, as compared with 31,848 km (19,789 mi) in 1970. Most of the railway system belonged to the Federal Railroad Corporation RFFSA, which was privatized in 2007.[325] The São Paulo Metro was the first underground transit system in Brazil. The other metro systems are in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Teresina and Fortaleza.
+
+The country has an extensive rail network of 28,538 kilometres (17,733 miles) in length, the tenth largest network in the world.[326] Currently, the Brazilian government, unlike the past, seeks to encourage this mode of transport; an example of this incentive is the project of the Rio–São Paulo high-speed rail, that will connect the two main cities of the country to carry passengers.
+
+There are about 2,500 airports in Brazil, including landing fields: the second largest number in the world, after the United States.[327] São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, near São Paulo, is the largest and busiest airport with nearly 20 million passengers annually, while handling the vast majority of commercial traffic for the country.[328]
+
+For freight transport waterways are of importance, e.g. the industrial zones of Manaus can be reached only by means of the Solimões–Amazonas waterway (3,250 kilometres (2,020 miles) with 6 metres (20 feet) minimum depth). The country also has 50,000 kilometres (31,000 miles) of waterways.[326]
+
+Coastal shipping links widely separated parts of the country. Bolivia and Paraguay have been given free ports at Santos. Of the 36 deep-water ports, Santos, Itajaí, Rio Grande, Paranaguá, Rio de Janeiro, Sepetiba, Vitória, Suape, Manaus and São Francisco do Sul are the most important.[329] Bulk carriers have to wait up to 18 days before being serviced, container ships 36.3 hours on average.[330]
+
+The Brazilian public health system, the Unified Health System (SUS), is managed and provided by all levels of government,[332] being the largest system of this type in the world.[333] On the other hand, private healthcare systems play a complementary role.[334]
+
+Public health services are universal and offered to all citizens of the country for free. However, the construction and maintenance of health centers and hospitals are financed by taxes, and the country spends about 9% of its GDP on expenditures in the area. In 2012, Brazil had 1.85 doctors and 2.3 hospital beds for every 1,000 inhabitants.[335][336]
+
+Despite all the progress made since the creation of the universal health care system in 1988, there are still several public health problems in Brazil. In 2006, the main points to be solved were the high infant (2.51%) and maternal mortality rates (73.1 deaths per 1000 births).[337]
+
+The number of deaths from noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases (151.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and cancer (72.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), also has a considerable impact on the health of the Brazilian population. Finally, external but preventable factors such as car accidents, violence and suicide caused 14.9% of all deaths in the country.[337] The Brazilian health system was ranked 125th among the 191 countries evaluated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000.[338]
+
+The Federal Constitution and the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education determine that the Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities must manage and organize their respective education systems. Each of these public educational systems is responsible for its own maintenance, which manages funds as well as the mechanisms and funding sources. The constitution reserves 25% of the state budget and 18% of federal taxes and municipal taxes for education.[339]
+
+According to the IBGE, in 2011, the literacy rate of the population was 90.4%, meaning that 13 million (9.6% of population) people are still illiterate in the country; functional illiteracy has reached 21.6% of the population.[340] Illiteracy is highest in the Northeast, where 19.9% of the population is illiterate.[341]
+
+Higher education starts with undergraduate or sequential courses, which may offer different options of specialization in academic or professional careers. Depending on the choice, students can improve their educational background with courses of post-graduate studies or broad sense.
+
+Attending an institution of higher education is required by Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education. Kindergarten, elementary and medium education are required of all students, provided the student does not hold any disability, whether physical, mental, visual or hearing.
+
+The University of São Paulo is the second best university in Latin America, according to recent 2019 QS World University Rankings. Of the top 20 Latin American universities, eight are Brazilian. Most of them are public.[342]
+
+Brazil's private institutions tend to be more exclusive and offer better quality education, so many high-income families send their children there. The result is a segregated educational system that reflects extreme income disparities and reinforces social inequality. However, efforts to change this are making impacts.[343]
+
+The Brazilian press was officially born in Rio de Janeiro on 13 May 1808 with the creation of the Royal Printing National Press by the Prince Regent Dom João.[345]
+
+The Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, the first newspaper published in the country, began to circulate on 10 September 1808.[346] The largest newspapers nowadays are Folha de S.Paulo, Super Notícia, O Globo and O Estado de S. Paulo.[347]
+
+Radio broadcasting began on 7 September 1922, with a speech by then President Pessoa, and was formalized on 20 April 1923 with the creation of "Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro."[348]
+
+Television in Brazil began officially on 18 September 1950, with the founding of TV Tupi by Assis Chateaubriand.[349] Since then television has grown in the country, creating large commercial broadcast networks such as Globo, SBT, RecordTV, Bandeirantes and RedeTV. Today it is the most important factor in popular culture of Brazilian society, indicated by research showing that as much as 67%[350][351] of the general population follow the same daily soap opera broadcast. Digital Television, using the SBTVD standard (based on the Japanese standard ISDB-T), was adopted on 29 June 2006 and launched on 2 November 2007.[352] In May 2010, the Brazilian government launched TV Brasil Internacional, an international television station, initially broadcasting to 49 countries.[353] Commercial television channels broadcast internationally include Globo Internacional, RecordTV Internacional and Band Internacional.
+
+The population of Brazil, as recorded by the 2008 PNAD, was approximately 190 million[356] (22.31 inhabitants per square kilometre or 57.8/sq mi), with a ratio of men to women of 0.95:1[357] and 83.75% of the population defined as urban.[358] The population is heavily concentrated in the Southeastern (79.8 million inhabitants) and Northeastern (53.5 million inhabitants) regions, while the two most extensive regions, the Center-West and the North, which together make up 64.12% of the Brazilian territory, have a total of only 29.1 million inhabitants.
+
+The first census in Brazil was carried out in 1872 and recorded a population of 9,930,478.[359] From 1880 to 1930, 4 million Europeans arrived.[360] Brazil's population increased significantly between 1940 and 1970, because of a decline in the mortality rate, even though the birth rate underwent a slight decline. In the 1940s the annual population growth rate was 2.4%, rising to 3.0% in the 1950s and remaining at 2.9% in the 1960s, as life expectancy rose from 44 to 54 years[361] and to 72.6 years in 2007.[362]
+It has been steadily falling since the 1960s, from 3.04% per year between 1950 and 1960 to 1.05% in 2008 and is expected to fall to a negative value of –0.29% by 2050[363] thus completing the demographic transition.[364]
+
+In 2008, the illiteracy rate was 11.48%[365] and among the youth (ages 15–19) 1.74%. It was highest (20.30%) in the Northeast, which had a large proportion of rural poor.[366] Illiteracy was high (24.18%) among the rural population and lower (9.05%) among the urban population.[367]
+
+According to the National Research by Household Sample (PNAD) of 2008, 48.43% of the population (about 92 million) described themselves as White; 43.80% (about 83 million) as Pardo (brown), 6.84% (about 13 million) as Black; 0.58% (about 1.1 million) as Asian; and 0.28% (about 536 thousand) as Amerindian (officially called indígena, Indigenous), while 0.07% (about 130 thousand) did not declare their race.[369]
+
+In 2007, the National Indian Foundation estimated that Brazil has 67 different uncontacted tribes, up from their estimate of 40 in 2005. Brazil is believed to have the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world.[370]
+
+Since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, considerable genetic mixing between Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans has taken place in all regions of the country (with European ancestry being dominant nationwide according to the vast majority of all autosomal studies undertaken covering the entire population, accounting for between 65% to 77%).[371][372][373][374]
+
+Race and ethnicity in Brazil[375][376][377]
+
+Brazilian society is more markedly divided by social class lines, although a high income disparity is found between race groups, so racism and classism can be conflated. Socially significant closeness to one racial group is taken in account more in the basis of appearance (phenotypes) rather than ancestry, to the extent that full siblings can pertain to different "racial" groups.[378] Socioeconomic factors are also significant, because a minority of pardos are likely to start declaring themselves White or Black if socially upward.[379] Skin color and facial features do not line quite well with ancestry (usually, Afro-Brazilians are evenly mixed and European ancestry is dominant in Whites and pardos with a significant non-European contribution, but the individual variation is great).[374][380][381][382]
+
+The brown population (officially called pardo in Portuguese, also colloquially moreno)[383][384] is a broad category that includes caboclos (assimilated Amerindians in general, and descendants of Whites and Natives), mulatos (descendants of primarily Whites and Afro-Brazilians) and cafuzos (descendants of Afro-Brazilians and Natives).[383][384][385][386][387] People of considerable Amerindian ancestry form the majority of the population in the Northern, Northeastern and Center-Western regions.[388]
+
+Higher percents of Blacks, mulattoes and tri-racials can be found in the eastern coast of the Northeastern region from Bahia to Paraíba[387][389] and also in northern Maranhão,[390][391] southern Minas Gerais[392] and in eastern Rio de Janeiro.[387][392] From the 19th century, Brazil opened its borders to immigration. About five million people from over 60 countries migrated to Brazil between 1808 and 1972, most of them of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arab origin.[393][394]. Brazil has the second largest Jewish community in Latin America making up 0.06% of its population.[395]
+
+Religion in Brazil (2010 Census)
+
+Religion in Brazil (2020 estimate by Datafolha) [396]
+
+Roman Catholicism is the country's predominant faith. Brazil has the world's largest Catholic population.[397][398] According to the 2010 Demographic Census (the PNAD survey does not inquire about religion), 64.63% of the population followed Roman Catholicism; 22.2% Protestantism; 2.0% Kardecist spiritism; 3.2% other religions, undeclared or undetermined; while 8.0% have no religion.[5]
+
+Religion in Brazil was formed from the meeting of the Catholic Church with the religious traditions of enslaved African peoples and indigenous peoples.[399]. This confluence of faiths during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil led to the development of a diverse array of syncretistic practices within the overarching umbrella of Brazilian Catholic Church, characterized by traditional Portuguese festivities,[400] and in some instances, Allan Kardec's Spiritism (a religion which incorporates elements of spiritualism and Christianity). Religious pluralism increased during the 20th century,[401] and the Protestant community has grown to include over 22% of the population.[402] The most common Protestant denominations are Evangelical Pentecostal ones. Other Protestant branches with a notable presence in the country include the Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and the Reformed tradition.[403]
+
+However,  in the last ten years Protestantism, has spread in Brazil, while the proportion of Catholics has dropped significantly. The country has no census since 2010, but demographs estimate evangelical population will be majority after 2032, because Protestantism accounted for fewer than 5% of the population until the 1960s, but by 2000 made up over 15% of those affiliated with a church, now the evangelical group are the most rapidly growing religious group and more costly. [404] [405]
+
+After Protestantism, individuals professing no religion are also a significant group, exceeding 8% of the population as of the 2010 census. The cities of Boa Vista, Salvador, and Porto Velho have the greatest proportion of Irreligious residents in Brazil. Teresina, Fortaleza, and Florianópolis were the most Roman Catholic in the country.[406] Greater Rio de Janeiro, not including the city proper, is the most irreligious and least Roman Catholic Brazilian periphery, while Greater Porto Alegre and Greater Fortaleza are on the opposite sides of the lists, respectively.[406]
+
+In October 2009, the Brazilian Senate approved and enacted by the President of  Brazil in February 2010, an agreement with the Vatican, in which the Legal Statute of the Catholic Church in Brazil is recognized. The agreement confirmed norms that were normally complied with regarding religious education in public elementary schools (which also ensures the teaching of other beliefs), marriage and spiritual assistance in prisons and hospitals. The project was criticized by parliamentarians who understood the end of the secular state with the approval of the agreement.[410][411]
+
+According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) urban areas already concentrate 84.35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants.[412]
+The largest urban agglomerations in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte – all in the Southeastern Region – with 21.1, 12.3, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively.[413][414][415] The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina.[416]
+
+The official language of Brazil is Portuguese[419] (Article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Brazil), which almost all of the population speaks and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio, television, and for business and administrative purposes. Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity and giving it a national culture distinct from those of its Spanish-speaking neighbors.[420]
+
+Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, mostly similar to 16th-century Central and Southern dialects of European Portuguese[421] (despite a very substantial number of Portuguese colonial settlers, and more recent immigrants, coming from Northern regions, and in minor degree Portuguese Macaronesia), with a few influences from the Amerindian and African languages, especially West African and Bantu restricted to the vocabulary only.[422] As a result,[citation needed] the language is somewhat different, mostly in phonology, from the language of Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries (the dialects of the other countries, partly because of the more recent end of Portuguese colonialism in these regions, have a closer connection to contemporary European Portuguese). These differences are comparable to those between American and British English.[422]
+
+In 1990, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which included representatives from all countries with Portuguese as the official language, reached an agreement on the reform of the Portuguese orthography to unify the two standards then in use by Brazil on one side and the remaining lusophone countries on the other. This spelling reform went into effect in Brazil on 1 January 2009. In Portugal, the reform was signed into law by the President on 21 July 2008 allowing for a six-year adaptation period, during which both orthographies will co-exist. The remaining CPLP countries are free to establish their own transition timetables.[423]
+
+The sign language law legally recognized in 2002,[424] (the law was regulated in 2005)[425] the use of the Brazilian Sign Language, more commonly known by its Portuguese acronym LIBRAS, in education and government services. The language must be taught as a part of the education and speech and language pathology curricula. LIBRAS teachers, instructors and translators are recognized professionals. Schools and health services must provide access ("inclusion") to deaf people.[426]
+
+Minority languages are spoken throughout the nation. One hundred and eighty Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas and a significant number of other languages are spoken by immigrants and their descendants.[422] In the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Nheengatu (a currently endangered South American creole language – or an 'anti-creole', according to some linguists – with mostly Indigenous Brazilian languages lexicon and Portuguese-based grammar that, together with its southern relative língua geral paulista, once was a major lingua franca in Brazil,[427] being replaced by Portuguese only after governmental prohibition led by major political changes)[excessive detail?], Baniwa and Tucano languages had been granted co-official status with Portuguese.[428]
+
+There are significant communities of German (mostly the Brazilian Hunsrückisch, a High German language dialect) and Italian (mostly the Talian, a Venetian dialect) origins in the Southern and Southeastern regions, whose ancestors' native languages were carried along to Brazil, and which, still alive there, are influenced by the Portuguese language.[429][430] Talian is officially a historic patrimony of Rio Grande do Sul,[431] and two German dialects possess co-official status in a few municipalities.[432] Italian is also recognized as ethnic language in the Santa Teresa microregion and Vila Velha (Espirito Santo state), and is taught as mandatory second language at school.[2]
+
+Learning at least one second language (generally English or Spanish) is mandatory for all the 12 grades of the mandatory education system (primary and secondary education, there called ensino fundamental and ensino médio respectively). Brazil is the first country in South America to offer Esperanto to secondary students.[433]
+
+The core culture of Brazil is derived from Portuguese culture, because of its strong colonial ties with the Portuguese Empire.[434] Among other influences, the Portuguese introduced the Portuguese language, Roman Catholicism and colonial architectural styles. The culture was, however, also strongly influenced by African, indigenous and non-Portuguese European cultures and traditions.[435]
+Some aspects of Brazilian culture were influenced by the contributions of Italian, German and other European as well as Japanese, Jewish and Arab immigrants who arrived in large numbers in the South and Southeast of Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries.[436] The indigenous Amerindians influenced Brazil's language and cuisine; and the Africans influenced language, cuisine, music, dance and religion.[437]
+
+Brazilian art has developed since the 16th century into different styles that range from Baroque (the dominant style in Brazil until the early 19th century)[438][439] to Romanticism, Modernism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstractionism. Brazilian cinema dates back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century and has gained a new level of international acclaim since the 1960s.[440]
+
+The architecture of Brazil is influenced by Europe, especially Portugal. It has a history that goes back 500 years to the time when Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil in 1500. Portuguese colonial architecture was the first wave of architecture to go to Brazil.[441] It is the basis for all Brazilian architecture of later centuries.[442] In the 19th century during the time of the Empire of Brazil, Brazil followed European trends and adopted Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. Then in the 20th century especially in Brasilia, Brazil experimented with Modernist architecture.
+
+The colonial architecture of Brazil dates to the early 16th century when Brazil was first explored, conquered and settled by the Portuguese. The Portuguese built architecture familiar to them in Europe in their aim to colonize Brazil. They built Portuguese colonial architecture which included churches, civic architecture including houses and forts in Brazilian cities and the countryside. During 19th century Brazilian architecture saw the introduction of more European styles to Brazil such as Neoclassical and Gothic Revival architecture. This was usually mixed with Brazilian influences from their own heritage which produced a unique form of Brazilian architecture. In the 1950s the modernist architecture was introduced when Brasilia was built as new federal capital in the interior of Brazil to help develop the interior. The architect Oscar Niemeyer idealized and built government buildings, churches and civic buildings in the modernist style.[443][444]
+
+The music of Brazil was formed mainly from the fusion of European and African elements.[446] Until the nineteenth century, Portugal was the gateway to most of the influences that built Brazilian music, although many of these elements were not of Portuguese origin, but generally European. The first was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, author of sacred pieces with influence of Viennese classicism.[447] The major contribution of the African element was the rhythmic diversity and some dances and instruments that had a bigger role in the development of popular music and folk, flourishing especially in the twentieth century.[446]
+
+Popular music since the late eighteenth century began to show signs of forming a characteristically Brazilian sound, with samba considered the most typical and on the UNESCO cultural heritage list.[448] Maracatu and Afoxê are two Afro-Brazilian music traditions that have been popularized by their appearance in the annual Brazilian Carnivals.[449] The sport of capoeira is usually played with its own music referred to as capoeira music, which is usually considered to be a call-and-response type of folk music.[450] Forró is a type of folk music prominent during the Festa Junina in northeastern Brazil.[451] Jack A. Draper III, a professor of Portuguese at the University of Missouri,[452] argues that Forró was used as a way to subdue feelings of nostalgia for a rural lifestyle.[453]
+
+Choro is a very popular music instrumental style. Its origins are in 19th-century Rio de Janeiro. In spite of the name, the style often has a fast and happy rhythm, characterized by virtuosity, improvisation, subtle modulations and full of syncopation and counterpoint.[454] Bossa nova is also a well-known style of Brazilian music developed and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s.[455] The phrase "bossa nova" means literally "new trend".[456] A lyrical fusion of samba and jazz, bossa nova acquired a large following starting in the 1960s.[457]
+
+Brazilian literature dates back to the 16th century, to the writings of the first Portuguese explorers in Brazil, such as Pêro Vaz de Caminha, filled with descriptions of fauna, flora and commentary about the indigenous population that fascinated European readers.[459]
+
+Brazil produced significant works in Romanticism – novelists like Joaquim Manuel de Macedo and José de Alencar wrote novels about love and pain. Alencar, in his long career, also treated indigenous people as heroes in the Indigenist novels O Guarani, Iracema and Ubirajara.[460] Machado de Assis, one of his contemporaries, wrote in virtually all genres and continues to gain international prestige from critics worldwide.[461][462][463]
+
+Brazilian Modernism, evidenced by the Week of Modern Art in 1922, was concerned with a nationalist avant-garde literature,[464] while Post-Modernism brought a generation of distinct poets like João Cabral de Melo Neto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Vinicius de Moraes, Cora Coralina, Graciliano Ramos, Cecília Meireles, and internationally known writers dealing with universal and regional subjects like Jorge Amado, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector and Manuel Bandeira.[465][466][467]
+
+Brazilian cuisine varies greatly by region, reflecting the country's varying mix of indigenous and immigrant populations. This has created a national cuisine marked by the preservation of regional differences.[468] Examples are Feijoada, considered the country's national dish;[469] and regional foods such as beiju, feijão tropeiro, vatapá, moqueca, polenta (from Italian cuisine) and acarajé (from African cuisine).[470]
+
+The national beverage is coffee and cachaça is Brazil's native liquor. Cachaça is distilled from sugar cane and is the main ingredient in the national cocktail, Caipirinha.[471]
+
+A typical meal consists mostly of rice and beans with beef, salad, french fries and a fried egg.[472] Often, it is mixed with cassava flour (farofa). Fried potatoes, fried cassava, fried banana, fried meat and fried cheese are very often eaten in lunch and served in most typical restaurants.[473] Popular snacks are pastel (a fried pastry); coxinha (a variation of chicken croquete); pão de queijo (cheese bread and cassava flour / tapioca); pamonha (corn and milk paste); esfirra (a variation of Lebanese pastry); kibbeh (from Arabic cuisine); empanada (pastry) and empada, little salt pies filled with shrimps or heart of palm.
+
+Brazil has a variety of desserts such as brigadeiros (chocolate fudge balls), bolo de rolo (roll cake with goiabada), cocada (a coconut sweet), beijinhos (coconut truffles and clove) and romeu e julieta (cheese with goiabada). Peanuts are used to make paçoca, rapadura and pé-de-moleque. Local common fruits like açaí, cupuaçu, mango, papaya, cocoa, cashew, guava, orange, lime, passionfruit, pineapple, and hog plum are turned in juices and used to make chocolates, ice pops and ice cream.[474]
+
+The Brazilian film industry began in the late 19th century, during the early days of the Belle Époque. While there were national film productions during the early 20th century, American films such as Rio the Magnificent were made in Rio de Janeiro to promote tourism in the city.[475] The films Limite (1931) and Ganga Bruta (1933), the latter being produced by Adhemar Gonzaga through the prolific studio Cinédia, were poorly received at release and failed at the box office, but are acclaimed nowadays and placed among the finest Brazilian films of all time.[476] The 1941 unfinished film It's All True was divided in four segments, two of which were filmed in Brazil and directed by Orson Welles; it was originally produced as part of the United States' Good Neighbor Policy during Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo government.
+
+During the 1960s, the Cinema Novo movement rose to prominence with directors such as Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Paulo Cesar Saraceni and Arnaldo Jabor. Rocha's films Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) and Terra em Transe (1967) are considered to be some of the greatest and most influential in Brazilian film history.[477]
+
+During the 1990s, Brazil saw a surge of critical and commercial success with films such as O Quatrilho (Fábio Barreto, 1995), O Que É Isso, Companheiro? (Bruno Barreto, 1997) and Central do Brasil (Walter Salles, 1998), all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the latter receiving a Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Montenegro. The 2002 crime film City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles, was critically acclaimed, scoring 90% on Rotten Tomatoes,[478] being placed in Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Decade list[479] and receiving four Academy Award nominations in 2004, including Best Director. Notable film festivals in Brazil include the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festivals and the Gramado Festival.
+
+The theatre in Brazil has its origins in the period of Jesuit expansion when theater was used for the dissemination of Catholic doctrine in the 16th century. in the 17th and 18th centuries the first dramatists who appeared on the scene of European derivation was for court or private performances.[480] During the 19th century, dramatic theater gained importance and thickness, whose first representative was Luis Carlos Martins Pena (1813–1848), capable of describing contemporary reality. Always in this period the comedy of costume and comic production was imposed. Significant, also in the nineteenth century, was also the playwright Antônio Gonçalves Dias.[481] There were also numerous operas and orchestras. The Brazilian conductor Antônio Carlos Gomes became internationally known with operas like Il Guarany. At the end of the 19th century orchestrated dramaturgias became very popular and were accompanied with songs of famous artists like the conductress Chiquinha Gonzaga.[482]
+
+Already in the early 20th century there was the presence of theaters, entrepreneurs and actor companies, but paradoxically the quality of the products staggered, and only in 1940 the Brazilian theater received a boost of renewal thanks to the action of Paschoal Carlos Magno and his student's theater, the comedians group and the Italian actors Adolfo Celi, Ruggero Jacobbi and Aldo Calvo, founders of the Teatro Brasileiro de Comedia. From the 1960s it was attended by a theater dedicated to social and religious issues and to the flourishing of schools of dramatic art. The most prominent authors at this stage were Jorge Andrade and Ariano Suassuna.[481]
+
+Brazilian painting emerged in the late 16th century,[483] influenced by Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism and Abstracionism making it a major art style called Brazilian academic art.[484][485] The Missão Artística Francesa (French Artistic Mission) arrived in Brazil in 1816 proposing the creation of an art academy modeled after the respected Académie des Beaux-Arts, with graduation courses both for artists and craftsmen for activities such as modeling, decorating, carpentry and others and bringing artists like Jean-Baptiste Debret.[485]
+
+Upon the creation of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, new artistic movements spread across the country during the 19th century and later the event called Week of Modern Art broke definitely with academic tradition in 1922 and started a nationalist trend which was influenced by modernist arts. Among the best-known Brazilian painters are Ricardo do Pilar and Manuel da Costa Ataíde (baroque and rococo), Victor Meirelles, Pedro Américo and Almeida Junior (romanticism and realism), Anita Malfatti, Ismael Nery, Lasar Segall, Emiliano di Cavalcanti, Vicente do Rego Monteiro, and Tarsila do Amaral (expressionism, surrealism and cubism), Aldo Bonadei, José Pancetti and Cândido Portinari (modernism).[486]
+
+The most popular sport in Brazil is football.[488] The Brazilian men's national team is ranked among the best in the world according to the FIFA World Rankings, and has won the World Cup tournament a record five times.[489][490]
+
+Volleyball, basketball, auto racing, and martial arts also attract large audiences. The Brazil men's national volleyball team, for example, currently holds the titles of the World League, World Grand Champions Cup, World Championship and the World Cup. In auto racing, three Brazilian drivers have won the Formula One world championship eight times.[491][492][493]
+
+Some sport variations have their origins in Brazil: beach football,[494] futsal (indoor football)[495] and footvolley emerged in Brazil as variations of football. In martial arts, Brazilians developed Capoeira,[496] Vale tudo,[497] and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.[498]
+
+Brazil has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, like the 1950 FIFA World Cup[499] and recently has hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2019 Copa América.[500] The São Paulo circuit, Autódromo José Carlos Pace, hosts the annual Grand Prix of Brazil.[501] São Paulo organized the IV Pan American Games in 1963, and Rio de Janeiro hosted the XV Pan American Games in 2007.[502] On 2 October 2009, Rio de Janeiro was selected to host the 2016 Olympic Games and 2016 Paralympic Games, making it the first South American city to host the games[503] and second in Latin America, after Mexico City. Furthermore, the country hosted the FIBA Basketball World Cups in 1954 and 1963. At the 1963 event, the Brazil national basketball team won one of its two world championship titles.[504]
+
+Government
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+15th century
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+16th century
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+15th century
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+16th century
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+19th century
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+16th century
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+17th century
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+15th century
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+16th century
+Portuguese India
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+17th century
+Portuguese India
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+18th century
+Portuguese India
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+16th century
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+17th century
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+
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+19th century
+Portuguese Macau
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+20th century
+Portuguese Macau
+
+
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+15th century [Atlantic islands]
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+16th century [Canada]
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+16th century
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+17th century
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+18th century
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+19th century
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+Lat. and Long. 15°45′S 47°57′W / 15.750°S 47.950°W / -15.750; -47.950 (Brasilia)

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+
+Brest (French pronunciation: [bʁɛst] (listen);[2] Breton pronunciation: [bʀest][3]) is a port city in the Finistère département in Brittany. Located in a sheltered bay not far from the western tip of the peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France,[4] Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon. The city is located on the western edge of continental Europe. With 142,722 inhabitants in a 2007 census, Brest is at the centre of Western Brittany's largest metropolitan area (with a population of 300,300 in total), ranking third behind only Nantes and Rennes in the whole of historic Brittany, and the 19th most populous city in France; moreover, Brest provides services to the one million inhabitants of Western Brittany.[5] Although Brest is by far the largest city in Finistère, the préfecture (regional capital) of the department is the much smaller Quimper.
+
+During the Middle Ages, the history of Brest was the history of its castle. Then Richelieu made it a military harbour in 1631.[6] Brest grew around its arsenal until the second part of the 20th century. Heavily damaged by the Allies' bombing raids during World War II, the city centre was completely rebuilt after the war.[7] At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, the deindustrialization of the city was followed by the development of the service sector. Nowadays, Brest is an important university town with 23,000 students.[8] Besides a multidisciplinary university, the University of Western Brittany, Brest and its surrounding area possess several prestigious French elite schools such as École Navale (the French Naval Academy), Télécom Bretagne and the Superior National School of Advanced Techniques of Brittany (ENSTA Bretagne, formerly ENSIETA). Brest is also an important research centre, mainly focused on the sea, with among others the largest Ifremer (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea) centre, le Cedre (Centre of Documentation, Research and Experimentation on Accidental Water Pollution) and the French Polar Institute.
+
+Brest's history has always been linked to the sea: the Académie de Marine (Naval Academy) was founded in 1752 in this city. The aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was built there. Every four years, Brest hosts the international festival of the sea, boats and sailors: it is a meeting of old riggings from around the world (Les Tonnerres de Brest).
+
+The name of the town is first recorded as Bresta; it may derive from *brigs, a Celtic word for "hill."[9][7]
+
+Nothing definite is known of Brest before about 1240[dubious  – discuss], when Harvey V, Lord of Léon ceded it to John I, Duke of Brittany. In 1342 John IV, Duke of Brittany surrendered Brest to the English, in whose possession it was to remain until 1397.[6] The importance of Brest in medieval times was great enough to give rise to the saying, "He is not the Duke of Brittany who is not the Lord of Brest." With the marriage of Francis I of France to Claude, the daughter of Anne of Brittany, the definitive overlordship of Brest – together with the rest of the duchy – passed to the French crown in 1491.[6]
+
+The advantages of Brest's situation as a seaport town were first recognized by Cardinal Richelieu, who in 1631 constructed a harbour with wooden wharves. This soon became a base for the French Navy.  Jean-Baptiste Colbert, finance minister under Louis XIV, rebuilt the wharves in masonry and otherwise improved the harbour.  Fortifications by Vauban (1633–1707) followed in 1680–1688. These fortifications, and with them the naval importance of the town, were to continue to develop throughout the 18th century.
+
+In 1694, an English squadron under Lord Berkeley was soundly defeated in its attack on Brest.
+
+In 1917, during the First World War, Brest was used as the disembarking port for many of the troops coming from the United States. Thousands of such men came through the port on their way to the front lines. The United States Navy established a naval air station on 13 February 1918 to operate seaplanes. The base closed shortly after the Armistice of 11 November 1918.[10]
+
+In the Second World War, the Germans maintained a large U-boat submarine base at Brest. Despite being within range of RAF bombers, it was also a base for some of the German surface fleet, giving repair facilities and direct access to the Atlantic Ocean. For much of 1941, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen were under repair in the dockyards. The repair yard facilities for both submarines and surface vessels were staffed by both German and French workers, with the latter forming the major part of the workforce; huge reliance was made on this French component.[a][11] In 1944, after the Allied invasion of Normandy, the city was almost totally destroyed during the Battle for Brest, with only a tiny number of buildings left standing.  After the war, the West German government paid several billion Deutschmarks in reparations to the homeless and destitute civilians of Brest in compensation for the destruction of their city.  Large parts of today's rebuilt city consist of utilitarian granite and concrete buildings.  The French naval base now houses the Brest Naval Training Centre. A wartime German navy memorandum suggested that the town should perhaps serve as a German enclave after the war.[12]
+
+In 1972, the French Navy opened its nuclear weapon-submarine (deterrence) base at Île Longue in the Rade de Brest (Brest roadstead). This continues to be an important base for the French nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines.
+
+The meaning of the coat of arms of Brest is half France (the three fleurs-de-lis of the former kingdom of France), half Brittany (semé d'hermine of Brittany). These arms were used for the first time in a register of deliberations of the city council dated the 15 July 1683.[13]
+
+Pont de Recouvrance (Recouvrance Bridge, is a massive drawbridge 64 m/210 ft high), the military arsenal and the rue de Siam (Siam Street) are other sights. The castle and the Tanguy tower are the oldest monuments of Brest.
+
+The Musée de la Tour Tanguy, in the Tanguy tower, houses a collection of dioramas that depict the city of Brest on the eve of World War II. The Musée national de la Marine de Brest, housed in the ancient castle, contains exhibits which outline Brest's maritime tradition, as well as an aquarium, the Océanopolis marine centre. The city also has a notable botanical garden specializing in endangered species, the Conservatoire botanique national de Brest, as well as the Jardin botanique de l'Hôpital d'Instruction des Armées Clermont-Tonnerre.
+
+The city of Brest does not have much remaining historical architecture, apart from a few select monuments such as the castle and the Tanguy tower.  This is due to heavy bombing by the Allies during World War II, in an attempt to destroy the submarine base the Germans had built in the harbour.  In the 1950s, the town was hastily rebuilt using a large amount of concrete. In Recouvrance, the west bank of the town, there remains an authentic street of the 17th century, Saint-Malo Street.
+
+A few kilometres out of town, there are landscapes, from sandy beaches to grottos to tall granite cliffs. Sunbathing, windsurfing, yachting and fishing are enjoyed in the area.  Brest was an important warship-producing port during the Napoleonic wars. The naval port, which is in great part excavated in the rock, extends along both banks of the Penfeld river.
+
+The Tanguy tower hosts a museum of the history of Brest; in the background, the Pont de Recouvrance (Recouvrance Bridge).
+
+The castle hosts the Musée national de la Marine (National Navy Museum).
+
+the conservatoire botanique national in autumn
+
+Saint-Sauveur church in Recouvrance, designed by Amédée-François Frézier, the oldest church of Brest, built in 1750[14]
+
+Monumental perspective from the Place de la Liberté opening to the rue de Siam (Siam Street), with the rade de Brest (Brest roadstead) in the background, and on the right, the steeple of Saint-Louis church dominating the rebuilt centre of Brest
+
+Brest is located amidst a dramatic landscape near the entrance of the natural rade de Brest (Brest roadstead), at the west end of Brittany.
+
+It is situated to the north of a magnificent landlocked bay, and occupies the slopes of two hills divided by the river Penfeld. The part of the town on the left bank is regarded as Brest proper, while the part on the right is known as Recouvrance. There are also extensive suburbs to the east of the town. The hillsides are in some places so steep that the ascent from the lower to the upper town has to be effected by flights of steps and the second or third storey of one house is often on a level with the ground storey of the next.
+
+Brest experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb) in its classic version (due to its location in the Atlantic Ocean and the sea intrusion[15]) where it shares a considerable moderation shared with other places of the Finistère and islands of Great Britain. Its climatic conditions also resemble Neah Bay, Washington but with summers a little warmer and drier in general than this.[16][17]
+
+The railway station of Brest, Gare de Brest, is linked to Rennes and Paris and provides services to other stations in Brittany as well. TGV trains to Paris take approximately three hours and forty minutes to reach the capital.
+
+A new 28 stop, 14.3 km (9 mi) tram line connecting Porte de Plouzané in the west with Porte de Gouesnou and Porte de Guipavas northeast of the city centre opened in June 2012.[23]
+
+Brest international airport, Brest Bretagne Airport, is mainly linked to Paris, London, Nice, Lyon, Dublin. The primarily operator is Air France (via its subsidiary HOP!). Brest international airport is the main airport of the region of Brittany in terms passager traffic with 45% of this traffic of the region, representing 919,404 passengers in 2010.[24] A new terminal has been in service since 12 December 2007 and can accommodate up to 1.8 million passengers annually.[25]
+
+The harbour of Brest is mainly dedicated to bulk, hydrocarbon and freight containers. The harbour's facilities can accommodate the largest modern ships. A cruise ship port is also located in Brest, near the city centre.[26]
+
+Due to its location, Brest is regarded as the first French port that can be accessed from the Americas.  Shipping is big business, although Nantes and Saint-Nazaire offer much larger docks and attract more of the larger vessels. Brest has the ninth French commercial harbour including ship repairs and maintenance. The protected location of Brest means that its harbour is ideal to receive any type of ship, from the smallest dinghy to the biggest aircraft carrier (USS Nimitz has visited a few times). Naval construction is also an important activity: for example, the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was built by Direction des Constructions Navales (DCN) in Brest.
+
+Despite its image of an industrialised city whose activity depends mainly on military order, the service sector represents 75% of the economic activity. The importance of the service sector is still increasing while industrialised activity is decaying, explaining the unchanged rate of working-class in Brest. Brest also hosts headquarters for many subsidiaries like the banking group Arkéa. Research and conception is taking an increasing importance. Brest claims to be the largest European centre for sciences and techniques linked to the sea: 60% of the French research in the maritime field is based in Brest.[27]
+
+Breton is not commonly spoken in the city of Brest, which was the only French-speaking city in western Brittany before the 1789 French Revolution, despite the surrounding countryside being fully Breton-speaking at that time.  Like other French minority languages, Breton does not have any official language status in France.
+
+The municipality launched a linguistic plan to revive Breton as a language through Ya d'ar brezhoneg on 16 June 2006.  In 2008, 1.94% of primary-school children attended French-Breton bilingual Diwan schools.[28] Besides bilingual schools, the Breton language is also taught in some schools and universities.
+
+The association Sked federates all Breton cultural activities.[29]
+
+The city is host to several events to celebrate its long maritime history.  The largest of these is held every four years, when the town organises a tall ship meeting. The last such tall ship event was "Les Tonnerres de Brest 2012" .
+
+Brest also hosts an annual short film festival called "Brest European Short Film Festival". The city was the setting for the 1982 art film Querelle, directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
+
+Brittany's most famous local delicacy, the Breton crêpe, is the main culinary feature apart from seafood. There are many crêpe restaurants (called crêperies).  Breton apple cider is often featured.
+
+Traditional biscuits include Traou Mad, which is a full-fat butter biscuit similar to Scottish shortbread.
+
+Since 1901 Brest has served as the midpoint for the 1,200 km (750 mi) bicycle endurance event, Paris–Brest–Paris. Brest is home to Stade Brestois 29, a football team in Ligue 1.
+
+In 2002 the Brest throwball team Brest LC reached the 1st division of French throwball but were subsequently relegated due to financial difficulty. The club has recently adopted an Irish influenced infrastructure.
+
+The 2008 Tour de France started in Brest.
+Stage 6 of the 2018 Tour de France will depart in Brest.
+
+Brest is also home to Les Albatros, an ice hockey team in Ligue Magnus, and 2 league titles in the 90's.
+
+Primarily the research centre of western Brittany, Brest and its surrounding area is the home of several research and elite educational establishments:
+
+Brest was the birthplace of:
+
+Brest is twinned with:[32]
+
+Brest has an official friendly relationship (protocole d'amitié) with:[32]
+

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+Coordinates: 48°00′N 3°00′W / 48.000°N 3.000°W / 48.000; -3.000
+
+Brittany (/ˈbrɪtəni/; French: Bretagne [bʁətaɲ] (listen); Breton: Breizh, pronounced [bʁɛjs] or [bʁɛx];[1] Gallo: Bertaèyn [bəʁtaɛɲ]) is a cultural region in the west of France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period of Roman occupation. It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as a separate nation under the crown.
+
+Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain, with which it shares an etymology).[2] It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, Normandy to the northeast, Pays de la Loire to the southeast, the Bay of Biscay to the south, and the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its land area is 34,023 km2 (13,136 sq mi).
+
+Brittany is the site of some of the world's oldest standing architecture, home to the Barnenez, the Tumulus Saint-Michel and others, which date to the early 5th millennium BC.[3][4] Today, the historical province of Brittany is split among four French departments: Finistère in the west, Côtes-d'Armor in the north, Ille-et-Vilaine in the northeast and Morbihan in the south on the Bay of Biscay.[5] Since reorganisation in 1956, the modern administrative region of Brittany comprises only four of the five Breton departments, or 80% of historical Brittany. The remaining area of old Brittany, the Loire-Atlantique department around Nantes, now forms part of the Pays de la Loire region.
+
+At the 2010 census, the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,475,295. Of these, 71% lived in the region of Brittany, while 29% lived in the Loire-Atlantique department. In 2012, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes (897,713 inhabitants), Rennes (690,467 inhabitants), and Brest (314,844 inhabitants).[6] Brittany is the traditional homeland of the Breton people and is recognised by the Celtic League as one of the six Celtic nations,[7][8][9][10] retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history. A nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the French Republic.[11]
+
+The word Brittany, along with its French, Breton and Gallo equivalents Bretagne, Breizh and Bertaèyn, derive from the Latin Britannia, which means "Britons' land". This word had been used by the Romans since the 1st century to refer to Great Britain, and more specifically the Roman province of Britain. This word derives from a Greek word, Πρεττανικη (Prettanike) or Βρεττανίαι (Brettaniai), used by Pytheas, an explorer from Massalia who visited the British Islands around 320 BC. The Greek word itself comes from the common Brythonic ethnonym reconstructed as *Pritanī, itself from Proto-Celtic *kʷritanoi (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷer- 'to cut, make').
+
+The Romans called Brittany Armorica. It was a quite indefinite region that extended along the English Channel coast from the Seine estuary, then along the Atlantic coast to the Loire estuary and, according to several sources, maybe to the Garonne estuary. This term probably comes from a Gallic word, aremorica, which means "close to the sea".[12] Another name, Letauia (in English "Litavis"), was used until the 12th century. It possibly means "wide and flat" or "to expand" and it gave the Welsh name for Brittany: Llydaw.[13]
+
+After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, many Britons settled in western Armorica, and the region started to be called Britannia, although this name only replaced Armorica in the sixth century or perhaps by the end of the fifth.[14] Later, authors like Geoffrey of Monmouth used the terms Britannia minor and Britannia major to distinguish Brittany from Britain.
+
+Breton-speaking people may pronounce the word Breizh in two different ways, according to their region of origin. Breton can be divided into two main dialects: the KLT (Kerne-Leon-Tregor) and the dialect of Vannes. KLT speakers pronounce it [brɛjs] and would write it Breiz, while the Vannetais speakers pronounce it [brɛχ] and would write it Breih. The official spelling is a compromise between both variants, with a z and an h together. In 1941, efforts to unify the dialects led to the creation of the so-called Breton zh, a standard which has never been widely accepted.[1] On its side, Gallo language has never had a widely accepted writing system and several ones coexist. For instance, the name of the region in that language can be written Bertaèyn in ELG script, or Bertègn in MOGA, and a couple of other scripts also exist.[15]
+
+Brittany has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Paleolithic. The first settlers were Neanderthals. This population was scarce and very similar to the other Neanderthals found in the whole of Western Europe. Their only original feature was a distinct culture, called "Colombanian".[16] One of the oldest hearths in the world has been found in Plouhinec, Finistère. It is 450,000 years old.
+
+Homo sapiens settled in Brittany around 35,000 years ago. They replaced or absorbed the Neanderthals and developed local industries, similar to the Châtelperronian or to the Magdalenian. After the last glacial period, the warmer climate allowed the area to become heavily wooded. At that time, Brittany was populated by relatively large communities who started to change their lifestyles from a life of hunting and gathering, to become settled farmers. Agriculture was introduced during the 5th millennium BC by migrants from the south and east. However, the Neolithic Revolution in Brittany did not happen due to a radical change of population, but by slow immigration and exchange of skills.[17]
+
+Neolithic Brittany is characterised by important megalithic production and sites such as Quelfénnec, it is sometimes designated as the "core area" of megalithic culture.[18] The oldest monuments, cairns, were followed by princely tombs and stone rows. The Morbihan département, on the southern coast, comprises a large share of these structures, including the Carnac stones and the Broken Menhir of Er Grah in the Locmariaquer megaliths, the largest single stone erected by Neolithic people.
+
+During the protohistorical period, Brittany was inhabited by five Celtic tribes:[19]
+
+Those people had strong economic ties to the Insular Celts, especially for the tin trade. Several tribes also belonged to an "Armorican confederation" which, according to Julius Caesar, gathered the Curiosolitae, the Redones, the Osismii, the Unelli, the Caletes, the Lemovices and the Ambibarii.[21] The last four peoples mentioned by Caesar were respectively located in Cotentin (Lower-Normandy), pays de Caux (Upper-Normandy), Limousin (Aquitany) and the location of the Ambibarii is unknown. The Caletes are sometimes also considered as Belgians and ″Lemovices″ is probably a mistake for ″Lexovii″ (Lower-Normandy).
+
+The region became part of the Roman Republic in 51 BC. It was included in the province of Gallia Lugdunensis in 13 BC. Gallic towns and villages were redeveloped according to Roman standards, and several cities were created. These cities are Condate (Rennes), Vorgium (Carhaix), Darioritum (Vannes) and Condevincum or Condevicnum (Nantes). Together with Fanum Martis (Corseul), they were the capitals of the local civitates. They all had a grid plan and a forum, and sometimes a temple, a basilica, thermae or an aqueduct, like Carhaix.
+
+The Romans also built three major roads through the region. However, most of the population remained rural. The free peasants lived in small huts, whereas the landowners and their employees lived in proper villae rusticae. The Gallic deities continued to be worshiped, and were often assimilated to the Roman gods. Only a small number of statues depicting Roman gods were found in Brittany, and most of the time they combine Celtic elements.[22]
+
+During the 3rd century AD, the region was attacked several times by Franks, Alamanni and pirates. At the same time, the local economy collapsed and many farming estates were abandoned. To face the invasions, many towns and cities were fortified, like Nantes, Rennes and Vannes.[22]
+
+Toward the end of the 4th century, the Britons of what is now Wales and the South-Western peninsula of Great Britain began to emigrate to Armorica.
+
+The history behind such an establishment is unclear, but medieval Breton, Angevin and Welsh sources connect it to a figure known as Conan Meriadoc. Welsh literary sources assert that Conan came to Armorica on the orders of the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus,[a] who sent some of his British troops to Gaul to enforce his claims and settled them in Armorica. This account was supported by the Counts of Anjou, who claimed descent from a Roman soldier[b] expelled from Lower Brittany by Conan on Magnus's orders.
+
+Regardless of the truth of this story, Brythonic (British Celtic) settlement probably increased during the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries.
+
+Scholars such as Léon Fleuriot have suggested a two-wave model of migration from Britain which saw the emergence of an independent Breton people and established the dominance of the Brythonic Breton language in Armorica.[23] Their petty kingdoms are now known by the names of the counties that succeeded them—Domnonée (Devon), Cornouaille (Cornwall), Léon (Caerleon); but these names in Breton and Latin are in most cases identical to their British homelands. (In Breton and French, however, Gwened or Vannetais continued the name of the indigenous Veneti.) Although the details remain confused, these colonies consisted of related and intermarried dynasties which repeatedly unified (as by the 7th-century Saint Judicaël) before splintering again according to Celtic inheritance practices.
+
+The area was finally consolidated in the 840s under Nominoe in resistance to Frankish control.[24] Among the immigrant Britons, there were some clergymen who helped the evangelisation of the region, which was still pagan, particularly in rural areas.
+
+The army recruited for Flavius Aetius to combat Attila the Hun at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains included Romans, Visigoths, Franks, Alans and Armoricans, amongst others.  The Alans were placed front and centre, opposite the Huns. The Armoricans supplied archers who attacked the Huns' front lines during the main battle and thwarted Attila's night assault on the Roman camp with a hail of arrows "like rain".  After the battle was won, Aetius sent the Alans to Armorica and Galicia.
+
+The late 5th century Brittonic leader Riothamus received correspondence from the eminent Roman jurist Sidonius Apollinaris and was called "King of the Britons" by Jordanes.  Some suggest that he was a Breton, though others believe that he was from Britain, pointing to the passage that he arrived in the land of the Biturges "by way of Ocean", which would hardly have been efficient or required for a Breton.  Both historians describe Riothamus's losing battle against King Euric of the Visigoths at Déols around the year 470.
+
+In response to a plea from the Roman Emperor Anthemius, Riothamus had led twelve thousand men to establish a military presence in Bourges in central Gaul, but was betrayed by Arvandus, the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, and subsequently ambushed by Euric's army.[c] After a long battle, the Armorican survivors escaped to Avallon in Burgundy, after which they are lost to history.  According to Breton king-lists, Riotham survived and reigned as Prince of Domnonia until his death sometime between 500 and 520, though this may have been a different person.
+
+At the beginning of the medieval era, Brittany was divided between three kingdoms, Domnonea, Cornouaille and Broërec. These realms eventually merged into a single state during the 9th century.[25][26] The unification of Brittany was carried out by Nominoe, king between 845 and 851 and considered as the Breton Pater Patriae. His son Erispoe secured the independence of the new kingdom of Brittany and won the Battle of Jengland against Charles the Bald. The Bretons won another war in 867, and the kingdom reached then its maximum extent: it received parts of Normandy, Maine and Anjou and the Channel Islands.
+
+Brittany was heavily attacked by the Vikings at the beginning of the 10th century. The kingdom lost its eastern territories, including Normandy and Anjou, and the county of Nantes was given to Fulk I of Anjou in 909. However, Nantes was seized by the Vikings in 914.
+
+Nantes was eventually liberated by Alan II of Brittany in 937 with the support of his god-brother King Æthelstan of England.
+
+Alan II totally expelled the Vikings from Brittany and recreated a strong Breton state. For aiding in removing problem Alan paid homage to Louis IV of France (who was Æthelstan's nephew and had returned from England in the same year as Alan II) and thus Brittany ceased to be a kingdom and became a duchy.
+
+Several Breton lords helped William the Conqueror to invade England and received large estates there (e.g. William's double-second cousin Alan Rufus and the latter's brother Brian of Brittany). Some of these lords were powerful rivals.
+
+Medieval Brittany was far from being a united nation. The French king maintained envoys in Brittany, alliances contracted by local lords often overlapped and there was no specific Breton unity. For example, Brittany replaced Latin with French as its official language in the 13th century, 300 years before France did so itself, and the Breton language didnt have formal status.
+
+The foreign policy of the Duchy changed many times; the Dukes were usually independent but they often contracted alliances with England or France depending on who was threatening them at that point. Their support for each nation became very important during the 14th century, because the English kings had started to claim the French throne.
+
+The Breton War of Succession, a local episode of the Hundred Years' War, saw the House of Blois, backed by the French, fighting with the House of Montfort, backed by the English. The Montforts won in 1364 and enjoyed a period of total independence until the end of the Hundred Years' War, because France was weakened and stopped sending royal envoys to the Court of Brittany.
+
+English diplomatic failures led to the Breton cavalry commanders Arthur, Comte de Richemont (later to become Arthur III, Duke of Brittany) and his nephew Peter II, Duke of Brittany playing key roles on the French side during the deciding stages of the war (including the battles of Patay, Formigny and Castillon and the Treaty of Arras).
+
+Brittany importantly lost the Mad War against France in 1488, mostly because of its internal divisions which were exacerbated by the corruption at the court of Francis II, Duke of Brittany. Indeed, some rebel Breton lords were fighting on the French side.
+
+As a result of the Mad War, the Duke Francis II could not marry off his daughter Anne without the King of France's consent. Nonetheless, she married the Holy Roman Emperor in 1490,  leading to a crisis with France. Charles VIII of France besieged Rennes and had the marriage cancelled. He eventually married Anne of Brittany. After he died childless, the Duchess had to marry his heir and cousin Louis XII. Anne unsuccessfully tried to preserve Breton independence, but she died in 1514 and the union between the two crowns was formally carried out by Francis I in 1532. He granted several privileges to Brittany, such as exemption from the gabelle, a tax on salt which was very unpopular in France.[27] Under the Ancien Régime, Brittany and France were governed as separate countries but under the same crown, so Breton aristocrats in the French royal court were classed as Princes étrangers (foreign princes).
+
+From the 15th to the 18th century, Brittany reached an economic golden age.[d] The region was located on the seaways between Spain, England and the Netherlands and it greatly benefited from the creation of a French colonial empire. Local seaports like Brest and Saint-Brieuc quickly expanded, and Lorient, first spelled "L'Orient", was founded in the 17th century. Saint-Malo was then known for its corsairs, Brest was a major base for the French Navy and Nantes flourished with the Atlantic slave trade. On its side, the inland provided hemp ropes and canvas and linen sheets. However, Colbertism, which encouraged the creation of many factories, did not favour the Breton industry because most of the royal factories were opened in other provinces. Moreover, several conflicts between France and England led the latter to restrain its trade, and the Breton economy went into recession during the 18th century.
+
+Two significant revolts occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries: the Revolt of the papier timbré (1675) and the Pontcallec conspiracy (1719). Both arose from attempts to resist centralisation and assert Breton constitutional exceptions to tax.[28]
+
+Many Bretons crossed the Atlantic to support the American War of Independence.[29] These included many sailors such as Armand de Kersaint and soldiers such as Charles Armand Tuffin, marquis de la Rouërie.
+
+The Duchy was legally abolished during the French Revolution, in 1789, and divided into five departments. Brittany also lost all its privileges. Three years later, the area became a centre of royalist and Catholic resistance to the Revolution during the Chouannerie. During the 19th century, Brittany remained in economic recession, and many Bretons emigrated to other French regions, particularly to Paris. This trend remained strong until the beginning of the 20th century. Nonetheless, the region was also modernising, with new roads and railways being built, and some places being industrialised. Nantes specialised in shipbuilding and food processing (sugar, exotic fruits and vegetables, fish...), Fougères in glass and shoe production, and metallurgy was practised in small towns such as Châteaubriant and Lochrist, known for its labour movements.
+
+The region remained deeply Catholic, and during the Second Empire, the conservative values were strongly reasserted. When the Republic was re-established in 1871, there were rumours that Breton troops were mistrusted and mistreated at Camp Conlie during the Franco-Prussian War because of fears that they were a threat to the Republic.[30]
+
+During the 19th century, the Breton language started to decline precipitously, mainly because of the Francization policy conducted under the Third Republic. On one hand, children were not allowed to speak Breton at school, and were punished by teachers if they did. Famously, signs in schools read: "It is forbidden to speak Breton and to spit on the floor" ("Il est interdit de parler Breton et de cracher par terre").[31]
+
+At the same time, the Celtic Revival led to the foundation of the Breton Regionalist Union (URB) and later to independence movements linked to Irish, Welsh, and Scottish independence parties in the UK, and to pan-Celticism. However, the audience of these movements remained very low and their ideas did not reach a large public until the 20th century. The Seiz Breur movement, created in 1923, permitted a Breton artistic revival[32] but its ties with Nazism and the collaborationism of the Breton National Party during World War II weakened Breton nationalism in the post-war period.
+
+Brittany lost 240,000 men during the First World War.[33] The Second World War was also catastrophic for the region. It was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940 and freed after Operation Cobra in August 1944. However, the areas around Saint-Nazaire and Lorient only surrendered on 10 and 11 May 1945, several days after the German capitulation. The two port towns had been virtually destroyed by Allied air raids, like Brest and Saint-Malo, and other towns, such as Nantes and Rennes, had also suffered.
+
+In 1956, Brittany was legally reconstituted as the Region of Brittany, although the region excluded the ducal capital of Nantes and the surrounding area. Nevertheless, Brittany retained its cultural distinctiveness, and a new cultural revival emerged during the 1960s and 1970s. Bilingual schools were opened, singers started to write songs in Breton, and ecological catastrophes such as the Amoco Cadiz oil spill or the Erika oil spill and water pollution because of intensive pig farming favoured new movements to protect the natural heritage.
+
+Brittany as a political entity disappeared in 1790, when it was divided into five départements. The Breton départements more or less correspond to the nine Catholic dioceses that appeared at the beginning of the Middle Ages. They were often called "pays" or "bro" ("country" in French and Breton) and they also served as fiscal and military districts.[34] Brittany is also divided between Lower Brittany ("Basse Bretagne" and "Breizh Izel"), corresponding to the western half, where Breton is traditionally spoken, and Upper Brittany ("Haute Bretagne" and "Breizh Uhel"), corresponding to the eastern half, where Gallo is traditionally spoken. The historical Breton dioceses were:
+
+During the French Revolution, four dioceses were suppressed and the five remaining ones were modified to have the same administrative borders as the départements.
+
+Brittany has several historical capital cities. When it was an independent duchy, the Estates of Brittany, which can be compared to a parliament, met in various towns: Dinan, Ploërmel, Redon, Rennes, Vitré, Guérande, and, most of all, Vannes, where they met 19 times, and Nantes, 17 times. The Court and the government were also very mobile, and each dynasty favoured its own castles and estates. The dukes mostly lived in Nantes, Vannes, Redon, Rennes, Fougères, Dol-de-Bretagne, Dinan and Guérande. All these towns except Vannes are located in Upper Brittany, thus not in the Breton speaking area.
+
+Among all these towns, only Nantes, Rennes and Vannes, which were the biggest ones, could really pretend to the capital status. The dukes were crowned in Rennes and they had a large castle there; it was however destroyed during the 15th century. Vannes, on its side, was the seat of the Chamber of Accounts and of the Parliament until the union with France. The Parliament was then transferred to Rennes, and the Chamber of Accounts to Nantes. Nantes, nicknamed "the city of the Dukes of Brittany", was also the permanent residence of the last dukes. The Château des ducs de Bretagne still stands in the city centre. Nowadays, Rennes is the only official capital of the region of Brittany. It is also the seat of an ecclesiastical province encompassing Brittany and the Pays de la Loire region.
+
+During the French Revolution, Brittany was divided into five départements, each made up of three or four arrondissements. The arrondissements are further divided in cantons, which are themselves made up of one or several communes. The communes and the départements have a local council elected by their citizens, but arrondissements and cantons are not run by elected officials. The cantons serve as an electoral district for the election of the département councils and arrondissements are run by a subprefect appointed by the French president. The president also appoints a prefect in each département.
+
+Because the départements are small and numerous, the French government tried to create wider regions during the 20th century. For the Breton nationalists, it was an occasion to recreate Brittany as a political and administrative entity, but the new region had to be economically efficient. Nantes and its département, Loire-Atlantique, raised concerns because they were off-centered, more integrated with the Loire Valley than with the Breton peninsula. The French government and local politicians also feared that Nantes, because of its population and its former Breton capital status, would have maintained a harmful competition with Rennes to get the regional institutions and investments.
+
+Several drafts for French regions had been proposed since the 1920s, and the definitive regions were drawn in 1956. The new Brittany had four départements, and Loire-Atlantique formed the Pays de la Loire region together with parts of Anjou, Maine and Poitou. In 1972, the regions received their present competencies, with an elected regional council. Since then, the region of Brittany has had its own council and administrative bodies.
+
+When the region of Brittany was created, several local politicians opposed the exclusion of Loire-Atlantique, and the question still remains.
+
+The obstacles to reunification are the same as in 1956: having Nantes in Brittany could harm the position of Rennes and create an economic imbalance between Lower and Upper Brittany. Moreover, the Pays de la Loire region could not exist without Loire-Atlantique, because it would lose its political and economic capital. Without Loire-Atlantique, the other départements would not form an efficient region any more, and would have to integrate neighbouring regions such as the Centre-Val de Loire and Poitou-Charentes.
+
+However, several institutions have backed the reunification, such as the regional council of Brittany since 2008 and the Loire-Atlantique council since 2001. Some politicians like Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French prime minister and former mayor of Nantes, favour instead the creation of a "Greater West region", which would encompass Brittany and the Pays de la Loire region. Polls show that 58% of the Bretons and 62% of the inhabitants in Loire-Atlantique favour the reunification.[35]
+
+Until the end of the 20th century, Brittany had been characterised by a strong Catholic and conservative influence. However, some areas such as the industrial region around Saint-Nazaire and Lorient and the surroundings of Tréguier are traditional Socialist and Communist strongholds. Left-wing parties, mainly the Socialist party and the Greens, have become more and more powerful after the 1970s and they have formed a majority in the Regional Council of Brittany since 2004. The Loire-Atlantique and Ille-et-Vilaine councils have also been held by the left since 2004.
+
+The Socialist party has held the Côtes-d'Armor council since 1976, and the Finistère council since 1998. On its side, Morbihan remains a right-wing stronghold. The local parties have a very small audience, except the Union Démocratique Bretonne which has seats at the Regional Council and in other local assemblies. It advocates more autonomy for the region and its positions are very close to the Socialist parties. It also has a strong ecological orientation. The audience of far-right parties is lower in Brittany than in the rest of France.[36]
+
+Brittany is the largest French peninsula. It is around 34,030 km2 (13,140 sq mi) and stretches towards the northwest and the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered to the north by the English Channel, to the south by the Bay of Biscay and the waters located between the western coast and Ushant island form the Iroise Sea.
+
+The Breton coast is very indented, with many cliffs, rias and capes. The Gulf of Morbihan is a vast natural harbour with some forty islands that is almost a closed sea. In total, around 800 islands lie off the mainland; the largest being Belle Île, in the south. Brittany has over 2,860 km (1,780 mi) of coastline; it represents a third of the total French coastline.
+
+The region is generally hilly because it corresponds to the western end of the Armorican massif, a very old range that also extends in Normandy and the Pays de la Loire region. Because of this continuity, the Breton border with the rest of France is not marked by any strong geographical landmark, apart from the river Couesnon, which separates Brittany from Normandy.
+
+The Armorican massif reaches its maximal elevation outside of Brittany, in neighbouring Mayenne, at 417 m, and slopes towards the west before straightening on its western extremity, with the Montagnes Noires and the Monts d'Arrée. The highest hill in Brittany is the Roc'h Ruz in the Monts d'Arrée, at 385 m (1,263 ft). It is closely followed by several neighbouring hills culminating at around 384 m above sea level.[37]
+
+Coastal areas are usually named Armor or Arvor ("by the sea" in Breton), and the inland is called Argoat ("by the forest"). The best soils were primitively covered by large forests which had been progressively replaced by bocage during the Middle Ages. The Breton bocage, with its small fields enclosed by thick hedgerows, has almost disappeared since the 1960s to fit the modern agricultural needs and methods, particularly mechanisation.
+
+Several forests still exist, such as the Paimpont forest, sometimes said to be the Arthurian Brocéliande. The poor and rocky areas are covered by large heathland and moorlands, and Brittany has several marshes, like the Brière, included in a regional natural park. Another regional park encompasses the Monts d'Arrée and the Iroise seacoast. The Iroise Sea is also a UNESCO biosphere reserve.
+
+The Breton peninsula appeared during the Cadomian Orogeny, which formed its northern coastline, between Guingamp and Fougères. The southern part emerged during the Hercynian orogeny. At the same time, an intense volcanic activity left large quantities of granite. Between the Cadomian and Hercynian periods, the region was submerged several times and the sea left fossils and sedimentary rocks, mostly schist and sandstone. Because of the absence of limestone, soils in Brittany are usually acid.
+
+The Armorican massif straightened and flattened several times during the formation of the Pyrenees and the Alps. Changes in sea levels and climate led to a strong erosion and to the formation of more sedimentary rocks. Metamorphism is responsible for the distinctive local blue schist and for the rich subsoil of the Groix island, which comprises glaucophane and epidote.[38]
+
+During the Quaternary glaciations, Brittany was covered by loess and rivers started to fill the valleys with alluvial deposits. The valleys themselves were a result of a strong tectonic activity between the African and the Eurasian plate. The present Breton landscape did not acquired its final shape before one million years ago. The Breton subsoil is characterised by a huge amount of fractures that form a large aquifer containing several millions square meters of water.[38]
+
+Brittany lies within the north temperate zone. It has a changeable, maritime climate, similar to Cornwall. Rainfall occurs regularly but sunny, cloudless days are also common. In the summer months, temperatures in the region can reach 30 °C (86 °F), yet the climate remains comfortable, especially when compared to the French regions located south of the Loire. The temperature difference between summer and winter is about fifteen degrees, but it varies depending on the proximity of the sea. The weather is generally milder on the seacoast than inland but rainfall occurs with the same intensity on both. The Monts d'Arrée, despite their low elevation, have much more rainfall than the rest of the region. The south coast, between Lorient and Pornic, enjoys more than 2,000 hours of sunshine per year.[39]
+
+Brittany's wildlife is typical of France with several distinctions. On one hand, the region, due to its long coastline, has a rich oceanic fauna, and some birds cannot be seen in other French regions. On the other hand, the species found in the inland are usually common for France, and because Brittany is a peninsula, the number of species is lower in its western extremity than in the eastern part.
+
+A variety of seabirds can be seen close to the seaside, which is home to colonies of cormorants, gulls, razorbills, northern gannets, common murres and Atlantic puffins. Most of these birds breed on isolated islands and rocks and thus are hard to observe. The inland is home to common European species including pheasants, barn swallows, woodcocks, common swifts, partridges...[40]
+
+Like Cornwall, Wales and Ireland, the waters of Brittany attract marine animals including basking sharks, grey seals, leatherback turtles, dolphins, porpoises, jellyfish, crabs and lobsters. Bass is common along the coast, small-spotted catsharks live on the continental shelf, rattails and anglerfish populate the deep waters. River fish of note include trout, Atlantic salmon, pikes, shades and lampreys. The Breton rivers are also home to beavers and otters and to some invasive American species, such as the coypu which destroys the ecosystem and accelerated the extinction of the European mink.[41]
+
+Among the invertebrates, Brittany is notably home to the escargot de Quimper, the freshwater pearl mussel and the white-clawed crayfish.[42] The larger Breton mammals died out during the modern period, including the wolf. Today, mammals of note include roe deer, wild boar, foxes, hares and several species of bat.[43]
+
+Brittany is widely known for the Breton horse, a local breed of draft horse, and for the Brittany gun dog. The region also has its own breeds of cattle, some of which are on the brink of extinction: the Bretonne Pie Noir, the Froment du Léon, the Armorican and the Nantaise.
+
+The Breton forests, dunes, moorlands and marshes are home to several iconic plants, such as endemic cistus, aster and linaria varieties, the horseshoe vetch and the lotus maritimus.[44]
+
+Brittany has the same education system as the rest of France. As in other French regions, formal education before the 19th century was the preserve of the elite. Before 1460, Brittany did not have a university, and Breton students had to go to Angers, Poitiers or Caen. The University of Nantes was founded under the duke Francis II, who wanted to affirm the Breton independence from France. All the traditional disciplines were taught here: arts, theology, law and medicine. During the 17th century, it had around 1,500 students. It declined during the 18th century, mostly because Nantes was flourishing with the Atlantic slave trade and paid no attention to its cultural institutions.
+
+A mayor eventually asked the university to be relocated to Rennes, more devoted to culture and science, and the faculties progressively moved there after 1735.[45] The transfer was interrupted by the French Revolution, and all the French universities were dissolved in 1793.
+
+Napoleon reorganised the French education system in 1808. He created new universities and invented two secondary education institutions: the "collèges" and the "lycées" which were opened in numerous towns to educate boys and form a new elite. A new University of Rennes was progressively recreated during the 19th century. In the meantime, several laws were promoted to open schools, notably for girls. In 1882, Jules Ferry succeeded in passing a law which made primary education in France free, non-clerical (laïque) and mandatory. Thus, free schools were opened in almost every villages of Brittany. Jules Ferry also promoted education policies establishing French language as the language of the Republic, and mandatory education was a mean to eradicate regional languages and dialects. In Brittany, it was forbidden for the pupils to speak Breton or Gallo, and the two were strongly depreciated. Humiliating practices aimed at stamping out the Breton language and culture prevailed in state schools until the late 1960s.[46] In response, the Diwan schools were founded in 1977 to teach Breton by immersion. They have taught a few thousand young people from elementary school to high school, and they have gained more and more fame owing to their high level of results in school exams.[47] A bilingual approach has also been implemented in some state schools after 1979, and some Catholic schools have done the same after 1990. Besides, Brittany, with the neighbouring Pays de la Loire region, remains a stronghold for Catholic private education with around 1,400 schools.[48]
+
+During the 20th century, tertiary education was developed with the creation of the École centrale de Nantes in 1919, the University of Nantes in 1961, the ESC Bretagne Brest in 1962, the University of Western Brittany in 1971, the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne in 1977 and the University of Southern Brittany in 1995. The Catholic University of the West, based in Angers, also opened classes in several Breton towns. In 1969, the University of Rennes was divided between the University of Rennes 1 and the University of Rennes 2 – Upper Brittany. After the Second World War, the Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, the foremost French military academy, settled in Coëtquidan.
+
+Brittany, apart from some areas such as Lorient, Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, has never been heavily industrialised. Today, fishing and agriculture remain important activities. Brittany has more than 40,000 agricultural exploitations, mostly oriented towards cattle, pig and poultry breeding, as well as cereal and vegetable production. The number of exploitations tends to diminish, but as a result, they are merged into very large estates. Brittany is the first producer in France for vegetables (green beans, onions, artichokes, potatoes, tomatoes...). Cereals are mostly grown for cattle feeding. Wine, especially muscadet, is made in a small region south of Nantes. Brittany is the first region in France for fishing. The activity employs around 9,000 people, and more than 60 firms work in fish and seafood processing.[49]
+
+Although relatively new, the Breton industry has been constantly growing since 1980. Food processing (meat, vegetables...) represents a third of the industrial jobs, but other activities are also important for the local economy. Shipbuilding, both commercial and military, is implanted in Saint-Nazaire (Chantiers de l'Atlantique), Lorient and Brest; Airbus has plants in Saint-Nazaire and Nantes; and Peugeot has a large factory in Rennes. Brittany is the second French region for telecommunication and the fifth for electronics, two activities mainly developed in Rennes, Lannion and Brest. Tourism is particularly important for the seacoast and Brittany is one of the most visited regions in France.[49] In April 2019, The Guardian's travel section included two Brittany locations in its list of 20 of the most beautiful villages in France. The two were Rochefort-en-Terre with "its covered market, 12th-century church, medieval castle, 19th-century chateau, and 16th- and 17th-century mansions" and Locronan, where "East India Company’s offices still stand on the village square, as well as 17th-century merchants' dwellings".[50]
+
+The unemployment rate in Brittany is lower than in other French regions and it is usually around 6 or 7% of the active population.[51] Because of the global financial crisis started in 2007, unemployment rose to 8.7% in the Region Brittany and 8.4% in Loire-Atlantique in late 2012. However, these figures remain under the French national rate (9.9% at the same period).[52][53] Some industries, such as construction, industry, catering or transport, usually have difficulties finding employees.[51]
+
+In 2009, Region Brittany's gross domestic product reached 82 billion euros. It was the seventh richest region in France and it produced 4.4% of the national GDP. The Breton GDP per capita was around 25,739 euros in 2009.[54] It was lower than the French result, 29,897 euros, but higher than the European one, 23,500 euros. The GDP of the Loire-Atlantique département is around 26 billion euros, and the GDP of the five historical Breton départements would be at around 108 billion euros.[55]
+
+In 2012, the population in Region Brittany was estimated to 3,195,317 and Loire-Atlantique had around 1,303,103 inhabitants, thus historical Brittany's population can be estimated at 4,552,918, the highest in its history.[56][57] The population in Region Brittany had grown by 0.9% between 1999 and 2000, and the growth rate reached more than 1% in Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan. The region around Rennes and the south are the more attractive areas, whereas the population is declining in the centre and in the westernmost parts. While most of the metropolitan areas are growing, the cities themselves tend to stagnate or regress, such as for Brest, Lorient, Saint-Brieuc and Saint-Malo. In 2008, Ille-et-Vilaine had 967,588 inhabitants, it was followed by Morbihan, 710,034 inhabitants, Finistère 890,509 inhabitants, and Côtes-d'Armor, with 581,570 inhabitants.
+
+The largest cities in Region Brittany were Rennes, with 206,655, Brest, 142,097, Quimper, 63,929, Lorient, 58,148, Vannes, 52,983, Saint-Malo, 48,211, and Saint-Brieuc, 45,879. All the other communes had under 20,000 inhabitants. Brittany is also characterised by a great number of small towns, such as Vitré, Concarneau, Morlaix or Auray. Loire-Atlantique has two major cities, Nantes, with 283,288 inhabitants and an urban area encompassing 873,133, and Saint-Nazaire, with 67,031 inhabitants. Loire-Atlantique's population is more rapidly growing than Region Brittany's and it is the 12th most populated French département.[58] Nevertheless, since the 1990s, Rennes has consistently ranked as one of France's fastest growing metropolitan areas.
+
+In 1851, Brittany had around 2.7 million inhabitants and the demographic growth stayed low until the second half of the 20th century, mainly because of an important emigration. Brittany had 3.2 million inhabitants in 1962 and the growth was mainly due to Loire-Atlantique and the steady growth of Nantes. Without the Loire-Atlantique's figures, the Breton population only numbered 2.4 million in 1962, nearly unchanged from its population of 2.3 million in 1851.[59][60] After the 1960s, the whole region has had a strong demographic growth because of the decline of the traditional emigration to richer French regions. Instead, Brittany has become attractive, particularly for families, young retired persons and active people over 35 years old.[61]
+
+Breton political parties do not have wide support and their electoral success is small. However, Bretons have a strong cultural identity. According to a poll made in 2008, 50% of the inhabitants of the Region Brittany consider themselves as much Breton as French, 22.5% feel more Breton than French, and 15.4% more French than Breton. A minority, 1.5%, considers itself Breton but not French, while 9.3% do not consider themselves to be Breton at all.[62]
+
+51.9% of the poll respondents agreed that Brittany should have more political power, and 31.1% thought that it should stay the same. Only 4.6% favoured independence, and 9.4% were undecided.[62]
+
+A 2012 poll taken in the five departments of historical Brittany showed that 48% of the respondents considered themselves belonging first to France, 37% to Brittany, and 10% to Europe. It also showed that Breton identity is stronger among people younger than 35. 53% of them considering themselves to belong first to Brittany. 50% of the older respondents considered themselves belonging first to France. Primary Breton identity is at its lowest among the respondents over 65: 58% consider themselves to belong first to France, with European identify secondary. 21% of the respondents over 65 considering themselves to be European first. Breton self-identification is stronger among people who vote left-wing. It is stronger among employees than employers.[63]
+
+French, the only official language of the French Republic, is spoken today by the vast majority in Brittany, and it is the mother tongue of most people. Nonetheless, French was not widely known before the 19th century, and two regional languages exist in Brittany: Breton and Gallo. They are separated by a language border that has constantly moved back since the Middle Ages.
+
+The current border runs from Plouha on the English Channel to the Rhuys Peninsula on the Bay of Biscay. Because of their origins and practice, Breton and Gallo can be compared to Scottish Gaelic and Scots language in Scotland[citation needed]. Both have been recognised as "Langues de Bretagne" (languages of Brittany) by the Regional Council of Brittany since 2004.
+
+Breton is a Celtic language derived from the historical Common Brittonic language, and is most closely related to Cornish and Welsh. It was imported to Western Armorica during the 5th century by Britons fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. Breton remained the language of the rural population, but since the Middle Ages the bourgeoisie, the nobility, and the higher clergy have spoken French.
+
+Government policies in the 19th and 20th centuries made education compulsory and, at the same time, forbade the use of Breton in schools to push non-French speakers into adopting the French language. Nevertheless, until the 1960s Breton was spoken or understood by many of the inhabitants of western Brittany. During the 1970s, Breton schools were opened and the local authorities started to promote the language, which was on the brink of extinction because parents had stopped teaching it to their children.
+
+Having declined from more than one million speakers around 1950 to about 200,000 in the first decade of the 21st century, of whom 61% are more than 60 years old, Breton is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. However, the number of children attending bilingual classes has risen 33% between 2006 and 2012 to 14,709.[64][65]
+
+The Breton language has several dialects which have no precise limits but rather form a continuum. Most of them are very similar to each other, with only some phonetic and lexical differences. The three main dialects spoken in the western end of Brittany are:
+
+in opposition to the Vannetais, spoken around Vannes, which is the most differentiated Breton dialect.
+
+According to a 1999 INSEE survey, 12% of the adults of Brittany speak Breton.[66]
+
+Gallo is spoken on the eastern half of Brittany. It is not itself a Celtic language. Like French, it is also descended from Latin (and is classified in the Langues d'oïl branch), but has some Celtic influences, particularly in its vocabulary, whereas French has influences from both Celtic (Gaulish) and Frankish (the Germanic language which arrived after Latin in much of the rest of France).
+
+Unlike Breton, Gallo does not have a long promotion history and it is still often perceived as a poor rural dialect. Moreover, because of its linguistic relationship with Gallo, French imposed itself more easily as the main language in Upper Brittany than in Breton speaking areas. Gallo was simply felt to be an incorrect way of speaking French rather than a separate language. Gallo transmission from parents to children is extremely low and efforts to standardise and publish books in Gallo did not reverse the decline of the language and its lack of prestige.[67]
+
+Gallo is also threatened by the Breton language revival, because Breton is gaining ground in territories that were not previously part of the main Breton-speaking area, and most of all because Breton appears as the national language of Brittany, thus leaving no place for Gallo.[67]
+
+Gallo had never been written before the 20th century, and several writing systems were created. They are however rarely known by the population and signs in Gallo are often unreadable, even for fluent speakers. In Loire-Atlantique, where Gallo is not promoted at all by the local authorities, many people do not even know the word "Gallo" and have no idea that it has writing systems and publications.[67]
+
+The Gallo community is estimated at between 28,300[68] and 200,000[67] speakers. The language is taught on a non-compulsory basis in some schools, high-schools and universities, particularly in Ille-et-Vilaine.[67]
+
+Bretons are mainly Catholic and the Christianisation occurred during the Roman Gaul and Frank era. During the Briton emigration to Brittany, several Christian missionaries, mostly Welsh, came in the region and founded dioceses. They are known as the "Seven founder saints":
+
+Other notable early missionaries are Gildas and the Irish saint Columbanus. In total, Brittany numbers more than 300 "saints" (only a few recognised by the Catholic Church) and, since the 19th century at least, it has been known as one of the most devoutly Catholic regions in France, together with the neighbouring Pays de la Loire region. The proportion of students attending Catholic private schools is the highest in France. The patron saint of Brittany is Saint Anne, the Virgin's mother, but Ivo of Kermartin, a 13th-century priest, called Saint-Yves in French and Sant-Erwan in Breton, can also be considered as a patron saint. His feast, 19 May, is Brittany's national day.
+
+Many distinctive traditions and customs have also been preserved in Brittany. Among them, the "Pardons" are one of the most traditional demonstrations of popular Catholicism. These penitential ceremonies occur in some villages in Lower Brittany on the feast day of the parish's saint. The penitents form a procession and they walk together to a shrine, a church or any sacred place. Some Pardons are reputed for their length, and they all finish by large meals and popular feasts.
+
+There is a very old pilgrimage called the Tro Breizh (tour of Brittany), where the pilgrims walk around Brittany from the grave of one of the seven founder saints to another. Historically, the pilgrimage was made in one trip (a total distance of around 600 km) for all seven saints. Nowadays, however, pilgrims complete the circuit over the course of several years. In 2002, the Tro Breizh included a special pilgrimage to Wales, symbolically making the reverse journey of the Welshmen Sant Paol, Sant Brieg, and Sant Samzun.[69]
+
+The most powerful folk figure is the Ankou or the "Reaper of Death". Sometimes a skeleton wrapped in a shroud with the Breton flat hat, sometimes described as a real human being (the last dead of the year, devoted to bring the dead to Death), he makes his journeys by night carrying an upturned scythe which he throws before him to reap his harvest. Sometimes he is on foot but mostly he travels with a cart, the Karrig an Ankou, drawn by two oxen and a lean horse. Two servants dressed in the same shroud and hat as the Ankou pile the dead into the cart, and to hear it creaking at night means you have little time left to live.[70]
+
+As official religious statistics are forbidden in France, there are no official figures about religious practices in Brittany. However, successive polls show that the region tends to be more and more nonreligious. Catholic religion has started to decline after the Second World War, during the urbanisation of Brittany. A poll conducted in 2006 showed that Morbihan was the only département to have a strong Catholic population, around 70% of its inhabitants belonging to that religion. Loire-Atlantique and Côtes-d'Armor were among the least Catholic French départements, with only 50% of Catholics, while Ille-et-Vilaine and Finistère were at around 65%. Other religions are almost non-existent, apart from Islam which gathers between 1 and 3% of the inhabitants in Ille-et-Vilaine and Loire-Atlantique.[71]
+
+Brittany is home to many megalithic monuments; the words menhir and dolmen come from the Breton language. The largest menhir alignments are the Carnac stones. Other major sites include the Barnenez cairn, the Locmariaquer megaliths, the Menhir de Champ-Dolent, the Mane Braz tumulus and the Gavrinis tomb. Monuments from the Roman period are rare, but include a large temple in Corseul and scarce ruins of villas and city walls in Rennes and Nantes.
+
+Brittany has a large number of medieval buildings. They include numerous Romanesque and French Gothic churches, usually built in local sandstone and granit, castles and half-timbered houses visible in villages, towns and cities. Several Breton towns still have their medieval walls, such as Guérande, Concarneau, Saint-Malo, Vannes, Fougères and Dinan. Major churches include Saint-Pol-de-Léon Cathedral, Tréguier Cathedral, Dol Cathedral, Nantes Cathedral and the Kreisker chapel. Most of the Breton castles were rebuilt between the 13th and the 15th century, such as the Château de Suscinio, the Château de Dinan, the Château de Combourg, the Château de Largoët, the Château de Tonquédec, the Josselin Castle and the Château de Trécesson. The most impressive castles can be seen along the border with France, where stand the Château de Fougères, the Château de Vitré, the Château de Châteaubriant and the Château de Clisson.
+
+The French Renaissance occurred when Brittany lost its independence. The Renaissance architecture is almost absent in the region, except in Upper Brittany, close to the border with France. Major sites include the Château des ducs de Bretagne, the last permanent residence of the dukes, which displays the transition from late Gothic to Renaissance style. The Château de Châteaubriant, a former fortress, was transformed into a vast palace in the Italian style.
+
+In Lower Brittany, the medieval style never totally disappeared. However, local innovations permitted some changes and the birth of a particular style. Its most distinctive feature is the parish close, which displays an elaborately decorated church surrounded by an entirely walled churchyard. Many villages still have their closes, they date from the 16th and 17th centuries and sometimes include an elaborately carved calvary sculpture.
+
+During the 17th and the 18th centuries, the main seaports and towns obtained a typical French look, with baroque and neoclassical buildings. Nantes, which was at the time the biggest French harbour, received a theatre, large avenues and quays, and Rennes was redesigned after a fire in 1720. At the same period, the wealthy ship-owners from Saint-Malo built many mansions called "Malouinières" around their town. Along the coast, Vauban and other French architects designed several citadels, such as in Le Palais and Port-Louis. In rural areas, Breton houses remained simple, with a single floor and a longhouse pattern. They were built with local materials: mostly granite in Lower Brittany and schist in Upper Brittany. Slates and reeds were usually used for roofing. During the 19th century, the Breton architecture was mainly characterised by the Gothic Revival and Eclecticism. Clisson, the southernmost Breton town, was rebuilt in an Italian Romantic style around 1820. The Breton lighthouses were mostly built during the 19th century. The most famous are Ar Men, Phare d'Eckmühl, La Vieille and La Jument. The lighthouse on the Île Vierge is, with 77 meters, the highest in Europe.
+
+At the end of the 19th century, several seaside resorts were created along the coast and villas and hotels were built in historicist, Art Nouveau, and later in the Art Deco styles. These architectures are particularly present in Dinard, La Baule and Bénodet. Architecture from the 20th century can be seen in Saint-Nazaire, Brest and Lorient, three cities destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt afterwards, and in the works of the Breton nationalist architects like James Bouillé and Olier Mordrel.
+
+Until the 19th century, Catholicism had been the main inspiration for Breton artists. The region has a great number of baroque retables, made between the 17th and the 19th century. Breton sculptors were also famous for their ship models that served as ex-votos and for their richly decorated furniture, which features naïve Breton characters and traditional patterns. The box-bed is the most famous Breton piece of furniture. The Breton style had a strong revival between 1900 and the Second World War and it was used by the Seiz Breur movement. The Seiz Breur artists also tried to invent a modern Breton art by rejecting French standards and mixing traditional techniques with new materials. The leading artists of that period were the designer René-Yves Creston, the illustrators Jeanne Malivel and Xavier Haas, and the sculptors Raffig Tullou, Francis Renaud, Georges Robin, Joseph Savina, Jules-Charles Le Bozec and Jean Fréour.
+
+Brittany is also known for its needlework, which can be seen on its numerous headdress models, and for its faience production, which started at the beginning of the 18th century. Quimper faience is known worldwide for its bowls and plates painted by hand, and other towns, such as Pornic, also maintain a similar tradition. The potteries usually feature naïve Breton characters in traditional clothing and daily scenes. The designs have a strong traditional Breton influence, but Orientalism and Art Deco have also been used.
+
+Because of its distinct culture and natural landscape, Brittany has inspired many French artists since the 19th century. The Pont-Aven School, which started to emerge in the 1850s and lasted until the beginning of the 20th century, had a decisive influence on modern painting. The artists who settled in Pont-Aven wanted to break away from the Academic style of the École des Beaux-Arts and later from Impressionism when it began to decline. Among them were Paul Gauguin, Paul Signac, Marc Chagall, Paul Sérusier and Raymond Wintz. Before them, Brittany had also been visited by Academic and Romantic painters like Jean Antoine Théodore de Gudin and Jules Achille Noël who were looking for dramatic seascapes and storms.
+
+Since the early 1970s, Brittany has experienced a tremendous revival of its folk music. Numerous festivals were created, along with smaller fest-noz (popular feasts). The bagadoù, bands composed of bagpipes, bombards and drums (including snare), are also a modern creation, inspired by the Scottish pipe bands. The Lann-Bihoué bagad, one of the most well-known, belongs to the French Navy. It is the only one that does not take part to the annual bagadoù competitions. Celtic harp is also common, as are vocals and dances. The Kan ha diskan is the most common type of singing. The performers sing calls and responses while dancing. Breton dances usually imply circles, chains or couples and they are different in every region. The oldest dances seem to be the passepied and the gavotte, and the newest ones derive from the quadrille and French Renaissance dances.
+
+In the 1960s, several Breton artists started to use contemporary patterns to create a Breton pop music. Among them, Alan Stivell highly contributed to popularise the Celtic harp and Breton music in the world. He also used American rock and roll in his works and influenced 1970s Breton bands such as Kornog, Gwerz and Tri Yann, who revived traditional songs and made them popular across France. Soldat Louis is the main Breton rock band,[citation needed] and Breton singers include Gilles Servat, Glenmor, Dan Ar Braz, Yann-Fañch Kemener, Denez Prigent, Nolwenn Korbell and Nolwenn Leroy. The Manau Hip hop group from Paris has strong Breton and Celtic inspirations.
+
+Yann Tiersen, who composed the soundtrack for Amélie, the Electro band Yelle and the avant-garde singer Brigitte Fontaine are also from Brittany. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray was one of the first western European composers to be influenced by what is now known as world music.
+
+Brittany is closely associated with the Matter of Britain and King Arthur. According to Wace, Brocéliande is located in Brittany and it is nowadays considered to be Paimpont forest. There, ruins of a castle surrounded by a lake are associated with the Lady of the Lake, a dolmen is said to be Merlin's tomb and a path is presented as Morgan le Fay's Val sans Retour. Tristan and Iseult are also said to have lived in Brittany. Another major Breton legend is the story about Ys, a city swallowed by the ocean.
+
+Breton literature before the 19th century was mostly oral.  The oral tradition entertained by medieval poets died out during the 15th century and books in Breton were very rare before 1850. At that time, local writers started to collect and publish local tales and legends and wrote original works.  Published between 1925 and the Second World War, the literary journal Gwalarn favoured a modern Breton literature and helped translating widely known novels into Breton.  After the war, the journal Al Liamm pursued that mission. Among the authors writing in Breton are Auguste Brizeux, a Romantic poet, the neo-Druidic bard Erwan Berthou, Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué, who collected the local legends about King Arthur, Roparz Hemon, founder of Gwalarn, Pêr-Jakez Helias, Glenmor, Pêr Denez and Meavenn.
+
+Breton literature in French includes 19th-century historical novels by Émile Souvestre, travel journals by Anatole Le Braz, poems and novels by Charles Le Goffic, the works of the singer-songwriter Théodore Botrel and of the maritime writer Henri Queffélec. Brittany is also the birthplace of many French writers like François-René de Chateaubriand, Jules Verne, Ernest Renan, Félicité Robert de Lamennais and Pierre Abélard Max Jacob, Alfred Jarry, Victor Segalen, Xavier Grall, Jean Rouaud, Irène Frain, Herve Jaouen,[72] Alain Robbe-Grillet, Pierre-Jakez Hélias, Tristan Corbière, Paul Féval, Jean Guéhenno, Arthur Bernède, André Breton, Patrick Poivre d'Arvor
+
+The Asterix comics, set during the time of Julius Caesar and written in the second half of the twentieth century, are set in Armorica, now Brittany.
+
+The Museum of Brittany, located in Rennes, was founded in 1856. Its collections are mainly dedicated to the history of the region. Museums dedicated to Prehistory and local megaliths are located in Carnac and Penmarch, while several towns like Vannes and Nantes have a museum presenting their own history.
+
+The Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes owns a large collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities as well as drawings and engravings by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Parmigianino, Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt. Its French art collection gathers works by Georges de La Tour, François Boucher, Paul Gauguin, Auguste Rodin, Camille Corot and Robert Delaunay. It has also works by Pablo Picasso, Rubens, Peter Lely and Paolo Veronese. The collections of the Museum of Fine Arts of Nantes are more dedicated to modern and contemporary art and contain works by Edward Burne-Jones, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet, Paul Signac, Tamara de Lempicka, Wassily Kandinsky, Max Ernst, Pierre Soulages and Piero Manzoni. The Museums of Fine Arts of Brest and Quimper offer similar collections, with large quantities of French painting together with the works of some Italian and Dutch artists. The Museum of Fine Arts Pont-Aven is dedicated to the School of Pont-Aven. Contemporary sculptures can be seen in the park around the Château de Kerguéhennec, in Bignan.
+
+Museums in Saint-Malo, Lorient and Douarnenez are dedicated to ships and maritime traditions and history. The Musée national de la Marine has a large annex in Brest and a submarine is opened to visitors in Lorient. In the same town, it is also possible to visit the Keroman Submarine Museum, and the Cité de la voile Éric Tabarly, a museum dedicated to sailing. In Saint-Nazaire, where many transatlantic ships where built, including SS Normandie and SS France, a museum showing transatlantic interiors was installed in a Second World War base. Nantes has a museum dedicated to Jules Verne, a Natural History Museum and a museum of archaeology and design, the Musée Dobrée.
+
+Brittany has a vibrant calendar of festivals and events. It hosts some of France's biggest contemporary music festivals, such as La Route du Rock in Saint-Malo, the Vieilles Charrues in Carhaix, the Rencontres Trans Musicales in Rennes, the Festival du Bout du Monde in Crozon, the Hellfest in Clisson and the Astropolis in Brest. The Festival Interceltique de Lorient welcomes each year participants all the Celtic nations and their diasporas. La Folle Journée, in Nantes, is the largest classical music festival in France.
+
+The Breton culture is highlighted during the Fête de la Bretagne, which occurs in many places around Saint-Yves's day (19 May), and during the Festival de Cornouaille in Quimper. Several towns also organise historical re-enactments and events celebrating local traditions, such as the Filets Bleus in Concarneau which celebrates fishing.
+
+Brittany also has some film festivals like the Three Continents Festival in Nantes. The Utopiales international science fiction festival is held in the same city. Brest and Douarnenez both organise large tall ship meetings.
+
+Football, cycling and sailing are the three most popular sports in Brittany. Major football teams are the FC Nantes, the Stade Rennais F.C., the FC Lorient, the Stade Brestois 29, the Vannes OC and the En Avant de Guingamp. Professional footballers coming from the region also form the Brittany national football team which sometimes plays with national teams.
+
+Several Bretons have won the Tour de France: Bernard Hinault, Louison Bobet, Jean Robic and Lucien Petit-Breton as riders, and Cyrille Guimard as a directeur sportif.
+
+Sailing is particularly important for sea-resorts like La Trinité-sur-Mer, Pornichet, Concarneau, Lorient and the îles de Glénan, where a prestigious school is located. A great number of Bretons have become acclaimed sailors, such as: Éric Tabarly, Loïck Peyron, Jean Le Cam, Michel Desjoyeaux, Olivier de Kersauson, Thomas Coville, Vincent Riou and Marc Pajot. The Route du Rhum, the Transat Québec-Saint-Malo, the Jules Verne Trophy are the main Breton sailing competitions. The Solitaire du Figaro stages often start in Brittany.
+
+Gouren, a style of folk wrestling, is the most popular Breton sport. The Boule bretonne is related to pétanque. The Palets, common in Upper Brittany and in other French regions, is also related to pétanque, but players use iron disks instead of balls and they have to throw them on a wooden board.
+
+Although Muscadet and Gros Plant white wines are produced south of the Loire, the traditional drink of Brittany is cider. Brittany is the second-largest cider-producing region in France.[73] Breton cider is traditionally served in a bowl or a cup. Brittany also has a long beer-brewing tradition, tracing its roots back to the 17th century. Young artisanal brewers are keeping a variety of beer types alive,[74] such as Coreff de Morlaix, Tri Martolod and Britt. Stronger alcohols include the chouchen, a sort of mead made with wild honey, and an apple eau de vie called lambig.
+
+Crêpes and galettes are the two most well-known Breton dishes. The crêpes, made and served with butter, are eaten for dessert and the galettes are usually salty and made with buckwheat. They traditionally replaced bread as basic food and they can be served with cheese, sausages, bacon, mushrooms or eggs. They can be accompanied by Breton buttermilk called lait ribot. Brittany also has a dish similar to the pot-au-feu known as the kig ha farz, which consists of stewed pork or beef with buckwheat dumplings.
+
+Surrounded by the sea, Brittany offers a wide range of fresh seafood and fish, especially mussels and oysters. Among the seafood specialities is a fish stew called cotriade. The beurre blanc sauce, invented in Saint-Julien-de-Concelles, close to Nantes, is often served with fish. Brittany is also known for its salt, mainly harvested around Guérande and used in butter and milk caramels. The region is notable for its biscuit factories, many towns having their own: Quimper, Lorient, Pont-Aven, Saint-Brieuc, BN and LU in Nantes, La Trinitaine in La Trinité-sur-Mer, and Galettes Saint-Michel in Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef. They usually make their biscuits with salted butter and sell them in iron boxes. Famous Breton pastries include the kouign amann ("butter cake" in Breton) made with bread dough and high quantities of butter and sugar, and the  far, a sort of sweet Yorkshire pudding usually made with plums.
+
+Until the 1970s, the Breton road network was poor because maritime and rail transport prevailed. The French president Charles de Gaulle implemented a major road construction plan in the 1970 and Brittany received over 10 billion francs of investments during 25 years.[75] More than 10,000 km of motorways were built, permitting Breton road transport to multiply by four. The Breton motorways are not toll roads, contrarily to the usual French highways.[76][77]
+
+The main road artery linking cities and other settlements along the north coast is the Route nationale 12 which connects the cities of Rennes, Saint-Brieuc, Morlaix and Brest. It also provides a link to southern Normandy, terminating in Paris. In south Brittany the Route nationale 165 performs a similar role along the south coast providing connections between Nantes, Vannes, Lorient, Quimper and Brest. The Route nationale 164 crosses the centre of the peninsula and connects Rennes to Loudéac, Morlaix and Châteaulin, and the Route nationale 166 links Rennes to Vannes. The Route nationale 137 provides connections between Saint-Malo, Rennes and Nantes and terminates in Bordeaux.
+
+Nantes is linked to Paris by the A11 autoroute, and Rennes is both on the A81 autoroute to Paris and the A84 autoroute to Caen. These highways are standard French toll road.
+
+The biggest Breton airport is Nantes Atlantique Airport. Destination served include the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Morocco. It will be replaced around 2017 by the new Aéroport du Grand Ouest, located 30 km to the north-west of Nantes. The Brest Bretagne Airport is the second airport in Brittany. It is followed by Rennes – Saint-Jacques, Lorient South Brittany and Dinard – Saint-Malo. The Saint-Brieuc – Armor airport serves flights between Brittany and the Channel Islands. Others smaller airport operates domestic flights in Quimper, and Lannion.
+
+Brittany is on two major TGV lines, one linking Paris to Nantes and Le Croisic, on the south coast, and another linking Paris to Rennes and Brest. The LGV Atlantique which stops at Le Mans will be extended to Rennes in 2017, providing faster connections between Paris and Brittany. TGV train services also link the region with cities such as Lyon, Strasbourg, Marseille, and Lille. Secondary train services are operated by TER Bretagne which provides connections between small towns such as Vannes, Carhaix, Roscoff and Paimpol. TER Bretagne also manages coach lines and connections between Rennes and Nantes. TER Pays de la Loire operates trains between Nantes and smaller towns in Loire-Atlantique.
+
+There are ferry services that take passengers, vehicles and freight to Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands. The main companies are Brittany Ferries which operates lines between Plymouth and Roscoff, Portsmouth and Saint-Malo, and Roscoff and Cork. Irish Ferries operates the route Rosslare-Roscoff and Condor Ferries link Saint-Malo with Jersey.
+
+Cycling has always been one of the main sports of Brittany, but leisure cycling and the infrastructure to support it have been growing extremely rapidly. An extensive network of cycle paths and recommended cycle routes has opened up all over the region. Some of these are routes using mainly smaller roads and both signposted and maintained by communes individually, but many are based on dedicated cycle paths often formed by converting disused railway tracks. These help form routes such as 'Vélodyssée' from Roscoff to Nantes and several major routes under the 'V' label (following signs V1, V2 etc.).[78] The old tow-path of the Nantes-Brest canal is now open to cyclists along its entire 385 km length though in places (unlike rail-based cycle paths) it is very meandering and leaving the path will both shorten the distance and provide variety.[79]
+
+As a general rule cyclists are very well respected in the region and many larger towns have cycle-lanes – however traffic is 'cycle-friendly' even in their absence.
+
+The modern flag of Brittany was designed in 1923. It is called Gwenn ha Du ("white and black" in Breton) and it features eleven ermine spots (their number may vary) and nine stripes, the black ones represent the Breton speaking historical dioceses, and the white ones symbolise the gallo speaking dioceses. The flag was created to replace the traditional ermine plain standard, considered too aristocratic and royalist. It was inspired by the American flag and the British Red Ensign.[80] Since the 1920s, the flag has become very popular and it is flown from a large number of institutions. Apart from the ermine flag, Breton historic banners include the Kroaz Du, a white flag with a black cross, the perfect negative of the Cornish flag.
+
+The coat of arms of Brittany, ermine plain, was adopted by John III in 1316. Ermine had been used in Brittany long before, and there is no clue about its origin. It was probably chosen by the dukes because of its similarity with the French fleur-de-lis. The ermine, or stoat, as an animal became the badge of John IV at the end of the 14th century. It appeared later on numerous locations, including churches and castles. According to popular traditions, Anne of Brittany was hunting with her court when she saw a white ermine who preferred to die than to cross a dirty marsh. This episode would have inspired the duchess' motto : "Potius mori quam foedari" ("rather death than dishonour").[81] The motto has later been reused by Breton regiments, local World War II Resistants and cultural movements.
+
+The Breton anthem, although not official, is Bro Gozh ma Zadoù – ("Old Land of My Fathers"). It re-employs both the Welsh anthem's music and that of "Bro Goth agan Tasow" (the national anthem of Cornwall; its lyrics were written at the end of the 19th century).
+
+Colloquial Breton emblems include the Celtic triskelion, the menhirs and dolmens, local dishes such as the galettes, the Bigouden headdress and the traditional black round hat, the fisherman and his yellow raincoat, etc. BZH is a common abbreviation for "Breizh" ("Brittany" in Breton) and people often put BZH stickers on their car-plates, although it is forbidden under French laws.[82] .bzh is an approved Internet top level domain for the Breton culture and languages.[83][84]
+
+Merlin's tomb in the Brocéliande forest, Paimpont
+
+A dolmen in Plouharnel
+
+The city wall of Guérande
+
+Castle of Saint-Malo, Qui Qu'en Grogne Tower
+
+Château de Suscinio
+
+Île Vierge lighthouse
+
+Parlement of Brittany in Rennes
+
+Abbey and lighthouse of Saint-Mathieu
+
+Ar Meilhoù Glaz, a Bagad from Quimper
+
+Festival du chant de marin, sea songs festival in Paimpol
+
+A Breton headdress from Batz-sur-Mer
+
+Modern Brittany - Illustration from Legends & Romances of Brittany by Lewis Spence, illustrated by W. Otway Cannell.

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+Coordinates: 48°00′N 3°00′W / 48.000°N 3.000°W / 48.000; -3.000
+
+Brittany (/ˈbrɪtəni/; French: Bretagne [bʁətaɲ] (listen); Breton: Breizh, pronounced [bʁɛjs] or [bʁɛx];[1] Gallo: Bertaèyn [bəʁtaɛɲ]) is a cultural region in the west of France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period of Roman occupation. It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as a separate nation under the crown.
+
+Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain, with which it shares an etymology).[2] It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, Normandy to the northeast, Pays de la Loire to the southeast, the Bay of Biscay to the south, and the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its land area is 34,023 km2 (13,136 sq mi).
+
+Brittany is the site of some of the world's oldest standing architecture, home to the Barnenez, the Tumulus Saint-Michel and others, which date to the early 5th millennium BC.[3][4] Today, the historical province of Brittany is split among four French departments: Finistère in the west, Côtes-d'Armor in the north, Ille-et-Vilaine in the northeast and Morbihan in the south on the Bay of Biscay.[5] Since reorganisation in 1956, the modern administrative region of Brittany comprises only four of the five Breton departments, or 80% of historical Brittany. The remaining area of old Brittany, the Loire-Atlantique department around Nantes, now forms part of the Pays de la Loire region.
+
+At the 2010 census, the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,475,295. Of these, 71% lived in the region of Brittany, while 29% lived in the Loire-Atlantique department. In 2012, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes (897,713 inhabitants), Rennes (690,467 inhabitants), and Brest (314,844 inhabitants).[6] Brittany is the traditional homeland of the Breton people and is recognised by the Celtic League as one of the six Celtic nations,[7][8][9][10] retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history. A nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the French Republic.[11]
+
+The word Brittany, along with its French, Breton and Gallo equivalents Bretagne, Breizh and Bertaèyn, derive from the Latin Britannia, which means "Britons' land". This word had been used by the Romans since the 1st century to refer to Great Britain, and more specifically the Roman province of Britain. This word derives from a Greek word, Πρεττανικη (Prettanike) or Βρεττανίαι (Brettaniai), used by Pytheas, an explorer from Massalia who visited the British Islands around 320 BC. The Greek word itself comes from the common Brythonic ethnonym reconstructed as *Pritanī, itself from Proto-Celtic *kʷritanoi (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷer- 'to cut, make').
+
+The Romans called Brittany Armorica. It was a quite indefinite region that extended along the English Channel coast from the Seine estuary, then along the Atlantic coast to the Loire estuary and, according to several sources, maybe to the Garonne estuary. This term probably comes from a Gallic word, aremorica, which means "close to the sea".[12] Another name, Letauia (in English "Litavis"), was used until the 12th century. It possibly means "wide and flat" or "to expand" and it gave the Welsh name for Brittany: Llydaw.[13]
+
+After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, many Britons settled in western Armorica, and the region started to be called Britannia, although this name only replaced Armorica in the sixth century or perhaps by the end of the fifth.[14] Later, authors like Geoffrey of Monmouth used the terms Britannia minor and Britannia major to distinguish Brittany from Britain.
+
+Breton-speaking people may pronounce the word Breizh in two different ways, according to their region of origin. Breton can be divided into two main dialects: the KLT (Kerne-Leon-Tregor) and the dialect of Vannes. KLT speakers pronounce it [brɛjs] and would write it Breiz, while the Vannetais speakers pronounce it [brɛχ] and would write it Breih. The official spelling is a compromise between both variants, with a z and an h together. In 1941, efforts to unify the dialects led to the creation of the so-called Breton zh, a standard which has never been widely accepted.[1] On its side, Gallo language has never had a widely accepted writing system and several ones coexist. For instance, the name of the region in that language can be written Bertaèyn in ELG script, or Bertègn in MOGA, and a couple of other scripts also exist.[15]
+
+Brittany has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Paleolithic. The first settlers were Neanderthals. This population was scarce and very similar to the other Neanderthals found in the whole of Western Europe. Their only original feature was a distinct culture, called "Colombanian".[16] One of the oldest hearths in the world has been found in Plouhinec, Finistère. It is 450,000 years old.
+
+Homo sapiens settled in Brittany around 35,000 years ago. They replaced or absorbed the Neanderthals and developed local industries, similar to the Châtelperronian or to the Magdalenian. After the last glacial period, the warmer climate allowed the area to become heavily wooded. At that time, Brittany was populated by relatively large communities who started to change their lifestyles from a life of hunting and gathering, to become settled farmers. Agriculture was introduced during the 5th millennium BC by migrants from the south and east. However, the Neolithic Revolution in Brittany did not happen due to a radical change of population, but by slow immigration and exchange of skills.[17]
+
+Neolithic Brittany is characterised by important megalithic production and sites such as Quelfénnec, it is sometimes designated as the "core area" of megalithic culture.[18] The oldest monuments, cairns, were followed by princely tombs and stone rows. The Morbihan département, on the southern coast, comprises a large share of these structures, including the Carnac stones and the Broken Menhir of Er Grah in the Locmariaquer megaliths, the largest single stone erected by Neolithic people.
+
+During the protohistorical period, Brittany was inhabited by five Celtic tribes:[19]
+
+Those people had strong economic ties to the Insular Celts, especially for the tin trade. Several tribes also belonged to an "Armorican confederation" which, according to Julius Caesar, gathered the Curiosolitae, the Redones, the Osismii, the Unelli, the Caletes, the Lemovices and the Ambibarii.[21] The last four peoples mentioned by Caesar were respectively located in Cotentin (Lower-Normandy), pays de Caux (Upper-Normandy), Limousin (Aquitany) and the location of the Ambibarii is unknown. The Caletes are sometimes also considered as Belgians and ″Lemovices″ is probably a mistake for ″Lexovii″ (Lower-Normandy).
+
+The region became part of the Roman Republic in 51 BC. It was included in the province of Gallia Lugdunensis in 13 BC. Gallic towns and villages were redeveloped according to Roman standards, and several cities were created. These cities are Condate (Rennes), Vorgium (Carhaix), Darioritum (Vannes) and Condevincum or Condevicnum (Nantes). Together with Fanum Martis (Corseul), they were the capitals of the local civitates. They all had a grid plan and a forum, and sometimes a temple, a basilica, thermae or an aqueduct, like Carhaix.
+
+The Romans also built three major roads through the region. However, most of the population remained rural. The free peasants lived in small huts, whereas the landowners and their employees lived in proper villae rusticae. The Gallic deities continued to be worshiped, and were often assimilated to the Roman gods. Only a small number of statues depicting Roman gods were found in Brittany, and most of the time they combine Celtic elements.[22]
+
+During the 3rd century AD, the region was attacked several times by Franks, Alamanni and pirates. At the same time, the local economy collapsed and many farming estates were abandoned. To face the invasions, many towns and cities were fortified, like Nantes, Rennes and Vannes.[22]
+
+Toward the end of the 4th century, the Britons of what is now Wales and the South-Western peninsula of Great Britain began to emigrate to Armorica.
+
+The history behind such an establishment is unclear, but medieval Breton, Angevin and Welsh sources connect it to a figure known as Conan Meriadoc. Welsh literary sources assert that Conan came to Armorica on the orders of the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus,[a] who sent some of his British troops to Gaul to enforce his claims and settled them in Armorica. This account was supported by the Counts of Anjou, who claimed descent from a Roman soldier[b] expelled from Lower Brittany by Conan on Magnus's orders.
+
+Regardless of the truth of this story, Brythonic (British Celtic) settlement probably increased during the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries.
+
+Scholars such as Léon Fleuriot have suggested a two-wave model of migration from Britain which saw the emergence of an independent Breton people and established the dominance of the Brythonic Breton language in Armorica.[23] Their petty kingdoms are now known by the names of the counties that succeeded them—Domnonée (Devon), Cornouaille (Cornwall), Léon (Caerleon); but these names in Breton and Latin are in most cases identical to their British homelands. (In Breton and French, however, Gwened or Vannetais continued the name of the indigenous Veneti.) Although the details remain confused, these colonies consisted of related and intermarried dynasties which repeatedly unified (as by the 7th-century Saint Judicaël) before splintering again according to Celtic inheritance practices.
+
+The area was finally consolidated in the 840s under Nominoe in resistance to Frankish control.[24] Among the immigrant Britons, there were some clergymen who helped the evangelisation of the region, which was still pagan, particularly in rural areas.
+
+The army recruited for Flavius Aetius to combat Attila the Hun at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains included Romans, Visigoths, Franks, Alans and Armoricans, amongst others.  The Alans were placed front and centre, opposite the Huns. The Armoricans supplied archers who attacked the Huns' front lines during the main battle and thwarted Attila's night assault on the Roman camp with a hail of arrows "like rain".  After the battle was won, Aetius sent the Alans to Armorica and Galicia.
+
+The late 5th century Brittonic leader Riothamus received correspondence from the eminent Roman jurist Sidonius Apollinaris and was called "King of the Britons" by Jordanes.  Some suggest that he was a Breton, though others believe that he was from Britain, pointing to the passage that he arrived in the land of the Biturges "by way of Ocean", which would hardly have been efficient or required for a Breton.  Both historians describe Riothamus's losing battle against King Euric of the Visigoths at Déols around the year 470.
+
+In response to a plea from the Roman Emperor Anthemius, Riothamus had led twelve thousand men to establish a military presence in Bourges in central Gaul, but was betrayed by Arvandus, the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, and subsequently ambushed by Euric's army.[c] After a long battle, the Armorican survivors escaped to Avallon in Burgundy, after which they are lost to history.  According to Breton king-lists, Riotham survived and reigned as Prince of Domnonia until his death sometime between 500 and 520, though this may have been a different person.
+
+At the beginning of the medieval era, Brittany was divided between three kingdoms, Domnonea, Cornouaille and Broërec. These realms eventually merged into a single state during the 9th century.[25][26] The unification of Brittany was carried out by Nominoe, king between 845 and 851 and considered as the Breton Pater Patriae. His son Erispoe secured the independence of the new kingdom of Brittany and won the Battle of Jengland against Charles the Bald. The Bretons won another war in 867, and the kingdom reached then its maximum extent: it received parts of Normandy, Maine and Anjou and the Channel Islands.
+
+Brittany was heavily attacked by the Vikings at the beginning of the 10th century. The kingdom lost its eastern territories, including Normandy and Anjou, and the county of Nantes was given to Fulk I of Anjou in 909. However, Nantes was seized by the Vikings in 914.
+
+Nantes was eventually liberated by Alan II of Brittany in 937 with the support of his god-brother King Æthelstan of England.
+
+Alan II totally expelled the Vikings from Brittany and recreated a strong Breton state. For aiding in removing problem Alan paid homage to Louis IV of France (who was Æthelstan's nephew and had returned from England in the same year as Alan II) and thus Brittany ceased to be a kingdom and became a duchy.
+
+Several Breton lords helped William the Conqueror to invade England and received large estates there (e.g. William's double-second cousin Alan Rufus and the latter's brother Brian of Brittany). Some of these lords were powerful rivals.
+
+Medieval Brittany was far from being a united nation. The French king maintained envoys in Brittany, alliances contracted by local lords often overlapped and there was no specific Breton unity. For example, Brittany replaced Latin with French as its official language in the 13th century, 300 years before France did so itself, and the Breton language didnt have formal status.
+
+The foreign policy of the Duchy changed many times; the Dukes were usually independent but they often contracted alliances with England or France depending on who was threatening them at that point. Their support for each nation became very important during the 14th century, because the English kings had started to claim the French throne.
+
+The Breton War of Succession, a local episode of the Hundred Years' War, saw the House of Blois, backed by the French, fighting with the House of Montfort, backed by the English. The Montforts won in 1364 and enjoyed a period of total independence until the end of the Hundred Years' War, because France was weakened and stopped sending royal envoys to the Court of Brittany.
+
+English diplomatic failures led to the Breton cavalry commanders Arthur, Comte de Richemont (later to become Arthur III, Duke of Brittany) and his nephew Peter II, Duke of Brittany playing key roles on the French side during the deciding stages of the war (including the battles of Patay, Formigny and Castillon and the Treaty of Arras).
+
+Brittany importantly lost the Mad War against France in 1488, mostly because of its internal divisions which were exacerbated by the corruption at the court of Francis II, Duke of Brittany. Indeed, some rebel Breton lords were fighting on the French side.
+
+As a result of the Mad War, the Duke Francis II could not marry off his daughter Anne without the King of France's consent. Nonetheless, she married the Holy Roman Emperor in 1490,  leading to a crisis with France. Charles VIII of France besieged Rennes and had the marriage cancelled. He eventually married Anne of Brittany. After he died childless, the Duchess had to marry his heir and cousin Louis XII. Anne unsuccessfully tried to preserve Breton independence, but she died in 1514 and the union between the two crowns was formally carried out by Francis I in 1532. He granted several privileges to Brittany, such as exemption from the gabelle, a tax on salt which was very unpopular in France.[27] Under the Ancien Régime, Brittany and France were governed as separate countries but under the same crown, so Breton aristocrats in the French royal court were classed as Princes étrangers (foreign princes).
+
+From the 15th to the 18th century, Brittany reached an economic golden age.[d] The region was located on the seaways between Spain, England and the Netherlands and it greatly benefited from the creation of a French colonial empire. Local seaports like Brest and Saint-Brieuc quickly expanded, and Lorient, first spelled "L'Orient", was founded in the 17th century. Saint-Malo was then known for its corsairs, Brest was a major base for the French Navy and Nantes flourished with the Atlantic slave trade. On its side, the inland provided hemp ropes and canvas and linen sheets. However, Colbertism, which encouraged the creation of many factories, did not favour the Breton industry because most of the royal factories were opened in other provinces. Moreover, several conflicts between France and England led the latter to restrain its trade, and the Breton economy went into recession during the 18th century.
+
+Two significant revolts occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries: the Revolt of the papier timbré (1675) and the Pontcallec conspiracy (1719). Both arose from attempts to resist centralisation and assert Breton constitutional exceptions to tax.[28]
+
+Many Bretons crossed the Atlantic to support the American War of Independence.[29] These included many sailors such as Armand de Kersaint and soldiers such as Charles Armand Tuffin, marquis de la Rouërie.
+
+The Duchy was legally abolished during the French Revolution, in 1789, and divided into five departments. Brittany also lost all its privileges. Three years later, the area became a centre of royalist and Catholic resistance to the Revolution during the Chouannerie. During the 19th century, Brittany remained in economic recession, and many Bretons emigrated to other French regions, particularly to Paris. This trend remained strong until the beginning of the 20th century. Nonetheless, the region was also modernising, with new roads and railways being built, and some places being industrialised. Nantes specialised in shipbuilding and food processing (sugar, exotic fruits and vegetables, fish...), Fougères in glass and shoe production, and metallurgy was practised in small towns such as Châteaubriant and Lochrist, known for its labour movements.
+
+The region remained deeply Catholic, and during the Second Empire, the conservative values were strongly reasserted. When the Republic was re-established in 1871, there were rumours that Breton troops were mistrusted and mistreated at Camp Conlie during the Franco-Prussian War because of fears that they were a threat to the Republic.[30]
+
+During the 19th century, the Breton language started to decline precipitously, mainly because of the Francization policy conducted under the Third Republic. On one hand, children were not allowed to speak Breton at school, and were punished by teachers if they did. Famously, signs in schools read: "It is forbidden to speak Breton and to spit on the floor" ("Il est interdit de parler Breton et de cracher par terre").[31]
+
+At the same time, the Celtic Revival led to the foundation of the Breton Regionalist Union (URB) and later to independence movements linked to Irish, Welsh, and Scottish independence parties in the UK, and to pan-Celticism. However, the audience of these movements remained very low and their ideas did not reach a large public until the 20th century. The Seiz Breur movement, created in 1923, permitted a Breton artistic revival[32] but its ties with Nazism and the collaborationism of the Breton National Party during World War II weakened Breton nationalism in the post-war period.
+
+Brittany lost 240,000 men during the First World War.[33] The Second World War was also catastrophic for the region. It was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940 and freed after Operation Cobra in August 1944. However, the areas around Saint-Nazaire and Lorient only surrendered on 10 and 11 May 1945, several days after the German capitulation. The two port towns had been virtually destroyed by Allied air raids, like Brest and Saint-Malo, and other towns, such as Nantes and Rennes, had also suffered.
+
+In 1956, Brittany was legally reconstituted as the Region of Brittany, although the region excluded the ducal capital of Nantes and the surrounding area. Nevertheless, Brittany retained its cultural distinctiveness, and a new cultural revival emerged during the 1960s and 1970s. Bilingual schools were opened, singers started to write songs in Breton, and ecological catastrophes such as the Amoco Cadiz oil spill or the Erika oil spill and water pollution because of intensive pig farming favoured new movements to protect the natural heritage.
+
+Brittany as a political entity disappeared in 1790, when it was divided into five départements. The Breton départements more or less correspond to the nine Catholic dioceses that appeared at the beginning of the Middle Ages. They were often called "pays" or "bro" ("country" in French and Breton) and they also served as fiscal and military districts.[34] Brittany is also divided between Lower Brittany ("Basse Bretagne" and "Breizh Izel"), corresponding to the western half, where Breton is traditionally spoken, and Upper Brittany ("Haute Bretagne" and "Breizh Uhel"), corresponding to the eastern half, where Gallo is traditionally spoken. The historical Breton dioceses were:
+
+During the French Revolution, four dioceses were suppressed and the five remaining ones were modified to have the same administrative borders as the départements.
+
+Brittany has several historical capital cities. When it was an independent duchy, the Estates of Brittany, which can be compared to a parliament, met in various towns: Dinan, Ploërmel, Redon, Rennes, Vitré, Guérande, and, most of all, Vannes, where they met 19 times, and Nantes, 17 times. The Court and the government were also very mobile, and each dynasty favoured its own castles and estates. The dukes mostly lived in Nantes, Vannes, Redon, Rennes, Fougères, Dol-de-Bretagne, Dinan and Guérande. All these towns except Vannes are located in Upper Brittany, thus not in the Breton speaking area.
+
+Among all these towns, only Nantes, Rennes and Vannes, which were the biggest ones, could really pretend to the capital status. The dukes were crowned in Rennes and they had a large castle there; it was however destroyed during the 15th century. Vannes, on its side, was the seat of the Chamber of Accounts and of the Parliament until the union with France. The Parliament was then transferred to Rennes, and the Chamber of Accounts to Nantes. Nantes, nicknamed "the city of the Dukes of Brittany", was also the permanent residence of the last dukes. The Château des ducs de Bretagne still stands in the city centre. Nowadays, Rennes is the only official capital of the region of Brittany. It is also the seat of an ecclesiastical province encompassing Brittany and the Pays de la Loire region.
+
+During the French Revolution, Brittany was divided into five départements, each made up of three or four arrondissements. The arrondissements are further divided in cantons, which are themselves made up of one or several communes. The communes and the départements have a local council elected by their citizens, but arrondissements and cantons are not run by elected officials. The cantons serve as an electoral district for the election of the département councils and arrondissements are run by a subprefect appointed by the French president. The president also appoints a prefect in each département.
+
+Because the départements are small and numerous, the French government tried to create wider regions during the 20th century. For the Breton nationalists, it was an occasion to recreate Brittany as a political and administrative entity, but the new region had to be economically efficient. Nantes and its département, Loire-Atlantique, raised concerns because they were off-centered, more integrated with the Loire Valley than with the Breton peninsula. The French government and local politicians also feared that Nantes, because of its population and its former Breton capital status, would have maintained a harmful competition with Rennes to get the regional institutions and investments.
+
+Several drafts for French regions had been proposed since the 1920s, and the definitive regions were drawn in 1956. The new Brittany had four départements, and Loire-Atlantique formed the Pays de la Loire region together with parts of Anjou, Maine and Poitou. In 1972, the regions received their present competencies, with an elected regional council. Since then, the region of Brittany has had its own council and administrative bodies.
+
+When the region of Brittany was created, several local politicians opposed the exclusion of Loire-Atlantique, and the question still remains.
+
+The obstacles to reunification are the same as in 1956: having Nantes in Brittany could harm the position of Rennes and create an economic imbalance between Lower and Upper Brittany. Moreover, the Pays de la Loire region could not exist without Loire-Atlantique, because it would lose its political and economic capital. Without Loire-Atlantique, the other départements would not form an efficient region any more, and would have to integrate neighbouring regions such as the Centre-Val de Loire and Poitou-Charentes.
+
+However, several institutions have backed the reunification, such as the regional council of Brittany since 2008 and the Loire-Atlantique council since 2001. Some politicians like Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French prime minister and former mayor of Nantes, favour instead the creation of a "Greater West region", which would encompass Brittany and the Pays de la Loire region. Polls show that 58% of the Bretons and 62% of the inhabitants in Loire-Atlantique favour the reunification.[35]
+
+Until the end of the 20th century, Brittany had been characterised by a strong Catholic and conservative influence. However, some areas such as the industrial region around Saint-Nazaire and Lorient and the surroundings of Tréguier are traditional Socialist and Communist strongholds. Left-wing parties, mainly the Socialist party and the Greens, have become more and more powerful after the 1970s and they have formed a majority in the Regional Council of Brittany since 2004. The Loire-Atlantique and Ille-et-Vilaine councils have also been held by the left since 2004.
+
+The Socialist party has held the Côtes-d'Armor council since 1976, and the Finistère council since 1998. On its side, Morbihan remains a right-wing stronghold. The local parties have a very small audience, except the Union Démocratique Bretonne which has seats at the Regional Council and in other local assemblies. It advocates more autonomy for the region and its positions are very close to the Socialist parties. It also has a strong ecological orientation. The audience of far-right parties is lower in Brittany than in the rest of France.[36]
+
+Brittany is the largest French peninsula. It is around 34,030 km2 (13,140 sq mi) and stretches towards the northwest and the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered to the north by the English Channel, to the south by the Bay of Biscay and the waters located between the western coast and Ushant island form the Iroise Sea.
+
+The Breton coast is very indented, with many cliffs, rias and capes. The Gulf of Morbihan is a vast natural harbour with some forty islands that is almost a closed sea. In total, around 800 islands lie off the mainland; the largest being Belle Île, in the south. Brittany has over 2,860 km (1,780 mi) of coastline; it represents a third of the total French coastline.
+
+The region is generally hilly because it corresponds to the western end of the Armorican massif, a very old range that also extends in Normandy and the Pays de la Loire region. Because of this continuity, the Breton border with the rest of France is not marked by any strong geographical landmark, apart from the river Couesnon, which separates Brittany from Normandy.
+
+The Armorican massif reaches its maximal elevation outside of Brittany, in neighbouring Mayenne, at 417 m, and slopes towards the west before straightening on its western extremity, with the Montagnes Noires and the Monts d'Arrée. The highest hill in Brittany is the Roc'h Ruz in the Monts d'Arrée, at 385 m (1,263 ft). It is closely followed by several neighbouring hills culminating at around 384 m above sea level.[37]
+
+Coastal areas are usually named Armor or Arvor ("by the sea" in Breton), and the inland is called Argoat ("by the forest"). The best soils were primitively covered by large forests which had been progressively replaced by bocage during the Middle Ages. The Breton bocage, with its small fields enclosed by thick hedgerows, has almost disappeared since the 1960s to fit the modern agricultural needs and methods, particularly mechanisation.
+
+Several forests still exist, such as the Paimpont forest, sometimes said to be the Arthurian Brocéliande. The poor and rocky areas are covered by large heathland and moorlands, and Brittany has several marshes, like the Brière, included in a regional natural park. Another regional park encompasses the Monts d'Arrée and the Iroise seacoast. The Iroise Sea is also a UNESCO biosphere reserve.
+
+The Breton peninsula appeared during the Cadomian Orogeny, which formed its northern coastline, between Guingamp and Fougères. The southern part emerged during the Hercynian orogeny. At the same time, an intense volcanic activity left large quantities of granite. Between the Cadomian and Hercynian periods, the region was submerged several times and the sea left fossils and sedimentary rocks, mostly schist and sandstone. Because of the absence of limestone, soils in Brittany are usually acid.
+
+The Armorican massif straightened and flattened several times during the formation of the Pyrenees and the Alps. Changes in sea levels and climate led to a strong erosion and to the formation of more sedimentary rocks. Metamorphism is responsible for the distinctive local blue schist and for the rich subsoil of the Groix island, which comprises glaucophane and epidote.[38]
+
+During the Quaternary glaciations, Brittany was covered by loess and rivers started to fill the valleys with alluvial deposits. The valleys themselves were a result of a strong tectonic activity between the African and the Eurasian plate. The present Breton landscape did not acquired its final shape before one million years ago. The Breton subsoil is characterised by a huge amount of fractures that form a large aquifer containing several millions square meters of water.[38]
+
+Brittany lies within the north temperate zone. It has a changeable, maritime climate, similar to Cornwall. Rainfall occurs regularly but sunny, cloudless days are also common. In the summer months, temperatures in the region can reach 30 °C (86 °F), yet the climate remains comfortable, especially when compared to the French regions located south of the Loire. The temperature difference between summer and winter is about fifteen degrees, but it varies depending on the proximity of the sea. The weather is generally milder on the seacoast than inland but rainfall occurs with the same intensity on both. The Monts d'Arrée, despite their low elevation, have much more rainfall than the rest of the region. The south coast, between Lorient and Pornic, enjoys more than 2,000 hours of sunshine per year.[39]
+
+Brittany's wildlife is typical of France with several distinctions. On one hand, the region, due to its long coastline, has a rich oceanic fauna, and some birds cannot be seen in other French regions. On the other hand, the species found in the inland are usually common for France, and because Brittany is a peninsula, the number of species is lower in its western extremity than in the eastern part.
+
+A variety of seabirds can be seen close to the seaside, which is home to colonies of cormorants, gulls, razorbills, northern gannets, common murres and Atlantic puffins. Most of these birds breed on isolated islands and rocks and thus are hard to observe. The inland is home to common European species including pheasants, barn swallows, woodcocks, common swifts, partridges...[40]
+
+Like Cornwall, Wales and Ireland, the waters of Brittany attract marine animals including basking sharks, grey seals, leatherback turtles, dolphins, porpoises, jellyfish, crabs and lobsters. Bass is common along the coast, small-spotted catsharks live on the continental shelf, rattails and anglerfish populate the deep waters. River fish of note include trout, Atlantic salmon, pikes, shades and lampreys. The Breton rivers are also home to beavers and otters and to some invasive American species, such as the coypu which destroys the ecosystem and accelerated the extinction of the European mink.[41]
+
+Among the invertebrates, Brittany is notably home to the escargot de Quimper, the freshwater pearl mussel and the white-clawed crayfish.[42] The larger Breton mammals died out during the modern period, including the wolf. Today, mammals of note include roe deer, wild boar, foxes, hares and several species of bat.[43]
+
+Brittany is widely known for the Breton horse, a local breed of draft horse, and for the Brittany gun dog. The region also has its own breeds of cattle, some of which are on the brink of extinction: the Bretonne Pie Noir, the Froment du Léon, the Armorican and the Nantaise.
+
+The Breton forests, dunes, moorlands and marshes are home to several iconic plants, such as endemic cistus, aster and linaria varieties, the horseshoe vetch and the lotus maritimus.[44]
+
+Brittany has the same education system as the rest of France. As in other French regions, formal education before the 19th century was the preserve of the elite. Before 1460, Brittany did not have a university, and Breton students had to go to Angers, Poitiers or Caen. The University of Nantes was founded under the duke Francis II, who wanted to affirm the Breton independence from France. All the traditional disciplines were taught here: arts, theology, law and medicine. During the 17th century, it had around 1,500 students. It declined during the 18th century, mostly because Nantes was flourishing with the Atlantic slave trade and paid no attention to its cultural institutions.
+
+A mayor eventually asked the university to be relocated to Rennes, more devoted to culture and science, and the faculties progressively moved there after 1735.[45] The transfer was interrupted by the French Revolution, and all the French universities were dissolved in 1793.
+
+Napoleon reorganised the French education system in 1808. He created new universities and invented two secondary education institutions: the "collèges" and the "lycées" which were opened in numerous towns to educate boys and form a new elite. A new University of Rennes was progressively recreated during the 19th century. In the meantime, several laws were promoted to open schools, notably for girls. In 1882, Jules Ferry succeeded in passing a law which made primary education in France free, non-clerical (laïque) and mandatory. Thus, free schools were opened in almost every villages of Brittany. Jules Ferry also promoted education policies establishing French language as the language of the Republic, and mandatory education was a mean to eradicate regional languages and dialects. In Brittany, it was forbidden for the pupils to speak Breton or Gallo, and the two were strongly depreciated. Humiliating practices aimed at stamping out the Breton language and culture prevailed in state schools until the late 1960s.[46] In response, the Diwan schools were founded in 1977 to teach Breton by immersion. They have taught a few thousand young people from elementary school to high school, and they have gained more and more fame owing to their high level of results in school exams.[47] A bilingual approach has also been implemented in some state schools after 1979, and some Catholic schools have done the same after 1990. Besides, Brittany, with the neighbouring Pays de la Loire region, remains a stronghold for Catholic private education with around 1,400 schools.[48]
+
+During the 20th century, tertiary education was developed with the creation of the École centrale de Nantes in 1919, the University of Nantes in 1961, the ESC Bretagne Brest in 1962, the University of Western Brittany in 1971, the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne in 1977 and the University of Southern Brittany in 1995. The Catholic University of the West, based in Angers, also opened classes in several Breton towns. In 1969, the University of Rennes was divided between the University of Rennes 1 and the University of Rennes 2 – Upper Brittany. After the Second World War, the Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, the foremost French military academy, settled in Coëtquidan.
+
+Brittany, apart from some areas such as Lorient, Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, has never been heavily industrialised. Today, fishing and agriculture remain important activities. Brittany has more than 40,000 agricultural exploitations, mostly oriented towards cattle, pig and poultry breeding, as well as cereal and vegetable production. The number of exploitations tends to diminish, but as a result, they are merged into very large estates. Brittany is the first producer in France for vegetables (green beans, onions, artichokes, potatoes, tomatoes...). Cereals are mostly grown for cattle feeding. Wine, especially muscadet, is made in a small region south of Nantes. Brittany is the first region in France for fishing. The activity employs around 9,000 people, and more than 60 firms work in fish and seafood processing.[49]
+
+Although relatively new, the Breton industry has been constantly growing since 1980. Food processing (meat, vegetables...) represents a third of the industrial jobs, but other activities are also important for the local economy. Shipbuilding, both commercial and military, is implanted in Saint-Nazaire (Chantiers de l'Atlantique), Lorient and Brest; Airbus has plants in Saint-Nazaire and Nantes; and Peugeot has a large factory in Rennes. Brittany is the second French region for telecommunication and the fifth for electronics, two activities mainly developed in Rennes, Lannion and Brest. Tourism is particularly important for the seacoast and Brittany is one of the most visited regions in France.[49] In April 2019, The Guardian's travel section included two Brittany locations in its list of 20 of the most beautiful villages in France. The two were Rochefort-en-Terre with "its covered market, 12th-century church, medieval castle, 19th-century chateau, and 16th- and 17th-century mansions" and Locronan, where "East India Company’s offices still stand on the village square, as well as 17th-century merchants' dwellings".[50]
+
+The unemployment rate in Brittany is lower than in other French regions and it is usually around 6 or 7% of the active population.[51] Because of the global financial crisis started in 2007, unemployment rose to 8.7% in the Region Brittany and 8.4% in Loire-Atlantique in late 2012. However, these figures remain under the French national rate (9.9% at the same period).[52][53] Some industries, such as construction, industry, catering or transport, usually have difficulties finding employees.[51]
+
+In 2009, Region Brittany's gross domestic product reached 82 billion euros. It was the seventh richest region in France and it produced 4.4% of the national GDP. The Breton GDP per capita was around 25,739 euros in 2009.[54] It was lower than the French result, 29,897 euros, but higher than the European one, 23,500 euros. The GDP of the Loire-Atlantique département is around 26 billion euros, and the GDP of the five historical Breton départements would be at around 108 billion euros.[55]
+
+In 2012, the population in Region Brittany was estimated to 3,195,317 and Loire-Atlantique had around 1,303,103 inhabitants, thus historical Brittany's population can be estimated at 4,552,918, the highest in its history.[56][57] The population in Region Brittany had grown by 0.9% between 1999 and 2000, and the growth rate reached more than 1% in Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan. The region around Rennes and the south are the more attractive areas, whereas the population is declining in the centre and in the westernmost parts. While most of the metropolitan areas are growing, the cities themselves tend to stagnate or regress, such as for Brest, Lorient, Saint-Brieuc and Saint-Malo. In 2008, Ille-et-Vilaine had 967,588 inhabitants, it was followed by Morbihan, 710,034 inhabitants, Finistère 890,509 inhabitants, and Côtes-d'Armor, with 581,570 inhabitants.
+
+The largest cities in Region Brittany were Rennes, with 206,655, Brest, 142,097, Quimper, 63,929, Lorient, 58,148, Vannes, 52,983, Saint-Malo, 48,211, and Saint-Brieuc, 45,879. All the other communes had under 20,000 inhabitants. Brittany is also characterised by a great number of small towns, such as Vitré, Concarneau, Morlaix or Auray. Loire-Atlantique has two major cities, Nantes, with 283,288 inhabitants and an urban area encompassing 873,133, and Saint-Nazaire, with 67,031 inhabitants. Loire-Atlantique's population is more rapidly growing than Region Brittany's and it is the 12th most populated French département.[58] Nevertheless, since the 1990s, Rennes has consistently ranked as one of France's fastest growing metropolitan areas.
+
+In 1851, Brittany had around 2.7 million inhabitants and the demographic growth stayed low until the second half of the 20th century, mainly because of an important emigration. Brittany had 3.2 million inhabitants in 1962 and the growth was mainly due to Loire-Atlantique and the steady growth of Nantes. Without the Loire-Atlantique's figures, the Breton population only numbered 2.4 million in 1962, nearly unchanged from its population of 2.3 million in 1851.[59][60] After the 1960s, the whole region has had a strong demographic growth because of the decline of the traditional emigration to richer French regions. Instead, Brittany has become attractive, particularly for families, young retired persons and active people over 35 years old.[61]
+
+Breton political parties do not have wide support and their electoral success is small. However, Bretons have a strong cultural identity. According to a poll made in 2008, 50% of the inhabitants of the Region Brittany consider themselves as much Breton as French, 22.5% feel more Breton than French, and 15.4% more French than Breton. A minority, 1.5%, considers itself Breton but not French, while 9.3% do not consider themselves to be Breton at all.[62]
+
+51.9% of the poll respondents agreed that Brittany should have more political power, and 31.1% thought that it should stay the same. Only 4.6% favoured independence, and 9.4% were undecided.[62]
+
+A 2012 poll taken in the five departments of historical Brittany showed that 48% of the respondents considered themselves belonging first to France, 37% to Brittany, and 10% to Europe. It also showed that Breton identity is stronger among people younger than 35. 53% of them considering themselves to belong first to Brittany. 50% of the older respondents considered themselves belonging first to France. Primary Breton identity is at its lowest among the respondents over 65: 58% consider themselves to belong first to France, with European identify secondary. 21% of the respondents over 65 considering themselves to be European first. Breton self-identification is stronger among people who vote left-wing. It is stronger among employees than employers.[63]
+
+French, the only official language of the French Republic, is spoken today by the vast majority in Brittany, and it is the mother tongue of most people. Nonetheless, French was not widely known before the 19th century, and two regional languages exist in Brittany: Breton and Gallo. They are separated by a language border that has constantly moved back since the Middle Ages.
+
+The current border runs from Plouha on the English Channel to the Rhuys Peninsula on the Bay of Biscay. Because of their origins and practice, Breton and Gallo can be compared to Scottish Gaelic and Scots language in Scotland[citation needed]. Both have been recognised as "Langues de Bretagne" (languages of Brittany) by the Regional Council of Brittany since 2004.
+
+Breton is a Celtic language derived from the historical Common Brittonic language, and is most closely related to Cornish and Welsh. It was imported to Western Armorica during the 5th century by Britons fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. Breton remained the language of the rural population, but since the Middle Ages the bourgeoisie, the nobility, and the higher clergy have spoken French.
+
+Government policies in the 19th and 20th centuries made education compulsory and, at the same time, forbade the use of Breton in schools to push non-French speakers into adopting the French language. Nevertheless, until the 1960s Breton was spoken or understood by many of the inhabitants of western Brittany. During the 1970s, Breton schools were opened and the local authorities started to promote the language, which was on the brink of extinction because parents had stopped teaching it to their children.
+
+Having declined from more than one million speakers around 1950 to about 200,000 in the first decade of the 21st century, of whom 61% are more than 60 years old, Breton is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. However, the number of children attending bilingual classes has risen 33% between 2006 and 2012 to 14,709.[64][65]
+
+The Breton language has several dialects which have no precise limits but rather form a continuum. Most of them are very similar to each other, with only some phonetic and lexical differences. The three main dialects spoken in the western end of Brittany are:
+
+in opposition to the Vannetais, spoken around Vannes, which is the most differentiated Breton dialect.
+
+According to a 1999 INSEE survey, 12% of the adults of Brittany speak Breton.[66]
+
+Gallo is spoken on the eastern half of Brittany. It is not itself a Celtic language. Like French, it is also descended from Latin (and is classified in the Langues d'oïl branch), but has some Celtic influences, particularly in its vocabulary, whereas French has influences from both Celtic (Gaulish) and Frankish (the Germanic language which arrived after Latin in much of the rest of France).
+
+Unlike Breton, Gallo does not have a long promotion history and it is still often perceived as a poor rural dialect. Moreover, because of its linguistic relationship with Gallo, French imposed itself more easily as the main language in Upper Brittany than in Breton speaking areas. Gallo was simply felt to be an incorrect way of speaking French rather than a separate language. Gallo transmission from parents to children is extremely low and efforts to standardise and publish books in Gallo did not reverse the decline of the language and its lack of prestige.[67]
+
+Gallo is also threatened by the Breton language revival, because Breton is gaining ground in territories that were not previously part of the main Breton-speaking area, and most of all because Breton appears as the national language of Brittany, thus leaving no place for Gallo.[67]
+
+Gallo had never been written before the 20th century, and several writing systems were created. They are however rarely known by the population and signs in Gallo are often unreadable, even for fluent speakers. In Loire-Atlantique, where Gallo is not promoted at all by the local authorities, many people do not even know the word "Gallo" and have no idea that it has writing systems and publications.[67]
+
+The Gallo community is estimated at between 28,300[68] and 200,000[67] speakers. The language is taught on a non-compulsory basis in some schools, high-schools and universities, particularly in Ille-et-Vilaine.[67]
+
+Bretons are mainly Catholic and the Christianisation occurred during the Roman Gaul and Frank era. During the Briton emigration to Brittany, several Christian missionaries, mostly Welsh, came in the region and founded dioceses. They are known as the "Seven founder saints":
+
+Other notable early missionaries are Gildas and the Irish saint Columbanus. In total, Brittany numbers more than 300 "saints" (only a few recognised by the Catholic Church) and, since the 19th century at least, it has been known as one of the most devoutly Catholic regions in France, together with the neighbouring Pays de la Loire region. The proportion of students attending Catholic private schools is the highest in France. The patron saint of Brittany is Saint Anne, the Virgin's mother, but Ivo of Kermartin, a 13th-century priest, called Saint-Yves in French and Sant-Erwan in Breton, can also be considered as a patron saint. His feast, 19 May, is Brittany's national day.
+
+Many distinctive traditions and customs have also been preserved in Brittany. Among them, the "Pardons" are one of the most traditional demonstrations of popular Catholicism. These penitential ceremonies occur in some villages in Lower Brittany on the feast day of the parish's saint. The penitents form a procession and they walk together to a shrine, a church or any sacred place. Some Pardons are reputed for their length, and they all finish by large meals and popular feasts.
+
+There is a very old pilgrimage called the Tro Breizh (tour of Brittany), where the pilgrims walk around Brittany from the grave of one of the seven founder saints to another. Historically, the pilgrimage was made in one trip (a total distance of around 600 km) for all seven saints. Nowadays, however, pilgrims complete the circuit over the course of several years. In 2002, the Tro Breizh included a special pilgrimage to Wales, symbolically making the reverse journey of the Welshmen Sant Paol, Sant Brieg, and Sant Samzun.[69]
+
+The most powerful folk figure is the Ankou or the "Reaper of Death". Sometimes a skeleton wrapped in a shroud with the Breton flat hat, sometimes described as a real human being (the last dead of the year, devoted to bring the dead to Death), he makes his journeys by night carrying an upturned scythe which he throws before him to reap his harvest. Sometimes he is on foot but mostly he travels with a cart, the Karrig an Ankou, drawn by two oxen and a lean horse. Two servants dressed in the same shroud and hat as the Ankou pile the dead into the cart, and to hear it creaking at night means you have little time left to live.[70]
+
+As official religious statistics are forbidden in France, there are no official figures about religious practices in Brittany. However, successive polls show that the region tends to be more and more nonreligious. Catholic religion has started to decline after the Second World War, during the urbanisation of Brittany. A poll conducted in 2006 showed that Morbihan was the only département to have a strong Catholic population, around 70% of its inhabitants belonging to that religion. Loire-Atlantique and Côtes-d'Armor were among the least Catholic French départements, with only 50% of Catholics, while Ille-et-Vilaine and Finistère were at around 65%. Other religions are almost non-existent, apart from Islam which gathers between 1 and 3% of the inhabitants in Ille-et-Vilaine and Loire-Atlantique.[71]
+
+Brittany is home to many megalithic monuments; the words menhir and dolmen come from the Breton language. The largest menhir alignments are the Carnac stones. Other major sites include the Barnenez cairn, the Locmariaquer megaliths, the Menhir de Champ-Dolent, the Mane Braz tumulus and the Gavrinis tomb. Monuments from the Roman period are rare, but include a large temple in Corseul and scarce ruins of villas and city walls in Rennes and Nantes.
+
+Brittany has a large number of medieval buildings. They include numerous Romanesque and French Gothic churches, usually built in local sandstone and granit, castles and half-timbered houses visible in villages, towns and cities. Several Breton towns still have their medieval walls, such as Guérande, Concarneau, Saint-Malo, Vannes, Fougères and Dinan. Major churches include Saint-Pol-de-Léon Cathedral, Tréguier Cathedral, Dol Cathedral, Nantes Cathedral and the Kreisker chapel. Most of the Breton castles were rebuilt between the 13th and the 15th century, such as the Château de Suscinio, the Château de Dinan, the Château de Combourg, the Château de Largoët, the Château de Tonquédec, the Josselin Castle and the Château de Trécesson. The most impressive castles can be seen along the border with France, where stand the Château de Fougères, the Château de Vitré, the Château de Châteaubriant and the Château de Clisson.
+
+The French Renaissance occurred when Brittany lost its independence. The Renaissance architecture is almost absent in the region, except in Upper Brittany, close to the border with France. Major sites include the Château des ducs de Bretagne, the last permanent residence of the dukes, which displays the transition from late Gothic to Renaissance style. The Château de Châteaubriant, a former fortress, was transformed into a vast palace in the Italian style.
+
+In Lower Brittany, the medieval style never totally disappeared. However, local innovations permitted some changes and the birth of a particular style. Its most distinctive feature is the parish close, which displays an elaborately decorated church surrounded by an entirely walled churchyard. Many villages still have their closes, they date from the 16th and 17th centuries and sometimes include an elaborately carved calvary sculpture.
+
+During the 17th and the 18th centuries, the main seaports and towns obtained a typical French look, with baroque and neoclassical buildings. Nantes, which was at the time the biggest French harbour, received a theatre, large avenues and quays, and Rennes was redesigned after a fire in 1720. At the same period, the wealthy ship-owners from Saint-Malo built many mansions called "Malouinières" around their town. Along the coast, Vauban and other French architects designed several citadels, such as in Le Palais and Port-Louis. In rural areas, Breton houses remained simple, with a single floor and a longhouse pattern. They were built with local materials: mostly granite in Lower Brittany and schist in Upper Brittany. Slates and reeds were usually used for roofing. During the 19th century, the Breton architecture was mainly characterised by the Gothic Revival and Eclecticism. Clisson, the southernmost Breton town, was rebuilt in an Italian Romantic style around 1820. The Breton lighthouses were mostly built during the 19th century. The most famous are Ar Men, Phare d'Eckmühl, La Vieille and La Jument. The lighthouse on the Île Vierge is, with 77 meters, the highest in Europe.
+
+At the end of the 19th century, several seaside resorts were created along the coast and villas and hotels were built in historicist, Art Nouveau, and later in the Art Deco styles. These architectures are particularly present in Dinard, La Baule and Bénodet. Architecture from the 20th century can be seen in Saint-Nazaire, Brest and Lorient, three cities destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt afterwards, and in the works of the Breton nationalist architects like James Bouillé and Olier Mordrel.
+
+Until the 19th century, Catholicism had been the main inspiration for Breton artists. The region has a great number of baroque retables, made between the 17th and the 19th century. Breton sculptors were also famous for their ship models that served as ex-votos and for their richly decorated furniture, which features naïve Breton characters and traditional patterns. The box-bed is the most famous Breton piece of furniture. The Breton style had a strong revival between 1900 and the Second World War and it was used by the Seiz Breur movement. The Seiz Breur artists also tried to invent a modern Breton art by rejecting French standards and mixing traditional techniques with new materials. The leading artists of that period were the designer René-Yves Creston, the illustrators Jeanne Malivel and Xavier Haas, and the sculptors Raffig Tullou, Francis Renaud, Georges Robin, Joseph Savina, Jules-Charles Le Bozec and Jean Fréour.
+
+Brittany is also known for its needlework, which can be seen on its numerous headdress models, and for its faience production, which started at the beginning of the 18th century. Quimper faience is known worldwide for its bowls and plates painted by hand, and other towns, such as Pornic, also maintain a similar tradition. The potteries usually feature naïve Breton characters in traditional clothing and daily scenes. The designs have a strong traditional Breton influence, but Orientalism and Art Deco have also been used.
+
+Because of its distinct culture and natural landscape, Brittany has inspired many French artists since the 19th century. The Pont-Aven School, which started to emerge in the 1850s and lasted until the beginning of the 20th century, had a decisive influence on modern painting. The artists who settled in Pont-Aven wanted to break away from the Academic style of the École des Beaux-Arts and later from Impressionism when it began to decline. Among them were Paul Gauguin, Paul Signac, Marc Chagall, Paul Sérusier and Raymond Wintz. Before them, Brittany had also been visited by Academic and Romantic painters like Jean Antoine Théodore de Gudin and Jules Achille Noël who were looking for dramatic seascapes and storms.
+
+Since the early 1970s, Brittany has experienced a tremendous revival of its folk music. Numerous festivals were created, along with smaller fest-noz (popular feasts). The bagadoù, bands composed of bagpipes, bombards and drums (including snare), are also a modern creation, inspired by the Scottish pipe bands. The Lann-Bihoué bagad, one of the most well-known, belongs to the French Navy. It is the only one that does not take part to the annual bagadoù competitions. Celtic harp is also common, as are vocals and dances. The Kan ha diskan is the most common type of singing. The performers sing calls and responses while dancing. Breton dances usually imply circles, chains or couples and they are different in every region. The oldest dances seem to be the passepied and the gavotte, and the newest ones derive from the quadrille and French Renaissance dances.
+
+In the 1960s, several Breton artists started to use contemporary patterns to create a Breton pop music. Among them, Alan Stivell highly contributed to popularise the Celtic harp and Breton music in the world. He also used American rock and roll in his works and influenced 1970s Breton bands such as Kornog, Gwerz and Tri Yann, who revived traditional songs and made them popular across France. Soldat Louis is the main Breton rock band,[citation needed] and Breton singers include Gilles Servat, Glenmor, Dan Ar Braz, Yann-Fañch Kemener, Denez Prigent, Nolwenn Korbell and Nolwenn Leroy. The Manau Hip hop group from Paris has strong Breton and Celtic inspirations.
+
+Yann Tiersen, who composed the soundtrack for Amélie, the Electro band Yelle and the avant-garde singer Brigitte Fontaine are also from Brittany. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray was one of the first western European composers to be influenced by what is now known as world music.
+
+Brittany is closely associated with the Matter of Britain and King Arthur. According to Wace, Brocéliande is located in Brittany and it is nowadays considered to be Paimpont forest. There, ruins of a castle surrounded by a lake are associated with the Lady of the Lake, a dolmen is said to be Merlin's tomb and a path is presented as Morgan le Fay's Val sans Retour. Tristan and Iseult are also said to have lived in Brittany. Another major Breton legend is the story about Ys, a city swallowed by the ocean.
+
+Breton literature before the 19th century was mostly oral.  The oral tradition entertained by medieval poets died out during the 15th century and books in Breton were very rare before 1850. At that time, local writers started to collect and publish local tales and legends and wrote original works.  Published between 1925 and the Second World War, the literary journal Gwalarn favoured a modern Breton literature and helped translating widely known novels into Breton.  After the war, the journal Al Liamm pursued that mission. Among the authors writing in Breton are Auguste Brizeux, a Romantic poet, the neo-Druidic bard Erwan Berthou, Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué, who collected the local legends about King Arthur, Roparz Hemon, founder of Gwalarn, Pêr-Jakez Helias, Glenmor, Pêr Denez and Meavenn.
+
+Breton literature in French includes 19th-century historical novels by Émile Souvestre, travel journals by Anatole Le Braz, poems and novels by Charles Le Goffic, the works of the singer-songwriter Théodore Botrel and of the maritime writer Henri Queffélec. Brittany is also the birthplace of many French writers like François-René de Chateaubriand, Jules Verne, Ernest Renan, Félicité Robert de Lamennais and Pierre Abélard Max Jacob, Alfred Jarry, Victor Segalen, Xavier Grall, Jean Rouaud, Irène Frain, Herve Jaouen,[72] Alain Robbe-Grillet, Pierre-Jakez Hélias, Tristan Corbière, Paul Féval, Jean Guéhenno, Arthur Bernède, André Breton, Patrick Poivre d'Arvor
+
+The Asterix comics, set during the time of Julius Caesar and written in the second half of the twentieth century, are set in Armorica, now Brittany.
+
+The Museum of Brittany, located in Rennes, was founded in 1856. Its collections are mainly dedicated to the history of the region. Museums dedicated to Prehistory and local megaliths are located in Carnac and Penmarch, while several towns like Vannes and Nantes have a museum presenting their own history.
+
+The Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes owns a large collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities as well as drawings and engravings by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Parmigianino, Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt. Its French art collection gathers works by Georges de La Tour, François Boucher, Paul Gauguin, Auguste Rodin, Camille Corot and Robert Delaunay. It has also works by Pablo Picasso, Rubens, Peter Lely and Paolo Veronese. The collections of the Museum of Fine Arts of Nantes are more dedicated to modern and contemporary art and contain works by Edward Burne-Jones, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet, Paul Signac, Tamara de Lempicka, Wassily Kandinsky, Max Ernst, Pierre Soulages and Piero Manzoni. The Museums of Fine Arts of Brest and Quimper offer similar collections, with large quantities of French painting together with the works of some Italian and Dutch artists. The Museum of Fine Arts Pont-Aven is dedicated to the School of Pont-Aven. Contemporary sculptures can be seen in the park around the Château de Kerguéhennec, in Bignan.
+
+Museums in Saint-Malo, Lorient and Douarnenez are dedicated to ships and maritime traditions and history. The Musée national de la Marine has a large annex in Brest and a submarine is opened to visitors in Lorient. In the same town, it is also possible to visit the Keroman Submarine Museum, and the Cité de la voile Éric Tabarly, a museum dedicated to sailing. In Saint-Nazaire, where many transatlantic ships where built, including SS Normandie and SS France, a museum showing transatlantic interiors was installed in a Second World War base. Nantes has a museum dedicated to Jules Verne, a Natural History Museum and a museum of archaeology and design, the Musée Dobrée.
+
+Brittany has a vibrant calendar of festivals and events. It hosts some of France's biggest contemporary music festivals, such as La Route du Rock in Saint-Malo, the Vieilles Charrues in Carhaix, the Rencontres Trans Musicales in Rennes, the Festival du Bout du Monde in Crozon, the Hellfest in Clisson and the Astropolis in Brest. The Festival Interceltique de Lorient welcomes each year participants all the Celtic nations and their diasporas. La Folle Journée, in Nantes, is the largest classical music festival in France.
+
+The Breton culture is highlighted during the Fête de la Bretagne, which occurs in many places around Saint-Yves's day (19 May), and during the Festival de Cornouaille in Quimper. Several towns also organise historical re-enactments and events celebrating local traditions, such as the Filets Bleus in Concarneau which celebrates fishing.
+
+Brittany also has some film festivals like the Three Continents Festival in Nantes. The Utopiales international science fiction festival is held in the same city. Brest and Douarnenez both organise large tall ship meetings.
+
+Football, cycling and sailing are the three most popular sports in Brittany. Major football teams are the FC Nantes, the Stade Rennais F.C., the FC Lorient, the Stade Brestois 29, the Vannes OC and the En Avant de Guingamp. Professional footballers coming from the region also form the Brittany national football team which sometimes plays with national teams.
+
+Several Bretons have won the Tour de France: Bernard Hinault, Louison Bobet, Jean Robic and Lucien Petit-Breton as riders, and Cyrille Guimard as a directeur sportif.
+
+Sailing is particularly important for sea-resorts like La Trinité-sur-Mer, Pornichet, Concarneau, Lorient and the îles de Glénan, where a prestigious school is located. A great number of Bretons have become acclaimed sailors, such as: Éric Tabarly, Loïck Peyron, Jean Le Cam, Michel Desjoyeaux, Olivier de Kersauson, Thomas Coville, Vincent Riou and Marc Pajot. The Route du Rhum, the Transat Québec-Saint-Malo, the Jules Verne Trophy are the main Breton sailing competitions. The Solitaire du Figaro stages often start in Brittany.
+
+Gouren, a style of folk wrestling, is the most popular Breton sport. The Boule bretonne is related to pétanque. The Palets, common in Upper Brittany and in other French regions, is also related to pétanque, but players use iron disks instead of balls and they have to throw them on a wooden board.
+
+Although Muscadet and Gros Plant white wines are produced south of the Loire, the traditional drink of Brittany is cider. Brittany is the second-largest cider-producing region in France.[73] Breton cider is traditionally served in a bowl or a cup. Brittany also has a long beer-brewing tradition, tracing its roots back to the 17th century. Young artisanal brewers are keeping a variety of beer types alive,[74] such as Coreff de Morlaix, Tri Martolod and Britt. Stronger alcohols include the chouchen, a sort of mead made with wild honey, and an apple eau de vie called lambig.
+
+Crêpes and galettes are the two most well-known Breton dishes. The crêpes, made and served with butter, are eaten for dessert and the galettes are usually salty and made with buckwheat. They traditionally replaced bread as basic food and they can be served with cheese, sausages, bacon, mushrooms or eggs. They can be accompanied by Breton buttermilk called lait ribot. Brittany also has a dish similar to the pot-au-feu known as the kig ha farz, which consists of stewed pork or beef with buckwheat dumplings.
+
+Surrounded by the sea, Brittany offers a wide range of fresh seafood and fish, especially mussels and oysters. Among the seafood specialities is a fish stew called cotriade. The beurre blanc sauce, invented in Saint-Julien-de-Concelles, close to Nantes, is often served with fish. Brittany is also known for its salt, mainly harvested around Guérande and used in butter and milk caramels. The region is notable for its biscuit factories, many towns having their own: Quimper, Lorient, Pont-Aven, Saint-Brieuc, BN and LU in Nantes, La Trinitaine in La Trinité-sur-Mer, and Galettes Saint-Michel in Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef. They usually make their biscuits with salted butter and sell them in iron boxes. Famous Breton pastries include the kouign amann ("butter cake" in Breton) made with bread dough and high quantities of butter and sugar, and the  far, a sort of sweet Yorkshire pudding usually made with plums.
+
+Until the 1970s, the Breton road network was poor because maritime and rail transport prevailed. The French president Charles de Gaulle implemented a major road construction plan in the 1970 and Brittany received over 10 billion francs of investments during 25 years.[75] More than 10,000 km of motorways were built, permitting Breton road transport to multiply by four. The Breton motorways are not toll roads, contrarily to the usual French highways.[76][77]
+
+The main road artery linking cities and other settlements along the north coast is the Route nationale 12 which connects the cities of Rennes, Saint-Brieuc, Morlaix and Brest. It also provides a link to southern Normandy, terminating in Paris. In south Brittany the Route nationale 165 performs a similar role along the south coast providing connections between Nantes, Vannes, Lorient, Quimper and Brest. The Route nationale 164 crosses the centre of the peninsula and connects Rennes to Loudéac, Morlaix and Châteaulin, and the Route nationale 166 links Rennes to Vannes. The Route nationale 137 provides connections between Saint-Malo, Rennes and Nantes and terminates in Bordeaux.
+
+Nantes is linked to Paris by the A11 autoroute, and Rennes is both on the A81 autoroute to Paris and the A84 autoroute to Caen. These highways are standard French toll road.
+
+The biggest Breton airport is Nantes Atlantique Airport. Destination served include the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Morocco. It will be replaced around 2017 by the new Aéroport du Grand Ouest, located 30 km to the north-west of Nantes. The Brest Bretagne Airport is the second airport in Brittany. It is followed by Rennes – Saint-Jacques, Lorient South Brittany and Dinard – Saint-Malo. The Saint-Brieuc – Armor airport serves flights between Brittany and the Channel Islands. Others smaller airport operates domestic flights in Quimper, and Lannion.
+
+Brittany is on two major TGV lines, one linking Paris to Nantes and Le Croisic, on the south coast, and another linking Paris to Rennes and Brest. The LGV Atlantique which stops at Le Mans will be extended to Rennes in 2017, providing faster connections between Paris and Brittany. TGV train services also link the region with cities such as Lyon, Strasbourg, Marseille, and Lille. Secondary train services are operated by TER Bretagne which provides connections between small towns such as Vannes, Carhaix, Roscoff and Paimpol. TER Bretagne also manages coach lines and connections between Rennes and Nantes. TER Pays de la Loire operates trains between Nantes and smaller towns in Loire-Atlantique.
+
+There are ferry services that take passengers, vehicles and freight to Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands. The main companies are Brittany Ferries which operates lines between Plymouth and Roscoff, Portsmouth and Saint-Malo, and Roscoff and Cork. Irish Ferries operates the route Rosslare-Roscoff and Condor Ferries link Saint-Malo with Jersey.
+
+Cycling has always been one of the main sports of Brittany, but leisure cycling and the infrastructure to support it have been growing extremely rapidly. An extensive network of cycle paths and recommended cycle routes has opened up all over the region. Some of these are routes using mainly smaller roads and both signposted and maintained by communes individually, but many are based on dedicated cycle paths often formed by converting disused railway tracks. These help form routes such as 'Vélodyssée' from Roscoff to Nantes and several major routes under the 'V' label (following signs V1, V2 etc.).[78] The old tow-path of the Nantes-Brest canal is now open to cyclists along its entire 385 km length though in places (unlike rail-based cycle paths) it is very meandering and leaving the path will both shorten the distance and provide variety.[79]
+
+As a general rule cyclists are very well respected in the region and many larger towns have cycle-lanes – however traffic is 'cycle-friendly' even in their absence.
+
+The modern flag of Brittany was designed in 1923. It is called Gwenn ha Du ("white and black" in Breton) and it features eleven ermine spots (their number may vary) and nine stripes, the black ones represent the Breton speaking historical dioceses, and the white ones symbolise the gallo speaking dioceses. The flag was created to replace the traditional ermine plain standard, considered too aristocratic and royalist. It was inspired by the American flag and the British Red Ensign.[80] Since the 1920s, the flag has become very popular and it is flown from a large number of institutions. Apart from the ermine flag, Breton historic banners include the Kroaz Du, a white flag with a black cross, the perfect negative of the Cornish flag.
+
+The coat of arms of Brittany, ermine plain, was adopted by John III in 1316. Ermine had been used in Brittany long before, and there is no clue about its origin. It was probably chosen by the dukes because of its similarity with the French fleur-de-lis. The ermine, or stoat, as an animal became the badge of John IV at the end of the 14th century. It appeared later on numerous locations, including churches and castles. According to popular traditions, Anne of Brittany was hunting with her court when she saw a white ermine who preferred to die than to cross a dirty marsh. This episode would have inspired the duchess' motto : "Potius mori quam foedari" ("rather death than dishonour").[81] The motto has later been reused by Breton regiments, local World War II Resistants and cultural movements.
+
+The Breton anthem, although not official, is Bro Gozh ma Zadoù – ("Old Land of My Fathers"). It re-employs both the Welsh anthem's music and that of "Bro Goth agan Tasow" (the national anthem of Cornwall; its lyrics were written at the end of the 19th century).
+
+Colloquial Breton emblems include the Celtic triskelion, the menhirs and dolmens, local dishes such as the galettes, the Bigouden headdress and the traditional black round hat, the fisherman and his yellow raincoat, etc. BZH is a common abbreviation for "Breizh" ("Brittany" in Breton) and people often put BZH stickers on their car-plates, although it is forbidden under French laws.[82] .bzh is an approved Internet top level domain for the Breton culture and languages.[83][84]
+
+Merlin's tomb in the Brocéliande forest, Paimpont
+
+A dolmen in Plouharnel
+
+The city wall of Guérande
+
+Castle of Saint-Malo, Qui Qu'en Grogne Tower
+
+Château de Suscinio
+
+Île Vierge lighthouse
+
+Parlement of Brittany in Rennes
+
+Abbey and lighthouse of Saint-Mathieu
+
+Ar Meilhoù Glaz, a Bagad from Quimper
+
+Festival du chant de marin, sea songs festival in Paimpol
+
+A Breton headdress from Batz-sur-Mer
+
+Modern Brittany - Illustration from Legends & Romances of Brittany by Lewis Spence, illustrated by W. Otway Cannell.

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+
+
+The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma,[18][19] with internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process.[20] It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 1.39 million kilometers (864,000 miles), or 109 times that of Earth, and its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth. It accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System.[21]
+Roughly three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen (~73%); the rest is mostly helium (~25%), with much smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon, and iron.[22]
+
+The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V) based on its spectral class. As such, it is informally and not completely accurately referred to as a yellow dwarf (its light is closer to white than yellow). It formed approximately 4.6 billion[a][14][23] years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, whereas the rest flattened into an orbiting disk that became the Solar System. The central mass became so hot and dense that it eventually initiated nuclear fusion in its core. It is thought that almost all stars form by this process.
+
+The Sun currently fuses about 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium every second, converting 4 million tons of matter into energy every second as a result. This energy, which can take between 10,000 and 170,000 years to escape from its core, is the source of the Sun's light and heat. When hydrogen fusion in its core has diminished to the point at which the Sun is no longer in hydrostatic equilibrium, its core will undergo a marked increase in density and temperature while its outer layers expand, eventually transforming the Sun into a red giant. It is calculated that the Sun will become sufficiently large to engulf the current orbits of Mercury and Venus, and render Earth uninhabitable – but not for about five billion years. After this, it will shed its outer layers and become a dense type of cooling star known as a white dwarf, and no longer produce energy by fusion, but still glow and give off heat from its previous fusion.
+
+The enormous effect of the Sun on Earth has been recognized since prehistoric times, and the Sun has been regarded by some cultures as a deity. The synodic rotation of Earth and its orbit around the Sun are the basis of solar calendars, one of which is the predominant calendar in use today.
+
+The English word sun developed from Old English sunne. Cognates appear in other Germanic languages, including West Frisian sinne, Dutch zon, Low German Sünn, Standard German Sonne, Bavarian Sunna, Old Norse sunna and Gothic sunnō. All these words stem from Proto-Germanic *sunnōn.[24][25] This is ultimately related to the word for "sun" in other branches of the Indo-European language family, though in most cases a nominative stem with an l is found, rather than the genitive stem in n, as for example in Latin sōl, Greek ἥλιος hēlios, Welsh haul and Russian солнце solntse (pronounced sontse), as well as (with *l > r) Sanskrit स्वर svár and Persian خور‎ xvar. Indeed, the l-stem survived in Proto-Germanic as well, as *sōwelan, which gave rise to Gothic sauil (alongside sunnō) and Old Norse prosaic sól (alongside poetic sunna), and through it the words for "sun" in the modern Scandinavian languages: Swedish and Danish solen, Icelandic sólin, etc.[25]
+
+In English, the Greek and Latin words occur in poetry as personifications of the Sun, Helios /ˈhiːliəs/ and Sol /ˈsɒl/,[2][1] while in science fiction "Sol" may be used as a name for the Sun to distinguish it from others. The term "sol" with a lower-case 's' is used by planetary astronomers for the duration of a solar day on another planet such as Mars.[26]
+
+The principal adjectives for the Sun in English are sunny for sunlight and, in technical contexts, solar /ˈsoʊlər/,[3] from Latin sol[27] – the latter found in terms such as solar day, solar eclipse and Solar System (occasionally Sol system).
+From the Greek helios comes the rare adjective heliac /ˈhiːliæk/.[28]
+
+The English weekday name Sunday stems from Old English Sunnandæg "sun's day", a Germanic interpretation of the Latin phrase diēs sōlis, itself a translation of the Greek ἡμέρα ἡλίου hēmera hēliou "day of the sun".[29]
+
+The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star that comprises about 99.86% of the mass of the Solar System. The Sun has an absolute magnitude of +4.83, estimated to be brighter than about 85% of the stars in the Milky Way, most of which are red dwarfs.[30][31] The Sun is a Population I, or heavy-element-rich,[b] star.[32] The formation of the Sun may have been triggered by shockwaves from one or more nearby supernovae.[33] This is suggested by a high abundance of heavy elements in the Solar System, such as gold and uranium, relative to the abundances of these elements in so-called Population II, heavy-element-poor, stars. The heavy elements could most plausibly have been produced by endothermic nuclear reactions during a supernova, or by transmutation through neutron absorption within a massive second-generation star.[32]
+
+The Sun is by far the brightest object in the Earth's sky, with an apparent magnitude of −26.74.[34][35] This is about 13 billion times brighter than the next brightest star, Sirius, which has an apparent magnitude of −1.46. One astronomical unit (about 150,000,000 km; 93,000,000 mi) is defined as the mean distance of the Sun's center to Earth's center, though the distance varies as Earth moves from perihelion in January to aphelion in July.[36] At this average distance, light travels from the Sun's horizon to Earth's horizon in about 8 minutes and 19 seconds, while light from the closest points of the Sun and Earth takes about two seconds less. The energy of this sunlight supports almost all life[c] on Earth by photosynthesis,[37] and drives Earth's climate and weather.
+
+The Sun does not have a definite boundary, but its density decreases exponentially with increasing height above the photosphere.[38] For the purpose of measurement, the Sun's radius is considered to be the distance from its center to the edge of the photosphere, the apparent visible surface of the Sun.[39] By this measure, the Sun is a near-perfect sphere with an oblateness estimated at about 9 millionths,[40] which means that its polar diameter differs from its equatorial diameter by only 10 kilometres (6.2 mi).[41] The tidal effect of the planets is weak and does not significantly affect the shape of the Sun.[42] The Sun rotates faster at its equator than at its poles. This differential rotation is caused by convective motion due to heat transport and the Coriolis force due to the Sun's rotation. In a frame of reference defined by the stars, the rotational period is approximately 25.6 days at the equator and 33.5 days at the poles. Viewed from Earth as it orbits the Sun, the apparent rotational period of the Sun at its equator is about 28 days.[43] Viewed from a vantage point above its north pole, the Sun rotates counterclockwise around its axis of spin.[d][44]
+
+The solar constant is the amount of power that the Sun deposits per unit area that is directly exposed to sunlight. The solar constant is equal to approximately 1,368 W/m2 (watts per square meter) at a distance of one astronomical unit (AU) from the Sun (that is, on or near Earth).[45] Sunlight on the surface of Earth is attenuated by Earth's atmosphere, so that less power arrives at the surface (closer to 1,000 W/m2) in clear conditions when the Sun is near the zenith.[46] Sunlight at the top of Earth's atmosphere is composed (by total energy) of about 50% infrared light, 40% visible light, and 10% ultraviolet light.[47] The atmosphere in particular filters out over 70% of solar ultraviolet, especially at the shorter wavelengths.[48] Solar ultraviolet radiation ionizes Earth's dayside upper atmosphere, creating the electrically conducting ionosphere.[49]
+
+The Sun's color is white, with a CIE color-space index near (0.3, 0.3), when viewed from space or when the Sun is high in the sky. When measuring all the photons emitted, the Sun is emitting more photons in the green portion of the spectrum than any other.[50][51] When the Sun is low in the sky, atmospheric scattering renders the Sun yellow, red, orange, or magenta. Despite its typical whiteness, most people mentally picture the Sun as yellow; the reasons for this are the subject of debate.[52]
+The Sun is a G2V star, with G2 indicating its surface temperature of approximately 5,778 K (5,505 °C, 9,941 °F), and V that it, like most stars, is a main-sequence star.[53][54] The average luminance of the Sun is about 1.88 giga candela per square metre, but as viewed through Earth's atmosphere, this is lowered to about 1.44 Gcd/m2.[e] However, the luminance is not constant across the disk of the Sun (limb darkening).
+
+The Sun is composed primarily of the chemical elements hydrogen and helium. At this time in the Sun's life, they account for 74.9% and 23.8% of the mass of the Sun in the photosphere, respectively.[55] All heavier elements, called metals in astronomy, account for less than 2% of the mass, with oxygen (roughly 1% of the Sun's mass), carbon (0.3%), neon (0.2%), and iron (0.2%) being the most abundant.[56]
+
+The Sun's original chemical composition was inherited from the interstellar medium out of which it formed. Originally it would have contained about 71.1% hydrogen, 27.4% helium, and 1.5% heavier elements.[55] The hydrogen and most of the helium in the Sun would have been produced by Big Bang nucleosynthesis in the first 20 minutes of the universe, and the heavier elements were produced by previous generations of stars before the Sun was formed, and spread into the interstellar medium during the final stages of stellar life and by events such as supernovae.[57]
+
+Since the Sun formed, the main fusion process has involved fusing hydrogen into helium. Over the past 4.6 billion years, the amount of helium and its location within the Sun has gradually changed. Within the core, the proportion of helium has increased from about 24% to about 60% due to fusion, and some of the helium and heavy elements have settled from the photosphere towards the center of the Sun because of gravity. The proportions of metals (heavier elements) is unchanged. Heat is transferred outward from the Sun's core by radiation rather than by convection (see Radiative zone below), so the fusion products are not lifted outward by heat; they remain in the core[58] and gradually an inner core of helium has begun to form that cannot be fused because presently the Sun's core is not hot or dense enough to fuse helium. In the current photosphere the helium fraction is reduced, and the metallicity is only 84% of what it was in the protostellar phase (before nuclear fusion in the core started). In the future, helium will continue to accumulate in the core, and in about 5 billion years this gradual build-up will eventually cause the Sun to exit the main sequence and become a red giant.[59]
+
+The chemical composition of the photosphere is normally considered representative of the composition of the primordial Solar System.[60] The solar heavy-element abundances described above are typically measured both using spectroscopy of the Sun's photosphere and by measuring abundances in meteorites that have never been heated to melting temperatures. These meteorites are thought to retain the composition of the protostellar Sun and are thus not affected by settling of heavy elements. The two methods generally agree well.[22]
+
+In the 1970s, much research focused on the abundances of iron-group elements in the Sun.[61][62] Although significant research was done, until 1978 it was difficult to determine the abundances of some iron-group elements (e.g. cobalt and manganese) via spectrography because of their hyperfine structures.[61]
+
+The first largely complete set of oscillator strengths of singly ionized iron-group elements were made available in the 1960s,[63] and these were subsequently improved.[64] In 1978, the abundances of singly ionized elements of the iron group were derived.[61]
+
+Various authors have considered the existence of a gradient in the isotopic compositions of solar and planetary noble gases,[65] e.g. correlations between isotopic compositions of neon and xenon in the Sun and on the planets.[66]
+
+Prior to 1983, it was thought that the whole Sun has the same composition as the solar atmosphere.[67] In 1983, it was claimed that it was fractionation in the Sun itself that caused the isotopic-composition relationship between the planetary and solar-wind-implanted noble gases.[67]
+
+The structure of the Sun contains the following layers:
+
+The core of the Sun extends from the center to about 20–25% of the solar radius.[68] It has a density of up to 150 g/cm3[69][70] (about 150 times the density of water) and a temperature of close to 15.7 million kelvin (K).[70] By contrast, the Sun's surface temperature is approximately 5800 K. Recent analysis of SOHO mission data favors a faster rotation rate in the core than in the radiative zone above.[68] Through most of the Sun's life, energy has been produced by nuclear fusion in the core region through a series of nuclear reactions called the p–p (proton–proton) chain; this process converts hydrogen into helium.[71] Only 0.8% of the energy generated in the Sun comes from another sequence of fusion reactions called the CNO cycle, though this proportion is expected to increase as the Sun becomes older.[72]
+
+The core is the only region in the Sun that produces an appreciable amount of thermal energy through fusion; 99% of the power is generated within 24% of the Sun's radius, and by 30% of the radius, fusion has stopped nearly entirely. The remainder of the Sun is heated by this energy as it is transferred outwards through many successive layers, finally to the solar photosphere where it escapes into space through radiation (photons) or advection (massive particles).[53][73]
+
+The proton–proton chain occurs around 9.2×1037 times each second in the core, converting about 3.7×1038 protons into alpha particles (helium nuclei) every second (out of a total of ~8.9×1056 free protons in the Sun), or about 6.2×1011 kg/s.[53] Fusing four free protons (hydrogen nuclei) into a single alpha particle (helium nucleus) releases around 0.7% of the fused mass as energy,[74] so the Sun releases energy at the mass–energy conversion rate of 4.26 million metric tons per second (which requires 600 metric megatons of hydrogen [75]), for 384.6 yottawatts (3.846×1026 W),[5] or 9.192×1010 megatons of TNT per second. The large power output of the Sun is mainly due to the huge size and density of its core (compared to Earth and objects on Earth), with only a fairly small amount of power being generated per cubic metre. Theoretical models of the Sun's interior indicate a maximum power density, or energy production, of approximately 276.5 watts per cubic metre at the center of the core,[76] which is about the same rate of power production as takes place in reptile metabolism or a compost pile.[77][f]
+
+The fusion rate in the core is in a self-correcting equilibrium: a slightly higher rate of fusion would cause the core to heat up more and expand slightly against the weight of the outer layers, reducing the density and hence the fusion rate and correcting the perturbation; and a slightly lower rate would cause the core to cool and shrink slightly, increasing the density and increasing the fusion rate and again reverting it to its present rate.[78][79]
+
+From the core out to about 0.7 solar radii, thermal radiation is the primary means of energy transfer.[80] The temperature drops from approximately 7 million to 2 million kelvins with increasing distance from the core.[70] This temperature gradient is less than the value of the adiabatic lapse rate and hence cannot drive convection, which explains why the transfer of energy through this zone is by radiation instead of thermal convection.[70] Ions of hydrogen and helium emit photons, which travel only a brief distance before being reabsorbed by other ions.[80] The density drops a hundredfold (from 20 g/cm3 to 0.2 g/cm3) from 0.25 solar radii to the 0.7 radii, the top of the radiative zone.[80]
+
+The radiative zone and the convective zone are separated by a transition layer, the tachocline. This is a region where the sharp regime change between the uniform rotation of the radiative zone and the differential rotation of the convection zone results in a large shear between the two—a condition where successive horizontal layers slide past one another.[81] Presently, it is hypothesized (see Solar dynamo) that a magnetic dynamo within this layer generates the Sun's magnetic field.[70]
+
+The Sun's convection zone extends from 0.7 solar radii (500,000 km) to near the surface. In this layer, the solar plasma is not dense enough or hot enough to transfer the heat energy of the interior outward via radiation. Instead, the density of the plasma is low enough to allow convective currents to develop and move the Sun's energy outward towards its surface. Material heated at the tachocline picks up heat and expands, thereby reducing its density and allowing it to rise. As a result, an orderly motion of the mass develops into thermal cells that carry the majority of the heat outward to the Sun's photosphere above. Once the material diffusively and radiatively cools just beneath the photospheric surface, its density increases, and it sinks to the base of the convection zone, where it again picks up heat from the top of the radiative zone and the convective cycle continues. At the photosphere, the temperature has dropped to 5,700 K and the density to only 0.2 g/m3 (about 1/6,000 the density of air at sea level).[70]
+
+The thermal columns of the convection zone form an imprint on the surface of the Sun giving it a granular appearance called the solar granulation at the smallest scale and supergranulation at larger scales. Turbulent convection in this outer part of the solar interior sustains "small-scale" dynamo action over the near-surface volume of the Sun.[70] The Sun's thermal columns are Bénard cells and take the shape of hexagonal prisms.[82]
+
+The visible surface of the Sun, the photosphere, is the layer below which the Sun becomes opaque to visible light.[83] Photons produced in this layer escape the Sun through the transparent solar atmosphere above it and become solar radiation, sunlight. The change in opacity is due to the decreasing amount of H− ions, which absorb visible light easily.[83] Conversely, the visible light we see is produced as electrons react with hydrogen atoms to produce H− ions.[84][85]
+The photosphere is tens to hundreds of kilometers thick, and is slightly less opaque than air on Earth. Because the upper part of the photosphere is cooler than the lower part, an image of the Sun appears brighter in the center than on the edge or limb of the solar disk, in a phenomenon known as limb darkening.[83] The spectrum of sunlight has approximately the spectrum of a black-body radiating at 5777 K, interspersed with atomic absorption lines from the tenuous layers above the photosphere. The photosphere has a particle density of ~1023 m−3 (about 0.37% of the particle number per volume of Earth's atmosphere at sea level). The photosphere is not fully ionized—the extent of ionization is about 3%, leaving almost all of the hydrogen in atomic form.[86]
+
+During early studies of the optical spectrum of the photosphere, some absorption lines were found that did not correspond to any chemical elements then known on Earth. In 1868, Norman Lockyer hypothesized that these absorption lines were caused by a new element that he dubbed helium, after the Greek Sun god Helios. Twenty-five years later, helium was isolated on Earth.[87]
+
+During a total solar eclipse, when the disk of the Sun is covered by that of the Moon, parts of the Sun's surrounding atmosphere can be seen. It is composed of four distinct parts: the chromosphere, the transition region, the corona and the heliosphere.
+
+The coolest layer of the Sun is a temperature minimum region extending to about 500 km above the photosphere, and has a temperature of about 4,100 K.[83] This part of the Sun is cool enough to allow the existence of simple molecules such as carbon monoxide and water, which can be detected via their absorption spectra.[88]
+
+The chromosphere, transition region, and corona are much hotter than the surface of the Sun.[83] The reason is not well understood, but evidence suggests that Alfvén waves may have enough energy to heat the corona.[89]
+
+Above the temperature minimum layer is a layer about 2,000 km thick, dominated by a spectrum of emission and absorption lines.[83] It is called the chromosphere from the Greek root chroma, meaning color, because the chromosphere is visible as a colored flash at the beginning and end of total solar eclipses.[80] The temperature of the chromosphere increases gradually with altitude, ranging up to around 20,000 K near the top.[83] In the upper part of the chromosphere helium becomes partially ionized.[90]
+
+Above the chromosphere, in a thin (about 200 km) transition region, the temperature rises rapidly from around 20000 K in the upper chromosphere to coronal temperatures closer to 1000000 K.[91] The temperature increase is facilitated by the full ionization of helium in the transition region, which significantly reduces radiative cooling of the plasma.[90] The transition region does not occur at a well-defined altitude. Rather, it forms a kind of nimbus around chromospheric features such as spicules and filaments, and is in constant, chaotic motion.[80] The transition region is not easily visible from Earth's surface, but is readily observable from space by instruments sensitive to the extreme ultraviolet portion of the spectrum.[92]
+
+The corona is the next layer of the Sun. The low corona, near the surface of the Sun, has a particle density around 1015 m−3 to 1016 m−3.[90][g] The average temperature of the corona and solar wind is about 1,000,000–2,000,000 K; however, in the hottest regions it is 8,000,000–20,000,000 K.[91] Although no complete theory yet exists to account for the temperature of the corona, at least some of its heat is known to be from magnetic reconnection.[91][93]
+The corona is the extended atmosphere of the Sun, which has a volume much larger than the volume enclosed by the Sun's photosphere. A flow of plasma outward from the Sun into interplanetary space is the solar wind.[93]
+
+The heliosphere, the tenuous outermost atmosphere of the Sun, is filled with the solar wind plasma. This outermost layer of the Sun is defined to begin at the distance where the flow of the solar wind becomes superalfvénic—that is, where the flow becomes faster than the speed of Alfvén waves,[94] at approximately 20 solar radii (0.1 AU).
+Turbulence and dynamic forces in the heliosphere cannot affect the shape of the solar corona within, because the information can only travel at the speed of Alfvén waves. The solar wind travels outward continuously through the heliosphere,[95][96] forming the solar magnetic field into a spiral shape,[93] until it impacts the heliopause more than 50 AU from the Sun. In December 2004, the Voyager 1 probe passed through a shock front that is thought to be part of the heliopause.[97] In late 2012 Voyager 1 recorded a marked increase in cosmic ray collisions and a sharp drop in lower energy particles from the solar wind, which suggested that the probe had passed through the heliopause and entered the interstellar medium.[98]
+
+High-energy gamma ray photons initially released with fusion reactions in the core are almost immediately absorbed by the solar plasma of the radiative zone, usually after traveling only a few millimeters. Re-emission happens in a random direction and usually at a slightly lower energy. With this sequence of emissions and absorptions, it takes a long time for radiation to reach the Sun's surface. Estimates of the photon travel time range between 10,000 and 170,000 years.[99] In contrast, it takes only 2.3 seconds for the neutrinos, which account for about 2% of the total energy production of the Sun, to reach the surface. Because energy transport in the Sun is a process that involves photons in thermodynamic equilibrium with matter, the time scale of energy transport in the Sun is longer, on the order of 30,000,000 years. This is the time it would take the Sun to return to a stable state, if the rate of energy generation in its core were suddenly changed.[100]
+
+Neutrinos are also released by the fusion reactions in the core, but, unlike photons, they rarely interact with matter, so almost all are able to escape the Sun immediately. For many years measurements of the number of neutrinos produced in the Sun were lower than theories predicted by a factor of 3. This discrepancy was resolved in 2001 through the discovery of the effects of neutrino oscillation: the Sun emits the number of neutrinos predicted by the theory, but neutrino detectors were missing ​2⁄3 of them because the neutrinos had changed flavor by the time they were detected.[101]
+
+The Sun has a magnetic field that varies across the surface of the Sun. Its polar field is 1–2 gauss (0.0001–0.0002 T), whereas the field is typically 3,000 gauss (0.3 T) in features on the Sun called sunspots and 10–100 gauss (0.001–0.01 T) in solar prominences.[5]
+
+The magnetic field also varies in time and location. The quasi-periodic 11-year solar cycle is the most prominent variation in which the number and size of sunspots waxes and wanes.[20][103][104]
+
+Sunspots are visible as dark patches on the Sun's photosphere, and correspond to concentrations of magnetic field where the convective transport of heat is inhibited from the solar interior to the surface. As a result, sunspots are slightly cooler than the surrounding photosphere, so they appear dark. At a typical solar minimum, few sunspots are visible, and occasionally none can be seen at all. Those that do appear are at high solar latitudes. As the solar cycle progresses towards its maximum, sunspots tend to form closer to the solar equator, a phenomenon known as Spörer's law. The largest sunspots can be tens of thousands of kilometers across.[105]
+
+An 11-year sunspot cycle is half of a 22-year Babcock–Leighton dynamo cycle, which corresponds to an oscillatory exchange of energy between toroidal and poloidal solar magnetic fields. At solar-cycle maximum, the external poloidal dipolar magnetic field is near its dynamo-cycle minimum strength, but an internal toroidal quadrupolar field, generated through differential rotation within the tachocline, is near its maximum strength. At this point in the dynamo cycle, buoyant upwelling within the convective zone forces emergence of toroidal magnetic field through the photosphere, giving rise to pairs of sunspots, roughly aligned east–west and having footprints with opposite magnetic polarities. The magnetic polarity of sunspot pairs alternates every solar cycle, a phenomenon known as the Hale cycle.[106][107]
+
+During the solar cycle's declining phase, energy shifts from the internal toroidal magnetic field to the external poloidal field, and sunspots diminish in number and size. At solar-cycle minimum, the toroidal field is, correspondingly, at minimum strength, sunspots are relatively rare, and the poloidal field is at its maximum strength. With the rise of the next 11-year sunspot cycle, differential rotation shifts magnetic energy back from the poloidal to the toroidal field, but with a polarity that is opposite to the previous cycle. The process carries on continuously, and in an idealized, simplified scenario, each 11-year sunspot cycle corresponds to a change, then, in the overall polarity of the Sun's large-scale magnetic field.[108][109]
+
+The solar magnetic field extends well beyond the Sun itself. The electrically conducting solar wind plasma carries the Sun's magnetic field into space, forming what is called the interplanetary magnetic field.[93] In an approximation known as ideal magnetohydrodynamics, plasma particles only move along the magnetic field lines. As a result, the outward-flowing solar wind stretches the interplanetary magnetic field outward, forcing it into a roughly radial structure. For a simple dipolar solar magnetic field, with opposite hemispherical polarities on either side of the solar magnetic equator, a thin current sheet is formed in the solar wind.[93] At great distances, the rotation of the Sun twists the dipolar magnetic field and corresponding current sheet into an Archimedean spiral structure called the Parker spiral.[93] The interplanetary magnetic field is much stronger than the dipole component of the solar magnetic field. The Sun's dipole magnetic field of 50–400 μT (at the photosphere) reduces with the inverse-cube of the distance to about 0.1 nT at the distance of Earth. However, according to spacecraft observations the interplanetary field at Earth's location is around 5 nT, about a hundred times greater.[110] The difference is due to magnetic fields generated by electrical currents in the plasma surrounding the Sun.
+
+The Sun's magnetic field leads to many effects that are collectively called solar activity. Solar flares and coronal-mass ejections tend to occur at sunspot groups. Slowly changing high-speed streams of solar wind are emitted from coronal holes at the photospheric surface. Both coronal-mass ejections and high-speed streams of solar wind carry plasma and interplanetary magnetic field outward into the Solar System.[111] The effects of solar activity on Earth include auroras at moderate to high latitudes and the disruption of radio communications and electric power. Solar activity is thought to have played a large role in the formation and evolution of the Solar System.
+
+With solar-cycle modulation of sunspot number comes a corresponding modulation of space weather conditions, including those surrounding Earth where technological systems can be affected.
+
+In December 2019, a new type of solar magnetic explosion was observed, known as forced magnetic reconnection. Previously, in a process called spontaneous magnetic reconnection, it was observed that the solar magnetic field lines diverge explosively and then converge again instantaneously. Forced Magnetic Reconnection was similar, but it was triggered by an explosion in the corona.[112]
+
+Long-term secular change in sunspot number is thought, by some scientists, to be correlated with long-term change in solar irradiance,[113] which, in turn, might influence Earth's long-term climate.[114]
+For example, in the 17th century, the solar cycle appeared to have stopped entirely for several decades; few sunspots were observed during a period known as the Maunder minimum. This coincided in time with the era of the Little Ice Age, when Europe experienced unusually cold temperatures.[115] Earlier extended minima have been discovered through analysis of tree rings and appear to have coincided with lower-than-average global temperatures.[116]
+
+A recent theory claims that there are magnetic instabilities in the core of the Sun that cause fluctuations with periods of either 41,000 or 100,000 years. These could provide a better explanation of the ice ages than the Milankovitch cycles.[117][118]
+
+The Sun today is roughly halfway through the most stable part of its life. It has not changed dramatically for over four billion[a] years, and will remain fairly stable for more than five billion more. However, after hydrogen fusion in its core has stopped, the Sun will undergo dramatic changes, both internally and externally.
+
+The Sun formed about 4.6 billion years ago from the collapse of part of a giant molecular cloud that consisted mostly of hydrogen and helium and that probably gave birth to many other stars.[119] This age is estimated using computer models of stellar evolution and through nucleocosmochronology.[14] The result is consistent with the radiometric date of the oldest Solar System material, at 4.567 billion years ago.[120][121] Studies of ancient meteorites reveal traces of stable daughter nuclei of short-lived isotopes, such as iron-60, that form only in exploding, short-lived stars. This indicates that one or more supernovae must have occurred near the location where the Sun formed. A shock wave from a nearby supernova would have triggered the formation of the Sun by compressing the matter within the molecular cloud and causing certain regions to collapse under their own gravity.[122] As one fragment of the cloud collapsed it also began to rotate due to conservation of angular momentum and heat up with the increasing pressure. Much of the mass became concentrated in the center, whereas the rest flattened out into a disk that would become the planets and other Solar System bodies. Gravity and pressure within the core of the cloud generated a lot of heat as it accreted more matter from the surrounding disk, eventually triggering nuclear fusion.
+
+HD 162826 and HD 186302 are hypothesized stellar siblings of the Sun, having formed in the same molecular cloud.
+
+The Sun is about halfway through its main-sequence stage, during which nuclear fusion reactions in its core fuse hydrogen into helium. Each second, more than four million tonnes of matter are converted into energy within the Sun's core, producing neutrinos and solar radiation. At this rate, the Sun has so far converted around 100 times the mass of Earth into energy, about 0.03% of the total mass of the Sun. The Sun will spend a total of approximately 10 billion years as a main-sequence star.[124] The Sun is gradually becoming hotter during its time on the main sequence, because the helium atoms in the core occupy less volume than the hydrogen atoms that were fused. The core is therefore shrinking, allowing the outer layers of the Sun to move closer to the center and experience a stronger gravitational force, according to the inverse-square law. This stronger force increases the pressure on the core, which is resisted by a gradual increase in the rate at which fusion occurs. This process speeds up as the core gradually becomes denser. It is estimated that the Sun has become 30% brighter in the last 4.5 billion years.[125] At present, it is increasing in brightness by about 1% every 100 million years.[126]
+
+The Sun does not have enough mass to explode as a supernova. Instead it will exit the main sequence in approximately 5 billion years and start to turn into a red giant.[127][128] As a red giant, the Sun will grow so large that it will engulf Mercury, Venus, and probably Earth.[128][129]
+
+Even before it becomes a red giant, the luminosity of the Sun will have nearly doubled, and Earth will receive as much sunlight as Venus receives today. Once the core hydrogen is exhausted in 5.4 billion years, the Sun will expand into a subgiant phase and slowly double in size over about half a billion years. It will then expand more rapidly over about half a billion years until it is over two hundred times larger than today and a couple of thousand times more luminous. This then starts the red-giant-branch phase where the Sun will spend around a billion years and lose around a third of its mass.[128]
+
+After the red-giant branch the Sun has approximately 120 million years of active life left, but much happens. First, the core, full of degenerate helium ignites violently in the helium flash, where it is estimated that 6% of the core, itself 40% of the Sun's mass, will be converted into carbon within a matter of minutes through the triple-alpha process.[130] The Sun then shrinks to around 10 times its current size and 50 times the luminosity, with a temperature a little lower than today. It will then have reached the red clump or horizontal branch, but a star of the Sun's mass does not evolve blueward along the horizontal branch. Instead, it just becomes moderately larger and more luminous over about 100 million years as it continues to react helium in the core.[128]
+
+When the helium is exhausted, the Sun will repeat the expansion it followed when the hydrogen in the core was exhausted, except that this time it all happens faster, and the Sun becomes larger and more luminous. This is the asymptotic-giant-branch phase, and the Sun is alternately reacting hydrogen in a shell or helium in a deeper shell. After about 20 million years on the early asymptotic giant branch, the Sun becomes increasingly unstable, with rapid mass loss and thermal pulses that increase the size and luminosity for a few hundred years every 100,000 years or so. The thermal pulses become larger each time, with the later pulses pushing the luminosity to as much as 5,000 times the current level and the radius to over 1 AU.[131] According to a 2008 model, Earth's orbit is shrinking due to tidal forces (and, eventually, drag from the lower chromosphere), so that it will be engulfed by the Sun near the tip of the red giant branch phase, 3.8 and 1 million years after Mercury and Venus have respectively had the same fate. Models vary depending on the rate and timing of mass loss. Models that have higher mass loss on the red-giant branch produce smaller, less luminous stars at the tip of the asymptotic giant branch, perhaps only 2,000 times the luminosity and less than 200 times the radius.[128] For the Sun, four thermal pulses are predicted before it completely loses its outer envelope and starts to make a planetary nebula. By the end of that phase—lasting approximately 500,000 years—the Sun will only have about half of its current mass.
+
+The post-asymptotic-giant-branch evolution is even faster. The luminosity stays approximately constant as the temperature increases, with the ejected half of the Sun's mass becoming ionized into a planetary nebula as the exposed core reaches 30,000 K. The final naked core, a white dwarf, will have a temperature of over 100,000 K, and contain an estimated 54.05% of the Sun's present day mass.[128] The planetary nebula will disperse in about 10,000 years, but the white dwarf will survive for trillions of years before fading to a hypothetical black dwarf.[132][133]
+
+The Sun lies close to the inner rim of the Milky Way's Orion Arm, in the Local Interstellar Cloud or the Gould Belt, at a distance of 7.5–8.5 kiloparsecs (24–28 kly) from the Galactic Center.[134][135]
+[136][137][138][139]
+The Sun is contained within the Local Bubble, a space of rarefied hot gas, possibly produced by the supernova remnant Geminga,[140] or multiple supernovae in subgroup B1 of the Pleiades moving group.[141] The distance between the local arm and the next arm out, the Perseus Arm, is about 6,500 light-years.[142] The Sun, and thus the Solar System, is found in what scientists call the galactic habitable zone.
+The Apex of the Sun's Way, or the solar apex, is the direction that the Sun travels relative to other nearby stars. This motion is towards a point in the constellation Hercules, near the star Vega.
+
+Within 32.6 ly of the Sun there are 315 known stars in 227 systems, as of 2000, including 163 single stars. It is estimated that a further 130 systems within this range have not yet been identified. Out to 81.5 ly, there may be up to 7,500 stars, of which around 2,600 are known. The number of substellar objects in that volume are expected to be comparable to the number of stars.[143] Of the 50 nearest stellar systems within 17 light-years from Earth (the closest being the red dwarf Proxima Centauri at approximately 4.2 light-years), the Sun ranks fourth in mass.[144]
+
+The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way, and it is presently moving in the direction of the constellation of Cygnus. A simple model of the motion of a star in the galaxy gives the galactic coordinates X, Y, and Z as:
+
+where U, V, and W are the respective velocities with respect to the local standard of rest, A and B are the Oort constants, 
+
+
+
+
+Ω
+
+0
+
+
+=
+A
+−
+B
+
+
+{\displaystyle \Omega _{0}=A-B}
+
+ is the angular velocity of galactic rotation for the local standard of rest, 
+
+
+
+κ
+=
+
+
+−
+4
+
+Ω
+
+0
+
+
+B
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \kappa ={\sqrt {-4\Omega _{0}B}}}
+
+ is the "epicyclic frequency", and ν is the vertical oscillation frequency.[145] For the sun, the present values of U, V, and W are estimated as 
+
+
+
+(
+U
+(
+0
+)
+,
+V
+(
+0
+)
+,
+W
+(
+0
+)
+)
+=
+(
+10.00
+,
+5.25
+,
+7.17
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle (U(0),V(0),W(0))=(10.00,5.25,7.17)}
+
+ km/s, and estimates for the other constants are A = 15.5 km/s/kpc, B = −12.2 km/s/kpc, κ = 37 km/s/kpc, and ν=74 km/s/kpc. We take X(0) and Y(0) to be zero and Z(0) is estimated to be 17 parsecs.[146] This model implies that the Sun circulates around a point that is itself going around the galaxy. The period of the Sun's circulation around the point is 
+
+
+
+2
+π
+
+/
+
+κ
+
+
+{\displaystyle 2\pi /\kappa }
+
+. which, using the equivalence that a parsec equals 1 km/s times 0.978 million years, comes to 166 million years, shorter than the time it takes for the point to go around the galaxy. In the (X, Y) coordinates, the Sun describes an ellipse around the point, whose length in the Y direction is
+
+and whose width in the X direction is
+
+The ratio of length to width of this ellipse, the same for all stars in our neighborhood, is 
+
+
+
+2
+Ω
+
+/
+
+κ
+≈
+1.50.
+
+
+{\displaystyle 2\Omega /\kappa \approx 1.50.}
+
+
+The moving point is presently at
+
+The oscillation in the Z direction takes the Sun
+
+above the galactic plane and the same distance below it, with a period of 
+
+
+
+2
+π
+
+/
+
+ν
+
+
+{\displaystyle 2\pi /\nu }
+
+ or 83 million years, approximately 2.7 times per orbit.[147] Although 
+
+
+
+2
+π
+
+/
+
+
+Ω
+
+0
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle 2\pi /\Omega _{0}}
+
+ is 222 million years, the value of 
+
+
+
+Ω
+
+
+{\displaystyle \Omega }
+
+ at the point around which the Sun circulates is
+
+(see Oort constants), corresponding to 235 million years, and this is the time that the point takes to go once around the galaxy. Other stars with the same value of 
+
+
+
+X
++
+V
+
+/
+
+(
+2
+B
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle X+V/(2B)}
+
+ have to take the same amount of time to go around the galaxy as the sun and thus remain in the same general vicinity as the Sun.
+
+The Sun's orbit around the Milky Way is perturbed due to the non-uniform mass distribution in Milky Way, such as that in and between the galactic spiral arms. It has been argued that the Sun's passage through the higher density spiral arms often coincides with mass extinctions on Earth, perhaps due to increased impact events.[148] It takes the Solar System about 225–250 million years to complete one orbit through the Milky Way (a galactic year),[149] so it is thought to have completed 20–25 orbits during the lifetime of the Sun. The orbital speed of the Solar System about the center of the Milky Way is approximately 251 km/s (156 mi/s).[150] At this speed, it takes around 1,190 years for the Solar System to travel a distance of 1 light-year, or 7 days to travel 1 AU.[151]
+
+The Milky Way is moving with respect to the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) in the direction of the constellation Hydra with a speed of 550 km/s, and the Sun's resultant velocity with respect to the CMB is about 370 km/s in the direction of Crater or Leo.[152]
+
+The Sun is moved by the gravitational pull of the planets. One can think of the barycentre of the Solar System as being stationary (or as moving in a steady motion around the galaxy). The centre of the sun is always within 2.2 solar radii of the barycentre. This motion of the Sun is mainly due to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. For some periods of several decades, the motion is rather regular, forming a trefoil pattern, whereas between these periods it appears more chaotic.[153] After 179 years (nine times the synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn) the pattern more or less repeats, but rotated by about 24°.[154] The orbits of the inner planets, including of the Earth, are similarly displaced by the same graviational forces, so the movement of the Sun has little effect on the relative positions of the Earth and the Sun or on solar irradiance on the Earth as a function of time.[155]
+
+The temperature of the photosphere is approximately 6,000 K, whereas the temperature of the corona reaches 1000000–2000000 K.[91] The high temperature of the corona shows that it is heated by something other than direct heat conduction from the photosphere.[93]
+
+It is thought that the energy necessary to heat the corona is provided by turbulent motion in the convection zone below the photosphere, and two main mechanisms have been proposed to explain coronal heating.[91] The first is wave heating, in which sound, gravitational or magnetohydrodynamic waves are produced by turbulence in the convection zone.[91] These waves travel upward and dissipate in the corona, depositing their energy in the ambient matter in the form of heat.[156] The other is magnetic heating, in which magnetic energy is continuously built up by photospheric motion and released through magnetic reconnection in the form of large solar flares and myriad similar but smaller events—nanoflares.[157]
+
+Currently, it is unclear whether waves are an efficient heating mechanism. All waves except Alfvén waves have been found to dissipate or refract before reaching the corona.[158] In addition, Alfvén waves do not easily dissipate in the corona. Current research focus has therefore shifted towards flare heating mechanisms.[91]
+
+Theoretical models of the Sun's development suggest that 3.8 to 2.5 billion years ago, during the Archean eon, the Sun was only about 75% as bright as it is today. Such a weak star would not have been able to sustain liquid water on Earth's surface, and thus life should not have been able to develop. However, the geological record demonstrates that Earth has remained at a fairly constant temperature throughout its history, and that the young Earth was somewhat warmer than it is today. One theory among scientists is that the atmosphere of the young Earth contained much larger quantities of greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide, methane) than are present today, which trapped enough heat to compensate for the smaller amount of solar energy reaching it.[159]
+
+However, examination of Archaean sediments appears inconsistent with the hypothesis of high greenhouse concentrations. Instead, the moderate temperature range may be explained by a lower surface albedo brought about by less continental area and the "lack of biologically induced cloud condensation nuclei". This would have led to increased absorption of solar energy, thereby compensating for the lower solar output.[160]
+
+The enormous effect of the Sun on Earth has been recognized since prehistoric times, and the Sun has been regarded by some cultures as a solar deity.
+
+The Sun has been an object of veneration in many cultures throughout human history. Humanity's most fundamental understanding of the Sun is as the luminous disk in the sky, whose presence above the horizon creates day and whose absence causes night. In many prehistoric and ancient cultures, the Sun was thought to be a solar deity or other supernatural entity. Worship of the Sun was central to civilizations such as the ancient Egyptians, the Inca of South America and the Aztecs of what is now Mexico. In religions such as Hinduism, the Sun is still considered a god. Many ancient monuments were constructed with solar phenomena in mind; for example, stone megaliths accurately mark the summer or winter solstice (some of the most prominent megaliths are located in Nabta Playa, Egypt; Mnajdra, Malta and at Stonehenge, England); Newgrange, a prehistoric human-built mount in Ireland, was designed to detect the winter solstice; the pyramid of El Castillo at Chichén Itzá in Mexico is designed to cast shadows in the shape of serpents climbing the pyramid at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.
+
+The Egyptians portrayed the god Ra as being carried across the sky in a solar barque, accompanied by lesser gods, and to the Greeks, he was Helios, carried by a chariot drawn by fiery horses. From the reign of Elagabalus in the late Roman Empire the Sun's birthday was a holiday celebrated as Sol Invictus (literally "Unconquered Sun") soon after the winter solstice, which may have been an antecedent to Christmas. Regarding the fixed stars, the Sun appears from Earth to revolve once a year along the ecliptic through the zodiac, and so Greek astronomers categorized it as one of the seven planets (Greek planetes, "wanderer"); the naming of the days of the weeks after the seven planets dates to the Roman era.[161][162][163]
+
+In the early first millennium BC, Babylonian astronomers observed that the Sun's motion along the ecliptic is not uniform, though they did not know why; it is today known that this is due to the movement of Earth in an elliptic orbit around the Sun, with Earth moving faster when it is nearer to the Sun at perihelion and moving slower when it is farther away at aphelion.[164]
+
+One of the first people to offer a scientific or philosophical explanation for the Sun was the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras. He reasoned that it was not the chariot of Helios, but instead a giant flaming ball of metal even larger than the land of the Peloponnesus and that the Moon reflected the light of the Sun.[165] For teaching this heresy, he was imprisoned by the authorities and sentenced to death, though he was later released through the intervention of Pericles. Eratosthenes estimated the distance between Earth and the Sun in the 3rd century BC as "of stadia myriads 400 and 80000", the translation of which is ambiguous, implying either 4,080,000 stadia (755,000 km) or 804,000,000 stadia (148 to 153 million kilometers or 0.99 to 1.02 AU); the latter value is correct to within a few percent. In the 1st century AD, Ptolemy estimated the distance as 1,210 times the radius of Earth, approximately 7.71 million kilometers (0.0515 AU).[166]
+
+The theory that the Sun is the center around which the planets orbit was first proposed by the ancient Greek Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BC, and later adopted by Seleucus of Seleucia (see Heliocentrism). This view was developed in a more detailed mathematical model of a heliocentric system in the 16th century by Nicolaus Copernicus.
+
+Observations of sunspots were recorded during the Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) by Chinese astronomers, who maintained records of these observations for centuries. Averroes also provided a description of sunspots in the 12th century.[167] The invention of the telescope in the early 17th century permitted detailed observations of sunspots by Thomas Harriot, Galileo Galilei and other astronomers. Galileo posited that sunspots were on the surface of the Sun rather than small objects passing between Earth and the Sun.[168]
+
+Arabic astronomical contributions include Al-Battani's discovery that the direction of the Sun's apogee (the place in the Sun's orbit against the fixed stars where it seems to be moving slowest) is changing.[169] (In modern heliocentric terms, this is caused by a gradual motion of the aphelion of the Earth's orbit). Ibn Yunus observed more than 10,000 entries for the Sun's position for many years using a large astrolabe.[170]
+
+From an observation of a transit of Venus in 1032, the Persian astronomer and polymath Ibn Sina concluded that Venus is closer to Earth than the Sun.[171] In 1672 Giovanni Cassini and Jean Richer determined the distance to Mars and were thereby able to calculate the distance to the Sun.
+
+In 1666, Isaac Newton observed the Sun's light using a prism, and showed that it is made up of light of many colors.[172] In 1800, William Herschel discovered infrared radiation beyond the red part of the solar spectrum.[173] The 19th century saw advancement in spectroscopic studies of the Sun; Joseph von Fraunhofer recorded more than 600 absorption lines in the spectrum, the strongest of which are still often referred to as Fraunhofer lines. In the early years of the modern scientific era, the source of the Sun's energy was a significant puzzle. Lord Kelvin suggested that the Sun is a gradually cooling liquid body that is radiating an internal store of heat.[174] Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz then proposed a gravitational contraction mechanism to explain the energy output, but the resulting age estimate was only 20 million years, well short of the time span of at least 300 million years suggested by some geological discoveries of that time.[174][175] In 1890 Joseph Lockyer, who discovered helium in the solar spectrum, proposed a meteoritic hypothesis for the formation and evolution of the Sun.[176]
+
+Not until 1904 was a documented solution offered. Ernest Rutherford suggested that the Sun's output could be maintained by an internal source of heat, and suggested radioactive decay as the source.[177] However, it would be Albert Einstein who would provide the essential clue to the source of the Sun's energy output with his mass–energy equivalence relation E = mc2.[178] In 1920, Sir Arthur Eddington proposed that the pressures and temperatures at the core of the Sun could produce a nuclear fusion reaction that merged hydrogen (protons) into helium nuclei, resulting in a production of energy from the net change in mass.[179] The preponderance of hydrogen in the Sun was confirmed in 1925 by Cecilia Payne using the ionization theory developed by Meghnad Saha. The theoretical concept of fusion was developed in the 1930s by the astrophysicists Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Hans Bethe. Hans Bethe calculated the details of the two main energy-producing nuclear reactions that power the Sun.[180][181] In 1957, Margaret Burbidge, Geoffrey Burbidge, William Fowler and Fred Hoyle showed that most of the elements in the universe have been synthesized by nuclear reactions inside stars, some like the Sun.[182]
+
+The first satellites designed for long term observation of the Sun from interplanetary space were NASA's Pioneers 6, 7, 8 and 9, which were launched between 1959 and 1968. These probes orbited the Sun at a distance similar to that of Earth, and made the first detailed measurements of the solar wind and the solar magnetic field. Pioneer 9 operated for a particularly long time, transmitting data until May 1983.[184][185]
+
+In the 1970s, two Helios spacecraft and the Skylab Apollo Telescope Mount provided scientists with significant new data on solar wind and the solar corona. The Helios 1 and 2 probes were U.S.–German collaborations that studied the solar wind from an orbit carrying the spacecraft inside Mercury's orbit at perihelion.[186] The Skylab space station, launched by NASA in 1973, included a solar observatory module called the Apollo Telescope Mount that was operated by astronauts resident on the station.[92] Skylab made the first time-resolved observations of the solar transition region and of ultraviolet emissions from the solar corona.[92] Discoveries included the first observations of coronal mass ejections, then called "coronal transients", and of coronal holes, now known to be intimately associated with the solar wind.[186]
+
+In 1980, the Solar Maximum Mission was launched by NASA. This spacecraft was designed to observe gamma rays, X-rays and UV radiation from solar flares during a time of high solar activity and solar luminosity. Just a few months after launch, however, an electronics failure caused the probe to go into standby mode, and it spent the next three years in this inactive state. In 1984 Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-41C retrieved the satellite and repaired its electronics before re-releasing it into orbit. The Solar Maximum Mission subsequently acquired thousands of images of the solar corona before re-entering Earth's atmosphere in June 1989.[187]
+
+Launched in 1991, Japan's Yohkoh (Sunbeam) satellite observed solar flares at X-ray wavelengths. Mission data allowed scientists to identify several different types of flares, and demonstrated that the corona away from regions of peak activity was much more dynamic and active than had previously been supposed. Yohkoh observed an entire solar cycle but went into standby mode when an annular eclipse in 2001 caused it to lose its lock on the Sun. It was destroyed by atmospheric re-entry in 2005.[188]
+
+One of the most important solar missions to date has been the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, jointly built by the European Space Agency and NASA and launched on 2 December 1995.[92] Originally intended to serve a two-year mission, a mission extension through 2012 was approved in October 2009.[189] It has proven so useful that a follow-on mission, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), was launched in February 2010.[190] Situated at the Lagrangian point between Earth and the Sun (at which the gravitational pull from both is equal), SOHO has provided a constant view of the Sun at many wavelengths since its launch.[92] Besides its direct solar observation, SOHO has enabled the discovery of a large number of comets, mostly tiny sungrazing comets that incinerate as they pass the Sun.[191]
+
+All these satellites have observed the Sun from the plane of the ecliptic, and so have only observed its equatorial regions in detail. The Ulysses probe was launched in 1990 to study the Sun's polar regions. It first traveled to Jupiter, to "slingshot" into an orbit that would take it far above the plane of the ecliptic. Once Ulysses was in its scheduled orbit, it began observing the solar wind and magnetic field strength at high solar latitudes, finding that the solar wind from high latitudes was moving at about 750 km/s, which was slower than expected, and that there were large magnetic waves emerging from high latitudes that scattered galactic cosmic rays.[192]
+
+Elemental abundances in the photosphere are well known from spectroscopic studies, but the composition of the interior of the Sun is more poorly understood. A solar wind sample return mission, Genesis, was designed to allow astronomers to directly measure the composition of solar material.[193]
+
+The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission was launched in October 2006. Two identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to (respectively) pull further ahead of and fall gradually behind Earth. This enables stereoscopic imaging of the Sun and solar phenomena, such as coronal mass ejections.[194][195]
+
+The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018 aboard a Delta IV Heavy rocket and will reach a perigee of 0.046 AU in 2025, making it the closest-orbiting manmade satellite as the first spacecraft to fly low into the solar corona.[196]
+
+The Indian Space Research Organisation has scheduled the launch of a 100 kg satellite named Aditya for mid 2020. Its main instrument will be a coronagraph for studying the dynamics of the solar corona.[197]
+
+The brightness of the Sun can cause pain from looking at it with the naked eye; however, doing so for brief periods is not hazardous for normal non-dilated eyes.[198][199] Looking directly at the Sun causes phosphene visual artifacts and temporary partial blindness. It also delivers about 4 milliwatts of sunlight to the retina, slightly heating it and potentially causing damage in eyes that cannot respond properly to the brightness.[200][201] UV exposure gradually yellows the lens of the eye over a period of years, and is thought to contribute to the formation of cataracts, but this depends on general exposure to solar UV, and not whether one looks directly at the Sun.[202] Long-duration viewing of the direct Sun with the naked eye can begin to cause UV-induced, sunburn-like lesions on the retina after about 100 seconds, particularly under conditions where the UV light from the Sun is intense and well focused;[203][204] conditions are worsened by young eyes or new lens implants (which admit more UV than aging natural eyes), Sun angles near the zenith, and observing locations at high altitude.
+
+Viewing the Sun through light-concentrating optics such as binoculars may result in permanent damage to the retina without an appropriate filter that blocks UV and substantially dims the sunlight. When using an attenuating filter to view the Sun, the viewer is cautioned to use a filter specifically designed for that use. Some improvised filters that pass UV or IR rays, can actually harm the eye at high brightness levels.[205]
+Herschel wedges, also called Solar Diagonals, are effective and inexpensive for small telescopes. The sunlight that is destined for the eyepiece is reflected from an unsilvered surface of a piece of glass. Only a very small fraction of the incident light is reflected. The rest passes through the glass and leaves the instrument. If the glass breaks because of the heat, no light at all is reflected, making the device fail-safe. Simple filters made of darkened glass allow the full intensity of sunlight to pass through if they break, endangering the observer's eyesight. Unfiltered binoculars can deliver hundreds of times as much energy as using the naked eye, possibly causing immediate damage. It is claimed that even brief glances at the midday Sun through an unfiltered telescope can cause permanent damage.[206]
+
+Partial solar eclipses are hazardous to view because the eye's pupil is not adapted to the unusually high visual contrast: the pupil dilates according to the total amount of light in the field of view, not by the brightest object in the field. During partial eclipses most sunlight is blocked by the Moon passing in front of the Sun, but the uncovered parts of the photosphere have the same surface brightness as during a normal day. In the overall gloom, the pupil expands from ~2 mm to ~6 mm, and each retinal cell exposed to the solar image receives up to ten times more light than it would looking at the non-eclipsed Sun. This can damage or kill those cells, resulting in small permanent blind spots for the viewer.[207] The hazard is insidious for inexperienced observers and for children, because there is no perception of pain: it is not immediately obvious that one's vision is being destroyed.
+
+During sunrise and sunset, sunlight is attenuated because of Rayleigh scattering and Mie scattering from a particularly long passage through Earth's atmosphere,[208] and the Sun is sometimes faint enough to be viewed comfortably with the naked eye or safely with optics (provided there is no risk of bright sunlight suddenly appearing through a break between clouds). Hazy conditions, atmospheric dust, and high humidity contribute to this atmospheric attenuation.[209]
+
+An optical phenomenon, known as a green flash, can sometimes be seen shortly after sunset or before sunrise. The flash is caused by light from the Sun just below the horizon being bent (usually through a temperature inversion) towards the observer. Light of shorter wavelengths (violet, blue, green) is bent more than that of longer wavelengths (yellow, orange, red) but the violet and blue light is scattered more, leaving light that is perceived as green.[210]
+
+Ultraviolet light from the Sun has antiseptic properties and can be used to sanitize tools and water. It also causes sunburn, and has other biological effects such as the production of vitamin D and sun tanning. It is also the main cause of skin cancer. Ultraviolet light is strongly attenuated by Earth's ozone layer, so that the amount of UV varies greatly with latitude and has been partially responsible for many biological adaptations, including variations in human skin color in different regions of the Earth.[211]
+
+The Sun has eight known planets. This includes four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars), two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), and two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). The Solar System also has at least five dwarf planets, an asteroid belt, numerous comets, and a large number of icy bodies which lie beyond the orbit of Neptune.
+
+Solar deities play a major role in many world religions and mythologies.[212] The ancient Sumerians believed that the sun was Utu,[213][214] the god of justice and twin brother of Inanna, the Queen of Heaven,[213] who was identified as the planet Venus.[214] Later, Utu was identified with the East Semitic god Shamash.[213][214] Utu was regarded as a helper-deity, who aided those in distress,[213] and, in iconography, he is usually portrayed with a long beard and clutching a saw,[213] which represented his role as the dispenser of justice.[213]
+
+From at least the Fourth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the Sun was worshipped as the god Ra, portrayed as a falcon-headed divinity surmounted by the solar disk, and surrounded by a serpent. In the New Empire period, the Sun became identified with the dung beetle, whose spherical ball of dung was identified with the Sun. In the form of the sun disc Aten, the Sun had a brief resurgence during the Amarna Period when it again became the preeminent, if not only, divinity for the Pharaoh Akhenaton.[215][216]
+
+In Proto-Indo-European religion, the Sun was personified as the goddess *Seh2ul.[217][218] Derivatives of this goddess in Indo-European languages include the Old Norse Sól, Sanskrit Surya, Gaulish Sulis, Lithuanian Saulė, and Slavic Solntse.[218] In ancient Greek religion, the sun deity was the male god Helios,[219] but traces of an earlier female solar deity are preserved in Helen of Troy.[219] In later times, Helios was syncretized with Apollo.[220]
+
+In the Bible, Malachi 4:2 mentions the "Sun of Righteousness" (sometimes translated as the "Sun of Justice"),[221] which some Christians have interpreted as a reference to the Messiah (Christ).[222] In ancient Roman culture, Sunday was the day of the sun god. It was adopted as the Sabbath day by Christians who did not have a Jewish background. The symbol of light was a pagan device adopted by Christians, and perhaps the most important one that did not come from Jewish traditions. In paganism, the Sun was a source of life, giving warmth and illumination to mankind. It was the center of a popular cult among Romans, who would stand at dawn to catch the first rays of sunshine as they prayed. The celebration of the winter solstice (which influenced Christmas) was part of the Roman cult of the unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus). Christian churches were built with an orientation so that the congregation faced toward the sunrise in the East.[223]
+
+Tonatiuh, the Aztec god of the sun, was usually depicted holding arrows and a shield[224] and was closely associated with the practice of human sacrifice.[224] The sun goddess Amaterasu is the most important deity in the Shinto religion,[225][226] and she is believed to be the direct ancestor of all Japanese emperors.[225]
+
+Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of".

en/752.html.txt

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+
+
+Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress. She is credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s and early 2000s, for which she is referred to as the "Princess of Pop".
+
+Born in McComb, Mississippi and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, she appeared in stage productions and television series before signing with Jive Records in 1997. Spears's first two studio albums, ...Baby One More Time (1999) and Oops!... I Did It Again (2000), were global successes and made her the best-selling teenage artist of all time. Spears adopted more mature and provocative themes for her next two studio albums, Britney (2001) and In the Zone (2003), and made her feature film debut in a starring role in Crossroads (2002). Following a series of heavily publicized personal struggles and erratic public behavior beginning in 2006, Spears's career was interrupted, before the release of her fifth studio album Blackout (2007), which is often critically referred to as her best work.[1] Spears' personal struggles led her to be placed on a still ongoing conservatorship. She returned to the top of record charts with her sixth and seventh studio albums, Circus (2008) and Femme Fatale (2011), respectively. In 2012, Forbes reported that Spears was the highest paid female musician of the year, with earnings of $58 million, having last topped the list in 2002.[2] During the promotion of her eighth and ninth studio albums, Britney Jean (2013) and Glory (2016), Spears embarked on a four-year concert residency, Britney: Piece of Me, at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. In 2019, Spears announced an indefinite career hiatus and was later admitted involuntarily into a mental health facility by her conservator, leading to a court-led investigation into malpractice conducted by her team.
+
+Spears has scored six solo number one albums on the Billboard 200, making her the third best performing female artist on the chart.[3] Four of Spears's singles have reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100: "...Baby One More Time", "Womanizer", "3", and "Hold It Against Me". Other singles, "Oops!... I Did It Again", "Toxic", and "Scream & Shout", topped the charts in most countries. With "3" in 2009 and "Hold It Against Me" in 2011, she became the second artist after Mariah Carey in the Hot 100's history to debut at number one with two or more songs. Spears has earned numerous awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award; seven Guinness World Records; six MTV Video Music Awards, including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award; seven Billboard Music Awards, including the Millennium Award;[4] the inaugural Radio Disney Icon Award; and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[5]
+
+Billboard ranked her as the eighth-biggest artist of the 2000s decade.[6] One of the world's best-selling music artists, Spears is regarded as a pop icon and has sold 100 million records worldwide, including over 70 million records in the United States.[7][8] In the United States, Spears is the fourth best-selling female album artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era[9] as well as the best-selling female album artist of the 2000s.[10][11][12] In 2004, Spears launched a perfume brand with Elizabeth Arden, Inc.; sales exceeded US$1.5 billion as of 2012[update].[13] Spears has topped the list of most searched celebrities seven times in 12 years, a record since the inception of the internet.[14]
+
+Britney Jean Spears was born on December 2, 1981 in McComb, Mississippi,[15][16] the second child of Lynne Irene Bridges and James Parnell Spears. Her maternal grandmother, Lillian Portell, was English (born in London), and one of Spears's maternal great-great-grandfathers was Maltese.[17] Her siblings are Bryan James and Jamie Lynn Spears.[18] She was born in the Bible Belt, where socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a particularly strong religious influence;[19] Spears was baptized as a Southern Baptist and sang in a church choir as a child.[20] As an adult, she has studied Kabbalist teachings.[21]
+
+At age three, she started attending dance lessons in her hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana, and was selected to perform as a solo artist at the annual recital. Spears made her local stage debut at age five, singing "What Child Is This?" at her kindergarten graduation. During her childhood, she also had gymnastics and voice lessons, and won many state-level competitions and children's talent shows.[22][23][24] She said about her ambition as a child, "I was in my own world, [...] I found out what I'm supposed to do at an early age".[23]
+
+At age eight, Spears and her mother Lynne traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to audition for the 1990s revival of The Mickey Mouse Club. Casting director Matt Casella rejected her as too young, but introduced her to Nancy Carson, a New York City talent agent. Carson was impressed with Spears's singing and suggested enrolling her at the Professional Performing Arts School; shortly after, Lynne and her daughters moved to a sublet apartment in New York.
+
+Spears was hired for her first professional role as the understudy for the lead role of Tina Denmark in the Off-Broadway musical Ruthless!. She also appeared as a contestant on the popular television show Star Search and was cast in a number of commercials.[25][26] In December 1992, she was cast in The Mickey Mouse Club alongside Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Gosling, and Keri Russell. After the show was canceled in 1996, she returned to Mississippi and enrolled at McComb's Parklane Academy. Although she made friends with most of her classmates, she compared the school to "the opening scene in Clueless with all the cliques. [...] I was so bored. I was the point guard on the basketball team. I had my boyfriend, and I went to homecoming and Christmas formal. But I wanted more."[23][27]
+
+In June 1997, Spears was in talks with manager Lou Pearlman to join the female pop group Innosense. Lynne asked family friend and entertainment lawyer Larry Rudolph for his opinion and submitted a tape of Spears singing over a Whitney Houston karaoke song along with some pictures. Rudolph decided that he wanted to pitch her to record labels, for which she needed a professional demo made. He sent Spears an unused song of Toni Braxton; she rehearsed for a week and recorded her vocals in a studio with a sound engineer. Spears traveled to New York with the demo and met with executives from four labels, returning to Kentwood the same day. Three of the labels rejected her, saying that audiences wanted pop bands such as the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls, and "there wasn't going to be another Madonna, another Debbie Gibson, or another Tiffany."[28]
+
+Two weeks later, executives from Jive Records returned calls to Rudolph.[28] Senior vice president of A&R Jeff Fenster said about Spears's audition that "it's very rare to hear someone that age who can deliver emotional content and commercial appeal...For any artist, the motivation—the 'eye of the tiger'—is extremely important. And Britney had that."[23] Spears sang Houston's "I Have Nothing" (1992) for the executives, and was subsequently signed to the label.[29] They appointed her to work with producer Eric Foster White for a month, who reportedly shaped her voice from "lower and less poppy" delivery to "distinctively, unmistakably Britney."[30] After hearing the recorded material, president Clive Calder ordered a full album. Spears had originally envisioned "Sheryl Crow music, but younger; more adult contemporary." She felt secure with her label's appointment of producers, since "It made more sense to go pop, because I can dance to it—it's more me."[23] She flew to Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, where half of the album was recorded from March to April 1998, with producers Max Martin, Denniz Pop and Rami Yacoub, among others.[23]
+
+After Spears returned to the United States, she embarked on a shopping mall promotional tour to promote her upcoming debut album. Her show was a four-song set and she was accompanied by two back-up dancers. Her first concert tour followed, as an opening act for NSYNC.[31] Her debut studio album, ...Baby One More Time, was released on January 12, 1999.[23] It debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 and was certified two-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America after a month. Worldwide, the album topped the charts in fifteen countries and sold over 10 million copies in a year.[32] It became the biggest-selling album ever by a teenage artist.[24]
+
+The title track was released as the lead single from the album. Originally, Jive Records wanted its music video to be animated; however, Spears rejected it, and suggested the final concept of a Catholic schoolgirl.[30] The single sold 500,000 copies on its first day, and peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, topping the chart for two consecutive weeks. It has sold more than 10 million copies, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.[33][34] "...Baby One More Time" later received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.[35] The title track also topped the singles chart for two weeks in the United Kingdom, and became the fastest-selling single ever by a female artist, shipping over 460,000 copies.[36] It would later become the 25th-most successful song of all time in British chart history.[37] Spears is the youngest female artist to have a million seller in the UK.[38] "(You Drive Me) Crazy" was released as the third single from the album. It became a top-ten hit worldwide and further propelled the success of the ...Baby One More Time album. The album has sold 25 million copies worldwide,[39][40] making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. It is the best-selling debut album by any artist.[41][42][43]
+
+On June 28, 1999, Spears began her first headlining ...Baby One More Time Tour in North America, which was positively received by critics.[44] It also generated some controversy due to her racy outfits.[45] An extension of the tour, titled Crazy 2k, followed in March 2000. Spears premiered songs from her upcoming second album during the show.[27]
+
+Oops!... I Did It Again, her second studio album, was released in May 2000. It debuted at number one in the US, selling 1.3 million copies, breaking the Nielsen SoundScan record for the highest debut sales by any solo artist.[46] The album has sold over 20 million copies worldwide to date,[47] making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone said that "the great thing about Oops! – under the cheese surface, Britney's demand for satisfaction is complex, fierce and downright scary, making her a true child of rock & roll tradition."[48] The album's lead single, "Oops!... I Did It Again", peaked at the top of the charts in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and many other European nations.[38][49] The album as well as the title track received Grammy nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, respectively.[50]
+
+The same year, Spears embarked on the Oops!... I Did It Again Tour, which grossed $40.5 million; she also released her first book, Britney Spears' Heart to Heart, co-written with her mother.[24][51] On September 7, 2000, Spears performed at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. Halfway through the performance, she ripped off her black suit to reveal a sequined flesh-colored bodysuit, followed by heavy dance routine. It is noted by critics as the moment that Spears showed signs of becoming a more provocative performer.[52] Amidst media speculation, Spears confirmed she was dating NSYNC member Justin Timberlake.[24] Spears and Timberlake would both graduate from high school via distance learning from the University of Nebraska High School.[53][54] She also bought a home in Destin, Florida.[55]
+
+In February 2001, Spears signed a $7–8 million promotional deal with Pepsi, and released another book co-written with her mother, titled A Mother's Gift.[24] Her self-titled third studio album, Britney, was released in November 2001. While on tour, she felt inspired by hip hop artists such as Jay-Z and The Neptunes and wanted to create a record with a funkier sound.[56] The album debuted at number one in the Billboard 200 and reached top five positions in Australia, the United Kingdom and mainland Europe and sold over 15 million copies worldwide.[38][57][58] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic called Britney "the record where she strives to deepen her persona, making it more adult while still recognizably Britney. [...] It does sound like the work of a star who has now found and refined her voice, resulting in her best record yet."[59] The album was honored with two Grammy nominations—Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Overprotected"— and was listed in 2008 as one of Entertainment Weekly's "100 Best Albums from the Past 25 Years".[60][61] The album's first single, "I'm a Slave 4 U", became a top-ten hit worldwide.[62] Spears's performance of the single at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards featured a caged tiger (wrangled by Bhagavan Antle) and a large albino python draped over her shoulders.[63] It was harshly received by animal rights organization PETA, who claimed the animals were mistreated and scrapped plans for an anti-fur billboard that was to feature Spears.[52] Jocelyn Vena of MTV summarized Spears's performance at the ceremony, saying, "draping herself in a white python and slithering around a steamy garden setting – surrounded by dancers in zebra and tiger outfits – Spears created one of the most striking visuals in the 27-year history of the show."[64]
+
+To support the album, Spears embarked on the Dream Within a Dream Tour. The show was critically praised for its technical innovations, the pièce de résistance being a water screen that pumped two tons of water into the stage.[65][66] The tour grossed $43.7 million, becoming the second highest-grossing tour of 2002 by a female artist, behind Cher's Farewell Tour.[67] Her career success was highlighted by Forbes in 2002, as Spears was ranked the world's most powerful celebrity.[68] Spears also landed her first starring role in Crossroads, released in February 2002. Although the film was largely panned, critics praised Spears's acting and the film was a box office success.[69][70][71] Crossroads, which had a $12 million budget, went on to gross over $61.1 million worldwide.[71]
+
+In June 2002, Spears opened her first restaurant, Nyla, in New York City, but terminated her relationship in November, citing mismanagement and "management's failure to keep her fully apprised".[72] In July 2002, Spears announced she would take a six-month break from her career; however, she went back into the studio in November to record her new album.[73] Spears's relationship with Justin Timberlake ended after three years. In December 2002, Timberlake released the song "Cry Me a River" as the second single from his solo debut album. The music video featured a Spears look-alike and fueled the rumors that she had been unfaithful to him.[74][75] As a response, Spears wrote the ballad "Everytime" with her backing vocalist and friend Annet Artani.[76] The same year, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst said that he was in a relationship with Spears. However, Spears denied Durst's claims. In a 2009 interview, he explained that "I just guess at the time it was taboo for a guy like me to be associated with a gal like her."[77]
+
+In August 2003, Spears opened the MTV Video Music Awards with Christina Aguilera, performing "Like a Virgin". Halfway through they were joined by Madonna, with whom they both kissed. The incident was highly publicized.[71] In 2008, MTV listed the performance as the number-one opening moment in the history of MTV Video Music Awards,[78] while Blender magazine cited it as one of the twenty-five sexiest music moments on television history.[79] Spears released her fourth studio album, In the Zone, in November 2003. She assumed more creative control by writing and co-producing most of the material.[24] Vibe called it "A supremely confident dance record that also illustrates Spears's development as a songwriter."[80] NPR listed the album as one of "The 50 Most Important Recording of the Decade", adding that "the decade's history of impeccably crafted pop is written on her body of work."[81] In the Zone sold over 609,000 copies in the United States during its first week of availability in the United States, debuting at the top of the charts, making Spears the first female artist in the SoundScan era to have her first four studio albums to debut at number one.[24] It also debuted at the top of the charts in France and the top ten in Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.[82] In the Zone sold over 10 million copies worldwide.[83] The album produced four singles: "Me Against the Music", a collaboration with Madonna; "Toxic"—which won Spears her first Grammy for Best Dance Recording; "Everytime", and "Outrageous".[24]
+
+In January 2004, Spears married childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The marriage was annulled 55 hours later, following a petition to the court that stated that Spears "lacked understanding of her actions".[84]
+
+In March 2004, she embarked on The Onyx Hotel Tour in support of In the Zone.[85] In June 2004, Spears fell and injured her left knee during the music video shoot for "Outrageous". Spears underwent arthroscopic surgery. She was forced to remain six weeks with a thigh brace, followed by eight to twelve weeks of rehabilitation, which caused The Onyx Hotel Tour to be canceled.[86]
+
+During 2004, Spears became involved in the Kabbalah Centre through her friendship with Madonna.[87]
+
+In July 2004, Spears became engaged to American dancer Kevin Federline, whom she had met three months before. The romance received intense attention from the media, since Federline had recently broken up with actress Shar Jackson, who was still pregnant with their second child at the time.[24] The stages of their relationship were chronicled in Spears's first reality show Britney & Kevin: Chaotic. They held a wedding ceremony on September 18, 2004, but were not legally married until three weeks later on October 6 due to a delay finalizing the couple's prenuptial agreement.[88] Shortly after, she released her first perfume with Elizabeth Arden, Curious, which broke the company's first-week gross for a perfume.[24] In October 2004, Spears took a career break to start a family.[89] Greatest Hits: My Prerogative, her first greatest hits compilation album, was released in November 2004.[90] Spears's cover version of Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative" was released as the lead single from the album, reaching the top of the charts in Finland, Ireland, Italy and Norway.[91] The second single, "Do Somethin'", was a top ten hit in Australia, the United Kingdom and other countries of mainland Europe.[92][93] In May–June 2005, Spears and Federline appeared in their own five-episode UPN reality show, Britney and Kevin: Chaotic chronicling their relationship and wedding. It was heavily criticized and Spears would later refer to it in a 2013 interview as "the worst thing I’ve done in my career".[94] In August 2005, Spears released "Someday (I Will Understand)", which was dedicated to her first child, a son, who was born the following month.[95] In November 2005, she released her first remix compilation, B in the Mix: The Remixes, which consists of eleven remixes.[96] It has sold over 1 million copies worldwide.[97]
+
+In February 2006, pictures surfaced of Spears driving with her son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat. Child advocates were horrified by the photos of her holding the wheel with one hand and Sean with the other. Spears claimed that the situation happened because of a frightening encounter with paparazzi, and that it was a mistake on her part.[24] The following month, she guest-starred on the Will & Grace episode "Buy, Buy Baby" as closeted lesbian Amber Louise.[98] She announced she no longer studied Kabbalah in June 2006, explaining, "my baby is my religion."[87] Two months later, Spears posed nude for the cover of Harper's Bazaar. The picture was heavily compared to Demi Moore's August 1991 Vanity Fair cover.[24] In September 2006, she gave birth to her second child, a son.[99] In November 2006, Spears filed for divorce from Federline, citing irreconcilable differences.[100] Their divorce was finalized in July 2007, when the couple reached a global settlement and agreed to share joint custody of their children.[101]
+
+Spears's aunt Sandra Bridges Covington, with whom she had been very close, died of ovarian cancer in January 2007.[102] In February, Spears stayed in a drug rehabilitation facility in Antigua for less than a day. The following night, she shaved her head with electric clippers at a hair salon in Tarzana, Los Angeles. She admitted herself to other treatment facilities during the following weeks.[103] In May 2007, she produced a series of promotional concerts at House of Blues venues, titled The M+M's Tour.[104] In October 2007, Spears lost physical custody of her children to Federline. The reasons of the court ruling were not revealed to the public.[105] Spears was also sued by Louis Vuitton over her 2005 music video "Do Somethin'" for upholstering her Hummer interior in counterfeit Louis Vuitton cherry blossom fabric, which resulted in the video being banned on European TV stations.[106]
+
+In October 2007, Spears released her fifth studio album, Blackout. The album debuted at the top of charts in Canada and Ireland, number two in the U.S. Billboard 200, France, Japan, Mexico and the United Kingdom and the top ten in Australia, Korea, New Zealand and many European nations. In the United States, Spears became the only female artist to have her first five studio albums debut at the two top slots of the chart.[107] The album received positive reviews from critics and has sold over 3 million copies worldwide.[108][109] Blackout won Album of the Year at MTV Europe Music Awards 2008 and was listed as the fifth Best Pop Album of the Decade by The Times.[110][111] Spears performed the lead single "Gimme More" at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. The performance was panned by many critics.[112] Despite the backlash, the single rocketed to worldwide success, peaking at number one in Canada and the top ten in almost every country it charted.[113][114] The second single "Piece of Me" reached the top of the charts in Ireland and reached the top five in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The third single "Break the Ice" was released the following year and had moderate success due to Spears not being able to promote it properly.[115][116][117] In December 2007, Spears began a relationship with paparazzo Adnan Ghalib.[118]
+
+In January 2008, Spears refused to relinquish custody of her sons to Federline's representatives. She was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after police that had arrived at her house noted she appeared to be under the influence of an unidentified substance. The following day, Spears's visitation rights were suspended at an emergency court hearing, and Federline was given sole physical and legal custody of the children. She was committed to the psychiatric ward of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and put on 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold under California state law. The court placed her under temporary, and later, permanent[119] conservatorship of her father James Spears and attorney Andrew Wallet, giving them complete control of her assets.[24] She was released five days later.[120]
+
+The following month, Spears guest-starred on the How I Met Your Mother episode "Ten Sessions" as receptionist Abby. She received positive reviews for her performance, as well as bringing the series its highest ratings ever.[121][122] In July 2008, Spears regained some visitation rights after coming to an agreement with Federline and his counsel.[123] In September 2008, Spears opened the MTV Video Music Awards with a pre-taped comedy sketch with Jonah Hill and an introduction speech. She won Best Female Video, Best Pop Video and Video of the Year for "Piece of Me".[124] A 60-minute introspective documentary, Britney: For the Record, was produced to chronicle Spears's return to the recording industry. Directed by Phil Griffin, For the Record was shot in Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and New York City during the third quarter of 2008.[125] The documentary was broadcast on MTV to 5.6 million viewers for the two airings on the premiere night. It was the highest rating in its Sunday night timeslot and in the network's history.[126]
+
+In December 2008, Spears's sixth studio album Circus was released. It received positive reviews from critics[127] and debuted at number one in Canada, Czech Republic and the United States, and within the top ten in many European nations.[114][128] In the United States, Spears became the youngest female artist to have five albums debut at number one, earning a place in Guinness World Records.[129] She also became the only act in the Soundscan era to have four albums debut with 500,000 or more copies sold.[128] The album was one of the fastest-selling albums of the year,[130] and has sold 4 million copies worldwide.[131] Its lead single, "Womanizer", became Spears's first number one in the Billboard Hot 100 since "...Baby One More Time". The single also topped the charts in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden.[132][133] It was also nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Dance Recording.[134] In January 2009, Spears and her father James obtained a restraining order against her former manager Sam Lutfi, ex-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib and attorney Jon Eardley – all of whom, court documents claim, had been conspiring to gain control of Spears's affairs. The restraining order forbids Lutfi and Ghalib from contacting Spears or coming within 250 yards of her, her property or family members.[135] Spears embarked on The Circus Starring Britney Spears in March 2009. With a gross of U.S. $131.8 million, it became the fifth highest-grossing tour of the year.[136]
+
+In November 2009, Spears released her second greatest hits album, The Singles Collection. The album's lead and only single, "3" became her third number one single in the U.S.[137] In May 2010, Spears's representatives confirmed she was dating her agent Jason Trawick, and that they had decided to end their professional relationship to focus on their personal relationship.[138] Spears designed a limited edition clothing line for Candie's, which was released in stores in July 2010.[139] In September 2010, she made a cameo appearance on a Spears-themed tribute episode of American TV show Glee, titled "Britney/Brittany". The episode drew Glee's highest ratings ever.[140][141]
+
+In March 2011, Spears released her seventh studio album Femme Fatale.[142] The album peaked at number one in the United States, Canada, and Australia, and peaked within the top ten on nearly every other chart. Its peak in the United States ties Britney with Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson for the third-most number ones among women.[3] It has sold 1 million copies in the United States, and has been certified platinum by the RIAA.[143]
+
+The album's lead single, "Hold It Against Me" debuted at number-one on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Spears's fourth number-one single on the chart and making her the second artist in history to have two consecutive singles debut at number one, after Mariah Carey.[144] The second single "Till the World Ends" peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in May,[145] while the third single "I Wanna Go" reached number seven in August. Femme Fatale became Spears's first album in which three of its songs reached the top ten of the chart. The fourth and final single "Criminal" was released in September 2011. The music video caused controversy when British politicians criticized Spears for using replica guns while filming the video in an area of London that had been badly affected by the 2011 England riots.[146] Spears's management briefly responded, stating, "The video is a fantasy story featuring Britney's boyfriend, Jason Trawick, which literally plays out the lyrics of a song written three years before the riots ever happened."[147] In April 2011, Spears appeared in a remix of Rihanna's song "S&M".[148] It reached number one in the US later in the month, giving Spears her fifth number one on the chart.[149] On Billboard's 2011 Year-End list, Spears was ranked number fourteen on the Artists of the Year,[150] thirty-two on Billboard 200 artists and ten on Billboard Hot 100 artists.[151][152] Spears co-wrote "Whiplash", a song from American pop rock band Selena Gomez & the Scene' third album When the Sun Goes Down.[153]
+
+In June 2011, Spears embarked on the Femme Fatale Tour.[154] The first ten dates of the tour grossed $6.2 million, landing the fifty-fifth spot on Pollstar's Top 100 North American Tours list for the half-way point of the year.[155] The tour ended on December 10, 2011 in Puerto Rico after 79 performances.[156] A DVD of the tour was released in November 2011.[157] In August 2011, Spears received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards.[158] The next month, she released her second remix album, B in the Mix: The Remixes Vol. 2.[159] In December, Spears became engaged to her long-time boyfriend Jason Trawick, who had formerly been her agent.[160] Trawick became a co-conservator of Spears, alongside her father, in April 2012.[161] In January 2013, Spears and Trawick ended their engagement. Trawick was also removed as Spears's co-conservator, restoring her father as the sole conservator.[162][163]
+
+In May 2012, Spears was hired to replace Nicole Scherzinger as a judge for the second season of the U.S. version of The X Factor, joining Simon Cowell, L.A. Reid and fellow new judge Demi Lovato, who replaced Paula Abdul. With a reported salary of $15 million, she became the highest-paid judge on a singing competition series in television history.[164] However, Katy Perry broke her record in 2018 after Perry was signed for a $25-million salary to serve as a judge on ABC's revival of American Idol.[165][166] Spears mentored the Teens category; her final act, Carly Rose Sonenclar, was named the runner-up of the season. Spears did not return for the show's third season.[167] Spears was featured on will.i.am's "Scream & Shout", which was released as a single from his fourth studio album, #willpower (2013). The song later became Spears's sixth number one single on the UK Singles Chart and peaked at No. 3 on US Billboard Hot 100. Scream & Shout was among the best selling songs of 2012 and 2013 with denoting sales of over 8.1 million worldwide, the accompanying music video was the third-most viewed video in 2013 on Vevo despite the video being released in 2012.[168][failed verification] In December, Forbes magazine named her music's top-earning woman of 2012, with estimated earnings of $58 million.[169]
+
+Spears began work on her eighth studio album, Britney Jean, in December 2012,[170] and enlisted will.i.am as its executive producer in May 2013.[171] During the production of Britney Jean, Spears recorded the song "Ooh La La" for the soundtrack of The Smurfs 2, which was released in June 2013.[172] On September 17, 2013, she appeared on Good Morning America to announce her two-year concert residency at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, titled Britney: Piece of Me. It began on December 27, 2013, and included a total of 100 shows throughout 2014 and 2015.[173][174] During the same appearance, Spears announced that Britney Jean would be released on December 3, 2013, in the United States.[175][176] It was released through RCA Records due to the disbandment of Jive Records in 2011, which had formed the joint RCA/Jive Label Group (initially known as BMG Label Group) between 2007 and 2011.[177] Britney Jean became Spears's final project under her original recording contract with Jive, which had guaranteed the release of eight studio albums.[178] The record received a low amount of promotion and had little commercial impact, reportedly due to time conflicts involving preparations for Britney: Piece of Me.[179] Upon its release, the record debuted at number four on the U.S. Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 107,000 copies, becoming her lowest-peaking and lowest-selling album in the United States.[180] Britney Jean debuted at number 34 on the UK Albums Chart, selling 12,959 copies in its first week. In doing so, it became Spears's lowest-charting and lowest-selling album in the country.[181]
+
+"Work Bitch" was released as the lead single from Britney Jean on September 16, 2013, one day earlier than expected after being leaked online.[182] It debuted and peaked at number 12 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 marking Spears's 31st entry on the chart and the fifth highest debut of her career on the chart, and her seventh in the top 20. It also marked Spears's 19th top 20 entry and overall her 23rd top 40 single. The song marked Spears's highest sales debut since her 2011 number one single "Hold It Against Me". "Work Bitch" debuted and peaked at number 7 on the UK Singles Chart. The song also peaked within the top ten of the charts in Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico and Spain.[183]
+
+The second single "Perfume" premiered on November 3, 2013, two days earlier than originally announced.[184][185] It debuted and peaked at number 76 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.[186] In October 2013, she was featured as a guest vocalist on Miley Cyrus's track "SMS (Bangerz)", taken from her fourth studio album Bangerz (2013).[187] On January 8, 2014, Spears won Favorite Pop Artist at the 40th People's Choice Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.[188] In August 2014, Spears confirmed she had renewed her contract with RCA and that she was writing and recording new music for her next album.[189] Spears announced through her Twitter account in August 2014 that she would be releasing an intimate apparel line called "The Intimate Britney Spears". It was available to be purchased beginning on September 9, 2014 in the United States and Canada through Spears's Intimate Collection website. It was later available on September 25 for purchase in Europe. The company now ships to over 200 countries including Australia and New Zealand.[190] On September 25, 2014, Spears confirmed on Good Morning Britain that she had extended her contract with The AXIS and Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, to continue Britney: Piece of Me for two additional years.[191]
+
+In March 2015, it was confirmed by People magazine that Spears would release a new single, "Pretty Girls", with Iggy Azalea, on May 4, 2015.[192] The song debuted and peaked at number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 and charted moderately in international territories. Spears and Azalea performed the track live at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards from The AXIS, the home of Spears's residency, to positive critical response. Entertainment Weekly praised the performance, noting "Spears gave one of her most energetic televised performances in years."[193] On June 16, 2015, Giorgio Moroder released his album, Deja Vu, that featured Spears on "Tom's Diner".[194] The song was released as the fourth single from the album on October 9.[195] In an interview, Moroder praised Spears's vocals and said that she did a "good job" with the song and also stated that Spears "sounds so good that you would hardly recognize her."[196][197] At the 2015 Teen Choice Awards, Spears received the Candie's Style Icon Award, her ninth Teen Choice Award.[198] In November, Spears guest starred as a fictionalized version of herself on The CW series, Jane the Virgin.[199] On the show, she danced to "Toxic" with Gina Rodriguez's character.[200]
+
+In 2016, Spears confirmed via social media that she had begun recording her ninth studio album.[201] On March 1, 2016, V magazine announced that Spears would appear on the cover of its 100th issue, dated March 8, 2016, in addition to revealing three different covers shot by photographer Mario Testino for the milestone publication.[202] Editor-in-chief of the magazine, Stephen Gan, revealed that Spears was selected for the "V100" issue because of her status as an icon in the industry. On the decision, Gan stated, "who in our world did not grow up listening to her music?"[203] In May 2016, Spears launched a casual role-play gaming application titled Britney Spears: American Dream. The app, created by Glu Mobile, was made available through both iOS and Google Play.[204] On May 22, 2016, Spears performed a medley of her past singles at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards.[205][206] In addition to opening the show, Spears was honored with the Billboard Millennium Award.[207] On July 14, 2016, Spears released the lead single, "Make Me...", from her ninth studio album, featuring guest vocals from American rapper G-Eazy.[208] The album, Glory, was formally released on August 26, 2016. On August 16, 2016, MTV and Spears announced that she would perform at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards.[209] The performance marked Spears's first time returning to the VMA stage after her widely controversial performance of "Gimme More" at the 2007 show nine years earlier.[210] Along with "Make Me...", Spears and G-Eazy also performed the latter's hit song "Me, Myself & I".[211]
+
+Spears appeared on the cover of Marie Claire UK for the October 2016 issue. In the publication, Spears revealed that she had suffered from crippling anxiety in the past, and that motherhood played a major role in helping her overcome it.[212] "My boys don't care if everything isn't perfect. They don't judge me," Spears said in the issue.[213] In November 2016, during an interview with Las Vegas Blog, Spears confirmed she had already begun work on her next album, stating: "I'm not sure what I want the next album to sound like. [...] I just know that I'm excited to get into the studio again and actually have already been back recording."[214] In January 2017, Spears received four wins out of four nominations at the 43rd People's Choice Awards, including Favorite Pop Artist, Female Artist, Social Media celebrity as well as Comedic Collaboration for a skit with Ellen DeGeneres for The Ellen DeGeneres Show.[215] In March 2017, Spears announced that her residency concert would be performed abroad as a world tour, Britney: Live in Concert, with dates in select Asian cities.[216][217][218] In April 2017, the Israeli Labor Party announced that it would reschedule its July primary election to avoid conflict with Spears's sold-out Tel Aviv concert, citing traffic and security concerns.[219]
+
+Spears's manager Larry Rudolph also announced the residency would not be extended following her contract expiration with Caesars Entertainment at the end of 2017. On April 29, 2017, Spears became the first recipient of the Icon Award at the 2017 Radio Disney Music Awards.[220] On November 4, 2017, Spears attended the grand opening of the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation Britney Spears Campus in Las Vegas.[221] Later that month, Forbes announced that Spears was the 8th highest earning female musician, earning $34 million in 2017.[222] On December 31, 2017, Spears performed the final show of Britney: Piece of Me.[223] The final performance reportedly brought in $1.172 million, setting a new box office record for a single show in Las Vegas, and breaking the record previously held by Jennifer Lopez.[223] The last show was broadcast live with performances of "Toxic" and "Work Bitch" airing on ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve to a record audience of 25.6 million.[224]
+
+In January 2018, Spears released her 24th perfume with Elizabeth Arden, Sunset Fantasy,[225] and announced the Piece of Me Tour which took place in July 2018 in North America and Europe.[226] Tickets were sold out within minutes for major cities, and additional dates were added to meet the demand.[227] Pitbull was the supporting act  for the European leg.[228] The tour ranked at 86 and 30 on Pollstar's 2018 Year-End Top 100 Tours chart both in North America and worldwide, respectively. In total, the tour grossed $54.3 million with 260,531 tickets sold and was the sixth highest-grossing female tour of 2018, and was the United Kingdom's second best-selling female tour of 2018.[229][230] On March 20, 2018, Spears was announced as part of a campaign for French luxury fashion house Kenzo.[231] The company said it aimed to shake up the 'jungle' world of fashion with Spears's 'La Collection Memento No. 2' campaign.[232] On April 12, 2018, Spears was honored with the 2018 GLAAD Vanguard Award at the GLAAD Media Awards for her role in "accelerating acceptance for the LGBTQ community".[233] On April 27, 2018, Epic Rights announced a new partnership with Spears to debut her own fashion line in 2019, which would include clothing, fitness apparel, accessories, and electronics.[234] In July 2018, Spears released her first unisex fragrance, Prerogative.[235] On October 18, 2018, Spears announced her second Las Vegas residency show, Britney: Domination, which was set to launch at Park MGM's Park Theatre on February 13, 2019.[236] Spears was slated to make $507,000 per show, which would have made her the highest paid act on the Las Vegas Strip.[237][238] On October 21, 2018, Spears performed at the Formula One Grand Prix in Austin, which ultimately served as the final performance of her Piece of Me Tour.[239]
+
+On January 4, 2019, Spears announced that Britney: Domination was cancelled after her father had a near-fatal colon rupture. Her team also announced that Spears would go on an indefinite work hiatus, putting all activities and commitments on hold, so that she can spend time with her family.[240] In March 2019, Spears's co-conservator Andrew Wallet resigned, and said "Substantial detriment, irreparable harm and immediate danger will result to the conservatee and her estate if the relief requested herein in not granted on an ex parte basis."[241] The same month, Spears reportedly entered a psychiatric facility to focus on self-care amidst stress from her father's illness.[242] The podcast Britney's Gram alleged, according to information from an anonymous paralegal source, that Spears had been held against her will in the facility since January 2019. They claimed the hospitalization and Domination cancellation were ordered by Spears's father after she decided to not take her medication and violated rules in her conservatorship, specifically driving. Britney's Gram and several news outlets questioned the length of the conservatorship, as it was supposed to end after The Circus Tour in 2009.[243] This gave birth to the #FreeBritney movement, which saw support from a number of celebrities, such as Cher, Paris Hilton, Mario Lopez, Miley Cyrus, Courtney Love, Rose McGowan, Heidi Montag, Jeffree Star, Eve, and Tinashe.[244][245][246][247][248][249][250][251][252]
+
+Following the podcast, there was social media backlash to the alleged abuse of power and violation of human rights Spears has endured under a conservatorship by her father and the mismanagement of Lou Taylor, who was responsible for initiating the conservatorship.[253] TMZ later posted several conflicting stories, detailing in a video that although Spears had not been formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she is receiving medication for it, and justified this, which was later deleted.[254] On April 22, 2019, fans held a protest outside the West Hollywood City Hall, drawing attention towards the prolonged conservatorship, suggesting she was being detained against her will.[255][256][257] Spears posted a video Instagram account on April 24, assuring fans all is well and also addressed leaked emails about Lou Taylor, claiming they were written by her ex-manager Sam Lutfi.[258][259] Spears left the facility the following day.[260] It was reported on April 24, 2019, that Spears would have a new conservatorship hearing for May 10, 2019.[261] Spears attended the hearing with her mother.[262][263] Following the hearing, an investigation was ordered into Spears's conservatorship.[264]
+
+On September 3, 2019, it was reported that Spears's father and conservator allegedly abused her 13-year-old son, Sean Preston. Law enforcement spoke to The Blast to report the incident, stating Kevin Federline filed a police report on August 25.[265] It was later reported that Jamie Spears was reportedly so enraged during a verbal row with his 13-year-old grandson that he broke down a door to get to the young boy, and the incident has sparked a child abuse investigation. Britney then sent her sons back to their father's home, despite it still being her custodial visit time.[266] Spears's two sons have since been granted a three-year restraining order against their grandfather.[267] On May 29, 2020, Spears released Glory's Japanese-exclusive bonus track, "Mood Ring", to streaming and digital platforms worldwide.[268]
+
+In 2020, the #FreeBritney movement went viral again on TikTok. Spears's former photographer Andrew Gallery shared a letter written by her in third person—which leaked in May 2019[269]—in 2009, where Spears accuses her team of lying to her, setting her up, "controlling" and "constantly threatening" her.[270] Two court hearings on the conservatorship were postponed, both requiring Spears's presence, one being due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the other due to signal issues on Spears's Zoom meeting, which was later declared by TMZ and The Blast to be the result of hackers managing to get their way into the confidential Zoom call.[271] Spears's older brother, Bryan Spears confirmed in a rare interview the next day that she always wanted to get out of the conservatorship, which he later referred to as being "a great thing for our family, to this point."[272]
+
+Spears has cited Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston as being major influences in her career, her "three favorite artists" as a child, whom she would "sing along to [...] day and night in [her] living room"; Houston's "I Have Nothing" was the song she auditioned to that landed her record deal with Jive Records.[273] Throughout her career, Spears has drawn frequent comparisons to Madonna and Jackson in particular, in terms of vocals, choreography and stage presence. According to Spears: "I know when I was younger, I looked up to people... like, you know, Janet Jackson and Madonna. And they were major inspirations for me. But I also had my own identity and I knew who I was."[274] In the 2002 book Madonnastyle by Carol Clerk, she is quoted saying: "I have been a huge fan of Madonna since I was a little girl. She's the person that I've really looked up to. I would really, really like to be a legend like Madonna."[275]
+
+After meeting Spears face to face, Janet Jackson stated: "she said to me, 'I'm such a big fan; I really admire you.' That's so flattering. Everyone gets inspiration from some place. And it's awesome to see someone else coming up who's dancing and singing, and seeing how all these kids relate to her. A lot of people put it down, but what she does is a positive thing."[276] Madonna said of Spears in the documentary Britney: For the Record: "I admire her talent as an artist [...] There are aspects about her that I recognize in myself when I first started out in my career".[277] She has also named Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow, Otis Redding, Shania Twain, Brandy, Beyoncé, Natalie Imbruglia, Cher, and Prince as sources of inspiration.[278][279][280][281][282] Spears also felt inspired by artists of younger generations, such as Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande.[283][284]
+
+Spears is described as a pop singer[16] and generally explores the genre in the form of dance-pop.[285][286][287] Following her debut, she was credited with influencing the revival of teen pop in the late 1990s.[288] Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone wrote: "Spears carries on the classic archetype of the rock & roll teen queen, the dungaree doll, the angel baby who just has to make a scene."[289] In a review for ...Baby One More Time, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic referred to her music as a "blend of infectious, rap-inflected dance-pop and smooth balladry."[290] Oops!...I Did It Again saw Spears working with several contemporary R&B producers, which led to "a combination of bubblegum, urban soul, and raga."[291] Her third studio album, Britney derived from the teen pop niche "[r]hythmically and melodically", but was described as "sharper, tougher than what came before", incorporating genres such as R&B, disco and funk.[59][292]
+
+Spears has explored and heavily incorporated the genres of electropop[293][294] and dance music in her records, as well as influences of urban and hip hop which are most present in In the Zone and Blackout. In the Zone also experiments with Euro trance, reggae and Middle Eastern music.[294][295][296] Femme Fatale and Britney Jean were also heavily influenced by electronic music genres.[297][298]
+
+Spears' ninth studio album Glory is decidedly more eclectic and experimental than her previous released work. She commented that it "took a lot of time [...] it's really different [...] there are like two or three songs that go in the direction of more urban that I've wanted to do for a long time now, and I just haven't really done that."[299] The album, including its 2020 re-issue track Mood Ring incorporates R&B and elements of hip hop while also maintaining her traditional dance-pop style. Coupure Électrique and Change Your Mind (No Seas Cortés) are Spears' first foreign language songs, the former being a downtempo electropop song and the latter a Latin disco song.
+
+The music found on ...Baby One More Time and Oops!... I Did It Again generally explores themes such as love and relationships from a teenager's point of view.[300][301] After the enormous success of her first two studio albums, Spears's team and producers wanted to maintain the formula that took her to the top of the charts.[300] Spears, however, was no longer satisfied with the sound and themes covered on her records. She co-wrote five songs and choose each track's producer on Britney, her third studio album, which lyrics address the subjects of reaching adulthood, sexuality and self-discovery.[59][300][292] Sex, dancing, freedom and love continued to be Spears's music main subjects on her subsequent albums.[295][296][298][297] Her fifth studio album, Blackout, also address issues such as media scrutiny and fame, most notably in "Piece of Me".[296][302]
+
+Spears is a soprano.[307][308][309][310] Prior to her breakthrough success, she is described as having sung "much deeper than her highly recognizable trademark voice of today", with Eric Foster White, who worked with Spears for her debut album ...Baby One More Time, being cited as "[shaping] her voice over the course of a month" upon being signed to Jive Records "to where it is today—distinctively, unmistakably Britney".[28] Rami Yacoub who co-produced Spears's debut album with lyricist Max Martin, commented, "I know from Denniz Pop and Max's previous productions, when we do songs, there's kind of a nasal thing. With N' Sync and the Backstreet Boys, we had to push for that mid-nasal voice. When Britney did that, she got this kind of raspy, sexy voice."[311]
+
+Guy Blackman of The Age wrote that "[t]he thing about Spears, though, is that her biggest songs, no matter how committee-created or impossibly polished, have always been convincing because of her delivery, her commitment and her presence. [...] Spears expresses perfectly the conflicting urges of adolescence, the tension between chastity and sexual experience, between hedonism and responsibility, between confidence and vulnerability."[312] Producer William Orbit, who collaborated with Spears on her album Britney Jean, stated regarding her vocals: "[Britney] didn't get so big just because [she] put on great shows; [she] got to be that way because [her voice is] unique: you hear two words and you know who is singing".[313]
+
+Spears has also been criticized for her reliance on Auto-Tune[314] and her vocals being "over-processed" on records.[315] Erlewine criticized Spears's singing abilities in a review for Blackout, saying, "Never the greatest vocalist, her thin squawk could be dismissed early in her career as an adolescent learning the ropes, but nearly a decade later her singing hasn't gotten any better, even if the studio tools to masquerade her weaknesses have."[296] Joan Anderman of The Boston Globe remarked that "Spears sounds robotic, nearly inhuman, on her records, so processed is her voice by digital pitch-shifters and synthesizers."[316] The Michigan Daily's Kayla Upadhyaya provided a different point of view, saying, "Auto-tuned and over-processed vocals define Britney's voice as an artist, and in her music, auto-tune isn't so much a gimmick as it is an instrument used to highlight, contort and make a statement."[317] Adam Markovitz of Entertainment Weekly opined that "Spears is no technical singer, that's for sure. But backed by Martin and Dr. Luke's wall of pound, her vocals melt into a mix of babytalk coo and coital panting that is, in its own overprocessed way, just as iconic and propulsive as Michael Jackson's yips or Eminem's snarls."[318]
+
+Spears is known for her stage performances, particularly the elaborate dance routines which incorporate "belly-dancing and tempered erotic moves" that are credited for influencing "dance-heavy acts" such as Danity Kane and The Pussycat Dolls.[319][320] Rolling Stone magazine readers voted Spears as the second Favorite Dancing Musician.[321] Spears is described as being much more shy than what her stage persona suggests.[322][323][324] She claimed that performing is "a boost to [her] confidence. It's like an alter-ego type thing. Something clicks and I go and turn into this different person. I think it's kind of a gift to be able to do that."[325] Her 2000, 2001, and 2003 MTV Video Music Awards performances received praise,[326] while her 2007 presentation was widely panned by critics, as she "teetered through her dance steps and mouthed only occasional words".[327] Billboard called her 2016 "comeback" performance at the show "An effective, but not entirely glorious, bid to regain pop superstardom".[309]
+
+After her knee injuries and personal struggles, Spears's "showmanship" and dance abilities came under criticism.[319][328] Serge F. Kovaleski of The New York Times watched her Las Vegas concert residency in 2016 and said: "Once a fluid, natural dancer, Ms. Spears can appear stiff, even robotic, today, relying on flailing arms and flashy sets."[329] Las Vegas Sun's Robin Leach seemed more impressed over Spears's efforts on the concert by saying that she delivered a "flawless performance" on the residency's opening night.[330]
+
+It has been widely reported that Spears lip-syncs during live performances,[320][331][332] which often draws criticism from music critics and concert goers.[328][333][334] Some, however, claimed that, although she "got plenty of digital support", she "doesn't merely lip-sync" during her live shows.[335] In 2016, Sabrina Weiss of Refinery29 referred to her lip-syncing as a "well-known fact that's not even taboo anymore."[336] Noting on the prevalence of lip-syncing, Los Angeles Daily News opined: "In the context of a Britney Spears concert, does it really matter? [...] you [just] go for the somewhat-ridiculous spectacle of it all".[337] Spears spoke on the topic saying "[...] Because I'm dancing so much, I do have a little bit of playback, but there's a mixture of my voice and the playback." She added: "It really pisses me off because I'm busting my ass out there and singing at the same time and nobody ever gives me credit for it, you know?"[331]
+
+Spears has received both praise and criticism for the level of artistic control she has taken in her career, later critiques being positively reviewed. For the Oops... I Did It Again 20th anniversary, gossip expert Elaine Liu refers to Britney being the chief architect of Britney, “Anyone who tells you different reveals themselves to be a pop culture amateur." She has been retroactively noted as the pioneer for her early career videography.[338] She conceptualized the "iconic Catholic schoolgirl and cheerleader motif" in the ...Baby One More Time video, rejecting the animation video idea. She also made the Oops I Did It Again video "dance-centric rather than space-centric as her producers suggested". She also used her dancer's intuition to help select the beats for each track.[338] Greg Wells and Katy Perry received backlash for their dismissal of Spears' artistic contributions in 2019, as Perry posted a magazine quote from Wells thanking him for praising her artistic merit and control, while denying Spears' own contribution. Wells commented "They think she's handed a script like a Britney Spears and told what to sing. It's the exact opposite. She is telling like me or Max Martin what to do. She tells her management who will direct her video and she tells her label what the first single will be. She drives it. She's been like that since the first album."[339]
+
+Vox editor Constance Grady notes the celebration of Spears as "her own auteur" being a part of a movement against media gatekeepers of popular culture over the past 20 years and celebrating "culture created for and by teenage girls [...] as its own form of aesthetic expression". An early criticism of Spears dismissed her as a "manufactured pop star, the product of a Swedish songwriting factory that had no real hand in either her music or her persona", which Grady assesses as being perpetuated from the fact that Spears debuted in the late '90s, when music was dominated by rockism, that prizes "so-called authenticity and grittiness of rock above all else". Spears's "slick, breezy pop was an affront to rockist sensibilities, and claiming that Spears was fake was an easy way to dismiss her." Ron Levy for Rolling Stone noted in 2018 that “I have to tell you, if the record company could have created more than one Britney Spears, they would have done it, and they tried!”[338]
+
+The catchphrase "Oh, baby baby" is considered to be one of Britney's signature lines and has been parodied in the media by various artists such as Nicole Scherzinger and Ariana Grande.[340] It has been used in variating forms throughout her music, such as simply, “baby” and “oh baby,”, as well as the Blackout track, “Ooh ooh Baby”. On the initial development of Baby One More Time, Barry Weiss noted the strange ad-libbing of Britney's “oh BAY-BAY BAY-BAY,”. He commented further, “We thought it was really weird at first. It was strange. It was not the way Max Martin wrote it. But it worked! We thought it could be a really good opening salvo for her."[341]
+
+Spears' "It's Britney, bitch" phrase has become another signature phrase and culturally relevant point in her career.[342] An early review of Blackout suggested the phrase was "simply laughable”. Speaking about the line, writer Eric Danton said, "The comedy starts right away, when she plays the role of your drunk friend calling at 3 a.m., slurring, “It’s Britney, b*tch.”"[342] It was later parodied in The Office and Jay Z references it in the song, "BBC," from Magna Carta Holy Grail. Amy Roberts for Bustle called it "an indelible cultural turning point, transforming a frenetic, floundering moment in the superstars career to one of strength and empowerment". It has been referenced in the songs Gimme More, Scream and Shout and the 2020 Pride remix of Mood Ring.[338]
+
+Upon launching her music career with ...Baby One More Time, Spears was labeled a teen idol,[343] and Rolling Stone described her as "the latest model of a classic product: the unneurotic pop star who performs her duties with vaudevillian pluck and spokesmodel charm."[23] The April 1999 cover of Rolling Stone featured Spears lying on her bed, wearing an open top revealing her bra, and shorts, while clutching a Teletubby.[23][344] The American Family Association (AFA) referred to the shoot as "a disturbing mix of childhood innocence and adult sexuality" and called on "God-loving Americans to boycott stores selling Britney's albums." Spears responded to the outcry commenting, "What's the big deal? I have strong morals. [...] I'd do it again. I thought the pictures were fine. And I was tired of being compared to Debbie Gibson and all of this bubblegum pop all the time."[345] Shortly before, Spears had announced publicly she would remain a virgin until marriage.[24][346]
+
+Billboard opined that, by the time she released her sophomore album Oops!... I Did it Again, "There was a shift occurring in both the music and her public image: She was sharper, sexier and singing about more grown-up fare, setting the stage for 2001's Britney, which shed her innocent skin and ushered her into adulthood."[347] Britney's lead single "I'm a Slave 4 U" and its video were also credited for distancing her from her "wholesome bubblegum star" image of the past.[348][349] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic commented, "If 2001's Britney was a transitional album, capturing Spears at the point when she wasn't a girl and not yet a woman, its 2003 follow-up, In the Zone, is where she has finally completed that journey and turned into Britney, the Adult Woman." Erlewine compared Spears to fellow singer Christina Aguilera, explaining that both equated "maturity with transparent sexuality and the pounding sounds of nightclubs".[295] Brittany Spanos of LA Weekly said that Spears "set the bar for the "adulthood" transition teen pop stars often struggle with".[350]
+
+Spears's erratic behavior and personal struggles during 2006–2008 were highly publicized[351] and affected both her career and public image.[296][352] Erlewine reflected on that time of her life by saying that "each new disaster [was] stripping away any residual sexiness in her public image".[296] In a 2008 article, Rolling Stone's Vanessa Grigoriadis described her much-publicized personal issues as "the most public downfall of any star in history".[352] Spears later received favorable media attention. Billboard claimed that her appearance at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards "was a picture of professionalism and poise" after her "disastrous" 2007 performance at the show,[353] while Business Insider published an article about how Spears "lost control of her life [...] and then made an incredible career comeback".[354] Spears later reflected on that tumultuous time of her life and career: "I think I had to give myself more breaks through my career and take responsibility for my mental health. [...] I wrote back then, that I was lost and didn't know what to do with myself. I was trying to please everyone around me because that’s who I am deep inside. There are moments where I look back and think: 'What the hell was I thinking?'"[355]
+
+In September 2002, she was ranked eighth on VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists list,[356] and, in December 2012, Complex ranked her 12th on its 100 Hottest Female Singers of All Time list.[357] Spears commented on her sex symbol image by saying, "[...] When I'm on stage, that's my time to do my thing and go there and be that—and it's fun. It's exhilarating just to be something that you're not. And people tend to believe it."[300] In 2003, People magazine cited her as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People.[358]
+
+Spears is recognized as a gay icon and was honored with the 2018 GLAAD Vanguard Award at the GLAAD Media Awards for her role in "accelerating acceptance for the LGBTQ community".[233] Spears addressed the "unwavering loyalty" and "lack of judgement" of her LGBTQ fans in Billboard's Love Letters to the LGBTQ Community. She said: "Your stories are what inspire me, bring me joy, and make me and my sons strive to be better people."[359] Manuel Betancourt of Vice magazine wrote about the "queer adoration", especially of gay men, on Spears, and said that "Where other gay icons exude self-possession, Spears's fragile resilience has made her an even more fascinating role model, closer to Judy Garland than to Lady Gaga [...] she's a glittering mirror ball, a fractured reflection of those men on the dance floor back onto themselves."[322] HuffPost's Ben Appel attributed Spears's status as a gay icon to "her oh-so-innocent/"not that innocent" Monroe-like sensuality, her sweet, almost saccharine nature, her beyond basic but addictive pop songs, her dance moves, her phoenix-out-of-the-fire comeback from a series of mental health crises, and her unmistakable tenderness. Britney is camp. She is a fashion plate. A doll. Britney is a drag queen."[360]
+
+Since her early years of stardom, Spears became a tabloid fixture and a paparazzi target.[347][346][361] Steve Huey of AllMusic claimed that "among female singers of [Spears's] era [...] her celebrity star power was rivaled only by Jennifer Lopez."[346] 'Britney Spears' was Yahoo!'s most popular search term between 2005 and 2008, and has been in a total of seven different years.[362] Spears was named as Most Searched Person in the Guinness World Records book edition 2007 and 2009.[363] She was later named as the most searched person of the decade 2000–2009.[364]
+
+As a public figure, Spears "has never been very publicly political".[365] In October 2001, she registered as a Republican in Louisiana, according to public records.[365] In a September 2003 interview on CNN, she spoke about then-U.S. President George W. Bush and the Iraq War, by saying that "we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes [...] and be faithful in what happens".[365][366] In 2016, she posted pictures of a meeting with Hillary Clinton on social media.[365] In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Spears posted an image on her Instagram account stating "During this time of isolation ... We will feed each other, redistribute wealth, strike. We will understand our own importance from the places we must stay," along with three emoji roses, "a symbol commonly used by the Democratic Socialists of America".[367]
+
+Referred to as the "Princess of Pop",[39][368] Spears was credited as one of the "driving force[s] behind the return of teen pop in the late 1990s".[346][288] Rolling Stone's Stacy Lambe explained that she "help[ed] to usher in a new era for the genre that had gone dormant in the decade that followed New Kids on the Block. [...] Spears would lead an army of pop stars... built on slick Max Martin productions, plenty of sexual innuendo and dance-heavy performances. [She became] one of the most successful artists of all time — and a cautionary tale for a generation, whether they paid attention or not."[368] Billboard's Robert Kelly observed that Spears's "sexy and coy" vocals on her debut single "...Baby One More Time" "kicked off a new era of pop vocal stylings that would influence countless artists to come."[369] In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked the song at number one on a list of the 100 Greatest Debut Singles of All Time and Rob Sheffield described it as "One of those pop manifestos that announces a new sound, a new era, a new century. But most of all, a new star [...] With "...Baby One More Time", [Spears] changed the sound of pop forever: It's Britney, bitch. Nothing was ever the same."[370]
+
+After eighteen years as a performer, Billboard described her as having "earned her title as one of pop's reigning queens. Since her early days as a Mouseketeer, [Spears] has pushed the boundaries of 21st century sounds, paving the way for a generation of artists to shamelessly embrace glossy pop and redefine how one can accrue consistent success in the music industry."[347] Entertainment Weekly's Adam Markovitz described Spears as "an American institution, as deeply sacred and messed up as pro wrestling or the filibuster."[318] In 2012, she was ranked as the fourth VH1's 50 Greatest Women of the Video Era show list.[371] VH1 also cited her among its choices on the 100 Greatest Women in Music in 2012[372] and the 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons in 2003.[373]
+
+Spears's work has influenced numerous artists including Katy Perry,[374] Meghan Trainor,[375] Demi Lovato,[374] Kelly Key,[376] Kristinia DeBarge,[377] Little Boots,[378] Charli XCX,[379] Marina Diamandis,[380] Tegan and Sara,[381] Pixie Lott,[382] Grimes,[383] Selena Gomez,[384] Hailee Steinfeld,[385] Tinashe,[386] Victoria Justice,[387] Cassie,[388] Leah Wellbaum of Slothrust,[389] The Saturdays,[390] Normani,[391] Miley Cyrus,[392] Cheryl,[393] Lana Del Rey,[394] Ava Max,[395] Billie Eilish,[396] and Rina Sawayama.[397] During the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, Lady Gaga said that Spears "taught us all how to be fearless, and the industry wouldn't be the same without her."[398] Gaga has also cited Spears as an influence, calling her "the most provocative performer of my time."[399] Before Spears joined The X Factor, Simon Cowell explained that he is "fascinated by [Britney]. The fact that she's one of the most talked about – not just pop stars – but people in the world today, means that you've got this star power. [...] She's still hot, she's still having hit records and she's still controversial, there's a reason for that."[400] Marina Diamandis named Spears as the main influence behind her album Electra Heart.[401] Lana Del Rey has said that the music video for "Toxic" inspires her.[402] Spears has had a direct influence on singer Porcelain Black's work after growing up around her music as a child. Black describes her music as a "love child between" Marilyn Manson and Spears.[403] Rita Ora's music video for Only Want You was inspired by Spears' Everytime video, and said, “Hey, Britney. That was for you because I love you so much. I pay tribute to those who inspire me, #icon."[404]
+
+Spears's much-publicized personal struggles and her career comeback after this period has inspired some artists. Gwyneth Paltrow's character in the 2010 film Country Strong was inspired by the singer's treatment by the media. According to film director Shana Fest, "that's where this movie came from. I mean, I was seeing what was happening in the media to Britney Spears. I think it's tragic how we treat people who give us so much, and we love to see them knocked down to build them back up again, to knock them down again."[405] Nicki Minaj has cited Spears's comeback after her much-publicized personal issues as an inspiration.[406] Spears's hounding by paparazzi and personal struggles also contributed to inspiring Barry Manilow's album 15 Minutes. Manilow said: "She couldn't have a life without them pulling up next to her car and following her and driving her crazy to the point where, that was around the time she shaved off her hair. [...] We all looked at it in horror [...] So it seemed like a thing to be writing an album about."[407] Bebo Norman wrote a song about Spears, called "Britney", which was inspired by "culture's make-or-break treatment of celebrities."[408]
+
+Throughout her career, Spears has earned numerous awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award; thirteen Guinness World Records; six MTV Video Music Awards, including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award; seven Billboard Music Awards, including the Millennium Award; the inaugural Radio Disney Icon Award; the GLAAD Media Award's Vanguard Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
+
+She is listed by the Guinness World Records as having the "Best-selling album by a teenage solo artist" for her debut album ...Baby One More Time which sold over thirteen million copies in the United States.[409] Melissa Ruggieri of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported: "She's also marked for being the best-selling teenage artist. Before she turned 20 in 2001, Spears had sold over 37 million albums worldwide".[410]
+
+As of 2017[update], according to the BBC, she has sold 100 million records worldwide,[411] making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time; and more than 70 million records in United States, including 36.9 million digital singles and 33.6 million digital albums.[7][8] Spears is also recognized as the best-selling female albums artist of the 2000s in the United States, as well as the fifth overall.[10] In December 2009, Billboard ranked Spears the 8th Artist of the 2000s decade in the United States.[6] She is one of the few artists in history to have had a number-one single and a number-one studio album in the US during each of the three decades of her career.[412] With "3" in 2009 and "Hold It Against Me" in 2011, she became the second artist after Mariah Carey in the Hot 100's history to debut at number one with two or more songs.[144] In 2016, Spears ranked at number twenty on Billboard's Greatest Of All Time Top Dance Club Artists list.[413]
+
+In 2000, Spears released a limited edition of sunglasses titled Shades of Britney.[414] In 2001, she signed a deal with shoe company Skechers,[415] and a $7–8 million promotional deal with Pepsi, their biggest entertainment deal at the time.[416] Aside from numerous commercials with the latter during that year, she also appeared in a 2004 Pepsi television commercial in the theme of "Gladiators" with singers Beyoncé, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias.[417] On June 19, 2002, she released her first multi-platform video game, Britney's Dance Beat, which received positive reviews.[418] In March 2009, Spears was announced as the new face of clothing brand Candie's.[419] Dari Marder, chief marketing officer for the brand, explained why they choose the singer, saying, "everybody loves a comeback and nobody's doing it better than Britney. She's just poised for even greater success."[419] In 2010, Spears designed a limited edition line for the brand, which was released in stores in July 2010.[139] In 2011, she teamed up with Sony, Make Up For Ever and PlentyofFish to release her music video for "Hold It Against Me", earning her $500,000 for the product placement.[420] Spears also teamed up with Hasbro in 2012 to release an exclusive version of Twister Dance, which includes a remix of "Till the World Ends". The singer was also featured on a commercial, which was directed by Ray Kay, to promote the game. Spears was also featured on the commercial of "Twister Rave" and the game included a Twister remix of "Circus".[421] In March 2018, it was revealed that Spears would be the face of Kenzo, a contemporary French luxury clothing house.[231]
+
+Spears's range of commercial deals and products also includes beauty care products and perfumes. She released her first perfume with Elizabeth Arden, Curious in 2004, which broke the company's first-week gross for a perfume.[24] By 2009, she had released seven more perfumes including Fantasy.[422][423] In 2010, Spears released her eighth fragrance, Radiance. In March 2011, company Brand Sense filed a lawsuit against Spears and Elizabeth Arden seeking $10 million in damages, claiming that the singer and her father, Jamie, stopped paying their thirty-five percent commission that was agreed as part of the contract terms.[424] In July 2011, a Los Angeles judge denied the request by the company lawyers, claiming the fact that Spears is still under conservatorship.[425] Brand Sense, however, stated that they would appeal the decision.[425] In 2011, Radiance was re-issued as a new perfume titled Cosmic Radiance.[426] Worldwide, Spears sold over one million bottles in the first five years, with gross receipts of $1.5 billion. In 2016, Spears contacted Glu Mobile to create her own role-playing game, Britney Spears: American Dream. The app officially launched in May 2016 and is compatible with IOS and Android.[204] On June 17, 2016, Spears announced the release of her twentieth fragrance, Private Show.[427] As of January 2018[update], Spears has released 24 fragrances through Elizabeth Arden.[428]
+
+Spears founded The Britney Spears Foundation, a charitable entity set up to help children in need. The philosophy behind the Foundation was that music and entertainment has a healing quality that can benefit children.[429] The Foundation also supported the annual Britney Spears Camp for the Performing Arts, where campers had the opportunity to explore and develop their talents.[430] In April 2002, through the efforts of Spears and The Britney Spears Foundation, a grant of $1 million was made to the Twin Towers Fund to support the children of uniformed service heroes affected by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including New York City Fire Department and its Emergency Medical Services Command, the New York City Police Department, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the New York State Office of court Administration and other government offices.[431] However, it was reported in 2008 that the Foundation had a deficit of $200,000.[432] After the singer went through conservatorship, her father and lawyer Andrew Wallet zeroed out the effort, leading to its closure in 2011.[433]
+
+On October 30, 2001, Spears, alongside Bono and other popular recording artists under the name "Artists Against AIDS Worldwide", released a single titled "What's Going On", with the intention to benefit AIDS programs in Africa and other impoverished regions.[434] In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2006, Spears donated $350,000 to Music Rising.[435] Later in 2011, the singer raised $200,000 during An Evening of Southern Style at a private residence in Beverly Hills to benefit the St. Bernard Project, with the help of several celebrities, including Hilary Duff, Selena Gomez, Kelly Osbourne, Kellan Lutz and Kim Kardashian.[436] Spears has also helped several charities during her career, including Madonna's Kabbalah-based Spirituality for Kids,[437] cancer charity Gilda's Club Worldwide,[438] Promises Foundation, and United Way, with the latter two focused on giving families from various disadvantaged situations new hope and stable foundations for the future.[435]
+
+On October 24, 2015, Spears donated $120,000 to the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation.[439] In addition, $1 of each ticket sale for her Las Vegas residency, Britney: Piece of Me, was donated to the nonprofit organization.[440] Spears also fundraised for the charity through social media, in addition to selling limited edition merchandise, with all proceeds going to the NCCF.[441] On October 27, 2016, Spears partnered with Zappos and XCYCLE to host the Britney Spears Piece of Me Charity Ride in Boca Park, Las Vegas to raise additional money toward her goal of $1 million for the NCCF, with $450,000 having already been raised from Spears's ticket sales and merchandise.[442] Participants were entered for a chance to win a spin class with Spears herself. The event ultimately went on to raise $553,130.[443] The fundraising ultimately led to the development of the NCCF Britney Spears Campus in Las Vegas, which saw its grand opening on November 4, 2017.[444] Spears also regularly participates in Spirit Day to combat bullying of LGBTQ youth and bullying.[445]

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+
+
+Broccoli is an edible green plant in the cabbage family (family Brassicaceae, genus Brassica) whose large flowering head and stalk is eaten as a vegetable. The word broccoli comes from the Italian plural of broccolo, which means "the flowering crest of a cabbage", and is the diminutive form of brocco, meaning "small nail" or "sprout".[3]
+
+Broccoli is classified in the Italica cultivar group of the species Brassica oleracea. Broccoli has large flower heads, usually dark green in color, arranged in a tree-like structure branching out from a thick stalk which is usually light green. The mass of flower heads is surrounded by leaves. Broccoli resembles cauliflower, which is a different cultivar group of the same Brassica species. In 2017, China and India combined produced 73% of the world's broccoli and cauliflower crops.[4]
+
+Broccoli resulted from breeding of cultivated Brassica crops in the northern Mediterranean starting in about the sixth century BC.[5] Broccoli has its origins in primitive cultivars grown in the Roman Empire.[6] It is eaten raw or cooked. Broccoli is a particularly rich source of vitamin C and vitamin K. Contents of its characteristic sulfur-containing glucosinolate compounds, isothiocyanates and sulforaphane, are diminished by boiling, but are better preserved by steaming, microwaving or stir-frying.[7]
+
+Rapini, sometimes called "broccoli raab" among other names, forms similar but smaller heads, and is actually a type of turnip (Brassica rapa).
+
+Other cultivar groups of Brassica oleracea include cabbage (Capitata Group), cauliflower and Romanesco broccoli (Botrytis Group), kale and collard (Acephala Group), kohlrabi (Gongylodes Group), Brussels sprouts (Gemmifera Group), and kai-lan (Alboglabra Group).[8] Broccolini or "Tenderstem broccoli" is a cross between broccoli and Chinese broccoli.
+
+There are three commonly grown types of broccoli. The most familiar is Calabrese broccoli, often referred to simply as "broccoli", named after Calabria in Italy. It has large (10 to 20 cm) green heads and thick stalks. It is a cool-season annual crop. Sprouting broccoli (white or purple) has a larger number of heads with many thin stalks.[9] Purple cauliflower is a type of broccoli grown in Europe and North America. It has a head shaped like cauliflower, but consisting of tiny flower buds.  It sometimes, but not always, has a purple cast to the tips of the flower buds.
+
+Other popular cultivars include Belstar, Blue Wind, Coronado Crown, Destiny, DiCicco, Green Goliath, Green Magic, Purple Sprouting, Romanesco, Sun King and Waltham 29.[10]
+
+Beneforté is a variety of broccoli containing 2–3 times more glucoraphanin and produced by crossing broccoli with a wild Brassica variety, Brassica oleracea var villosa.[11]
+
+In 2017, global production of broccoli (combined for production reports with cauliflowers) was 26.0 million tonnes, with China and India together accounting for 73% of the world total.[4] Secondary producers, each having about one million tonnes or less annually, were the United States, Spain, Mexico and Italy.
+
+In the United States, broccoli is grown year-round in California – which produces 92% of the crop nationally – with 95% of the total crop produced for fresh sales.[12]
+
+The majority of broccoli cultivars are cool-weather crops that do poorly in hot summer weather.  Broccoli grows best when exposed to an average daily temperature between 18 and 23 °C (64 and 73 °F).[13]
+When the cluster of flowers, also referred to as a "head" of broccoli, appear in the center of the plant, the cluster is generally green.  Garden pruners or shears are used to cut the head about an inch from the tip. Broccoli should be harvested before the flowers on the head bloom bright yellow.[14]
+
+Mostly introduced by accident to North America, Australia and New Zealand, "cabbage worms", the larvae of Pieris rapae, also known as the "small white" butterfly, are a common pest in broccoli.[15]
+
+A 100 gram reference serving of raw broccoli provides 34 calories and is a rich source (20% or higher of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin C (107% DV) and vitamin K (97% DV) (table). Raw broccoli also contains moderate amounts (10–19% DV) of several B vitamins and the dietary mineral manganese, whereas other micronutrients are low in content (less than 10% DV). Raw broccoli is 89% water, 7% carbohydrates, 3% protein, and contains negligible fat (table).
+
+Boiling substantially reduces the levels of broccoli glucosinolates, while other cooking methods, such as steaming, microwaving, and stir frying, have no significant effect on glucosinolate levels.[7]
+
+The perceived bitterness of cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli varies from person to person, but the functional underpinnings of this variation are not known. Some research reports that the gene TAS2R38 may be responsible for bitter taste perception in broccoli.[16] Other factors, such as isothiocyanates and polyphenols, are also likely involved in bitterness perception.[17]  In some varieties the normally bitter tasting compounds are in less volatile forms.
+
+Furrow flood irrigation on a field of broccoli raised for seed in Yuma, Arizona.
+
+Broccoli in flower
+
+Sicilian purple broccoli
+
+Broccoli "giant", whose flowering head and stalk can reach a kilo.

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+Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (such as aluminium, manganese, nickel or zinc) and sometimes non-metals or metalloids such as arsenic, phosphorus or silicon. These additions produce a range of alloys that may be harder than copper alone, or have other useful properties, such as stiffness, ductility, or machinability.
+
+The archeological period in which bronze was the hardest metal in widespread use is known as the Bronze Age. The beginning of the Bronze Age in India and western Eurasia is conventionally dated to the mid-4th millennium BC, and to the early 2nd millennium BC in China;[1] elsewhere it gradually spread across regions. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age starting from about 1300 BC and reaching most of Eurasia by about 500 BC, although bronze continued to be much more widely used than it is in modern times.
+
+Because historical pieces were often made of brasses (copper and zinc) and bronzes with different compositions, modern museum and scholarly descriptions of older objects increasingly use the generalized term "copper alloy" instead.[2]
+
+The word bronze (1730–40) is borrowed from Middle French bronze (1511), itself borrowed from Italian bronzo 'bell metal, brass' (13th century, transcribed in Medieval Latin as bronzium) from either:
+
+The discovery of bronze enabled people to create metal objects that were harder and more durable than previously possible. Bronze tools, weapons, armor, and building materials such as decorative tiles were harder and more durable than their stone and copper ("Chalcolithic") predecessors. Initially, bronze was made out of copper and arsenic, forming arsenic bronze, or from naturally or artificially mixed ores of copper and arsenic,[6] with the earliest artifacts so far known coming from the Iranian plateau in the 5th millennium BC.[7] It was only later that tin was used, becoming the major non-copper ingredient of bronze in the late 3rd millennium BC.[8]
+
+Tin bronze was superior to arsenic bronze in that the alloying process could be more easily controlled, and the resulting alloy was stronger and easier to cast. Also, unlike arsenic, metallic tin and fumes from tin refining are not toxic. The earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to 4500 BC in a Vinča culture site in Pločnik (Serbia).[9] Other early examples date to the late 4th millennium BC in Egypt,[10] Susa (Iran) and some ancient sites in China, Luristan (Iran) and Mesopotamia (Iraq).[citation needed]
+
+Ores of copper and the far rarer tin are not often found together (exceptions include Cornwall in Britain, one ancient site in Thailand and one in Iran), so serious bronze work has always involved trade. Tin sources and trade in ancient times had a major influence on the development of cultures. In Europe, a major source of tin was the British deposits of ore in Cornwall, which were traded as far as Phoenicia in the eastern Mediterranean.
+
+In many parts of the world, large hoards of bronze artifacts are found, suggesting that bronze also represented a store of value and an indicator of social status. In Europe, large hoards of bronze tools, typically socketed axes (illustrated above), are found, which mostly show no signs of wear. With Chinese ritual bronzes, which are documented in the inscriptions they carry and from other sources, the case is clear. These were made in enormous quantities for elite burials, and also used by the living for ritual offerings.
+
+Though bronze is generally harder than wrought iron, with Vickers hardness of 60–258 vs. 30–80,[11] the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age after a serious disruption of the tin trade: the population migrations of around 1200–1100 BC reduced the shipping of tin around the Mediterranean and from Britain, limiting supplies and raising prices.[12] As the art of working in iron improved, iron became cheaper and improved in quality. As cultures advanced from hand-wrought iron to machine-forged iron (typically made with trip hammers powered by water), blacksmiths learned how to make steel. Steel is stronger than bronze and holds a sharper edge longer.[13]
+
+Bronze was still used during the Iron Age, and has continued in use for many purposes to the modern day.
+
+There are many different bronze alloys, but typically modern bronze is 88% copper and 12% tin.[14] Alpha bronze consists of the alpha solid solution of tin in copper. Alpha bronze alloys of 4–5% tin are used to make coins, springs, turbines and blades. Historical "bronzes" are highly variable in composition, as most metalworkers probably used whatever scrap was on hand; the metal of the 12th-century English Gloucester Candlestick is bronze containing a mixture of copper, zinc, tin, lead, nickel, iron, antimony, arsenic with an unusually large amount of silver – between 22.5% in the base and 5.76% in the pan below the candle. The proportions of this mixture suggests that the candlestick was made from a hoard of old coins. The Benin Bronzes are in fact brass, and the Romanesque Baptismal font at St Bartholomew's Church, Liège is described as both bronze and brass.
+
+In the Bronze Age, two forms of bronze were commonly used: "classic bronze", about 10% tin, was used in casting; and "mild bronze", about 6% tin, was hammered from ingots to make sheets. Bladed weapons were mostly cast from classic bronze, while helmets and armor were hammered from mild bronze.
+
+Commercial bronze (90% copper and 10% zinc) and architectural bronze (57% copper, 3% lead, 40% zinc) are more properly regarded as brass alloys because they contain zinc as the main alloying ingredient. They are commonly used in architectural applications.[15][16]
+
+Bismuth bronze is a bronze alloy with a composition of 52% copper, 30% nickel, 12% zinc, 5% lead, and 1% bismuth. It is able to hold a good polish and so is sometimes used in light reflectors and mirrors.[17]
+
+Plastic bronze contains a significant quantity of lead, which makes for improved plasticity[18] possibly used by the ancient Greeks in their ship construction.[19]
+
+Silicon bronze has a composition of Si: 2.80–3.80%, Mn: 0.50–1.30%, Fe: 0.80% max., Zn: 1.50% max., Pb: 0.05% max., Cu: balance.[20]
+
+Other bronze alloys include aluminium bronze, phosphor bronze, manganese bronze, bell metal, arsenical bronze, speculum metal and cymbal alloys.
+
+Bronzes are typically ductile alloys, considerably less brittle than cast iron. Typically bronze oxidizes only superficially; once a copper oxide (eventually becoming copper carbonate) layer is formed, the underlying metal is protected from further corrosion. This can be seen on statues from the Hellenistic period. However, if copper chlorides are formed, a corrosion-mode called "bronze disease" will eventually completely destroy it.[21] Copper-based alloys have lower melting points than steel or iron and are more readily produced from their constituent metals. They are generally about 10 percent denser than steel, although alloys using aluminium or silicon may be slightly less dense. Bronze is a better conductor of heat and electricity than most steels. The cost of copper-base alloys is generally higher than that of steels but lower than that of nickel-base alloys.
+
+Copper and its alloys have a huge variety of uses that reflect their versatile physical, mechanical, and chemical properties. Some common examples are the high electrical conductivity of pure copper, low-friction properties of bearing bronze (bronze that has a high lead content— 6–8%), resonant qualities of bell bronze (20% tin, 80% copper), and resistance to corrosion by seawater of several bronze alloys.
+
+The melting point of bronze varies depending on the ratio of the alloy components and is about 950 °C (1,742 °F). Bronze is usually nonmagnetic, but certain alloys containing iron or nickel may have magnetic properties.
+
+Bronze, or bronze-like alloys and mixtures, were used for coins over a longer period. Bronze was especially suitable for use in boat and ship fittings prior to the wide employment of stainless steel owing to its combination of toughness and resistance to salt water corrosion. Bronze is still commonly used in ship propellers and submerged bearings.
+
+In the 20th century, silicon was introduced as the primary alloying element, creating an alloy with wide application in industry and the major form used in contemporary statuary. Sculptors may prefer silicon bronze because of the ready availability of silicon bronze brazing rod, which allows colour-matched repair of defects in castings. Aluminium is also used for the structural metal aluminium bronze.
+
+Bronze parts are tough and typically used for bearings, clips, electrical connectors and springs.
+
+Bronze also has low friction against dissimilar metals, making it important for cannons prior to modern tolerancing, where iron cannonballs would otherwise stick in the barrel.[22] It is still widely used today for springs, bearings, bushings, automobile transmission pilot bearings, and similar fittings, and is particularly common in the bearings of small electric motors. Phosphor bronze is particularly suited to precision-grade bearings and springs. It is also used in guitar and piano strings.
+
+Unlike steel, bronze struck against a hard surface will not generate sparks, so it (along with beryllium copper) is used to make hammers, mallets, wrenches and other durable tools to be used in explosive atmospheres or in the presence of flammable vapors. Bronze is used to make bronze wool for woodworking applications where steel wool would discolour oak.
+
+Phosphor bronze is used for ships' propellers, musical instruments, and electrical contacts.[23] Bearings are often made of bronze for its friction properties. It can be filled with oil to make the proprietary Oilite and similar material for bearings. Aluminium bronze is hard and wear-resistant, and is used for bearings and machine tool ways.[24]
+
+Bronze is widely used for casting bronze sculptures. Common bronze alloys have the unusual and desirable property of expanding slightly just before they set, thus filling the finest details of a mould. Then, as the bronze cools, it shrinks a little, making it easier to separate from the mould.[25]
+
+The Assyrian king Sennacherib (704–681 BC) claims to have been the first to cast monumental bronze statues (of up to 30 tonnes) using two-part moulds instead of the lost-wax method.[26]
+
+Bronze statues were regarded as the highest form of sculpture in Ancient Greek art, though survivals are few, as bronze was a valuable material in short supply in the Late Antique and medieval periods. Many of the most famous Greek bronze sculptures are known through Roman copies in marble, which were more likely to survive.
+
+In India, bronze sculptures from the Kushana (Chausa hoard) and Gupta periods (Brahma from Mirpur-Khas, Akota Hoard, Sultanganj Buddha) and later periods (Hansi Hoard) have been found.[27] Indian Hindu artisans from the period of the Chola empire in Tamil Nadu used bronze to create intricate statues via the lost-wax casting method with ornate detailing depicting the deities of Hinduism. The art form survives to this day, with many silpis, craftsmen, working in the areas of Swamimalai and Chennai.
+
+In antiquity other cultures also produced works of high art using bronze. For example: in Africa, the bronze heads of the Kingdom of Benin; in Europe, Grecian bronzes typically of figures from Greek mythology; in east Asia, Chinese ritual bronzes of the Shang and Zhou dynasty—more often ceremonial vessels but including some figurine examples. Bronze sculptures, although known for their longevity, still undergo microbial degradation; such as from certain species of yeasts.[28]
+
+Bronze continues into modern times as one of the materials of choice for monumental statuary.
+
+The Dancing Girl, an Harappan artwork; 2400–1900 BC; bronze; height: 10.8 cm (4​1⁄4 in.); National Museum (New Delhi, India)
+
+Ritual tripod cauldron (ding); circa 13th century BC; bronze: height with handles: 25.4 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
+
+Etruscan tripod base for a thymiaterion (incense burner); 475-450 BC; bronze; height: 11 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+The Artemision Bronze; 460-450 BC; bronze; height: 2.1 m; National Archaeological Museum (Athens)
+
+Ancient Egyptian statuette of Isis and Horus; 305–30 BC; solid cast of bronze; 4.8 × 10.3 cm; Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio, US)
+
+French or South Netherlandish Medieval caldron; 13th or 14th century; bronze and wrought iron; height: 37.5 cm, diameter: 34.3 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+Pair of French Rococo firedogs (chenets); circa 1750; gilt bronze; dimensions of the firstm 52.7 x 48.3 x 26.7 cm, of the second: 45.1 x 49.1 x 24.8 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+French Neoclassical mantel clock (pendule de cheminée); 1757–1760; gilded and patinated bronze, oak veneered with ebony, white enamel with black numerals, and other materials; 48.3 × 69.9 × 27.9 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+Pair of French Chinoiserie firedogs; 1760–1770; gilt bronze; height (each): 41.9 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+Pair of Chinese vases with French Rococo mounts; the vases: early 18th century, the mounts: 1760–70; hard-paste porcelain with gilt-bronze mounts; 32.4 x 16.5 x 12.4 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+French Neoclassical mantel clock ("Pendule Uranie"); 1764–1770; case: patinated bronze and gilded bronze, Dial: white enamel, movement: brass and steel; 71.1 × 52.1 × 26.7 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+Pair of mounted vases (vase à monter); 1765–70; soft-paste porcelain and French gilt bronze; 28.9 x 17.1 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+Before it became possible to produce glass with acceptably flat surfaces, bronze was a standard material for mirrors. The reflecting surface was typically made slightly convex so that the whole face could be seen in a small mirror. Bronze was used for this purpose in many parts of the world, probably based on independent discoveries.
+
+Bronze mirrors survive from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (2040–1750 BC). In Europe, the Etruscans were making bronze mirrors in the sixth century BC, and Greek and Roman mirrors followed the same pattern. Although other materials such as speculum metal had come into use, bronze mirrors were still being made in Japan in the eighteenth century AD.
+
+Bronze is the preferred metal for bells in the form of a high tin bronze alloy known colloquially as bell metal, which is about 23% tin.
+
+Nearly all professional cymbals are made from bronze, which gives a desirable balance of durability and timbre. Several types of bronze are used, commonly B20 bronze, which is roughly 20% tin, 80% copper, with traces of silver, or the tougher B8 bronze made from 8% tin and 92% copper. As the tin content in a bell or cymbal rises, the timbre drops.[29]
+
+Bronze is also used for the windings of steel and nylon strings of various stringed instruments such as the double bass, piano, harpsichord, and guitar. Bronze strings are commonly reserved on pianoforte for the lower pitch tones, as they possess a superior sustain quality to that of high-tensile steel.[30]
+
+Bronzes of various metallurgical properties are widely used in struck idiophones around the world, notably bells, singing bowls, gongs, cymbals, and other idiophones from Asia. Examples include Tibetan singing bowls, temple bells of many sizes and shapes, gongs, Javanese gamelan, and other bronze musical instruments. The earliest bronze archeological finds in Indonesia date from 1–2 BC, including flat plates probably suspended and struck by a wooden or bone mallet.[30][31] Ancient bronze drums from Thailand and Vietnam date back 2,000 years. Bronze bells from Thailand and Cambodia date back to 3,600 BC.
+
+Some companies are now making saxophones from phosphor bronze (3.5 to 10% tin and up to 1% phosphorus content).[32] Bell bronze/B20 is used to make the tone rings of many professional model banjos.[33] The tone ring is a heavy (usually 3 lbs.) folded or arched metal ring attached to a thick wood rim, over which a skin, or most often, a plastic membrane (or head) is stretched – it is the bell bronze that gives the banjo a crisp powerful lower register and clear bell-like treble register.[citation needed]
+
+Bronze has also been used in coins; most “copper” coins are actually bronze, with about 4 percent tin and 1 percent zinc.[34]
+
+As with coins, bronze has been used in the manufacture of various types of medals for centuries, and are known in contemporary times for being awarded for third place in sporting competitions and other events. The later usage was in part attributed to the choices of gold, silver and bronze to represent the first three Ages of Man in Greek mythology: the Golden Age, when men lived among the gods; the Silver age, where youth lasted a hundred years; and the Bronze Age, the era of heroes, and was first adopted at the 1904 Summer Olympics. At the 1896 event, silver was awarded to winners and bronze to runners-up, while at 1900 other prizes were given, not medals.

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+Coordinates: 40°41′34″N 73°59′25″W / 40.69278°N 73.99028°W / 40.69278; -73.99028
+
+Brooklyn (/ˈbrʊklɪn/) is a borough of New York City, coterminous with Kings County, located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the most populous county in the state, the second-most densely populated county in the United States,[5] and New York City's most populous borough, with an estimated 2,648,403 residents in 2020.[6] Named after the Dutch village of Breukelen, it shares a land border with the borough of Queens at the western end of Long Island. Brooklyn has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan across the East River, and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connects it with Staten Island.
+
+With a land area of 70.82 square miles (183.4 km2) and water area of 26 square miles (67 km2), Kings County is New York state's fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area, though it is the second-largest among the city's five boroughs in terms of area and largest in terms of population.[7] If each borough were ranked as a city, Brooklyn would rank as the third-most populous in the U.S., after Los Angeles and Chicago.
+
+Brooklyn was an independent incorporated city (and previously an authorized village and town within the provisions of the New York State Constitution) until January 1, 1898, when, after a long political campaign and public relations battle during the 1890s, according to the new Municipal Charter of "Greater New York", Brooklyn was consolidated with the other cities, boroughs, and counties to form the modern City of New York, surrounding the Upper New York Bay with five constituent boroughs. The borough continues, however, to maintain a distinct culture. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves. Brooklyn's official motto, displayed on the Borough seal and flag, is Eendraght Maeckt Maght, which translates from early modern Dutch as "Unity makes strength".
+
+In the first decades of the 21st century, Brooklyn has experienced a renaissance as an avant-garde destination for hipsters,[8] with concomitant gentrification, dramatic house price increases and a decrease in housing affordability.[9] Since the 2010s, Brooklyn has evolved into a thriving hub of entrepreneurship, high technology startup firms,[10][11] postmodern art[12] and design.[11]
+
+
+
+The name Brooklyn is derived from the original Dutch colonial name Breuckelen. The oldest mention of the settlement in the Netherlands, is in a charter of 953 of Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, namely Broecklede.[16] This is a composition of the two words broeck, meaning bog or marshland and lede, meaning small (dug) water stream specifically in peat areas.[17] Breuckelen in the U.S. is established in 1646, the name first appeared in print in 1663.[18] The Dutch colonists named it after the scenic town of Breukelen, Netherlands.[19][20] Over the past two millennia, the name of the ancient town in Holland has been Bracola, Broccke, Brocckede, Broiclede, Brocklandia, Broekclen, Broikelen, Breuckelen and finally Breukelen.[21] The New Amsterdam settlement of Breuckelen also went through many spelling variations, including Breucklyn, Breuckland, Brucklyn, Broucklyn, Brookland, Brockland, Brocklin, and Brookline/Brook-line. There have been so many variations of the name that its origin has been debated; some have claimed breuckelen means "broken land."[22] The final name of Brooklyn, however, is the most accurate to its meaning.[23][24]
+
+The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th century as the small Dutch-founded town of "Breuckelen" on the East River shore of Long Island, grew to be a sizeable city in the 19th century, and was consolidated in 1898 with New York City (then confined to Manhattan and part of the Bronx), the remaining rural areas of Kings County, and the largely rural areas of Queens and Staten Island, to form the modern City of New York.
+
+The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle Long Island's western edge, which was then largely inhabited by the Lenape, an Algonquian-speaking American Indian tribe often referred to in colonial documents by a variation of the place name "Canarsie". Bands were associated with place names, but the colonists thought their names represented different tribes. The Breuckelen settlement was named after Breukelen in the Netherlands; it was part of New Netherland. The Dutch West India Company lost little time in chartering the six original parishes (listed here by their later English town names):[25]
+
+The colony's capital of New Amsterdam, across the East River, obtained its charter in 1653, later than the village of Brooklyn. The neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North America's first tide mill. It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today. But the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furman's 1824 compilation.[26]
+
+What is now Brooklyn today left Dutch hands after the final English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo-Dutch War. New Netherland was taken in a naval action, and the conquerors renamed their prize for the overall English naval commander, James, Duke of York, brother of the then monarch King Charles II of England and future king himself as King James II of England and James VII of Scotland; Brooklyn became a part of the new English and later British colony, the Province of New York.
+
+The English reorganized the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island as Kings County on November 1, 1683,[27] one of the "original twelve counties" then established in New York Province. This tract of land was recognized as a political entity for the first time, and the municipal groundwork was laid for a later expansive idea of Brooklyn identity.
+
+Lacking the patroon and tenant farmer system established along the Hudson River Valley, this agricultural county unusually came to have one of the highest percentages of slavery among the population in the "Original Thirteen Colonies" along the Atlantic Ocean eastern coast of North America.[28]
+
+On August 27, 1776, was fought the Battle of Long Island (also known as the 'Battle of Brooklyn'), the first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared, and the largest of the entire conflict. British troops forced Continental Army troops under George Washington off the heights near the modern sites of Green-Wood Cemetery, Prospect Park, and Grand Army Plaza.[29]
+
+Washington, viewing particularly fierce fighting at the Gowanus Creek from atop a hill near the west end of present-day Atlantic Avenue, was famously reported to have emotionally exclaimed: "What brave men I must this day lose!".[29]
+
+The fortified American positions at Brooklyn Heights consequently became untenable and were evacuated a few days later, leaving the British in control of New York Harbor. While Washington's defeat on the battlefield cast early doubts on his ability as the commander, the tactical withdrawal of all his troops and supplies across the East River in a single night is now seen by historians as one of his most brilliant triumphs.[29]
+
+The British controlled the surrounding region for the duration of the war, as New York City was soon occupied and became their military and political base of operations in North America for the remainder of the conflict. The British generally enjoyed a dominant Loyalist sentiment from the residents in Kings County who did not evacuate, though the region was also the center of the fledgling—and largely successful—American intelligence network, headed by Washington himself.
+
+The British set up a system of notorious prison ships off the coast of Brooklyn in Wallabout Bay, where more American patriots died of intentional neglect than died in combat on all the battlefields of the American Revolutionary War, combined. One result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the evacuation of the British from New York City, celebrated by residents into the 20th century.
+
+The first half of the 19th century saw the beginning of the development of urban areas on the economically strategic East River shore of Kings County, facing the adolescent City of New York confined to Manhattan Island. The New York Navy Yard operated in Wallabout Bay (border between Brooklyn and Williamsburgh) during the 19th century and two-thirds of the 20th century.
+
+The first center of urbanization sprang up in the Town of Brooklyn, directly across from Lower Manhattan, which saw the incorporation of the Village of Brooklyn in 1817. Reliable steam ferry service across the East River to Fulton Landing converted Brooklyn Heights into a commuter town for Wall Street. Ferry Road to Jamaica Pass became Fulton Street to East New York. Town and Village were combined to form the first, kernel incarnation of the City of Brooklyn in 1834.
+
+In a parallel development, the Town of Bushwick, farther up the river, saw the incorporation of the Village of Williamsburgh in 1827, which separated as the Town of Williamsburgh in 1840 and formed the short-lived City of Williamsburgh in 1851. Industrial deconcentration in the mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to the northern part of the county. Each of the two cities and six towns in Kings County remained independent municipalities and purposely created non-aligning street grids with different naming systems.
+
+However, the East River shore was growing too fast for the three-year-old infant City of Williamsburgh; it, along with its Town of Bushwick hinterland, was subsumed within a greater City of Brooklyn in 1854.
+
+By 1841, with the appearance of The Brooklyn Eagle, and Kings County Democrat published by Alfred G. Stevens, the growing city across the East River from Manhattan was producing its own prominent newspaper.[30] It later became the most popular and highest circulation afternoon paper in America. The publisher changed to L. Van Anden on April 19, 1842,[31] and the paper was renamed The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Kings County Democrat on June 1, 1846.[32] On May 14, 1849, the name was shortened to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle;[33] on September 5, 1938, it was further shortened to Brooklyn Eagle.[34] The establishment of the paper in the 1840s helped develop a separate identity for Brooklynites over the next century. The borough's soon-to-be-famous National League baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, also assisted with this. Both major institutions were lost in the 1950s: the paper closed in 1955 after unsuccessful attempts at a sale following a reporters' strike, and the baseball team decamped for Los Angeles in a realignment of major league baseball in 1957.
+
+Agitation against Southern slavery was stronger in Brooklyn than in New York,[35] and under Republican leadership, the city was fervent in the Union cause in the Civil War. After the war the Henry Ward Beecher Monument was built downtown to honor a famous local abolitionist. A great victory arch was built at what was then the south end of town to celebrate the armed forces; this place is now called Grand Army Plaza.
+
+The number of people living in Brooklyn grew rapidly early in the 19th century. There were 4,402 by 1810, 7,175 in 1830 and 15,396 by 1830.[36] The city's population was 25,000 in 1834, but the police department comprised only 12 men on the day shift and another 12 on the night shift. Every time a rash of burglaries broke out, officials blamed burglars from New York City. Finally, in 1855, a modern police force was created, employing 150 men. Voters complained of inadequate protection and excessive costs. In 1857, the state legislature merged the Brooklyn force with that of New York City.[37]
+
+Fervent in the Union cause, the city of Brooklyn played a major role in supplying troops and materiel for the American Civil War. The most well-known regiment to be sent off to war from the city was the 14th Brooklyn "Red Legged Devils". They fought from 1861 to 1864, wore red the entire war, and were the only regiment named after a city. President Lincoln called them into service, making them part of a handful of three-year enlisted soldiers in April 1861. Unlike other regiments during the American Civil War, the 14th wore a uniform inspired by the French Chasseurs, a light infantry used for quick assaults.
+
+As a seaport and a manufacturing center, Brooklyn was well prepared to contribute to the Union's strengths in shipping and manufacturing. The two combined in shipbuilding; the ironclad Monitor was built in Brooklyn.
+
+Brooklyn is referred to as the twin city of New York in the 1883 poem, "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, which appears on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty. The poem calls New York Harbor "the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame". As a twin city to New York, it played a role in national affairs that was later overshadowed by its century-old submergence into its old partner and rival.
+
+Economic growth continued, propelled by immigration and industrialization, and Brooklyn established itself as the third-most populous American city for much of the 19th century. The waterfront from Gowanus Bay to Greenpoint was developed with piers and factories. Industrial access to the waterfront was improved by the Gowanus Canal and the canalized Newtown Creek. USS Monitor was the most famous product of the large and growing shipbuilding industry of Williamsburg. After the Civil War, trolley lines and other transport brought urban sprawl beyond Prospect Park and into the center of the county.
+
+The rapidly growing population needed more water, so the City built centralized waterworks including the Ridgewood Reservoir. The municipal Police Department, however, was abolished in 1854 in favor of a Metropolitan force covering also New York and Westchester Counties. In 1865 the Brooklyn Fire Department (BFD) also gave way to the new Metropolitan Fire District.
+
+Throughout this period the peripheral towns of Kings County, far from Manhattan and even from urban Brooklyn, maintained their rustic independence. The only municipal change seen was the secession of the eastern section of the Town of Flatbush as the Town of New Lots in 1852. The building of rail links such as the Brighton Beach Line in 1878 heralded the end of this isolation.
+
+Sports became big business, and the Brooklyn Bridegrooms played professional baseball at Washington Park in the convenient suburb of Park Slope and elsewhere. Early in the next century, under their new name of Brooklyn Dodgers, they brought baseball to Ebbets Field, beyond Prospect Park. Racetracks, amusement parks, and beach resorts opened in Brighton Beach, Coney Island, and elsewhere in the southern part of the county.
+
+Toward the end of the 19th century, the City of Brooklyn experienced its final, explosive growth spurt. Railroads and industrialization spread to Bay Ridge and Sunset Park. Within a decade, the city had annexed the Town of New Lots in 1886, the Town of Flatbush, the Town of Gravesend, the Town of New Utrecht in 1894, and the Town of Flatlands in 1896. Brooklyn had reached its natural municipal boundaries at the ends of Kings County.
+
+Brooklyn elected a mayor from 1834 until consolidation in 1898 into the City of Greater New York, whose own second mayor (1902–1903), Seth Low, had been Mayor of Brooklyn from 1882 to 1885. Since 1898, Brooklyn has, in place of a separate mayor, elected a Borough President.
+
+In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was completed, transportation to Manhattan was no longer by water only, and the City of Brooklyn's ties to the City of New York were strengthened.
+
+The question became whether Brooklyn was prepared to engage in the still-grander process of consolidation then developing throughout the region, whether to join with the county of New York, the county of Richmond and the western portion of Queens County to form the five boroughs of a united City of New York. Andrew Haskell Green and other progressives said Yes, and eventually, they prevailed against the Daily Eagle and other conservative forces. In 1894, residents of Brooklyn and the other counties voted by a slight majority to merge, effective in 1898.[39]
+
+Kings County retained its status as one of New York State's counties, but the loss of Brooklyn's separate identity as a city was met with consternation by some residents at the time. Many newspapers of the day called the merger the "Great Mistake of 1898", and the phrase still denotes Brooklyn pride among old-time Brooklynites.[40]
+
+Brooklyn is 97 square miles (250 km2) in area, of which 71 square miles (180 km2) is land (73%), and 26 square miles (67 km2) is water (27%); the borough is the second-largest inland area among the New York City's boroughs. However, Kings County, coterminous with Brooklyn, is New York State's fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area.[7] Brooklyn lies at the southwestern end of Long Island, and the borough's western border constitutes the island's western tip.
+
+Brooklyn's water borders are extensive and varied, including Jamaica Bay; the Atlantic Ocean; The Narrows, separating Brooklyn from the borough of Staten Island in New York City and crossed by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge; Upper New York Bay, separating Brooklyn from Jersey City and Bayonne in the U.S. state of New Jersey; and the East River, separating Brooklyn from the borough of Manhattan in New York City and traversed by the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, and numerous routes of the New York City Subway. To the east of Brooklyn lies the borough of Queens, which contains John F. Kennedy International Airport in that borough's Jamaica neighborhood, approximately two miles from the border of Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood.
+
+Under the Köppen climate classification, using the 32 °F (0 °C) coldest month (January) isotherm, Brooklyn experiences a humid subtropical climate (Cfa),[41] with partial shielding from the Appalachian Mountains and moderating influences from the Atlantic Ocean. Brooklyn receives plentiful precipitation all year round, with nearly 50 in (1,300 mm) yearly. The area averages 234 days with at least some sunshine annually, and averages 57% of possible sunshine annually, accumulating 2,535 hours of sunshine per annum.[42] Brooklyn lies in the USDA 7b plant hardiness zone.[43]
+
+The United States Census Bureau has estimated Brooklyn's population has increased 2.2% to 2,559,903 between 2010 and 2019. Brooklyn's estimated population represented 30.7% of New York City's estimated population of 8,336,817; 33.5% of Long Island's population of 7,701,172; and 13.2% of New York State's population of 19,542,209.[55]
+
+According to the 2010 United States Census, Brooklyn's population was 42.8% White, including 35.7% non-Hispanic White; 34.3% Black, including 31.9% non-Hispanic black; 10.5% Asian; 0.5% Native American; 0.0% (rounded) Pacific Islander; 3.0% Multiracial American; and 8.8% from Other races. Hispanics and Latinos made up 19.8% of Brooklyn's population.[57]
+
+In 2010, Brooklyn had some neighborhoods segregated based on race, ethnicity, and religion. Overall, the southwest half of Brooklyn is racially mixed although it contains few black residents; the northeast section is mostly black and Hispanic/Latino.[59]
+
+According to the 2018 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, there are 2,582,830 people (up from 2.3 million in 1990), and 994,650 households, with 2.75 persons per household. The population density was 35,369/square mile. There are 1,053,767 housing units, with an owner-occupancy rate of 30.0%, and a median value of $623,900.[55]
+
+In Brooklyn, the population was spread out to 7.2% under 5, 15.6% between 6–18, 63.3% 19–64, and 13.9% 65 and older. 52.6% of the population is female. 36.9% of the population are foreign born. Brooklyn's lesbian community is the largest out of all of the New York City boroughs.[55][60]
+
+The median per capita income was $29,928, and the median household income was $52,782. 19.8% of the population lives below the poverty line. 606,738 people were employed.[55]
+
+Brooklyn has a high degree of linguistic diversity. As of 2010, 54.1% (1,240,416) of Brooklyn residents ages 5 and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 17.2% (393,340) spoke Spanish, 6.5% (148,012) Chinese, 5.3% (121,607) Russian, 3.5% (79,469) Yiddish, 2.8% (63,019) French Creole, 1.4% (31,004) Italian, 1.2% (27,440) Hebrew, 1.0% (23,207) Polish, 1.0% (22,763) French, 1.0% (21,773) Arabic, 0.9% (19,388) various Indic languages, 0.7% (15,936) Urdu, and African languages were spoken as a main language by 0.5% (12,305) of the population over the age of five. In total, 45.9% (1,051,456) of Brooklyn's population ages 5 and older spoke a mother language other than English.[64]
+
+Brooklyn's neighborhoods are dynamic in ethnic composition. For example, during the early to mid-20th century, Brownsville had a majority of Jewish residents; since the 1970s it has been majority African American. Midwood during the early 20th century was filled with ethnic Irish, then filled with Jewish residents for nearly 50 years, and is slowly becoming a Pakistani enclave. Brooklyn's most populous racial group, white, declined from 97.2% in 1930 to 46.9% by 1990.[63]
+
+The borough attracts people previously living in other cities in the United States. Of these, most come from Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Cincinnati, and Seattle.[65][66][67][68][69][70][71]
+
+Given New York City's role as a crossroads for immigration from around the world, Brooklyn has evolved a globally cosmopolitan ambiance of its own, demonstrating a robust and growing demographic and cultural diversity with respect to metrics including nationality, religion, race, and domiciliary partnership. In 2010, 51.6% of the population was counted as members of religious congregations.[72] In 2014, there were 914 religious organizations in Brooklyn, the 10th most of all counties in the nation.[73] Brooklyn contains dozens of distinct neighborhoods representing many of the major culturally identified groups found within New York City. Among the most prominent are listed below:
+
+Over 600,000 Jews, particularly Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, have become concentrated in Borough Park, Williamsburg, and Midwood, where there are many yeshivas, synagogues, and kosher restaurants, as well as many other Jewish businesses. Other notable religious Jewish neighborhoods are Kensington, Canarsie, Sea Gate, and Crown Heights (home to the Chabad world headquarters). Many hospitals in Brooklyn were started by Jewish charities, including Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park and Brookdale Hospital in Brownsville.[74][75] Many non-Orthodox Jews (ranging from observant members of various denominations to atheists of Jewish cultural heritage) are concentrated in Ditmas Park and Park Slope, with smaller observant and culturally Jewish populations in Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island.
+
+Over 200,000 Chinese Americans live throughout the southern parts of Brooklyn, in Sunset Park, Bensonhurst, Gravesend, and Homecrest. The largest concentration is in Sunset Park along 8th Avenue, known for its Chinese culture. It is called "Brooklyn's Chinatown" and its Chinese population is composed in majority by Fuzhounese Americans, rendering this Chinatown with the nicknames "Fuzhou Town (福州埠), Brooklyn" or the "Little Fuzhou (小福州)" of Brooklyn. Many Chinese restaurants can be found throughout Sunset Park, and the area hosts a popular Chinese New Year celebration.
+
+Brooklyn's African American and Caribbean communities are spread throughout much of Brooklyn. Brooklyn's West Indian community is concentrated in the Crown Heights, Flatbush, East Flatbush, Kensington, and Canarsie neighborhoods in central Brooklyn. Brooklyn is home to the largest community of West Indians outside of the Caribbean. Although the largest West Indian groups in Brooklyn are Jamaicans, Guyanese, and Haitians, there are West Indian immigrants from nearly every part of the Caribbean. Crown Heights and Flatbush are home to many of Brooklyn's West Indian restaurants and bakeries. Brooklyn has an annual, celebrated Carnival in the tradition of pre-Lenten celebrations in the islands.[76] Started by natives of Trinidad and Tobago, the West Indian Labor Day Parade takes place every Labor Day on Eastern Parkway. The Brooklyn Academy of Music also holds the DanceAfrica festival in late May, featuring street vendors and dance performances showcasing food and culture from all parts of Africa.[77][78] Bedford-Stuyvesant is home to one of the most famous African American communities in the city, along with Brownsville, East New York, and Coney Island.
+
+Bushwick is the largest hub of Brooklyn's Latino American community. Like other Latino neighborhoods in New York City, Bushwick has an established Puerto Rican presence, along with an influx of many Dominicans, South Americans, Central Americans, Mexicans, as well as a more recent influx of Puerto Ricans. As nearly 80% of Bushwick's population is Latino, its residents have created many businesses to support their various national and distinct traditions in food and other items. Sunset Park's population is 42% Latino, made up of these various ethnic groups. Brooklyn's main Latino groups are Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Dominicans, and Panamanians; they are spread out throughout the borough. Puerto Ricans and Dominicans are predominant in Bushwick, Williamsburg's South Side and East New York. Mexicans now predominate alongside Chinese immigrants in Sunset Park, although remnants of the neighborhood's once-substantial postwar Puerto Rican and Dominican communities continue to reside below 39th Street. A Panamanian enclave exists in Crown Heights.
+
+Brooklyn is also home to many Russians and Ukrainians, who are mainly concentrated in the areas of Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay. Brighton Beach features many Russian and Ukrainian businesses and has been nicknamed Little Russia and Little Odessa, respectively. Originally these communities were mostly Jewish; however, in more recent years, the non-Jewish Russian and Ukrainian communities of Brighton Beach have grown, and the area now reflects diverse aspects of Russian and Ukrainian culture. Smaller concentrations of Russian and Ukrainian Americans are scattered elsewhere in southern Brooklyn, including Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Coney Island and Mill Basin.
+
+Brooklyn's Polish are historically concentrated in Greenpoint, home to Little Poland. Other longstanding settlements in Borough Park and Sunset Park have endured, while more recent immigrants are scattered throughout the southern parts of Brooklyn alongside the Russian American community.
+
+Despite widespread migration to Staten Island and more suburban areas in metropolitan New York throughout the postwar era, smaller concentrations of Italian Americans continue to reside in the neighborhoods of Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights, Bay Ridge, Bath Beach and Gravesend. Less perceptible remnants of older communities have persisted in Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, where the homes of the remaining Italian Americans can often be contrasted with more recent upper middle class residents through the display of small Madonna statues, the retention of plastic-metal stoop awnings and the use of Formstone in house cladding. All of the aforementioned neighborhoods have retained Italian restaurants, bakeries, delicatessens, pizzerias, cafes and social clubs.
+
+Today, Arab Americans and Pakistani Americans along with other Muslim communities have moved into the southwest portion of Brooklyn, particularly to Bay Ridge, where there are many Middle Eastern restaurants, hookah lounges, halal shops, Islamic shops, and mosques. Elsewhere, Coney Island Avenue is home to Little Pakistan, while Church Avenue is the center of a Bangladeshi community. Pakistani Independence Day is celebrated every year with parades and parties on Coney Island Avenue. Earlier, the area was known predominantly for its Irish, Norwegian, and Scottish populations. Beginning in the early 20th century, Syrian and Lebanese businesses, mosques, and restaurants were concentrated on Atlantic Avenue west of Flatbush Avenue in Boerum Hill; more recently, this area has evolved into a Yemeni commercial district.
+
+Third-, fourth- and fifth-generation Irish Americans can be found throughout Brooklyn, with moderate concentrations[clarification needed] enduring in the neighborhoods of Windsor Terrace, Park Slope, Bay Ridge, Marine Park and Gerritsen Beach. Historical communities also existed in Vinegar Hill and other waterfront industrial neighborhoods, such as Greenpoint and Sunset Park. Paralleling the Italian American community, many moved to Staten Island and suburban areas in the postwar era. Those that stayed engendered close-knit, stable working-to-middle class communities through employment in the civil service (especially in law enforcement, transportation, and the New York City Fire Department) and the building and construction trades, while others were subsumed by the professional-managerial class and largely shed the Irish American community's distinct cultural traditions (including continued worship in the Catholic Church and other social activities, such as Irish stepdance and frequenting Irish American bars).[citation needed]
+
+Brooklyn's Greek Americans live throughout the borough, especially in Bay Ridge and adjacent areas where there is a noticeable cluster of Hellenic-focused schools and cultural institutions, with many businesses concentrated there and in Downtown Brooklyn near Atlantic Avenue. Greek-owned diners are also found throughout the borough.
+
+Brooklyn is home to a large and growing number of same-sex couples. Same-sex marriages in New York were legalized on June 24, 2011 and were authorized to take place beginning 30 days thereafter.[79] The Park Slope neighborhood spearheaded the popularity of Brooklyn among lesbians, and Prospect Heights has an LGBT residential presence.[80] Numerous neighborhoods have since become home to LGBT communities. Brooklyn Liberation March, the largest transgender-rights demonstration in LGBTQ history, took place on June 14, 2020 stretching from Grand Army Plaza to Fort Greene, focused on supporting Black transgender lives, drawing an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 participants.[81][82]
+
+Brooklyn became a preferred site for artists and hipsters to set up live/work spaces after being priced out of the same types of living arrangements in Manhattan. Various neighborhoods in Brooklyn, including Williamsburg, DUMBO, Red Hook, and Park Slope evolved as popular neighborhoods for artists-in-residence. However, rents and costs of living have since increased dramatically in these same neighborhoods, forcing artists to move to somewhat less expensive neighborhoods in Brooklyn or across Upper New York Bay to locales in New Jersey, such as Jersey City or Hoboken.[83]
+
+Since consolidation with New York City in 1898, Brooklyn has been governed by the New York City Charter that provides for a "strong" mayor–council system. The centralized government of New York City is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services. On the other hand, the Brooklyn Public Library is an independent nonprofit organization partially funded by the government of New York City, but also by the government of New York State, the U.S. federal government, and private donors.
+
+The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with the local authority. Each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. In 1989, the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional because Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island, the least populous borough; it was a violation of the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" reading of the Fourteenth Amendment.[84]
+
+Since 1990, the Borough President has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York state government, and corporations. Brooklyn's current Borough President is Eric Adams, elected as a Democrat in November 2013 with 90.8% of the vote. Adams replaced popular Borough President Marty Markowitz, also a Democrat, who partially used his office to promote tourism and new development for Brooklyn.
+
+Democrats hold most public offices, and the borough is very liberal. As of November 2017, 89.1% of registered voters in Brooklyn were Democrats.[85] Party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Pockets of Republican influence exist in Gravesend, Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and Midwood.
+
+Each of the city's five counties (coterminous with each borough) has its own criminal court system and District Attorney, the chief public prosecutor who is directly elected by popular vote. The District Attorney of Kings County is Eric Gonzalez, who replaced Democrat Kenneth P. Thompson following his death in October 2016.[86] Brooklyn has 16 City Council members, the largest number of any of the five boroughs. Brooklyn has 18 of the city's 59 community districts, each served by an unpaid Community Board with advisory powers under the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. Each board has a paid district manager who acts as an interlocutor with city agencies.
+
+As is the case with sister boroughs Manhattan and the Bronx, Brooklyn has not voted for a Republican in a national presidential election since Calvin Coolidge in 1924. In the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 79.4% of the vote in Brooklyn while Republican John McCain received 20.0%. In 2012, Barack Obama increased his Democratic margin of victory in the borough, dominating Brooklyn with 82.0% of the vote to Republican Mitt Romney's 16.9%.
+
+In 2019, five Democrats represented Brooklyn in the United States House of Representatives. One congressional district lies entirely within the borough.[87]
+
+Brooklyn's job market is driven by three main factors: the performance of the national and city economy, population flows and the borough's position as a convenient back office for New York's businesses.[88]
+
+Forty-four percent of Brooklyn's employed population, or 410,000 people, work in the borough; more than half of the borough's residents work outside its boundaries. As a result, economic conditions in Manhattan are important to the borough's jobseekers. Strong international immigration to Brooklyn generates jobs in services, retailing and construction.[88]
+
+Since the late 20th century, Brooklyn has benefited from a steady influx of financial back office operations from Manhattan, the rapid growth of a high-tech and entertainment economy in DUMBO, and strong growth in support services such as accounting, personal supply agencies, and computer services firms.[88]
+
+Jobs in the borough have traditionally been concentrated in manufacturing, but since 1975, Brooklyn has shifted from a manufacturing-based to a service-based economy. In 2004, 215,000 Brooklyn residents worked in the services sector, while 27,500 worked in manufacturing. Although manufacturing has declined, a substantial base has remained in apparel and niche manufacturing concerns such as furniture, fabricated metals, and food products.[89] The pharmaceutical company Pfizer was founded in Brooklyn in 1869 and had a manufacturing plant in the borough for many years that employed thousands of workers, but the plant shut down in 2008. However, new light-manufacturing concerns packaging organic and high-end food have sprung up in the old plant.[90]
+
+First established as a shipbuilding facility in 1801, the Brooklyn Navy Yard employed 70,000 people at its peak during World War II and was then the largest employer in the borough. The Missouri, the ship on which the Japanese formally surrendered, was built there, as was the Maine, whose sinking off Havana led to the start of the Spanish–American War. The iron-sided Civil War vessel the Monitor was built in Greenpoint. From 1968–1979 Seatrain Shipbuilding was the major employer.[91] Later tenants include industrial design firms, food processing businesses, artisans, and the film and television production industry. About 230 private-sector firms providing 4,000 jobs are at the Yard.
+
+Construction and services are the fastest growing sectors.[92] Most employers in Brooklyn are small businesses. In 2000, 91% of the approximately 38,704 business establishments in Brooklyn had fewer than 20 employees.[93] As of August 2008[update], the borough's unemployment rate was 5.9%.[94]
+
+Brooklyn is also home to many banks and credit unions. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, there were 37 banks and 26 credit unions operating in the borough in 2010.[95][96]
+
+The rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn has generated over US$10 billion of private investment and $300 million in public improvements since 2004. Brooklyn is also attracting numerous high technology start-up companies, as Silicon Alley, the metonym for New York City's entrepreneurship ecosystem, has expanded from Lower Manhattan into Brooklyn.[97]
+
+Brooklyn has played a major role in various aspects of American culture including literature, cinema, and theater. The Brooklyn accent has often been portrayed as the "typical New York accent" in American media, although this accent and stereotype are supposedly fading out.[98] Brooklyn's official colors are blue and gold.[99]
+
+Brooklyn hosts the world-renowned Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the second-largest public art collection in the United States, housed in the Brooklyn Museum.
+
+The Brooklyn Museum, opened in 1897, is New York City's second-largest public art museum. It has in its permanent collection more than 1.5  a million objects, from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art. The Brooklyn Children's Museum, the world's first museum dedicated to children, opened in December 1899. The only such New York State institution accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, it is one of the few globally to have a permanent collection – over 30,000 cultural objects and natural history specimens.
+
+The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) includes a 2,109-seat opera house, an 874-seat theater, and the art-house BAM Rose Cinemas. Bargemusic and St. Ann's Warehouse are on the other side of Downtown Brooklyn in the DUMBO arts district. Brooklyn Technical High School has the second-largest auditorium in New York City (after Radio City Music Hall), with a seating capacity of over 3,000.[100]
+
+Brooklyn has several local newspapers: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Bay Currents (Oceanfront Brooklyn), Brooklyn View, The Brooklyn Paper, and Courier-Life Publications. Courier-Life Publications, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, is Brooklyn's largest chain of newspapers. Brooklyn is also served by the major New York dailies, including The New York Times, the New York Daily News, and the New York Post.
+
+The borough is home to the arts and politics monthly Brooklyn Rail, as well as the arts and cultural quarterly Cabinet. Hello Mr. is also published in Brooklyn.
+
+Brooklyn Magazine is one of the few glossy magazines about Brooklyn. Several others are now defunct, including BKLYN Magazine (a bimonthly lifestyle book owned by Joseph McCarthy, that saw itself as a vehicle for high-end advertisers in Manhattan and was mailed to 80,000 high-income households), Brooklyn Bridge Magazine, The Brooklynite (a free, glossy quarterly edited by Daniel Treiman), and NRG (edited by Gail Johnson and originally marketed as a local periodical for Clinton Hill and Fort Greene, but expanded in scope to become the self-proclaimed "Pulse of Brooklyn" and then the "Pulse of New York").[101]
+
+Brooklyn has a thriving ethnic press. El Diario La Prensa, the largest and oldest Spanish-language daily newspaper in the United States, maintains its corporate headquarters at 1 MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn.[102] Major ethnic publications include the Brooklyn-Queens Catholic paper The Tablet, Hamodia, an Orthodox Jewish daily and The Jewish Press, an Orthodox Jewish weekly. Many nationally distributed ethnic newspapers are based in Brooklyn. Over 60 ethnic groups, writing in 42 languages, publish some 300 non-English language magazines and newspapers in New York City. Among them is the quarterly "L'Idea", a bilingual magazine printed in Italian and English since 1974. In addition, many newspapers published abroad, such as The Daily Gleaner and The Star of Jamaica, are available in Brooklyn.[citation needed]
+Our Time Press published weekly by DBG Media covers the Village of Brooklyn with a motto of "The Local paper with the Global-View".
+
+The City of New York has an official television station, run by NYC Media, which features programming based in Brooklyn. Brooklyn Community Access Television is the borough's public access channel.[103]
+
+Brooklyn's major professional sports team is the NBA's Brooklyn Nets. The Nets moved into the borough in 2012, and play their home games at Barclays Center in Prospect Heights. Previously, the Nets had played in Uniondale, New York and in New Jersey. In April of 2020, the New York Liberty of the WNBA were sold to the Nets' owners and moved their home venue from Madison Square Garden to the Barclays Center.
+
+Barclays Center was also the home arena for the NHL's New York Islanders full-time from 2015 to 2018, then part-time from 2018 to 2020 (alternating with Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale). The Islanders had originally played at Nassau Coliseum full-time since their inception until 2015, when their lease at the venue expired and the team moved to Barclays Center. In 2020, the team will return to Nassau Coliseum full-time for one season before moving to their new permanent home at Belmont Park in 2021.
+
+Brooklyn also has a storied sports history. It has been home to many famous sports figures such as Joe Paterno, Vince Lombardi, Mike Tyson, Joe Torre, Sandy Koufax, Billy Cunningham and Vitas Gerulaitis. Basketball legend Michael Jordan was born in Brooklyn though he grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina.
+
+In the earliest days of organized baseball, Brooklyn teams dominated the new game. The second recorded game of baseball was played near what is today Fort Greene Park on October 24, 1845. Brooklyn's Excelsiors, Atlantics and Eckfords were the leading teams from the mid-1850s through the Civil War, and there were dozens of local teams with neighborhood league play, such as at Mapleton Oval.[109] During this "Brooklyn era", baseball evolved into the modern game: the first fastball, first changeup, first batting average, first triple play, first pro baseball player, first enclosed ballpark, first scorecard, first known African-American team, first black championship game, first road trip, first gambling scandal, and first eight pennant winners were all in or from Brooklyn.[110]
+
+Brooklyn's most famous historical team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, named for "trolley dodgers" played at Ebbets Field.[111] In 1947 Jackie Robinson was hired by the Dodgers as the first African-American player in Major League Baseball in the modern era. In 1955, the Dodgers, perennial National League pennant winners, won the only World Series for Brooklyn against their rival New York Yankees. The event was marked by mass euphoria and celebrations. Just two years later, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. Walter O'Malley, the team's owner at the time, is still vilified, even by Brooklynites too young to remember the Dodgers as Brooklyn's ball club.
+
+After a 43-year hiatus, professional baseball returned to the borough in 2001 with the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor league team that plays in MCU Park in Coney Island. They are an affiliate of the New York Mets. The New York Cosmos of the NASL began playing at MCU Park in 2017.[112]
+
+Brooklyn once had a National Football League team named the Brooklyn Lions in 1926, who played at Ebbets Field.[113]
+
+Rugby United New York joined Major League Rugby in 2019, and play their home games at MCU Park.
+
+Brooklyn has one of the most active recreational fishing fleets in the United States. In addition to a large private fleet along Jamaica Bay, there is a substantial public fleet within Sheepshead Bay. Species caught include Black Fish, Porgy, Striped Bass, Black Sea Bass, Fluke, and Flounder.[114][115][116]
+
+About 57 percent of all households in Brooklyn were households without automobiles. The citywide rate is 55 percent in New York City.[117]
+
+Brooklyn features extensive public transit. Nineteen New York City Subway services, including the Franklin Avenue Shuttle, traverse the borough. Approximately 92.8% of Brooklyn residents traveling to Manhattan use the subway, despite the fact some neighborhoods like Flatlands and Marine Park are poorly served by subway service. Major stations, out of the 170 currently in Brooklyn, include:
+
+Proposed New York City Subway lines never built include a line along Nostrand or Utica Avenues to Marine Park,[119] as well as a subway line to Spring Creek.[120][121]
+
+Brooklyn was once served by an extensive network of streetcars, but many were replaced by the public bus network that covers the entire borough. There is also daily express bus service into Manhattan.[122] New York's famous yellow cabs also provide transportation in Brooklyn, although they are less numerous in the borough. There are three commuter rail stations in Brooklyn: East New York, Nostrand Avenue, and Atlantic Terminal, the terminus of the Atlantic Branch of the Long Island Rail Road. The terminal is near the Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center subway station, with ten connecting subway services.
+
+In February 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city government would begin a citywide ferry service called NYC Ferry to extend ferry transportation to communities in the city that have been traditionally underserved by public transit.[123][124]  The ferry opened in May 2017,[125][126] with the Bay Ridge ferry serving southwestern Brooklyn and the East River Ferry serving northwestern Brooklyn. A third route, the Rockaway ferry, makes one stop in the borough at Brooklyn Army Terminal.[127]
+
+A streetcar line, the Brooklyn–Queens Connector, was proposed by the city in February 2016,[128] with the planned timeline calling for service to begin around 2024.[129]
+
+Most of the limited-access expressways and parkways are in the western and southern sections of Brooklyn, where the borough's two interstate highways are located; Interstate 278, which uses the Gowanus Expressway and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, traverses Sunset Park and Brooklyn Heights, while Interstate 478 is an unsigned route designation for the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel, which connects to Manhattan.[130] Other prominent roadways are the Prospect Expressway (New York State Route 27), the Belt Parkway, and the Jackie Robinson Parkway (formerly the Interborough Parkway). Planned expressways that were never built include the Bushwick Expressway, an extension of I-78[131] and the Cross-Brooklyn Expressway, I-878.[132] Major thoroughfares include Atlantic Avenue, Fourth Avenue, 86th Street, Kings Highway, Bay Parkway, Ocean Parkway, Eastern Parkway, Linden Boulevard, McGuinness Boulevard, Flatbush Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, and Nostrand Avenue.
+
+Much of Brooklyn has only named streets, but Park Slope, Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Bensonhurst, and Borough Park and the other western sections have numbered streets running approximately northwest to southeast, and numbered avenues going approximately northeast to southwest. East of Dahill Road, lettered avenues (like Avenue M) run east and west, and numbered streets have the prefix "East". South of Avenue O, related numbered streets west of Dahill Road use the "West" designation. This set of numbered streets ranges from West 37th Street to East 108 Street, and the avenues range from A–Z with names substituted for some of them in some neighborhoods (notably Albemarle, Beverley, Cortelyou, Dorchester, Ditmas, Foster, Farragut, Glenwood, Quentin). Numbered streets prefixed by "North" and "South" in Williamsburg, and "Bay", "Beach", "Brighton", "Plumb", "Paerdegat" or "Flatlands" along the southern and southwestern waterfront are loosely based on the old grids of the original towns of Kings County that eventually consolidated to form Brooklyn. These names often reflect the bodies of water or beaches around them, such as Plumb Beach or Paerdegat Basin.
+
+Brooklyn is connected to Manhattan by three bridges, the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg Bridges; a vehicular tunnel, the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel (also known as the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel); and several subway tunnels. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge links Brooklyn with the more suburban borough of Staten Island. Though much of its border is on land, Brooklyn shares several water crossings with Queens, including the Pulaski Bridge, the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, the Kosciuszko Bridge (part of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway), and the Grand Street Bridge, all of which carry traffic over Newtown Creek, and the Marine Parkway Bridge connecting Brooklyn to the Rockaway Peninsula.
+
+Brooklyn was long a major shipping port, especially at the Brooklyn Army Terminal and Bush Terminal in Sunset Park. Most container ship cargo operations have shifted to the New Jersey side of New York Harbor, while the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook is a focal point for New York's growing cruise industry. The Queen Mary 2, one of the world's largest ocean liners, was designed specifically to fit under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the United States. She makes regular ports of call at the Red Hook terminal on her transatlantic crossings from Southampton, England.[127]
+
+In February 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city government would begin NYC Ferry to extend ferry transportation to traditionally underserved communities in the city.[123][124]  The ferry opened in May 2017,[125][126] offering commuter services from the western shore of Brooklyn to Manhattan via three routes. The East River Ferry serves points in Lower Manhattan, Midtown, Long Island City, and northwestern Brooklyn via its East River route. The South Brooklyn and Rockaway routes serve southwestern Brooklyn before terminating in lower Manhattan. Ferries to Coney Island are also planned.[127] NY Waterway offers tours and charters. SeaStreak also offers a weekday ferry service between the Brooklyn Army Terminal and the Manhattan ferry slips at Pier 11/Wall Street downtown and East 34th Street Ferry Landing in midtown. A Cross-Harbor Rail Tunnel, originally proposed in the 1920s as a core project for the then-new Port Authority of New York is again being studied and discussed as a way to ease freight movements across a large swath of the metropolitan area.
+
+Education in Brooklyn is provided by a vast number of public and private institutions. Public schools in the borough are managed by the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system.
+
+Brooklyn Technical High School (commonly called Brooklyn Tech), a New York City public high school, is the largest specialized high school for science, mathematics, and technology in the United States.[133] Brooklyn Tech opened in 1922. Brooklyn Tech is across the street from Fort Greene Park. This high school was built from 1930 to 1933 at a cost of about $6 million and is 12 stories high. It covers about half of a city block.[134] Brooklyn Tech is noted for its famous alumni[135] (including two Nobel Laureates), its academics, and a large number of graduates attending prestigious universities.
+
+Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, and was the first public coeducational liberal arts college in New York City. The College ranked in the top 10 nationally for the second consecutive year in Princeton Review’s 2006 guidebook, America’s Best Value Colleges. Many of its students are first and second-generation Americans.
+Founded in 1970, Medgar Evers College is a senior college of the City University of New York, with a mission to develop and maintain high quality, professional, career-oriented undergraduate degree programs in the context of a liberal arts education. The College offers programs at the baccalaureate and associate degree levels, as well as adult and continuing education classes for central Brooklyn residents, corporations, government agencies, and community organizations. Medgar Evers College is a few blocks east of Prospect Park in Crown Heights.
+
+CUNY's New York City College of Technology (City Tech) of The City University of New York (CUNY) (Downtown Brooklyn/Brooklyn Heights) is the largest public college of technology in New York State and a national model for technological education. Established in 1946, City Tech can trace its roots to 1881 when the Technical Schools of the Metropolitan Museum of Art were renamed the New York Trade School. That institution—which became the Voorhees Technical Institute many decades later—was soon a model for the development of technical and vocational schools worldwide. In 1971, Voorhees was incorporated into City Tech.
+
+SUNY Downstate College of Medicine, founded as the Long Island College Hospital in 1860, is the oldest hospital-based medical school in the United States. The Medical Center comprises the College of Medicine, College of Health Related Professions, College of Nursing, School of Public Health, School of Graduate Studies, and University Hospital of Brooklyn. The Nobel Prize winner Robert F. Furchgott was a member of its faculty. Half of the Medical Center's students are minorities or immigrants. The College of Medicine has the highest percentage of minority students of any medical school in New York State.
+
+Brooklyn Law School was founded in 1901 and is notable for its diverse student body. Women and African Americans were enrolled in 1909. According to the Leiter Report, a compendium of law school rankings published by Brian Leiter, Brooklyn Law School places 31st nationally for the quality of students.[136]
+
+Long Island University is a private university headquartered in Brookville on Long Island, with a campus in Downtown Brooklyn with 6,417 undergraduate students. The Brooklyn campus has a strong science and medical technology programs, at the graduate and undergraduate levels.
+
+Pratt Institute, in Clinton Hill, is a private college founded in 1887 with programs in engineering, architecture, and the arts. Some buildings in the school's Brooklyn campus are official landmarks. Pratt has over 4700 students, with most at its Brooklyn campus. Graduate programs include a library and information science, architecture, and urban planning. Undergraduate programs include architecture, construction management, writing, critical and visual studies, industrial design and fine arts, totaling over 25 programs in all.
+
+The New York University Tandon School of Engineering, the United States' second oldest private institute of technology, founded in 1854, has its main campus in Downtown's MetroTech Center, a commercial, civic and educational redevelopment project of which it was a key sponsor. NYU-Tandon is one of the 18 schools and colleges that comprise New York University (NYU).[137][138][139][140]
+
+St. Francis College is a Catholic college in Brooklyn Heights founded in 1859 by Franciscan friars. Today, over 2,400 students attend the small liberal arts college. St. Francis is considered by The New York Times as one of the more diverse colleges, and was ranked one of the best baccalaureate colleges by Forbes magazine and U.S. News & World Report.[141][142][143]
+
+Brooklyn also has smaller liberal arts institutions, such as Saint Joseph's College in Clinton Hill and Boricua College in Williamsburg.
+
+Kingsborough Community College is a junior college in the City University of New York system in Manhattan Beach.
+
+As an independent system, separate from the New York and Queens public library systems, the Brooklyn Public Library[144] offers thousands of public programs, millions of books, and use of more than 850 free Internet-accessible computers. It also has books and periodicals in all the major languages spoken in Brooklyn, including English, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Hebrew, and Haitian Creole, as well as French, Yiddish, Hindi, Bengali, Polish, Italian, and Arabic. The Central Library is a landmarked building facing Grand Army Plaza.
+
+There are 58 library branches, placing one within a half-mile of each Brooklyn resident. In addition to its specialized Business Library in Brooklyn Heights, the Library is preparing to construct its new Visual & Performing Arts Library (VPA) in the BAM Cultural District, which will focus on the link between new and emerging arts and technology and house traditional and digital collections. It will provide access and training to arts applications and technologies not widely available to the public. The collections will include the subjects of art, theater, dance, music, film, photography, and architecture. A special archive will house the records and history of Brooklyn's arts communities.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+History:

en/756.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+A toothbrush is an oral hygiene instrument used to clean the teeth, gums, and tongue. It consists of a head of tightly clustered bristles, atop of which toothpaste can be applied, mounted on a handle which facilitates the cleaning of hard-to-reach areas of the mouth. They are usually used alongside floss.
+
+They are available with different bristle textures, sizes, and forms. Most dentists recommend using a soft toothbrush since hard-bristled toothbrushes can damage tooth enamel and irritate the gums.[1]
+
+Because many common and effective ingredients in toothpaste are harmful if swallowed in large doses and instead should be spat out, the act of brushing teeth is most often done at a sink within the kitchen or bathroom, where the brush may be rinsed off afterwards to remove any debris remaining and then dried to reduce conditions ideal for germ growth (and, if it is a wooden toothbrush, mold as well).
+
+Many toothbrushes have wooden handles, often bamboo. However, numerous others are made of cheap plastic; such brushes constitute a significant source of pollution.[2][3] Over 1 billion toothbrushes are disposed of into landfills annually in the United States alone.[4] Bristles are commonly made of nylon (which, while not biodegradable, as plastic is, may still be recycled) or bamboo viscose.
+
+Before the invention of the toothbrush, a variety of oral hygiene measures had been used.[5] This has been verified by excavations during which tree twigs, bird feathers, animal bones and porcupine quills were recovered.
+
+The predecessor of the toothbrush is the chew stick. Chew sticks were twigs with frayed ends used to brush the teeth[6] while the other end was used as a toothpick.[7] The earliest chew sticks were discovered in Sumer in southern Mesopotamia in 3500 BC,[7] an Egyptian tomb dating from 3000 BC,[6] and mentioned in Chinese records dating from 1600 BC. The Greeks and Romans used toothpicks to clean their teeth, and toothpick-like twigs have been excavated in Qin Dynasty tombs.[7] Chew sticks remain common in Africa,[8] the rural Southern United States,[6] and in the Islamic world the use of chewing stick miswak is considered a pious action and has been prescribed to be used before every prayer five times a day.[9] Miswaks have been used by Muslims since 7th century.[citation needed] Twigs of Neem Tree or Indian Lilac have been used by ancient Indians.[citation needed]
+
+The first bristle toothbrush resembling the modern one was found in China. Used during the Tang Dynasty (619–907), it consisted of hog bristles.[10][11] The bristles were sourced from hogs living in Siberia and northern China because the colder temperatures provided firmer bristles. They were attached to a handle manufactured from bamboo or bone, forming a toothbrush.[6] In 1223, Japanese Zen master Dōgen Kigen recorded in his Shōbōgenzō that he saw monks in China clean their teeth with brushes made of horsetail hairs attached to an oxbone handle. The bristle toothbrush spread to Europe, brought from China to Europe by travellers.[12] It was adopted in Europe during the 17th century.[13] The earliest identified use of the word toothbrush in English was in the autobiography of Anthony Wood who wrote in 1690 that he had bought a toothbrush from J. Barret.[14] Europeans found the hog bristle toothbrushes imported from China too firm and preferred softer bristle toothbrushes made from horsehair.[6] Mass-produced toothbrushes made with horse or boar bristle continued to be imported to Britain from China until the mid 20th century.[5]
+
+In the UK, William Addis is believed to have produced the first mass-produced toothbrush in 1780.[12][15] In 1770, he had been jailed for causing a riot. While in prison he decided that using a rag with soot and salt on the teeth was ineffective and could be improved. After saving a small bone from a meal, he drilled small holes into the bone and tied into the bone tufts of bristles that he had obtained from one of the guards, passed the tufts of bristle through the holes in the bone and sealed the holes with glue. After his release, he became wealthy after starting a business manufacturing toothbrushes. He died in 1808, bequeathing the business to his eldest son. It remained within family ownership until 1996.[16] Under the name Wisdom Toothbrushes, the company now manufactures 70 million toothbrushes per year in the UK.[17] By 1840 toothbrushes were being mass-produced in Britain, France, Germany, and Japan.[18] Pig bristles were used for cheaper toothbrushes and badger hair for the more expensive ones.[18]
+
+Hertford Museum in Hertford, UK, holds approximately 5000 brushes that make up part of the Addis Collection. The Addis factory on Ware Road was a major employer in the town until 1996. Since the closure of the factory, Hertford Museum has received photographs and documents relating to the archive, and collected oral histories from former employees.[19]
+
+The first patent for a toothbrush was granted to H.N. Wadsworth in 1857 (U.S.A. Patent No. 18,653) in the United States, but mass production in the United States did not start until 1885. The improved design had a bone handle with holes bored into it for the Siberian boar hair bristles. Unfortunately, animal bristle was not an ideal material as it retained bacteria, did not dry efficiently and the bristles often fell out. In addition to bone, handles were made of wood or ivory.[20] In the United States, brushing teeth did not become routine until after World War II, when American soldiers had to clean their teeth daily.[15]
+
+During the 1900s, celluloid gradually replaced bone handles.[10] Natural animal bristles were also replaced by synthetic fibers, usually nylon, by DuPont in 1938. The first nylon bristle toothbrush made with nylon yarn went on sale on February 24, 1938. The first electric toothbrush, the Broxodent, was invented in Switzerland in 1954.[21] By the turn of the 21st century nylon had come to be widely used for the bristles and the handles were usually molded from thermoplastic materials.[5]
+
+Johnson & Johnson, a leading medical supplies firm, introduced the "Reach" toothbrush in 1977.[22] It differed from previous toothbrushes in three ways: it had an angled head, similar to dental instruments, to reach back teeth; the bristles were concentrated more closely than usual to clean each tooth of potentially cariogenic (cavity-causing) materials; and the outer bristles were longer and softer than the inner bristles. Other manufacturers soon followed with other designs aimed at improving effectiveness.[23]
+In spite of the changes with the number of tufts and the spacing, the handle form and design, the bristles were still straight and difficult to maneuver. In 1978 Dr. George C. Collis developed the Collis Curve toothbrush which was the first toothbrush to have curved bristles. The curved bristles follow the curvature of the teeth and safely reach in between the teeth and into the sulcular areas.[24]
+
+In January 2003, the toothbrush was selected as the number one invention Americans could not live without according to the Lemelson-MIT Invention Index.[25]
+
+It has been discovered that compared to a manual brush, the multi-directional power brush might reduce the incidence of gingivitis and plaque, when compared to regular side-to-side brushing. These brushes tend to be more costly. An electric toothbrush performs rotations of its bristles and cleans hard to reach places. Most studies report performances equivalent to those of manual brushings, possibly with a decrease in plaque and gingivitis[26] although the electric version can be more comfortable. An additional timer and pressure sensors can encourage a more efficient cleaning process.[27]
+Electric toothbrushes can be classified, according to the speed of their movements as: standard power toothbrushes, sonic toothbrushes, or ultrasonic toothbrushes.  Any electric toothbrush is technically a power toothbrush.  If the motion of the toothbrush is sufficiently rapid to produce a hum in the audible frequency range (20 Hz to 20,000 Hz), it can be classified as a sonic toothbrush.  Any electric toothbrush with movement faster than this limit can be classified as an ultrasonic toothbrush.  Certain ultrasonic toothbrushes, such as the Megasonex and the Ultreo, have both sonic and ultrasonic movements.
+
+An interdental or interproximal ("proxy") brush is a small brush, typically disposable, either supplied with a reusable angled plastic handle or an integral handle, used for cleaning between teeth and between the wires of dental braces and the teeth.
+
+The use of interdental brushes in conjunction with tooth brushing has been shown to reduce both the amount of plaque and the incidence of gingivitis when compared to toothbrushing alone.[28] Although there is some evidence that after tooth brushing with a conventional tooth brush, interdental brushes remove more plaque than dental floss,[29] a systematic review reported insufficient evidence to determine such an association.[28]
+
+The size of interdental brushes is standardized in ISO 16409.[30][31] The brush size,[32] which is a number between 0 (small space between teeth) and 8 (large space), indicates the passage hole diameter. This corresponds to the space between two teeth that is just sufficient for the brush to go through without bending the wire. The color of the brushes differs between producers. The same is the case with respect to the wire diameter.[33]
+
+The small round brush head comprises seven tufts of tightly packed soft nylon bristles, trimmed so the bristles in the center can reach deeper into small spaces. The brush handle is ergonomically designed for a firm grip, giving the control and precision necessary to clean where most other cleaning aids cannot reach.[37] These areas include the posterior of the wisdom teeth (third molars), orthodontic structures (braces), crowded teeth, and tooth surfaces that are next to missing teeth. It can also be used to clean areas around implants, bridges, dentures and other appliances.[38]
+
+A chewable toothbrush is a miniature plastic moulded toothbrush which can be placed inside the mouth. While not commonly used, they are useful to travelers and are sometimes available from bathroom vending machines. They are available in different flavors such as mint or bubblegum and should be disposed of after use. Other types of disposable toothbrushes include those that contain a small breakable plastic ball of toothpaste on the bristles, which can be used without water.[39]
+
+A Musical toothbrush is a type of manual or powered toothbrush designed to make tooth brushing habit more interesting. It is more commonly introduced to children to gain their attention and positively influence their toothbrushing behavior. The music starts while child starts brushing, it continuous during the brushing and when it ends child stops brushing. [40]
+
+Teeth can be damaged by several factors including poor oral hygiene, but also by wrong oral hygiene. Especially for sensitive teeth, damage to dentin and gums can be prevented by several measures[41] including a correct brushing technique.
+
+It is beneficial, when using a straight bristled brush, not to scrub horizontally over the necks of teeth, not to press the brush too hard against the teeth, to choose a toothpaste that is not too abrasive,[42] and to wait at least 30 minutes after consumption of acidic food or drinks before brushing.[41][43]
+Harder toothbrushes reduce plaque more efficiently but are more stressful to teeth and gum; using a medium to soft brush for a longer cleaning time was rated to be the best compromise between cleaning result and gum and tooth health.[44]
+
+A study by University College London found that advice on brushing technique and frequency given by 10 national dental associations, toothpaste and toothbrush companies, and in dental textbooks was inconsistent.[45]

en/757.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+A toothbrush is an oral hygiene instrument used to clean the teeth, gums, and tongue. It consists of a head of tightly clustered bristles, atop of which toothpaste can be applied, mounted on a handle which facilitates the cleaning of hard-to-reach areas of the mouth. They are usually used alongside floss.
+
+They are available with different bristle textures, sizes, and forms. Most dentists recommend using a soft toothbrush since hard-bristled toothbrushes can damage tooth enamel and irritate the gums.[1]
+
+Because many common and effective ingredients in toothpaste are harmful if swallowed in large doses and instead should be spat out, the act of brushing teeth is most often done at a sink within the kitchen or bathroom, where the brush may be rinsed off afterwards to remove any debris remaining and then dried to reduce conditions ideal for germ growth (and, if it is a wooden toothbrush, mold as well).
+
+Many toothbrushes have wooden handles, often bamboo. However, numerous others are made of cheap plastic; such brushes constitute a significant source of pollution.[2][3] Over 1 billion toothbrushes are disposed of into landfills annually in the United States alone.[4] Bristles are commonly made of nylon (which, while not biodegradable, as plastic is, may still be recycled) or bamboo viscose.
+
+Before the invention of the toothbrush, a variety of oral hygiene measures had been used.[5] This has been verified by excavations during which tree twigs, bird feathers, animal bones and porcupine quills were recovered.
+
+The predecessor of the toothbrush is the chew stick. Chew sticks were twigs with frayed ends used to brush the teeth[6] while the other end was used as a toothpick.[7] The earliest chew sticks were discovered in Sumer in southern Mesopotamia in 3500 BC,[7] an Egyptian tomb dating from 3000 BC,[6] and mentioned in Chinese records dating from 1600 BC. The Greeks and Romans used toothpicks to clean their teeth, and toothpick-like twigs have been excavated in Qin Dynasty tombs.[7] Chew sticks remain common in Africa,[8] the rural Southern United States,[6] and in the Islamic world the use of chewing stick miswak is considered a pious action and has been prescribed to be used before every prayer five times a day.[9] Miswaks have been used by Muslims since 7th century.[citation needed] Twigs of Neem Tree or Indian Lilac have been used by ancient Indians.[citation needed]
+
+The first bristle toothbrush resembling the modern one was found in China. Used during the Tang Dynasty (619–907), it consisted of hog bristles.[10][11] The bristles were sourced from hogs living in Siberia and northern China because the colder temperatures provided firmer bristles. They were attached to a handle manufactured from bamboo or bone, forming a toothbrush.[6] In 1223, Japanese Zen master Dōgen Kigen recorded in his Shōbōgenzō that he saw monks in China clean their teeth with brushes made of horsetail hairs attached to an oxbone handle. The bristle toothbrush spread to Europe, brought from China to Europe by travellers.[12] It was adopted in Europe during the 17th century.[13] The earliest identified use of the word toothbrush in English was in the autobiography of Anthony Wood who wrote in 1690 that he had bought a toothbrush from J. Barret.[14] Europeans found the hog bristle toothbrushes imported from China too firm and preferred softer bristle toothbrushes made from horsehair.[6] Mass-produced toothbrushes made with horse or boar bristle continued to be imported to Britain from China until the mid 20th century.[5]
+
+In the UK, William Addis is believed to have produced the first mass-produced toothbrush in 1780.[12][15] In 1770, he had been jailed for causing a riot. While in prison he decided that using a rag with soot and salt on the teeth was ineffective and could be improved. After saving a small bone from a meal, he drilled small holes into the bone and tied into the bone tufts of bristles that he had obtained from one of the guards, passed the tufts of bristle through the holes in the bone and sealed the holes with glue. After his release, he became wealthy after starting a business manufacturing toothbrushes. He died in 1808, bequeathing the business to his eldest son. It remained within family ownership until 1996.[16] Under the name Wisdom Toothbrushes, the company now manufactures 70 million toothbrushes per year in the UK.[17] By 1840 toothbrushes were being mass-produced in Britain, France, Germany, and Japan.[18] Pig bristles were used for cheaper toothbrushes and badger hair for the more expensive ones.[18]
+
+Hertford Museum in Hertford, UK, holds approximately 5000 brushes that make up part of the Addis Collection. The Addis factory on Ware Road was a major employer in the town until 1996. Since the closure of the factory, Hertford Museum has received photographs and documents relating to the archive, and collected oral histories from former employees.[19]
+
+The first patent for a toothbrush was granted to H.N. Wadsworth in 1857 (U.S.A. Patent No. 18,653) in the United States, but mass production in the United States did not start until 1885. The improved design had a bone handle with holes bored into it for the Siberian boar hair bristles. Unfortunately, animal bristle was not an ideal material as it retained bacteria, did not dry efficiently and the bristles often fell out. In addition to bone, handles were made of wood or ivory.[20] In the United States, brushing teeth did not become routine until after World War II, when American soldiers had to clean their teeth daily.[15]
+
+During the 1900s, celluloid gradually replaced bone handles.[10] Natural animal bristles were also replaced by synthetic fibers, usually nylon, by DuPont in 1938. The first nylon bristle toothbrush made with nylon yarn went on sale on February 24, 1938. The first electric toothbrush, the Broxodent, was invented in Switzerland in 1954.[21] By the turn of the 21st century nylon had come to be widely used for the bristles and the handles were usually molded from thermoplastic materials.[5]
+
+Johnson & Johnson, a leading medical supplies firm, introduced the "Reach" toothbrush in 1977.[22] It differed from previous toothbrushes in three ways: it had an angled head, similar to dental instruments, to reach back teeth; the bristles were concentrated more closely than usual to clean each tooth of potentially cariogenic (cavity-causing) materials; and the outer bristles were longer and softer than the inner bristles. Other manufacturers soon followed with other designs aimed at improving effectiveness.[23]
+In spite of the changes with the number of tufts and the spacing, the handle form and design, the bristles were still straight and difficult to maneuver. In 1978 Dr. George C. Collis developed the Collis Curve toothbrush which was the first toothbrush to have curved bristles. The curved bristles follow the curvature of the teeth and safely reach in between the teeth and into the sulcular areas.[24]
+
+In January 2003, the toothbrush was selected as the number one invention Americans could not live without according to the Lemelson-MIT Invention Index.[25]
+
+It has been discovered that compared to a manual brush, the multi-directional power brush might reduce the incidence of gingivitis and plaque, when compared to regular side-to-side brushing. These brushes tend to be more costly. An electric toothbrush performs rotations of its bristles and cleans hard to reach places. Most studies report performances equivalent to those of manual brushings, possibly with a decrease in plaque and gingivitis[26] although the electric version can be more comfortable. An additional timer and pressure sensors can encourage a more efficient cleaning process.[27]
+Electric toothbrushes can be classified, according to the speed of their movements as: standard power toothbrushes, sonic toothbrushes, or ultrasonic toothbrushes.  Any electric toothbrush is technically a power toothbrush.  If the motion of the toothbrush is sufficiently rapid to produce a hum in the audible frequency range (20 Hz to 20,000 Hz), it can be classified as a sonic toothbrush.  Any electric toothbrush with movement faster than this limit can be classified as an ultrasonic toothbrush.  Certain ultrasonic toothbrushes, such as the Megasonex and the Ultreo, have both sonic and ultrasonic movements.
+
+An interdental or interproximal ("proxy") brush is a small brush, typically disposable, either supplied with a reusable angled plastic handle or an integral handle, used for cleaning between teeth and between the wires of dental braces and the teeth.
+
+The use of interdental brushes in conjunction with tooth brushing has been shown to reduce both the amount of plaque and the incidence of gingivitis when compared to toothbrushing alone.[28] Although there is some evidence that after tooth brushing with a conventional tooth brush, interdental brushes remove more plaque than dental floss,[29] a systematic review reported insufficient evidence to determine such an association.[28]
+
+The size of interdental brushes is standardized in ISO 16409.[30][31] The brush size,[32] which is a number between 0 (small space between teeth) and 8 (large space), indicates the passage hole diameter. This corresponds to the space between two teeth that is just sufficient for the brush to go through without bending the wire. The color of the brushes differs between producers. The same is the case with respect to the wire diameter.[33]
+
+The small round brush head comprises seven tufts of tightly packed soft nylon bristles, trimmed so the bristles in the center can reach deeper into small spaces. The brush handle is ergonomically designed for a firm grip, giving the control and precision necessary to clean where most other cleaning aids cannot reach.[37] These areas include the posterior of the wisdom teeth (third molars), orthodontic structures (braces), crowded teeth, and tooth surfaces that are next to missing teeth. It can also be used to clean areas around implants, bridges, dentures and other appliances.[38]
+
+A chewable toothbrush is a miniature plastic moulded toothbrush which can be placed inside the mouth. While not commonly used, they are useful to travelers and are sometimes available from bathroom vending machines. They are available in different flavors such as mint or bubblegum and should be disposed of after use. Other types of disposable toothbrushes include those that contain a small breakable plastic ball of toothpaste on the bristles, which can be used without water.[39]
+
+A Musical toothbrush is a type of manual or powered toothbrush designed to make tooth brushing habit more interesting. It is more commonly introduced to children to gain their attention and positively influence their toothbrushing behavior. The music starts while child starts brushing, it continuous during the brushing and when it ends child stops brushing. [40]
+
+Teeth can be damaged by several factors including poor oral hygiene, but also by wrong oral hygiene. Especially for sensitive teeth, damage to dentin and gums can be prevented by several measures[41] including a correct brushing technique.
+
+It is beneficial, when using a straight bristled brush, not to scrub horizontally over the necks of teeth, not to press the brush too hard against the teeth, to choose a toothpaste that is not too abrasive,[42] and to wait at least 30 minutes after consumption of acidic food or drinks before brushing.[41][43]
+Harder toothbrushes reduce plaque more efficiently but are more stressful to teeth and gum; using a medium to soft brush for a longer cleaning time was rated to be the best compromise between cleaning result and gum and tooth health.[44]
+
+A study by University College London found that advice on brushing technique and frequency given by 10 national dental associations, toothpaste and toothbrush companies, and in dental textbooks was inconsistent.[45]

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+A wheelbarrow is a small hand-propelled vehicle, usually with just one wheel, designed to be pushed and guided by a single person using two handles at the rear, or by a sail to push the ancient wheelbarrow by wind.  The term "wheelbarrow" is made of two words: "wheel" and "barrow."  "Barrow" is a derivation of the Old English "bearwe" which was a device used for carrying loads.
+
+The wheelbarrow is designed to distribute the weight of its load between the wheel and the operator, so enabling the convenient carriage of heavier and bulkier loads than would be possible were the weight carried entirely by the operator. As such it is a second-class lever. Traditional Chinese wheelbarrows, however, had a central wheel supporting the whole load. Use of wheelbarrows is common in the construction industry and in gardening. Typical capacity is approximately 100 litres (3.53 cubic feet) of material.
+
+A two-wheel type is more stable on level ground, while the almost universal one-wheel type has better maneuverability in small spaces, on planks, in water, or when tilted ground would throw the load off balance. The use of one wheel also permits greater control of the deposition of the load upon emptying.
+
+The wheelbarrow may have existed in ancient Greece.[1] Two building material inventories for 408/407 and 407/406 B.C. from the temple of Eleusis list, among other machines and tools, "1 body for a one-wheeler (hyperteria monokyklou)"[2] (ὑπερτηρία μονοκύκλου in Greek):
+
+Since dikyklos (δίκυκλος) and tetrakyklos (τετράκυκλος) mean nothing but "two-wheeler" and "four-wheeler," and since the monokyklos (μονόκυκλος) body is sandwiched in the Eleusis inventory between a four-wheeler body and its four wheels, to take it as anything but a one-wheeler strains credulity far beyond breaking point. It can only be a wheelbarrow, necessarily guided and balanced by a man...what does now emerge as certainty is that the wheelbarrow did not, as is universally claimed, make its European debut in the Middle Ages. It was there some sixteen centuries before.[citation needed]
+
+Although evidence for the wheelbarrow in ancient farming and mining is absent and there is "no more evidence for Greek farmers, porters, miners, or soldiers employing the wheelbarrow than there is for their Roman counterparts,"[3] the English researcher in industrial archaeology M.J.T. Lewis surmises that wheelbarrows were not uncommon on Greek construction sites for carrying moderately light loads and may have been adopted by the Romans.[4] It is unknown what the Greek wheelbarrow looked like.[5] No wheelbarrow remains of significant age have been found and illustrations of wheelbarrows do not become common until the late Medieval era.[6] The 4th century Historia Augusta reports emperor Elagabalus to have used a wheelbarrow (Latin: pabillus from pabo, one-wheeled vehicle[7][8]) to transport women in his frivolous games at court.[9] While the present evidence does not indicate any use of wheelbarrows into medieval times, the question of continuity in the Byzantine Empire is still open due to a lack of research.[4] The wheelbarrow might have been transmitted to China before disappearing in Western Europe.[10]
+
+The earliest wheelbarrows with archaeological evidence in the form of a one-wheel cart come from second century Han Dynasty Emperor Hui's tomb murals and brick tomb reliefs.[11] The painted tomb mural of a man pushing a wheelbarrow was found in a tomb at Chengdu, Sichuan province, dated precisely to 118 AD.[12] The stone carved relief of a man pushing a wheelbarrow was found in the tomb of Shen Fujun in Sichuan province, dated circa 150 AD.[13] And then there is the story of the pious Dong Yuan pushing his father around in a single-wheel lu che barrow, depicted in a mural of the Wu Liang tomb-shrine of Shandong (dated to 147 AD).[14] Earlier accounts dating to the 1st century BC and 1st century AD that mention a "deer cart" (luche) might also have been referencing a wheelbarrow.[15]
+
+The 5th-century Book of Later Han stated that the wife of the once poor and youthful imperial censor Bao Xuan helped him push a lu che back to his village during their feeble wedding ceremony, around 30 BC.[12] Later, during the Red Eyebrows Rebellion (c. 20 AD) against Xin dynasty's Wang Mang (45 BC–23 AD), the official Zhao Xi saved his wife from danger by disguising himself and pushing her along in his lu che barrow, past a group of brigand rebels who questioned him, and allowed him to pass after he convinced them that his wife was terribly ill.[12] The first recorded description of a wheelbarrow appears in Liu Xiang's work Lives of Famous Immortals. Liu describes the invention of the wheelbarrow by the legendary Chinese mythological figure Ko Yu, who builds a "Wooden ox".[16]
+
+Nevertheless, the Chinese historical text of the Sanguozhi (Records of the Three Kingdoms), compiled by the ancient historian Chen Shou (233–297 AD), credits the invention of the wheelbarrow to Prime Minister Zhuge Liang (181–234 AD) of Shu Han from 197–234.[17] It was written that in 231 AD, Zhuge Liang developed the vehicle of the wooden ox and used it as a transport for military supplies in a campaign against Cao Wei.[18]
+
+Further annotations of the text by Pei Songzhi (430 AD) described the design in detail as a large single central wheel and axle around which a wooden frame was constructed in representation of an ox.[18] Writing later in the 11th century, the Song Dynasty (960–1279) scholar Gao Cheng wrote that the small wheelbarrow of his day, with shafts pointing forward (so that it was pulled), was the direct descendant of Zhuge Liang's wooden ox.[19]  Furthermore, he pointed out that the third century 'gliding horse' wheelbarrow featured the simple difference of the shaft pointing backwards (so that it was pushed instead).[19]
+
+Wheelbarrows in China came in two types. The more common type after the third century has a large, centrally mounted wheel. Prior types were universally front-wheeled wheelbarrows.[20] The central-wheeled wheelbarrow could generally transport six human passengers at once, and instead of a laborious amount of energy exacted upon the animal or human driver pulling the wheelbarrow, the weight of the burden was distributed equally between the wheel and the puller.[21] European visitors to China from the 17th century onwards had an appreciation for this, and it was given a considerable amount of attention by a member of the Dutch East India Company, Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest, in his writings of 1797 (who accurately described its design and ability to hold large amounts of heavy baggage).[22] However, the lower carrying surface made the European wheelbarrow clearly more useful for short-haul work.[23] As of the 1960s, traditional wheelbarrows in China were still in wide use.[24]
+
+Although there are records of Chinese sailing carriages from the 6th century[25] these land sailing vehicles were not wheelbarrows, and the date of which the sail assisted wheelbarrow was invented is uncertain.[26] Engravings are found in van Braam Houckgeest's 1797 book.[27]
+
+European interest in the Chinese sailing carriage is also seen in the writings of Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest in 1797, who wrote:
+
+Near the southern border of Shandong one finds a kind of wheelbarrow much larger than that which I have been describing, and drawn by a horse or a mule. But judge by my surprise when today I saw a whole fleet of wheelbarrows of the same size. I say, with deliberation, a fleet, for each of them had a sail, mounted on a small mast exactly fixed in a socket arranged at the forward end of the barrow. The sail, made of matting, or more often of cloth, is five or six feet (152 or 183 cm) high, and three or four feet (91 or 122 cm) broad, with stays, sheets, and halyards, just as on a Chinese ship. The sheets join the shafts of the wheelbarrow and can thus be manipulated by the man in charge.[28]
+
+These sailing wheelbarrows continued in use into the twentieth century.
+
+The first wheelbarrows in medieval Europe appeared sometime between 1170 and 1250. These types universally featured a wheel at or near the front (in contrast to their Chinese counterparts, which typically had a wheel in the center of the barrow),[29] the arrangement now universally found on wheelbarrows.
+
+Research on the early history of the wheelbarrow is made difficult by the marked absence of a common terminology. The historian of technology M.J.T. Lewis has identified in English and French sources four mentions of wheelbarrows between 1172 and 1222, three of them designated with a different term.[30] According to the medieval art historian Andrea Matthies, the first archival reference to a wheelbarrow in medieval Europe is dated 1222, specifying the purchase of several wheelbarrows for the English king's works at Dover.[31] The first depiction appears in an English manuscript, Matthew Paris's Vitae duorum Offarum, completed in 1250.[32]
+
+By the 13th century, the wheelbarrow proved useful in building construction, mining operations, and agriculture. However, going by surviving documents and illustrations the wheelbarrow remained a relative rarity until the 15th century.[33] It also seemed to be limited to England, France, and the Low Countries.[34]
+
+The oldest wheelbarrows preserved from Central Europe were found in 2014 and 2017 during archaeological excavations in Ingolstadt, Germany. The felling dates of the trees that make up the wheelbarrow boards could be dendrochronologically dated to 1537 for one wheelbarrow and the 1530s for the other.[35]
+
+In the 1970s, British inventor James Dyson introduced the Ballbarrow, an injection molded plastic wheelbarrow with a spherical ball on the front end instead of a wheel.  Compared to a conventional design, the larger surface area of the ball made the wheelbarrow easier to use in soft soil, and more laterally stable with heavy loads on uneven ground.
+
+The Honda HPE60, an electric power-assisted wheelbarrow, was produced in 1998.[36][37]
+
+Power assisted wheelbarrows are now widely available from a number of different manufacturers.  Powered wheelbarrows are used in a range of applications; the technology has improved to enable them to take much heavier loads, beyond weights that a human could transport alone without assistance.  Motorized wheelbarrows are generally either diesel powered or electric battery powered.  Often used in small scale construction applications where access for larger plant machinery might be restricted.[38]

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+
+
+
+
+As Hulk:
+
+The Hulk is a fictional superhero appearing in publications by the American publisher Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in the debut issue of The Incredible Hulk (May 1962). In his comic book appearances, the character is both the Hulk, a green-skinned, hulking and muscular humanoid possessing a vast degree of physical strength, and his alter ego Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, a physically weak, socially withdrawn, and emotionally reserved physicist, the two existing as independent personalities and resenting of the other.
+
+Following his accidental exposure to gamma rays saving the life of Rick Jones during the detonation of an experimental bomb, Banner is physically transformed into the Hulk when subjected to emotional stress, at or against his will, often leading to destructive rampages and conflicts that complicate Banner's civilian life. The Hulk's level of strength is normally conveyed as proportionate to his level of anger. Commonly portrayed as a raging savage, the Hulk has been represented with other personalities based on Banner's fractured psyche, from a mindless, destructive force, to a brilliant warrior, or genius scientist in his own right. Despite both Hulk and Banner's desire for solitude, the character has a large supporting cast. This includes Banner's lover Betty Ross, his best friend Rick Jones, his cousin She-Hulk, and therapist and ally Doc Samson. In addition, the Hulk alter ego has many key supporting characters like his co-founders of the superhero team the Avengers, his queen Caiera, fellow warriors Korg and Miek, and sons Skaar and Hiro-Kala. However, his uncontrollable power has brought him into conflict with his fellow heroes and others. Despite this he tries his best to do what's right while battling villains such as Leader, Abomination, Absorbing Man and more.
+
+Lee stated that the Hulk's creation was inspired by a combination of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.[3] Although the Hulk's coloration has varied throughout the character's publication history, the most usual color is green.
+
+One of the most iconic characters in popular culture,[4][5] the character has appeared on a variety of merchandise, such as clothing and collectable items, inspired real-world structures (such as theme park attractions), and been referenced in a number of media. Banner and the Hulk have been adapted in live-action, animated, and video game incarnations. The character was first played in a live-action feature film by Eric Bana. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe,[not verified in body] the character was portrayed by Edward Norton in the film The Incredible Hulk (2008) and by Mark Ruffalo in the films The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013) in a cameo, Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Captain Marvel (2019) in a cameo, and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
+
+The Hulk first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1 (cover dated May 1962), written by writer-editor Stan Lee, penciled and co-plotted by Jack Kirby,[6][7] and inked by Paul Reinman. Lee cites influence from Frankenstein[8] and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the Hulk's creation:
+
+It was patently apparent that [the monstrous character the] Thing was the most popular character in [Marvel's recently created superhero team the] Fantastic Four. ... For a long time I'd been aware of the fact that people were more likely to favor someone who was less than perfect. ... It's a safe bet that you remember Quasimodo, but how easily can you name any of the heroic, handsomer, more glamorous characters in The Hunchback of Notre Dame? And then there's Frankenstein ... I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the Frankenstein monster. No one could ever convince me that he was the bad guy. ... He never wanted to hurt anyone; he merely groped his torturous way through a second life trying to defend himself, trying to come to terms with those who sought to destroy him. ... I decided I might as well borrow from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well—our protagonist would constantly change from his normal identity to his superhuman alter ego and back again.[9]
+
+Kirby, commenting upon his influences in drawing the character, recalled as inspiration witnessing in person the hysterical strength of a mother lifting a car off her trapped child.[10][11][12]
+
+Lee has also compared Hulk to the Golem of Jewish mythology.[8] In The Science of Superheroes, Gresh and Weinberg see the Hulk as a reaction to the Cold War[13] and the threat of nuclear attack, an interpretation shared by Weinstein in Up, Up and Oy Vey.[8] This interpretation corresponds with other popularized fictional media created during this time period, which took advantage of the prevailing sense among Americans that nuclear power could produce monsters and mutants.[14]
+
+In the debut, Lee chose grey for the Hulk because he wanted a color that did not suggest any particular ethnic group.[15] Colorist Stan Goldberg, however, had problems with the grey coloring, resulting in different shades of grey, and even green, in the issue. After seeing the first published issue, Lee chose to change the skin color to green.[16] Green was used in retellings of the origin, with even reprints of the original story being recolored for the next two decades, until The Incredible Hulk vol. 2, #302 (December 1984) reintroduced the grey Hulk in flashbacks set close to the origin story. An exception is the early trade paperback, Origins of Marvel Comics, from 1974, which explains the difficulties in keeping the grey color consistent in a Stan Lee written prologue, and reprints the origin story keeping the grey coloration. Since December 1984, reprints of the first issue have displayed the original grey coloring, with the fictional canon specifying that the Hulk's skin had initially been grey.
+
+Lee gave the Hulk's alter ego the alliterative name "Bruce Banner" because he found he had less difficulty remembering alliterative names. Despite this, in later stories he misremembered the character's name and referred to him as "Bob Banner", an error which readers quickly picked up on.[17] The discrepancy was resolved by giving the character the official full name "Robert Bruce Banner."[1]
+
+The Hulk got his name from a comic book character named The Heap who was a large green swamp monster.  [18]
+
+The Hulk's original series was canceled with issue #6 (March 1963). Lee had written each story, with Kirby penciling the first five issues and Steve Ditko penciling and inking the sixth. The character immediately guest-starred in The Fantastic Four #12 (March 1963), and months later became a founding member of the superhero team the Avengers, appearing in the first two issues of the team's eponymous series (Sept. and Nov. 1963), and returning as an antagonist in issue #3 and as an ally in #5 (Jan.–May 1964). He then guest-starred in Fantastic Four #25–26 (April–May 1964), which revealed Banner's full name as Robert Bruce Banner, and The Amazing Spider-Man #14 (July 1964).[19]
+
+Around this time, co-creator Kirby received a letter from a college dormitory stating the Hulk had been chosen as its official mascot.[8] Kirby and Lee realized their character had found an audience in college-age readers.
+
+A year and a half after The Incredible Hulk was canceled, the Hulk became one of two features in Tales to Astonish, beginning in issue #60 (Oct. 1964).[20]
+
+This new Hulk feature was initially scripted by Lee, with pencils by Steve Ditko and inks by George Roussos. Other artists later in this run included Jack Kirby (#68–87, June 1965 – Oct. 1966); Gil Kane (credited as "Scott Edwards", #76, (Feb. 1966)); Bill Everett (#78–84, April–Oct. 1966); John Buscema (#85–87); and Marie Severin. The Tales to Astonish run introduced the super-villains the Leader,[3] who would become the Hulk's nemesis, and the Abomination, another gamma-irradiated being.[3] Marie Severin finished out the Hulk's run in Tales to Astonish. Beginning with issue #102 (April 1968) the book was retitled The Incredible Hulk vol. 2,[21] and ran until 1999, when Marvel canceled the series and launched Hulk #1. Marvel filed for a trademark for "The Incredible Hulk" in 1967, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued the registration in 1970.[22]
+
+Len Wein wrote the series from 1974 through 1978, working first with Herb Trimpe, then, as of issue #194 (December 1975), with Sal Buscema, who was the regular artist for ten years.[23] Issues #180–181 (Oct.–Nov. 1974) introduced Wolverine as an antagonist,[24] who would go on to become one of Marvel Comics' most popular characters. In 1977, Marvel launched a second title, The Rampaging Hulk, a black-and-white comics magazine.[3] This was originally conceived as a flashback series, set between the end of his original, short-lived solo title and the beginning of his feature in Tales to Astonish.[25] After nine issues, the magazine was retitled The Hulk! and printed in color.[26]
+
+In 1977, two Hulk television films were aired to strong ratings, leading to an Incredible Hulk TV series which aired from 1978 to 1982. A huge ratings success, the series introduced the popular Hulk catchphrase, "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry", and broadened the character's popularity from a niche comic book readership into the mainstream consciousness.[27]
+
+Bill Mantlo became the series' writer for five years beginning with issue #245 (March 1980). Mantlo's "Crossroads of Eternity" stories (#300–313, Oct. 1984 – Nov. 1985) explored the idea that Banner had suffered child abuse. Later Hulk writers Peter David and Greg Pak have called these stories an influence on their approaches to the character.[28][29] Mantlo left the series for Alpha Flight and that series' writer John Byrne took over The Incredible Hulk.[30] The final issue of Byrne's six issue run featured the wedding of Bruce Banner and Betty Ross.[31] Writer Peter David began a twelve-year run with issue #331 (May 1987). He returned to the Roger Stern and Mantlo abuse storylines, expanding the damage caused, and depicting Banner as suffering dissociative identity disorder (DID).[3]
+
+In 1998, David killed off Banner's long-time love Betty Ross. Marvel executives used Ross' death as an opportunity to pursue the return of the Savage Hulk. David disagreed, leading to his parting ways with Marvel.[32] Also in 1998, Marvel relaunched The Rampaging Hulk as a standard comic book rather than as a comics magazine.[3] The Incredible Hulk was again cancelled with issue #474 of its second volume in March 1999 and was replaced with new series, Hulk the following month, with returning writer Byrne and art by Ron Garney.[33][34] New series writer Paul Jenkins developed the Hulk's multiple personalities,[35] and his run was followed by Bruce Jones[36] with his run featuring Banner being pursued by a secret conspiracy and aided by the mysterious Mr. Blue. Jones appended his 43-issue Incredible Hulk run with the limited series Hulk/Thing: Hard Knocks #1–4 (Nov. 2004 – Feb. 2005), which Marvel published after putting the ongoing series on hiatus. Peter David, who had initially signed a contract for the six-issue Tempest Fugit limited series, returned as writer when it was decided to make that story the first five parts of the revived volume three.[37] After a four-part tie-in to the "House of M" storyline and a one-issue epilogue, David left the series once more, citing the need to do non-Hulk work for the sake of his career.[38]
+
+Writer Greg Pak took over the series in 2006, leading the Hulk through several crossover storylines including "Planet Hulk" and "World War Hulk", which left the Hulk temporarily incapacitated and replaced as the series' title character by the demigod Hercules in the retitled The Incredible Hercules (Feb. 2008). The Hulk returned periodically in Hulk, which then starred the new Red Hulk.[39] In September 2009, The Incredible Hulk was relaunched as The Incredible Hulk vol. 2, #600.[39] The series was retitled The Incredible Hulks with issue #612 (Nov. 2010) to encompass the Hulk's expanded family, and ran until issue #635 (Oct. 2011) when it was replaced with The Incredible Hulk vol. 3, (15 issues, Dec. 2011 – Dec. 2012) written by Jason Aaron with art by Marc Silvestri.[40] As part of Marvel's 2012 Marvel NOW! relaunch, a series called The Indestructible Hulk (Nov. 2012) debuted under the creative team of Mark Waid and Leinil Yu.[41] This series was replaced in 2014 with The Hulk by Waid and artist Mark Bagley.[42]
+
+During the experimental detonation of a gamma bomb, scientist Robert Bruce Banner saves teenager Rick Jones who has driven onto the testing field; Banner pushes Jones into a trench to save him, but is hit with the blast, absorbing massive amounts of gamma radiation. He awakens later seemingly unscathed, but that night transforms into a lumbering grey form. A pursuing soldier dubs the creature a "hulk".[43] Originally, it was believed that Banner's transformations into the Hulk were caused by sunset and undone at sunrise, but later, after Rick witnessed Banner turn into Hulk at daytime following a failed attempt by Ross' men to shoot the Hulk into space, it was discovered to be caused by anger. Banner was cured in The Incredible Hulk #4, but chose to restore Hulk's powers with Banner's intelligence. The gamma-ray machine needed to affect the transformation-induced side effects that made Banner temporarily sick and weak when returned to his normal state.
+
+In The Avengers #1 (September 1963), the Hulk became a founding member of the title's eponymous superhero team. By The Avengers #3, overuse of the gamma ray machine rendered the Hulk as an uncontrollable, rampaging monster, subject to spontaneous changing. In Tales to Astonish #59 (September 1964) the Hulk appeared as an antagonist for Giant-Man. The series established stress as the trigger for Banner turning into the Hulk and vice versa.[44] It was during this time that the Hulk developed a more savage and childlike personality, shifting away from his original portrayal as a brutish but not entirely unintelligent figure. Also, his memory, both long-term and short-term, would now become markedly impaired in his Hulk state. Tales to Astonish #64 (February 1965) was the last Hulk story to feature him speaking in complete sentences. In Tales to Astonish #77 (March 1966), Banner's and the Hulk's dual identity became publicly known when Rick Jones, mistakenly convinced that Banner was dead (when he actually had been catapulted into the future), told Major Glenn Talbot, a rival to Banner for the affections of Betsy Ross, the truth. Consequently, Glenn informed his superiors and that turned Banner into a wanted fugitive upon returning to the present.
+
+The 1970s saw Banner and Betty nearly marry in The Incredible Hulk #124 (February 1970).[45] Betty ultimately married Talbot in issue #158 (Dec. 1972).[46] The Hulk also traveled to other dimensions, one of which had him meet empress Jarella, who used magic to bring Banner's intelligence to the Hulk, and came to love him. The Hulk helped to form the Defenders.[47]
+
+In the 1980s, Banner once again gained control over the Hulk,[48] and gained amnesty for his past rampages;[49] however, due to the manipulations of supernatural character Nightmare, Banner eventually lost control over the Hulk.[50] It was also established that Banner had serious mental problems even before he became the Hulk, having suffered childhood traumas that engendered Bruce's repressed rage.[51] Banner comes to terms with his issues for a time, and the Hulk and Banner were physically separated by Doc Samson.[52][53] Banner is recruited by the U.S. government to create the Hulkbusters, a government team dedicated to catching the Hulk. Banner finally married Betty in The Incredible Hulk #319 (May 1986) following Talbot's death in 1981.[31][54] Banner and the Hulk were reunited in The Incredible Hulk #323 (Sep. 1986)[55] and with issue #324, returned the Hulk to his grey coloration, with his transformations once again occurring at night, regardless of Banner's emotional state. In issue #347 the grey Hulk persona "Joe Fixit" was introduced, a morally ambiguous Las Vegas enforcer and tough guy. Banner remained repressed in the Hulk's mind for months, but slowly began to reappear.
+
+The 1990s saw the Green Hulk return.[56] In issue #377 (Jan. 1991), the Hulk was revamped in a storyline that saw the personalities of Banner, Grey Hulk, and Savage Hulk confront Banner's past abuse at the hands of his father Brian and a new "Guilt Hulk" persona. Overcoming the trauma, the intelligent Banner, cunning Grey Hulk, and powerful Savage Hulk personalities merge into a new single entity possessing the traits of all three. The Hulk also joined the Pantheon, a secretive organization of superpowered individuals.[57][58] His tenure with the organization brought the Hulk into conflict with a tyrannical alternate future version of himself called the Maestro in the 1993 Future Imperfect miniseries, who rules over a world where many heroes are dead.
+
+In 2000, Banner and the three Hulks (Savage Hulk, Grey Hulk, and the "Merged Hulk", now considered a separate personality and referred to as the Professor) become able to mentally interact with one another, each personality taking over the shared body as Banner began to weaken due to his suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. During this, the four personalities (including Banner) confronted yet another submerged personality, a sadistic "Devil" intent on attacking the world and attempting to break out of Banner's fracturing psyche, but the Devil was eventually locked away again when the Leader was able to devise a cure for the disease using genes taken from the corpse of Brian Banner.[35] In 2005, it is revealed that the Nightmare has manipulated the Hulk for years, and it is implied that some or all of the Hulk's adventures written by Bruce Jones may have been just an illusion.[59]
+
+In 2006, the Illuminati decide the Hulk is too dangerous to remain on Earth and send him away by rocket ship which crashes on Planet Sakaar ushering in the "Planet Hulk" storyline that saw the Hulk find allies in the Warbound, and marry alien queen Caiera, a relationship that was later revealed to have born him two sons: Skaar and Hiro-Kala.[60] After the Illuminati's ship explodes and kills Caiera, the Hulk returns to Earth with his superhero group Warbound and declares war on the planet in World War Hulk (2007).[61] However, after learning that Miek, one of the Warbound, had actually been responsible for the destruction, the Hulk allows himself to be defeated, with Banner subsequently redeeming himself as a hero as he works with and against the new Red Hulk to defeat the new supervillain team the Intelligencia.[62]
+
+In the 2010s, Hiro-Kala traveled to Earth to destroy the OldStrong Power wielded by Skaar, forcing Skaar and the Hulk to defeat and imprison him within his home planet.[63]
+
+During the 2011 Fear Itself storyline, the Hulk finds one of the Serpent's magical hammers associated with the Worthy and becomes Nul: Breaker of Worlds. As he starts to transform, the Hulk tells the Red She-Hulk to run far away from him. Rampaging through South and Central America, Nul was eventually transported to New York City where he began battling Thor, with aid of the Thing, who was transformed into Angrir: Breaker of Souls. After defeating the Thing, Thor stated that he never could beat the Hulk, and instead removed him from the battle by launching him into Earth orbit, after which Thor collapsed from exhaustion.[64] Landing in Romania, Nul immediately began heading for the base of the vampire-king Dracula. Opposed by Dracula's forces, including a legion of monsters, Nul was seemingly unstoppable.[65] Only after the intervention of Raizo Kodo's Forgiven was Nul briefly slowed.[66] Ultimately, Nul makes his way to Dracula's castle where the timely arrival of Kodo and Forgiven member Inka, disguised as Betty Ross, is able to throw off the effects of the Nul possession. Throwing aside the hammer, the Hulk regains control, and promptly leaves upon realizing "Betty's" true nature.[67]
+
+With the crisis concluded, the Hulk contacted Doctor Doom for help separating him and Banner for good in return for an unspecified favour. Doom proceeded to perform brain surgery on the Hulk, extracting the uniquely Banner elements from the Hulk's brain and cloning a new body for Banner.[68] When Doctor Doom demands to keep Banner for his own purposes, the Hulk reneges on the deal and flees with Banner's body, leaving his alter ego in the desert where he was created to ensure that Doctor Doom cannot use Banner's intellect.[69] When Banner goes insane due to his separation from the Hulk, irradiating an entire tropical island trying to recreate his transformation- something he cannot do as the cloned body lacks the genetic elements of Banner that allowed him to process the gamma radiation- the Hulk is forced to destroy his other side by letting him be disintegrated by a gamma bomb, prompting the Hulk to accuse Doom of tampering with Banner's mind, only for Doom to observe that what was witnessed was simply Banner without the Hulk to use as a scapegoat for his problems.[70] Initially assuming that Banner is dead, the Hulk soon realizes that Banner was somehow "re-combined" with him when the gamma bomb disintegrated Banner's body, resulting in the Hulk finding himself waking up in various strange locations, including helping the Punisher confront a drug cartel run by a mutated dog, hunting sasquatches with Kraven the Hunter, and being forced to face Wolverine and the Thing in an old SHIELD base. Banner eventually leaves a video message for the Hulk in which he apologizes for his actions while they were separate, having come to recognize that he is a better person with the Hulk than without,[71] the two joining forces to thwart the Doombots' attempt to use the animals on Banner's irradiated island as the basis for a new gamma army using a one-of-a-kind gamma cure Banner had created to turn all the animals back to normal.[72] Following this, Bruce willingly joined the spy organization S.H.I.E.L.D., allowing them to use the Hulk as a weapon in exchange for providing him with the means and funding to create a lasting legacy for himself.[73]
+
+After the Hulk had suffered brain damage upon being shot in the head by the Order of the Shield- the assassin having been carefully trained to target Bruce at just the right part of the brain to incapacitate him without triggering a transformation- Iron Man used the Extremis to cure the Hulk.[74] This procedure also increased Banner's mental capacity, which gave him the intelligence to tweak the Extremis virus within him and unleash a new persona for the Hulk: the super-intelligent Doc Green.
+
+During the 2014 "Original Sin" storyline, Bruce Banner confronted by the eye of the murdered Uatu the Watcher. Bruce temporarily experienced some of Tony Stark's memories of their first meeting before either of them became the Hulk or Iron Man. During this vision, Bruce witnessed Tony modifying the gamma bomb to be more effective prompting Bruce to realize that Tony was essentially responsible for him becoming the Hulk in the first place.[75] Subsequent research reveals that Tony's tampering had actually refined the bomb's explosive potential so that it would not disintegrate everyone within the blast radius, with the result that Tony's actions had actually saved Bruce's life.[76]
+
+In the 2014 "AXIS" storyline, when a mistake made by the Scarlet Witch causes various heroes and villains to experience a moral inversion, Bruce Banner attended a meeting between Nick Fury Jr. and Maria Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers who refused to turn over Red Skull. Later when he sided with Edwin Jarvis and tried to prevent his teammates from executing the Red Skull, the Hulk was thrown aside by Luke Cage. The Hulk's sorrow at his friends' betrayal awakened a new persona known as the bloodthirsty Kluh (described as the Hulk's Hulk, being the ruthless part of himself that even the Hulk repressed) with this new version easily defeating the Avengers, sneering that the Hulk they knew was nothing more than a "sad piece of 'Doc Green's' ID." Kluh then leaves to wreak havoc,[77] with Nova attempting to stop him after witnessing his rampage with the remaining good heroes.[78] As with the other inverted Avengers and X-Men, Kluh was restored to Hulk when Brother Voodoo was summoned back to life by Doctor Doom so that Daniel Drumm's ghost can possess the Scarlet Witch and undo the inversion.
+
+With his newfound intellect, Doc Green came to the conclusion that the world was in danger by Gamma Mutates and thus needed to be depowered. He developed a serum made from Adamantium nanobites that absorbed gamma energy.[79] He used these to depower Red Leader, Red She-Hulk, Red Hulk, Skaar, Gamma Corps, and A-Bomb, but decided to 'spare' She-Hulk as he concluded that she was the one gamma mutation whose life had been legitimately improved by her mutation. At the close of the storyline, Doc Green discovered that he was beginning to disappear as the result of the Extremis serum wearing off. He ultimately allowed himself to fade away, returning to his normal Hulk form, as he feared that remaining at his current intellectual level would lead to him becoming the Maestro.[80]
+
+During the 2015 "Secret Wars" storyline, the Hulk took part in the incursion between Earth-616 and Earth-1610. The Hulk used the "Fastball Special" with Colossus to destroy the Triskelion.[81]
+
+As part of the 2015–2018 All-New, All-Different Marvel branding, Amadeus Cho becomes the new Hulk. Flashbacks reveal that the Hulk had absorbed a dangerous new type of radiation while helping Iron Man and the Black Panther deal with a massive accident on Kiber Island. Fearing the Hulk's meltdown would kill countless innocents, Cho was able to use special nanites to absorb the Hulk from Banner and take it into himself to become his own version of the Hulk, leaving Banner normal and free from the Hulk.[82] He is then rescued from a bar fight by Amadeus, who tells him that he is cured. Having confirmed that he can no longer transform or sense the Hulk, Bruce spends some time travelling across America taking various risks such as driving at high speeds, running away from a bear, or gambling in Las Vegas, until he is confronted by Tony Stark out of concern that Bruce has a death wish. Bruce instead acknowledges that he still harbors guilt and rage over how so many of the Hulk's rampages were provoked by various agencies refusing to leave him alone.[83]
+
+During the 2016 "Civil War II" storyline, the vision of the Inhuman Ulysses shows a rampaging Hulk standing over the corpses of the superheroes. Meanwhile, Bruce Banner is shown to have set up a laboratory in Alpine, Utah, where he is approached by Captain Marvel,[84] followed by Tony Stark, the rest of the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Inhumans. The confrontation leads to the Beast hacking into Banner's work servers and the revelation that he had been injecting himself with dead gamma-irradiated cells. S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill places him under arrest. Banner gets infuriated at all these events, when suddenly, Hawkeye shoots Banner with an arrow to the head and then to the heart, killing him, much to the dismay and horror of the superheroes, especially Tony Stark. At an Avengers-presided tribunal, Hawkeye states that Bruce Banner had approached him and ordered him to kill him if he ever showed signs of turning into the Hulk again.[85] At the funeral, Korg of the Warbound stated how Hulk wanted to be left alone and how his allies that he made along the way have become his family. In his video will, Bruce leaves various items to other heroes and his allies including leaving Doctor Strange his notes on the Hulk's ability to perceive ghosts and an egg-timer for the various former/current other Hulks (based on one of Bruce's more successful attempts to control himself as he would sit down for three minutes doing nothing before making a particularly big decision and then decide if he still wanted to do it).[86]
+
+Following the funeral of Bruce Banner, the Hand in allegiance with Daniel Drumm's ghost steal Bruce Banner's body in order to use the dead to bolster their ranks.[87] When the reassembled Uncanny Avengers went to Japan and attempted to enlist Elektra for help in stopping the Hand, the ritual that the Hand performed has been completed as the Uncanny Avengers are attacked by a revived Hulk who is wearing samurai armor.[88] The Uncanny Avengers were able to contain Hulk's rampage and sever his mystical link to the Beast of the Hand. Afterwards, Hulk regressed back to Bruce Banner and returned to the dead.[89]
+
+During the 2017 "Secret Empire" storyline, Arnim Zola used an unknown method to temporarily revive Bruce Banner, and the Hydra Supreme version of Captain America persuades his Hulk side to attack the Underground's hideout called the Vault. He fought Thing and Giant-Man's A.I.Vengers until the temporary revival started to wear off and caused Hulk to die again.[90]
+
+During the "No Surrender" arc, the exiled Elder of the Universe Challenger revives Hulk to be his ace in the hole during a contest between his Black Order and Grandmaster's Lethal Legion. Hulk participated since he knew that Earth will be destroyed either way while his Bruce Banner suspects that Hulk's revivals were a manifestation of Hulk's immortality. While defeating Cannonball and Living Lightning, breaking Vision, and draining the gamma energy out of Robert Maverick's Hulk Plug-In, Wonder Man successfully reasoned with him as Hulk destroyed the Pyarmoid in Voyager's possession. After feeling remorse for what happened, Bruce Banner became Hulk and faced off against Challenger. After Challenger sent Hulk into Earth's orbit, Hulk was pleased that he managed to hurt Challenger.[91]
+
+While maintaining a low profile, Bruce Banner was shot by Tommy Hill of the Dogs of Hell biker gang during a robbery that also claimed the lives of Sandy Brockhurst and Josh Alfaro. He came back to life and turned into Hulk where he badly beat up Tommy Hill. The witnesses in the Dogs of Hell told Detective Gloria Mayes of the attacker as she and reporter Jackie McGee have a suspicion that it was Hulk even though Banner is believed to be dead.[92]
+
+During the events of "Absolute Carnage," the Venom Symbiote takes Bruce as its host to fight Carnage.[93] Inside of Bruce's mind, Bruce converses with the Venom Symbiote as the other Hulk personalities such as Joe Fixit and Savage Hulk add their opinions about their current situation. Devil Hulk (in his more traditional looking reptilian form) is against the symbiote's presence in Bruce and says it should be removed immediately, saying they have more important matters to deal with. In the end, Bruce, Joe Fixit, and Savage Hulk agree to collaborate with the Venom Symbiote and Devil Hulk storms off, saying they're making a mistake. As Bruce states that the vote is three to one with two abstentions, he welcomes the Venom symbiote to the family.[94]
+
+A number of alternate universes and alternate timelines in Marvel Comics publications allow writers to introduce variations on the Hulk, in which the character's origins, behavior, and morality differ from the mainstream setting.[citation needed] In some stories, someone other than Bruce Banner is the Hulk.
+
+In some versions, the Hulk succumbs to the darker side of his nature: in "Future Imperfect" (December 1992), a future version of the Hulk has become the Maestro, the tyrannical and ruthless ruler of a nuclear war-irradiated Earth,[95] and in "Old Man Logan" (2008), an insane Hulk rules over a post-apocalyptic California, and leads a gang of his inbred Hulk children created with his first cousin She-Hulk.[96][97]
+
+Like other long-lived characters, the Hulk's character and cultural interpretations have changed with time, adding or modifying character traits. The Hulk is typically seen as a hulking man with green skin, wearing only a pair of torn purple pants that survive his physical transformation. As the character progressed. As Bruce Banner, the character is approximately 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) tall and weighs 128 lb (58 kg), but when transformed into the Hulk, the character can stand between 7 and 8 feet (2.1 and 2.4 m) tall and weigh up to 1,400 lb (640 kg).[98] Following his debut, Banner's transformations were triggered at nightfall, turning him into a grey-skinned Hulk. In Incredible Hulk #2, the Hulk started to appear with green skin,[99] and in Avengers #3 (1963) Banner realized that his transformations were now triggered by surges of adrenaline in response to feelings of fear, pain or anger.[100] Incredible Hulk #227 (1978) established that the Hulk's separate personality was not due to the mutation affecting his brain, but because Banner was suffering from multiple personality disorder, with the savage Green Hulk representing Banner's repressed childhood rage and aggression,[101] and the Grey Hulk representing Banner's repressed selfish desires and urges.[102]
+
+During his decades of publication, Banner has been portrayed differently, but common themes persist. Banner, a physicist, is sarcastic and seemingly very self-assured when he first appears in Incredible Hulk #1, but is also emotionally withdrawn in most fashions.[3] Banner designed the gamma bomb which caused his affliction, and the ironic twist of his self-inflicted fate has been one of the most persistent common themes.[8] Arie Kaplan describes the character thus: "Robert Bruce Banner lives in a constant state of panic, always wary that the monster inside him will erupt, and therefore he can't form meaningful bonds with anyone."[103] As a child, Banner's father Brian often got mad and physically abused both Banner and his mother, creating the psychological complex of fear, anger, and the fear of anger and the destruction it can cause that underlies the character. Banner has been shown to be emotionally repressed, but capable of deep love for Betty Ross, and for solving problems posed to him. Under the writing of Paul Jenkins, Banner was shown to be a capable fugitive, applying deductive reasoning and observation to figure out the events transpiring around him. On the occasions that Banner has controlled the Hulk's body, he has applied principles of physics to problems and challenges and used deductive reasoning. It was shown after his ability to turn into the Hulk was taken away by the Red Hulk that Banner has been extremely versatile as well as cunning when dealing with the many situations that followed. When he was briefly separated from the Hulk by Doom, Banner became criminally insane, driven by his desire to regain the power of the Hulk, but once the two recombined he came to accept that he was a better person with the Hulk to provide something for him to focus on controlling rather than allowing his intellect to run without restraint against the world.[104]
+
+The original Hulk was shown as grey and average in intelligence who roamed aimlessly and became annoyed at "puny" humans who took him for a dangerous monster. Shortly after becoming the Hulk, his transformation continued turning him green, coinciding with him beginning to display primitive speech,[99] and by Incredible Hulk #4 radiation treatments gave Banner's mind complete control of the Hulk's body. While Banner relished his indestructibility and power, he was quick to anger and more aggressive in his Hulk form, and, while he became known as a hero alongside the Avengers, his increasing paranoia caused him to leave the group, believing he would never be trusted.[100]
+
+Originally, the Hulk was shown as simple minded and quick to anger.[105] The Hulk generally divorces his identity from Banner's, decrying Banner as "puny Banner."[106] From his earliest stories, the Hulk has been concerned with finding sanctuary and quiet[8] and often is shown reacting emotionally to situations quickly. Grest and Weinberg call Hulk the "dark, primordial side of Banner's psyche."[13] Even in the earliest appearances, Hulk spoke in the third person. Hulk retains a modest intelligence, thinking and talking in full sentences, and Lee even gives the Hulk expository dialogue in issue six, allowing readers to learn just what capabilities Hulk has, when the Hulk says, "But these muscles ain't just for show! All I gotta do is spring up and just keep goin'!" In the 1970s, Hulk was shown as more prone to anger and rage, and less talkative. Writers played with the nature of his transformations,[107] briefly giving Banner control over the change, and the ability to maintain control of his Hulk form. Artistically and conceptually, the character has become progressively more muscular and powerful in the years since his debut.[108]
+
+Originally, Stan Lee wanted the Hulk to be grey, but, due to ink problems, Hulk's color was changed to green. This was later changed in story to indicate that the Grey Hulk and the Savage Hulk are separate personalities or entities fighting for control in Bruce's subconscious. The Grey Hulk incarnation can do the more unscrupulous things that Banner could not bring himself to do, with many sources comparing the Grey Hulk to the moody teenager that Banner never allowed himself to be. While the Grey Hulk still had the "madder he gets, the stronger he gets" part that is similar to the Savage Hulk, it is on a much slower rate. It is said by Leader that the Grey Hulk is stronger on nights of the new moon and weaker on nights of the full moon. Originally, the night is when Bruce Banner becomes the Grey Hulk and changes back by dawn. In later comics, willpower or stress would have Banner turn into the Grey Hulk.[109] During one storyline where he was placed under a spell to prevent him turning back into Bruce Banner and publicly presumed dead when he was teleported away from a gamma bomb explosion that destroyed an entire town, the Grey Hulk adopted a specific name as Joe Fixit, a security guard for a Las Vegas casino owner,[110] with the Grey Hulk often being referred to as Joe after these events.
+
+The Gravage Hulk is the result of Banner using the Gamma Projector on himself which merged his Savage Hulk and Grey Hulk personas. This form possesses the raw power of the Savage Hulk and the cunning intellect of the Grey Hulk. While he doesn't draw on anger to empower him, the Gravage Hulk persona draws on dimensional nexus energies to increase his level.[111]
+
+The Dark Hulk persona is the result of Hulk being possessed by Shanzar. This form has black skin and is viciously strong.[112]
+
+Convinced that unaided, the Banner, Green Hulk and Grey Hulk identities would eventually destroy each other, Doc Samson uses hypnosis to merge the three to create a new single identity combining Banner's intelligence with the Grey Hulk's and Banner's attitudes and the Green Hulk's body. This new or Merged Hulk or Professor Hulk considered himself cured and began a new life, but the merger was not perfect, and the Hulk sometimes still considered Banner a separate person, and when overcome with rage the Merged Hulk would transform back into Banner's human body while still thinking himself the Hulk.[102] The Merged Hulk is the largest of the three primary Hulk incarnations. While in a calm emotional state, the Merged Hulk is stronger than Savage Hulk when he is calm. Unlike the Savage Hulk and the Grey Hulk, Banner subconsciously installed a type of safeguard within this incarnation. The safeguard is that when the Merged Hulk gets angry, he regresses back to Banner with the mind of the Savage Hulk.[113]
+
+The Guilt Hulk is a malevolent representation of Banner's abusive father, Brian Banner, that manifests itself in Banner's childhood memories. [114]
+
+The Devil Hulk or Immortal Hulk is the result of Hulk needing a father figure. While the character's physical appearance varies, he is always depicted as having glowing red eyes, and reptilian traits.[115] The new form of Devil Hulk is the result of Banner and Hulk having been through different deaths and rebirths. This incarnation is articulate, smart, and cunning, and does merciless attacks on those who do harm. Unlike the other Hulk incarnations, Devil Hulk is content with waiting inside Bruce. If Bruce is injured by sunset, the Devil Hulk will emerge with his transformation being limited to night-time.[92] Thanks to the Devil Hulk side and Banner working together, Devil Hulk can maintain his form in sunlight.[116]
+
+The Green Scar persona is unleashed on Sakaar and is an enraged version of Gravage Hulk. In addition, he is an expert in armed combat like the use of swords and shields. Green Scar is also a capable leader and an expert strategist.[117]
+
+The Kluh form has black skin, red lines, and a mohawk. Kluh had incredible power where he bested the inverted Avengers and knocked around Nova and has normal intellect.[77]
+
+Doc Green is a variation of the Merged Hulk persona that is the result of Extremis fixing Hulk's brain. This persona is powerful enough to destroy Tony Stark's mansion with one thunderclap.[79]
+
+Banner is considered one of the greatest scientific minds on Earth, possessing "a mind so brilliant it cannot be measured on any known intelligence test."[118] Norman Osborn estimates that he is the fourth most-intelligent person on Earth.[119] Banner holds expertise in biology, chemistry, engineering, medicine, physiology, and nuclear physics. Using this knowledge, he creates advanced technology dubbed "Bannertech", which is on par with technological development from Tony Stark or Doctor Doom. Some of these technologies include a force field that can protect him from the attacks of Hulk-level entities, and a teleporter.
+
+The Hulk possesses the potential for seemingly limitless physical strength which is influenced by his emotional state, particularly his anger.[120] This has been reflected in the repeated comment, "The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets."[121] The cosmically-powerful entity known as the Beyonder once analyzed the Hulk's physiology, and claimed that the Hulk's potential strength had "no finite element inside."[122] Hulk's strength has been depicted as sometimes limited by Banner's subconscious influence; when Jean Grey psionically "shut Banner off", Hulk became strong enough to overpower and destroy the physical form of the villain Onslaught.[123] Writer Greg Pak described the Worldbreaker Hulk shown during World War Hulk as having a level of physical power where "Hulk was stronger than any mortal—and most immortals—who ever walked the Earth",[124] and depicted the character as powerful enough to completely destroy entire planets.[125][126] His strength allows him to leap into lower Earth orbit or across continents,[127][128] and he has displayed superhuman speed.[129][130] Exposure to radiation has also been shown to make the Hulk stronger.[122] It is unknown how he gains biomass during transformation but it may be linked to One-Below-All.
+
+His durability, regeneration, and endurance also increase in proportion to his temper.[131] Hulk is resistant to injury or damage, though the degree to which varies between interpretations, but he has withstood the equivalent of solar temperatures,[132][133] nuclear explosions,[129][134][135][136] and planet-shattering impacts.[125][126][137][138][139] Despite his remarkable resiliency, continuous barrages of high-caliber gunfire can hinder his movement to some degree while he can be temporarily subdued by intense attacks with chemical weapons such as anesthetic gases, although any interruption of such dosages will allow him to quickly recover.[140]  He has been shown to have both regenerative and adaptive healing abilities, including growing tissues to allow him to breathe underwater,[141] surviving unprotected in space for extended periods,[142] and when injured, healing from most wounds within seconds, including, on one occasion, the complete destruction of most of his body mass.[143] His future self, the "Maestro", was even eventually able to recover from being blown to powder.[144] As an effect, he has an extremely prolonged lifespan.[145][146]
+
+He also possesses less commonly described powers, including abilities allowing him to "home in" to his place of origin in New Mexico;[147] resist psychic control,[148][149][150][151] or unwilling transformation;[152][153][154] grow stronger from radiation[125][135][136][155][156] or dark magic;[157][158] punch his way between separate temporal[159][160] or spatial[161] dimensions; and to see and interact with astral forms.[158][162]  Some of these abilities were in later years explained as being related; his ability to home in on the New Mexico bomb site was due to his latent ability to sense astral forms and spirits, since the bomb site was also the place where the Maestro's skeleton was and Maestro's spirit was calling out to him in order to absorb his radiation.[144]
+
+In the first Hulk comic series, "massive" doses of gamma rays would cause the Hulk to transform back to Banner, although this ability was written out of the character by the 1970s.[citation needed]
+
+Over the long publication history of the Hulk's adventures, many recurring characters have featured prominently, including his best friend and sidekick Rick Jones, love interest and wife Betty Ross and her father, the often adversarial General "Thunderbolt" Ross. Both Banner and Hulk have families created in their respective personas. Banner is son to Brian, an abusive father who killed Banner's mother while she tried to protect her son from his father's delusional attacks, and cousin to Jennifer Walters, the She-Hulk, who serves as his frequent ally.[163] Banner had a stillborn child with Betty, while the Hulk has two sons with his deceased second wife Caiera Oldstrong, Skaar and Hiro-Kala, and his DNA was used to create a daughter named Lyra with Thundra the warrior woman.[164]
+
+The Fantastic Four #12 (March 1963), featured the Hulk's first battle with the Thing. Although many early Hulk stories involve Ross trying to capture or destroy the Hulk, the main villain is often a radiation-based character, like the Gargoyle or the Leader, along with other foes such as the Toad Men, or Asian warlord General Fang. Ross' daughter Betty loves Banner and criticizes her father for pursuing the Hulk. General Ross' right-hand man, Major Glenn Talbot, also loves Betty and is torn between pursuing Hulk and trying to gain Betty's love more honorably. Rick Jones serves as the Hulk's friend and sidekick in these early tales. The Hulk's archenemies are the Abomination and the Leader. The Abomination is more monstrous and wreaks havoc for fun and pleasure. The Leader is a super-genius who has tried plan after plan to take over the world.
+
+The Hulk character and the concepts behind it have been raised to the level of iconic status by many within and outside the comic book industry. In 2003, Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine claimed the character had "stood the test of time as a genuine icon of American pop culture."[165] In 2008, the Hulk was listed as the 19th greatest comic book character by Wizard magazine.[166] Empire magazine named him as the 14th-greatest comic-book character and the fifth-greatest Marvel character.[167] In 2011, the Hulk placed No. 9 on IGN's list of "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes",[168] and fourth on their list of "The Top 50 Avengers" in 2012.[169]
+
+The Hulk is often viewed as a reaction to war. As well as being a reaction to the Cold War, the character has been a cipher for the frustrations the Vietnam War raised, and Ang Lee said that the Iraq War influenced his direction.[13][170][171] In the Michael Nyman edited edition of The Guardian, Stefanie Diekmann explored Marvel Comics' reaction to the September 11 attacks. Diekmann discussed The Hulk's appearance in the 9/11 tribute comic Heroes, claiming that his greater prominence, alongside Captain America, aided in "stressing the connection between anger and justified violence without having to depict anything more than a well-known and well-respected protagonist."[172] In Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, Les Daniels addresses the Hulk as an embodiment of cultural fears of radiation and nuclear science. He quotes Jack Kirby thus: "As long as we're experimenting with radioactivity, there's no telling what may happen, or how much our advancements in science may cost us." Daniels continues, "The Hulk became Marvel's most disturbing embodiment of the perils inherent in the atomic age."[173]
+
+In Comic Book Nation, Bradford Wright alludes to Hulk's counterculture status, referring to a 1965 Esquire magazine poll amongst college students which "revealed that student radicals ranked Spider-Man and the Hulk alongside the likes of Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons." Wright goes on to cite examples of his anti-authority symbol status. Two of these are "The Ballad of the Hulk" by Jerry Jeff Walker, and the Rolling Stone cover for September 30, 1971, a full color Herb Trimpe piece commissioned for the magazine.[107][174] The Hulk has been caricatured in such animated television series as The Simpsons,[175] Robot Chicken, and Family Guy,[176] and such comedy TV series as The Young Ones.[177] The character is also used as a cultural reference point for someone displaying anger or agitation. For example, in a 2008 Daily Mirror review of an EastEnders episode, a character is described as going "into Incredible Hulk mode, smashing up his flat."[178] In September 2019, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson likened himself to The Hulk in an interview with the Mail On Sunday, as political pressure built on him to request an extension to the date of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union.[179][180]
+
+The Hulk, especially his alter-ego Bruce Banner, is also a common reference in rap music. The term was represented as an analogue to marijuana in Dr. Dre's 2001,[181] while more conventional references are made in Ludacris and Jermaine Dupri's popular single "Welcome to Atlanta".[182]
+
+The 2003 Ang Lee-directed Hulk film saw discussion of the character's appeal to Asian Americans.[183] The Taiwanese-born Ang Lee commented on the "subcurrent of repression" that underscored the character of The Hulk, and how that mirrored his own experience: "Growing up, my artistic leanings were always repressed—there was always pressure to do something 'useful,' like being a doctor." Jeff Yang, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, extended this self-identification to Asian American culture, arguing that "the passive-aggressive streak runs deep among Asian Americans—especially those who have entered creative careers, often against their parents' wishes."[184]
+
+There have been explorations about the real world possibility of Hulk's gamma-radiation based origin. In The Science of Superheroes, Lois Grest and Robert Weinberg examined Hulk's powers, explaining the scientific flaws in them. Most notably, they point out that the level of gamma radiation Banner is exposed to at the initial blast would induce radiation sickness and kill him, or if not, create significant cancer risks for Banner, because hard radiation strips cells of their ability to function. They go on to offer up an alternate origin, in which a Hulk might be created by biological experimentation with adrenal glands and GFP. Charles Q. Choi from LiveScience.com further explains that unlike the Hulk, gamma rays are not green; existing as they do beyond the visible spectrum, gamma rays have no color at all that we can describe. He also explains that gamma rays are so powerful (the most powerful form of electromagnetic radiation and 10,000 times more powerful than visible light) that they can even convert energy into matter – a possible explanation for the increased mass that Bruce Banner takes on during transformations. "Just as the Incredible Hulk 'is the strongest one there is,' as he says himself, so too are gamma ray bursts the most powerful explosions known."[185]
+
+Prior to the debut of the Hulk in May 1962, Marvel had earlier monster characters that used the name "Hulk", but had no direct relation.
+
+The Hulk was ranked #1 on a listing of Marvel Comics' monster characters in 2015.[190]

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+The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA; /ˈnæsə/) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and space research.[note 1]
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+NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency was to have a distinctly civilian orientation, encouraging peaceful applications in space science.[8][9][10] Since its establishment, most US space exploration efforts have been led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System, and Commercial Crew vehicles. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for uncrewed NASA launches.
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+NASA science is focused on better understanding Earth through the Earth Observing System;[11] advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Research Program;[12] exploring bodies throughout the Solar System with advanced robotic spacecraft missions such as New Horizons;[13] and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang, through the Great Observatories and associated programs.[14]
+
+From 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1.[15] In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch an artificial satellite for the International Geophysical Year (1957–58). An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard. After the Soviet space program's launch of the world's first artificial satellite (Sputnik 1) on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. The U.S. Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to national security and technological leadership (known as the "Sputnik crisis"), urged immediate and swift action; President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his advisers counseled more deliberate measures. On January 12, 1958, NACA organized a "Special Committee on Space Technology", headed by Guyford Stever.[10] On January 14, 1958, NACA Director Hugh Dryden published "A National Research Program for Space Technology" stating:[16][page needed]
+
+It is of great urgency and importance to our country both from consideration of our prestige as a nation as well as military necessity that this challenge [Sputnik] be met by an energetic program of research and development for the conquest of space ... It is accordingly proposed that the scientific research be the responsibility of a national civilian agency ... NACA is capable, by rapid extension and expansion of its effort, of providing leadership in space technology.[16][page needed]
+
+While this new federal agency would conduct all non-military space activity, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created in February 1958 to develop space technology for military application.[17]
+
+On July 29, 1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, establishing NASA. When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA absorbed the 43-year-old NACA intact; its 8,000 employees, an annual budget of US$100 million, three major research laboratories (Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, and Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory) and two small test facilities.[18] A NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959.[19] Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA. A significant contributor to NASA's entry into the Space Race with the Soviet Union was the technology from the German rocket program led by Wernher von Braun, who was now working for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), which in turn incorporated the technology of American scientist Robert Goddard's earlier works.[20] Earlier research efforts within the US Air Force[18] and many of ARPA's early space programs were also transferred to NASA.[21] In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a contractor facility operated by the California Institute of Technology.[18]
+
+The agency's leader, NASA's administrator, is nominated by the President of the United States subject to approval of the US Senate, and reports to him or her and serves as senior space science advisor. Though space exploration is ostensibly non-partisan, the appointee usually is associated with the President's political party (Democratic or Republican), and a new administrator is usually chosen when the Presidency changes parties. The only exceptions to this have been:
+
+The first administrator was Dr. T. Keith Glennan appointed by Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower. During his term he brought together the disparate projects in American space development research.[24]
+
+The second administrator, James E. Webb (1961–1968), appointed by President John F. Kennedy, was a Democrat who first publicly served under President Harry S. Truman. In order to implement the Apollo program to achieve Kennedy's Moon landing goal by the end of the 1960s, Webb directed major management restructuring and facility expansion, establishing the Houston Manned Spacecraft (Johnson) Center and the Florida Launch Operations (Kennedy) Center. Capitalizing on Kennedy's legacy, President Lyndon Johnson kept continuity with the Apollo program by keeping Webb on when he succeeded Kennedy in November 1963. But Webb resigned in October 1968 before Apollo achieved its goal, and Republican President Richard M. Nixon replaced Webb with Republican Thomas O. Paine.[citation needed]
+
+James Fletcher was responsible for early planning of the Space Shuttle program during his first term as administrator under President Nixon. He was appointed for a second term as administrator from May 1986 through April 1989 by President Ronald Reagan to help the agency recover from the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.[citation needed]
+
+Former astronaut Charles Bolden served as NASA's twelfth administrator from July 2009 to January 20, 2017.[25] Bolden is one of three former astronauts who became NASA administrators, along with Richard H. Truly (served 1989–1992) and Frederick D. Gregory (acting, 2005).
+
+The agency's administration is located at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, and provides overall guidance and direction.[26] Except under exceptional circumstances, NASA civil service employees are required to be citizens of the United States.[27]
+
+NASA has conducted many crewed and uncrewed spaceflight programs throughout its history. Uncrewed programs launched the first American artificial satellites into Earth orbit for scientific and communications purposes, and sent scientific probes to explore the planets of the solar system, starting with Venus and Mars, and including "grand tours" of the outer planets. Crewed programs sent the first Americans into low Earth orbit (LEO), won the Space Race with the Soviet Union by landing twelve men on the Moon from 1969 to 1972 in the Apollo program, developed a semi-reusable LEO Space Shuttle, and developed LEO space station capability by itself and with the cooperation of several other nations including post-Soviet Russia. Some missions include both crewed and uncrewed aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent uncrewed to Jupiter.[citation needed]
+
+The experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for crewed spaceflight. This was followed by a one-man space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. Reacting to loss of national prestige and security fears caused by early leads in space exploration by the Soviet Union, in 1961 President John F. Kennedy proposed the ambitious goal "of landing a man on the Moon by the end of [the 1960s], and returning him safely to the Earth." This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, and NASA planned even more ambitious activities leading to a human mission to Mars. However, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory and a semi-reusable Earth orbital shuttle. In the 1990s, funding was approved for NASA to develop a permanent Earth orbital space station in cooperation with the international community, which now included the former rival, post-Soviet Russia.[citation needed] To date, NASA has launched a total of 166 crewed space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude, 260,000 feet (80 km).[29]
+
+The North American X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force and Navy. The design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems.[30] Requests for proposal were issued on December 30, 1954, for the airframe, and February 4, 1955, for the rocket engine. The airframe contract was awarded to North American Aviation in November 1955, and the XLR30 engine contract was awarded to Reaction Motors in 1956, and three planes were built. The X-15 was drop-launched from the wing of one of two NASA Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses, NB52A tail number 52-003, and NB52B, tail number 52-008 (known as the Balls 8). Release took place at an altitude of about 45,000 feet (14 km) and a speed of about 500 miles per hour (805 km/h).[citation needed]
+
+Twelve pilots were selected for the program from the Air Force, Navy, and NACA (later NASA). A total of 199 flights were made between 1959 and 1968, resulting in the official world record for the highest speed ever reached by a crewed powered aircraft (current as of 2014[update]), and a maximum speed of Mach 6.72, 4,519 miles per hour (7,273 km/h).[31] The altitude record for X-15 was 354,200 feet (107.96 km).[32] Eight of the pilots were awarded Air Force astronaut wings for flying above 260,000 feet (80 km), and two flights by Joseph A. Walker exceeded 100 kilometers (330,000 ft), qualifying as spaceflight according to the International Aeronautical Federation. The X-15 program employed mechanical techniques used in the later crewed spaceflight programs, including reaction control system jets for controlling the orientation of a spacecraft, space suits, and horizon definition for navigation.[32] The reentry and landing data collected were valuable to NASA for designing the Space Shuttle.[30]
+
+Shortly after the Space Race began, an early objective was to get a person into Earth orbit as soon as possible, therefore the simplest spacecraft that could be launched by existing rockets was favored. The US Air Force's Man in Space Soonest program considered many crewed spacecraft designs, ranging from rocket planes like the X-15, to small ballistic space capsules.[33] By 1958, the space plane concepts were eliminated in favor of the ballistic capsule.[34]
+
+When NASA was created that same year, the Air Force program was transferred to it and renamed Project Mercury. The first seven astronauts were selected among candidates from the Navy, Air Force and Marine test pilot programs. On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space aboard Freedom 7, launched by a Redstone booster on a 15-minute ballistic (suborbital) flight.[35] John Glenn became the first American to be launched into orbit, by an Atlas launch vehicle on February 20, 1962, aboard Friendship 7.[36] Glenn completed three orbits, after which three more orbital flights were made, culminating in L. Gordon Cooper's 22-orbit flight Faith 7, May 15–16, 1963.[37] Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan were three of the human computers doing calculations on trajectories during the Space Race.[38][39][40] Johnson was well known for doing trajectory calculations for John Glenn's mission in 1962, where she was running the same equations by hand that were being run on the computer.[38]
+
+The Soviet Union (USSR) competed with its own single-pilot spacecraft, Vostok. They sent the first man in space, by launching cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into a single Earth orbit aboard Vostok 1 in April 1961, one month before Shepard's flight.[41] In August 1962, they achieved an almost four-day record flight with Andriyan Nikolayev aboard Vostok 3, and also conducted a concurrent Vostok 4 mission carrying Pavel Popovich.
+
+Based on studies to grow the Mercury spacecraft capabilities to long-duration flights, developing space rendezvous techniques, and precision Earth landing, Project Gemini was started as a two-man program in 1962 to overcome the Soviets' lead and to support the Apollo crewed lunar landing program, adding extravehicular activity (EVA) and rendezvous and docking to its objectives. The first crewed Gemini flight, Gemini 3, was flown by Gus Grissom and John Young on March 23, 1965.[42] Nine missions followed in 1965 and 1966, demonstrating an endurance mission of nearly fourteen days, rendezvous, docking, and practical EVA, and gathering medical data on the effects of weightlessness on humans.[43][44]
+
+Under the direction of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, the USSR competed with Gemini by converting their Vostok spacecraft into a two- or three-man Voskhod. They succeeded in launching two crewed flights before Gemini's first flight, achieving a three-cosmonaut flight in 1964 and the first EVA in 1965. After this, the program was canceled, and Gemini caught up while spacecraft designer Sergei Korolev developed the Soyuz spacecraft, their answer to Apollo.
+
+The U.S public's perception of the Soviet lead in the Space Race (by putting the first man into space) motivated President John F. Kennedy[45] to ask the Congress on May 25, 1961, to commit the federal government to a program to land a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s, which effectively launched the Apollo program.[46]
+
+Apollo was one of the most expensive American scientific programs ever. It cost more than $20 billion in 1960s dollars[47] or an estimated $223 billion in present-day US dollars.[48] (In comparison, the Manhattan Project cost roughly $28.4 billion, accounting for inflation.)[48][49] It used the Saturn rockets as launch vehicles, which were far bigger than the rockets built for previous projects.[50] The spacecraft was also bigger; it had two main parts, the combined command and service module (CSM) and the Apollo Lunar Module (LM). The LM was to be left on the Moon and only the command module (CM) containing the three astronauts would return to Earth.[note 2]
+
+The second crewed mission, Apollo 8, brought astronauts for the first time in a flight around the Moon in December 1968.[51] Shortly before, the Soviets had sent an uncrewed spacecraft around the Moon.[52] On the next two missions docking maneuvers that were needed for the Moon landing were practiced[53][54] and then finally the Moon landing was made on the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969.[55]
+
+The first person to walk on the Moon was Neil Armstrong, who was followed 19 minutes later by Buzz Aldrin, while Michael Collins orbited above. Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. Throughout these six Apollo spaceflights, twelve men walked on the Moon. These missions returned a wealth of scientific data and 381.7 kilograms (842 lb) of lunar samples. Topics covered by experiments performed included soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismology, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and solar wind.[56][page needed] The Moon landing marked the end of the space race; and as a gesture, Armstrong mentioned mankind when he stepped down on the Moon.[57]
+
+Apollo set major milestones in human spaceflight. It stands alone in sending crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit, and landing humans on another celestial body.[58] Apollo 8 was the first crewed spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, while Apollo 17 marked the last moonwalk and the last crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit. The program spurred advances in many areas of technology peripheral to rocketry and crewed spaceflight, including avionics, telecommunications, and computers. Apollo sparked interest in many fields of engineering and left many physical facilities and machines developed for the program as landmarks. Many objects and artifacts from the program are on display at various locations throughout the world, notably at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museums.
+
+Skylab was the United States' first and only independently built space station.[59] Conceived in 1965 as a workshop to be constructed in space from a spent Saturn IB upper stage, the 169,950 lb (77,088 kg) station was constructed on Earth and launched on May 14, 1973, atop the first two stages of a Saturn V, into a 235-nautical-mile (435 km) orbit inclined at 50° to the equator. Damaged during launch by the loss of its thermal protection and one electricity-generating solar panel, it was repaired to functionality by its first crew. It was occupied for a total of 171 days by 3 successive crews in 1973 and 1974.[59] It included a laboratory for studying the effects of microgravity, and a solar observatory.[59] NASA planned to have a Space Shuttle dock with it, and elevate Skylab to a higher safe altitude, but the Shuttle was not ready for flight before Skylab's re-entry on July 11, 1979.[60]
+
+To save cost, NASA used one of the Saturn V rockets originally earmarked for a canceled Apollo mission to launch the Skylab. Apollo spacecraft were used for transporting astronauts to and from the station. Three three-man crews stayed aboard the station for periods of 28, 59, and 84 days. Skylab's habitable volume was 11,290 cubic feet (320 m3), which was 30.7 times bigger than that of the Apollo Command Module.[60]
+
+On May 24, 1972, US President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin signed an agreement calling for a joint crewed space mission, and declaring intent for all future international crewed spacecraft to be capable of docking with each other.[61] This authorized the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), involving the rendezvous and docking in Earth orbit of a surplus Apollo command and service module with a Soyuz spacecraft. The mission took place in July 1975. This was the last US human spaceflight until the first orbital flight of the Space Shuttle in April 1981.[62]
+
+The mission included both joint and separate scientific experiments and provided useful engineering experience for future joint US–Russian space flights, such as the Shuttle–Mir program[63] and the International Space Station.
+
+The Space Shuttle became the major focus of NASA in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Planned as a frequently launchable and mostly reusable vehicle, four Space Shuttle orbiters were built by 1985. The first to launch, Columbia, did so on April 12, 1981,[64][page needed] the 20th anniversary of the first known human space flight.[65]
+
+Its major components were a spaceplane orbiter with an external fuel tank and two solid-fuel launch rockets at its side. The external tank, which was bigger than the spacecraft itself, was the only major component that was not reused. The shuttle could orbit in altitudes of 185–643 km (115–400 miles)[66] and carry a maximum payload (to low orbit) of 24,400 kg (54,000 lb).[67] Missions could last from 5 to 17 days and crews could be from 2 to 8 astronauts.[66]
+
+On 20 missions (1983–1998) the Space Shuttle carried Spacelab, designed in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA). Spacelab was not designed for independent orbital flight, but remained in the Shuttle's cargo bay as the astronauts entered and left it through an airlock.[68] On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, on board the Space Shuttle Challenger STS-7 mission.[69] Another famous series of missions were the launch and later successful repair of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990 and 1993, respectively.[70]
+
+In 1995, Russian-American interaction resumed with the Shuttle–Mir missions (1995–1998). Once more an American vehicle docked with a Russian craft, this time a full-fledged space station. This cooperation has continued with Russia and the United States as two of the biggest partners in the largest space station built: the International Space Station (ISS). The strength of their cooperation on this project was even more evident when NASA began relying on Russian launch vehicles to service the ISS during the two-year grounding of the shuttle fleet following the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
+
+The Shuttle fleet lost two orbiters and 14 astronauts in two disasters: Challenger in 1986, and Columbia in 2003.[71] While the 1986 loss was mitigated by building the Space Shuttle Endeavour from replacement parts, NASA did not build another orbiter to replace the second loss.[71] NASA's Space Shuttle program had 135 missions when the program ended with the successful landing of the Space Shuttle Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011. The program spanned 30 years with over 300 astronauts sent into space.[72]
+
+The International Space Station (ISS) combines NASA's Space Station Freedom project with the Soviet/Russian Mir-2 station, the European Columbus station, and the Japanese Kibō laboratory module.[73][page needed] NASA originally planned in the 1980s to develop Freedom alone, but US budget constraints led to the merger of these projects into a single multi-national program in 1993, managed by NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).[74][75] The station consists of pressurized modules, external trusses, solar arrays and other components, which were manufactured in various factories around the world, and have been launched by Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets, and the US Space Shuttles.[73][page needed] It is currently[when?] being assembled in Low Earth Orbit. The on-orbit assembly began in 1998, the completion of the US Orbital Segment occurred in 2019 and the completion of the Russian Orbital Segment is expected by the 2020s.[76][77][needs update] The ownership and use of the space station is established in intergovernmental treaties and agreements[78] which divide the station into two areas and allow Russia to retain full ownership of the Russian Orbital Segment (with the exception of Zarya),[79][80] with the US Orbital Segment allocated between the other international partners.[78]
+
+Long-duration missions to the ISS are referred to as ISS Expeditions. Expedition crew members typically spend approximately six months on the ISS.[81] The initial expedition crew size was three, temporarily decreased to two following the Columbia disaster. Since May 2009, expedition crew size has been six crew members.[82] Crew size is expected to be increased to seven, the number the ISS was designed for, once the Commercial Crew Program becomes operational.[83] The ISS has been continuously occupied for the past 19 years and 269 days, having exceeded the previous record held by Mir; and has been visited by astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations.[84][85]
+
+The station can be seen from the Earth with the naked eye and, as of 2020, is the largest artificial satellite in Earth orbit with a mass and volume greater than that of any previous space station.[86] The Soyuz spacecraft delivers crew members, stays docked for their half-year-long missions and then returns them home. Several uncrewed cargo spacecraft service the ISS; they are the Russian Progress spacecraft which has done so since 2000, the European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) since 2008, the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) since 2009, the SpaceX Dragon from 2012 until 2020, and the American Cygnus spacecraft since 2013. The Space Shuttle, before its retirement, was also used for cargo transfer and would often switch out expedition crew members, although it did not have the capability to remain docked for the duration of their stay. Until another US crewed spacecraft is ready, crew members will travel to and from the International Space Station exclusively aboard the Soyuz.[87] The highest number of people occupying the ISS has been thirteen; this occurred three times during the late Shuttle ISS assembly missions.[88]
+
+The ISS program is expected to continue to 2030.[89] On March 29, 2019, the ISS had its first all-female spacewalk; Anne McClain and Christina Koch will take flight during Women's History Month.[90]
+
+The development of the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) vehicles began in 2006 with the purpose of creating American commercially operated uncrewed cargo vehicles to service the ISS.[91] The development of these vehicles was under a fixed-price, milestone-based program, meaning that each company that received a funded award had a list of milestones with a dollar value attached to them that they did not receive until after they had successfully completed the milestone.[92] Companies were also required to raise an unspecified amount of private investment for their proposal.[93]
+
+On December 23, 2008, NASA awarded Commercial Resupply Services contracts[clarification needed] to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation.[94] SpaceX uses its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft.[95] Orbital Sciences uses its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft. The first Dragon resupply mission occurred in May 2012.[96] The first Cygnus resupply mission occurred in September 2013.[97] The CRS program now provides for all America's ISS cargo needs, with the exception of a few vehicle-specific payloads that are delivered on the European ATV and the Japanese HTV.[98]
+
+The Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program was started in 2010 with the purpose of creating American commercially operated crewed spacecraft capable of delivering at least four crew members to the ISS, staying docked for 180 days and then returning them back to Earth.[99] It is hoped that these vehicles could also transport non-NASA customers to private space stations such those planned by Bigelow Aerospace.[100] Like COTS, CCDev is a fixed-price, milestone-based developmental program that requires some private investment.[92]
+
+In 2010, when NASA announced the winners of the first phase of the program, a total of $50 million was divided among five American companies to foster research and development into human spaceflight concepts and technologies in the private sector. In 2011, the winners of the second phase of the program were announced, and $270 million was divided among four companies.[101] In 2012, the winners of the third phase of the program were announced; NASA provided $1.1 billion divided among three companies to further develop their crew transportation systems.[102] In 2014, the winners of the final round were announced.[103] SpaceX Crew Dragon (launched on a Falcon 9 Block 5) received a contract valued up to $2.6 billion and Boeing's Starliner (launched on an Atlas V) received a contract valued up to $4.2 billion.[104] NASA expects these vehicles to begin transporting humans to the ISS in 2020, with the launch of SpaceX Demo-2 on 30 May 2020. In December 2012, NASA announced another launch to Mars with Falcon Heavy. This rocket is to carry Perseverance rover to Mars and is to launch on July 30, 2020.[citation needed]
+
+While the Space Shuttle program was still suspended after the loss of Columbia, President George W. Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration including the retirement of the Space Shuttle after completing the International Space Station. The plan was enacted into law by the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 and directs NASA to develop and launch the Crew Exploration Vehicle (later called Orion) by 2010, return Americans to the Moon by 2020, return to Mars as feasible, repair the Hubble Space Telescope, and continue scientific investigation through robotic solar system exploration, human presence on the ISS, Earth observation, and astrophysics research. The crewed exploration goals prompted NASA's Constellation program.[citation needed]
+
+After the Augustine Committee found that the Constellation program could not meet its goals without substantially more funding, in February 2010, President Barack Obama's administration proposed eliminating public funds for it.[105] Obama's plan was to develop American private spaceflight capabilities to get astronauts to the International Space Station, replacing Russian Soyuz capsules, and to use Orion capsules for ISS emergency escape purposes. During a speech at the Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010, Obama proposed a new heavy-lift vehicle (HLV) to replace the formerly planned Ares V.[106] In his speech, Obama called for a crewed mission to an asteroid as soon as 2025, and a crewed mission to Mars orbit by the mid-2030s.[106] The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 was passed by Congress and signed into law on October 11, 2010.[107] The act officially canceled the Constellation program.[107]
+
+The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 required a newly designed HLV be chosen within 90 days of its passing; the launch vehicle was given the name Space Launch System. The new law also required the construction of a beyond low earth orbit spacecraft.[108] The Orion spacecraft, which was being developed as part of the Constellation program, was chosen to fulfill this role.[109] The Space Launch System is planned to launch both Orion and other necessary hardware for missions beyond low Earth orbit.[110] The SLS is to be upgraded over time with more powerful versions. The initial capability of SLS is required to be able to lift 70 t (150,000 lb) (later 95 t or 209,000 lb) into LEO. It is then planned to be upgraded to 105 t (231,000 lb) and then eventually to 130 t (290,000 lb).[109][111]  The Orion capsule first flew on Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1), an uncrewed test flight that was launched on December 5, 2014, atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket.[111]
+
+NASA undertook a feasibility study in 2012 and developed the Asteroid Redirect Mission as an uncrewed mission to move a boulder-sized near-Earth asteroid (or boulder-sized chunk of a larger asteroid) into lunar orbit. The mission would demonstrate ion thruster technology, and develop techniques that could be used for planetary defense against an asteroid collision, as well as cargo transport to Mars in support of a future human mission.  The Moon-orbiting boulder might then later be visited by astronauts. The Asteroid Redirect Mission was cancelled in 2017 as part of the FY2018 NASA budget, the first one under President Donald Trump.[citation needed]
+
+Since 2017, NASA's crewed spaceflight program has been the Artemis program, which involves the help of U.S. commercial spaceflight companies and international partners such as ESA.[112] The goal of this program is to land "the first woman and the next man" on the lunar south pole region by 2024. Artemis would be the first step towards the long-term goal of establishing a sustainable presence on the Moon, laying the foundation for private companies to build a lunar economy, and eventually sending humans to Mars.
+
+The Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle was held over from the canceled Constellation program for Artemis. Artemis 1 is the uncrewed initial launch of SLS that would also send an Orion spacecraft on a Distant Retrograde Orbit, which is planned to launch no earlier than November 2020.[113]
+
+NASA's next major space initiative is to be the construction of the Lunar Gateway.  This initiative is to involve the construction of a new space station, which will have many features in common with the current International Space Station, except that it will be in orbit about the Moon, instead of the Earth.[114]  This space station will be designed primarily for non-continuous human habitation.  The first tentative steps of returning to crewed lunar missions will be Artemis 2, which is to include the Orion crew module, propelled by the SLS, and is to launch in 2022.[112] This mission is to be a 10-day mission planned to briefly place a crew of four into a Lunar flyby.[111] The construction of the Gateway would begin with the proposed Artemis 3, which is planned to deliver a crew of four to Lunar orbit along with the first modules of the Gateway. This mission would last for up to 30 days. NASA plans to build full scale deep space habitats such as the Lunar Gateway and the Nautilus-X as part of its Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program.[115] In 2017, NASA was directed by the congressional NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 to get humans to Mars-orbit (or to the Martian surface) by the 2030s.[116][117]
+
+On June 5, 2016, NASA and DARPA announced plans to also build a series of new X-planes over the next 10 years.[118] One of the planes will be the Quiet Supersonic Technology project, burning low-carbon biofuels and generating quiet sonic booms.[118]
+
+More than 1,000 uncrewed missions have been designed to explore the Earth and the solar system.[119] Besides exploration, communication satellites have also been launched by NASA.[120] The missions have been launched directly from Earth or from orbiting space shuttles, which could either deploy the satellite itself, or with a rocket stage to take it farther.
+
+The first US uncrewed satellite was Explorer 1, which started as an ABMA/JPL project during the early part of the Space Race. It was launched in January 1958, two months after Sputnik. At the creation of NASA, the Explorer project was transferred to the agency and still continues to this day. Its missions have been focusing on the Earth and the Sun, measuring magnetic fields and the solar wind, among other aspects.[121] A more recent Earth mission, not related to the Explorer program, was the Hubble Space Telescope, which was brought into orbit in 1990.[122]
+
+The inner Solar System has been made the goal of at least four uncrewed programs. The first was Mariner in the 1960s and 1970s, which made multiple visits to Venus and Mars and one to Mercury. Probes launched under the Mariner program were also the first to make a planetary flyby (Mariner 2), to take the first pictures from another planet (Mariner 4), the first planetary orbiter (Mariner 9), and the first to make a gravity assist maneuver (Mariner 10). This is a technique where the satellite takes advantage of the gravity and velocity of planets to reach its destination.[123]
+
+The first successful landing on Mars was made by Viking 1 in 1976. Twenty years later a rover was landed on Mars by Mars Pathfinder.[124]
+
+Outside Mars, Jupiter was first visited by Pioneer 10 in 1973. More than 20 years later Galileo sent a probe into the planet's atmosphere, and became the first spacecraft to orbit the planet.[125] Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to visit Saturn in 1979, with Voyager 2 making the first (and so far only) visits to Uranus and Neptune in 1986 and 1989, respectively. The first spacecraft to leave the solar system was Pioneer 10 in 1983. For a time it was the most distant spacecraft, but it has since been surpassed by both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.[126]
+
+Pioneers 10 and 11 and both Voyager probes carry messages from the Earth to extraterrestrial life.[127][128] Communication can be difficult with deep space travel. For instance, it took about three hours for a radio signal to reach the New Horizons spacecraft when it was more than halfway to Pluto.[129] Contact with Pioneer 10 was lost in 2003. Both Voyager probes continue to operate as they explore the outer boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space.[130]
+
+On November 26, 2011, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission was successfully launched for Mars. Curiosity successfully landed on Mars on August 6, 2012, and subsequently began its search for evidence of past or present life on Mars.[131][132][133]
+
+NASA's ongoing investigations include in-depth surveys of Mars (Perseverance and InSight) and Saturn and studies of the Earth and the Sun. Other active spacecraft missions are Juno for Jupiter, New Horizons (for Jupiter, Pluto, and beyond), and Dawn for the asteroid belt. NASA continued to support in situ exploration beyond the asteroid belt, including Pioneer and Voyager traverses into the unexplored trans-Pluto region, and Gas Giant orbiters Galileo (1989–2003), Cassini (1997–2017), and Juno (2011–). In the early 2000s, NASA was put on course for the Moon, however, in 2010 this program was cancelled (see Constellation program). As part of that plan, the Shuttle was going to be replaced, however, although it was retired its replacement was also cancelled, leaving the US with no human spaceflight launcher for the first time in over three decades.
+
+The New Horizons mission to Pluto was launched in 2006 and successfully performed a flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015. The probe received a gravity assist from Jupiter in February 2007, examining some of Jupiter's inner moons and testing on-board instruments during the flyby. On the horizon of NASA's plans is the MAVEN spacecraft as part of the Mars Scout Program to study the atmosphere of Mars.[134]
+
+On December 4, 2006, NASA announced it was planning a permanent Moon base.[135] The goal was to start building the Moon base by 2020, and by 2024, have a fully functional base that would allow for crew rotations and in-situ resource utilization. However, in 2009, the Augustine Committee found the program to be on an "unsustainable trajectory."[136] In 2010, President Barack Obama halted existing plans, including the Moon base, and directed a generic focus on crewed missions to asteroids and Mars, as well as extending support for the International Space Station.[137]
+
+Since 2011, NASA's strategic goals have been[138]
+
+In August 2011, NASA accepted the donation of two space telescopes from the National Reconnaissance Office. Despite being stored unused, the instruments are superior to the Hubble Space Telescope.[139]
+
+In September 2011, NASA announced the start of the Space Launch System program to develop a human-rated heavy lift vehicle. The Space Launch System is intended to launch the Orion spacecraft and other elements towards the Moon and Mars.[140] The Orion spacecraft conducted an uncrewed test launch on a Delta IV Heavy rocket in December 2014.[141]
+
+On August 6, 2012, NASA landed the rover Curiosity on Mars. On August 27, 2012, Curiosity transmitted the first pre-recorded message from the surface of Mars back to Earth, made by Administrator Charlie Bolden:
+
+Hello. This is Charlie Bolden, NASA Administrator, speaking to you via the broadcast capabilities of the Curiosity rover, which is now on the surface of Mars.
+
+Since the beginning of time, humankind's curiosity has led us to constantly seek new life ... new possibilities just beyond the horizon. I want to congratulate the men and women of our NASA family as well as our commercial and government partners around the world, for taking us a step beyond to Mars.
+
+This is an extraordinary achievement. Landing a rover on Mars is not easy – others have tried – only America has fully succeeded. The investment we are making ... the knowledge we hope to gain from our observation and analysis of Gale Crater, will tell us much about the possibility of life on Mars as well as the past and future possibilities for our own planet. Curiosity will bring benefits to Earth and inspire a new generation of scientists and explorers, as it prepares the way for a human mission in the not too distant future. Thank you.[142]
+
+The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is currently scheduled to launch in March 2021.[143]
+
+In 1994, there was a Congressional directive to find near-Earth objects (NEOs) larger than 1 kilometer, and 90% of 1 kilometer sized asteroids are estimated to have been found by 2010.[144]
+
+In 2005, the US Congress mandated NASA to achieve by the year 2020 specific levels of search completeness for discovering, cataloging, and characterizing dangerous asteroids larger than 140 meters (460 ft) (Act of 2005, H.R. 1022; 109th),[145] but no new funds were appropriated for this effort.[146] As of January 2019, it is estimated about 40% of the NEOs of this size have been found, although since by its nature the exact amount of NEOs are unknown the calculations are based on predictions of how many there could be.[147]
+
+(d) Near-Earth Object Survey.--
+            (1) Survey program.--The Administrator shall plan, develop, 
+        and implement a Near-Earth Object Survey program to detect, 
+        track, catalogue, and characterize the physical characteristics 
+        of near-Earth objects equal to or greater than 140 meters in 
+        diameter in order to assess the threat of such near-Earth 
+        objects to the Earth. <<NOTE: Deadline.>> It shall be the goal 
+        of the
+
+Page 119 STAT. 2923
+
+Survey program to achieve 90 percent completion of its near-
+        Earth object catalogue (based on statistically predicted 
+        populations of near-Earth objects) within 15 years after the
+
+date of enactment of this Act.
+
+NEOs were defined in this case by the term near-Earth object as an asteroid or comet with a perihelion distance of less 
+than 1.3 Astronomical Units from the Sun.[149] In late 2019 the directive gained increased notoriety and NASA approved an additional space telescope in addition to the existing observatory programs.[150]
+
+One issue with NEO prediction is trying to estimate how many more are likely to be found In 2000, NASA reduced its estimate of the number of existing near-Earth asteroids over one kilometer in diameter from 1,000–2,000 to 500–1,000.[151][152] Shortly thereafter,  the LINEAR survey provided an alternative estimate of 1,227+170−90.[153] In 2011, on the basis of NEOWISE observations, the estimated number of one-kilometer NEAs was narrowed to 981±19 (of which 93% had been discovered at the time), while the number of NEAs larger than 140 meters across was estimated at 13,200±1,900.[154][155] The NEOWISE estimate differed from other estimates in assuming a slightly lower average asteroid albedo, which produces larger estimated diameters for the same asteroid brightness. This resulted in 911 then known asteroids at least 1 km across, as opposed to the 830 then listed by CNEOS.[156] In 2017, using an improved statistical method, two studies reduced the estimated number of NEAs brighter than absolute magnitude 17.75 (approximately over one kilometer in diameter) to 921±20.[157][158] The estimated number of asteroids brighter than absolute magnitude of 22.0 (approximately over 140 m across) rose to 27,100±2,200, double the WISE estimate,[158] of which about a third are known as of 2018. A problem with estimating the number of NEOs is that detections are influenced by a number of factors.[159] Observational biases need to be taken into account when trying to calculate the number of bodies in a population.[159]  What is easily detected will be more counted.[160]
+
+For example, it has been easier to spot objects on the night-side of Earth.  There is less noise from twilight, and the searcher is looking at the sunlit side of the asteroids.  In the daytime sky, a searcher looking towards the sun sees the backside of the object (e.g. comparing a Full Moon at night to a New Moon in daytime).  In addition, opposition surge make them even brighter when the Earth is along the axis of sunlight. Finally, the day sky near the Sun is bright.[160] The light of sun hitting asteroids has been called "full asteroid" similar to a "full Moon" and the greater amount of light, creates a bias that makes them easier to detect in this case.[160]
+
+Over half (53%) of the discoveries of Near Earth objects were made in 3.8% of the sky, in a 22.5° cone facing directly away from the Sun, and the vast majority (87%) were made in 15% of the sky, in a 45° cone facing away from the Sun.[161]
+
+NASA turned the infrared space survey telescope WISE back on in 2013 to look for NEOs, and it found some during the course of its operation. NEOcam competed in the highly competitive Discovery program, which became more so due to a low mission rate in the 2010s. Also the Mars Scout Program was terminated at that time, further increasing competition. From its start until 2010, ten missions where launched, only two more mission were launched by 2020 (to the Moon and Mars), additionally the Mars Scout program had launched two additional programs to the planet Mars, which competed with NEOcam as well as more obscure destinations like Venus, which has had no dedicated mission since the 1980s. Finally, NASA plans to turn off its existing Infrared Great Observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope in 2021 due to technical problems (It is drifting away from the Earth in an Earth-trailing orbit which means it must rotate at extreme angle to communicate with Earth, but keep its battery charge).
+
+Two of the biggest Near-Earth objects, 433 Eros and 1036 Ganymed, were among the first Near Earth asteroids to be detected.[162] As bigger asteroids they reflected more light.[160]   The eccentric 433 asteroid was discovered by German astronomer Carl Gustav Witt at the Berlin Urania Observatory on August 13, 1898.[163] 1036 Ganymed is about 20 miles (35 km) in diameter,[162] and it was discovered by German astronomer Walter Baade at the Bergedorf Observatory in Hamburg on October 23, 1924.[164][165] In 1999 NASA visited 433 Eros with the NEAR spacecraft which entered its orbit in 2000, closely imaging the asteroid with various instruments at that time.[166] From the 1990s NASA has run many NEO detection programs from Earth bases observatories, greatly increasing the number of objects that have been detected. However, many asteroids are very dark and the ones that are near the Sun are much harder to detect from Earth-based telescopes which observe at night, and thus face away from the Sun. NEOs inside Earth orbit only reflect a part of light also rather than potentially a "full Moon" when they are behind the Earth and fully lit by the Sun.
+
+NASA's ongoing investigations include in-depth surveys of Mars (Mars 2020 and InSight) and Saturn and studies of the Earth and the Sun. Other active spacecraft missions are Juno for Jupiter, New Horizons (for Jupiter, Pluto, and beyond), and Dawn for the asteroid belt. NASA continued to support in situ exploration beyond the asteroid belt, including Pioneer and Voyager traverses into the unexplored trans-Pluto region, and Gas Giant orbiters Galileo (1989–2003), Cassini (1997–2017), and Juno (2011–).
+
+The New Horizons mission to Pluto was launched in 2006 and successfully performed a flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015. The probe received a gravity assist from Jupiter in February 2007, examining some of Jupiter's inner moons and testing on-board instruments during the flyby. On the horizon of NASA's plans is the MAVEN spacecraft as part of the Mars Scout Program to study the atmosphere of Mars.[134]
+
+In 2017, President Donald Trump directed NASA to send Humans to Mars by the year 2033.[116][168]  Foci in general for NASA were noted as human space exploration, space science, and technology.[168] The Europa Clipper and Mars 2020 continue to be supported for their planned schedules.[169]
+
+In 2018, NASA along with other companies including Sensor Coating Systems, Pratt & Whitney, Monitor Coating and UTRC  launched the project CAUTION (CoAtings for Ultra High Temperature detectION). This project aims to enhance the temperature range of the Thermal History Coating up to 1,500C and beyond. The final goal of this project is improving the safety of jet engines as well as increasing efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions.[170]
+
+The Northrop Grumman Antares rocket, with Cygnus resupply spacecraft on board, launches from Pad-0A, Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Northrop Grumman's 11th contracted cargo resupply mission for NASA to the International Space Station will deliver about 7,600 pounds of science and research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the orbital laboratory and its crew.[171]
+
+Recent and planned activities include:
+
+In response to the Apollo 1 accident, which killed three astronauts in 1967, Congress directed NASA to form an Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) to advise the NASA Administrator on safety issues and hazards in NASA's aerospace programs. In the aftermath of the Shuttle Columbia disaster, Congress required that the ASAP submit an annual report to the NASA Administrator and to Congress.[176] By 1971, NASA had also established the Space Program Advisory Council and the Research and Technology Advisory Council to provide the administrator with advisory committee support. In 1977, the latter two were combined to form the NASA Advisory Council (NAC).[177]
+
+The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2014 reaffirmed the importance of ASAP.
+
+Some of NASA's main directives have been the landing of a manned spacecraft on the Moon, the designing and construction of the Space Shuttle, and efforts to construct a large, crewed space station. Typically, the major directives originated from the intersection of scienctific interest and advice, political interests, federal funding concerns, and the public interest, that all together brought varying waves of effort, often heavily swayed by technical developments, funding changes, and world events. For example, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration announced a directive with a major push to build a crewed space station, given the name Space Station Freedom.[178] But, when the Cold War ended, Russia, the United States, and other international partners came together to design and build the International Space Station.
+
+In the 2010s, major shifts in directives include retirement of the Space Shuttle, and the later development of a new crewed heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch System. Missions for the new Space Launch System have varied, but overall, NASA's directives are similar to the Space Shuttle program as the primary goal and desire is human spaceflight. Additionally, NASA's Space Exploration Initiative of the 1980s opened new avenues of exploration focused on other galaxies.
+
+For the coming decades, NASA's focus has gradually shifting towards eventual exploration of  Mars.[179] One of the technological options focused on was the  Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM).[179] ARM had largely been defunded in 2017, but the key technologies developed for ARM would be utilized for future exploration, notably on a solar electric propulsion system.[180][179]
+
+Longer project execution timelines leaves future executive administration officials to execute on a directive, which can lead to directional mismanagement.
+
+Previously, in the early 2000s, NASA worked towards a strategic plan called the Constellation Program, but the program was defunded in the early 2010s.[181][182][183][184] In the 1990s, the NASA administration adopted an approach to planning coined "Faster, Better, Cheaper".[185]
+
+The NASA Authorization Act of 2017, which included $19.5 billion in funding for that fiscal year, directed NASA to get humans near or on the surface of Mars by the early 2030s.[186]
+
+Though the agency is independent, the survival or discontinuation of projects can depend directly on the will of the President.[187]
+
+In December 2017, on the 45th anniversary of the last crewed mission to the Lunar surface, President Donald Trump approved a directive that includes a lunar mission on the pathway to Mars and beyond.[179]
+
+We'll learn.  The directive I'm signing today will refocus America's space program on human exploration and discovery.  It marks an important step in returning American astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972 for long-term exploration and use.  This time, we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint, we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars.  And perhaps, someday, to many worlds beyond.
+
+New NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine addressed this directive in an August 2018 speech where he focused on the sustainability aspects—going to the Moon to stay—that are explicit in the directive, including taking advantage of US commercial space capability that did not exist even five years ago, which have driven down costs and increased access to space.[189]
+
+NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate conducts aeronautics research.
+
+NASA has made use of technologies such as the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), which is a type of Radioisotope thermoelectric generator used on space missions.[190] Shortages of the required plutonium-238 have curtailed deep space missions since the turn of the millennium.[191] An example of a spacecraft that was not developed because of a shortage of this material was New Horizons 2.[191]
+
+The Earth science research program was created and first funded in the 1980s under the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.[192][193]
+
+NASA started an annual competition in 2014 named Cubes in Space.[194] It is jointly organized by NASA and the global education company I Doodle Learning, with the objective of teaching school students aged 11–18 to design and build scientific experiments to be launched into space on a NASA rocket or balloon. On June 21, 2017 the world's smallest satellite, Kalam SAT, built by an Indian team, was launched.[195]
+
+NASA also researches and publishes on climate change.[196] Its statements concur with the global scientific consensus that the global climate is warming.[197] Bob Walker, who has advised US President Donald Trump on space issues, has advocated that NASA should focus on space exploration and that its climate study operations should be transferred to other agencies such as NOAA. Former NASA atmospheric scientist J. Marshall Shepherd countered that Earth science study was built into NASA's mission at its creation in the 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act.[198] NASA won the 2020 Webby People's Voice Award for Green in the category Web.[199]
+
+NASA contracted a third party to study the probability of using Free Space Optics (FSO) to communicate with Optical (laser) Stations on the Ground (OGS) called laser-com RF networks for satellite communications.[200]
+
+US law requires the International System of Units to be used in all U.S. Government programs, "except where impractical".[201] Today NASA is predominantly working with SI units, but some projects still use a mix of US and SI units.
+
+NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC provides overall guidance and political leadership to the agency's ten field centers, through which all other facilities are administered. The ten field centers are:
+
+Subordinate facilities include the Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia; the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana; the White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico; and Deep Space Network stations in Barstow, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia.
+
+NASA's share of the total federal budget peaked at approximately 4.41% in 1966 during the Apollo program, then rapidly declined to approximately 1% in 1975, and stayed around that level through 1998.[187][206] The percentage then gradually dropped, until leveling off again at around half a percent in 2006 (estimated in 2012 at 0.48% of the federal budget).[207] In a March 2012 hearing of the United States Senate Science Committee, science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson testified that "Right now, NASA's annual budget is half a penny on your tax dollar. For twice that—a penny on a dollar—we can transform the country from a sullen, dispirited nation, weary of economic struggle, to one where it has reclaimed its 20th century birthright to dream of tomorrow."[208][209]
+
+Despite this, public perception of NASA's budget differs significantly: a 1997 poll indicated that most Americans believed that 20% of the federal budget went to NASA.[210]
+
+For Fiscal Year 2015, NASA received an appropriation of US$18.01 billion from Congress—$549 million more than requested and approximately $350 million more than the 2014 NASA budget passed by Congress.[211]
+
+In Fiscal Year 2016, NASA received $19.3 billion.[168]
+
+President Donald Trump signed the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 in March, which set the 2017 budget at around $19.5 billion.[168] The budget is also reported as $19.3 billion for 2017, with $20.7 billion proposed for FY2018.[212][213]
+
+Examples of some proposed FY2018 budgets:[213]
+
+The exhaust gases produced by rocket propulsion systems, both in Earth's atmosphere and in space, can adversely effect the Earth's environment. Some hypergolic rocket propellants, such as hydrazine, are highly toxic prior to combustion, but decompose into less toxic compounds after burning. Rockets using hydrocarbon fuels, such as kerosene, release carbon dioxide and soot in their exhaust.[215] However, carbon dioxide emissions are insignificant compared to those from other sources; on average, the United States consumed 802,620,000 US gallons (3.0382×109 L) of liquid fuels per day in 2014, while a single Falcon 9 rocket first stage burns around 25,000 US gallons (95,000 L) of kerosene fuel per launch.[216][217] Even if a Falcon 9 were launched every single day, it would only represent 0.006% of liquid fuel consumption (and carbon dioxide emissions) for that day. Additionally, the exhaust from LOx- and LH2- fueled engines, like the SSME, is almost entirely water vapor.[218] NASA addressed environmental concerns with its canceled Constellation program in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act in 2011.[219] In contrast, ion engines use harmless noble gases like xenon for propulsion.[220][221]
+
+On May 8, 2003, Environmental Protection Agency recognized NASA as the first federal agency to directly use landfill gas to produce energy at one of its facilities—the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.[222]
+
+An example of NASA's environmental efforts is the NASA Sustainability Base. Additionally, the Exploration Sciences Building was awarded the LEED Gold rating in 2010.[223]
+
+Various nebulae observed from a NASA space telescope
+
+1 Ceres
+
+Pluto
+
+Hardware comparison of Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury[note 3]
+
+Hubble Space Telescope, astronomy observatory in Earth orbit since 1990. Also visited by the Space Shuttle
+
+Curiosity rover, roving Mars since 2012
+
+Orion spacecraft
+
+Perseverance design art
+
+Space Launch System concept art
+
+James Webb Space Telescope concept art
+
+Lunar Gateway concept art
+
+NASA has developed oftentimes elaborate plans and technology concepts, some of which become worked into real plans.
+
+Concept of cargo transport from Space Shuttle to Nuclear Shuttle, 1960s
+
+Space Tug concept, 1970s
+
+Vision mission for an interstellar precursor spacecraft by NASA, 2000s
+
+Langley's Mars Ice Dome design for a Mars habitat, 2010s
+
+Here are some selected examples of missions to planetary-sized objects. Other major targets of study are the Earth itself, the Sun, and smaller Solar System bodies like asteroids and comets. In addition, the moons of the planets or body are also studied.
+
+Examples of missions to the Sun:
+
+Examples of missions to the Moon:
+
+Examples of missions to small Solar System bodies (e.g. comets and asteroids):